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There were so many well-known movies released in July 1987 that it was almost enough to make a man or woman's head spin.
I am, to the surprise of no one, going to nominate Adventures in Babysitting as my film of the month, if only for the fact that it has Thor in it.
It would appear so because that August also saw the first broadcast of a TV movie based on Will Eisner's The Spirit. One starring Sam J Jones of Flash Gordon fame.
It was still serving up a familiar diet of Anderson: PSI Division, Tharg's Future-Shocks, Rogue Trooper, Judge Dredd, Mean Team and Strontium Dog.
But there was also less-long-established fare, in the from of D. R. & Quinch's Agony Page, Ro-Jaws' Robo-Tales and Tales From Mega-City One.
But that's enough of movies. What about music?
It was a month which kicked off with the Pet Shop Boys' It's a Sin standing astride the summit of the UK singles chart. But soon that had to subside before the power of Madonna's Who's That Girl? which then had to recede before the might of Los Lobos and their cover of La Bamba.
Over on the parallel album chart, July launched with Whitney Houston's Whitney on top before it was shoved aside by Introducing the Hardline According to ... by Terence Trent D'Arby which then had to make way for Various Artists' Hits 6.
And what of the galaxy's greatest comic?
I liked ROBOCOP a lot back in the day, but it’s one of those movies that I’m wary of revisiting, for fear that it won’t hold up. At the time, comic book movies were thin on the ground, so I appreciated that it felt like a mash-up of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, DEATHLOK and JUDGE DREDD.
ReplyDeleteI like THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS quite a bit too. After years of silly, smarmy Roger Moore movies, I was SO ready for a change, and I thought Timothy Dalton was exactly what the doctor ordered. He’s my second favorite 007. For years, people were all ‘Dalton’s too serious, too dark etc’, but then Craig The Glum Robot comes along and it’s “Best Bond EVER!!!” LIVING DAYLIGHTS is really uneven, but I still enjoy it (and LICENCE TO KILL too). I didn’t like LOST BOYS much, thought FULL METAL JACKET was a disappointment and amazingly, I’ve never seen ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.
b.t.
A couple of years ago, I rewatched Robocop - a bit vicious & nasty, for post middle-age viewing!
ReplyDeleteTo start with, The Living Daylights had promise as Bond's best ever outing, with Timothy Dalton near perfect. Unfortunately, Jeroen Krabbe's silly performance spoiled it, along with the American general's tv series-style acting. Not good. The Spy Who Loved Me still retains top spot, for me, despite any shortcomings. Bond films are like Dr.Who, in that it's also about the time in your life when you watched it (1977 being a good year for me.)
Phillip
Yes, Krabbe and Joe Don Baker were two of the weakest villains in Bond History. Like, awful. But I still manage to enjoy it anyway. Besides Dalton, there are other things in it that I genuinely like — I think the Aryan henchman is a decent sub-villain (the Russian jailer in Afghanistan is pretty good too) — Maryam D’Abo isn’t the sexiest Bond Girl but she’s likeable enough, and pretty — it’s got John Barry’s last Bond score — The Warrior Woman from MAD MAX 2 plays John Rhys-Davies’ wife and Felix Leiter is played by Hawk The Slayer :D
DeleteAlso, I think THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is one of the better Moore outings, for sure.
b.t.
BT - Robocop still hold up. It’s rock solid. It’s fantastic.
ReplyDeleteIt’s pretty much the only Verhoeven film that does still hold up, if you ask me.
We didn’t get it in the UK til 1988 though, right?
Same with Innerspace (which I found it really boring. I find a lot of Joe Dante’s stuff really boring). We definitely don’t get those where I lived til then.
I’m ashamed to say I went to see both Jaws IV and Superman IV. I know. My best friend and I were both massive Jaws fans and we didn’t hate it - it was considerably better than Jaws 3 - but it was a depressing night out.
Superman IV is one of the worst films of all time. I can’t begin to describe how sad it is to see something that you loved as a kid being ground into the dirt.
So. Some terrible covers. Again.
