Help Me, Children of the '80s, You're My Only Hope

Resolution #3 for 2011: Watch one 1980s movie per month.

I like watching movies. I wouldn't consider myself a movie junkie or geek, but I do make good use of my Netflix subscription. I'm not a reservoir of Hollywood trivia knowledge. I do like hearing the details about the who, what, why and how behind the genesis and production of particular films. I know very little about the techniques and methods behind cinematography. I'm not sure where I fall on the spectrum of movie consumption but I'm probably not that far from the average. But what I do know is there is a gaping hole in my film experience: the 1980s.

I didn't actually realize how pathetic my '80s movie background was until I married Julie. One of Julie's virtues is her willingness to point out any of my inadequacies. (God bless her.) It's a pretty regular occurrence for her to raise her eyebrows, drop her jaw and gasp, "You've never seen [insert '80s movie]?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" (For the record, nothing's wrong with me. She's actually the weirdo. She's just a weirdo that apparently has seen every movie made since 1979.) She really freaked out, though, when she discovered that I had never seen Footloose. This was the tipping point. It was as if I had duped her into marrying me and after five years and four kids she had suddenly found out my deep, dark secret. Her foundation had been rocked. Thanks to some personal reflection, counseling and Netflix streaming I was able to rectify the situation and save our marriage.

But she's right. Movies are a form of art and you have to see certain movies to truly appreciate other certain movies. It's like any other creative medium - your appreciation of one particular piece is actually enhanced by your experiences with other, sometimes seemingly unrelated, pieces. Just like literature, art, architecture, video games, dance and music, it's fluid. Any given movie reaches back and steps forward all at once. I mean, how can you truly appreciate Andy Samberg's breakdown in Hot Rod if you've never fully seen Kevin Bacon's iconic dance in Footloose? (You can't.) (By the way, the remake of "Footloose" releases this year.)

Skipping '80s cinema was not a deliberate choice. I think there are three reasons why I've only seen a few movies from that entire decade.

1. I was three years old when the decade started and thirteen when it ended. It's not like I was hitting the theater that often for the first half of the decade.
2. My parents never had cable (and still don't). I didn't get to play quick catch up as all these flicks went from the big screen to the small screen.
3. At that time, my parents weren't readily letting me watch PG-13 and R rated movies. I blame my older cousins Doug and Curt for not hooking me up with more nefarious fare. (Though their house was an oasis of HBO and Showtime.)

So, most of the things I saw in the 1980s were family friendly options I saw when they were released or teenage boy favorites I caught up with in high school and college. Everything else is a blank.

But now the time has come to make amends. At long last, the holy trinity of art, science and my wife's badgering have serendipitously converged to give me the means to excise this monkey from my back.

With some quick research I've generated a preliminary list of 1980s movies that I need to see. (If you're looking for an '80s film fansite, this can't be beat.) It's a long list and it's one of those situations where I don't know what I don't know. I'm sure there are many more movies I'm leaving off the list. Following my resolution to watch one '80s movie per month will hardly put a dent in this list, though. I'll need to shoot for at least two 1980s movies per month this year if I hope to make any significant progress.

It's a long list, but not all of my movie deficiencies are the same. There are basically three categories of films in my missed '80s list:

1. Movies I feel like I've seen, but haven't really. These are movies that are on TV all the time. I've maybe viewed 70% of the movie, though not in the proper sequence or in one sitting. Often they're full of iconic scenes or quotes that everyone else always mentions to the point where I'm fooled into thinking I've seen it, too. I've usually avoided picking up these movies because when you know all the actors, the key scenes and the memorable quotes, what's the point? Die Hard used to be in this category.
2. Movies with which I'm familiar but just haven't gotten around to watching. These movies can be pop culture staples and, like movies in the first category, I may be very familiar with some of the scenes or quotes. They're sometimes iconic movies and they're referenced so frequently that I've come to understand their significance without ever seeing much, or even any, of the film. I always intend to watch these movies but never get around to it. Footloose was in this category.
3. Movies I don't even know I need to see. I've maybe heard the title of these movies, even repeatedly, but that's about it. I know little about who acted in or directed these films. I may not even have known they were from the '80s. Or, I wasn't even aware of these movies at all. These movies are only on the list because Julie or the internet said they should be. On Golden Pond is one of these movies.

Julie says I'm not allowed to call myself a movie lover until I face these demons. Obviously I can't see every film I've missed - I mean, I am a stay at home dad with four kids, precious little free time and plenty of other things to do besides watching movies. I'm going to need your help on two parts of this challenge. First, what movies do I need to add to my list? I tried to be thorough, but I could be missing important films. And second, if I only get to watch a couple dozen of these movies this year, which ones should they be?

