Friday's Old Fashioned: Into the Night (1985)

Ed Okin (Jeff Goldlbum) hates his job, his marriage is stagnant and he can’t sleep. Of course, the requisite irony is that while he can’t literally get to sleep, he can’t figuratively wake up, spiritually unable to arouse himself from the soul-crushing slumber into which he has apparently unintentionally fallen, and so if he catches a few z’s then perhaps he can rise and shine. The other irony, however, is a movie that yearns to spur its main character to life is oddly, relentlessly, agonizingly lifeless, assuming the zombie-ish air of its main character. Given that “Into the Night” stretches out across two surreal Los Angeles nights and includes all manner of outlandish encounters, it is tempting to compare John Landis’s film to the operatically madcap “After Hours.” But “Into the Night” is not operatic; it is opera as filtered through a white noise machine.

Counseled by a co-worker, played by Dan Aykroyd, foreshadowing a spate of cameos we will address momentarily, to go to Las Vegas to blow off some steam, Ed finds himself driving to LAX in the dead of the night where, as the fates dictate, a jewel smuggler named Diana (Michelle Pfeiffer) winds up in his car. She is being pursued by four Iranians who want the six necessarily precious emeralds she has in her possession. It’s obvious to say that hijinks ensue, of course, but the hijinks here are as uncreative as they are strangely real, as throats are graphically slashed and walls are inundated with blood when brains are blown out for no other reason, it seems, than shock value.

Rather than train his focus on rendering the various escapades themselves as humorous, Landis is oddly committed to cameos. While I am unwilling to do the research to know for sure, it is possible that “Into the Night” has the most cameos in movie history. There are so many you quickly become inured to them. I have no idea what they are meant to convey other than, hey, John Landis got to hang out with some friends on the set. Which is completely cool, of course, because I have long championed “Ocean’s Twelve” as an example of a bunch of stars getting together on a movie set to have a good time, except that those stars genuinely look like they are having a good time. No one in “Into the Night” looks as if they are having a particularly good time. Jim Henson shows up in “Into the Night” to field a phone call and Amy Heckerling serves ice cream at a diner and David Cronenberg is Ed’s boss and so what? Are we supposed to be awed because they are Jim Henson and Amy Heckerling and David Cronenberg? What else? Anything? Nothing? Nothing.

Jeff Goldblum, of course, is best when he is allowed to operate amidst so much craziness and react to it, whether dinosaurs have run amok or aliens have invaded earth. Theoretically that’s what should be happening in “Into the Night” except that Goldblum has nothing much to react to. All the craziness around him is tamped down and un-realized. Diana’s emeralds, it turns out, come from a Persian king’s scepter but never has such a plot point been rendered so run of the mill. It’s a bad sign when the movie’s many transitional scenes, often taking place in ever changing vehicles, as Goldblum and Pfeiffer go from place to place are filled with more oomph than the sequences actually meant as the heart of the thing. The soundtrack, conjured up by Ira Newborn, unexpectedly brilliantly melds the sort of 80s smoky neon synth with the B.B. King’s Lucille, and so scenes that are basically filler become unexpectedly compelling.

The only element of “Into the Night” that can match the soundtrack is David Bowie, though, sadly, he merely turns up for two scenes as a British hitman. His devious grin alone packs more punch than all of the other cameos combined, and the little moment where he gleefully puts a gun in Ed’s mouth and then lifts the gun, prompting Ed to raise his head in unison, is just a little bit of actorly business, yes, but the kind with a purpose, giving Goldblum something to play to, that is lacking pretty much everywhere else. Bowie adds so much spice that I kept expecting his character to turn up at the refresh-the-clock-on-my-phone conclusion, hoping he would drop in from an air duct, or rise through a trap door in the floor. It’s possible that his character had been killed off in an earlier scene but I realized, frankly, I couldn’t remember. It’s also possible the movie just glossed over that plot point, and it’s also possible my eyes were just glazed over and I missed it.

