Gorgeous set and production design can’t save a film with a number of top drawer stars (Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, and Harvey Keitel) thanks to a heavily edited final cut, and flawed story. Not to mention some miniature and model work that may have worked in the 50s but looks incredibly bad in the 80s,…
Tag: 1980
Battlestar Galactica 5: Galactica Discovers Earth (1980) – Micheal Resnick and Glen A. Larson
The Battlestar Galactica jumps forward a ways, passing over a number of episodes (that will be visited in later books) to give us an adaptation of the three hour series opener for the ill-fated, Galactica 1980, which just didn’t have the oomph, mythos, production value or stories of the original, equally ill-fated, series, though it…
Battlestar Galactica 4: The Young Warriors (1980) – Robert Thurston and Glen A. Larson
Robert Thurston delivers a full length novel based on a single episode of Battlestar Galactica. His previous novels had encompassed double episodes, but despite that, Thurston delivers a strong story, that takes the episode The Young Lords, and layers out and tells almost a completely different story, while still giving us the same basic tale….
Caddyshack (1980) – Harold Ramis
Caddyshack remains one of those comedies that just stays with you. And it has stayed with me since I first saw it as a teenager in the 80s, Bill Murray and his nemesis, the gopher puppet delighted me to no end, while Chevy Chase’s zen-like and self-confident (verging on the arrogant) golf player Ty, exuded…
Popeye (1980) – Blu-Ray Review
Coming home on blu-ray from Paramount Pictures for the first time is the Robin Williams film, Popeye. This one is a bit of an odd creature, it looks gorgeous, has a fantastic cast, beautifully crafted sets, but a few things that make you raise your eyebrows. For instance, something based on a comic book, and…
The Blues Brothers (1980) – John Landis
Director John Landis teams up with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in a road movie with tunes, laughs, and style. This was the movie, that I discovered in the late 80s, that introduced me to soul music, and I loved it. Featuring a who’s who of musical legends like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Cab…
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – Donald F. Glut
After Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, we were treated to two more novels, Han Solo at Star’s End, and Han Solo’s Revenge both written by Brian Daley. Both novels debuted in 1979, and I read them last year on vacation. And my sister I both owned one, I had Star’s End, she had Revenge. But…
Urban Cowboy (1980) 40th Anniversary Edition – Blu-Ray Review
John Travolta was a hot commodity in the late 70s, and early 80s. He had a hit sitcom in Welcome Back, Kotter, had starred in two box office hits, Grease, and Saturday Night Fever, and he and director James Bridges sought to personalise the story of the modern cowboy with Urban Cowboy which sees its…
Humanoids From The Deep (1980)- Barbara Peeters
A creature feature is the next title that I dive into for DK Canada’s Monsters in the Movies book. I remember seeing this poster when I was growing up, and was intrigued and troubled by it. And being anxious about horror films at that age, I definitely didn’t get around to seeing it for a…
Shogun (1980) – Disc 4
We come to the conclusion of James Clavell’s epic Japanese tale this week (it was definitely quicker to get through the miniseries than the novel – course I was fourteen at the time) as I delve into the fourth disc of the DVD set which has the fifth and final episode. Adapted by Eric Bercovici,…
The Mind Reels 