Babette's Feast (1987)

Two spinster sisters selflessly head a small religious community in a Danish seaside village, having long ago chosen to serve their pastor father rather than to leave him for families of their own. A former hopeful suitor writes to beg them to help a Frenchwoman who has lost her entire family to war and, though they cannot hire her, they do bring her into their home. She quickly takes over the cooking and household budget, improving the lives of her benefactors.

This is, simply put, a wonderful story. I just love the way the villagers' initial trepidation of the feast Babette promises slowly melts away with each course and sip. That the joy of the indulgent meal also melts away long-held pettiness was exceptionally believable to me -- this world was meant to be enjoyed and shared!

Lovely.

A

The Running Man (1987)

The Running Man is the biggest television show in the world: criminals are given the chance to earn wealth and freedom if they can make it through a gauntlet while being stalked by professional killers. Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), a former cop serving hard time after being convicted of opening fire on unarmed citizens, is forced onto the show after he escapes prison and is recaptured. 

The idea is interesting and Richard Dawson makes for a fun, slimy host, and that ends the list of "what's good about this." It's just a mess from start to finish; I honestly don't know what they were doing here. Maybe if the one-liners were any good, this could have been a fun action-comedy? Or if there was any chemistry between Arnie & Maria Conchata Alonso we could've been rooting for them to make it through and ride off into the sunset? But no. It's just a cheap-looking spectacle that feels about as dangerous as a Tom and Jerry showdown.

D+

The Princess Bride (1987)

Nearly perfect family movie: romance, adventure, feats of derring-do, villainy, and hilarious silliness. Wonderful the first time you see it and every bit as enjoyable the 12th time. Almost every line is quotable.

I have only one complaint: it's usually difficult to decipher Fezzik's lines (and sometimes Inigo's too), but that's easily mitigated with subtitles.

A+

The Untouchables (1987)

Everyone's in top form in this rousing "good vs. bad" movie. Costner is the squeaky clean Ness, Connery is the too-old-for-this beat cop who takes Ness under his wing, Garcia is the chip-on-his-shoulder young buck, and DeNiro is Capone.

Though it's a little bit creaky and sometimes feels more like a TV procedural than a blockbuster movie, it's still a good story told well enough to hold interest.

B

The Stepfather (1987)

You've heard of both serial killers and serial monogamists... well how about serial monogamists who serially kill their partners?! It's such a simple concept: guy yearns for a perfect family but wants to fast forward by wooing a family with a missing "dad" piece. Then, when things get difficult, he moves on in dramatic fashion.

The acting of the daughter -- whom, I was happy to note due to a nude scene, was actually in her 20s -- was a definite problem and the story has very little flesh on it. But the biggest issue was that it's so darn predictable.

D+

Tampopo (1987)

The main story here is of a young mother -- despite being a pretty bad cook -- wanting to make a success out of her ramen shop. Luckily, a truck driver who was just passing through is down to help her. Though we always return to Tampopo (the name of the woman AND the restaurant), several other stories/vignettes focused on food are interspersed throughout.

We must've said "This is so WEIRD" at least two dozen times while watching it. And, though this is absolute fact, it kept us mostly entertained.

C+

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

I'd seen this a few times, but we were showing it to my son and his wife on Thanksgiving, who thought it was just fine. Gary and I hyped it way too much -- obviously, we were remembering how it felt when we first saw it as naïve college kids. 

By now this odd-couple road trip from hell has been copied to death and often done better (Tommy Boy is a prime example). But, it still manages to be fun even though many scenes come off a tad tame. I mean, the scene at the rental counter with all the F-bombs? That sounds like us on a game night now.

B-

Dark Eyes (1987)

aka: Oci Ciornie

An older Italian man shares his story of love and loss over a drink with an older Russian man, so most of the story is in flashback. And it's one of those movies where there's a lot of ridiculous behavior and loudness and selfishness and blech. I was bored and annoyed.

D

Evil Dead II (1987)

Ash and his girlfriend go off on a romantic getaway to a remote cabin that he knows about. The thing he didn't know is that the owners opened up a portal and let evil loose. 

You have to completely forget about the earlier film as this is more "same universe" than "sensible timeline," but it's still pretty fun in the campiest of ways. Campbell is the entire show as the effects are downright terrible and the plot is just constant pummeling of the people by evil in the form of reanimated corpses, walking trees, and dismembered body parts.