“Into the Night” is so utterly hapless, and so strangely not beholden to its originating plot point of Ed needing to spiritually wake up, that I at some point I also became convinced this whole slapdash cinematic nonentity would end with Ed waking up in bed, realizing it was All Just A Dream. No such luck. If anything, Ed is probably still asleep, even now, thirty-one years later, his alarm clock failing to go off, still dreaming in 80s neon, still wishing he could be having a more lively dream.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Blind Date (1987)

The thing about a Blind Date, of course, is that you don’t know the other person, haven’t seen them, have no idea how they act, etc. That’s what can make a Blind Date such a torturous, potentially humorous, situation. What’s interesting about “Blind Date”, however, is that it gives away the reveal before the reveal happens. Everybody tells Walter Davis (Bruce Willis) not to let his Blind Date drink. And yet, he fails to abide, perhaps because this is an eighties screwball comedy and in the eighties Reagan ran things and because Reagan ran things everything was perfect and nothing bad could happen and so if someone tells you not to give your Blind Date a drink you do anyway because fate isn’t something to be tempted but ignored. We are masters of our fate.

This revealing of the reveal takes some air out of the whole premise, and that’s how much of “Blind Date” feels – airless. It’s directed by Blake Edwards, who in 1987 would have been considered a venerable professional of the sort of hijinks hilarity required by this screwball comedy. Though he also helmed sobering dramas like “Days of Wine and Roses”, he was perhaps best known for this “Pink Panther” movies, films in which he demonstrated his knack for staging pratfalls. They were, however, elevated to greatness on account of Peter Sellers immortal riotous turn as Inspector Clouseau. Edwards knew just where to put the camera for Clouseau’s practice tangles with Kato, sure, but it was Sellers’ body language that took it to the next level. Director and Actor sang in harmony. “Blind Date”, however, suffers from a lack of a comparable performers.

Willis is primarily the straight man, tasked with conveying alternating charmed and exasperated reactions to Nadia Gates, the woman who gives the film its title. She’s played by Kim Basinger in a performance that is simply too un-manic to be the heroine required of a screwball. When he first meet her, she seems perfect, as she must, sort of a live-action embodiment of Holli Would. With one drink, though, she becomes a destructive force, wasting no time in screwing up Walter’s big dinner for whom she goes as better half and then getting him fired. Yet the manner in which she levels destruction is so disappointingly low-key. She’s a far cry from Elaine Benes getting soused on Schnapps. It’s, like, 57 years too late but imagine Jean Harlow in the role and the alcohol-infused chaos would be electric. Or imagine modern day Parker Posey having a few cocktails and going mainstream. The best we get in “Blind Date” is the moment Walter pleads with a bouncer while Nadia subtly slides into his stool in the background and quietly knocks back his scotch and soda. Even worse, the script calls for her to swing from drunk to sober on a dime, again and again. Nit-picking isn’t my forte but even I know you can’t get a clear head without at least a couple gallons of water and a 2lb burrito.

The MVP of the cast, in fact, turns out to be its principal supporting player, John Larroquette. He plays David Bedford, a lawyer and Nadia’s former beau, still fancying himself her primo suitor, showing up an early scene, as nice as can be, before quickly devolving, threatening Walter, punching out anyone’s lights who gets in his way, ably embodying the sort of crazy we might have expected from Nadia. Throwing himself into each gag with abandon, a White Knight whose chivalry is communicated exclusively in hysteria, Larroquette comes across like the true spirit animal to Blake Edwards. The absolute best involves his stalking in the new happy/unhappy couple by automobile, turning up like it’s “Duel”, and then repeatedly crashing through storefront windows. He’ll do whatever it takes for the joke. This is a man with the mania required of a screwball comedy.

For a good awhile it appears “Blind Date” might be going the all-in-one-night route, like a more classically inclined “After Hours.” It runs out of steam, though, and tosses Walter in jail and saving his skin requires representation from David which requires Nadia to say yes to David’s marriage proposal. So a third act of Walter running in to break up a wedding ensues which is done professionally enough but without any real hectic glee as Larroquette is required to tone down his antics so Willis can take center stage. Alas. Larroquette’s character may not have deserved the heroine, but he deserved a better end than to stand aside and watch the movie pass him by.

Friday's Old Fashioned Flashes Back to the Eighties

It's everyone's favorite time of year! By which I mean, it's my least favorite time of year. By which I mean, the dog days of summer (ugh) combine with the countdown to my dreaded another-year-has-passed-and-I-have-done-nothing-with-my-life-and-it's-all-meaningless birthday at the dawn of September. And so I find myself, as I do every year at this time, nostalgically and cinematically returning to the decade of my youth – The 80’s. Which is why this year once again Cinema Romantico’s “famed” Friday’s Old Fashioned column - the only classic film column on the internet named after bourbon, bitters, sugar, orange, and maraschino cherry - is going straight 80’s for the next month (with a bonus July 31st edition). Hawks gets traded in for Hughes. Jean Harlow takes a momentary respite to allow face time for Jean(ie) Bueller. Harold Lloyd cedes the stage to Lloyd Dobler.

