Lifetime Movies: 1984

Nominees: Blood Simple, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Karate Kid, Revenge of the Nerds, The Terminator

Blood Simple is the Coen Brothers first film, an indie crime classic 10 years before Tarantino and the rest of the world caught up. Ghostbusters was another across the board pop culture sensation that was really unlike anything else at the time. All the special effects and high concept story aside, its enduring charm comes down to the great comedic chemistry of the lead actors--Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis (not to mention Ernie Hudson). As we touched on during our Distillation of Steven Spielberg, Temple of Doom is the neglected child of the Indiana Jones franchise. While flawed, I have to include it here for what the whole series meant to me at the time. As for The Karate Kid, there's not much to say. If you've seen it, you know why it's here. On top of all the great scenes and lines, Pat Morita gives one of my favorite performances ever. And William Zabka makes Cobra Kai Johnny maybe the quintessential 80s movie villain. (Side note: Who directed this gem? Why none other than John G. Avildsen, of course. Who again, right? Well, get this: he also directed Rocky. And some other interesting films, but no one seems to know his name, including me until just now.) Revenge of the Nerds? Seriously, this is right up there with Animal House on the fun scale and scores real high with me on rewatchability. NERDS! Then there's The Terminator, a revolutionary sci-fi film at the time and one that somehow looks just as cool today. Question: what's the truer representation of a director's talent--big budget or low budget?

Winner: The Terminator

Notes: What a year. Usually I narrow the field down to 10 before sorting out the nominees. Here, I had 24. Not all great movies, but personally noteworthy for one reason or another. Like Cannonball Run II. It’s just a straight rip-off of the 1981 original except it has Frank Sinatra as himself. Enough said...I’m a big fan of baseball movies, but I always thought The Natural was overrated...Speaking of which, I was never a big fan of Beverly Hills Cop. I loved Eddie Murphy on SNL and thought his stand-up was smart and funny, but other than 1983’s Trading Places and 1988’s Coming to America, he never really connected with me as an actor...Two trends for me at this time: break dancing and killing commies. Beat Street really needs to be rediscovered as a hip hop classic. Unfortunately, it gets overshadowed by the cheesily craptastic Breakin movies and relegated to the nostalgia bins alongside half-finished Rubik cubes and Kangaroos. But it’s a gritty cool snapshot of where pop culture ended up heading. And Red Dawn was kids fighting invading Russians. It doesn't get better than that for a kid in Reagan America...Sixteen Candles--John Hughes and Molly Ringwald and Long Duk Dong. Good freakin times...The first A Nightmare on Elm Street...Tom Hanks in Bachelor Party...And finally, a confession. I have never seen This is Spinal Tap all the way through. I know. I'll be turning in my modem in the morning.

This post is dedicated to our fan Brattney, for her apparent obsession with this particular year.