A Nostalgic Look Back at the Action-Packed '80s Cinema - Episode 45

Blast from the past with a funky twist—our latest chatter is all about the golden era of '80s action movies, the time when explosions were big, and the heroes' muscles were bigger. We kick things off with a laugh, reminiscing about Arnold Schwarzenegger's infinite ammo in "Commando" and the iconic triple treat from "Total Recall." It's a riotous rewind to the days when one-liners were as essential as a good chase scene, and we can't help but smirk at the cheesy goodness that saturated the silver screen.

We don't just stop at Arnold's antics, though. Our nostalgic stroll takes us through the streets of "First Blood," dives into the explosive Nakatomi Plaza of "Die Hard," and even glances at the noir shadow of "Batman" (1989). We give props to the synth beats that scored our favorite face-offs and take a moment to appreciate how Eddie Murphy went from "Beverly Hills Cop" to Family films. It's a celebration of the sights, sounds, and stunts that made '80s action flicks the unforgettable thrill rides we still can't get enough of.

As we pack up our boombox, we tease the future of our Movie Monday series—your ticket to the wonderfully awful movies of yesteryear. Whether you're in Atlanta or tuning in from afar, prepare for a dose of hilarity as we promise to unearth and share every corny plot twist and every ridiculous creature feature from the 20th century's treasure trove. Stay sexy, listeners, and get ready for more laughs, memories, and all the '80s action your heart can handle. Wes and Nick have their hands full. 

Support the show:

🎤 Go to listen to the audio podcast on your favorite platform: https://dumbcoolweirdpodcast.buzzsprout.com/share

🌐 To see more stuff, buy some merch, or support us go to https://www.retroradfilms.com/dumbcoolweirdpodcast

😀 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/retroradfilms/

📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retroradfilms/

🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/retroradfilms

🌴 Links: https://linktr.ee/retroradfilms

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

dumb, cool, weird podcast running into a few problems. I'm having car problems and a few other issues of money at the moment, so I just wasn't able to. We also we also lost satan, yeah satan's gone, but uh, as they say, he always has a, has a funny way of coming back.

Speaker 2: 0:23

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is going to be terrible, though, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 0:30

So today.

Speaker 2: 0:31

How's he going to come back?

Speaker 1: 0:32

Well, he's going to come back in the form of the Rapture. I guess He'll just show up and be like sup.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Raptor, you mean the Rapture no I said the Rapture, I mean, if he came. Oh, I thought you said the Raptor. I was going to say like, damn you know, velociraptor. I think is a little bit worse.

Speaker 1: 0:49

That's fine. I want the Raptor too.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Imagine, you know, the Raptor happens and a bunch of Velociraptors pop out of the ground.

Speaker 1: 0:59

That would be pretty ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 1:07

So what we're talking about today is 80s uh, kind of reminiscent about 80s uh action movies. Yeah, those were the good times yeah, they rocked our. They rocked our worlds oh yeah, no, it's like I think the greatest thing about 80s action movies that the action stars didn't even have to try to kill people. You know they were just hip firing all the time. You know, no need for ammunition. I never saw arnold reload once in commando. He would just switch guns after, like obviously expending over a million rounds.

Speaker 1: 1:36

My favorite part I'm gonna say my favorite part about commando is all the the funny puns and one-liners oh, yeah, yeah. My friend's asleep. He's dead tired. Do not wake him.

Speaker 2: 1:49

I eat green berries for breakfast. Remember when I tell you I was going to kill you last. Yeah, I lied I lied, got it, and then there was total recall. Yeah, Um me and my buddy yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:10

So in total recall uh, you know it's a sci-fi action movie and I remember um that that scene was just a lot of Arnold making really weird faces and like make making really terrible sounds. That's pretty much most of that movie especially when they go out on Mars and really terrible sounds. That's pretty much most of that movie, especially when they go out on Mars, when they're on Mars they're like and the eyes are popping out of the head.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Oh my God, dude, I couldn't stop laughing my ass off Every time I watched that movie.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Yeah, I could not stop, yeah. And then they had those scenes where the what was that Wasn't there a chick that had one boob or something no, she had three tits.

