Tag Archives: 1983

Movies or shows released in 1983.

Movie Reviews

National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) Review – Good Enough Start

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I have a weird past with this franchise, as I didn’t grow up watching any of them, at least fully, but I did see bits and pieces from all of them, therefore, they all blended together for me. But I know it’s considered one of the most classical comedies in the USA, so I thought I might as well fill in some gaps in my “movie education”. And… yeah. It’s good enough, but National Lampoon’s Vacation definitely must have been funnier when it was released.

Let me explain – for me, comedies from (mainly) the 80’s can be split into two categories – either they still work, or they don’t. I know, shocking right? But I am being serious – I can enjoy bad, cheesy action movies from the 80’s with no issues. I can enjoy dramas, basically anything from that decade with no issues, but comedy is such a specific genre, that it either works no matter the decade you are watching it in, or you are just watching a movie, that sometimes can be kind of funny, but most of the time, you are just there to see how the story unfolds. The latter unfortunately described this film.

I am not saying it’s a bad movie by any means, or that you won’t laugh. I am also not comparing it against comedies made nowadays, because that would be just unfair. What I am doing is comparing this film with others from that area (such as Ghostbusters (1984), Airplane! (1980, my review here) or The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)) where all of them are different sub-genres of comedy, but they all still work within what they are. National Lampoon’s Vacation is trying to be a “family road-trip” comedy and I think it works good enough. That’s the main issue with this movie for me – most of the jokes seemed like were they were “alright”, but not one made me genuinely burst out laughing. They almost felt like it’s all setup, but barely any punchlines.

I was still kind of enjoying the movie, don’t get me wrong, but you do want to get some laughs out of a comedy movie. And this is where this film failed. Also, it tries to have the “heart” of family comedy, but it never worked for me too. All characters are borderline stupid or sometimes even mean, which should at least by funny, but turns out it doesn’t have to be. Because in this movie, the characters were just there and that was it.

National Lampoon’s Vacation is for me one of those comedies I wish I could have experienced in a theatre, when it opened back in 1983. Because it must have been pretty great. But that’s the thing – I think most people who consider this film to be “great” were brought up on it, so I would question how much the nostalgia comes into their ratings. Because as I have mentioned before, I didn’t grow up on this movie and as a comedy, it didn’t hit me. And as a movie, it was “just” good enough.

I have actually watched the first three of these films and I might be (yet again) in the minority, but it seemed like with each sequel, the movies got slightly better, but I will write about the other ones too. 😉 Overall, National Lampoon’s Vacation is one of those “wild” 80’s comedies, that doesn’t stand the test of time for me and it seems quite tame today. But luckily, it’s fairly watchable as a movie on its own, so even if you are not going to be laughing all the time, it’s not a bad watch per say.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Movie Reviews

Trading Places (1983) Problematic Masterpiece…?

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I will show my hand straight away with this movie – I love it. I have seen it many times before, for me, this is one of the best performances for both Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy (and both have had great careers). On top of that, brilliant work by Jamie Lee Curtis who’s not only stunning, but can keep up with both of these comedy giants (I’ve always thought she’s seriously underrated in this movie). So, how come it’s problematic? Well, let me ask you, when was the last time you’ve seen this movie fully?

Because I remembered, there are some uses of the “n-word”, which even though it can be argued is not appropriate (because it’s not), it unfortunately fits within the story and fits the character who says it. Actually, let me stop here for a bit before talking about the scene I’ve forgotten completely is in the movie. Only on this recent re-watch I have realised the racist element and difference between the Duke brothers (brilliantly played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche). Yes, both are in their core bad people, there is no argument here and the movie makes it pretty clear. But there is one major difference, how they see Eddie’s character, Billy Ray. Randolph (played by Ralph Bellamy) seems him as person, whereas Mortimer (played by Don Ameche) doesn’t, and it’s him who utters the couple of “n-words” in this movie. I have never realised it until now, that there is a tiny difference between them. But again, both are pretty horrible, messing around with people’s lives… that’s just not right.

