Atlanta author believes ‘80s films should get more respect

Malahy makes his iconoclastic stand in his new book “Rewinding the ’80s: Cinema Under the Influence of Music Videos, Action Stars, and a Cold War,” a Turner Classic Movies imprint from Running Press.

Credit: Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies

Credit: Courtesy of Turner Classic Movies

The Memphis native attended New York University, then Emory University for graduate school. A former brand activations manager at Turner Classic Movies, Malahy is the author of two other TCM titles, “Summer Movies: 30 Sun-Drenched Classics” and “Sidney Poitier: The Great Speeches of an Icon Who Moved Us Forward.”

“I pushed for an ‘80s book because it’s not really considered classic by a lot of people who watch TCM,” he said. “I was curious about it myself — I was born in the ‘80s, but I didn’t really know a lot of the movies, and I hadn’t really explored conversation around movies in the ‘80s.”

Credit: Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery

Credit: Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery

And though the era might not seem “classic” to an older TCM fan who thinks of films from the ‘30s through the ‘50s as vintage, for Millennials and Gen Z, the ‘80s redefine what constitutes an “older” film. “There’s a new generation of people who we could be reaching out to,” the author said.

The 1980s were admittedly chockfull of cinematic dander and crowd pleasers. Malahy’s book is comprehensive in its approach, covering some of the usual suspects including “Gremlins,” (1984) “The Karate Kid” (1984) and “Splash” (1984). But it was also, notes Malahy, a decade in which talents like Spike Lee, David Lynch and Jim Jarmusch established their cinematic vision.

Malahy mixes in multiplex bait with cinematic odd birds and films beyond Hollywood’s mainstream in shoutouts to Bollywood movies of the era, independent fare such as Susan Seidelman’s “Smithereens,” and documentaries including the deeply quirky “Sherman’s March,” whose filmmaker Ross McElwee charts his search for love in the South. It was also important to include films from England, Hong Kong and Japan to show the influence of global cinema on film of the time, Malahy said.

“I watched it again with an open mind,” said Malahy. “I don’t think it’s a dumb movie. I think it is trying to say something” about the Civil Rights era of the 1950s when it is set.

He has some guilty pleasures from the decade too. Like the aerobics movie “Heavenly Bodies” and the Lewis Teague-directed 1980 horror film “Alligator,” about an gator living in Chicago’s sewers who grows to an enormous size after feeding on lab animals injected with growth hormones and then dumped in the sewer.

“I’m not a horror person, but I like those goofy ones,” Malahy said. “I don’t want to be really scared: Give me a giant animal, I’m good.”

AUTHOR JOHN MALAHY’S 5 FAVORITE ‘80S FILMS

“E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982, directed by Steven Spielberg)

A lovable alien lands on Earth where he befriends a young boy Elliott (Henry Thomas), who has to save him from government scientists.

“I think it’s like this little suburban fairy tale. It’s just this perfect example of warm studio filmmaking. It’s sci-fi, which would have been handled in so many different ways in the past, usually terrifying, like Earth-ending kind of stuff. And yet it was actually just about this cute little visitor who was just as curious and innocent as Elliott was.”

“Risky Business” (1983, Paul Brickman)

In a career-defining role, Tom Cruise is a high school senior home alone who teams up with a call girl and turns his parents’ home into a brothel.

“It takes a different approach. I’m not even sure if it’s a comedy. It’s like part film noir, part erotic thriller, the kind of stuff you would see later with “Fatal Attraction.” It’s very ‘80s in the sense that it’s kind of about this kid becoming a little capitalist.”

“Possession” (1981, Andrzej Żuławski)

This psychological horror film centers on a couple’s violent breakup in West Berlin as strange details of wife Anna’s (Isabelle Adjani) life begin to emerge.

“It’s wild! It’s Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani in Berlin in the early ‘80s. He was a spy at the beginning of the movie. He comes home from being in the East somewhere, and it’s basically about their marriage and how it’s falling apart. But she has this sort of secret life of her own, and there’s a supernatural element to it that takes over. It was shot in Berlin, and there are shots of the Berlin Wall. So I love that connection between the broken country and the broken marriage. Part of it is like a relationship movie, and then part of it is like this weird kind of supernatural horror.”

“Running on Empty” (1988, Sidney Lumet)

Two ’60s activists perpetually pursued by the police for a past misdeed are getting pushback from their teenage son (River Phoenix) who longs to study music and stop running.

“River Phoenix is the son of Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch, who are on the run because they had done some sort of Weather Underground (activities in the 1960s) — they had blown up a lab. But their son is a teenager now, and he wants to have his own life. They keep having to pick up and move when somebody finds them. And he’s an aspiring piano player … I played the piano too, and I kind of identify with that. And also, I grew up in Tennessee, and I wanted to get out.”

“Do the Right Thing” (1989, Spike Lee)

Racial tensions simmer between the Black residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant and the Italian American owner of a neighborhood local pizzeria on a hot New York summer day.

“I rented it at Blockbuster [and] I started it really late one night, and I watched an hour, and I was like, ‘OK, this is fun, you know, interesting.’ And then I woke up the next day and watched the rest. And of course, that’s when the (expletive) hits the fan. It’s in a certain sense, just a day in a life, but it’s an extraordinary day. … It’s a cool example of an indie director who breaks through in an extraordinary way.”