License to Kill (1989)

This was, believe it or not, the first James Bond movie I ever saw. I think Benicio Del Toro might be in it, and I swear someone is killed by a supermarket-style sliding door. Or was it a revolving door? Either way: ridicularious.

So I guess Bond has a pretty big dick, huh? Either that or
it's so small that even this gun is overcompensation.
Find out in... 007: The Motion of the Ocean!

Halloween III (1982)

A kid is happily playing with toys in one of those rooms with the one-way mirror (or are those called two-way mirrors?), wearing some kind of plush or fabric pumpkin-head mask that covers his entire head. Then a mad scientist pushes a button—no, he makes something come up on the television in the room with the kid (maybe by pushing a button, sure)—and a light on the mask blinks, the kid frantically clutches his head and pitches over, and the mask constricts and collapses to smaller than kid-head size, at which point cockroaches or beetles come pouring out of it. (Right: holy shit!) The evil scientists intend to broadcast that signal to televisions everywhere, having already distributed these masks all over the place; we see other happy children wearing these masks in television rooms around the country, ready to have their heads devoured by bugs or turned into bugs or whatever it is that happens. The end.

Television is bad for kids.

[I think my memory of this movie may actually be quite clear and accurate; the real problem is that I saw only a few minutes of it. This was on TV, in the days before you could push a button (or at least check the Internet) to find out what show you were watching, so it was years and years and years before I knew what disturbing weirdness it had been that had scarred me in a small way at that late-'80s Halloween-night slumber party. And no wonder I couldn't figure out what movie it had been: who makes a third movie in a series that has nothing at all to do with the first two?! It would be like if Iron Man 3 came out and instead of Iron Man it was about a group of mischievous street urchins who rob a candy store.]

License to Drive (1988)

Corey Haim borrows someone's car? And then he picks up some hot girl, but she gets drunk, or maybe she does drugs or has some kind of drug interaction, and she passes out? Maybe he puts her in the trunk? And then has a series of misadventures? I watched this on VHS when I was a kid and home sick* to the point of delirium, so I'm not sure I remembered it ten minutes after it was over. I think half of what I'm "remembering" now actually comes from Adventures in Babysitting, and the other half from "Parents Just Don't Understand" by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. (But maybe this movie is basically Adventures in Babysitting meets "Parents Just Don't Understand"...?)

"I want the veal scalopini! I want a good fetuccini alfredo!"

* ≠ homesick

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)

Steve Martin and John Candy get stuck going cross-country together (presumably via plane, train, and automobile). At one point they share a bed in a hotel and John Candy says he has his hands between two pillows and Steve Martin says, "THOSE AREN'T PILLOWS!" (Or, wait, probably it's Steve Martin who has his hands in John Candy's ass, right?) Also they stand holding suitcases, hitchhiking. I think both of the things I remember about this movie were in the trailer.

Totally forgot they're transporting a 12-year-old Swedish vampire.

TV I Don't Remember: Shirt Tales (1982-1984)

You know how some television shows for kids are pretty much just commercials for toys? (For example, I'm pretty sure the entire He-Man universe was created as a workaround for the fact that Mattel couldn't get the merchandising rights for Conan the Barbarian. That's not a joke I just made up: I'm pretty sure it's actually true!) Well, I Googled Shirt Tales a while back and found out that it started out not even as a line of toys but as a line of greeting cards. With origins like that, how could the show not be good?

I remember that these were a bunch of knee- or waist-high talking animals wearing different-colored T-shirts that would all turn the same color (blue?) when they needed to...um... OK, I have no idea what was different when the T-shirts changed colors. I think it was set up like a superhero thing—or, you know, like the way Voltron would assemble and then kick ass—but I'm not sure anything actually happened when it happened: it really might have been all convention, no content. They had some kind of batmobile they'd drive out of their tree (because they lived in a tree), and they were maybe in a park or a zoo with a groundskeeper who was always trying to catch them and lived in a house with his family. There was a girl panda and a boy monkey (who talked like Humphrey Bogart, whom I first learned about via Shirt Tales). Maybe their batmobile flew? I'm pretty sure my parents hated this show. Hated.

I'm sorry, what's that fucking possum's name?!
Oh...Digger. OK.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Some kids in a farming town kill all their parents and then stand around like creepy American Gothic Babies. I think this happens under the opening credits. Then probably some attractive teenagers get lost there and the children of the corn kill most of them but one or two escape; this I'm more guessing than remembering. (I think Stephen King wrote this; of course, he wrote most movies, including Stand By Me, The Running Man, The Shawshank Redemption—this is all true!—and Madea's Family Reunion.)

Looks like a nice boy.

Platoon (1986)

I think I remember Charlie Sheen in the mud. (Is that the image on the one-sheet, even? Am I just remembering the goddamned poster?!) Pretty sure somebody betrays somebody else. Oh, and of course it's Vietnam. Or Korea. I'm going to go with Vietnam.

Willem, no!!!

Major League (1989)

Charlie Sheen plays baseball and is a bit of a wild man! At one point he shaves some idiotic pattern into his hair—maybe he had that, changed it, and gets it back again later as a way of demonstrating that he's back in the saddle? (I might be remembering Major League 2.) I'm 95% sure that this is a comedy.

Glasses? No memory of this at all. Maybe I only saw Major League 2.
To be honest, I don't really care for sports.

Biloxi Blues (1988)

In this Brighton Beach Memoirs sequel, Matthew Broderick joins the army and is made fun of for writing in a diary, which eventually people read, and then they hate him for what he said about them. He loses his virginity to a nice prostitute. I think at one point somebody farts on a train.

