80S MOVIES: Which one was the greatest?

The decade of the 1980s featured some of the 20th century's most emblematic motion pictures, going from fantasy and science fiction epics to comedy masterpieces, or a mix of both genres. In this our first poll in 1980Me we are going to settle once and for all what was the greatest movie of the decade, which by the way, all of them feature an awesome theme song! You can vote for you favorite on the poll that appears on the right sidebar.

Ok, the nominees are:

GHOSTBUSTERS (1984, Dir. Ivan Reitman).
There's something strange in the neighbourhood so people call the a team of parapsychologist who bust ghosts and catch them in traps. Featuring some of the coolest characters ever, like Slimer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and Peter Venkman, this film was commercially the most succesful comedy of the decade.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Ghostbusters (Ray Parker)


THE GOONIES (1985, Dir. Richard Donner)
Corey Feldman and his friends find a treasure map and start looking for the pirate's treasure so their parents can pay the mortgage. Some bad guys and a monster will stand on their way, but they will learn they are no match for Shuffle Truffle.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Good Enough (Cyndi Lauper)



BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985, Dir. Robert Zemeckis)
Doc Brown invents the time machine but the Lebanese mafia attacks him so his young friend Marty McFly is sent to 1955 with no way of coming back... unless he gets help from the 1955 Doc Brown. CASTING NOTE: John Lithgow (Professor Dick Salomon from 3rd Rock from the Sun) was casted originally as the Doc.
AWESOME THEME SONG: The Power of Love (Huey Lewis and the News)


BACK TO THE FUTURE 2 (1989, Dir. Robert Zemeckis)
Doc Brown takes Marty to 2015 to save his future son but something goes wrong when they come back and they have to go back to 1955 to fix everything. In an interview Zemeckis admited he was somewhat concerned about portraying the future because of the risk of making wildly innacurate predictions about 2015, (like flying cars and Jaws 15).
AWESOME THEME SONG: Back to the Future Overture (Alan Silvestri)


E.T. (1982, Dir. Steven Spielberg)
An alien that looks like a turd gets stranded on Earth and befriends a kid who helps him phone home so they can come and get him while hiding him from the government. The alien has become the subject of analogies for Jesus.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Theme from E.T. (John Williams)



KARATE KID (1984, Dir. John Avildsen)
Martial arts master Miyagi San teaches a young lad the true meaning of karate so he can defeat his inner demons and the bullies that tormented him.
AWESOME THEME SONG: You are the best (Joe Esposito)




EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980, Dir. Irvin Kerschner)
After the destruction of his Death Star, Darth Vader tries to lure Luke Skywalker to the dark force by cutting his hand and revealing to him that he is his father. Luke rejects his father's offer only to realise that Princess Leia, her love interest, is actually his sister.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Theme from Star Wars (John Williams)


RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983, Dir. Richard Marquand)
Luke saves Leia and Han Solo from Jabba the Hut and then confronts Darth Vader again, who is rebuilding the Death Star. The Rebels form an alliance with the Ewoks, a little tribes of teddy bears, whose planet has been used by the Empire as a power station of some sort. The original Star Wars trilogy finally concludes when Darth Vader is killed by the evil Emperor and repents from his sins.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Theme from Star Wars (John Williams)


NEVERENDING STORY (1984, Dir. George T. Miller)
The story a kid is reading about a fantasy world threatened by "the nothing" suddenly becomes real and this lad has to go and save the day. Falcor, Atreyu, the Stone Giant and the Childlike Empress all help him to defeat this evil cloud formed due to the fact that real people don't believe in fairy tales anymore. The novel's author, Michael Ende, felt that this adaptation's content deviated so far from his book that he requested to halt production or change the name. They did neither.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Theme from Neverending Story (Klaus Doldinger)


BLADE RUNNER (1982, Dir. Ridley Scott)
An almost retired Blade Runner decides to take one final case eliminating a Replicant (genetically engineered human used to do something in off Earth colonies) who for some reason are illegal on Earth in this very fascinating retro futuristic movie set in 2019 based in the short story Do Androids Sleep of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (who also inspired Totall Recall and wrote Minority Report among other great stories).
AWESOME THEME SONG: End Titles from Blade Runner (Vangelis)


RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981, Dir. Steven Spielberg)
An archeologist tries to beat the Nazis in finding the Ark of Covenant, which could turn any army invincible. An instant classic in adventure films and starter of the Indiana Jones franchise.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Raiders March (John Williams)



INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984, Dir. Steven Spielberg)
In this prequel of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy and friends have to eat monkey brains and eyeballs soup in order to find a mystical stone in India. Short Round, the young Chinese sidekick, steals almost every scene he appears.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Raiders March (John Williams)






BREAKFAST CLUB (1985, Dir. John Hughes)
Five teens from very different backgrounds have to spend a Saturday together doing detention at school. After much deliberation they find the meaning of life.
AWESOME THEME SONG: Don't you forget about me (Simple Minds)


THE GREMLINS (1984, Dir. Joe Dante)
Little cuddly Gizmo unwillingly spawns mean spirited monsters that want to destroy everything and run chaos in the city in this black comedy epic
AWESOME THEME SONG: Gremlin Rag (Jerry Goldsmith)

CLASSIC CONSOLE: The NES

Yes, I remember it as if it was just yesterday. The most succesful videogame console ever and lord and saviour of the whole videogame industry after the awful crisis created by the dreadful Atari consoles. 

The year was 1987, I was just 6 years old and one day I went to one of my richest friend's birthday party. After leaving a popular pizza parlor (with a man in a dirty giant mouse costume) we all went to his home. When we arrived there some guys were already sitting in front the TV staring at it. As I watched the screen I noticed they were moving a little guy in a world full of breakable bricks, pipes, mushrooms and piranha plants. I focused then my eyes in the upper left corner of the screen to clearly see the name "MARIO" (which is my name, if you didn't know) above the score. I suddenly exclaimed in a loud imperative voice:

-"Hey, goddammit! It's my turn to play! It says Mario right there!"
And everyone told me then,
-"No way, dude! That's the name of the game. It's not you!
That was a turning point in my life, Nintendo was calling me by my name to play it.
- "Ok then, it's my turn after Alex who is playing now, you bitches"
- "You wish! 15 other kids will play and then you".
Then I told them all, quite disappointed and sad:
-"Screw you guys, I'm going home".

But I didn't go home, I stayed there patiently waiting for my turn. I had played Atari and Intelevision before but they were nothing compared to this. Secret underground worlds, above the clouds and under the water accesible by pipes or large plants (like Jack and the Beanstalk), all thanks to hallucinations caused by ingesting orange and green mushrooms. Finally a full interactive fantasy world was available for me without having to use my own imagination. I realised later in my life, without a shadow of a doubt, that videogames are the genesis of a virtual reality world (like in The Matrix, of course).

That time I only played Super Mario Bros. and Burger Time, the classic game of stepping on various ingredients to make a giant hamburger. But the fire was already burning inside me.



Christmas was still four months away, but my list for Santa Claus was already done: a Nintendo. During all that time I only played it again with my cousin, but he only played Zelda 2 (which was good, but not what I wanted). Finally, December 25 arrived. I spent the whole morning playing until my parent ordered me to stop doing it to go to the Christmas supper with my grandma. The temptation to play was so big that I got sick before we even began eating (ok, I faked it) and they took me back home to play.

The beggining of everything. My videoplaying days had just begun...

I'll show you now some of those classic games from that era (they might not be the best, some of them aren't even good, but they're the ones who made a mark on me).


MEGAMAN 2- The best music, until then, in a videogame in the best game in history about robots destroying other robots to obtain their power.


DUCK HUNT- The Zapper (gun) has been one of the coolest peripherals and this, the only good game done for it besides Hogan's Alley. The only thing I hated was not being able to shoot at the dog when he laughed at you when you missed.
Classic cheat- Putting the gun an centimeter away from the screen to never miss.


A BOY AND HIS BLOB- A blob follows a boy that gives him different jellybeans to make him turn into different things, necessary for your adventure. Pretty original for its time, I think.


YI AR KUNG FU- I think this game didn't even came out for the NES, but I used to play it alot in the arcades. It is, officially, the original 1-0n-1 fighting game which games like Street Fighter 2 were based upon later. You only controlled a karate kid that only high kicked, low kicked, high punched, low punched and jumped (and always said PPPTOOOOOO, PPTOOOO) and when you defeated the bad guys they fell on their backs with their legs pointing upwards.


TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES- This game came out before the turtles were famous, I think. Its very high difficulty and the fact that it was never clear what you had to do next made me realize not all games were good...

...until more game came out like these ones, which only reinforced that fact:


FRIDAY THE 13TH- Hours and Hours walking around a lake and thousands of rooms in thousands of cabins (which all looked the same) looking for Jason. Isn't he's supposed to be the one chasing you? How could this be scary or mildly entertaining? I realized at this point that all games based on licenced characters are complete garbage made only to make money (except Batman and DuckTales, of course).


BACK TO THE FUTURE- Another fine example of licenced games. Here you helped lil Marty McFly defeat giant bees and guys carrying big glasses using bowling balls and skateboards before the image of your brothers on a picture dissapeared. It was impossible to pass the cafeteria level! The worst thing was when you died you had to repeat everything from the beggining. I played this a lot with the hope of beating it, but nothing.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Super Mario Bros. 3, Battletoad, one about some ninjas that turn into animals, Double Dragon, Duck Tales, Batman, The Simpsons: Bart VS. Space Mutants (terrible game), Lolo.

Come back soon for more eighties games!