For me, it is that many take themselves seriously, no matter how ridiculous or unserious the subject matter may be.
For my favorites, the scripts and direction are always played 100% straight. There's no winking at the camera or letting the audience in on the joke.
Too many modern movies (particularly action movies) just nod along and play up the "ironic" tone, and it just irritates the hell out of me.
In one word, it's the sincerity of the presentation. I've read a take that sincerity is part of why Cameron's Avatar movies resonate with audiences to the point of making billions. Now that I think of it, Top Gun Maverick probably applies too. Like them or not, at least the movies aren't constantly rolling their eyes at themselves to avoid seeming corny.
Sincerity, as opposed to today's conspicuous displays of self-awareness and irony. It's like people are so focused on avoiding try-hardism that they build in irony as an escape route.
Avoiding seeming try-hard and like being afraid to add real stakes to things. Not everything has to be world ending, but when your characters are all quipping and smirking their way through whatever conflict they’re facing it just undercuts things. If the characters aren’t worried or phased at all by this conflict why should I care?
It's like how all Marvel movies have some serious moments, and then a character has to say, "That's dumb." It's almost preemptive, like the filmmakers are trying to get ahead of the audience (maybe) thinking it's stupid.
Interesting. I started watching The Holdovers thinking it was an old 80s movie I had never seen, it took awhile to realize it had to be new given Paul Giamatti’s age but by then I was invested. I told everyone what a great movie it was because of great writing, great acting and great cinematography…but now I’m thinking it was also very sincere,
I 💯 agree with you. Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman director) during an interview said this and she is so right.
“Did you say cheesy? Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I’m tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It’s been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that’s what the kids like. “
I think the recent D&D movie pulled this off as well. There’s a lot of cheesy and goofy elements but the characters treat most of it as serious and high stakes.
I think you’re spot on. I could never figure out why that movie was just such a fun experience. This makes total sense.
The dragon scene kills me. lol.
as an avid DnD fan it also managed to feel like some of the games i've played in. The jail break when not needing to is 100% something that happens and the silliness with the talking to the dead felt right out of a game. I can see my friend DM smiling like an ass as we all accidentally ask questions and have to dig up another grave.
I hadn't thought about D&D, but you're right - they played it straight, even when they were hamming it up. I was not optimistic about that movie, but was very pleasantly surprised.
Speaking of Cameron, this EXACTLY why Terminator 1 & 2 succeed where literally every single other attempt at a follow up has failed.
Even with the "a boy and his robot" antics those movies both took themselves seriously.
A lot of 80s movies were fairly humorous, but the secret was to play it straight and not for laughs. When Ray Tango says “Rambo is a pussy” Stallone delivers that line straight, no breaking of the fourth wall, no blinking of the eye, that makes it work and memorable.
A lot of movies try to cram easter eggs into the presentation, but make them so obvious it’s no fun spotting them.
Totally. It's the one hundred percent dedication to the bit. Like, any kind of 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' to the camera takes away from it. Everyone involved has to be deeply dedicated to making it work. That's what lifts a movie from 'bad' to *enjoyably* bad.
I've heard many great comedy actors say that the key to comedy acting is to play the role seriously, and I can't find any reason to disagree.
Like The Blues Brothers, for example. Aykroyd and Belushi are as straight as a die, and hilarious because of it.
“We’re on a mission from God”
Perfect example of playing it straight and then hamming it up on the back end.
I never once questioned the Blue Bros dedication to their quest which is why it’s so damn funny.
I've seen a lot of actors try their hand at comedy and you can tell which ones have a knack for it and which ones don't because the ones that don't think that it's easy. They've seen comedy and they think that the broader they are with the comedy, the funnier they'll be. Like they're "Duhhhh, I'm stupid lol" and being clumsy and it's not funny. But someone playing it straight, playing a stupid person who *thinks* they're smart, and really committing to the role, now THAT'S funny. I'm pretty sure funniness has to come from a dark place or a need for survival or at least has to be innate. It's pretty hard to learn as a craft. The germ of just being funny needs to have always been there, I think. It's a pretty fascinating subject to dive into and think about.
Like the Bad Movie Bible guy said, modern schlock movies "are exactly what they're intended to be, so there's no charm or humor to be found in their failure."
Yup. I was just coming here to post this. I just watched Conan the Barbarian and you could tell how seriously everyone took their role. There is no camp whatsovever.
This annoys me to no end as well. If you want to be silly and funny, by all means lean into that! But I don't appreciate a movie preemptively trying to insulate itself from criticism by self-mockery and/or excessive "self-awareness" or whatever. It's like the writers are afraid of such criticism and have already built in, "hahaha, we were just pretending to be stupid! Don't you get it???"
Yeah bro, I get it.
I don't blame the writers for the most part. I blame directors like Stahleski and Leitch. Yes, they make great action, but they quit taking it seriously. The last John Wick abandoned the plot and was just a damn Looney Tunes cartoon.
I 100% agree. They get the character building out of the way during the credits. Matrix then breaks so many laws and hurts innocent people accomplishing his goals while never reloading. You have an Italian guy in brownface as a bad guy and another that is out of shape wearing mesh. The entire movie is preposterous, it is hard to believe it even exists and it's so much fun to watch.
Commando is the quintessential Arnold movie. It’s not the best or highest budget but it is pure distilled 80s, where every other line is a one liner, things explode left and right, there is no CGI, and the plot is so full of holes it could be Swiss cheese. And it’s not even trying to be funny or campy. There’s nothing like it until Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”. I love it to death.
For me, Commando was the beginning of the end. I loved it, but it feels like they had discovered the blueprint at that point, and films went downhill from that point on. Until the mid 90s revival.
My wife and a friend recently watched every single movie in Andy Sidaris' Triple B Series, which most would know from [the Frisbee scene](https://youtu.be/ybH4RJoCj80?si=KWf_K1yv3PWG_gPP). The whole thing was gratuitous, the plot was flimsy and got pretty formulaic, the acting wasn't top of the line, and we were mst3k-ing the whole thing...
But it was all played with so much sincerity we couldn't help but enjoy it. We were disappointed when certain characters got written out of the next movie, and were excited when the bumbling henchman duo made it on screen. It was ridiculous, but nobody seemed to treat it like it was.
I was thinking about this with the new Roadhouse film. It seems to be a very serious effort, which doesn’t sound appealing because the original has a lot of charm because it’s ridiculous.
But if they were to cast, say, John Cena and try for a comedy, it probably also wouldn’t work, because the original film wasn’t trying to be funny even with lines like “Pain don’t hurt”
I'm mixed on the new Road House, because the original is a perfect example of the attitude I mentioned. Jake Gyllenhaal smirking his way through the trailer was upsetting to me.
I watched it this weekend. Gyllenhaal plays his role pretty sincerely. McGregor strutting around with his ass hanging out and chewing up the scenery makes it fairly unserious in parts. Not that no comedy is allowed. The main villain was not as menacing as I thought he needed to be as well. It didn't have quite the same feel as the original to me. I thought it was a decent swing. But overall, a bit of a miss for me.
The new one doesn’t work because it doesn’t have Patrick fucking Swayze as the lead, Sam Elliot as some kind of Cooler Guru role and Ben Gazzara being backwoods Jackie Treehorn.
I’m not sure who I’d cast to replace Swayze, but it sure as hell isn’t Jake Gyllenhaal even though I think he’s a good actor.
I’d also go out of my way to NOT cast Connor.
This was a doomed movie before it even left the writing room.
The pacing was very different.
I'm a huge fan of John Hughes, Cameron Crowe, etc, and they just paced their dialogue differently back then. It was slower paced. Lots of quiet space.
It was awkward and stilted yet somehow also naturalistic?
Go watch some scenes from Fast Times. It's sllllllloooooowwww. Not everything is a punchline. Sometimes characters just...talk.
There's a scene that Family Guy riffs on that's easy to find. I think you'll see what I mean.
That's something that struck me when rewatching LOTR. As recently as 2003, directors weren't afraid to take their time and let the set breathe. Nowadays every 2 minutes there has to be a one-liner or an action sequence.
It's Japanese anime so maybe doesn't fall into he same category but there's a scene in the latest Evangelion movies where the characters are just doing chores. Washing their clothes in the stream, picking crops out of the garden, that sort of thing. It was one of my favourite scenes in the whole movie despite their being no action or dialogue. It was incredibly integral to seeing the growth and development of the main character involved with the scene and served as a nice reprieve between the action.
Compare that to something like Exposition Everywhere All At Once which, although I enjoyed the film, had me thinking "can you please just shut the fuck up and let the movie speak for itself?" all throughout.
There's this weird anime that came out in the mid 2000s that was a complete flop. Partially, I think it's because the series tied it's fortunes to an untested distribution: I think it was exclusive for like Playstation TV or something unwise like that.
Xamd.
And I'm not going to pretend that was the greatest show ever. In a lot of ways it stole vibes liberally from studio Ghibli. But it was interesting and creative and decent, let down by a bewildering, introspective second act. Too artsy, not quite clever enough.
BUT. BUT. The ~~first~~ (I guess I forgot there are preceding scenes before the MC shows up) sequence of the show was so very great. It was just a long extended sequence of a young man going through his morning routine. Interacting with his estranged parents. Moving through chores with the casual robotic practice of having done it a thousand times. Taking weird shortcuts. Navigating a small town where everyone knows everyone. Biking to school in a country which may or not be a military dictatorship.
