Brats (2024)

Being a child of the '80s, I found myself really invested in this documentary. It's a fly on the wall journey, following actor Andrew McCarthy attempting to reunite with his old colleagues after thirty-some years. It opens up about their uncomfortable relationship with the term "brat pack" (coined in 1985 as a play on "rat pack") which stigmatized many of their careers (although Rob Lowe and Demi Moore escaped relatively unscathed). As an outsider who missed that phenomenon by a few years, I never looked down on the brat pack label. In fact, I purposely sought out all of those films. And after having watched this, I want to go back and see them all again. The 1980s are like comfort food to me. I kind of wish it had been a reunion for all of them, rather than just Andrew's story, but there is some catharsis in following that personal journey. Sad that Molly Ringwald declined and Judd Nelson didn't end up being a part of it, since he seemed to be the one who was most affected by it in older interviews.

3 scathing articles out of 5

Jaws 3-D (1983)

Anaglyph 3D was all the rage in the 1950s and had a brief resurgence in the '80s with some memorable titles like Friday the 13th 3D and Amityville 3-D, which always suggested a better time than it was actually able to deliver. 

In a complete departure from the first two films, it focuses on Brody's kids, who now work at a SeaWorld marine park, where a great white makes its way in through the gates and terrorizes the parkgoers. There is approximately one scene in this movie that remains completely memorable (and makes cheesy use of its 3D novelty), but the rest is pretty hokey and can safely be skipped when going through a rewatch of the series.

1 underwater tunnel out of 5

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)

I hadn't seen SKoW before, but it felt very familiar. It turns out it's a retelling of Pretty in Pink (1986) with some gender roles reversed. (Thanks, Wiki.).
In this version the love-struck youth is Keith (Eric Stoltz), an eighteen-year-old working class student who falls for Amanda (Lea Thompson), a high-schooler with a self-important attitude that's encouraged by her middle class friends.
It wears its 80s heart on its sleeve, but has weak leads and a final third that's some kind of boring. The only memorable youths were Keith's tomboy friend Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), who resides on the sidelines, overlooked and underappreciated, and the bullying skinhead played by Elias Koteas.

2½ drumsticks out of 5

HOWARD THE DUCK [1986]

The big-screen adaptation of Marvel's Howard The Duck was Willard Huyck's last directing credit to date and with good reason: it's as bad as everyone says it is.
It tells the same old story of an alien duck who's dragged kicking and screaming from his home-world and into ours where he learns of our planet's good and bad attributes.
With a better script it might have been a hokey but hilarious study of our people but instead it attempts to make us laugh with horrible one-liners and very little substance.  With it's mildly adult jokes (and duck tits) it's clearly not for children but the film is so inane it can't possibly be for anybody older than 12 either.  Executive producer George Lucas said it'll probably be more appreciated in the future but this is coming from the guy who brought us Red Tails, Strange Magic and the midichlorians.

1 Cajun Sushi joint out of 5

BACK IN TIME [2015]

It might not be essential viewing but director Jon Aron's Back to the Future documentary, Back in Time, comes out during it's 30 year anniversary making it a no-brainer must-see for fans of the time-travelling trilogy.
Covering the production of the film, it's obsessed fans and the cultural impact the series made, the film manages to explore quite a bit in it's hour and a half running time.  There were a few moments that had me wondering why it was in the film but for the most part, as a fan, it's a wonderful companion to the series that wipes the bad taste of that nasty Kirk Cameron-hosted BTTF doc that came out so many years ago.

3 Skytrains for the Doc out of 5

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II [1989]

Picks up exactly where Part 1 left off with Doc whisking Marty off onto another adventure with new settings and some that overlap with scenes of the first film (It is time travel after all). The overlap might confuse stupid people, but I think it was handled very well. The often cheesy far future scenes are some of the most recognizable in cinema and there is some editing that must have been a technical pain before digital. Despite that, I find this installment less charming than part 1, but it still gains points for being part of a classic trilogy and the technical aspects.

4 Fuck cancer cure. Where is my hoverboard, Science? out of 5

Nutted by IMPUDENT URINAL