The one scene I have genuinely forgotten about is towards the end, where as a part of rouse, Dan Aykroyd’s character is wearing a full on black face, as he’s supposed to be Rastafarian. And look… this is where we need to be adults and recognize that yes, it’s not terribly great thing to do, and to be fair, this doesn’t set him up with funny jokes either. But we can’t go around and start “cancelling” this movie because of this one scene. 80’s were different, wild times (I mean, how many mainstream Hollywood comedies of today you can name that have proper nudity?) where almost nothing was off the table. And now, we can disagree with it, we can learn from it and move past it. But does this mean we should start pretending this movie isn’t great? No, I’d hope not. In the same vein how certain people are now trying to go back and claim that Kevin Spacey was always a mediocre actor, I am sorry, but that’s just wrong. I don’t know whether he did what he was accused of or not, so I can’t judge him, but I do feel bad about watching a movie with him in it. BUT, will I start claiming “he was never that great…”? No, because that is why it hurt, when we learned of the accusations against him. If he truly was “just a mediocre” actor, we wouldn’t have cared as much, but because he was somebody who up until 2017, was one of the most respected actors of his generation, we cared. And the same goes for this movie. I really hope some “overly woke” people, who always like to pretend they would have definitely been opposed to this in the 80’s (sure you would) won’t create bunch of clickbaity articles about why liking this movie is wrong.

Humanity is not perfect and guess what? We will never be 100% perfect. I guarantee you, today, in 2020, we are doing something, that in 5/10 years, will be questioned, shamed. And that’s good thing, because that means we are constantly evolving, we are questioning what is right, what is wrong and that is good. The only problem here are people, who are always trying to be holier than thou, who would like to bundle up everything “not up to a certain, *moral* standards” and cancel it, burn it, not show it, because it’s bad, it offends them. But that’s just wrong, because we will never learn! There is a saying that goes “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” and it couldn’t be truer today. We should be able to watch something, that we know is wrong and have a conversation about it, and why it’s wrong, because that is how we all grow, that is how we can truly evolve. Not by trying to ignore the past, trying to pretend some things never happened, as that offends us.

Sorry, this turned into something slightly else than a review, but, I believe there is nothing much I can say about Trading Places that hasn’t been said already. This comedy is as close to being perfect as possible and if you can get over the fact it was shot in the 80’s, where people thought certain things were more acceptable, you will have a blast watching this. True classic.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Movie Reviews

Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) Review – Great finish for the original trilogy

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By now you can tell my rating when comes to this movie, that’s for sure. Even though this would probably be the “weakest” of the original Star Wars movies. I know some people hate the Ewoks, or see them for what they were – marketing ploy to sell more Star Wars merchandise. I don’t really mind them, I understand those people. You could also say most of the action on the Endor planet is ridiculous, as these teddy bears are holding their own against Stormtroopers, rendering them as not that big of a threat. And look… that’s a good point. To some extent, pretty valid one.

But I am not one of those people. Yes, the Stormtroopers should’ve never been a “real” threat to anybody, and the Ewoks just used the environment to their advantage. And re-watching this episode you can actually tell plenty of them dies during the battle, so I’d not be as harsh on Ewoks.

Let’s talk about something else than Ewoks, before my entire blog turns into Ewok admiration weekly 🙂

When I said this is probably the weakest one of the original trilogy, I wasn’t referring to the quality of the movie, not at all. I was only referring to those two movies prior being giants in the way they influenced and to some extent outgrown the medium, whereas this movie just neatly ties everything together and doesn’t break any new grounds. Which is only an issue if you make it. Sometimes, film needs to serve a function and this movie’s function was simply to finish on a high note, tie everything together and make some money on the way. Return of the Jedi definitely succeeded, hitting every one of those.

We get a second Death Star (because if something works first time, why bother?) we get an awesome confrontation between Luke, Vader and Palpatine while he watches his friends getting defeated in the space, we get the final revelation of this trilogy about Leia (I won’t spoil this just in case somebody still doesn’t know) and everything flows really well.

That’s one thing all the Star Wars movies have in common – doesn’t matter if it’s the original trilogy, prequels, or sequels – they all have given us a movie where there are 3 battles going on and we cut from one to the other almost flawlessly. This one has the battle of Endor, while Luke is having a confrontation with Darth Vader WHILE there is an attack on the new Death Star.

If anything, I’d love for other movies to get inspired and try to give us more of this, coherent action that happens simultaneously, where it doesn’t have to be edited to bits.

I really liked writing reviews for the original Star Wars movies, but I still feel like given the fact that everything has already been said about these movies in the past 40 or so years, it’s hard to try to come up with something new. Just hope you can tell from these reviews how much I adore these movies, and I hope you found them enjoyable. Onto the prequels we go (oh boy… that won’t be controversial at all :-))

Rating: 5 out of 5.

That’s all for this one. What did you think, did you like the way the original trilogy ended? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke