I was just turning 15 when Risky Business—the movie that launched Tom Cruise’s acting career—hit the theaters in August 1983. I was too young to get into an R-rated movie without an adult; and this wasn’t a film that either of my parents would have been interested in seeing with me.
I neglected to see Risky Business for more than 40 years, partly because I was put off by the much-played clip of Tom Cruise dancing in his underwear. Call me homophobic if you’d like; but that isn’t the way to get me to see a movie. And there were just so many other movies to see.
I finally got around to watching Risky Business a few days ago. (Better late than never!) The movie was quite well done for a film that was originally conceived as a throwaway flick for Reagan-era young adults. (Moreover, despite the ubiquity of that clip with Tom Cruise in his underwear, that scene is a minuscule portion of the 95-minute movie.) Continue reading “‘Risky Business’: an entertaining film that would never get made today”
I have been watching some old movies from the 1980s recently. Some have been movies that I saw, but have long since forgotten. Others are iconic films of that era that I never got around to seeing when they were current.
For example, I recently wrote a post about Mystic Pizza (1988). Last night I watched Risky Business (1983). I will have a post about Risky Business soon.
A scene from Mystic Pizza (1988)
One thing I’ve noticed is that many films created in 1980-something as disposable teen comedies were actually pretty good. In 1985, did anyone imagine that people in 2025 would still be talking about The Breakfast Club? Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) has been recognized by the American Film Institute for its merits.
Another thing I’ve noticed is the diversity in movies from that bygone era. In 1985, an original movie, properly executed, could make a lot of people rich. But the economics of the 21st-century box office encourage conservatism and a tiresome emphasis on franchise films. Continue reading “The comparative joys of old (1980s) movies”
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, that quintessential teen movie of the first half of the 1980s, hit the theaters 43 years ago today, on August 13, 1982.
On that date I had just turned fourteen. I did not see Fast Times in the cinema. (I could not even drive yet.) I did catch the movie a few months later, on cable. By that time, it had become a must-see movie for anyone among the teenage set.
I liked the movie then, and not just because of the iconic scene in which Phoebe Cates emerges from the pool. Even at that age, I could tell that Fast Times at Ridgemont High was a thoughtful teen movie, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
The movie does contain explicit sex scenes, especially by today’s less tolerant cinematic standards. Fast Times originally received an X rating. The film was reedited to receive an R rating. Primarily because of the sex, all of the “teens” in this film were already adult actors by the time production began. (Jennifer Jason Leigh was almost twenty years old when she portrayed the 15-year-old Stacy Hamilton.)
And yes, that Phoebe Cates pool scene was unnecessary and tawdry, much as it delighted the 14-year-old version of me.
#OnThisDay American coming-of-age comedy film Fast Times at Ridgemont High released . August 13, #1982 Directed by Amy Heckerling in her feature directorial debut. it starred Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, and …. pic.twitter.com/AL2RH9sWiI
But underneath all the raunch and bawdy comedy, there is a message about hubris-driven teenage risk-taking, and the consequences that result. I would go so far as to call Fast Times at Ridgemont High a teensploitation film with a conservative message.
I watched this movie for a second time a few years ago. I was an adult in my fifties. The 1980s and high school were long behind me.
I thought the movie was even better the second time around.
I’m not the only one who believes that Fast Times at Ridgemont High stands the test of time. In 2005, the National Film Preservation Board recognized the movie as “culturally and historically significant”. This is one time when I agree with the consensus view.
Released August 13, 1982, Fast Times at Ridgemont High is an American coming-of-age teen comedy-drama film directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Robert Romanus, and Ray Walston. pic.twitter.com/7TClCGleHH
The early 1980s gave us a famous song named after a phone number: “867-5309”. Even if you do not remember the early 1980s, you are probably familiar with the song.
The song was alternatively known as “Jenny”. Often the song was identified with both names: 867-5309/Jenny.
In the song, a male narrator describes his obsession with a woman named “Jenny”, whose phone number (867-5309) was written on a wall, presumably in a men’s room. (That was a common prank back in the 1970s and early 1980s—writing random women’s names and phone numbers on the walls of men’s rooms. Don’t ask me why.)
Tommy Tutone is the name of the musical act that performed 867-5309.
Tommy Tutone is not a single artist, but a California-based group. The original lineup of Tommy Tutone was formed in 1978. The band still exists today. Tommy Tutone released six studio albums between 1980 and 2019. But the band owes most of its name recognition to 867-5309.
