1982 Movie Reviews – Endangered Species and Starstruck

Welcome to an thrilling year-long mission right here at The Nerdy. 1982 was an thrilling 12 months for movies giving us plenty of movies that might go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was additionally the begin to a significant shift in cultural and societal norms, and a few of these nonetheless reverberate to today.

We’re going to select and select which films we hit, however proper now the listing stands at practically 4 dozen.

Sure, we’re insane, however 1982 was that nice of a 12 months for movie.

The articles will come out – usually – on the identical day the movies hit theaters in 1982 in order that it’s their true fortieth anniversary. All movies are additionally watched once more for the needs of those critiques and should not being carried out from reminiscence. In some circumstances, it actually would be the first time we’ve seen them.

This time round, it’s September 10, 1982, and we’re off to see Endangered Species and Starstruck.

Fast aspect be aware: Since we launched this sequence this 12 months, we’ve found that Classic Video Podcast is doing the very same mission with two variations: First, it’s audio (naturally), and second, they’re doing each main movie. We’ve listened to quite a few episodes and it’s enjoyable checking off their ideas in opposition to my very own. Test them out over at Classic Video Podcast.

Endangered Species

For some motive, within the early Nineteen Eighties cattle stored getting mutilated and nobody knew why. This movie got down to reply that… kinda?

Ex-cop Ruben Fortress (Robert Ulrich) heads out on a highway journey along with his daughter, and, due to a breakdown in a small city, finds himself wrapped up in a thriller involving cattle mutilations. Because the story progresses we discover out the reply could be very human-based and entails utterly silent helicopters that make zero sense.

On this mission or touring by the movies of the 80s, I attempt to watch round a movie a day. Endangered Species took me 4 days to look at. It’s only a depressing, non-sensical, boring movie that I simply couldn’t carry myself to care about. After day 2 I considered simply skipping it, however ultimately simply determined to soldier by, and am thrilled to say I by no means must see it once more.

It’s unhappy when this occurs as a result of there was really fairly just a few gifted actors within the combine, however nobody might save this stinker of a movie.

Starstruck

Fortunately this weekend wasn’t a complete wash as I found the odd little pleasure that’s Starstruck.

Jackie Mullens (Jo Kennedy) is a teen from Sydney who desires nothing greater than to change into a singing star. Working together with her cousin Angus (Ross O’Donovan), they provide you with quite a few plots and plans to attain their targets.

After a gimmick involving Jackie crossing a road on a tightrope, all of her desires begin to come true, however with plenty of strings hooked up that aren’t to her liking. She rejects it and finally wins on her personal phrases by the top of the movie.

What I didn’t know going into this movie was that it was a musical, and I undoubtedly didn’t comprehend it was a New Wave musical. This movie is so brilliant, completely satisfied, poppy, and unapologetically 80s that it’s exhausting to not discover one thing to like about it. And it’s most undoubtedly Australian. This movie practically bleeds Vegemite.

There isn’t a query that it’s over-the-top and never for everybody, however I loved each second of this movie. Add in that Kennedy and O’Donovan actually had no earlier performing expertise and it’s simply an incredible little gem of a movie. It will get one in every of my highest suggestions of 1982 to date. It looks as if annually I discover a hidden gem of a film I used to be unfamiliar with, and this can be this 12 months’s winner.

1982 Film Critiques will return on Sept. 17 with Hammett!

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