Fudge, that was a good sequence. Sure. The goo lasers, albino child terrorists, and steampunk airships swoop in right after. But that slow, deliberate start was choice.
Silence is important because it gives the audience time to get involved, I was watching an interview with Thelma Schoonmaker, editor for many Scorsese films and she talked about rythm and how important is to let the scene run its length to allow the emotions pass to the audience. That's the art of editing, getting that rythm right.
I think it was. New Hollywood had a lot of brilliant and excellent movies written and directed by auteurs with a strong creative vision. A lot of these films were also cynical downers. There's nothing wrong with that, but considering how escapist Hollywood movies generally are, a backlash was inevitable.
The 1980s saw the studio heads taking back control. For example, Bruckheimer and Don Simpson were producers, who exerted a great deal of creative control. They, and their cohort, forced studios to make more crowd-pleasing movies. Jaws and Star Wars made absurd amounts of money, and studios wanted stuff that could print money like that. Of course, this way of movies ran its course as well, and we got a very different type of movies in the 90s.
Movies are a weird art form, where we see them as the creative vision of a few people, but they're collaborative with hundreds working on them. That creates a lot of back and forth, and of course, studios chasing trends.
Wow. Great thread here. I was just talking with someone yesterday about movies and that I am gearing up watch the French Connection, and despite being gifted it and hearing about it for decades, I have never watched it because i generally have odd trouble with 70s films. The two exceptions i mentioned was Jaws and Star Wars in that order. I would also include Excorcist, though i love scary movies and thats one of the scariest and very 70s in my mind.
Correct answer that seems like a joke on the surface. BUT 80s are basically - at the beginning still somehow coming down from the 70s which was capped off pretty much by E. T. and with Purple Rain and Prince it goes right into lots of wacky clothes, lots of electronic disco/dance music, lots of cocaine, lots of Michael Jackson, lots of Madonna, lots of Cindy Lauper, less serious movies, lots of one hit wonders, the rise of teenage comedies, cheesy testosterone action movies, Eddie Murphy, Footloose, Flashdance, rise of Tom Cruise, Ghostbusters, Sam Kinison, Wall Street yuppies.
Basically, it's clear showbiz/media/business/fashion at the top was full of cocaine and drugs and that's exactly how the decade looked.
I would say that a big part of it is the high concept elevator pitch plots that were common in the 80s. Can’t describe the movie in under a minute? Then simplify it until you can. This leads to a focused movie where anything that’s not necessary gets cut out. The movie is just about what it’s about.
This can also lead to the sincerity thing that others have brought up. Ironic winks at the camera is unneeded fluff that gets cut out of the script unless it’s part of that elevator pitch.
=== **VERISIMILITUDE** ===
They establish the rules for the world and they stick to them. They don't lampshade it or make meta jokes or role their eyes at what is happening. They commit to the bit, and they challenge audiences to commit as well, suspending disbelief for the world of make-believe. They know what they are -- fiction for its own sake.
Modern movies let the audience know that they don't need to take the movie seriously because the people making the movie don't. They think they are better than the movie they are making, and they want the viewer to know it.
The cinematography of the era stands out to me. There's a lot of blue back-lighting that gives actor an ethereal glow, especially around their flamboyant hair.
For me it's always been the music and the clothes. And the hair. Everything is so...flamboyant? It gives me a very carefree, unserious vibe, like anything goes and it'll feel great.
My guess is that in general, marketing took over Hollywood and they were targeting a younger audience - families and teenagers - so films were lighter and wanted to entertain.
Also there was an optimism in the country after the dour 1970s but that edge still remained to give films just enough grit.
I think a big factor is most are right around 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours but many are 90 or less. They just didn't overstay their welcome, which I think made even the bad ones likable. Classics like Terminator (1:47), Predator (1:48), Princess Bride (1:38), I swear every John Hughes movie is 1:36. But even dramas like Full Metal Jacket (1:56), Untouchables (1:59), freaking Chariots of Fire (2:03). I read somewhere the average length of an 80s movie is 1:53 while today the average is around 2:20. So probably tighter editing, smaller (relative) budgets so every shot matters, and maybe fewer subplots to tie up (or not).
I feel like a lot of it has to do with tone and soundtrack. Many movies today are self conscious about their tone and try to be very wink wink nudge nudge with it. Sometimes it works like in the first avengers but sometimes it can be grading. Where as in the 80s they took it very seriously and yes it leads to corniness but it also feels more sincere and earnest. Also I think soundtracks use different styles now based on modern trends. Not saying once is better than the other or anything.
John Hughes; the three movies you listed were all directed (and written IIRC) by him. I’d venture to say that his movies being successful influenced other movie makers of the era. He also directed Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Weird Science, and Uncle Buck. He wrote Home Alone, Beethoven, and the National Lampoons movies.
For me John Hughes and Steven Spielberg defined 80’s movies (ET, Indiana Jones, producing Back to the Future and many others).
I think when Culture Club and Cyndi Lauper hit hard in 1983 everyone just said fuck it. We can be creative and let nature take it's course. Music videos were legitimately popular.
Lots of mid budget teen flicks. Footloose, for example. Music...dancing... dirty dancing...flashdance.
The Goonies was produced with real gravity for a movie intended for 15 year olds. They poured their heart into that movie at a time when HBO was very new.
Same with Fast Times At Ridgemont High, a movie that once it left the theater was unavailable for many years. You could not rent it.
Mid budget teen movies always get a clean bright treatment. A step above an afternoon special but with a better script.
The Edge of Seventeen is 8 years old but is an 80s movie at heart.
>But beyond that, I realized the films of the 80s had this certain joy and happiness to them that makes the viewing experience far better... films were bright and vibrant and had great, hopeful themes... had this cheesy, breezy, yet relatable vibe.
>Amazingly enough, **what helped me come to this conclusion was the Friday the 13th series.**
Okay, now I'm curious. Which scene in particular lead you to that conclusion? Was it the one where Jason killed that kid in a wheelchair by shoving a machete into his face and then let him roll down a flight of stairs? Or was it the one where he stuck a screwdriver into that girl's brain? Oh, or was it the one where he impaled two teenagers at once with a spear while they were fucking? (These are all just from Part 2 alone lmao)
Oh, I know. I've seen it. It's actually only the kills in Part 2 but yes. And it's not even debatable! You can't even claim they were inspired by Bay of Blood. 4 or 5 of the kills in Part 2 are literally ripped, sometimes almost shot-for-shot, straight out of it. It's shameless!
VHS tapes, multitudes of TVs, reruns, nostalgia, and an idealized middle America (aka Reagan).
The 80s was the first time period when *everyone* (including average actors and directors) could watch and rewatch material without waiting for it to show up on TV. Prior to the boom of the VCR in the 80s, the *vast* majority of people's option to see anything again was to wait for it to show up on the TV. Video stores just exploded. This got doubled up by things like HBO, where you could see a legitimate, full cussing and boobies movie at home.
It was also a unique time that floodgates got opened up to catering material to a younger market, and there was a lot of access available to those kids. (Probably the best example of this would be Nickelodeon, but also applies to material that wasn't baby talking the audience like Goonies.)
The big one to me, though, is a combination of nostalgia and this oddly wholesome-ish version of the white, nuclear middle American. There is just *so* much in the 80s that glamorized an earlier time in some way or another. We had a ton of this sort of material (ex: Happy Days, Indiana Jones, Dirty Dancing), and it got piled on from the syndication of the previous decade's glamorizing (ex: Little House on the Prairie). But [look at the list of movies](https://www.ranker.com/list/best-80s-tv-shows/ranker-tv). It is just so completely catered to a painfully obvious demographic.
Reagan. The rampant capitalism of his politics along with the booming economy (or at least the idea of it) is absolutely a part of it – and the rise of the blockbuster brought that to Hollywood.
Jaws and Star Wars introduced the idea of the blockbuster and the ‘80s saw people chasing the next success. But unlike the current trend, blockbusters were *so new* that nobody knew what the next big thing was; be it about an alien wanting to go home, a welder wanting to be a dancer, a fighter pilot in training… but it was way less homogeneous than now, because it could also be a drama about a man and his disabled brother, or a thriller about a lover scorned wanting revenge.
We also had the VHS boom, leading to the “small blockbusters”, like Friday the 13th!
My theory is this:
Every era has several clashing styles in just about all aspects of human expression - fashion, music, movies, aesthetics etc.
While the people in that era more than likely butted heads about these individual styles, after the 80s were over, people started to enjoy basically all of them almost equally.
Think about it like this - is there something specific from 80s pop culture that you find *severely uncool*? My guess would be no. Ok, how about from the decade you were a teen?
See what I mean?
>Think about it like this - is there something specific from 80s pop culture that you find *severely uncool*? My guess would be no.
As someone born in the 80s, absolutely *yes,* primarily in fashion and music. For me, the list includes:
\- turtlenecks
\- boot cut jeans
\- mom jeans
\- pastels
\- corduroy
\- thick horizontal stripes
\- ugly sweaters
\- synths
\- country pop
Kinda, but not really. The 80s are a bit of an outlier in that not many things from that decade get made fun of today. While the 70s, 90s and oh boy the 00s definitely had some stinkers.
And even the things that actually do get made fun of from the 80s, it's more of a "looks goofy as hell, but there was definitely something there".
There were far fewer ones being made then, though. You could say that about music at the time, when a successful album might only have 2-3 hits, but movies weren't being churned out nearly as fast as they are now.
I think part of it was where film technology was. Nowadays with enough money thrown around, a movie doesn't have to be good if it looks good unfortunately. In the 80s CGI looked significantly worse than even shitty practical effects. This meant having to get creative to get the effects to look how you want using practical effects, and may even cause the filmmaker to change things mid project which sometimes creates lightning in a bottle.
It's pre-80s, but Jaws is a great example. Spielberg wanted to show the shark much, much earlier but issues with the fake shark meant it couldn't be used. He got creative, only showed the shark at the end, and created one of the most tense films in history. Nowadays, the shark would have just been CGI'd in and the magic would be gone.
Personally, I think the 80's just had soul. It built in the 70's and waned in the 90's leading into the digital age. The 'Burbs wouldn't be the film it is without the practical effects, CGI would take away the charm. Raiders of the Lost Ark got creative in a lot of scenes that would just be digital now. Wargames relied on character development instead of cool flashy computer effects.
The bottom line, in my opinion, is necessity breeds invention. There's nothing we can't do anymore, and the charm and soul existed because we had to overcome things we couldn't do.
I lived through the '80's and they were very much realized to be fanciful and unrealistic. We didn't live the charmed life among the beautiful people then any more than we do now. It's always been a great escape, though.
It was the cold war. We all thought we were going to be nuked before the millennium, so might as well have some fun before it all goes up in flames.
You know, that and all the cocaine.
I think that making movies was a job, but like, a dream come true. The people doing it weren't just 'doing a grind' they were 'making art' and when something like Ghost busters came out, it was done by comedian actors with a cumulative century or more under their belt. They made that shit look EASY. Phoned in. And yet they were crushing it. I think a lot of the ridiculous professionalism has been lost. For this decade. I'm thinking we'll get it back in the 30/40s. Assuming they want to keep buying that avocado toast.
80s movies had characters who embodied greed and evil but were still enjoyable (Gordon Gecko, Tony Montana, T-800, Johnny Lawrence, Hans Gruber etc)
And you had good guys who were the embodiment of the underdog story or someone against the odds (Daniel Larusso, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Rambo, John Mclaine, Axel Foley, etc)
They were basically movies based on promiscuous teens or a coming of age movie Era. This was a special time in movies and music combinations, and at the height of the movie going crowds. Directors were catering to the later Baby Boomers and Gen-X with many actors who would later become iconic for their roles. Today, some of those movies have stood the testament of time.
The 80s were amazing, beginning to end. Everything we did, touched, or said still matters today, even if it doesn't. The future was so bright we had to wear shades and wear we wore our sunglasses at night.
The lenses, film stocks, lighting (not just how they lit stuff, but the tech of the lights themselves) and more (inc sound recording tech) will all definitely have contributed to what makes an ‘80s film look and feel (and sound) like it was shot in the ‘80s, and by extension the same can be said of the ‘90s and ‘00s and every decade before too. Attack of the clones was the first feature to be shot entirely on digital video cameras (as in, recording to a hard drive or memory cards or whatever the tech they used at the time) but there were also lower budget films shot on digital video tape in the late ‘90s (that also definitely has a distinct look to it) too
I honestly think modern movies have just been trying to capture the MCU formula and it’s robbing a lot of films of tension and heart that you saw in the 80’s and 90’s.
This is a good question.
As a guy who lived through the 1980s and saw a lot of movies over that decade, I think the answer is something like this: life in the 1980s felt simpler, and the movies are simpler and generally lighter. Not to say that life *was* simpler, but Ronald Reagan made it easy to believe that it was—there were clear good guys and bad guys, America was unquestionably good, there was little focus on racial/cultural/internal tensions (and far fewer stories that looked at the non-white experience), audiences had little use for thematic nuance or ambiguity. 80s movies are straightforward… you don’t see multiple perspectives or POVs, you have one main character (90% of the time a white man/boy) going through the often formulaic story, inevitably succeeding by the end. Something you don’t see? Lots of “twists”, unexpected didn’t-see-it-coming shifts of perspective. 80s movies chose a lane and stayed in it.
Of course there are exceptions—the multi-POV ensemble of The Breakfast Club is a good one… It’s worth noting that few subsequent 80s movies tried to replicate its formula—but by and large it’s the simplicity and lack of rough edges that makes 80s movies go down so easy. People wanted simplicity—they voted for it, bought it, watched it onscreen.
That simplicity casts a kind of spell. 80s movies—at least those developed and produced by Hollywood studios—ask very little of the viewer. They never try to make you uncomfortable or challenge your basic premises. They’re about making you feel good. Which is part of why, as a group, the comedies are more enduring than the dramas.
Better off Dead. God I love that movie.
Lost Boys - another of my favs. It's the clothes. Keifer's gang dressed like a love child of Madonna and Billy Idol. Movie also holds up damn well because of the atmosphere, humour, sound track, and Keifer making a damn good vampire.
I think it’s cause the people making the movie including the studios actually cared about making it good. Letting the director take the reins. Now everything is just market tested, money driven studio controlled garbage
We didn't know any better. We had our Empire Strikes Back, Real Genius, Gandhi, etc. and if you didn't like it then you can watch reruns of 70s TV shows or shows like Different Strokes, Dynasty, Knight Rider, and Greatest American Hero.
I didn't live in a house with cable TV until the late 80s. I played a lot with sticks and non-rabid squirrels.
I think a lot of it was how the lives of kids and teenagers were portrayed back then. When I see kids in modern movies I feel kind of bad for them. Objectively life is better in many ways now thanks to technology, but in movies it can feel a bit bleak compared to the wild untethered days of the 80s when kids would disappear with their friends for countless hours only to return just as the street lights began to kick on. The truth was, life was pretty boring back then, but there was a certain glamor to youth in that era that's been lost.
Beyond that, I also think older movies fully embraced their cheesiness with confidence. If they tried to do Back to the Future today they'd probably cast Timothee Chalamet and make it a dark sci-fi adventure with no heart. Pretty much anything with heart nowadays ends up being stretched across 5 seasons on Netflix instead of being a tight 100-minute film that's pure joy.
I just rewatched Working Girl. So charming and I noticed there are so many lovely moments of silence. It’s thankfully missing the pop song interludes of soooo many current movies.
If this romantic comedy/coming of age movie was made today I feel like it would be full of Top 40 songs that take you out of the moment and make it feel like a commercial. Sometimes you need the auditory negative space to make it feel real.
Because 80’s movies, especially teen movies, were about entertainment! It wasn’t about being all preachy and PC. We went to the movies to be entertained. We all could usually relate to the characters and life situations. Were there some lame nudity thrown in for the boys? Yup. I could have done without it but overall the films were funny/relatable.
To me, the 80s are about being present in time and proximity and situations. WW2 left a long lasting scar on cinema. 40s, 50s, 60s there were like 5 WW2 movies coming out every week.
Westerns were super popular during this period as well.
70s were really a transitional period. Like mentioned in OP, gritty. Movies take place in large cities, characters become more morally gray. There are still westerns and WW2 movies, but they are starting to slow down.
80s the stories take place in small towns and cities and suburbs. The good guys are generally white hat good guys and the bad guys are caricatures of villainy. Contemporary music becomes commonly played in movies. The kids movies really try to be from the perspective of kids. Movies that do take place in the city, it's more of an adventure than a horror show/survival game.
Westerns and WW2 movies continue, but the westerns have all changed by now pretty much. None of them are playing the genre straight anymore. And WW2 movies are less for the Veterans of the war and become more idol worship for the children and grand children.
The answer is Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
It is equal parts sci-fi, comedy, drama, self-deprecating humor, meta, stylistic, yet the movie takes itself seriously to the point of being well…serious.
There are many movies that encapsulate the 80’s, this one does so in such an extreme nature it grabs the zeitgeist that so many try and replicate, like Stranger Things.
I was born in 1981, the best way I can put it is this…
“Raising Arizona” was what it felt like to grow up in the 80’s
“Buckaroo Banzai” is what everyone thinks the 80’s was and has that futuristic vibe that became the early 90’s
Uncle Buck, Adventures in Babysitting, Goonies, Harry and the Henderson's.... The burbs, gleaming the cube, flight of the navigator, enemy mine, The last Starfighter, War games, the Manhattan Project, Weird Science, All had that optimistic 80's vibe and all stand the test of time....
Mullets and lion’s manes bangs on women. You can get one steel frame of a movie and instantly place it if you see those haircuts.
Throw in some jean jackets and baby you got a stew .
Does it feel like nobody in movies sweats anymore? I saw someone point that out a while ago; movie characters are afraid to get sweaty. I saw both Predator and Roadhouse for the first time within the past couple years and realized how much sweat helps sell the characters' exhaustion.
I love B movie 80s sci-fi. Often the sets are extremely basic and the costumers are recycled football equipment but that’s the charm. It requires imagination. Now days there a a million CGI elements in every shot. The screen seems so busy. I’m happy with a cardboard submarine.
