The Lost Boys (1987)

 "Read the TV guide, you don't need a TV!"

I know: where have I been all these years, ten years old in 1987 yet the first time I saw The Lost Boys was last night. At least I've seen it now,

As a story... the film is good. I wouldn't use a stronger word than "good": this is a fairly bog standard Hollywood blockbuster plot, but it's done well enough. And, given the youth of much of the cast, it's well performed. Dianne Wiest particularly excels as the sweet, overstressed Lucy, a character who feels very real, And Barnard Hughes is superb as Grandpa, Greek chorus and by far the coolest character in spite of all the very cool youth culture stuff.

And there's a lot of the latter. The main theme song is a banger in its own right: yes, Marilyn Manson's cover is better- his covers invariably are- but we don't talk about him nowadays. We get Echo and the Bunnymen covering People Are Strange. The vampires live in an abandoned underground hotel with a massive poster of Jim Morrison on the wall. All this stuff has a lot to do with why this film became such a cult classic, I feel.

And yet, I think, despite the rather satisfying resolution, the film is raised above its good-but-not-great script by its visuals. It has a very late '80s goth aesthetic. The vampires and the scenes surrounding them look great. And you can never go wrong with showing amusement rides at night to evoke a sense of the eerie.

A film with a merely decent script, then, but one elevated above that by visuals and coolness. And this is also a fascinating glimpse of vampires in pop culture in the '80s- a possible influence on both Anne Rice and Joss Whedon?

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

 "Be excellent to each other!"

Obviously, I've seen this film a million times. That goes withoit saying. But that was before my blogging days, and it was in another century. And besides, the wench is... sorry.

Anyway. we all know the story, and how splendidly silly it is; Bill and Ted must manage not to flunk history (how do they pass everything else???!!!) in order to one day form the band that will end all war and poverty by being awesome. This proves that we metalheads will save the world, although presumbly with better guitars.

It's not about this. It's about the gleeful playfulness with history, the irreverence. It's about that late 80s rock zeitgeist. It's about Keanu Reeves' firsr venture into Hollywood, although Alex Winter is seemingly the more characterful of the two. It's about Napoleon and water slides.

It's about military schools, presented here as comedy, but... resder, if you have ever sent your child to one, taught in one, or endorsed their existence in any way, you are subhuman scum. That is all. Thank you.

It's about the coolness of shsdes in 1989. It's about how the phone box time machine is in no way the TARDIS, and how the very concept of a phone booth evokes such nostalgia in 2022.

This very silly and very cool film is not, on the surface, very clever. But thst's misleading as there's quite a lot going on, much of which breaks the fourth wall.