by Kristin Harwell, Jeannine Zabriskie, Carole Tribuzzo
Seymour Krelborn is a nerdy, downtrodden employee at a failing Skid Row flower shop who spends his days pining for his coworker Audrey, who is stuck in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist (Steve Martin). Everything changes when Seymour discovers a strange, unidentified plant during a total eclipse. He names it Audrey II, and it turns the struggling shop into a sensation. There's just one problem: the plant is a wisecracking, soul-singing carnivore that needs human blood to survive, and its appetite keeps growing. As Seymour gets sucked into the fame, the fortune, and a few increasingly bad decisions, he has to figure out how far he'll go for a shot at success and the girl of his dreams, before Audrey II decides to take over the whole world. Thanks for joining us at The Shermer High Alumni Association. If you had as much fun as we did, follow, leave us a five star review, and share us with your fellow '80s movie lovers. Until next time — be kind, and don't forget to rewind.
Hoosiers follows Norman Dale, a former college basketball coach with a troubled past, who takes a job coaching the high school team in the tiny Indiana town of Hickory. The team is struggling, the town has very strong opinions about basketball, and Norman's unconventional coaching style isn't exactly winning him any popularity contests. But with the help of a talented young player, a troubled former basketball star, and a team that slowly learns to trust one another, Hickory begins to find its rhythm. As the boys make an unlikely run towards the state championship, Norman has to confront his own past while the team learns that being the smallest school in the tournament doesn't mean that they can't play with the biggest. Set against the backdrop of the 1950s Indiana basketball, Hoosiers is ultimately a story about second chances, teamwork, small town pride, and believing in yourself when pretty much everyone else thinks you're already v- Set against the backdrop of 1950s Indiana basketball, Hoosiers is ultimately a story about second chances, teamwork, small town pride, and believing in yourself when pretty much everyone else thinks you've already lost.
Kristin and Carole are off this week, so Jeannine is joined by a returning favorite: Tommy, back in the co-host chair for a movie he specifically requested and clearly knows inside and out. Flight of the Navigator follows 12-year-old David Freeman, who vanishes in the woods in 1978 and wakes up eight years later without having aged a single day. His little brother is now older than he is. His parents have moved on without him. And NASA wants very badly to know exactly where he's been. Then David finds Max, a wildly sarcastic alien spacecraft, and the two of them end up on a journey that's part sci-fi adventure and part heartbreaking meditation on what it means to lose everyone you love to time itself. They get into the cast too. Long before Sex and the City, a young Sarah Jessica Parker appears in this film, and by her own account, she barely remembers making it. Veronica Cartwright, who plays David's mom, brings a resume that includes Alien and The Birds. And they spend real time on lead actor Joey Cramer's story, since his life after the movie took a much harder turn than anyone watching in 1986 could have guessed. There's also a great bit of movie trivia: director Randal Kleiser and George Lucas were college roommates, and the special effects company behind the film's groundbreaking CGI spaceship folded not long after the movie came out. Did Flight of the Navigator age well? Listen and find out. Thanks for joining us at the Shermer High Alumni Association. If you're enjoying the show, a quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify is the biggest thing that helps new listeners find us. Follow along for next week's episode, and share this one with your fellow '80s movie lovers.
Dirty Dancing takes us to a Catskills resort in the summer of 1963, where 17-year-old Baby Houseman falls in with the staff after hours and ends up covering for dance instructor Penny by stepping in as Johnny Castle's new partner. We can't get past the age gap between Baby and Johnny, something nobody in 1987 seemed to blink at. We also dig into the abortion subplot that almost cost the movie its Clearasil sponsorship, since the company backed out once they found out and the writer refused to cut it anyway. Turns out the shoot was just as dramatic as the movie itself. Filming ran 43 brutal days in 105-degree heat, and Patrick Swayze blew out his knee doing his own stunt on the log scene. By the time they got to the lake scene in October, the water was almost 40 degrees, and Jennifer Grey only did it because she was young and broke. The final lift was never rehearsed; they went for it live on camera and it worked. Vestron's own producer reportedly told the team to burn the negative and collect the insurance after seeing the rough cut. The movie then made $214 million and became the top video rental the following year. Did Dirty Dancing age well? Listen and find out. Thanks for joining us at the Shermer High Alumni Association. If you're enjoying the show, a quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify is the best way to help new listeners find us. Follow along for next week's episode, and share this one with your fellow '80s movie lovers.
This episode is dedicated to Dolly Parton, who passed away last week at 80. Kristin, Jeannine, and Carole had another movie planned, but pivoted to spend the week with one of Dolly's most beloved films instead. 9 to 5 follows three coworkers, played by Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton, who've had enough of their sexist, credit-stealing boss Franklin Hart. After a shared joint leads to three increasingly unhinged revenge fantasies, each woman gets her own dream sequence. Judy imagines hunting Hart down like the deer head mounted on his office wall. Doralee flips the office harassment script and turns him into the one getting ogled. Violet's fantasy goes full animated Snow White, right down to a poisoned cup of coffee. Then the plot takes a hard left. A broken chair and a mixed-up mug send Hart to the hospital under circumstances nobody can quite explain, and what started as workplace satire turns into a full screwball caper involving a stolen body and a getaway that gets harder to justify to the cops by the minute. They also spend real time on the people behind it: Fonda's decades as an outspoken activist, Tomlin's path from Laugh-In to Grace and Frankie, and the fact that Dolly wrote the film's title track using her own acrylic fingernails to create that iconic clicking rhythm. Did 9 to 5 age well? Listen and find out. Thanks for joining us at the Shermer High Alumni Association. If you're enjoying the show, a quick rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify is the biggest thing that helps new listeners find us. Follow along for next week's episode, and share this one with your fellow '80s movie lovers.
Stand by Me follows four twelve-year-old boys: Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern, who set out on a two-day journey to find the body of a missing boy named Ray Brower. What begins as an exciting adventure quickly becomes something much more meaningful as the boys confront danger, fear, and the complicated realities of growing up. Starring: Wil Wheaton River Phoenix Corey Feldman Jerry O'Connell Kiefer Sutherland and Richard Dreyfuss Released: August 22, 1986 Rated: R Cozy Earth: use our code SHAAPODCAST at cozyearth.com to receive 21% off your first order! Thank you for supporting our show. #standbyme #wilwheaton #riverphoenix #coreyfeldman #jerryoconnell #kiefersutherland #comingofagemovies #moviepod
Valley Girl is a 1983 romantic comedy that captures the vibrant culture clash between two distinct Los Angeles teenage worlds. The story follows Julie Richman, a popular, trendsetting Valley Girl from the San Fernando Valley, who grows tired of her arrogant boyfriend and her shallow, conformist social circle. When she meets Randy, a raw, edgy Hollywood punk rocker with a sweet heart, the two share an instant, undeniable connection. As their whirlwind romance blossoms against a backdrop of iconic new wave music, Julie faces intense peer pressure from her judgmental friends to dump him, forcing her to choose between the safety of her social status and the thrill of breaking the mold.
An aspiring teenage cartoonist goes to Nantucket for the summer and accidentally gets drafted into a high-stakes class war, where the only logical way to save a singer's ancestral home from greedy yacht-club billionaires is by unleashing pure 1980s chaos, a ragtag group of misfits, and Godzilla. This masterpiece of absurdity turns a standard coming-of-age romance into a beautiful disaster of property damage and working-class spite, proving that John Cusack doesn't need smooth words to woo Demi Moore when he can just draw aggressive cartoon rhinoceroses and win a rigged regatta. It is a wonderfully unhinged time capsule where logic takes a vacation, corporate greed is defeated by teenagers, and the power of animated imagination triumphs over cold, hard cash.
Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a big-talking, wisecracking truck driver who's suddenly hurled into a wild adventure even he could never invent. At the root of it all is Lo Pan, a 2,000-year-old evil magician who rules an empire of spirits beneath San Francisco's Chinatown. Doomed to a fleshless existence, he can only be saved by a green-eyed Asian beauty. When the fiancé of Jack's friend is kidnapped by Lo Pan's minions, Jack goes to the rescue. He finds himself dodging demons, grappling with goblins, and facing baffling terrors like the Room of the Upside-Down Hell as he battles his way through the labyrinth of Lo Pan's dark domain. In a nutshell, it’s a little Flash Gordon meets Goonies meets Dark Crystal vibes.
This week Kristin, Jeannine, and Carole take on Jim Henson's 1982 puppet fantasy The Dark Crystal, a movie plenty of us remember as a cozy childhood favorite and absolutely none of us remembered as being this dark. Kristin walks through the story of Jen and Kira, the last two Gelflings, and the thousand year old crystal that split one race into the gentle Mystics and the monstrous Skeksis. The group gets into how Henson wanted to strip fantasy back down to something closer to the older, stranger versions of fables before Disney smoothed all the edges off them, and there's a real appreciation for what it took to build this world entirely with puppets and practical effects rather than a screen full of CGI. They also dig into the cast of puppeteers behind the creatures, including some familiar names from the Muppets and Star Wars, and compare what critics said about the film back in 1982 to how it plays now. Stick around for a shoutout to the podcast Myths and Legends, which scratches the same itch for anyone who loves hearing the original, unfiltered versions of stories they thought they already knew. Did The Dark Crystal age well? Press play and find out. If you enjoyed this episode, hit follow, leave a review, and share it with your fellow '80s movie lovers.