Oh, dear. How far behind am I now? 80s. Okay, here goes. Catching up.

#1 is Empire Strikes Back. Recaptures the magic of the first one while generally being a better movie with a more compelling narrative.

#2 going to go into the weird science fiction for Altered States. Good trippy exploration of mind and reality.

#3 let's say Airplane. It is funny.

#4 let's go to Japan and Kurosawa still going strong in his later years with Kagemusha.

And we'll round out a top 5 with another great sequel, Superman II.

I need to rewatch the Blues Brothers. Been decades and it should maybe sneak in there. That and Caddyshack are my dad's all-time favorite films. As supernatural horror films go, I think The Shining is one of the best, but it's so not my genre. And yeah, Raging Bull has some virtuoso talent, but I didn't connect with it. I owe it a rewatch. Also been decades.

After the Blues Brothers, the strongest contender for my top 5 is Lynch's Elephant Man. I haven't seen it since childhood, but as a child I thought Watcher in the Woods was the scariest movie I'd ever seen, so I retain a fondness for it and the nightmares it gave me.

I think Friday the 13th is just a bad movie, and its status as an iconic classic will always confuse me.

1982 features (with a big asterisk) what I tend to think is the best film ever made. Though arguably the film was actually released in 2007. But we'll still call it a 1982 film. Blade Runner. The 1982 release is crap. The 1992 release is great. The 2007 release is the best movie ever made. Deckard is a replicant.

Possibly the best year for science fiction in the history of film, we then have E.T. and The Thing.

One of the best action films ever is First Blood.

And if we count shorts, another sci/fi film rounds out my top 5, All Summer in a Day. If you don't count shorts, then I dunno, maybe King of Comedy for #5.

Not even done recounting the great science fiction films of the year, as it's also got Star Trek II and Tron.

Far from my favorite type of movie, but as that type of movie goes, Koyaanisqatsi is pretty good. Haven't seen it since childhood, but recall Gandhi fondly. Tim Burton's Vincent is an early look at his signature style.

Pretty far from the best movie of the year, but a notable film is Piranha II: The Spawning. A new director who will end up doing pretty well for himself. And if you ignore the story, the acting, and basically any scene set on land, this featured some amazing underwater camerawork. This is a director who even on a low budget could really film divers swimming through a sunken ship. Very impressive.

1984. Great year. But the standout is easily Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, adapted from one of the great triumphs of the imagination in comic form, and the film that would give birth to the greatest animation studio, Studio Ghibli. Expect to see a lot of entries from that studio topping my lists going forward.

#2 is Blood Simple. The Coen Brothers started off strong. I appreciate how... well, simple... it is. A few characters with straightforward motivations create a tangled mess of murder. The story just hangs together beautifully.

As a very young child, the movie I watched obsessively over and over again was The Hobbit. But by the age of 5 or so, that turned into The Neverending Story. A triumph of fantasy I think still holds up.

One more genuine masterpiece for the year is the soul-wrenching Paris, Texas.

And then I could go a lot of ways through some favorite classics, but I'll pick The Terminator. That Piranha II director has upped his game.

Contenders are Ghostbusters, Karate Kid, and Greystoke. I also have a fondness for Threads, but that may be a TV movie.

Yeah, This is Spinal Tap is hysterial.

Other great sci/fi includes 1984 (fittingly), 2010 (less fittingly), Brother from Another Planet.

Worst movie of the year is Dune.

Haven't tracked how many Slam and I have agreed upon the #1. There have been a few, mostly the obvious Harrison Ford films. But I agree with him here on Highlander. Great story with great elements imperfectly told.

Followed by Transformers. It's a weird case where marketing decisions led to great art. The suits wanted to sell new Transformers toys, so they had the movie open with killing all your favorite Transformers, including Optimus Prime. How wild is that for 5-year old me? And Prime dies in the most epic battle. Then the most 80s music playing. A dance scene out of nowhere. Great science fiction elements. Cool alien worlds. And Orson Welles as the devourer of worlds. What the hell even is this movie?

I warned you Ghibli movies would be coming. The studio's first film is a simple children's adventure, but so delightful. Such splendor as two children befriend kind-hearted space pirates and discover the stunning Castle in the Sky.

Based on the comic, which satires a government brochure, When the Wind Blows is hysterical. In the way that watching two kindly old people suffer and die in horrific circumstances is hysterical.

