I remember being thrilled with “Prisoners of the Lost Universe” (1983) when I found it flipping channels in the mid-1980’s. Out of curiosity, I hunted down a online copy during one of my recent episodes of insomnia. (You can find the full movie just under the trailer below, courtesy of the good people at Flick Vault.)
The film … didn’t hold up well over time. (I could only endure about the first half hour.) Oh, well. Not everything can be the goofy rediscovered gem that my beloved, rediscovered “Spacehunter” is.
But I’ll always remember being delighted by this ham-handed parallel universe tale when I was a kid.
By the way, the hero here is none other than Richard Hatch of “Battlestar Galactica” (1978) fame.
“Spacehunter!” Hot damn, this movie captivated me as a kid. And I didn’t even get to see the 3-D version in theaters in 1983; I caught it through the magic of VHS a couple of years later. (By the way, I am linking here to The Duke Mitchell Film Club on Youtube.)
“Spacehunter” is often derided as a ripoff of the “Star Wars” films, but I don’t think that’s fair. It really is its own thing.
It is by no means “a great movie.” As you can probably tell from the trailer, it’s a pretty cornball B-movie. But a hell of a lot of work went into the sets, makeup effects, special effects and creature effects. “Spacehunter” is fun as hell if you are a kid at heart where monsters are concerned. There is one scene that got under my skin in the 80’s, and it’s still creepy today — it involves deformed, singing mutant children throwing bombs at our heroes from the cliffs above.
This movie was also only the second feature film for a young Molly Ringwald. She’s actually really good in the role, no matter how bad her dialogue gets.
If you can stomach the 80’s cheese and you can find a copy of this, I actually recommend it as late-night viewing.
“M*A*S*H” turned 50 years old this past Saturday, folks. It debuted on September 17, 1972, and ran for 11 seasons. (The “M*A*S*H” feature film preceded it by two years — the movie was itself an adaptation of Richard Hooker’s 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors.)
So the show is as old as I am. And that’s pretty old.
This show was an institution when I was growing up. It was just one of those shows that seemed like it had always been there — like the original “Star Trek” (1966-1969). It was beloved of my dad and older siblings, even if I was too young to fully appreciate it at the time. Dear lord, did it make people laugh.
My Dad took me to see “The Dark Crystal” when it came out in 1982. I remember looking it up in the newspaper’s movie listings — and deciding on it even without knowing much about it. (That was just how we did it in those days — we used “the phone book” and TV Guide as well.)
Hot damn, did I love this movie. If you’re familiar with the 1980’s at all, then you know that “The Dark Crystal” was a surprisingly dark tour de force for Jim Henson, showcasing his ability to create a detailed and truly immersive alternate world. (Modern CGI just wasn’t a thing yet — it arguably made its first appearance in 1989’s “The Abyss.”) And you can’t really grasp the sheer spectacle of Henson’s world designs without seeing this movie on the big screen.
Does anyone else remember “The Odd Couple” (1970-1974) growing up? I was too young to remember its original run, but it played endlessly in reruns in the early 1980’s. For a lot of us, it was a show our parents watched. It was based on an eponymous 1965 Neil Simon play, and Tony Randall was absolutely a household name.
Hearing that theme song — and seeing those priceless shots of early-70’s New York in its opener — absolutely takes me back to my gradeschool years. I can practically smell dinner cooking in the kitchen.
Turns out it didn’t have a lot of cultural staying power — with my generation, at least. When was the last time you heard someone make a pop-culture reference to “The Odd Couple?” Yet people still fondly remember things like “The Partridge Family” (1970-1974), “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1973-1978) and “Voltron” (1983-1985).
Okay, the Apple Jacks commercial below is a pretty regrettable example of 1980’s cornball marketing buffoonery. I’ll tell you what, though — I have fond memories of that wicked-cool glow-in-the-dark Wacky Wallwalker that came as the cereal box prize. (I am linking her to the DJ Nurse Annabella Youtube channel, by the way.)
Had I gotten mine as a prize with Apple Jacks? I guess. I know my mom had returned from the store with these for me once or twice. (They were the non-glowing variety, but they were still fun as hell.) She only partly regretted her decision when it became apparent that they left vague streak marks on white walls. When these cheap toys started losing their key adhesiveness, all you had to do was wash them with soap to make them sticky again. That might have had something to do with it.
That definitive treasure trove of information, Wikipedia, informs me that Wacky Wallwalkers are made from “elastomer.” And they raked in about 80 million dollars for the Japanese-American inventor who bought the rights to the toy around 1983 from their prior owner in Japan.
I swear I want to play with one of these right now.
I barely remember this TV commercial for Milton Bradley’s “Stratego,” but I sure remember the game. (Thanks to Youtube user Lokke for posting it online.) When I was a kid, I used to think of it as “pre-chess” — the strategy game that kids played before they graduated to that paragon of all games — even for adults. (I was quite the chess enthusiast when I was in gradeschool, which is odd, because I wasn’t exceptionally good at it.)
