Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. Imagine a world where This is Spinal Tap and Repo Man hit theaters on the same day. That is the world of 1984.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory.

This time around it’s August 10, 1984, and we’re off to see Dreamscape, Sheena, Tightrope, and The Woman in Red.

Dreamscape

It seems in the 1980s, everyone has super mental powers and the government wanted to use them for black ops.

Dreamscape follows Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid) as he is pulled back into a program to study his psychic abilities. This time it’s to see if he can enter people’s dreams and help them get through phobias and cure them of sleep issues. What he doesn’t know is that certain operatives in the government want someone in this program to assassinate the President of the United States via a recurring nightmare he has of nuclear war.

Dreamscape isn’t a bad movie, but it somehow came off feeling a bit too much like Firestarter.

I also want to know how Kate Capshaw is in her third movie in four months! We’ve seen here in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in May, and Best Defense in July, and here she is back as Jane, Alex’s love interest. Kudos to her for working 1984 like she owned it.

And speaking of Jane, there is one scene that was definitely an issue for me. Alex enters her dreams and makes out with her there. When she wakes up she figures it out and gets made at him for about a total of 20 seconds before she decides she’s in love with him. To say it felt a bit rapey would be an understatement.

It’s an entertaining enough movie, but nothing spectacular, and an easy one to skip. Especially due to the dream intrusion scene.

Sheena

Imagine Tarzan, but with breasts.

Sheena had existed as a comic book character since the late 1930s, and it seemed inevitable somebody would one day turn it into a film. What we ended up with was an excuse for Tanya Roberts to be topless a couple of times while running around a movie with horrible special effects.

The back story of Sheena is quite similar to Tarzan, except that she is raised by a tribe in Africa as their savior from a prophecy. (At least they put the trope on Front Street) When Shaman is arrested for a crime she didn’t commit, Sheena kicks into action and ends up in a battle to save her people while falling in love with the first white man she has seen since she was a very small child.

The plot is nonsense, as is most of the acting. That being said, it is so beautifully shot that it’s hard to look away from it.

Sheena is a tough film to review. It’s not good to be sure, but it’s also not bad. It just simply exists. I’m not sure I have ever walked away from a film with such an absolute feeling of neutrality.

Tightrope

Clint Eastwood spent much of the 1970s and 80s being best-known for the Dirty Harry franchise of police films. In Tightrope he returns to playing a cop, but this time it is Det. Wes Block, a homicide detective with a complicated life that only sets out to become even more so.

Set in New Orleans, a series of murders of women has landed on Block’s desk. It takes him into the seedy underworld of the city filled with prostitutes, sex clubs, and every other form of debauchery. What you learn throughout the course of the film is that Block is not exactly opposed to indulging some of these vices throughout the course of his work, but it isn’t entirely clear if he hates himself for it.

Over the course of the film, the killer learns it’s Block hunting for him and uses his vices against him to raise the body count ever higher. This puts him in a  bad position because now everything could lead back to him as opposed to the actual killer.

Eastwood had become very one-note in this period of his career. The fact that he used another detective role to try to break out of that is intriguing because it works. While I have not seen all of his films, I would rate Tightrope as one of his best performances. This is a heavily flawed man that end of the day wants to do good, but he is also human. Alison Eastwood playing his daughter in the film also really helped to drive home the relationship with his children.

Tightrope isn’t for everyone, but it’s a tense thriller that kept me engaged throughout. This is an easy recommendation on multiple fronts.

The Woman in Red

There it is.

It seems in every batch of films I do there has to be one where I don’t root for any of the characters and I can’t even begin to fathom how anyone thought this movie would somehow be endearing.

Ted Pierce (Gene Wilder) is a married father of two children who works for the city of San Francisco. One day, he sees a beautiful woman—Charlotte (Kelly LeBrock)—walk across a vent and take the Marilyn Monroe dress scene a step further. He is immediately infatuated with her and sets about trying to cheat on his wife with her.

The rest of the film is about the insane lengths Ted goes to to try to get some time with Charlotte. First, he even has to officially meet her, and then he needs to try to convince her to sleep with him. He inevitably does meet her, and they’re just about to hit the sack when you learn, oh, oops, Charlotte is married as well, meaning that both of these people are horrible.

Even after everything that happens, Ted is immediately infatuated with another woman and looks set to go through the whole scenario once again.

There are two standouts in the film: Gilda Radner as Ms. Milner who does indeed want to sleep with Ted, and Charles Grodin as Buddy, Ted’s secretly gay friend. While it’s no surprise Radner is entertaining, I have never been a fan of Grodin. However, in this film he actually plays a fairly layered character while also having an immensely amusing slapstick scene where he pretends to be blind to amuse his friends.

The 1980s trend of unlikeable characters just doesn’t seem to end. This reminds me in a lot of ways of Blame It on Rio, and that’s mainly in the fact I can’t stand the leads, hate the premise, and both have Joseph Bologna as a co-star.