Aliens will round out my top 5. Going more sci-fi/action than sci-fi/horror, but it worked. The franchise can stop there, though.


As a child, I loved Labyrinth, so that's a strong contender. As I was 5 years old, a lot of movies from the time stayed with me, notably An American Tail.

Blue Velvet is great (not something I watched at 5 though).

And Luxo Jr. introduced us to Pixar's now famous lamp.

Onward to 1987.  I'd kind of forgotten how much I like this year in movies.  

The Princess Bride - I didn't actually see this until way after 1987.  And I don't really have any great attachment to it.  It is a funny and quotable movie.  I like it but I don't get the deep love that it engenders in so many people.  



Full Metal Jacket - It's honestly been long enough since I've seen this that it maybe should be in that category.  But I do remember liking this film a lot the times I've sat down and watched it.  So here we are.  



Predator - I'm pretty sure that I saw this at the drive-in the summer after my first year of college.  This is just a super fun action/SF film.  This felt like the movie that really cemented Schwarzenegger as a star and that showed that Carl Weathers could do something besides fight Rocky.  Just a big dumb fun macho action movie.  And one of the best of its kind.  



The Untouchables - Forget any pretense that there's anything historical about this movie.  If you do that and enjoy the ride it's a pretty good movie even though it has Kevin Costner at his worst.  Sean Connery is an absolute joy.  De Niro chews scenes as Capone like nobody's business.  It's a terribly silly movie that I'll almost always watch because it rises above all the stuff that should make it awful. 



Evil Dead II - I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not, by and large, a fan of horror movies.  But this is just so damn fun that it's one of those exceptions.  Essentially a remake of The Evil Dead Raimi turns up the humor.  Bruce Campbell is just so damn much fun as Ash Williams.  It's a gory, funny, oddly sophisticated satire.  And I really enjoy it. 



RoboCop - This movie has raised in my estimation every single time I've watched.  Verhoeven crafts a brilliant social satire hidden within a special effects driven  SF/action film.  Peter Weller is able to convey humanity under very serious make-up.  The villains are exquisitely villainous...almost as bad as what we had out in the real world.  The special effects are maybe a bit dated at this point, but this is a damn good movie.  



Lethal Weapon - I re-watched this pretty recently so it's very fresh.  I think the importance of this film is underrated.  It's a pretty important step in action films and in the "Buddy" genre.  For all his problems, Mel Gibson is great, as is Danny Glover.  It's just serious enough to stop it from sliding in to absurdity (which it easily could have done).  Richard Donner just does absolutely everything right with this movie. 



Raising Arizona - It's been a good long while since I've watched this one also.  I remember watching this for the first time on HBO and just howling.  It's a very funny movie and Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter are amazing.  Following up Blood Simple with a truly funny comedy showed that the Coen Brothers were going to be able to do almost anything and do it very very well.  "Son, you got a panty on your head." 



The Running Man - I seem to like this movie a lot better than most people do.  Richard Dawson is freakin' amazing.  I do think the film looks better retrospectively than it probably did at the time with the rise of television culture and "reality" TV.  In a way it treads similar ground to that walked by RoboCop.  No it's not as good, but it's different and still pretty damn fun.  Probably didn't hurt that Maria Conchita Alonso hits all my buttons.  



The Lost Boys - I've seen this movie a zillion times.  My wife loves it.  It showed all the time when I was in college.  So I have a nostalgia bone for it.  And it's a pretty okay horror film with enough comedy to keep me happy.  And I had a thing for Jamie Gertz at the time.  And the Corey's are great.  I don't love it...but I like it as a nostalgia rush. 




As usual there are many films I've either not seen or not seen in far too long. Including; Wall Street (though I suspect I might hate it at this point); House of Games; Broadcast News; Empire of the Sun (been eons); Matewan; Roxanne (I remember this being a much better than average rom-com); Barfly; La Bamba (honestly just a special shout-out for having an amazing soundtrack); 


So what's my favorite film of 1987? This is actually a little hard as I like a lot of those movies a lot.  But it really comes down to Lethal Weapon and RoboCop.  I think at this point in my life it's probably RoboCop.  


And 1987 in film for those as need a look.

Favorite movie of 1987?

I would have a hard time choosing between Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Hope and Glory.

I used to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles almost every year in November or December. I went a while without watching it, but I watched it last year for the first time in a decade. It still makes me laugh so hard through the whole movie.