Four of the five films this year are new to me, though I must stress, as always, the selections are not, shall we say, “quintessential”. Either way, I hope you don’t hold it against me. So strike up the Taylor Dayne, crack a Capri Sun and climb into my blogging DeLorean.

Friday's Old Fashioned Flashes Back To The Eighties

It's everyone's favorite time of year! By which I mean, it's my least favorite time of year. By which I mean, the dog days of August (ugh) combine with the countdown to my dreaded another-year-has-passed-and-I-have-done-nothing-with-my-life-and-it's-all-meaningless birthday at the dawn of September. And so I find myself, as I do every year at this time, nostalgically and cinematically returning to the decade of my youth – The 80’s. Which is why this year once again Cinema Romantico’s “famed” Friday’s Old Fashioned column - the only classic film column on the internet named after bourbon, bitters, sugar, orange, and maraschino cherry - is going straight 80’s. Hawks gets traded in for Hughes. Jean Harlow takes a momentary respite to allow face time for Jean(ie) Bueller. Harold Lloyd cedes the stage to Lloyd Dobler.

Four of the five films this coming month are new to me and one was a re-watch spurred by an episode of the Matineecast that involved “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, though that's the only clue you're getting. And of course, I must stress the selections are not always, shall we say, “quintessential”. Either way, I hope you don’t hold it against me. So strike up the New Order, crack a Capri Sun and climb into my blogging DeLorean.

Friday's Old Fashioned Flashes Back To The 80's

So, it approaches – that is, my birthday. My dreaded, “wait-it-was-just-last-year-and-now-it’s-this-year?-HOW-IS-THIS-HAPPENING???!!!” birthday. Yet, as much as I dread it, it causes my already severe nostalgia problem to kick into an even higher gear. And so as it looms just beyond the reach of god-awful August, I find myself returning cinematically to the decade of my youth – The 80’s.

Which is why this year once again Cinema Romantico’s “famed” Friday’s Old Fashioned column - the only classic film column on the internet named after bourbon, bitters, sugar, orange, and maraschino cherry - is going straight 80’s. Hawks gets traded in for Hughes. Jean Harlow gets traded in for Jean(ie) Bueller.

The five films this month are all new to me but, I must stress, the selections may not entirely be, shall we say, “quintessential”. A few of them you might expect, but a couple of them you might not. Either way, I hope you don’t hold it against me. So strike up the Sheena Easton, crack a Capri Sun and climb into my blogging DeLorean.

Cocktail (Flashback to the 80's, Part 3)

Skewered by critics but a smash at the box office in 1988, a more "innocent" time when no one knew Kokomo was just a city in Indiana, "Cocktail" was a melding of the sweet class warfare romances of the 40's and 50's with the "greed is good" mantra of the 80's. But mostly it was a star vehicle for Tom Cruise.

Cruise, his crazy laugh already honed, is Brian Flanagan, fresh out of the army, an optimist armed with How To Be A Success books in place of the Bible, who hops a bus back home to Queens where he stares longingly across the fragrant water at hopeful Manhattan where he goes in an attempt to find a job - appearing as if he is auditioning for his future role as a hitman in "Collateral" - to make him millions only to discover - much like Michael J. Fox in "Secret of My Success" - no experience means no employment. He earns a job as a bartender with Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), wielding cynical platitudes ("Anything else is always something better") like martini olives, as mentor and young Flanagan flourishes, developing into the most skilled bartender in the five boroughs, a bartender who famously can take nearly three minutes to make one strawberry daiquiri while shimmying to The Georgia Satellites (whose name I was stunned to find nowhere during my April visit to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame). Inevitably a woman (a young Gina Gershon, who I had completely forgotten was in this movie) comes between the men, leading to a brawl, leading to Brian flying down Jamaica way and tending bar beachside and finding himself in the midst of a Meet Cute with sultry Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) at the exact same moment Doug makes his requisite return with a rich femme fatale (Kelly Lynch) on his arm for the purposes of fronting the funds for his dream bar back in NYC.