Speaker 1: 2:44

Oh, three tits, yeah, that's what it was. Three tits, yeah, yeah, that's. Oh man, that whoo, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a fun one. And then I had this friend named andrew burn and we talked about that, that one scene where he goes to meet the guy that's like in the guy's stomach and like, oh my, when he's opening up the shirt he's just like. He's like here he comes and he like kind of falls back and then he turns around and it's like it's like, it's almost like the creature takes control and he's just kind of not there anymore or something.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Yeah, it's like his consciousness is gone.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Yeah, it's just like. It's like he takes a big shit. He's just like.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Or he's, or he's coming.

Speaker 1: 3:24

He's coming everywhere he goes yeah, it's a good one, save mars, yeah you betty, yeah, I think running man was came out around around the same like time frame too in the 80s that was another.

Speaker 2: 3:40

I think it was like a year. I think that was a year or a year after they did that movie.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Yep. And then you know Stallone. He did First Blood and all the Rambo movies and those are great action movies. You know, I saw actually I saw First Blood about three months ago for the first time and that was a good experience.

Speaker 2: 4:01

I saw that when I was 15. I would definitely say that First Blood was obviously the best one and really close to the book, except obviously in the book they were going to kill him.

Speaker 1: 4:13

I liked the first two. The first two were pretty good and then when I watched the third one, I got so bored with it that I actually went and did some work on my computer and I completely forgot to watch the rest of it. That's how boring it was to me.

Speaker 2: 4:25

Oh, my God, okay. So at the end of that movie and you can see how dated this is All right it goes on about how Rambo fought so great and we have to support the glorious fighters of the Mahajan Dean. It's like damn. The eighties didn't know what we were going to be getting into in the late nineties and early two thousands.

Speaker 1: 4:48

Well, I couldn't have predicted it, I guess.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Yeah, it's like. It's like yeah, those guys in the Mahajan Dean are really cool. They're fighting the Russians. You know we got to support them.

Speaker 1: 4:59

like 20 years later it's like damn those guys on the Mahajan-Din are a real problem ever since they became the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Damn yeah, you get that movie. I mean you get Die Hard, which is the best action Christmas movie ever.

Speaker 2: 5:20

It's a Christmas movie.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Alan Rickman.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yeah, he's Scrooge, mcduck yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:28

And then you know, one of my favorite action movies of all time from that time period was you know, it's a tech noir, it's the original Terminator. It's a really good action movie.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Oh God, the way that Arnold moved his head and eyes like a real machine. He got the whole like scanning the area like a camera thing down. Or just when he goes into the police station he starts fucking up everybody it's like one of my favorite soundtracks of all time from that movie.

Speaker 1: 5:54

I like that. Oh yeah, I like the the music they played here in the sequence when he's in the police station. It's very 80s but it's very like futuristic sounding.

Speaker 2: 6:01

I love it it's also like very horror, horror based, because I mean that first movie kind of played like a horror movie when you think about it.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Yeah, it is. You know, my favorite movie of all time is Blade Runner, and that's another action cyberpunk movie. That's really good, you know. Like you know, I actually watched it last weekend and so much I love that fucking movie. I've seen it so many times but it never gets old, it's just such a good soundtrack, such a good atmosphere.

Speaker 1: 6:28

It's a it's a tech noir cyberpunk movie that has elements of film noir, but a lot of action too, especially the scenes where Deckard is fighting every time he comes in contact with a you know, one of the replicants.

Speaker 2: 6:40

So oh yeah, good time. But you know, another good one that I really enjoy is the Thing. Yeah, kurt Russell, that was another good one. John Carpenter had great movies in the 80s, great soundtracks.

Speaker 1: 6:56

And you can't even forget. Can't forget they Live.