867-5309/Jenny was released on November 16, 1981. By the end of the following year, everyone with an FM radio had heard it.
867-5309 was, and remains, a cultural phenomenon. Not everyone was pleased about the song’s fame, however. After the song became popular, homeowners who happened to have been assigned the number began receiving prank phone calls. Many changed their numbers. Some even unplugged their phones in desperation.
Still others went out of their way to acquire the suddenly famous seven digits. Now that the initial fervor over the song has long since died down, this is the more common trend. It would probably be difficult—if not impossible—for you to obtain 867-5309 as your personal phone number. But your odds will increase in less populated areas, and as the time between the heyday of the song and the present year continues to grow.
In late 1981, I was in the eighth grade in Cincinnati, Ohio. One morning—it must have been a few weeks before the Christmas holidays—I heard a girl in my homeroom say my name. When I turned around, she had a smile on her face. I sensed good things ahead. Continue reading “867-5309, and a lesson in the value of skepticism “
REVOLUTIONARY GHOSTS is a coming-of-age supernatural horror novel set near Cincinnati, Ohio in 1976.
But the novel is based on Washington Irving’s 1820 short story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.
Revolutionary Ghosts came from the question: “What would have happened, had the Headless Horseman of Washington Irving’s tale invaded 20th-century America in 1976?
In the above video, I describe the series of associations that went into the story, some going back all the way to my childhood. (I was 8 years old in 1976!)
Escape is one of the few rock albums with no duds. Every song is good—if you like Journey’s style of music.
But the best song on the album, perhaps, is “Don’t Stop Believin’”. It is a great song because it is simultaneously specific and universal.
We wonder about the small town girl, and the city boy “born and raised in South Detroit.” What compelled each of them to take “the midnight train going anywhere”?
And at the same time, the song is vague enough that we can each apply it to our individual stories. “Whoa, the movie never ends. It goes on and on and on and on.” My movie has gone on for 44 years since I first heard this song, and counting.
For years, this song instantly took me back to the 1981-2 school year, and the adolescent I was at that time. The song can still do that.
But then a few years ago, I watched The Sopranos from start to finish. (I was about a decade behind everyone else in doing this…the story of my life.) Then, for a long time, I would see the final, iconic scene of The Sopranos when I heard, “Don’t Stop Believin’”.
Most recently, I have discovered First to Eleven’s interpretation of the song. (First to Eleven is a very talented cover band based in Erie, Pennsylvania.)
None of the members of First to Eleven was even born when I heard “Don’t Stop Believin’” for the first time, back in 1981. (They are all very young.) And yet, their music video, and lead vocalist Audra Miller’s performance, put yet another spin on the song for me.
And some people worry—or hope—that AI will replace serious musicians? They base this on the fact (for example) that AI can now reassemble good music into mediocre music. (See my recent post about The Velvet Sundown.)
AI will never be good for anything but mediocrity. Only a human imagination could have come up with “Don’t Stop Believin’” almost half a century ago. And it took human imagination to come up with all these reimaginings of the song since then.
Some romcoms are good, and Mystic Pizza is one of the good ones. This movie came out shortly after my twentieth birthday, but I somehow neglected to see it.
Mystic Pizza is about three Gen X working-class Portuguese women who are in their early 20s. (Since this movie came out in 1988, Gen X was still young, and still not widely referred to as Gen X.)
Structurally, the movie reminds me a little of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), insofar as there is an ensemble cast (Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, and Annabelle Gish), each working her way through a slightly different moral and emotional conundrum.
These dilemmas deal with issues of love, sex, socioeconomic class, and ethnicity. (I should make clear, though: Mystic Pizza is not a “message film”. It is simply an artifact from a time when even young adult date movies had artistic worth.)
Vintage 1988 theatrical release poster
The movie is set in the late 1980s in the fictional town of Mystic, Connecticut. All three of the young women work at “Mystic Pizza”, a mom-and-pop pizza restaurant run by a late middle-age Portuguese couple.
This was the movie that launched Julia Roberts’s career, more or less. Mystic Pizza also includes the then-unknown Matt Damon in a very minor, nonspeaking role.
Most impressive of all, though, is the performance of Vincent D’Onofrio, who plays the marriage-minded boyfriend of one of the young women. What is impressive is that the previous year, D’Onofrio starred in Full Metal Jacket as the bumbling but mentally disturbed Private Leonard ‘Gomer Pyle’ Lawrence. D’Onofrio displays an impressive range, moving easily from a psychotic villain role in a war movie, to a leading man role in a romcom.