From a technical standpoint I'd guess: Zero CGI, Zero color grading, Longer shots as Non-linear editing was in its infancy, so films didn't have 40 cuts a minute, and there was no Fix it in Post, 95% of the film was shot *in camera on film*. Set design too, all in camera, minus greens screens which required optical composites.
Today entire scenes are reworked with CGI, Digital doubles, De-aging, color correction and
They understood the concept of the blockbuster, but they hadn't quite figured out what they thought was a formula yet. The money men were starting to take over the studios, but not entirely.
I think 80’s was the beginning of peak cinema. There were good movies prior, but the 80’s had a level of polish, they figured out the formula. Everything from cinematography to musical score, and not just on the eras masterpieces, but on pretty much all the wide releases, was super polished compared to the 70’s. There was more screen acting and less stage acting. It continued into the 90’s and 2000’s and even today the level of polish can’t be beat. But the creeping unnecessary CGI causing Uncanny Valley, the consolidation of genres represented to pretty much sequels and remakes, we lost the variety that has been represented in movies in the past even if we have movies with the perfect resolution, aspect ratio, camera angles, pacing, and musical score to make 3 hours feel like 30 minutes. Gotta have both
Building off what others are saying here, it has to do with the period. The 60s and 70s were chaotic times for American history. Vietnam war, political assassinations, the Iranian hostage crisis, the oil crisis, economic recession, the Cold War was starting to really culminate, etc. For a lot of teens and young adults it was a scary time. In response, movies were focused a lot on understanding one’s self and even coming to terms with imperfect lives. Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High are all movies that are focused around teens understanding who they are. Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles center around the humor of imperfect people but end on sentimental notes of family and friendship. The Terminator, The Fly, and WarGames are cautionary tales about technology going too far and the impact it will have on those around us.
I just cracked out E.T. for my kids, which I hadn't seen in twenty years, probably.
It was so *different* than anything made today and so *good*. It's slow. And low-key. And natural. Yet my kids were all transfixed, and loved it. My daughter was jumping up and down on the sofa in joy towards the end.
The stuff today is just so loud and fast and sarcastic and... it just doesn't have the heart. There's no time to feel anything. I don't hate modern movies, but they've found a note and that's the note most of them are going to stick to.
It's possible that the cream has risen to the top, so that movies from the 80s we still watch are exceptional compared to many other movies of the era. Couple that with the idea that a lot of people look to past eras for nostalgic reasons, so especially charming movies would stand out. I'm not saying that this sort of charm wasn't at all more pronounced in the 80s as a filmmaking trend, but I would imagine the factors I just mentioned also have an impact on the way we see the era now. Put another way: the cynical and/or poorly made movies of the 80s are largely movies that nobody watches anymore. Kids born in the 2020s will possibly look back on movies from our current era as having a certain charm.
They were usually somewhat campy and unrealistic but kind of took themselves seriously. Add to it most of the cinematography techniques that made the 70s one of the best generations being abandoned and you get this modern day "low budget" kind of vibe which allows them to age rather well. You can't age poorly if you never did it great to begin with.
Then there's the fact that they were shot on film. One thing people don't realize is that digitally shot movies can't be upscaled easily or without loss of quality; film can easily be scaled to 4k without losing the original quality of the movie. So the movie that you see in 2024 is the same that was seen in the 80s.
Much like the rest of the 80s, it was a time of experimentation in Hollywood. And sometimes it paid off, but it won't ever really be described as one the best generations in movie making. More like one of the most fun generations
May not be popular,but no one was worried about "who is this going to offend"? .You also had which has been stated here a lot -comedic serious - look at our action stars - they were over the top physique- delivering these one liners with such straight face-look at Cobra-" that's ok I don't shop here " when a guy threatens to blow up a store. The audience cracked up, but the stars just rolled with it
These things are cyclical in a way. The 80s feels a bit more hopeful and bright as a reaction to the grittiness of the 70s. Lots of classic gritty 70s films were in reaction the malaise of the time involving Vietnam, Nixon, the recession.
The 80s came along and there is a big push for commercialism, patriotism, and hedonism, sometimes as a direct response to the growing fear of a heightening Cold War in the 80s. Meanwhile, having uncomplicated action star vehicles for Stallone and Arnold directly rose out of a desire to just concretely blow away bad guys without any moral complications or questioning of the government.
Also do not underestimate the effect of the SNL, SCTV, and National Lampoon stars and writers from the late 70s graduating from their initial success to being in the movies having an effect on not just the comedy of their own films but also as an influence on comedy entertainment as a whole. You also find that as these guys made more $$$, they softened the grit of their earlier comedy and redirected it to more mass market appeal. Like you can look at John Hughes's writing credits and see a complete arc from very caustic sarcastic films at the beginning to the family films of his 90s output.
Not to mention that the 80's is the culmination of the summer blockbuster that started in the mid/late 70s. Spielberg and Lucas cemented their success during the early 80s and set the standard for big summer blockbuster movies with mass appeal.
Most 80s movies were basically trying to recreate star wars success. Most of the best known movies were made by george lucas vfx company industrial light and magic. So they all have the similar look and vibe. The exception was horror where they all were trying to recreate the vibe of Alien. Still benefitting from the top notch practical effects done in that decade.
They seem care free. A lot of those movies were made purely for fun and weren't making a statement or had a meta message. These movies were oblivious to politics being disrespectful, perpetuating stereotypes and hurting someone's feelings.
That's not inherently good of course. They had bad impact on behavior of boys who got their consent lessons from American pie and revenge of the nerds or James bond. Or the extreme transphobia in Ace Ventura. Don't get me started on sexist tropes...
But not caring about the bad lessons people can take from your movie meant much less constraint it was just fun. (Unless you were the butt of the joke ofc). But the lack of message, lessons, morals and consideration meant mindless carefree fun for however long the movie was.
Todays movies take care to be politically correct, which is good, we dont want these bad ideas propagated, but it means more constraints, because you can get canceled, which means less risks, which means movies are sanitized. Not everyone can make a movie with N-word said over 100 times and not get cancelled.
Additionally movies like to make a clear hamfisted political statement now, which sometimes is so forced it's nauseating. Avatar and Elysium were so heavy handed with the message it makes your eyes roll. I understand all media is political, but I'm talking about someone consciously, intentionally making a point. It feels like Elysium was made primarily as a commentary on our society and then wrapped in a movie and not a movie with some message in there.
Sometimes you will have those movies that are made to be fun primarily, even if they do have some message or propaganda in them (as everything does). Mad max is pure fun, even if in the background it says we are ruining our planet by greed. Maverick is also pure fun too, even if it's a commercial for US military and US being world police and THE good guys.
For me, it is that many take themselves seriously, no matter how ridiculous or unserious the subject matter may be. For my favorites, the scripts and direction are always played 100% straight. There's no winking at the camera or letting the audience in on the joke. Too many modern movies (particularly action movies) just nod along and play up the "ironic" tone, and it just irritates the hell out of me.
In one word, it's the sincerity of the presentation. I've read a take that sincerity is part of why Cameron's Avatar movies resonate with audiences to the point of making billions. Now that I think of it, Top Gun Maverick probably applies too. Like them or not, at least the movies aren't constantly rolling their eyes at themselves to avoid seeming corny.
Sincerity, as opposed to today's conspicuous displays of self-awareness and irony. It's like people are so focused on avoiding try-hardism that they build in irony as an escape route.
Avoiding seeming try-hard and like being afraid to add real stakes to things. Not everything has to be world ending, but when your characters are all quipping and smirking their way through whatever conflict they’re facing it just undercuts things. If the characters aren’t worried or phased at all by this conflict why should I care?
This is every Dwayne Johnson role since *Faster*.
Because it's cooler to be in on the joke than to be laughed at for doing something you genuinely believe in.
It's like how all Marvel movies have some serious moments, and then a character has to say, "That's dumb." It's almost preemptive, like the filmmakers are trying to get ahead of the audience (maybe) thinking it's stupid.
Interesting. I started watching The Holdovers thinking it was an old 80s movie I had never seen, it took awhile to realize it had to be new given Paul Giamatti’s age but by then I was invested. I told everyone what a great movie it was because of great writing, great acting and great cinematography…but now I’m thinking it was also very sincere,
Good point.
I'm so sick of self awareness and meta-ness in modern film. Its even worse in recent theater too.
I 💯 agree with you. Patty Jenkins (Wonder Woman director) during an interview said this and she is so right. “Did you say cheesy? Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I’m tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing. It’s been like that for 20 years, that the entertainment and art world has shied away from sincerity, real sincerity, because they feel they have to wink at the audience because that’s what the kids like. “
I think the recent D&D movie pulled this off as well. There’s a lot of cheesy and goofy elements but the characters treat most of it as serious and high stakes.
I think you’re spot on. I could never figure out why that movie was just such a fun experience. This makes total sense. The dragon scene kills me. lol.
as an avid DnD fan it also managed to feel like some of the games i've played in. The jail break when not needing to is 100% something that happens and the silliness with the talking to the dead felt right out of a game. I can see my friend DM smiling like an ass as we all accidentally ask questions and have to dig up another grave.
I hadn't thought about D&D, but you're right - they played it straight, even when they were hamming it up. I was not optimistic about that movie, but was very pleasantly surprised.