Speaker 2: 6:58

I mean that's another good action movie oh my God, they Live was great. I mean that kind of feels close to home today, you know, with everything falling apart, everything seems like it's a simulation run by lizard people.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Yep.

Speaker 2: 7:12

Damn.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Yep, you know we also watched Batman from 1989.

Speaker 2: 7:15

That's a that's an 80s. Oh God, that's a good one. That's a good 80s, you know action, superhero movie. And a good, it feels like a tech noir. That's what I love about it too. Yeah, I mean not a tech noir, a film noir, an old noir, yeah, a film noir yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:29

So me and Nick, one time we went to YouTube just to see if they had a black and white version of that version of Batman. We watched it and we actually agreed that it looks so much better. That movie looks so much better in black and white Lethal Weapon. That's another one.

Speaker 2: 7:47

God, yeah, that's a great one.

Speaker 1: 7:51

Big Trouble in Little China. That's another good one, that's.

Speaker 2: 7:53

John Carpenter again.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Escape from New York.

Speaker 2: 7:57

I love how John Carpenter just wrote Made all the soundtracks from the 80s With his synthwave the Karate Kid. Oh yeah, that's a good one. Top Gun Fuck, that's a great one. Top Gun, fuck, that's a great one.

Speaker 1: 8:12

RoboCop.

Speaker 2: 8:14

Yeah, RoboCop. I'm surprised Detroit didn't strip him for more copper.

Speaker 1: 8:19

I'll buy that for a dollar and you know, by the way, I love that commercial. You know there's one part of that movie that really scarred me as a kid in Robocop. It was the part. Well, actually I guess there was several parts that scarred me, like when Alex Murphy gets shot in the beginning that was bad.

Speaker 1: 8:35

And then when that one villain drives head first into that chemical vat and then it like hits him with all those chemicals and he comes out, he turns into a fucking like radioactive mutant thing, like it's like what the fuck. And then Beverly Hills Cop like radioactive mutant thing, like it's like what the fuck.

Speaker 2: 8:51

And then Beverly Hills cop is another one. Oh God, beverly Hills cop was great. Eddie Murphy in the eighties was amazing.

Speaker 1: 8:57

Yeah, he also did another one called a. 48 hours is another action movie he was in where he played a cop.

Speaker 2: 9:03

Yeah, those series were pretty cool. Uh, and the funny part is is that he had all of these adult-themed movies until he had kids.

Speaker 1: 9:12

Yep. And then all of a sudden he started doing family-friendly movies.

Speaker 2: 9:16

It's such a weird transition it really is. Highlander is another one I really like. Oh, that's a great one. I mean, there can only be one. Yep, and then Ghostbusters yeah, dude, imagine ghostbusters with john belushi though yeah, it's true like how, how wild that would have been to have john belushi and conan the barbarian oh fuck, that's my favorite movie, dude.

Speaker 2: 9:46

That is my favorite arnold schwarzenegger film, because schwarzenegger really captured everything about conan his intelligence, his fighting prowess. It was just they really stuck to the source material with that one. Like you're right, like that was. That was the one movie where he where acted.

Speaker 1: 10:08

Here's a favorite of yours Red Dawn.

Speaker 2: 10:11

That one's great. I mean, that's going to happen soon. So we better start re-watching that for the blueprints, because the Chinese are going to come through Canada. That's what's going to happen, dude, and then we're going to be hiding in the mountains of North Georgia just hunting down the Chinese and the other communist forces that try to eat us.

Speaker 1: 10:33

So here's another movie that me and Nick actually reviewed on the podcast. That's a really good action. Comedy. Disaster film is Night of the Comet.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah, that's a great one. It's so fucking weird Like government gone.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Zombies a problem, you know they just they threw away their guns. At the end, like you know, the zombies weren't a threat anymore.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Yeah, and they really weren't zombies, they were more like mutated humans. But like it's because you know what it was we read the description. The description said that they were zombies, but then they we watched the movie it was more like mutated humans that like had it got a taste for human flesh or something. It was really weird.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Uh yeah, Like they became psychotic. Just psychotic I wanted to meet people.