Mystic Pizza is a must-see for all Gen Xers who may have missed it in 1988. Millennials will find some aspects of the movie they like. Gen Z viewers will probably not understand the relationship portions of the movie, but they will marvel at the payphones and Internet-free world of 1988.
The question “Where’s the beef?” was a common “meme” in American culture in the mid-1980s. (Nobody used the word “meme” back then, though.) “Where’s the beef?” implied that something lacked value or substance.
It all came from a series of Wendy’s commercials, starring Clara Peller (1902-1987). Pellar made this inquiry whenever she was confronted by a hamburger that was too much bun, not enough beef.
Wendy’s made the size of its beef patties a selling point. And while fast-food hamburgers were never among my favorite foods, the Wendy’s burgers were better than most, at least in the 1980s.
This commercial is pure genius. It is entertaining in itself, but it also conveys an effective marketing message.
I discovered pop/rock music in 1981-2, when I was still in junior high. Because of the longevity of contemporary rock bands, I sometimes come across new material from bands that I first discovered 40 years ago.
This is always a treat, and it always makes me feel younger. (If the rock bands of your youth are still making new music, you can’t be that old, right? That notion works for the Boomers, so why not for Gen X?)
38 Special is one such still-active band from my junior high years. I became a fan of 38 Special back when their 1982 album Special Forces was new, and reached the number 10 spot on the Billboard 200. This album includes several of the group’s classic songs, including, “Caught Up in You” and “You Keep Runnin’ Away”.
The band has just released a new song on YouTube, “All I Haven’t Said”.
There have been some personnel changes since 1982, of course. (I believe 38 Special has a new lead vocalist.) So the sound is a little different, but the same spirit is there.
I like the new song, and I am glad to see that 38 Special is still around and making music.
I’m not sure how 40 years went by without me seeing Commando (1985). But I finally caught it last night with my YouTube Premium subscription.
Commando stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a retired military operative, who is called into action when a group of international bad guys take his daughter hostage.
It’s a very basic plot, with a lot left to assumption, or the viewer’s imagination. This is pure 80s escapism, and the film suffers somewhat from the production values of that era.
On the plus side, there are no boring moments in the 90 minutes that it will take you to watch Commando. The movie is a lot of fun, in the same way that the A-Team and Magnum P.I. were fun in the 1980s.
There is no romantic subplot in Commando. Rae Dawn Chong, however, provides a solid performance as Schwarzenegger’s sidekick (and, at one point in the movie, his pilot). The 12-year-old Alyssa Milano, who was decades away from becoming annoying and political, appears as Schwarzenegger’s daughter.
The X feed Super 70s Sports has the following to say about the late Merlin Olsen (1940 – 2010):
“I miss Merlin Olsen. A true renaissance man who could kick your ass, eloquently break down exactly how he did it, then send you a thoughtful bouquet of flowers as a gesture of goodwill.”
I miss Merlin Olsen. A true renaissance man who could kick your ass, eloquently break down exactly how he did it, then send you a thoughtful bouquet of flowers as a gesture of goodwill. pic.twitter.com/rLxImgSPtR
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but most Gen Xers don’t remember Merlin Olsen as a professional football player. Olsen played his last game in the NFL in 1976. This Gen Xer was an 8-year-old third-grader then.
Most of us do, however, remember Merlin Olsen in his post-NFL acting career. Olsen portrayed Jonathan Garvey on Little House on the Prairie from 1977 to 1981. In this secondary role, he was the “male buddy” figure for Michael Landon’s starring role.
My childhood household had one television, and my mom loved Little House. So we of course tuned in every week. I didn’t love this show quite as much as my mom did, but I didn’t exactly hate it, either. It was pleasant enough television for that pre-cable era, when most TV shows were written to the broadest audience possible. Little House on the Prairie was written and billed as wholesome family fare, with all that label implies, both for better and for worse.
I recall watching Olsen on Little House on the Prairie for several years, perhaps, before my father mentioned, apropos of nothing, that Merlin Olsen had previously been a professional football player.
My research tells me that he had quite a career in that capacity. But I, like most Gen Xers, will always think of him as Jonathan Garvey.
This past week marked the 40-year anniversary of the release of Back to the Future on July 3, 1985.
I saw the movie when it was new. I enjoyed it; but I never thought that this was a film that would be remembered four decades later.
But hey, I was 17 years old in the summer of 1985. What did I know?
1985 theatrical release poster
One of the forgotten facts about the movie is that Disney originally rejected it. The dealbreaker was the subplot in which Marty McFly’s mother becomes infatuated with him during his time in 1955. Disney execs didn’t like the incestuous plot twist.