Post Falling-In-Love-With-Jordan Montage is when Doug bets Brian that he cannot and/or will not seduce a rich matron at the bar and if there is anything I recall about my first time seeing this R-rated flick as a PG kid was thinking as this bet unfolded "No, Tom Cruise! Why would you smite Elisabeth Shue for this floozy?! WHY?!" And 22 years later as I watched all I could think was "No, Tom Cruise! Why would you smite Elisabeth Shue for this floozy?! WHY?!"


And 22 years later Tom Cruise still smited Elisabeth Shue for that floozy and, of course, Elisabeth Shue finds about it and, of course, Tom Cruise winds up back in New York at which point "Cocktail" morphs into "West Side Story", kind of, as Tom Cruise tries to re-win the heart of Elisabeth Shue only to come up against her rich, unforgiving father all of which leads to the movie's most immortal line:

"When a guy lays down a dare you gotta take it."

That you do, Tom Cruise. That you do. And then all ends well - well, except for the fact that Doug Coughlin takes his own life in the wake of his get-rich-quick ruse going up in proverbial flames and Jordan is apparently never going to see her family again upon choosing to go with Brian and the audience is pretty sure Flanagan's bar is eventually going to go belly up when considering the film's final "twist" but this reviewer, quite frankly, doesn't seem to see what any of that has to do with anything especially in the face of this week's Long Distance Request And Dedication - which comes from 11 year old Nicholas Prigge in Waukee, Iowa in August of 1988. He writes:

"Dear Future Nick, This afternoon I did a terrible thing. I snuck into an R rated movie. My mom was shopping and she dropped me off at the Southridge 3. I bought a ticket for 'Caddyshack II' but right across the hall was a movie called 'Cocktail' starring Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue. He was Maverick. She was Chris Parker. I wanted to see this movie and I didn't really want to see 'Caddyshack II.' I had never successfully snuck into an R rated movie. I was always ejected by a humorless usher or thwarted by a stern cashier. But this time I streaked inside the theater, scurried to the second row and sunk as low as I could in my seat while still being able to see the screen. Thankfully the lax security at the Southridge 3 pales in comparison to theaters on the west side of Des Moines. If an usher ever came in, I never saw him. I have to be honest, Future Nick, I felt a little guilty. I had scammed the system, much like 'Cocktail's' Doug Coughlin, and his scamming of the system had caused him to put a bullet in his brain. What would my parents do if they found out? But I have to tell you, Future Nick, the reward was worth the risk. You see....I think I have a crush on Elisabeth Shue.

It's the eighties, Future Nick, and I don't know how well you remember this era. It's a time of leg warmers and headbands and acid wash jeans and girls with poofy hair. Even this Kylie Minogue girl who some guy in a DeLorean told me is wicked hot out there in the future is kinda just so-so. But Elisabeth Shue is grace. She's understatement. She and she alone redeems poofy hair. And when she was swimming around in that waterfall, Future Nick, well it was quite the sight for clueless eyes. Immediately afterwards I purchased the 'Cocktail' Soundtrack on cassette except there was a problem....it didn't have 'Shelter Of Your Love,' the song playing while she frollicked under that cataract of beaming liquid. Would you please play 'Shelter Of Your Love' by Jimmy Cliff and let Elisabeth Shue know that if she ever gets nominated for an Oscar for playing, oh, let's say, a prostitute in Vegas, that she should win and if she doesn't I will harbor unfair resentment toward the winner for the rest of my life. Sincerely, Eleven Year Old Nick."

Recorded in 1981 and featured on Jimmy Cliff's album Give The People What They Want, we are now going to give Eleven Year Old Nick what he wants. Long Live The 80's.

Big (Flashback To The 80's, Part 2)

Josh Baskin is a 13 year old kid who, through the conventional reasons of fate, has become trapped inside a 30 year old man's body. He is riding in the back of a sleek limousine with Susan, his co-worker at a children's toy conglomerate, and she is talking, pseudo-profoundly, and he is checking out all the gee-whiz neatness of the back of this limo and he lifts himself up through the sun roof to drink in the night air and she says "Can't you see I'm vulnerable?" and he pulls himself back in and says "You should try it" and then together they lift themselves up through the sun roof and it's this spectacular moment that crystalizes the eternal struggle we face every day between youth and age.

Upon its release in 1988 Penny Marshall's poignant, high concept comedy generally earned raves both for itself and for its lead performance from then up and comer named Tom Hanks, and both, upon 22 year retrospect, were well deserved. The script was by Gary Ross (co-written with Ann Spielberg) and though Ross does not work often he is a master craftsman of grounding high concept ideas. (See Also: "Dave," "Pleasantville".) The pace is quick, presenting the audience exactly what it needs to know and not a thing more to open with the young Josh and then briskly whisks us to an adult world by having him, upon being unable to board a rollercoaster because he's not (ahem) big enough at a carnival right in front of a girl he kinda digs, proffer a wish to a suitably creepy "Zoltar" machine that he be "big." Wish granted.

He wakes up to his 30 year old face. He tries to explain to his mother who thinks this 30 year old man has kidnapped her 13 year old son. He flees. He tracks down his best friend Billy (Jared Rushton) who believes 30 year old Josh when he explains (this is what best friends are for) as they find a seedy motel in the '88 version of Times Square and determine to somehow find the nearest "Zoltar" machine so he can make a wish to once again be small.

He takes a job as a data processor at that aforementioned children's toy conglomerate run by MacMillan (Robert Loggia) with the requisite Workaholic Underlings, Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) and the, of course, dastardly Paul (John Heard), who doubles as the character suspicious of Josh from the get-go and at every turn since upon Josh's run in with MacMillan at a toy store leads to the two men playing a giant piano - a scene which time has not sullied, which still works with the utmost grace and breathlessness, which still tugs terrifically on the heartstrings - which leads to Josh earning a convenient promotion to Vice President Of Product Development which infuriates Paul and intrigues Susan.


The future two time Oscar winner for Best Actor is so frickin' convincing as a man playing child you hardly even notice (and is why when Susan arrives at Josh's place to, uh, "sleep over" you actually feel a little weirded out.) In that motel he is just like any kid who is out there in the scary World all alone for the first time. He shows up at a company party in an outrageous white tux but his wide eyed innocence is so powerful it deflects any mockery, just like any kid who unwittingly charms a group of jaded adults. And, of course, that is the primary intention of "Big", above all else.

Josh shows these stuffies in the midst of their go-go corporate takeover lifestyle how to kick back, loosen up and just, you know, experience it all. Enough with the vulnerability! Stick your head out this sun roof, why don't you?! Ah, but simultaneously Josh is afflicted with adulthood, too much work, no play, stress, ignoring the people you really love. "Big" is sweet, yes, but it's also bittersweet, especially when re-viewed through the prism of time.

When we are young we want to be old. When we are old we want to be young. Life, she's fickle that way (and a bit of a rancourous bitch). Josh's voyage across the Brooklyn Bridge and into the enclosed vastness of Manhattan is full of the larger than life wonder any 13 year old would feel. Eating ice cream sundaes for lunch, watching "The French Connection" with no one to tell you to turn it off, putting a trampoline in your house, playing with toys all day. But then there are harsh lessons to be learned. You can't wear a Giants sweatshirt every day, you gotta put on a suit. Phone calls with clients supercede pals. "Just joined the rat race. Just chasing the cheese. Racing the rats. Trying to get the cheese." So it goes. But not letting go of that childlike splendor of life is such a critical thing. And a difficult thing. We can't all just go to the "Zoltar" and ask to be small again, can we?

Back To School (Flashback To The 80's, Part 1)

Rodney Dangerfield was a little like Will Ferrell, wasn't he? You hired him and you knew pretty much straight away what you were getting. The aw-shucks delivery. The halting gait. The incessant one liners. Goodness, the incessant one liners. The story for "Back To School" is credited to three people (including Dangerfield) and the screenplay is credited to four writers but most every line spoken by anyone feels like a set-up for a Dangerfield one-liner. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Consider the initial scene with Dangerfield, playing Thornton Melon, a self-made millionaire of big and tall clothing, filming a commercial for his business, a commercial which consists entirely of one-liners. It establishes the character and lets him be who he is. Unfortunately, despite his success in business Thornton's second wife (80's vixen Adrienne Barbeau) is up to no good and, thus, in the face of divorce he takes his limousine and lights out for Grand Lakes College where his son Jason (Keith Gordon) is in a fraternity and on the diving team. Well....not quite. It seems Jason was lying about that. He is not in a frat and he is the towel boy for the diving team. He pines for lovely Valerie (Terry Farrell) but she is with his ne'er-do-well diving rival Chas (William Zabka, the go-to 80's movie bully). He only has one friend, Derek Lutz, a Billy Idol-channeling Robert Downey Jr.

Jason is thinking about dropping out but Thornton, despite not having received a university diploma himself, councils that if someone doesn't attend and finish college they're nothin'. (This nugget of wisdom apparently means people like, say, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Lucinda Williams, Clint Eastwood, and Hollywood's current best screenwriter Tony Gilroy are nothin' but, you know, never mind.) Jason points out his dad never finished college at which point Thornton decides to enroll and bam! We've got our title!

Thornton will bribe Ned Beatty's Dean Martin (ha! ha!) to get in and butt heads with the smarmy professor Philip Barbay (Paxton Whithead, whose own name is better than his character's) who is "going with" English Professor Diane Turner (Sally Kellerman) who in no time will blossom into Thornton's love interest and in the penultimate scene he is called upon to perform an "impossible" dive called The Triple Lindy that all us pre-teens in the 80's acted out using couch cushions afterwards. He will teach his son to be a man and his son will teach him to grow up and take responsibility for himself. In fact, the relationship here between Thornton and Jason, amidst some suspect material, is actually quite graceful. The son is not trying to act out against his father and the father is not trying to browbeat his son. They clearly just want the best for one another.

Keith Gordon never did much acting after "Back To School", turning instead to directing which he has only done sporadically, though with honorable intentions - "A Midnight Clear" (1992), "The Singing Detective" (2003, re-teaming him years later with Downey Jr.) and "Waking The Dead" (2000), an underseen Billy Crudup/Jennifer Connelly ghost story that is flawed but genuine. I liked Gordon in this. He has a certain loopy charm and was not lifted from the same cookie cutter as so many other 80's actors. In fact, as the love interest Farrell is taller than Gordon but rather than resort to having Gordon stand on a box - a la Tom Cruise & Kelly McGillis in "Top Gun" - they just let the height discrepancy be. Refreshing.

The best moment in the film belongs to Sam Kinison as an unhinged history professor and the film's most curious moment is a "Twist and Shout" sing-along which I was ready to decry as a "Ferris Bueller" rip-off until I realized that, according to IMDB, "Back To School" was officially released a whole 2 days after "Ferris Bueller". Were "Twist and Shout" sing-alongs all the rage back in the 80's and I have forgotten?

Of course the critical question is what modern day viewers might glean from 1986's #6 film at the box office? Is there any unique insight into this long ago decade? Consider, perhaps, the sequence in which Thornton wants the colossal university hall hosting class sign-ups cleared so he can get the courses he wants when he wants and so his driver (Burt Young, not looking all that different from his recent "Rocky Balboa" appearance) retreats to the limo and holds aloft a sign with the name of the most famous celebrity possible to draw every student away from the sign-up and easily succeeds. The celebrity's name? Bruce Springsteen. That's right, kids, there once was a time when The Boss could send every 18-22 year old in a 50 mile radius into a frenzy. No, really, I'm not lying. He could. I said, he could, damn it! Why don't you believe me?! God, I'm old.

Flashback To The 80's

"If you want the good old days just put on a jean jacket and crank Cyndi Lauper." - Author Unknown

That's right, loyal readers, for the next three days Cinema Romantico is steeping itself in nostalgia, time traveling to the era of my youth. We're going aaaaaaaaaaaaall the way back to the decade when Tommy worked on the docks (before the union went on strike, of course), Will Smith was The Fresh Prince, Jerry Brown and George Deukmejian governed California because Schwarzenegger was too busy blowing things up, basketball players still wore shorts like this and we all thought "ALF" was hilarious (until we watched it 15 years later and said, "Oh, sweet Jesus, this is terrible").

(You're damn right, they are.)

Three days. Three stars. Three "cornerstone" films of 80's cinema. It'll be a little bit wistful, a little bit terrifying. So settle in and grab yourself a Capri Sun six pack. This trip down memory lane could get intense and so I'm warning you now. Okay? Are we cowabunga on this? And for anyone who might not grasp the critical differences between Whitesnake and White Lion and think these movies have no place in the modern world, well, you may be right. But know this....you weren't there.