1985 was the WORST Year for Movies - Part Three

Oh, I get it; you thought I'd run out of examples to prove one particular year was the utter cesspool of film history.

Nope.

1985 is enough to make one's eyes water in terms of suckitude. The scales are tipped heavily in suck's favor, in fact, when you consider that you can't even start the following sentence without feeling your eyes twinge up:

"You know, I remember seeing quite a few movies from 1985...."

Sorry, I just felt my entire face seize up on looking at that sentence.

I won't keep you too long with the set-up on this next installment. Just know that you are about to embark on the third travel through Hell's backdoor and into its basement around where Hell's dirty, rusted-out water heater is and look into the soggy, weathered cardboard box held together with duct tape, and see what's waiting within. And no surprise that it's more movies like these (and all in random order)....

THE BRIDE

Just what the world needed: another retelling of The Bride of Frankenstein, but only cast it with Sting and Jennifer Beals, to guarantee that there will be no chemistry at all involved between the leads. Then make the monster (Clancy Brown) a minor character, then don't forget to make the only interesting person in the thing a midget (David Rappaport) in a traveling circus. Perfect. I'll bet a lot of drugs went into this script, and not fun ones either.






TEEN WOLF

See? Michael J. Fox was in TWO movies this year. It's not his fault that he's best-remembered for traveling time in a DeLorean than growing fur and fangs. I thought it was funny that, as this was first released, the producers wouldn't show Fox in his full werewolf rigging, just to make it more enticing to Joe and Jane Yokel to trot on over to the multiplex. Wrong. We all have skeletons in our closets, I guess - looks like Michael J. Fox's is all hairy.





THE AVIATOR

Forget believing a man can fly: after seeing this you will believe turkeys can plummet. Christopher Reeve was never this bland before or since, not even in Somewhere in Time. And Rosanna Arquette's performance will make you think less of Toto's "Rosanna" than it will Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back". And it was directed by George Miller. No, not the Mad Max one...The Man from Snowy River one. Maybe that was the biggest problem.






THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN

From Supergirl to this? No wonder Helen Slater's barely treading Hollywood's radar to this day. A vigilante story about a vandalized scooter doesn't strike me (or the rest of the world, apparently) as an important social statement. And media manipulation, Christian Slater, Keith Gordon and a peppy Pat Benatar song help stretch this fluff to feature length, but why? This would be a reach as a 30-minute TV pilot.






FRATERNITY VACATION

You want to know what the only things are I can remember for sure about this one? It was one of about 180,000 stupid sex comedies that came out in the span of time between 1983 to 1985, had Tim Robbins in it and also featured that skinny guy that became a vampire in Fright Night and is now a gay porn star. Yeah, that guy. And that's about all that distinguishes this thing. Oh, and also it was directed by the guy who directed The Muppet Movie. Yeah.






THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE

A state-side remake of a French comedy almost never works (save for Three Men and a Baby) because they lose something in translation, apparently - but the concept bombs bigger than Hiroshima this time because, despite a big comedy cast, Tom Hanks just never gets to be funny, Lori Singer is in complete blah mode, Dabney Coleman plays his umpteenth variation on himself and the story is just waaaaay too busy. Jim Belushi tries hard but even his extreme buffoonery can't save things. So, boo to the Shoe.





CERTAIN FURY

Irene Cara doesn't sing in this one. Nor does Tatum O'Neal ride a horse or interact with dad Ryan. Instead, they play the feminist Defiant Ones card as wrongfully-accused women on the run in the big bad city. I recall this one touting the fact that it contained two "Oscar-winning" actresses as stars, completely ignoring that those awards were won for singing a song and when you were just a child, respectively. Is it me or do these movies always seem to come out at the very beginning or very end of each year?




KING DAVID

Richard Gere as a Biblical figure. That was the big selling point for this story of the slayer of Goliath and later king of Israel. Was there really a need to try and sex up an Old Testament story? Otherwise, they made this boring and flat and more like something you had to sit through in Sunday School. At least Edward Woodward bothered to act, but to what end?







RETURN TO OZ

This just is not the way to follow up a classic film - it isn't done in the same visual style, it doesn't have the same level of acting, it hasn't got ONE SONG in the whole thing, and it's more likely to provoke nightmares than wonder. Fairuza Balk plays it more like Indiana Jones than Judy Garland, and she's acting alongside special effects 75% of the time. Running through some poppies would probably have helped the situation.






MARIE

Sissy Spacek playing a woman fighting against government bureaucracy. The idea sure isn't new, and nothing is done any differently than any other variation on the theme you've seen before. Boring and talky, and all you're watching is something for consideration by the Oscar committee. And it shows, right down to the casting of at-the-time congressman Fred Dalton Thompson. Too bad it wasn't for something that made you want to watch.



Sorry to put you through that, but think of how hard it is for me to have to sift through this junk.

...AND I'M NOT FREAKIN' DONE YET!!!

Next time up, another visit from Steve Guttenberg, a dramatic reading from Michael Caine and proof that even Glenn Close bombs out once in a while...maybe twice in a while, even.

Dope out.

- TGWD