Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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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?
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8 comments:
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.
I 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!
To 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
BT - Robocop still hold up. It’s rock solid. It’s fantastic.
It’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.
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
Also, I think THE SPY WHO LOVED ME is one of the better Moore outings, for sure.
b.t.
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?
CH
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.
CH.
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!
I'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.
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