C+

Dirty Dancing (1987)

I was 19 and heading into my third year of college when this came out so, needless to say, I was exactly the right age to romanticize the hell out of it. Matter of fact, I bought the soundtrack on cassette and played it incessantly -- one night enjoying it through three full times while I made out with my future husband in his tiny Toyota Corolla. So it was a travesty to find out that he'd never actually seen it.

I'm happy to say that, while it's dated and extremely slight, it does hold up. Grey seems slightly out of her league at times, but it doesn't really matter. The music, dancing, and forbidden love are the draws here and it's got those in spades. Also, it was nice to have both Orbach and Swayze, definitely putting the "great" in late, on my screen for the evening.

B-

The Whales of August (1987)

A boring day in the boring life of two elderly sisters living on the coast of Maine.

Some people, in old age, lose their hearing or sight or mind. Bette Davis, apparently, lost her ability to act.

D

Overboard (1987)

I’ve been watching this movie since I was in college and can chime in with quite a bit of the dialogue. It’s the ‘80est -- but in the best of ways.  It's stuffed with so much charm and romance (as long as you don’t think too hard about the romance).  Just tons of fun.

Bonus: I don’t think that Goldie Hawn has ever been been better.

B+

Raising Arizona (1987)

Nicolas Cage is a vanity-free genius and anyone who says otherwise is getting tripped up by his sketchy role selection process.  But, truth be told, even in the garbage, he’s magic.

Thankfully, this isn’t garbage and it can still make me laugh after a half-dozen viewings over the last 25 years. An absurd and hilariously quotable gem.

A+

Gaby: A True Story (1987)

Well-handled movie about a girl born with cerebral palsey in 1947. The first 30 minutes or so were almost Helen Kellerish while she’s given up as an irritant rather than a person.  But, luckily for the family, they employed a housemaid who thought she could get through to her. Unfortunately, the story is linear in such a way that it feels like it goes on longer than necessary.

Still, pretty interesting.

B

Flowers in the Attic (1987)

Oh my word -- what a terrible movie. All of the acting was wooden and the storytelling inept. It's one of those "how did so and so ever get hired for anything else after this debacle??" wastes of time.

Doesn't even have the distinction of being a potential guilty pleasure as the movie has been stripped of all of the "guilty" things that made the book all the rage when I was in 7th grade, passing the broken spined paperback on to the next girl as soon as we were finished gulping it down in just one weekend as we thrilled in hiding it from our parents, teachers, and younger siblings. Leaving out the seedy bits, especially the brother/sister incest that was the "hook" of the book (for us junior-highers anyway) -- was, not too surprisingly, a huge mistake.

F

Ironweed (1987)

Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep play street people as members of a loose family -- they and others in the same boat argue, nag, annoy, and depend on each other.

Though they do a decent job disappearing into their roles, the film gives us nothing BUT that. We see their fatigue and understand that Phelan (Nicholson) is having trouble keeping the past in its place on the timeline, but it's as tempting to look away from them on screen as it is to look away from bums on the street.

Bleak, overlong, and tragically boring.

D

Near Dark (1987)

Not many monster movies can scare me any more - I guess that's the price of growing up and finding out that human cruelty is much more terrifying. So, while I didn't find this to be particularly scary, I did appreciate that it had a different take on the usual be afraid of what's in the dark story.

Caleb's a farm boy who gives Mae a lift home from town one night. When he pressures her for a kiss, he gets more than be bargained for and becomes a reluctant member of her traveling family of vampires. We're with them instead of running from them, which is a nice perspective switch from the usual vampire stuff.

Although I don't think it worked terribly well, I blame acting more than script. I just never really bought that there was an internal "should I stay or go" struggle for Caleb and his angst should have been the major conflict.

C+

RoboCop (1987)

Corny and fun, without ever devolving into complete silliness. I appreciated that they stopped at the right time -- the film didn't drag into a manufactured denouement.

B

Predator (1987)

Rented in anticipation of the upcoming Alien vs. Predator film. Despite some wooden acting, this film is a triumph of fear. What's scarier than a chameleonic skinning, laser-beam shooting unknown?

We're rooting for Predator - the gentleman killer - in the upcoming confrontation!

C+

Street Smart (1987)

Mild-mannered reporter (hehe) gets sucked into the ugly life of a street pimp. Amateurish film with an incredibly bland Reeve in the lead. Freeman is admirably menacing, but it all just felt so dirty without the benefit of mastery.

D+