Speaker 1: 11:22

Yup, then you got roadhouse.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Oh God that Patrick Swayze is so sexy when he kicks people in the head Bloodsport you know I haven't watched Bloodsport.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I gotta watch that one, the original Dune from 1984.

Speaker 2: 11:38

That is a okay movie, Still very fun though.

Speaker 1: 11:43

And then let's see, Ooh, Enemy Mine. I've seen that one. I don't know if you've ever seen Enemy Mine. No, I haven't seen that one. It's a sci-fi action movie that has Dennis Quaid and Dennis Quaid and this alien crash land on this remote planet and they're trying to survive.

Speaker 2: 12:01

Oh, I think I've seen a review for it, but I haven't watched it.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it it, but I haven't watched it. Yeah, it's, it's pretty, uh, it's pretty fun. Oh god, bad taste. That peter jackson movie oh, I haven't seen that. Oh god, it's, it's a. It's a, really. It's like. I think it's his first movie. It's a very low budget, like alien action movie. It's like a comedy too.

Speaker 2: 12:27

It's pretty ridiculous. That's great.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Yep.

Speaker 2: 12:35

I really love the low budget ones.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Yeah, those are always the best. I mean, there's a lot of shit like that. You remember we watched the Toxic Avenger. That's a low budget, shitty fucking action superhero movie. Oh God, that's a low-budget, like shitty fucking action superhero movie.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Oh God, that's my favorite, though, of how low-budget it was, and he was pretty much Jason Voorhees running around terrorizing those fucking people.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Yeah, I love how he's just like sitting there looking at them and he's just like I like it when he murders everybody in the fucking um, in that uh restaurant and then they're like like pulling them all out. He's like, oh, this one's been deep fried.

Speaker 2: 13:12

I love when he gets in a fight with a guy called Cigar Face.

Speaker 1: 13:17

Yeah, and I love how they're calling everybody faggots, but then they have a cross dresser in their gang.

Speaker 2: 13:24

Yeah, that was really hilarious. I miss 80s villains. They were always so weird there. Miss 80s villains.

Speaker 1: 13:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:29

They were always so weird.

Speaker 1: 13:32

There's a movie we got to watch. It's called Krull. It's an action fantasy film, but it's really weird. We'll just have to watch it sometime. And then there's another movie called Cobra. I'm sure you've seen it. No, I haven't Some of these I really need to watch. It's a stallone movie.

Speaker 2: 13:51

Oh god, I now I remember this and I I need to watch it oh, here's another one. Um, here's another one that you, uh that me and you've reviewed class of 1984 god, that was death wish, but without the guns and a guy who actually had the balls to do something yep he really? He really waited until his wife was sexually assaulted to have the stones to do something?

Speaker 1: 14:20

yep, another good, uh, another good like like thriller, uh horror movie that has a lot of action in it is chopping mall. We, we've done that one.

Speaker 2: 14:28

God, that one was great. That was a good one, Very creative when they came up with that idea maximum overdrive too. Yeah, overdrive. I'm trying to remember that one. I think I've seen it.

Speaker 1: 14:45

Uh, it's a uh, it's Emilio Estevez movie. It's basically where the cars come to life and they start trying to kill people.

Speaker 2: 14:55

That sounds hilarious.

Speaker 1: 14:58

It's pretty ridiculous, man.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Dude, that's pretty wild All the cars coming to life and trying to kill people, like when the birds try to kill people.

Speaker 1: 15:09

Yep, pretty much that's a. I'm trying to think of some other movies. Warlock is another one.

Speaker 2: 15:18

Over the Top is a personal favorite of mine Over the Top is a great father-son movie.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Yep, I love that. I love the arm wrestling competition at the end of the movie yeah, honestly, arm wrestle.

