9 1/2 weeks (1986)

An American romance directed by Adrian Lyne, starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger.
A woman who works at an art gallery falls in love with a man wearing a long coat.
I had to turn this off, mostly because the audio was bad on the copy I got. Besides that, I don't like romance (or war) and the pacing was dreadfully slow. Mickey Rourke looked like Christian Slater when he was young. I really prefer him in Spun (2002) and Sin City (2005). If it's romance or war and I can't hear it, I'm not watching it. In accordance with my resurrected turnoff policy, I rate this shit. Do not watch!

52 Pick-Up (1986)

An American crime film directed by John Frankenheimer, starring Roy Schneider and Ann-Margret.
Criminals record a video of a man cheating on his wife and try to blackmail him. They also catch and kill his mistress on video. He doesn't have enough money, but tries to make a deal with them. The criminals then turn against one another, trying to get a larger share of the money.
This was alright. The plot was clearly presented, but not really what I enjoy watching. The characters were cast and acted unevenly. Some of them were very convincing while others seemed contrived and forced. Video looked more '70s than '80s and there was a really long ending pull out shot, which is a very 1970s thing to do. Audio was a little biased to higher midrange, but I could hear the dialogue. There was a song in the soundtrack which I think may have been used on multiple occasions, but I'm not going back to check. I rate this o.k.

Seize the Day (1986)

An American drama directed by Fielder Cook, starring Robin Williams, Jerry Stiller and John Fielder.
A salesman loses his job and goes to New York City to find work. He has trouble communicating with his father and is scammed by a sleazy gambler.
Most film plots start even, take a down turn and then rise like -\/ this one was just \ down all the way. Not much actually happened, but there were some interesting things to note. My favorite scene was Robin Williams escorting the gambler's friend across a street. The man was resisting all the way while they were in traffic (image), but took right off as soon as he got to the other side. Casting is another point to mention. Jerry Stiller (Frank Costanza from Seinfeld) was the gambler and John Fielder (Piglet from Winnie the Pooh) was the clerk at the hotel desk. The version that I watched was in 4:3 aspect ratio and I suspect it was a "pan and scan" job from a 16:9 original. This would negate much of the camera composition and explain clipped credits at the beginning. At least I could hear all of the dialogue. I rate this tolerable because it was just not worth watching.

Charlotte for Ever (1986)

A French drama directed by and starring Serge Gainsbourg, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.
A failed writer lives with his teenage daughter who blames him for the car accident which killed her mother. The writer hangs out with his 2 friends and they drink whiskey.
I seriously didn't get it and doubt there was anything to get. The best part was the song. It had keyboard parts like Bill Schnoebelen's Interview with an Ex-Vampire (2006) theme and bass like "As the World Falls Down" by David Bowie from Labyrinth (1986). The whole song reminded me a little of Claudio Simonetti's Phenomena (1985) theme. I will have to do some research to see if I can find out how to play it. Camera-work was next. Everything looked good, had high contrasts of light and dark and creative angles and camera positions were used. There was unsimulated vomit and a "booze bottle bowling" game played by 2 girls with bottles as pins and a motorcycle helmet as the ball. Other than that, it was nearly incoherent. I rate this tolerable because it was seriously lacking plot.

Robot Holocaust (1986)

An American science fiction directed by Tim Kincaid.
The majority of people left on Earth after an apocalypse now work providing fuel for a power plant which produces clean air for them to breathe. A woman's father is captured by the "Dark One" who runs the power plant because he can breathe without the factory-provided air. His daughter, with the help of friends, tries to rescue him.
I can't believe it's not TROMA. This was so bad I could barely watch it. The writing was horrible and the acting was worse. The special effects were extremely unconvincing as well. Check out this fake background (image). The only part that was good was casting for female roles. With a little tweak to the script, it could have made a great porno flick. I rate it bad. Do not watch!

