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If you've ever dreamt of being so good at a video game that it leads to your recruitment to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada. Then get in loser! We're going back to 1984 to The Last Starfighter. Luke Skywalker....er....Alex Rogan has been playing Star Wars....er....Starfighter at the farm....er....trailer park for longer than I care to remember. Literally. 

The Last Starfighter is one of the earliest adopters of cgi in supporting a hefty part of a films aesthetic. And although it's glaringly obvious, there is a certain charm in the fact that the cgi generated universe resembles an actual video game. Robert Preston and Catherine Mary Stewart are a breath of fresh air, wonderfully offsetting Lance Guests' acting deficit. Funnily enough, the deployment of Alex's (Lance Guest) beta unit in the movie makes his primary character feel pretty stable. Until he deploys the Death Blossom that is! 

Curious? I thought so.

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This is pulled from an episode that will never see the light of day. There was an on-air fistfight etc. I won't bore you with the details, but it is a nice story to warm you up for the impending onslaught of anachronistic holiday stimuli.  

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Dogma, hearsay and the like.

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If you consider California penal code sections 484207,  A597, and 217, theft, kidnapping, cruelty to animals and attempted murder something to laugh about, then you agree that Dragnet is a 1987 crown jewel of comedy. Tom Hanks before TOM HANKS is always a celluloid treasure to behold.

P.A.G.A.N. People Against Goodness And Normalcy. Now I'm not saying that I subscribe to this acronym, but I'm not saying I don't either. Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks team up in this buddy cop comedy. The stacked cast also gifts us with Christopher Plummer's maniacal laugh, as well as Dabney Coleman and his sibilant lisp. 

As Joe Friday and Pep Streebek, they're hot on the trail of this cult. Securing information on said cult by introducing Emil Muzz's balls to a desk drawer, they end up at a P.A.G.A.N. ceremony saving the virgin Connie Swail (I was waiting for Akroyd to call her an ignorant slut most of this movie). Let's not forget the nail biting battle with an enormous drug laden snake that ensues during the daring rescue. Star Wars anyone? Don't want to give away the BIG climax! That's all you get here.

Enid Borden 4-eva. 

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Just a few of the movies we feel compelled to watch during the dog days of summer. 

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It's late August and time to visit your thieving labor day savior, Bernie. I'm a late comer to this punchline classic, but I'll be making it an annual destination in my end of summer movie rotation. I need to make up for lost time and atone for willfully avoiding this movie all these years. 

The irony in Terry Kiser being lauded for his mastery of physical comedy while playing a dead man is not lost on me. Neither is Andrew McCarthy seamlessly playing against type while Jonathon Silverman turns in a walk-on leading role. And our video game heroine from 1984's Night Of The Comet, Catherine Mary Stewart, bringing a just little heart to this dark comedy. 

It's too much and everything all at once. I feel like Christopher Columbus, just here taking the excited credit for an already discovered new world...to me. 

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We're all wasted! Not really. Come to think of it, they didn't even end up using that song in the movie. They didn't use Light Up The Sky by Van Halen either. We can't help but wonder where or how the director would have deployed them. Using Cheap Trick, The Cars, Van Halen (You Really Got Me), and The Ramones tells us he knew what he was doing in these realms.

What can I say? The concern with property resale values colliding with the fallout of the social discontent of adolescence was a real thing for the distracted parenting of the 1970's. The white flight hit some unwanted turbulence while they were refilling their drinks. Children should be seen and not heard was developing into, children should neither be seen, nor heard.....but certainly dealt with when it interferes with any adult agenda. 

I have no idea what I'm talking about. I do know that when dear old dad had to eventually deal with the newly informed youth, which he was intellectually ill equipped for.....most of them split. If you're down with PWP, yeah you know me. That's Parents Without Partners for you lazy folk. Sort of a support (group) network for all the stranded mothers out there.

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Totally awesome video games! That's what Joysticks promises. Eugene, McDorfus and King Vidiot are running interference while we chew up the scenery of this 1983 T&A buffet. 

This movie has everything you do AND don't want you in your early 80s celluloid war chest. Scott McGinnis and Corrine Bohrer round out the casting staples of any great, but forgettable 80s flick. Joe Don Baker must have been blackmailed to be in this movie. Come to think of it, he was blackmailed IN this movie as well. Art imitating life...imitating art? 

Who knows. I'm as lost as that senile wizard wandering around the Gauntlet landscape with this summary anyway. 

PAC-MAN, Galaga, Defender, Asteroids, Zaxxon, Tempest, Two Tigers, Dragon's Lair, Pole Position, Track & Field, Star Castle, Centipede, Dig Dug, Tron, Missile Command, Donkey Kong, Robotron, Frogger, Burger Time, Rampage, 1942, Berzerk, Q*Bert, Joust, Rolling Thunder, Contra, Double Dragon.....that's enough characters for a great summary, right?

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These bits fell out of my back pocket when I got up from piecing together the Tales of the City episode on Malden, MA. Enjoy!

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Just Thom, Jeff and Jamie at the octagonal parquet table tonight. And here we are with another entry in the annals of life at 28 Spring Street in Malden, MA. Our matriarchal leader is jettisoning the riff-raff like a lost installment in the Death Wish franchise. First mission was to reclaim the nights for sleeping. 

All five of us kids were reunited throughout the summer of 1980 in that house. Jamie and Justine were unceremoniously thrown out of dads house, so they were there from day one. Tommy and Tracy were taken for weekend visitation a month or so later and never returned. A lengthy custody battle ensued. And Jeffrey returned home when the system had no reason and nowhere else for him to go. 

All because dad bounced and left her gleefully holding the bag, watching the ship sink from a couple doors down while his kids were scattered to the wind. The house was lost and a new plan was hatched. Mum bought a house that would generate income while she worked three jobs to support her five kids. And we all worked to keep the house under majority rule for those first few years. 

It always struck me how many photos we have as a family, even with all the turmoil. Mum was obsessed with her kids is my takeaway. Film and time was not cheap, so the fact that they all exist is the logical conclusion for me. There are just about no photos from 80-83, which is a shame since it was the most colorful time.