 | Pump up the Volume
Buy new: $5.79 / Used from: $0.97 This is the 'transition' film, from 1990. It actually has issues it's grappling with, so I can't make too much fun of it, but it's still a good time with high school kids in mullets trying to take on 'the man.' Plus, Samantha Mathis gets her kit off in defiance of 'the man.' It's all about 'the man' in this one.
|
 | Campus Man
Buy used from: $1.95 This movie is TERRIBLE. Featuring Morgan Fairchild (!!!) and that guy from 'Touched by an Angel', sporting the requisite mullet, it has plenty of montages, pale pastel-and-grey fashions, a twist at the climax and rad soundtrack music from horrible 80s bands.
|
 | Pretty in Pink (Everything's Duckie Edition)
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $3.85 This is not a terrible movie. It is an AWESOME movie. I dare anybody to contradict me. It is so awesome that it has inspired a legion of imitators and has entered the lexicon with its scenes involving prom, Molly Ringwald making her own clothes and James Spader being evil (surprise, surprise).
|
 | One Crazy Summer
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $4.01 This is one of about 600 oddball movies John Cusack made in the 80s involving animated hamburgers and wacky characters. 'One Crazy Summer' has classic scenes involving Godzilla costumes, white-girl dreadlocks, awesome lip-synching and the crowning glory, winning the boat race to save Grandpa's farm.
|
 | Making the Grade
Buy new: $13.49 / Used from: $1.73 This movie is so terrible it almost didn't make it on the list, but I have a soft spot for Judd Nelson. It's virtually nonsensical, but encapsulates 80s style as well as any of 'em. Also, somehow Andrew Dice Clay was in 75% of all 80s movies. How did he swing that?
|
 | Zapped!
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $6.92 I'm only putting 'Zapped!' on here, but if you are really serious about your bad 80s movies, try the sequel, 'Zapped Again!' as well. You might want to be drunk or high when you watch it, though. Scott Baio and Willie Aames, people. In high school. With terrible effects.
|
 | Just One of the Guys
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $4.46 Okay, this is a serious 80s movie. For aficionados of the genre, this is up there with the John Hughes and Joel Schumachers. Girl dressed up as a guy, ripping her shirt open to show her boobs? Check. Rad outfits? Check. Guy from 'The Karate Kid' as the school bully? Check. Awesome nerds wearing protractors as Star Trek uniform labels? (That's pretty clever costuming, BTW) Check.
|
 | Teen Witch
Buy new: $11.99 / Used from: $9.19 This movie is no joke. A recent resurgence of the rapping scene on YouTube has reminded people how totally rad this movie was. Somebody's already turned it into a musical, but you can buy this DVD and sing along yourself.
|
 | St. Elmo's Fire
Buy new: $12.49 / Used from: $3.52 This is a beautiful, touching, powerful movie. Will Andrew McCarthy ever get it on with Ally Sheedy, while she only wears her pearls? Will Rob Lowe wear a bandana while playing his saxophone? And will Judd Nelson's nostrils flare while he yells at Demi Moore? You have to wait and see.
|
 | Real Genius
Buy new: $8.49 / Used from: $4.12 This is a bizarre one for the list. It was obviously written by some super-smart people, because it involves physics and lasers and stuff, and it takes place at a fictionalized CalTech. But it's worth it because it also has bikini-clad girls at a pool party AND Val Kilmer, back in the 'I'm handsome, wacky and talented' days. It also has several endless montages where people study. Mesmerizing.
|
 | Weird Science (Flashback Edition)
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $7.99 John Hughes apparently wrote this film in two days, and it shows. Featuring a coked-out Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Paxton in a rubber monster suit, this movie is worth every penny you'll send to Amazon to order it.
|
 | Some Kind of Wonderful (Special Collector's Edition)
Buy new: $9.49 / Used from: $6.99 This movie totally has delusions of grandeur. It THOUGHT it was going to be affecting like 'The Breakfast Club,' but it was actually just another crap 80s movie where misunderstood characters 'get it together' and end up with the right girl.
|
Listmania!