And it struck me as a little strange at the time. Never mind that this is not the sort of scenario that anyone is likely to encounter in real life.
Whether Disney was right to reject the film or not in the 1980s, herein lies a measure of how much Disney—and the movie business—has changed since then. As we all know, Disney is more than happy to let its freak flag fly nowadays.
Now let’s turn our attention to something really important: the future of the rock band AC/DC.
I’ve been a fan of AC/DC since the early 1980s, when Back in Black was the latest thing. AC/DC isn’t my favorite band. (That honor goes to Rush.) But AC/DC is definitely among my top ten.
The members of AC/DC, just like the rest of us, are getting older. Angus Young, the group’s iconic guitarist, is now 70. Lead vocalist Brian Johnson is now 77.
No, it isn’t 1981 anymore. (And oh, how I wish that it were, for any number of reasons.) But AC/DC still gives a pretty solid live performance, by my estimation.
The 1980s have acquired a reputation for being hopelessly conservative, fuddy-duddy times. On the contrary, many of the movies, songs, and jokes that were commonplace back then wouldn’t pass muster in today’s environment.
Consider Exhibit A: the Angel series of thriller films. The tagline of the initial 1984 movie was:
“High school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night.”
The movie starred Donna Wilkes (then in her twenties) as the 15-year-old Molly Stewart, a prep school honor student who, for whatever reason, moonlights as a sex worker each night. And of course, she solves a crime or two along the way, as well!
Now, I’m not saying this is a laudable film concept. But people barely batted an eye at it in the 1980s. If such a film were released today, social conservatives on the right would go ballistic. (Jesse Watters and the rest of the Fox News crew would have a field day.) On the dour, humorous left, meanwhile, there would be wailing and shrieking about “exploitation”.
To be sure, there was an element of exploitation in the movie. (This is why a twenty-something actress was cast in the lead role.) But in the 1980s, most folks seemed capable of realizing that a movie was just a movie.
I was fifteen when Angel came out. I never saw the movie, but it was heavily advertised. Many people did see the film, apparently. There were two sequels: Avenging Angel (1985) and Angel III: the Final Chapter (1988).
In the fall of 1984, I was a junior in high school. I had a passion for the novels and short stories of Stephen King.
My high school English teacher, not so much. He was a devotee of two twentieth-century writers: Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. So I read a lot of Hemingway and a lot of Fitzgerald that year.
I was 16 years old, and really two young for either writer. Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote about adult concerns, and concerns of what was already a long-ago, bygone era. As a teenager of the Reagan-era American suburbs, I had little interest in the social conventions of the Jazz Age, or the moody ramblings of World War I veterans.
As an adult, I’ve developed a new appreciation for both writers.
I’ve recently begun digging into The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. This collection, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, contains all the Fitzgerald short stories I remember as a junior in high school: “Winter Dreams”,“A Diamond As Big As the Ritz”, “Babylon Revisited,” etc.—as well as many that my high school English teacher never assigned.
Fitzgerald wrote his short stories long. Not all of them can be read in a single sitting. Many of his short stories resemble compressed novels more than typical short stories, as they deal with events stretching out over many years, even decades.
Fitzgerald’s writing style is accessible to modern readers, but his subject matter is a hundred years removed from our time. It takes some effort to put oneself in the mindset of an adult living in 1925. (I am soon to turn 57 years old, and that is the era of my great-grandparents. The one great-grandparent I knew was born in 1895, one year before Fitzgerald.)
Still, there are some universal themes in Fitzgerald’s fiction. One of my favorite stories is the aforementioned “Winter Dreams”. This is the tale of a man who, between adolescence and early middle age, mistakenly projects all of his ideals onto a woman with whom he has a fleeting romantic relationship.
1922 magazine illustration for “Winter Dreams”
“Winter Dreams” is basically a story about the pedastalization of femininity. The theme is as relevant in 2025 as it was in 1922, when Fitzgerald wrote the story.
(Note: When I first read “Winter Dreams” in 1984, I “got” what Fitzgerald was trying to say. Some years would pass before I learned the real-life lesson.)
You might be hesitant to dive into a book of century-old stories. I would encourage you, though, to give Fitzgerald a try. Many of his tales, like The Great Gatsby and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, have been adapted for film in the modern era.
There is a reason why Fitzgerald endures, when so many other writers have fallen by the wayside. Fitzgerald was a skilled and insightful storyteller.
