The Club Goes 80's!

Despite a small age gap between Mike and Kate, one thing is certain:  The 80's had a big influence on both of us. Walking down the toy aisle, it's easy to get lost in the nostalgia of America's 80's flashback craze. 

The 80's gave birth to some of the largest and most successful franchises of all time, some of which remain cultural icons to this day. With a jump in technology, world relations, and some interesting changes in American culture, The 80's made a serious impact on those of us lucky to grow up through them.

The thing most people tend to forget, however, is the downright strangeness that seemed to possess 80's media like an vengeful spirit.  We remembered this the hard way when we reviewed Highlander.  While there were certainly some blockbuster 80's sci-fi movies that redefined cinema (Back to the Future, anyone?), the real impact came in the form of dozens of bizarre and insanely creative films that seemed to quietly slip into pop culture.

Coming out of the gritty 70's and preceding the blockbuster 90's, these lesser known films often jumped from extreme campiness to dark social commentary and back again (sometimes in the same scene), and made an impact that can be seen throughout the Media Market, with obscure references and homages appearing in modern video games, comics, and film, while psychologically scarring a generation along the way.

With a decade that gave rise to mutant turtles, sentient machines who sometimes turned into cars, pop stars who sometimes turned into sentient machines, and monsters who lived in nightmares, it's hard to deny that there might be something slightly wrong with the children of the eighties.  I, personally, blame the movies.

The films listed below are strange, and each one approaches some disturbing ideas with an almost casual attitude; in fact, most of these have inspired at least one of my nightmares as a child . . . and yet I plan to show my sons every one of them.  How messed up is that? 

Starting next Friday, October 12, 2012, the Mike-Kate Video Club will review sci-fi films from the 80's and early 90's.

1. Time Bandits
2. Tron
3. Explorers
4. Flight of the Navigator
5. D.A.R.Y.L.
6. Short Circuit
7. Terminator
8. Weird Science
9. My Science Project
10. Adventures of Baron Munchausen
11. The Adventure of Buckaroo Bonzai
12. Last Action Hero

Yes, folks, it's true: The 80's are coming back!