1984 giveth, and 1984 taketh away. After a month as great as June of 1984, it almost seems inevitable we'd get a terrible Cheech & Chong movie, some weird-ass Judge Reinhold thing you've never heard of, and a fistful of movies that Scott and Drew disagree on pretty wholeheartedly.

We're ready to crap on your childhood favorite, so say goodbye to your favorite horse. It's July of 1984.

Here in 2018, movies and video games enjoy a very... well, maybe healthy isn't the correct word, but accepted and expected relationship. But in the 1980s, video games were still more or less brand new, and movies didn't quite know what to make of this burgeoning industry that would soon be in direct competition for the youth market's eyes and ears. Scott and Drew discuss the decade's first attempts at incorporating (or hijacking, really) the appeal of video games, what video games appealed to them, and why that relationship between the two artforms has never been all that stable.

This is it. This is the month many of you have been waiting for since the podcast began. We get it. It's a monolith. Gremlins. Ghostbusters. The Karate Kid. That's a huge month.

But it's so much more. It's so much deeper. This is a perfect example of why we do the show. Because, yes, you'll get Star Trek and Conan and Beat Street and Streets of Fire, but you'll also get weird thrillers with Roger Moore and Rutger Hauer and English boarding school dramas and imports from Sweden and Australia and Germany. One of the weirdest big-budget bombs of the decade was this month, as was a sweeping but troubled epic from one of our greatest filmmakers. You want a brilliant comedy that seems to be largely forgotten? How about the performance that should have won Best Actor at the Oscars that year? Or two other performances that would have been equally worthy from two of young Hollywood's most controversial leading men? There is so much to talk about that we're not sure we can do it justice. But, man, we are gonna try.

Strap in. It's June of 1984

Neil Jordan and Stephen Rea get started, Judd Nelson smarms it up, and Peter Fonda can't settle on a terrible title for a terrible movie. Summer gets off to a strange start with a baseball myth, some spring break bullshit, and two of the most heated conversations about big cultural icons we've had so far. Pop and lock with us, won't you? It's May of 1984.

You're in Weinberg's world now, kids. Halloween means horror movies, and as you might have heard, Scott is somewhat of an aficionado of the fright flick. Drew isn't chopped liver when it comes to having chiller bonafides either, and their combined love for the Halloween season is something to behold, as they run down some of their favorite scary movies, the power of the genre as a whole, the (oft-undeserved) critical response it receives, and they even try to scare each other, a little... to varying effect.

You know what kids love? Comedies about poop and tax laws! You want horse talk? We've got horse talk! You want a bunch of horror legends standing around looking confused about why they're all together? Man, are you set. And sex crimes? Well, it is the '80s.

Timothy Hutton's in love with a caveman, Jamie Lee Curtis gets startlingly naked, and Jonathan Demme pays homage to Rosie the Riveter. All that, and the very last Friday the 13th movie anyone ever made? Holy crap! It must be April of 1984!

Drew is flying solo for this episode while Scott soaks up Fantastic Fest, but that doesn't mean he's without friends: Film critic Jason Bailey steps in to talk about his favorite and most formative '80s films, and the conversation is made all the better for the fact this is literally the first time, after years and years of talking and swapping stories online, that these two wordslingers are having a real life, real-time conversation about cinema, and they take that opportunity to do what they both do best. Go on some serious DEEP DIVES into their favorite films.

We've had big shows before, but nothing like this one. You wouldn't think this would be such a crazy month, being smack dab in the middle of the spring, but you'd be wrong. Sure, there's a fistful of junk this week—including an uneven Vietnam war romance, dogs from Hell, and a barely-released adaptation of a novel every med student knows—but we also see the kickoff of one of the biggest franchises of the decade, a delightful coming-of-age film with three of the most promising young actors of the decade, and Tom Hanks romancing a mermaid.

Still not convinced? How about Stephen King stumbling, a super-serious Tarzan, or the movie that turned 14-year-old Drew into a snarling punk? Come on. This month goes to 11. Let's get busy with March of 1984

A highly educational, illuminating, and entertaining conversation with the director/producer known for making many of the best film documentaries of the last 20 years and an absolute legend to DVD and Blu-ray collectors everywhere: Charles de Lauzirika. That Blade Runner set you can't live without? That Alien Anthology? You have this man to thank, and he has some thoughts and opinions on how those things all came together (and what versions you should watch, in which order, too.) All that and some Blue Thunder too? Cue that 20th Century Fox fanfare...

When is a film about Stanley Kubrick not a film about Stanley Kubrick? When is a documentary about Phil Ochs not really a documentary about Phil Ochs? And when did the '80s really start?

Seems like 1984 is a good answer and the year's still just revving up at this point. We've got a terrible Louis Malle film, an Eric Stoltz film that even Eric Stoltz may have never heard of, and Tom Selleck as a gentleman thief. All that, and Footloosetoo? How are you not already listening to February of 1984?