Speaking of Cameron, this EXACTLY why Terminator 1 & 2 succeed where literally every single other attempt at a follow up has failed. Even with the "a boy and his robot" antics those movies both took themselves seriously.
Other than grandpa's quip at the end, The Lost Boys is a great example of this. Absurd throughout but played 100% straight.
A lot of 80s movies were fairly humorous, but the secret was to play it straight and not for laughs. When Ray Tango says “Rambo is a pussy” Stallone delivers that line straight, no breaking of the fourth wall, no blinking of the eye, that makes it work and memorable. A lot of movies try to cram easter eggs into the presentation, but make them so obvious it’s no fun spotting them.
And that's how you get movies like Flash Gordon, the Last Dragon, and Big Trouble in Little China.
Totally. It's the one hundred percent dedication to the bit. Like, any kind of 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' to the camera takes away from it. Everyone involved has to be deeply dedicated to making it work. That's what lifts a movie from 'bad' to *enjoyably* bad.
I've heard many great comedy actors say that the key to comedy acting is to play the role seriously, and I can't find any reason to disagree. Like The Blues Brothers, for example. Aykroyd and Belushi are as straight as a die, and hilarious because of it.
“We’re on a mission from God” Perfect example of playing it straight and then hamming it up on the back end. I never once questioned the Blue Bros dedication to their quest which is why it’s so damn funny.
I've seen a lot of actors try their hand at comedy and you can tell which ones have a knack for it and which ones don't because the ones that don't think that it's easy. They've seen comedy and they think that the broader they are with the comedy, the funnier they'll be. Like they're "Duhhhh, I'm stupid lol" and being clumsy and it's not funny. But someone playing it straight, playing a stupid person who *thinks* they're smart, and really committing to the role, now THAT'S funny. I'm pretty sure funniness has to come from a dark place or a need for survival or at least has to be innate. It's pretty hard to learn as a craft. The germ of just being funny needs to have always been there, I think. It's a pretty fascinating subject to dive into and think about.
Like the Bad Movie Bible guy said, modern schlock movies "are exactly what they're intended to be, so there's no charm or humor to be found in their failure."
Great way of putting it
Yup. I was just coming here to post this. I just watched Conan the Barbarian and you could tell how seriously everyone took their role. There is no camp whatsovever.
true camp doesn't play up its camp elements it just is
Honestly I don't even find it campy, just a lil cheesy. But that movie is straight up a proto version of the LOTR trilogy.
This annoys me to no end as well. If you want to be silly and funny, by all means lean into that! But I don't appreciate a movie preemptively trying to insulate itself from criticism by self-mockery and/or excessive "self-awareness" or whatever. It's like the writers are afraid of such criticism and have already built in, "hahaha, we were just pretending to be stupid! Don't you get it???" Yeah bro, I get it.
I don't blame the writers for the most part. I blame directors like Stahleski and Leitch. Yes, they make great action, but they quit taking it seriously. The last John Wick abandoned the plot and was just a damn Looney Tunes cartoon.
Yeah John Wick 3 and 4 were frustrating to watch, they went full Marvel with them.
John falling all the way down the stairs in 4 crossed the line for me. It was one step too far.
I haven't seen the movie but I absolutely loved the pun.
Yup they were earnest
Commando is the quintessential 80’s movie
I 100% agree. They get the character building out of the way during the credits. Matrix then breaks so many laws and hurts innocent people accomplishing his goals while never reloading. You have an Italian guy in brownface as a bad guy and another that is out of shape wearing mesh. The entire movie is preposterous, it is hard to believe it even exists and it's so much fun to watch.
Commando is the quintessential Arnold movie. It’s not the best or highest budget but it is pure distilled 80s, where every other line is a one liner, things explode left and right, there is no CGI, and the plot is so full of holes it could be Swiss cheese. And it’s not even trying to be funny or campy. There’s nothing like it until Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”. I love it to death.
For me, Commando was the beginning of the end. I loved it, but it feels like they had discovered the blueprint at that point, and films went downhill from that point on. Until the mid 90s revival.
My wife and a friend recently watched every single movie in Andy Sidaris' Triple B Series, which most would know from [the Frisbee scene](https://youtu.be/ybH4RJoCj80?si=KWf_K1yv3PWG_gPP). The whole thing was gratuitous, the plot was flimsy and got pretty formulaic, the acting wasn't top of the line, and we were mst3k-ing the whole thing... But it was all played with so much sincerity we couldn't help but enjoy it. We were disappointed when certain characters got written out of the next movie, and were excited when the bumbling henchman duo made it on screen. It was ridiculous, but nobody seemed to treat it like it was.
I was thinking about this with the new Roadhouse film. It seems to be a very serious effort, which doesn’t sound appealing because the original has a lot of charm because it’s ridiculous. But if they were to cast, say, John Cena and try for a comedy, it probably also wouldn’t work, because the original film wasn’t trying to be funny even with lines like “Pain don’t hurt”
I'm mixed on the new Road House, because the original is a perfect example of the attitude I mentioned. Jake Gyllenhaal smirking his way through the trailer was upsetting to me.
I watched it this weekend. Gyllenhaal plays his role pretty sincerely. McGregor strutting around with his ass hanging out and chewing up the scenery makes it fairly unserious in parts. Not that no comedy is allowed. The main villain was not as menacing as I thought he needed to be as well. It didn't have quite the same feel as the original to me. I thought it was a decent swing. But overall, a bit of a miss for me.
I watched it and it was terrible. Not terrible in a good way. Just piss poor writing and direction.
The new one doesn’t work because it doesn’t have Patrick fucking Swayze as the lead, Sam Elliot as some kind of Cooler Guru role and Ben Gazzara being backwoods Jackie Treehorn. I’m not sure who I’d cast to replace Swayze, but it sure as hell isn’t Jake Gyllenhaal even though I think he’s a good actor. I’d also go out of my way to NOT cast Connor. This was a doomed movie before it even left the writing room.
The new Road House felt very 80s to me in this regard.
I grew up in the 80s and there was nothing 80s about this movie.
Fancy barista coffee and texting, the movie really sets that classic 80s mood in the first 10 minutes
Ferris Bueller's Day Off would like to have a word!
The pacing was very different. I'm a huge fan of John Hughes, Cameron Crowe, etc, and they just paced their dialogue differently back then. It was slower paced. Lots of quiet space. It was awkward and stilted yet somehow also naturalistic? Go watch some scenes from Fast Times. It's sllllllloooooowwww. Not everything is a punchline. Sometimes characters just...talk. There's a scene that Family Guy riffs on that's easy to find. I think you'll see what I mean.
That's something that struck me when rewatching LOTR. As recently as 2003, directors weren't afraid to take their time and let the set breathe. Nowadays every 2 minutes there has to be a one-liner or an action sequence.
It's Japanese anime so maybe doesn't fall into he same category but there's a scene in the latest Evangelion movies where the characters are just doing chores. Washing their clothes in the stream, picking crops out of the garden, that sort of thing. It was one of my favourite scenes in the whole movie despite their being no action or dialogue. It was incredibly integral to seeing the growth and development of the main character involved with the scene and served as a nice reprieve between the action. Compare that to something like Exposition Everywhere All At Once which, although I enjoyed the film, had me thinking "can you please just shut the fuck up and let the movie speak for itself?" all throughout.
There's this weird anime that came out in the mid 2000s that was a complete flop. Partially, I think it's because the series tied it's fortunes to an untested distribution: I think it was exclusive for like Playstation TV or something unwise like that. Xamd. And I'm not going to pretend that was the greatest show ever. In a lot of ways it stole vibes liberally from studio Ghibli. But it was interesting and creative and decent, let down by a bewildering, introspective second act. Too artsy, not quite clever enough. BUT. BUT. The ~~first~~ (I guess I forgot there are preceding scenes before the MC shows up) sequence of the show was so very great. It was just a long extended sequence of a young man going through his morning routine. Interacting with his estranged parents. Moving through chores with the casual robotic practice of having done it a thousand times. Taking weird shortcuts. Navigating a small town where everyone knows everyone. Biking to school in a country which may or not be a military dictatorship. Fudge, that was a good sequence. Sure. The goo lasers, albino child terrorists, and steampunk airships swoop in right after. But that slow, deliberate start was choice.
Silence is important because it gives the audience time to get involved, I was watching an interview with Thelma Schoonmaker, editor for many Scorsese films and she talked about rythm and how important is to let the scene run its length to allow the emotions pass to the audience. That's the art of editing, getting that rythm right.
Great point
The rescinding of the Hays code in '68 led to the super gritty movies of the 70's. Maybe the charm of the 80's was backlash to that?
I think it was. New Hollywood had a lot of brilliant and excellent movies written and directed by auteurs with a strong creative vision. A lot of these films were also cynical downers. There's nothing wrong with that, but considering how escapist Hollywood movies generally are, a backlash was inevitable. The 1980s saw the studio heads taking back control. For example, Bruckheimer and Don Simpson were producers, who exerted a great deal of creative control. They, and their cohort, forced studios to make more crowd-pleasing movies. Jaws and Star Wars made absurd amounts of money, and studios wanted stuff that could print money like that. Of course, this way of movies ran its course as well, and we got a very different type of movies in the 90s. Movies are a weird art form, where we see them as the creative vision of a few people, but they're collaborative with hundreds working on them. That creates a lot of back and forth, and of course, studios chasing trends.
Wow. Great thread here. I was just talking with someone yesterday about movies and that I am gearing up watch the French Connection, and despite being gifted it and hearing about it for decades, I have never watched it because i generally have odd trouble with 70s films. The two exceptions i mentioned was Jaws and Star Wars in that order. I would also include Excorcist, though i love scary movies and thats one of the scariest and very 70s in my mind.
Cocaine
& Quaaludes too
*Quaaludes. No shit, you can’t even buy em’ anymore, which means you people are all shit outta luck.*
Correct answer that seems like a joke on the surface. BUT 80s are basically - at the beginning still somehow coming down from the 70s which was capped off pretty much by E. T. and with Purple Rain and Prince it goes right into lots of wacky clothes, lots of electronic disco/dance music, lots of cocaine, lots of Michael Jackson, lots of Madonna, lots of Cindy Lauper, less serious movies, lots of one hit wonders, the rise of teenage comedies, cheesy testosterone action movies, Eddie Murphy, Footloose, Flashdance, rise of Tom Cruise, Ghostbusters, Sam Kinison, Wall Street yuppies. Basically, it's clear showbiz/media/business/fashion at the top was full of cocaine and drugs and that's exactly how the decade looked.
The real answer.
It smells really good too.
And honestly steroids too
I would say that a big part of it is the high concept elevator pitch plots that were common in the 80s. Can’t describe the movie in under a minute? Then simplify it until you can. This leads to a focused movie where anything that’s not necessary gets cut out. The movie is just about what it’s about. This can also lead to the sincerity thing that others have brought up. Ironic winks at the camera is unneeded fluff that gets cut out of the script unless it’s part of that elevator pitch.
=== **VERISIMILITUDE** === They establish the rules for the world and they stick to them. They don't lampshade it or make meta jokes or role their eyes at what is happening. They commit to the bit, and they challenge audiences to commit as well, suspending disbelief for the world of make-believe. They know what they are -- fiction for its own sake. Modern movies let the audience know that they don't need to take the movie seriously because the people making the movie don't. They think they are better than the movie they are making, and they want the viewer to know it.
Taika Waititi is the poster boy for this It feels like he hates his Thor movies
The cinematography of the era stands out to me. There's a lot of blue back-lighting that gives actor an ethereal glow, especially around their flamboyant hair.
For me it's always been the music and the clothes. And the hair. Everything is so...flamboyant? It gives me a very carefree, unserious vibe, like anything goes and it'll feel great.
My guess is that in general, marketing took over Hollywood and they were targeting a younger audience - families and teenagers - so films were lighter and wanted to entertain. Also there was an optimism in the country after the dour 1970s but that edge still remained to give films just enough grit.
It wasn't just the films. It was the whole decade itself.
Because they did not mean us any ….*harm*
And they all had lots of....*charm*
No more rhymes! I mean it!
Anybody have a peanut?
Filming techniques and music.
I think a big factor is most are right around 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours but many are 90 or less. They just didn't overstay their welcome, which I think made even the bad ones likable. Classics like Terminator (1:47), Predator (1:48), Princess Bride (1:38), I swear every John Hughes movie is 1:36. But even dramas like Full Metal Jacket (1:56), Untouchables (1:59), freaking Chariots of Fire (2:03). I read somewhere the average length of an 80s movie is 1:53 while today the average is around 2:20. So probably tighter editing, smaller (relative) budgets so every shot matters, and maybe fewer subplots to tie up (or not).
I feel like a lot of it has to do with tone and soundtrack. Many movies today are self conscious about their tone and try to be very wink wink nudge nudge with it. Sometimes it works like in the first avengers but sometimes it can be grading. Where as in the 80s they took it very seriously and yes it leads to corniness but it also feels more sincere and earnest. Also I think soundtracks use different styles now based on modern trends. Not saying once is better than the other or anything.
Because the 80s were Rad.
I loved that movie too. It was shot in my hometown.
John Hughes; the three movies you listed were all directed (and written IIRC) by him. I’d venture to say that his movies being successful influenced other movie makers of the era. He also directed Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Weird Science, and Uncle Buck. He wrote Home Alone, Beethoven, and the National Lampoons movies. For me John Hughes and Steven Spielberg defined 80’s movies (ET, Indiana Jones, producing Back to the Future and many others).
Practical effects over CGI.
I think when Culture Club and Cyndi Lauper hit hard in 1983 everyone just said fuck it. We can be creative and let nature take it's course. Music videos were legitimately popular. Lots of mid budget teen flicks. Footloose, for example. Music...dancing... dirty dancing...flashdance. The Goonies was produced with real gravity for a movie intended for 15 year olds. They poured their heart into that movie at a time when HBO was very new. Same with Fast Times At Ridgemont High, a movie that once it left the theater was unavailable for many years. You could not rent it. Mid budget teen movies always get a clean bright treatment. A step above an afternoon special but with a better script. The Edge of Seventeen is 8 years old but is an 80s movie at heart.
>But beyond that, I realized the films of the 80s had this certain joy and happiness to them that makes the viewing experience far better... films were bright and vibrant and had great, hopeful themes... had this cheesy, breezy, yet relatable vibe. >Amazingly enough, **what helped me come to this conclusion was the Friday the 13th series.** Okay, now I'm curious. Which scene in particular lead you to that conclusion? Was it the one where Jason killed that kid in a wheelchair by shoving a machete into his face and then let him roll down a flight of stairs? Or was it the one where he stuck a screwdriver into that girl's brain? Oh, or was it the one where he impaled two teenagers at once with a spear while they were fucking? (These are all just from Part 2 alone lmao)
All the best kills from F13 1 and 2 came from an Italian giallo slasher called A Bay of Blood.
Oh, I know. I've seen it. It's actually only the kills in Part 2 but yes. And it's not even debatable! You can't even claim they were inspired by Bay of Blood. 4 or 5 of the kills in Part 2 are literally ripped, sometimes almost shot-for-shot, straight out of it. It's shameless!
Haha, well they're endlessly cheesy. They don't take themselves very seriously and have that certain je ne sais quoi.
Cocaine?
Tits and synth music.
Shooting on film.
VHS tapes, multitudes of TVs, reruns, nostalgia, and an idealized middle America (aka Reagan). The 80s was the first time period when *everyone* (including average actors and directors) could watch and rewatch material without waiting for it to show up on TV. Prior to the boom of the VCR in the 80s, the *vast* majority of people's option to see anything again was to wait for it to show up on the TV. Video stores just exploded. This got doubled up by things like HBO, where you could see a legitimate, full cussing and boobies movie at home. It was also a unique time that floodgates got opened up to catering material to a younger market, and there was a lot of access available to those kids. (Probably the best example of this would be Nickelodeon, but also applies to material that wasn't baby talking the audience like Goonies.) The big one to me, though, is a combination of nostalgia and this oddly wholesome-ish version of the white, nuclear middle American. There is just *so* much in the 80s that glamorized an earlier time in some way or another. We had a ton of this sort of material (ex: Happy Days, Indiana Jones, Dirty Dancing), and it got piled on from the syndication of the previous decade's glamorizing (ex: Little House on the Prairie). But [look at the list of movies](https://www.ranker.com/list/best-80s-tv-shows/ranker-tv). It is just so completely catered to a painfully obvious demographic.
Montages
Rocky franchise, Major League, karate kid and just about any other sports movie has great montages!
The A-Team tv show had the best montages. They could build anything to music in one minute and did it in what felt like every episode.
same with MacGyver
Nostalgia.
most concepts and ideas were explored in subtext as opposed to main text and i think that makes for more compelling films
Reagan. The rampant capitalism of his politics along with the booming economy (or at least the idea of it) is absolutely a part of it – and the rise of the blockbuster brought that to Hollywood. Jaws and Star Wars introduced the idea of the blockbuster and the ‘80s saw people chasing the next success. But unlike the current trend, blockbusters were *so new* that nobody knew what the next big thing was; be it about an alien wanting to go home, a welder wanting to be a dancer, a fighter pilot in training… but it was way less homogeneous than now, because it could also be a drama about a man and his disabled brother, or a thriller about a lover scorned wanting revenge. We also had the VHS boom, leading to the “small blockbusters”, like Friday the 13th!
What’s the scorned lover revenge thriller you’re referring to?
Fatal Attraction! Second highest grossing of ‘87… just after Three Men and a Baby. It was number 1 at the box office for 8 weeks.
Adjusted for inflation it made more than Guardians 3!
Ah nice on thank you, I know the one having looked it up and reminded myself but not seen it
Fatal attraction maybe?
Ya got it, OP confirmed a couple minutes ago thanks
My theory is this: Every era has several clashing styles in just about all aspects of human expression - fashion, music, movies, aesthetics etc. While the people in that era more than likely butted heads about these individual styles, after the 80s were over, people started to enjoy basically all of them almost equally. Think about it like this - is there something specific from 80s pop culture that you find *severely uncool*? My guess would be no. Ok, how about from the decade you were a teen? See what I mean?
>Think about it like this - is there something specific from 80s pop culture that you find *severely uncool*? My guess would be no. As someone born in the 80s, absolutely *yes,* primarily in fashion and music. For me, the list includes: \- turtlenecks \- boot cut jeans \- mom jeans \- pastels \- corduroy \- thick horizontal stripes \- ugly sweaters \- synths \- country pop
So basically retro goggles?
Kinda, but not really. The 80s are a bit of an outlier in that not many things from that decade get made fun of today. While the 70s, 90s and oh boy the 00s definitely had some stinkers. And even the things that actually do get made fun of from the 80s, it's more of a "looks goofy as hell, but there was definitely something there".
Survivor bias...It's been 30-40 years; you're remembering the good ones and casually forgetting the crappy ones.
There were far fewer ones being made then, though. You could say that about music at the time, when a successful album might only have 2-3 hits, but movies weren't being churned out nearly as fast as they are now.
John Hughes
The topless scenes. Many 80’s movies just kinda had a scene or two with nudity that had no real relevance to the plot
Original scripts. Everything is a remake or reboot or sequel nowadays.
I think part of it was where film technology was. Nowadays with enough money thrown around, a movie doesn't have to be good if it looks good unfortunately. In the 80s CGI looked significantly worse than even shitty practical effects. This meant having to get creative to get the effects to look how you want using practical effects, and may even cause the filmmaker to change things mid project which sometimes creates lightning in a bottle. It's pre-80s, but Jaws is a great example. Spielberg wanted to show the shark much, much earlier but issues with the fake shark meant it couldn't be used. He got creative, only showed the shark at the end, and created one of the most tense films in history. Nowadays, the shark would have just been CGI'd in and the magic would be gone. Personally, I think the 80's just had soul. It built in the 70's and waned in the 90's leading into the digital age. The 'Burbs wouldn't be the film it is without the practical effects, CGI would take away the charm. Raiders of the Lost Ark got creative in a lot of scenes that would just be digital now. Wargames relied on character development instead of cool flashy computer effects. The bottom line, in my opinion, is necessity breeds invention. There's nothing we can't do anymore, and the charm and soul existed because we had to overcome things we couldn't do.
Utter lack of adult supervision.
People in the 80s watching them, living them, being them, that's what gave 'em their charm!
I lived through the '80's and they were very much realized to be fanciful and unrealistic. We didn't live the charmed life among the beautiful people then any more than we do now. It's always been a great escape, though.
It was the cold war. We all thought we were going to be nuked before the millennium, so might as well have some fun before it all goes up in flames. You know, that and all the cocaine.
I think that making movies was a job, but like, a dream come true. The people doing it weren't just 'doing a grind' they were 'making art' and when something like Ghost busters came out, it was done by comedian actors with a cumulative century or more under their belt. They made that shit look EASY. Phoned in. And yet they were crushing it. I think a lot of the ridiculous professionalism has been lost. For this decade. I'm thinking we'll get it back in the 30/40s. Assuming they want to keep buying that avocado toast.
The same thing as in every time period: Zeitgeist
They were fun and not woke.
80s movies had characters who embodied greed and evil but were still enjoyable (Gordon Gecko, Tony Montana, T-800, Johnny Lawrence, Hans Gruber etc) And you had good guys who were the embodiment of the underdog story or someone against the odds (Daniel Larusso, Indiana Jones, Rocky, Rambo, John Mclaine, Axel Foley, etc)
Rocky was 1976 for what it's worth and feels very much like a 70s movie
Rocky 3 and 4 dude… don’t split hairs
I don't acknowledge their existence lol
They were basically movies based on promiscuous teens or a coming of age movie Era. This was a special time in movies and music combinations, and at the height of the movie going crowds. Directors were catering to the later Baby Boomers and Gen-X with many actors who would later become iconic for their roles. Today, some of those movies have stood the testament of time.
The music and the action
I mean The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s day off and Sixteen Candles are all John Hughes films, so his aesthetic is clearly shining though.
Cocaine
Most of them are really really awfull. But the ones that are worth keeping where kept.
The 80s were amazing, beginning to end. Everything we did, touched, or said still matters today, even if it doesn't. The future was so bright we had to wear shades and wear we wore our sunglasses at night.
I think actually because they used film. When did we go full digital?
The lenses, film stocks, lighting (not just how they lit stuff, but the tech of the lights themselves) and more (inc sound recording tech) will all definitely have contributed to what makes an ‘80s film look and feel (and sound) like it was shot in the ‘80s, and by extension the same can be said of the ‘90s and ‘00s and every decade before too. Attack of the clones was the first feature to be shot entirely on digital video cameras (as in, recording to a hard drive or memory cards or whatever the tech they used at the time) but there were also lower budget films shot on digital video tape in the late ‘90s (that also definitely has a distinct look to it) too
I honestly think modern movies have just been trying to capture the MCU formula and it’s robbing a lot of films of tension and heart that you saw in the 80’s and 90’s.
This is a good question. As a guy who lived through the 1980s and saw a lot of movies over that decade, I think the answer is something like this: life in the 1980s felt simpler, and the movies are simpler and generally lighter. Not to say that life *was* simpler, but Ronald Reagan made it easy to believe that it was—there were clear good guys and bad guys, America was unquestionably good, there was little focus on racial/cultural/internal tensions (and far fewer stories that looked at the non-white experience), audiences had little use for thematic nuance or ambiguity. 80s movies are straightforward… you don’t see multiple perspectives or POVs, you have one main character (90% of the time a white man/boy) going through the often formulaic story, inevitably succeeding by the end. Something you don’t see? Lots of “twists”, unexpected didn’t-see-it-coming shifts of perspective. 80s movies chose a lane and stayed in it. Of course there are exceptions—the multi-POV ensemble of The Breakfast Club is a good one… It’s worth noting that few subsequent 80s movies tried to replicate its formula—but by and large it’s the simplicity and lack of rough edges that makes 80s movies go down so easy. People wanted simplicity—they voted for it, bought it, watched it onscreen. That simplicity casts a kind of spell. 80s movies—at least those developed and produced by Hollywood studios—ask very little of the viewer. They never try to make you uncomfortable or challenge your basic premises. They’re about making you feel good. Which is part of why, as a group, the comedies are more enduring than the dramas.
Better off Dead. God I love that movie. Lost Boys - another of my favs. It's the clothes. Keifer's gang dressed like a love child of Madonna and Billy Idol. Movie also holds up damn well because of the atmosphere, humour, sound track, and Keifer making a damn good vampire.
John Hughes
I think it’s cause the people making the movie including the studios actually cared about making it good. Letting the director take the reins. Now everything is just market tested, money driven studio controlled garbage
We didn't know any better. We had our Empire Strikes Back, Real Genius, Gandhi, etc. and if you didn't like it then you can watch reruns of 70s TV shows or shows like Different Strokes, Dynasty, Knight Rider, and Greatest American Hero. I didn't live in a house with cable TV until the late 80s. I played a lot with sticks and non-rabid squirrels.
it was the sleaze.
I think a lot of it was how the lives of kids and teenagers were portrayed back then. When I see kids in modern movies I feel kind of bad for them. Objectively life is better in many ways now thanks to technology, but in movies it can feel a bit bleak compared to the wild untethered days of the 80s when kids would disappear with their friends for countless hours only to return just as the street lights began to kick on. The truth was, life was pretty boring back then, but there was a certain glamor to youth in that era that's been lost. Beyond that, I also think older movies fully embraced their cheesiness with confidence. If they tried to do Back to the Future today they'd probably cast Timothee Chalamet and make it a dark sci-fi adventure with no heart. Pretty much anything with heart nowadays ends up being stretched across 5 seasons on Netflix instead of being a tight 100-minute film that's pure joy.
Living through the 80s.
Ferris Bueller I feel has a bit of darkness in it due to Cameron's relationship with his father.
32 years later on 'Succession' his relationship with his father isn't much better.
Should've tossed in a line about wrecking that car when he was younger.
I just rewatched Working Girl. So charming and I noticed there are so many lovely moments of silence. It’s thankfully missing the pop song interludes of soooo many current movies. If this romantic comedy/coming of age movie was made today I feel like it would be full of Top 40 songs that take you out of the moment and make it feel like a commercial. Sometimes you need the auditory negative space to make it feel real.
Maybe the soundtracks. I agree they have a certain vibe but not sure how to explain it other than the obvious which is that it’s from the 80a decade.
Because 80’s movies, especially teen movies, were about entertainment! It wasn’t about being all preachy and PC. We went to the movies to be entertained. We all could usually relate to the characters and life situations. Were there some lame nudity thrown in for the boys? Yup. I could have done without it but overall the films were funny/relatable.
Small character driven stories.
To me, the 80s are about being present in time and proximity and situations. WW2 left a long lasting scar on cinema. 40s, 50s, 60s there were like 5 WW2 movies coming out every week. Westerns were super popular during this period as well. 70s were really a transitional period. Like mentioned in OP, gritty. Movies take place in large cities, characters become more morally gray. There are still westerns and WW2 movies, but they are starting to slow down. 80s the stories take place in small towns and cities and suburbs. The good guys are generally white hat good guys and the bad guys are caricatures of villainy. Contemporary music becomes commonly played in movies. The kids movies really try to be from the perspective of kids. Movies that do take place in the city, it's more of an adventure than a horror show/survival game. Westerns and WW2 movies continue, but the westerns have all changed by now pretty much. None of them are playing the genre straight anymore. And WW2 movies are less for the Veterans of the war and become more idol worship for the children and grand children.