Rawhead Rex (1986)

A British horror directed by George Pavlou, written by Clive Barker.
An ancient monster is awakened when a farmer in Ireland tries to remove a large stone from his field. A photographer/researcher must find a way to stop it.
Typical of '80s horror, but not typical of Clive Barker. The monster was cheesy and so were the special effects. Obviously, the plot was typically cheesy and the characters were shallow and badly acted. There was one shot which caught my attention. When the 2 teenagers were running through the woods and the camera followed behind them, it looked awesome. I rate it tolerable. There is much better 1980s horror cheese out there.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

An American Disney animated mystery directed by Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener and John Musker, starring Vincent Price and Frank Welker.
A rat criminal overlord has abducted the mechanic father of a small mouse child. A mouse man returning from a journey finds the child and they meet up with a Sherlock Holmes style detective. As the case unravels, it turns out that the rat is using the child's father to build a machine which will kill the detective and a robotic replacement for the mouse queen so he can rule the city.
This is the best and most coherent detective film I have ever seen. Maybe my brain works in a different way from live action detective films. The only one that made sense to me was Sin City (2005). I liked that the animation was classic Disney style and there were only 3 musical style songs, none of which were the "heartstring" style. There was an equal amount of humor and suspense. I'm rating this awesome because when it finished, I wanted to reset and watch it again.

Down by Law (1986)

An American crime film directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tom Waits and Roberto Benigni.
2 low level criminals are setup by their fellow hoods to be captured and are imprisoned. Another man accidentally kills a pursuer after leaving a card game gone wrong. The 3 of them escape from prison together.
This was absolutely the slowest jailbreak movie ever made. Most of the time, it was just the 3 main characters and no one else. They held my interest without anything else. The premise was pretty standard, but lead to a more complex plot. What I liked about the plot was showing multiple characters before prison. The video was all in black and white, but looked good. There was a scene that was said to be night in dialogue, but the video did not support this. I'm rating it good. This is a must have for Jarmusch fans.

No Retreat, No Surrender A.K.A. Karate Tiger (1986)

An American action film directed by Corey Yuen, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
A boy's father and karate trainer is defeated by mobsters looking to enslave all karate schools. The boy trains and defeats the mobster's best fighter.
Dumb, stale, stupid... This was like America's answer to China's shitty kung fu flicks. It came complete with distorted audio. The only thing in the soundtrack that sounded good was when there were electric guitars in the songs. A little bit of hard rock grit turned into heavy metal super-saturation. I didn't care about the plot or characters. R. J.'s rap song was absolutely pitiful, but his break dancing was good. I'm rating this bad for being just plain not worth watching. Seriously, skip it.

House series (1986 - 1992)

An American horror produced by Sean S. Cunningham, starring William Katt.
1: A writer moves into his aunt's house where his son disappeared. 2: A man and his wife move into a house which is missing a crystal skull and dig up the man's great grandfather. 3: A killer haunts the house of a police detective. 4: A house that was built over a healing spring is inherited by a man's wife when her husband is killed by his brother, who wants to demolish the house.
The only common themes which tied these films together were title and being produced by Sean S. Cunningham. I really liked the first 2 because the first film was a more serious horror and a horror classic. The second film was a horror comedy, which is one of my favorite genres, but only from the 1980s, which this was. It was even made in the magic year of 1987 (golden age of modern cinema, see other posts). Number 3 had nothing to do with any of the others, mostly because nobody moved into the haunted house to get the film started. However, it did have Lance Henriksen who played Bishop in Aliens and Alien 3. Number 4 brought back William Katt as Roger Cobb, but his character died at the beginning. I rate them like so: 1 awesome, 2 good, 3 bad, 4 bad. I would recommend the first 2, but not the others.

Armour of God A.K.A. Lóng Xiōng Hǔ Dì (1986)

A Chinese action film directed by Jackie Chan and Eric Tsang, starring Alan Tam and Rosamund Kwan.
A former musician has sold an antique sword that is demanded by people who have kidnapped his ex-girlfriend. Her new boyfriend goes with to retrieve the weapon and save the girl. They are opposed by a group of evil monks who have the other pieces of the set of armor that the sword belongs with.
This is the film in which Jackie falls out of a tree and hurts his head. The hour and a half duration was apparently not enough because the plot was inconclusive. It did hold my interest with action. Something was always happening. How does a musician become a kung fu master/adventurer/treasure hunter? I did not find the back-story of the characters believable. Dialogue and acting were overlooked in favor of action sequences as well. This included some great sets and locations. Right at the beginning, Jackie slides down a mountain as he is being chased by a tribe from whom he stole the sword. The lair of the evil monks was expertly done as well. When he fights the high heel fighters, there is a "double boob punch" that I thought was worth mentioning. Camera-work was not bad at all. I think it looks less impressive than it really was for the camera crew to find placement in odd areas and do moving shots to follow the action. I couldn't tell if it was a real cave or a fabricated set. Stunts made up most of the special effects. Falls, jumps, slides, fire and sparks are pretty standard in a Jackie Chan flick. Audio was not the best. The dubbing looked and sounded really fake and the soundtrack was really cheesy. This won best action cinematography at the 1988 Hong Kong film awards. It has 7.1/10 on IMDB, 4/5 AllMovie rating and user ratings on AllMovie and 78% tomatometer, 62% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. I agree with the 74.2% solid C grade. It's an average, but decent Chinese action film of the late '80s. Nothing else to say but rate it o.k.