My skill at Stratego was similarly undistinguished, I guess. I pretty consistently relied on the most obvious gambit … planting my “flag” piece in the corner and surrounding it by “bombs.” (To keep my opponent guessing, I’d sometimes pull a switcheroo and plant my “flag” in the other corner.)
My older brother had been playing Stratego for longer than I had; it was his board game, after all. So he regularly sent his “miners” and expendable pieces straight for my predictable strongholds to ultimately win the game. (Come to think of it, the kid next door got wise to my standard gameplay pretty early on as well.)
But I still loved it. Stratego was hella fun. (Yes, I am back on the “hella” train.) I remember being in my early 20’s and being delighted when it was mentioned on “The X-Files.” It was in the Season 2 episode “Colony,” in which Fox Mulder’s long lost sister returns. (Or does she?) The first thing the putative sibling does when she she spots her brother is joke about Stratego. That felt like a shout-out just for me.
It’s true what they say about “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (2019) — its script is almost completely brainless. It’s got about as much depth as the old “G.I. Joe” cartoon (1983-1986) that played after school when we were kids.
But I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t enjoy this. And I’m sure you know why — the big-budget, big-MONSTER special effects. They were spectacular — and sometimes they approached being unexpectedly beautiful. (It’s hard to explain here, but our eyes are treated to more than skyscraper-tall brawls between “titans.” We get a light show too — thanks to some confusing, thinly scripted, but nonetheless dazzling energy-based monster powers. It was really damned good.)
Add to this a generally excellent cast, and you might be able to forgive the screenplay for insulting your intelligence. I know that most people would name Ken Watanabe as the actor who truly classes up the joint. And there’s plenty of truth to that, but I myself would name Charles Dance as the movie’s biggest standout. The man’s craft is goddam Shakespearean, and I think he’s equal of the likes of Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen. And I’d like to think that his throwaway line, “Long live the King,” was at least partly a fan-service reference to what I’m guessing is his best known role — Tywin Lannister on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” (2011-2019).
Based on my own enjoyment, I’d rate this movie an 8 out of 10 — with the caveat that I’m a kid at heart when it comes to giant monsters. If you’re the same way, then “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” might just become a guilty pleasure that you return to more than once.
Legit question for rural Australians — how do I kill the 30 to 50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3 to 5 mins while my small kids play?
If you’re anything like me, you’re endlessly regaled by all the viral jokes this past week referencing “30 to 50 feral hogs.” (And if you’re nothing like me, then you’re an intelligent adult and I congratulate you. But you can google the new trope, which I have paraphrased above, if you want to. It is the very height of preposterous predatory animal political humor.)
The jokes made me remember this little disappointment from the 1980’s — the Aussies’ own feral hog horror movie, 1984’s somewhat lethargic “Razorback.” If memory serves, I rented this sometime around 1986, I suppose. I got it on VHS from my nearest shopping center’s sole mom-and-pop video store, before Blockbuster Video’s invasion reached my area.
There are people out there who fondly remember “Razorback.” You can find some nice compliments about it over at Rotten Tomatoes. People enjoy its “atmosphere.” People like Gregory Harrison a lot.
I didn’t like it. Sure, it had a pretty neat electronic score that seemed trippy and cool to me as a young high school student. But that was its only redeeming quality. It started off with its depressing plot setup, which you can see in the first video below — the titular wild boar absconds with a baby boy. (The boar also thoughtfully burns the child’s house down as it departs, to underscore that fact that it is an asshole.)
The rest of the movie is boring, because it’s yet another one of those monster movies where you never get to see much of the monster — right up until the movie’s poorly lit climax, which takes place in a slaughterhouse, I think? Which is supposed to be ironic or something? Don’t quote me on this stuff; 1986 was a long time ago. For comparison, think of the legion zombie “thrillers” always available on Netflix where the zombies are always outside, and the movie just follows the indoors arguments among three very-much-alive people inside a windowless warehouse. I want to invoke the inevitable “wild bore movie” pun, but I’m holding back, because my friends tell me that they have enough of that sort of thing.
I used my own money to rent “Razorback,” probably earned from either my confusing stint at McDonald’s (they just didn’t get me there) or my summer job cleaning boats and lobster traps. (I lived on an island, people.) I remember being slightly disgruntled that I’d wasted my hard-earned cash.
Honestly, though, I was a credulous kid when it came to a movie’s marketing. When I read the back of the VHS boxes, I took things at face value. I also had my heart set on something called “The Alien’s Deadly Spawn” (1983), which I realize now was just a no-budget early mockbuster ripping off Ridley Scott’s “Alien” (1979). (It was always out. I finally caught snatches of it on Youtube this past spring, and it looks pretty unwatchable.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 