1984 Movie Reviews will return on August 24 with Cal, Love Streams, Old Enough, and Oxford Blues!

A still from ‘Vaazha’ 

Five aimless youngsters who bear the load of their parents’ ambition on their frail shoulders! An oft told tale of angst, anger and anguish. But what redeems Vaazha, ’the biopic of a billion boys’, is the humour woven in all the scenes in the first half of the film and the relatability factor in the second half. Smart one-liners — some crude, some crackling — bring on the laughs.  

Ajo Thomas, Vishnu, Moosa, Abdul Kalam and Vivek Anand are five thick friends who can’t seem to crack examinations, and the travails of the backbenchers strike a chord with many viewers. The five buddies come from middle-class families, as the film tracks their lives from pre-school to college and beyond.

But for Moosa, whose father stands by him through thick and thin, the other young men have to deal with parents who have no time to listen to their woes or even let them follow their dreams.

Vaazha means plantain tree in Malayalam; it is also a take on a popular grim adage in Malayalam that says that instead of spending money on a good-for-nothing kid, it would have been better to plant a plantain tree instead!

Film director Vipin Das of Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey and Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil is the writer of the movie, which is directed by Anand Menen who made his debut with Gauthamante Radham.

The Reels-like feel of the film is enhanced by crisp scenes that depict the youngsters’ encounters with unsympathetic, unimaginative teachers in school and college. There is action, fisticuffs and comedy. Somewhere, after the interval, the writer and director suddenly realise that the film — like the protagonists — has been drifting along happily. So, they decide to bring in reality bytes to firm up the story.  

As they plod through engineering college, with seats bought by their parents who dream of the sons achieving their dreams, reality begins to hit them in the form of failed examinations, botched interviews and dead-end flings.

That is when the film shows how parents fail their children by forcing them to follow paths the parents have navigated. How teachers and educators go by examination marks as markers of achievement and have no time to cater to students who might want to chase rainbows of a different kind. Toxic parenting comes under the scanner with age-old practices of abject obedience and gaslighting by nosy relatives being questioned in the movie. A scene in which Ajo’s father (essayed by Azzez Nedumangad) takes on his toxic brothers who gaslight and put down his son, is bound to be a heartwarming moment for youngsters who are forced to exist with such folks.

Even while portraying the hurdles posed by the students’ lack of academic success, writer Vipin does not forget to keep the laughs going. Moreover, even certain poignant scenes in Vaazha do not become cheesy at any point.

What works for this movie most is the relatability factor; director Anand ensures that the film does not become maudlin, although the second half has plenty of scenes where it could have turned into a typical tear-jerker.

Amith Mohan Rajeswari, Siju Sunny, Joemon Jyothir, Anuraj OB and Anu essay the five classmates, and Saafboi appears as the antagonist, the top-scorer and teachers’ pet who ticks all the boxes as an A-lister.

Kottayam Nazeer as Vishnu’s disappointed dad aces his role, and so do Jagadish and Azees. Noby Marcos, appearing as Moosa’s father, keeps its subtle, yet scores as the supportive father. Basil Joseph’s guest appearance adds a zing to the storyline.

Although the women in the film have nothing much to do, Vipin does not make that an excuse for chauvinism or toxic masculinity. Instead, the script underscores how the lack of emotional empathy and maturity make it difficult for them to strike a healthy relationship with women.

The several loopholes in the script are filled by the overall feel-good tone of the movie. The technical team supports the director with apt editing by Kannan Mohan and cinematography by Aravind Puthussery.

Vaazha is a full-on comedy that also asks certain pertinent questions about parenting and education.

Vaazha is currently running in theatres

Maxie Solters, a third-generation entertainment publicist who followed her father and grandfather into the family business, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 37.

Her death was announced in a statement from Scoop Marketing, the company founded by her father, Larry Solters; the statement didn’t specify a cause or say where Maxie Solters died but said that her death was unexpected.

Born March 22, 1987, and raised in Sherman Oaks, Solters joined Scoop in 2012 and represented clients including the Hollywood Bowl, the Kia Forum and the Music Forward Foundation. Among Scoop’s other clients are the Eagles, John Mayer and Dead & Company; Solters’ late grandfather, Lee Solters, who died in 2009, was a well-known showbiz figure who repped superstars such as Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson.

Before turning to publicity, Maxie Solters graduated from the University of Southern California with a theater degree and worked in film and television casting in L.A.; she was also an actor and SAG member who appeared in theater productions and in a comedy web series that she created and produced.

As an activist, Solters worked with the groups One Billion Rising and V-Day in campaigns dedicated to ending violence against women. “Her unwavering optimism and kind heart touched the lives of many,” Scoop’s statement read, “leaving a lasting legacy of love and kindness.”

Solters’ survivors include her father and his partner, Carol Greenhut; her mother, Debra Graff; and her longtime partner, Dim Dobrin.