I wanna get lost in your rock and roll.

You deserve a break from my daily bitching and raving.

Here are some totally awesome and "cultish" movies from the 1980's that I'm a fan of:



The Legend of Billie Jean- This is an awesome flick starring Helen Slater, Christian Slater, Powers Booth, and Yeardley Smith. Christian and Helen, who are not related in real life, play brother and sister. When Booth's kid and his friend beat up Christian and trash his moped, Helen goes to get payback from Booth, who attempts to molest her, so she shoots him. For the next hour, they traipse around the country, and Helen finds a love interest in the guy who played the nerd in Christine and Rodney Dangerfield's son in Back to School. Billie Jean(Helen) becomes sort of a folk hero, and the film culminates in a fantastic "fire in the Billie Jean gift shop" scene when the evil Powers Booth gets what's coming to him. As if this movie couldn't get any better, there's even a super-sweet late eighties Pat Benatar song!

Project X- This flick is about monkeys that fly flight simulators in a radioactive room. Even better, it features a young Helen Hunt, Matthew Broderick, and super awesome character actor, William Sadler(Die Hard 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey), who plays the villain. Broderick and Hunt free the chimps, get caught, but the chimps steal a plane and fly away to the Everglades, living happily ever after. Featured "Shock the Monkey" by Peter Gabriel on the soundtrack.

Short Time- Dabney Coleman plays a cop who finds out he's got a terminal illness. He's only got two weeks to live, but, if he dies of the illness, his wife and young son get none of his benefits. So, he has to get killed on the job. He spends the movie getting into crazy chases with a suspect, trying to get killed, but miraculously surviving. It costarred Teri Garr and Matt Frewer and it's worth watching!

Uncle Buck- This is easily the most underrated John Hughes film. It stars John Candy, Macualey(sp?) Culkin, and a few other actors who went on to do great work. Basically, Uncle Buck, "UB" if you will, comes to babysit his brother's kids while his brother and his wife are attending to a sick father. John Candy and Culkin have really great chemistry on screen and the movie is full of great moral lessons taught to us through the point of view of a drinking, smoking, unemployed, lovable character brought to life through John Candy. Next to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and Canadian Bacon this is probably my favorite performance of John Candy's. It's a shame more people haven't seen this film, as he was a talented and capable lead actor, who, because of his size and the crowd he "came up" with, got table scraps in a lot of movies. Good performances, but he should have had more leads!

Pee Wee's Big Adventure- Not a lot of people know this, but this was Tim Burton's directorial debut, and that alone makes this movie a classic! You see a lot of the Burton's unique vision without the "darkness" associated with his later work. The plot is pretty straight forward, Pee Wee Herman's beloved bike gets stolen and he travels the countryside, meeting new friends and seeing new places, in search of it. There are countless classic scenes in this movie, Netflix the shit out of it! If you still rent movies at a video store, tell 'em Large Marge sent ya!

Remember where you came from, remember what you are. -BK