A Month of ‘80s Ladies
Some great things came out of the '80s... 😎
I have to confess that after the month of Barbara Stanwyck films, I hadn't felt the call for subsequent stars' turns (Red Skelton in April, Mae West in May, or Gary Cooper in June). But when I saw that '80s Ladies were going to be the stars of July, I immediately made plans to be sat for this schedule.
I'd only seen five of the scheduled films before: Nine to Five (1980), Fatal Attraction (1987), Moonstruck (1987), Places in the Heart (1984) and Out of Africa (1985). I need to see The Color Purple but it never plays on TCM Canada.
As for the rest, I don't know what to tell ya about the ones I haven't seen. I think I'm allergic to modern classics. I've yet to see one of the Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks match-ups; I couldn't guess at the storyline in When Harry Met Sally if I tried; I remember a TV channel from when I was growing up that played A Christmas Story the whole 24 hours of Christmas and do you think I ever sat down and watched it?
Anyway. '80s Ladies. I'm here, I'm present. Here's what I thought of the films I watched this month. These aren't in chronological order, they're ranked by how much I liked them.*
Working Girl (1988)
I absolutely loved this movie. Why did I wait so long to watch it? Honestly, I think I conflated it with Nine to Five in my brain, and I'm that much poorer for never seeing this until now. Thank you TCM for putting it on the schedule so I'd watch!
Why didn't this sweep the Oscars in 1989? This was smart, sexy, heartfelt, made me finally get Harrison Ford (my apologies, sir, but I was unfamiliar with your game). It was part rom-com, part workplace drama, a perfect snapshot of life in the late '80s, and absolutely rich with appearances by big name actors who would all become staples of my childhood and early teens: Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, Harrison Ford, Joan Cusack... even Alec Baldwin's in this!
I absolutely loved this movie, and it'll definitely make it onto my favourite movies list when I look back in December. I need to own this on DVD.
Romancing the Stone (1984)
There was a brief moment watching this where I was like "Am I getting Michael Douglas now, too?" Honestly, kudos to TCM for introducing me to the '80s heartthrobs and making me understand why they earned their titles.
I feel like Romancing the Stone is a movie that would fall apart if you thought about it with any sort of probe, but it was so fun! They don't make these surface-level rom-coms anymore. Honestly, would love this kind of adventure now that I'm also a published author. Where's my Michael Douglas who's going to trek across Colombia with me?
Protocol (1984)
I wish I could've been around in Goldie Hawn's heyday. She's so fun to watch, I wish she was still making movies. That being said, there was an undercurrent of ickiness with the politics around this one, I was kinda making this face the whole time: 🤨
Also, now that I think about it, this definitely feels like a cousin of The Farmer's Daughter, with Loretta Young. She played a naive young woman who got embroiled into politics and ended up running for office, and here we have it again with Goldie.
The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989)
Michelle Pfeiffer is a goddess, let's get that out of the way. This was a fine movie, but my god, could anyone act on their feelings? They all continued making dumb choices to string along a razor-thin plot for almost two hours, and we get no real sense of closure or that anyone's making a move to advance themselves once the cameras stop rolling? Fabulous, my Aunt Fanny.
Who’s That Girl? (1987)
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