Tag Archives: 1980s

Zen Master 6 / Shin chung luk jo (1987) Lieh Lo, Action

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Good Shaolin monk story. Actually contains some interesting Buddhist thought. Martial arts directed by Yuen Biao, and it shows. Impressive wu shu performances throughout. Lengthy training scenes, excellent finale. Story has a dead spot in the middle in which the hero (the annointed Shaolin successor) wanders the country in disguise and saves a town from being overrun by bandits.
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Blood Rage (1987) John Grissmer, Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Julie Gordon, Horror

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Twins Todd and Terry seem like sweet boys that is, until one of them takes an axe to face of a fellow patron at the local drive-in. Todd is blamed for the bloody crime and institutionalized, whilst twin brother Terry goes free. Ten years later and, as the family gathers around the table for a Thanksgiving meal, the news comes in that Todd has escaped. But has the real killer in fact been in their midst all along? One thing’s for sure, there will be blood and rage!
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Violent Cop / Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki (1989) Takeshi Kitano, Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashikawa, Action, Crime, Drama

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Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma’s sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice.
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Making Love (1982) Arthur Hiller, Michael Ontkean, Kate Jackson, Harry Hamlin, Drama

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A successful young L.A. doctor and his equally successful television-producer wife find their happily-ever-after life torn assunder when he suddenly confronts his long-repressed attraction for other men. Zach and Claire live a comfortable life secure in their love for one another when Bart, a swinging L.A. novelist, walks into Zach’s office and awakens unfamiliar feelings in him.
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Lisa (1989) Gary Sherman, Staci Keanan, Cheryl Ladd, D.W. Moffett, Drama, Horror, Thriller

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Fourteen year-old Lisa is raised by her unmarried mother Katherine who overprotects her by forbidding her to date until she’s sixteen. In despair, Lisa and schoolmate Wendy make up a game that consists of inferring attractive men’s phone numbers from their car ID and giving them anonymous calls. Last victim is the handsome Richard, with whom Lisa begins a passionate phone relationship, unaware that he’s also a psycho-killer and sex maniac…
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Ruckus (1980) Max Kleven, Dirk Benedict, Linda Blair, Richard Farnsworth, Action, Drama, Thriller

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Kyle Hanson is a Vietnam veteran whose traumatic war-time experiences have left him unable to rejoin mainstream society. When Kyle, unkempt and in dirty fatigues, stops in a small town for some food, the local bullies can’t wait for an opportunity to harass him. After Kyle uses his Special Forces training to escape the bullies, he becomes the subject of a community-wide manhunt. Only Jenny Bellows, a local girl whose husband was declared missing in action in Vietnam, is willing to give Kyle a chance.
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Night Feeder (1988) Jim Whiteaker, Kate Alexander, The Nuns, Cintra Wilson, Horror

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Fear chokes the free-wheeling underbelly of San Francisco’s punk scene as a killer stalks the night to feed an unspeakable appetite. Community suspicion focuses on Disease, a band that is tainted by groupie deaths allegedly induced by the drug DZS, and on “The Creeper” a misshapen outcast from the bowels of the city. A writer probes the gruesome murders and the story hits close to home, as the web of death devours neighbors, friends, and lovers.
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) Philip Kaufman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, Drama, Romance

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Tomas is a doctor and a lady-killer in 1960s Czechoslovakia, an apolitical man who is struck with love for the bookish country girl Tereza; his more sophisticated sometime lover Sabina eventually accepts their relationship and the two women form an electric friendship. The three are caught up in the events of the Prague Spring (1968), until the Soviet tanks crush the non-violent rebels; their illusions are shattered and their lives change forever.
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Grandview, U.S.A. (1984) Randal Kleiser, Jamie Lee Curtis, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Drama

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Life in the small town of Grandview, Illinois is one that is just like any other city or town. Tim Pearson, soon to be graduating high school wants to go to Florida to study oceanography. He meets Michelle “Mike” Cody and is attracted to her. She runs the local Demolition Derby place. Ernie “Slam” Webster is on of the drivers in the derby who’s wife is cheating on him and wants to later on be with Mike. Tim falls for Mike and a big love triangle is about to happen.
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Blood Simple. (1984) Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, Crime, Thriller

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Texas bar owner Julian Marty, who is generally regarded as not a nice person, hires shady private detective Loren Visser, who is able to obtain what Marty requests: evidence – in this instance, photographic – that his wife, Abby, and one of his bartenders, Ray, are having an affair. As Ray and Abby realize that Marty has found out about them, it allows them to plan for their future away from Marty, while be up front with Marty about the situation. Marty, in turn, decides to hire Visser once again, this time to kill Abby and Ray, and dispose of their bodies so that they won’t be found. The out in the open affair and the contract hit lead to some actions based on self interest, and a standoff of sorts between the four players, which is compounded in complexity by some wrong assumptions of what has happened, with an innocent bystander, another of the Marty’s bartenders, Meurice, potentially and unwittingly adding to the scenario.
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Centerspread Girls (1982) Gary Graver, Veronica Hart, Lisa De Leeuw, John Alderman, Comedy, Adult

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The Morality over Madness (MOM) committee tries to take down Sue Forbes’ adult magazine “Panther”. Alas, one by one the MOM members are seduced by Sue’s former centerfold models. Producer Beverly Martine seduces wore out porn star Lyndon Loveless to rediscover his prowess. While old member Thurman Parrish refuses the advances of the buxom stripping artist Vee Beacham and Anne the photographer, they enlist his younger wife Louella by causing her to out herself. After witnessing Gov. Hamilton Osmond with an overly patriotic girl, Celeste and Sean Carson seduce him themselves. Ellie Parker the reporter seduces Lay Rev. W. W. Williams and ends up sneaking the videotape he takes of their encounter into Sue. Jane Mohr takes a different approach by coming clean to Judge Roy Hammer. They fall in love after he reveals MOM got his support by pure political pressure. In the committee’s hearing.
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