Whoa, and the drill sergeant is Christopher Walken??

Ghostbusters (1984)*

Some scientists start a company where they catch ghosts, and for some reason they live in a firehouse. I know the ghosts slime people, and at some point there's a ghost in a refrigerator. Maybe a zombie drives a cab? Oh, and of course there's the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. Is he big like Godzilla and steps on a church?

Bill Murray's in this?!

* Check the date.

Movies I've Seen Only Parts Of: 9½ Weeks (1986)

Pretty sure I just fast-forwarded through this to watch the sex scenes...but I can't remember even those, so I guess it's a wash.

Oh, an art film, eh?

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Matt Dillon and...Patricia Arquette?—go on a drugstore-robbing spree so they can feed their prescription-drug habit. I think they stay in motels, and at some point somebody's in the ceiling. Are they hiding in the ceiling? No, I think they put a dead body in the ceiling. Whose? There's another guy, a third junkie. Is that who they put in the ceiling? At one point in this movie they talk to William S. Borroughs, maybe.

Oh, right, Heather Graham! I bet they put her in the ceiling.

Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)

Somebody who isn't Matthew Broderick (but later turns into Matthew Broderick in Biloxi Blues) talks to the camera and either has or covets a picture of a naked girl and lives— Wow, I actually was about to say "lives on Coney Island or something," but odds are it's Brighton Beach, right? It's the '40s or the late '30s, and he's into sex but he's a virgin, and eventually he sees a girl with her top off (or maybe with her bottom off?) and says, "Onwards and upwards!" and that's the end of the movie.

Goes on to desecrate a corpse in a tony East Coast beach community.

Top Gun (1986)

Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer both fly fighter planes and hate each other. Tom Cruise has sex with some woman in a bed while music plays, and later he flies his plane upside down. I think there's a bar fight, and I assume Tom Cruise gets "grounded" but then ends up saving the day in some kind of combat situation and thereby redeeming himself, although to be honest I really might just be remembering the plot of the 1991 parody film Hot Shots! Oh, and Tom Cruise has a cool nickname like "Topper." (No, wait, that is from Hot Shots! What's his nickname, then? "Tucker"? "Tiger"? "Tugboat"? Something with a T.*)

This movie's a bit of a sausage fest, as I recall.

* "Maverick." I was close.

Three Fugitives (1989)

Nick Nolte, Martin Short, and a little girl are bank robbers. Or probably two bank robbers get stuck with a little girl for some reason? Mainly what I remember is the one-sheet: isn't Nick Nolte holding both Martin Short and the little girl? Something wacky is going on. I'm really searching for any memories at all about the actual content of this film. Maybe it's more violent than you'd expect? One thing about it is that I think for a while in my head Nick Nolte was "the guy from Three Fugitives."

A career-defining role for Nolte.

TV I Don't Remember: The Wonder Years (1988-1993)

Fred Savage is friends with this Jewish kid, and his older brother, Marty McFly's coonskin-cap-wearing uncle, is maybe a bit of a bully. Fred Savage has a crush on Winnie Cooper, and one time he makes out with Becky Slater* and she gives him a hickey and he says it's a bug bite and Becky Slater's like, "Bug bite?!" I believe the series is set in the 1950s and is narrated by Fred Savage's older self (like in Stand by Me)—but honestly that's about it: I can't imagine how a single episode would have panned out. I do remember that Fred Savage tends to humiliate himself. Essentially I think of this show as a 1950s, kiddy, goyische version of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Curb + Freaks & Geeks ÷ Jewish?† [Cf.]

* Played by the sister of the girl who played Winnie Cooper, TRUE STORY!

† No, if only because Fred Savage is Jewish. Bee-tee-dubs, how cool is it that he now directs shit like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Party Down? Go Fred Savage!

Starman (1984)

Either Jeff Bridges or Jeff Daniels is a man from outer space who lands in I'm going to say Ally Sheedy's backyard. Does she live on a farm, maybe? (It's not Ally Sheedy, though. Mariel Hemingway?) Anyway, they have to drive somewhere, and whichever Jeff it is learns to drive from watching her but thinks a yellow light means speed way up (because she's always trying to make the light). I assume they fall in love and he goes back to outer space, and there is no way that they aren't being pursued by the government.

Dude, turns out it's Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen!
Into my Netflix instant queue with you, Starman!

Critters 2 (1988)

A drunk in an Easter Bunny costume takes a leak and a critter jumps in the fly. One of the bounty hunters dies; another (maybe the same one) takes the form of a Playboy centerfold and walks around topless—with a huge staple in her belly, what? Later, a bunch of critters ball up into one big critter and roll around. [NOTE: This movie had a phone number you could call before it came out and listen to scenes from it. Did I call this number? Yes, I did.]

I remembered it vertical and lower down, but, yep, staple.

We're No Angels (1989)

Sean Penn and somebody else are escaped convicts who have to pretend to be monks or priests or something. Things go bad, and I think somebody gets shot at a parade where people are pinning cash to Jesus or something. I had seen the old Humphrey Bogart movie when this one came out, and I remember being distressed by how different this one was.

"Sean Penn and somebody else." Yeesh.

Turner & Hooch (1989)

Police officer Tom Hanks gets teamed up with a drooling bulldog! At first he doesn't care for having to work with an animal, but then they grow to love each other! Eventually the dog gets killed and everyone in the audience cries! (To be honest, I'm not sure how much of this is coming from my memory and how much of it is just educated guesswork.)

Not to be confused with K-9 (or Cujo).