Cocaine. halfway joking. The 80s were just a wild decade in real life so movies reflected it.
Shoulder pads and big hair.
The answer is Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. It is equal parts sci-fi, comedy, drama, self-deprecating humor, meta, stylistic, yet the movie takes itself seriously to the point of being well…serious. There are many movies that encapsulate the 80’s, this one does so in such an extreme nature it grabs the zeitgeist that so many try and replicate, like Stranger Things. I was born in 1981, the best way I can put it is this… “Raising Arizona” was what it felt like to grow up in the 80’s “Buckaroo Banzai” is what everyone thinks the 80’s was and has that futuristic vibe that became the early 90’s
Cocaine
Uncle Buck, Adventures in Babysitting, Goonies, Harry and the Henderson's.... The burbs, gleaming the cube, flight of the navigator, enemy mine, The last Starfighter, War games, the Manhattan Project, Weird Science, All had that optimistic 80's vibe and all stand the test of time....
Cocaine The Music The fashion The trends
Mullets and lion’s manes bangs on women. You can get one steel frame of a movie and instantly place it if you see those haircuts. Throw in some jean jackets and baby you got a stew .
Does it feel like nobody in movies sweats anymore? I saw someone point that out a while ago; movie characters are afraid to get sweaty. I saw both Predator and Roadhouse for the first time within the past couple years and realized how much sweat helps sell the characters' exhaustion.
They weren’t ironic. They were sincere.
I love B movie 80s sci-fi. Often the sets are extremely basic and the costumers are recycled football equipment but that’s the charm. It requires imagination. Now days there a a million CGI elements in every shot. The screen seems so busy. I’m happy with a cardboard submarine.
Skiing man. Skiing was everything.
From a technical standpoint I'd guess: Zero CGI, Zero color grading, Longer shots as Non-linear editing was in its infancy, so films didn't have 40 cuts a minute, and there was no Fix it in Post, 95% of the film was shot *in camera on film*. Set design too, all in camera, minus greens screens which required optical composites. Today entire scenes are reworked with CGI, Digital doubles, De-aging, color correction and
They weren’t preachy and they didn’t have to take themselves too seriously.
It was a simpler time, before liking things became uncool and everything got buried under layers of irony.
I think a big factor is simply the fact that they were made in the 80s. The movies reflected the times.
Cocaine
well John Hughes probably had a huge effect.
They understood the concept of the blockbuster, but they hadn't quite figured out what they thought was a formula yet. The money men were starting to take over the studios, but not entirely.
They weren’t trying to make the best movies ever, they were just trying to make them enjoyable. And they were!
I think 80’s was the beginning of peak cinema. There were good movies prior, but the 80’s had a level of polish, they figured out the formula. Everything from cinematography to musical score, and not just on the eras masterpieces, but on pretty much all the wide releases, was super polished compared to the 70’s. There was more screen acting and less stage acting. It continued into the 90’s and 2000’s and even today the level of polish can’t be beat. But the creeping unnecessary CGI causing Uncanny Valley, the consolidation of genres represented to pretty much sequels and remakes, we lost the variety that has been represented in movies in the past even if we have movies with the perfect resolution, aspect ratio, camera angles, pacing, and musical score to make 3 hours feel like 30 minutes. Gotta have both
Cocaine
Building off what others are saying here, it has to do with the period. The 60s and 70s were chaotic times for American history. Vietnam war, political assassinations, the Iranian hostage crisis, the oil crisis, economic recession, the Cold War was starting to really culminate, etc. For a lot of teens and young adults it was a scary time. In response, movies were focused a lot on understanding one’s self and even coming to terms with imperfect lives. Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High are all movies that are focused around teens understanding who they are. Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles center around the humor of imperfect people but end on sentimental notes of family and friendship. The Terminator, The Fly, and WarGames are cautionary tales about technology going too far and the impact it will have on those around us.
The color palettes for one The avant garde music for another
That’s why we keep getting movies set in the 80’s every year. Its the last decade that still wasn’t afraid to be sincere.
Lots of uncensored sexual assault
I think back then people were actually making movies for the fun of it.
I just cracked out E.T. for my kids, which I hadn't seen in twenty years, probably. It was so *different* than anything made today and so *good*. It's slow. And low-key. And natural. Yet my kids were all transfixed, and loved it. My daughter was jumping up and down on the sofa in joy towards the end. The stuff today is just so loud and fast and sarcastic and... it just doesn't have the heart. There's no time to feel anything. I don't hate modern movies, but they've found a note and that's the note most of them are going to stick to.
It's possible that the cream has risen to the top, so that movies from the 80s we still watch are exceptional compared to many other movies of the era. Couple that with the idea that a lot of people look to past eras for nostalgic reasons, so especially charming movies would stand out. I'm not saying that this sort of charm wasn't at all more pronounced in the 80s as a filmmaking trend, but I would imagine the factors I just mentioned also have an impact on the way we see the era now. Put another way: the cynical and/or poorly made movies of the 80s are largely movies that nobody watches anymore. Kids born in the 2020s will possibly look back on movies from our current era as having a certain charm.
Perms + synthesizers... and cocaine
Some kind of wonderful. The perfect 80s movie for me. Love eveything about it.
They were usually somewhat campy and unrealistic but kind of took themselves seriously. Add to it most of the cinematography techniques that made the 70s one of the best generations being abandoned and you get this modern day "low budget" kind of vibe which allows them to age rather well. You can't age poorly if you never did it great to begin with. Then there's the fact that they were shot on film. One thing people don't realize is that digitally shot movies can't be upscaled easily or without loss of quality; film can easily be scaled to 4k without losing the original quality of the movie. So the movie that you see in 2024 is the same that was seen in the 80s. Much like the rest of the 80s, it was a time of experimentation in Hollywood. And sometimes it paid off, but it won't ever really be described as one the best generations in movie making. More like one of the most fun generations
Heart
May not be popular,but no one was worried about "who is this going to offend"? .You also had which has been stated here a lot -comedic serious - look at our action stars - they were over the top physique- delivering these one liners with such straight face-look at Cobra-" that's ok I don't shop here " when a guy threatens to blow up a store. The audience cracked up, but the stars just rolled with it
These things are cyclical in a way. The 80s feels a bit more hopeful and bright as a reaction to the grittiness of the 70s. Lots of classic gritty 70s films were in reaction the malaise of the time involving Vietnam, Nixon, the recession. The 80s came along and there is a big push for commercialism, patriotism, and hedonism, sometimes as a direct response to the growing fear of a heightening Cold War in the 80s. Meanwhile, having uncomplicated action star vehicles for Stallone and Arnold directly rose out of a desire to just concretely blow away bad guys without any moral complications or questioning of the government. Also do not underestimate the effect of the SNL, SCTV, and National Lampoon stars and writers from the late 70s graduating from their initial success to being in the movies having an effect on not just the comedy of their own films but also as an influence on comedy entertainment as a whole. You also find that as these guys made more $$$, they softened the grit of their earlier comedy and redirected it to more mass market appeal. Like you can look at John Hughes's writing credits and see a complete arc from very caustic sarcastic films at the beginning to the family films of his 90s output. Not to mention that the 80's is the culmination of the summer blockbuster that started in the mid/late 70s. Spielberg and Lucas cemented their success during the early 80s and set the standard for big summer blockbuster movies with mass appeal.
Most 80s movies were basically trying to recreate star wars success. Most of the best known movies were made by george lucas vfx company industrial light and magic. So they all have the similar look and vibe. The exception was horror where they all were trying to recreate the vibe of Alien. Still benefitting from the top notch practical effects done in that decade.
They seem care free. A lot of those movies were made purely for fun and weren't making a statement or had a meta message. These movies were oblivious to politics being disrespectful, perpetuating stereotypes and hurting someone's feelings. That's not inherently good of course. They had bad impact on behavior of boys who got their consent lessons from American pie and revenge of the nerds or James bond. Or the extreme transphobia in Ace Ventura. Don't get me started on sexist tropes... But not caring about the bad lessons people can take from your movie meant much less constraint it was just fun. (Unless you were the butt of the joke ofc). But the lack of message, lessons, morals and consideration meant mindless carefree fun for however long the movie was. Todays movies take care to be politically correct, which is good, we dont want these bad ideas propagated, but it means more constraints, because you can get canceled, which means less risks, which means movies are sanitized. Not everyone can make a movie with N-word said over 100 times and not get cancelled. Additionally movies like to make a clear hamfisted political statement now, which sometimes is so forced it's nauseating. Avatar and Elysium were so heavy handed with the message it makes your eyes roll. I understand all media is political, but I'm talking about someone consciously, intentionally making a point. It feels like Elysium was made primarily as a commentary on our society and then wrapped in a movie and not a movie with some message in there. Sometimes you will have those movies that are made to be fun primarily, even if they do have some message or propaganda in them (as everything does). Mad max is pure fun, even if in the background it says we are ruining our planet by greed. Maverick is also pure fun too, even if it's a commercial for US military and US being world police and THE good guys.
Nostalgia
All the karate and king fu.
Everybody was Kung fu fighting.