April Fool's Day (1986)

An American horror directed by Fred Walton, starring Ken Olandt.
A group of college students go to stay at a friend's house on an island. People start getting hurt and dying.
What a load of crap! An hour and 26 minutes is far too long for this, even though the pacing was brisk. The plot seemed like a normal and oh so cliche slasher flick until the end when it got even worse. The characters were shallow like cardboard cutouts, dialogue copied and pasted from other slasher flicks of the time and acting uncreative at best.Sets and costumes were a sham. They just found the correct location that included all their plot elements and wore regular clothing. Camera-work and editing were very straight forward. I don't even think they used a dissolve between scenes. the special effects were standard '80s gore and a little on the light side. The monster in the jack in the box was the best part (image). At least the audio was mixed correctly. The only problem there was repetitive music. This has 6.2/10 on IMDB, 38% Tomatometer and 47% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for an average of 49%. I agree with that miserable, failing grade. I rate this bad because it's a cliche and crappy movie with a stupid ending.

Slaughter High (1986)

A British American slasher horror directed by Mark Ezra, Peter Litten and George Dugdale.
A group of students play pranks on a nerd that end up starting a fire and injuring him badly. Years later, they revisit the school and the nerd is there to kill them.
This was terrible and didn't make any sense. The plot was desultory trash with no continuity. The characters were so shallow that it was like they had negative depth. The video was typical of a cheesy '80s horror flick and the audio was very similar. The ending started to turn cool, but collapsed into nonsense again. Overall, worthless junk. It wasn't painful to watch, but just totally sucked. I rate this bad. Don't watch it.

A Better Tomorrow A.K.A. Jing1 hung4 bun2 sik1 (1986)

A Hong Kong crime film directed by John Woo, starring Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Cow Yun-fat, Waise Lee and Tien Feng.
Two brothers and a friend have disputes because one brother and the friend are criminals and the other brother is a cop. One of them goes to jail, gets out and meets with the others. Shooting, "You're working too hard on this case!", "I just want to be the one to arrest him". Stupid shit like that.
This was terrible, lame and so un-Chinese. I expect more from China than fucking cops, robbers and shootouts. It's so American and so stereotypical! The plot was nearly incoherent and may have been lost in translation. The characters reminded me of cardboard cutouts from a cheesy American crime flick from the '70s or '90s. Take your pick, they're the same. The video was not too shabby. I could see what was happening, but it used stereotypical shots in all the same places and did not seem creative or unique in any way. The audio on the version that I watched was dubbed into English. The music and sound effects were ahead of their time, being more cheesy American '90s crime flick than '70s. Wikipedia SINGS THE PRAISES of this horrid and lifeless flick like it was groundbreaking shit, but this had been done to death in America in the '70s. Overall, a stereotypical and unoriginal film that was just like thousands of those from a decade earlier in another country. I rate this bad because I've seen much worse. DO NOT WATCH!!!

Galaxy A.K.A. Galaxy Destroyer, Battle for the Lost Planet (1986)

An American science fiction directed by Brett Piper.
A man who has stolen a top-secret tape blasts off in a space ship as aliens are invading earth. He returns five years later and enlists the aid of a woman who saves him and the leader of a motorcycle gang to infiltrate an alien base. The base is on top of a weapon that was made before the aliens invaded that could save the human race.
This was really cheesy. The plot was simplistic, but communicated quite well. The characters were not developed very much. The main character was likeable enough though. The video was obviously done on a tight budget. The camera-work looked amateurish and the special effects were not very convincing. The audio was all very quiet, but the sountrack music featured '80s metal that I liked. The dialogue was very, very poorly written. Overall, the type of '80s trash flick that most people dislike. I found it to be so quaint that I kind of liked it. I rate this adequate.