I need your feedback, but let me first give you the list of '80s movies I've managed to view already. (Of course some of these are only here because Julie forced me to watch them.) You'll notice that these are all mainstream movies and most of them were geared towards younger audiences.

Note: On all of the lists, I didn't (knowingly) include any series of films that began in the
'70s. For example, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are excluded because Star Wars, the first film in the trilogy, was released in 1977. (Which makes this post's title ironic!)

'80s MOVIES I'VE SEEN
A Christmas Story	Parenthood
A Fish Called Wanda	Police Academy
Airplane	Predator
Back to the Future	Raging Bull
Batman	Raiders of the Lost Ark
Beetlejuice	Raising Arizona
Big	Rutheless People
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure	Short Circuit
Caddyshack	Spaceballs
Clue	Splash
Commando	Terminator
Crocodile Dundee	The Breakfast Club
Dead Poet's Society	The Dark Crystal
Die Hard	The Goonies
ET: The Extra-Terrestrial	The Great Outdoors
Fast Times at Ridgemont High	The Karate Kid
Ferris Bueller's Day Off	The Neverending Story
Field of Dreams	The Princess Bride
Flight of the Navigator	The Three Amigos
Ghostbusters	Throw Mama from the Train
Good Morning, Vietnam	Top Gun
Gremlins	Transformers: The Movie
Hoosiers	Tron
Innerspace	Twins
Little Shop of Horrors	Uncle Buck
Mask	Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Naked Gun	Witness

This next list is made up of movies I technically haven't sat down and watched straight through, but I've seen so much of them that I probably won't waste a viewing on them this year.

'80s MOVIES I'VE PRACTICALLY SEEN
Aliens
Better Off Dead
Beverly Hills Cop
Blade Runner
Children of the Corn
Dirty Dancing
Fletch
Full Metal Jacket
Howard the Duck
Lethal Weapon
Pee-Wees Big Adventure
Planes, Tranes and Automobiles
Rain Man
Revenge of the Nerds
Sixteen Candles
Steel Magnolias
Stripes
Supergirl
The Blues Brothers
The Running Man
Vacation
Weird Science

These last two lists are where I want to make my movie selections for the year. There are well over a hundred films on this list and I'll need to narrow it down to a couple dozen.

'80s MOVIES I NEED TO SEE	'80s MOVIES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT
48 Hours	A Chorus Line
9 1/2 Weeks	Absence of Malice
9 to 5	Blood Simple
Amadeus	Blue Velvet
Arthur	Casualties of War
Back to School	Cinema Paradiso
Biloxi Blues	Colors
Bull Durham	Crimes and Misdemeanors
Cannonball Run	Das Boot
Can't Buy Me Love	Diner
Chariots of Fire	Eddie and the Cruisers
Child's Play	Eight Men Out
Christine	Escape from New York
Cocoon	Fatal Attraction
Conan: The Barbarian	Gallipoli
Dangerous Liaisons	Gandhi
Delta Force	Gung-Ho
Desperately Seeking Susan	Hannah and Her Sisters
Do the Right Thing	Heathers
Dragnet	Heaven Help Us
Driving Miss Daisy	Henry V
Earth Girls Are Easy	Labyrinth
Fame	My Left Foot
First Blood (Rambo)	My Life as a Dog
Friday the 13th	On Golden Pond
Glory	Once Upon a Time in America
Iron Eagle	Pale Rider
Johnny Dangerously	Private Benjamin
Lean on Me	Re-Animator
Moonstruck	Red Dawn
Nightmare on Elm Street	Roger and Me
Platoon	Running Scared
Poltergeist	Some Kind of Wonderful
Porky's	Starman
Pretty in Pink	Summer Rental
Purple Rain	Terms of Endearment
Red Heat	The Beastmaster
Risky Business	The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
Roadhouse	The Big Easy
Robocop	The Elephant Man
Romancing the Stone	The Evil Dead
Roxanne	The Killing Fields
Scarface	The Last Emperor
Spies Like Us	The Last Starfighter
Stand by Me	The Last Temptation of Christ
Teen Wolf	The Lost Boys
The Abyss	The Man with One Red Shoe
The Bachelor Party	The Mission
The Big Chill	The Name of the Rose
The Burbs	The Thin Blue Line
The Color Purple	The Thing
The Fly	The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Outsiders	The Untouchables
The Right Stuff	The World According to Garp
The Shining	Tough Guys
This Is Spinal Tap	Trading Places
Tootsie	Wargames
UHF	Young Sherlock Holmes
When Harry Met Sally
Willow
Young Guns

So there you have it - the cinematic skeleton in my closet. Now which movies do I need to see this year? Want to join in on the '80s film watching fun?