Scott Sanders Salutes The Forgotten 80s!

Founder and Editor; Toronto, Canada (@AnarchistTodd)
Scott Sanders Salutes The Forgotten 80s!

[For this edition of the ScreenAnarchy Video Salutes we welcome special guest saluter Scott Sanders, director of the upcoming blaxploitation throwback film Black Dynamite, with a look at forgotten 'gems' from the 80's.]

So these are forgotten 80s movies, ones that I have some sort of emotional attachment too, regardless of the fact that they are all pretty bad. My interest in these films are purely nostalgic. I don't think I could watch any of these all the way through but that's what trailers are for ... you can pop in and visit the movie and leave before the film wears out it's welcome. I'm not going to watch any of these again, my descriptions will be based on memories from 20 years ago and the trailers. So I could get these all wrong.

Here are my top 5 forgotten 80s movies.

5. Under The Cherry Moon.
This is film is a wonderful mess. Gorgeous, indulgent, and pretty much unwatchable. Prince follows "Purple Rain" with this thing, bringing Jerome along with him, and tormenting a young Kristen Scott Thomas. Spoiler Alert... I think Prince ends up dead at the end of this. Black and white melodrama. The big thing that came out of this movie is "Kiss," which over the years has become Prince's most successful song.

4. Porky's Revenge.
The third of the Porky flicks. I think these movies are underrated, these were solidly made juvenile R rated comedies with boobs and stuff. The first one had a hot naked Kim Cattrall screaming like a dog while having sex, which was a huge deal for me when I was twelve. I think I remember this had more Porky in it, the big fat dude who owned the whore house riverboat casino or whatever. I loved the actor who played Porky. I think he died right after this.

3. Vision Quest
A high school 80s wrestling flick with Matthew Modine. I was on the wrestling team back then so this got me pumped up to wrestle through song and montage. That's the thing about 80s movies, they can actually get you pumped up by telling you're awesome through inspirational musical montage. The song that gets you pumped in this movie is "Gambler" by Madonna. She sings it in a bar... and the sexy chick from Sex, Lies, and Videotape who's not Andie McDowell is in it. Madonna also does "Crazy For You" in this, but that didn't pump me up to wrestle.

2. Mannequin.
Good Lord, this movie is awful... and I saw this crap in the theater, which probably says more about me in the mid-80s then it does this flick. Andrew McCarthy falls in love with magical mannequin Kim Cattrall. She becomes a real person, then a mannequin, then back again. She and Andrew ride motorcycles together, Meshach Taylor from Designing Women is in there playing the gay, and then they actually made another one of these, Mannequin 2. All I remember is that this is really 80s.

And the top forgotten 80s flick...

1. Joysticks
This movie should be in the Smithsonian... this is as cartoonishly 80s as you can get. This film belongs in a time capsule, shot to other planets for alien beings to observe. Written on the side of the VHS it should say "USA, 1980s" on it. I wanted Black Dynamite to be as 1970s as this film was 1980s. This is one of those rare movies, like Dolemite, that is so consistently horrible in a unique and interesting way, that it is actually maybe watchable all the way through.


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