Speaker 2: 15:33

Arm wrestling is one of those like things I really enjoy watching and I'm glad that sylvester shalone had a movie about arm wrestling and building a father-son relationship do you remember that?

Speaker 1: 15:46

remember that Masters of the Universe movie oh my god, with Dolph Lundgren?

Speaker 2: 15:54

Oh god, dude, dude. Dolph Lundgren, after freaking getting into the Rocky movies, didn't have like the greatest acting career. He is like always constantly being put in like really bad movies.

Speaker 1: 16:10

We had that one movie he did. It was kind of like a knockoff Stallone movie. It was called Red Scorpion. Did you ever see that one?

Speaker 2: 16:16

Oh God, I did see that one, and it was just as bad as you would have thought it was.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Yeah, he also did Kindergarten, cop 2, in the late 2010s and people were just like nobody asked for this why?

Speaker 2: 16:29

Why would you do that? He's in a lot of B-movies that you find on Netflix.

Speaker 1: 16:35

It's just the way it is, man.

Speaker 2: 16:37

Hey, at least he's not Steven Seagal. I mean, how many times do you have to watch Under Siege or any of the Steven Seagal movies to feel like you've wasted your time?

Speaker 1: 16:47

Well, I mean, he had a lot of. He had some good movies, didn't he?

Speaker 2: 16:51

Yeah, it was called under siege and that was it.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Yeah, but it probably really wasn't him the reason I was good, as part of just good writing, I would imagine.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Yeah, I really think it was because like give was because like skinny to fat, that man can't act oh god, there's so many fucking.

Speaker 1: 17:11

There's just. I'm looking at a list of movies from the 80s. They're like all action movies. It actually tells me where you can watch them too.

Speaker 2: 17:16

That's kind of funny um, well, maybe we should do a part two of this with some of the ones that we get to get to watch them because those horror movies from the 80s or something else this is a movie that's on my list of us of that. We get to watch them because those horror movies from the 80s or something else.

Speaker 1: 17:27

This is a movie that's on my list of stuff for us to watch. It's called Hell Comes to Frogtown. We've got to watch that.

Speaker 2: 17:33

Oh God, that was another Roddy Piper.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Roddy Piper was actually really good at acting, yeah we've got to watch that one though, because it's really ridiculous looking.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Oh dude, I've seen a review of it and I was like, yeah, we got to watch this. Yeah, more movies for us to watch man. And then we got to still watch. They Live, oh my.

Speaker 1: 17:59

God, there's a Punisher movie from 1989, and it's Dolph Lundgren playing.

Speaker 2: 18:04

Dolph Lundgren oh God, dude, dude I watched it.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Mm-hmm, I bet it is. I mean, I barely gave him any dialogue. I mean, I see Howard the Duck too. That's a bad one too.

Speaker 2: 18:16

I haven't even watched them, I know.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yeah, let's see Movie called Vigilante. There's like a bunch of movies on here I've never even heard of. That's actually pretty good. There's a lot of movies for us to watch we should also watch the Death Wish ones. I mean me and Nick have like, literally like tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of movies we could watch. Yeah, this podcast is never going to end. Yeah, we're going to be like old men and we're like Nick, how many episodes have we done?

Speaker 1: 18:51

Now you're going to be like we're up to almost 10,000 now. I was like we're still not even close, are we no?

Speaker 2: 18:57

not even a little bit.

Speaker 1: 19:00

I'll be like oh, nick, look out, they're coming to change my bedpan and you're like shut up, wes, I can see them.

Speaker 2: 19:10

I'm in the same room as you in this nursing home.

Speaker 1: 19:13

I forget that you're blind and not deaf, oh God.

Speaker 2: 19:19

Deathstalker, deathstalker yeah, I haven't heard of that one. That sounds amazing.