Why was Belardinelli still getting work? Who looked forward to seeing his pages by this stage? I love his grotesque earlier stuff right through to Blackhawk. But now, it’s just a red flag that says ‘skip this story’.
The Gibson gets a point for the idea but then has points deducted for execution.
The last one is Barry Kitson isn’t it? I swear 2000AD were doing themselves no favours going with stuff like that. It looks like a small-time fanzine cover. Like an adolescent’s art homework.
The Higgins is the best then, I guess.
"The only Verhoeven film that does still hold up"
DeleteOh come on, Matthew. What about Showgirls...?
-sean
Some (much?) of Adventure in Babysitting was filmed down the street from Charlie at Fitzgerald’s in Berwyn. Super cool place to hear music. Also, Berwyn is where Svengoolie is from but he may not have crossed the ocean?
ReplyDeleteCH
Terence Trent D’Arby’s fist album “The Hardline…” is something special. He was an AWOL US soldier in Germany discharged dishonorablly in Germany around 1984 IIRC and a former Golden Gloves boxing champ. Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 produced his first album and it was a smashing success. Terence didnt want to share the $ of the 2nd album with Martyn and IIRC produced it himself. It went over like a lead balloon. Don’t mess with success is the lesson here.
ReplyDeleteCH.
Yes, Terence Trent D'Arby was never heard of again after the success of his first album. The song 'Sign Your Name' reached #2 in the UK in January 1988 and that was his final hit single despite him predicting that he"d be one of the biggest stars of the '90s, oops!
ReplyDeleteI've never seen Adventures In Babysitting or even heard of it before!
He’s still a dick to this day. He recently blocked re-releases of his records unless the Sony change the artist billing to his new name of Sananda Maitreya.
DeleteWell… Terence Trent can obviously march to his own drum. He does have one of the greatest openings to a song: “Get up outta that rocking chair, Grandma! Or rather, Grandma would you like to dance?!”
ReplyDeleteCH
Matthew, in fairness to the artist formerly known as Terence Trent d'Arby, Sananda Maitreya is actually his real name these days. So it doesn't seem that unreasonable for him to want other people to use it.
ReplyDeleteI agree about Kitson, and the general standard of artwork in the progs (we could throw in that Will Simpson too, I think). Unfortunately thats inevitable at this point, when you consider that this month comes in between the last issue of Watchmen - #12 has a June '87 cover date - and Marshall Law #1 from Marvel/Epic in a few months. And it seems this month Cam Kennedy began a 12 issue series for DC called Outcasts (with John Wagner apparently - I don't remember that at all, so something to look into).
Basically, the Transatlantic thrill-power drain is well established, and former art droids obviously weren't about to return.
Yep, John Higgins is as good as Tharg had in mid '87. Not great, but he put effort in, and made the most of the skills he had.
And that three part Dredd story starting in prog 531 - 'Revolution' - is a total classic. Wagner and Grant seem to have thought so too, as they used their real names rather than the usual TB Grover joint pseudonym. Which I think was a first?
It was a follow up to the intriguing one off 'Letter From a Democrat' in prog 460, and gets more into the Democracy storyline. In retrospect Wagner & Grant were playing the long game with Dredd but that wasn't obvious at the time. Back then it was just a great story, making it clear that Dredd was an authoritarian fascist. Which had always been an aspect of the character, but usually it was done with humour... Being so blatant, in such a bleak way was different. It was impressive they could still do something new with Dredd, and their timing - the month after Thatcher's re-election - was impeccable.
Thats when I realized that for all the faults of 2000AD by '87 it was still worth keeping up with.
-sean
Oh, I’ve no problem with TAFKA-TTD having a new name. It’s just bonkers to want Sony to rename his old records if they’re supposed to actually sell copies.
DeleteLike, no-one is going to see a re-release and go ‘Oh, it’s The Hardline According To Sananda Maitreya - I remember that!’. Not even Yusuf Islam pulled that one.