Castaway (1986)

A British drama adventure directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Oliver Reed.
A man obsessed with the story of Robinson Crusoe decides to live on a deserted island for a year. He finds a woman who is willing to go with him and they spend all of their money to make it happen. Once they get to the island, the man spends his time playing or laying around, while the woman wanders. It ends up being more difficult than they thought.
This was enjoyable to watch. I liked the plot and characters, mostly because I am just finishing reading Robinson Crusoe myself. It turns out that the part about the personals ad is art mirroring life, because that is how Amanda Donohoe got her part in the film. I wondered how they did the malnutrition bodies. Did they actually starve themselves, or have skinny body-doubles? When the characters were portrayed healthy, Amanda Donohoe spent much of her time walking around naked, learning to use a shotgun naked, etc. Unfortunately, the malnutrition scenes were naked too. The video was mostly very bright, despite the depressing situation that the characters were in. The audio was alright. I could hear the dialogue and the soundtrack music stayed very far in the background. Overall, a decent movie with some positive qualities. I rate this adequate.

Crimewave (1986)

An American comedy directed by Sam Raimi, starring Paul L. Smith and Bruce Campbell.
A dorky security system installer is chasing after a girl he met when the head of the company that he works for is murdered. When one of the killers hides in his apartment and a body is placed in the girl's car, the main character and romantic interest are drawn into the violence.
This was pretty good. Sam Raimi is on his way into my list of "Those Who Can Do No Wrong". The plot was just complex enough to be interesting, but still easy to follow. There were really only four main characters acting through the whole film: The dork, the romantic interest woman and the two killers. The video used physical effects, camera tricks and good editing to communicate the absurd humor. My favorite effect was the fat killer pulling a wall-to-wall carpet towards him. My favorite scene, though, was the security store's hallway of doors. The audio was adequate. I could hear the dialogue and music, but the quality was a little low from being made on a lower budget in the '80s. Overall, pretty cool. I rate it adequate.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

An American musical science fiction comedy directed by Frank Oz, starring Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, Jim Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Guest and Bill Murray.
A man who works at a flower shop buys a mysterious plant that eats people. His female co-worker has an abusive boyfriend.
This was better than the original. Usually, I don't like musicals, but this one worked out alright. I think that increased production value was the main element that worked in it's favor. The plot was similar to the original, but I think they added the romance element. The bad boyfriend being a dentist who thrives on causing pain was hilarious. Bill Murray being a masochist who visits this dentist was not as funny as it should have been. The characters were cast well, but I think the female lead had a drag queen face. The video element to mention is special effects and animation of the plant. It all looked pretty convincing to me. The mouth articulation was excellent when the plant spoke and sang. Audio was pretty standard for a musical. Not great and with a Broadway feel. Overall, it was actually fun to watch. I rate it adequate.

Rad (1986)

An American action romance directed by Hal Needham, starring Talia Shire.
When a national BMX race comes to town, a local boy falls in love with a female racer and competes in the race.
This is the best BMX movie ever made. The tricks are incredible and feature vintage components like framestands and forkstands. I saw Skyway mags and colored tires. Pad sets and number plates. For vintage BMX freestyle and flatland enthusiasts, this is the film to watch. It has all the cool tricks of the '80s with bouncing and spinning, body and bike contortions and balance demonstrations. The plot is admittedly not the best and characters take a back seat to bicycle stunts. The video production is really well-done. They concealed a male rider in the female costume during the bike dancing scene and composited her on the bike sitting still while the lights moved. Overall, it's about the vintage parts and tricks. It's not about acting, writing, etc... but it is about correct video recordings of BMX stunts. I rate this best because I grew up as a BMX boy.

TerrorVision (1986)

An American science fiction horror comedy directed by Ted Nicolaou, starring Mary Woronov, Chad Allen and Jon Gries.
An alien monster enters a family's home through their satellite television. It eats people.
This was so wonderfully lo-fi and cheesy. It was made by Empire International Pictures, Charles Band's movie company before Full Moon. The minimalist plot and stereotypical characters that were badly acted actually worked in favor of this film. The casting was done wonderfully. My favorite characters were the metalhead boyfriend of the daughter and Medusa from the horror TV show. The special effects were hokey, but they did a really good job on slime and gore. Overall, so bad it's good. I rate this awesome.