Speaker 1: 19:24

There's one called Galaxy of Terror. Oh man, it's really really fucking cheesy, but it's good. It has a. You know what Galaxy of Terror has it has. It's a crazy sci-fi like space movie, and it has Robert Englund in it, before he did Nightmare on Elm Street, I think.

Speaker 2: 19:45

Oh, wow.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, england in it before he did. Uh, not around elm street, I think. And um, oh, wow, yeah, and uh, it also has the guy from those um, what's the name of that actor from the uh rob zombie movies? What's that actor's name? The guy that plays?

Speaker 2: 19:58

oh yeah, I know, I know I. I think it was like sid haig or something.

Speaker 1: 20:02

No, yeah, that's not right. No, I think that's his name, sig yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:07

Sig Haig yeah, he, he's in a lot of those old movies and a lot of B movie stuff. Yeah, yeah, he was.

Speaker 1: 20:18

He was definitely in that, yeah, yeah, so Robert England and Sid Haig were in this movie, and sid haig was big and muscular like he obviously holy shit yeah I guess I, I guess he, I guess he used to work out.

Speaker 2: 20:38

It's funny seeing like all the old actors that ended up in Rob's Army movies man.

Speaker 1: 20:44

Yep, yeah, because he was an accomplished actor. I mean, he was a big actor before then, you know.

Speaker 2: 20:54

Oh yeah, I mean gotta do something right when you get older.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Yeah, absolutely Wait. There's a movie called Lady Terminator. No, no, that's not. Not, that can't be real. What?

Speaker 2: 21:10

that can't be real. That's got to be a spoof uh no, apparently it's real uh, completely bonkers.

Speaker 1: 21:19

the acting is so uniformly bad it deserves to be mentioned along with the other movies. Well, so it's so bad. Jesus, that's great. Damn, that's bad. That's a bad review. Yeah, they need to like chill out on that. Yeah they do. They have a movie called Dudes. What the fuck is this?

Speaker 2: 21:46

There's a lot of weird movies on here.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Man. Oh, hard Ticket to Hawaii. We still got to watch that. No, we were going to watch that, but we couldn't because the guy kept talking during the version we downloaded.

Speaker 2: 21:57

I remember that, oh yeah. That was on the plane Right, that's right, that was annoying dude.

Speaker 1: 22:05

That was such a funny movie, though, because in Hard Ticket to Hawaii, that's where they blow up the skateboarder with the rocket launcher.

Speaker 2: 22:12

Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, we got to find that movie somewhere.

Speaker 1: 22:17

Well, apparently a lot of these movies are on Netflix and I have a Netflix account, so I'm pretty sure we can watch it. Hell yeah, yeah, netflix account, so I'm pretty sure we can watch it.

Speaker 2: 22:29

Uh, hell, yeah, yeah, we're not even. We're not even done scratching the surface here nah we might have to make a part two for sure yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 22:36

But yeah, that's just like a little run through of like some of our favorite like action movies from the 80s. I mean most of it's like arnold stuff, you know, stall Stallone stuff alone, willis. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:47

You know, john Carpenter flicks Kurt Russell being in John Carpenter flicks. Stuff where professional wrestlers were hanging out with John Carpenter.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Yeah, Stuff like that. But anyway, we'll, uh, we'll cut it off there. Um, you know, as usual, check our podcasts. You know we're, we're, we're doing, we're doing more and more of these. We know we've been we haven't really posted, uh, we haven't posted in like a week. We just, uh, I had a lot of stuff happen and, um, you know, Nick's had a lot of stuff happen recently and we're just, I've been traveling a lot too, so it's been kind of rough, so, but we're, we're not going anywhere.

Speaker 2: 23:22

So no, we're gonna.

Speaker 1: 23:23

We're gonna hit the ground running yep, so you want to sign us off? Yeah, stay sexy atlanta thanks for checking out the dumb, cool, weird podcast. We're a movie podcast now, so movie monday is every monday, about crappy movies from the 20th century. It's gonna be great folks. I can't wait to show y'all.