I just Googled ‘Outcasts’ and the covers don’t look promising. It doesn’t seem to play to Kennedy’s strengths and it’s inked by someone else.,
RoboCop was - and last I checked, still is - brilliant. Its probably one of the reasons the first Dredd film was so bad when it finally emerged, as that had to go in a different direction.
ReplyDeleteAs for James Bond... I dislike all the Bond films on general principle. A British secret agent with a licence to kill? Let's face it, he would actually have spent most of the 70s and 80s somewhere like South Armagh killing Irish people, so #### him.
Is the Living Daylights the one where he does a Rambo III, and teams up with the freedom-loving Taliba... sorry, Mujahideen? What a load of bollocks.
-sean
Steve, apologies for going on a bit, but I just wanted to add that probably the best - and most influential - record of this month was Eric B & Rakim's 'Paid In Full' album, signalling that this feature has now definitely reached 'the golden age of hip-hop'.
ReplyDelete-sean
Sean, I remember somebody from MI5 saying their job is more like Miss Marple than James Bond.
ReplyDeleteI think I saw most of those movies either at the cinema or on VHS over the next few months. Rita, Sue and Bob too is probably the pick, followed by Full Metal Jacket and Lost Boys. The others were mostly meh, for me, and I never got the appeal of Robocop. I do recall being in Palma Nova, Majorca, when It’s a Sin hit number one, and so happy days for the twilight of DW’s teen years.
ReplyDeleteI was still buying 2000AD each week, and was happy to see the return of DR & Quinch, even if it had lost Moore and was only a single page. I remember buying the first issue of Outcasts but no further issues, and so it probably wasn’t Wagner and Grant’s best work (but I could be wrong). He briefly joined INXS, after Michael Hutchinson’s unfortunate demise. DW
Sorry, that should have been Terence Trent D’Arby briefly joined INXS… DW
ReplyDeleteDW, I was trying to work out whether you meant John Wagner or Alan Grant briefly joined INXS, so it was a relief to hear you meant neither.
ReplyDeleteWeren't the DR & Quinch one pagers written by Jamie Delano? He didn't hang round the progs for long. That career transition from 2000AD to American comics could be really quick by the late 80s.
And don't worry - I am sure West Ham are simply starting off the season strategically, lulling the other teams into a false sense of security.
-sean
Yes, Delano rejoined his former Captain Britain and Night Raven co-creator. Given he then went on the new Hellblazer (John Constantine rather than the demonic sports jacket) Delano really was the substitute Alan Moore in those days. And he did a pretty good job mostly.
ReplyDeleteDW
Yeah DW, considering what a difficult (and thankless) task following Moore was, Delano did quite well.
DeleteOn the subject of post-Moore script droids, I believe next month this feature will get to a certain new superhero series by one Grant Morrison MBE...
-sean
Moore literally grandfathered Delano into the comics industry. He had no experience whatsoever but Moore had faith in him and made it so.
DeleteSame to a lesser extent with Gaiman, handing him Miracleman years before he was established at DC.
Fun fact: Full Metal Jacket was filmed on location in the Isle of Dogs.
ReplyDeleteCoppola and Oliver Stone went to the Philippines... but Kubrick knew that a truly authentic Vietnam war feel could only be found in 80's east London!
Btw, if anyone's interested, here's a clip from that Spirit tv pilot -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZEzfi-0tqk
Yikes!
Although the top comment - 'better than Miller's version' - made me laugh.
Not that I've seen Fearless Frank's film either, which for all I know may actually be great. But it's still funny.
-sean
I went to Uni in East London in the early 90s and lived not far from where Kubrick filmed.
DeleteWent for a walk around that whole area, between East Ham and Silverton once - it was a very, very strange place. Almost post-apocalyptic.
Glad we did that walk when we could, as it was completely redeveloped later in the decade.
Sean, thanks for that Spirit video link. It looks like Sam Jones landed himself in yet another winner.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, Steve. In fact, just for you, here's a link to a clip from the next film of 1987 to star Sam Jones, 'Jane and the Lost City' (based on the old British comic strip Jane) -
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny_tcRdhRfQ
Clearly another obvious winner.
-sean