The 80s Movie Podcast

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens travels across the Atlantic to revisit a forgotten British film that captured The Clash at a pivotal moment.

Rude Boy arrived in 1980 as punk was colliding with a changing Britain. However, the film is more than a document of one of the era’s greatest bands. We follow Ray Gange, a young Londoner who drifts into the band’s o...

In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens explores Hearts and Armour (1983), an Italian fantasy adventure inspired by Orlando Furioso. The film follows star-crossed lovers caught between Christian and Saracen armies during a sprawling medieval conflict. However, prophecy, magic, and divided loyalties threaten every chance at happiness.

Along the way, we examine the film's production design, elaborate costumes, an...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens revisits Dr. Heckyl and Mr. Hype (1980), the offbeat comedy that gave Oliver Reed the chance to play both a shy, awkward doctor and his outrageous alter ego. Directed by Charles B. Griffith and loosely inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story, the film follows Dr. Adrian Heckyl as he creates a formula that transforms him into the loud, confident, and wildly inap...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens revisits the little-seen 1986 television thriller The Brotherhood of Justice, a mostly forgotten ABC movie starring a young Keanu Reeves and Kiefer Sutherland years before they became major Hollywood stars. Inspired by real events at a Texas high school, the film follows a group of students who form a vigilante organization to fight crime and drugs, only to watch their movement...

In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens continues his series on the films of Susan Seidelman with a deep dive into Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). The film became Seidelman's biggest commercial success and helped capture the energy of mid-1980s New York City. At the same time, it transformed Madonna from a music sensation into a movie star and introduced audiences to one of the decade's most distinctive comed...

In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens examines Brats (2024), Andrew McCarthy's deeply personal documentary about the lasting impact of the "Brat Pack" label. Nearly forty years after a single magazine article transformed a group of young actors into a cultural phenomenon, McCarthy revisits the people, films, and relationships that defined an era of 1980s cinema. However, the documentary asks a larger question...

Our regular spotlight on influential female filmmakers returns with one of the most important independent films of the 1980s. In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens launches a retrospective of director Susan Seidelman by examining her groundbreaking debut feature, Smithereens (1982). Long before she found mainstream success with Desperately Seeking Susan, Seidelman captured the grit, ambition, and uncertainty ...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens looks back at Crimewave (1986), one of the most unusual and troubled collaborations in 1980s cinema. Directed by Sam Raimi and co-written with Joel and Ethan Coen shortly after their debut Blood Simple, the film is a surreal blend of slapstick comedy, noir parody, and cartoon violence that quickly spiraled into one of the decade’s most notorious studio productions.

Origin...

In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, we revisit Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, the unusual final chapter in the Smokey and the Bandit series, released without Burt Reynolds in a starring role and built around an entirely different concept than audiences originally expected. Instead of focusing on Bo “Bandit” Darville, the film shifts attention to Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played once again by Jackie Gleason, while ...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens looks back at Threads (1984), the harrowing BBC television film directed by Mick Jackson that depicts the devastating consequences of nuclear war on the city of Sheffield, England. Originally broadcast during the height of Cold War tensions, the film follows two ordinary families as escalating geopolitical conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union leads to a full-...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens looks back at Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), the groundbreaking live-action/animation hybrid that changed Hollywood forever. Directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg, the film blended classic cartoon chaos with hard-boiled film noir, following private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) as he investigates a murder mystery involving Roger Rabbit, Jessica R...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens takes a look at one of the most difficult and overlooked films of the early 1980s: Deep in the Heart (released in the UK as Handgun), a 1983 vigilante drama directed by British filmmaker Tony Garnett. Set in Texas, the film follows Kathleen Sullivan, a teacher who relocates from Boston and is violently assaulted by a local lawyer, leading her to confront both the failures of th...

This week on The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens takes a look back at one of the strangest ensemble comedies of the 1980s: Chattanooga Choo Choo (1984), a film loosely inspired by the famous Glenn Miller song and built around an over-the-top premise involving a cross-country train race for a multimillion-dollar inheritance.

Starring George Kennedy as a football team owner attempting to secure his fortune by restoring and raci...

In this episode of The 80s Movie Podcast, host Edward Havens explores UFOria (1985), a quirky cult 80s movie that blends comedy, romance, road movie chaos, and extraterrestrial obsession. Harry Dean Stanton stars as a dreamer convinced that a UFO will solve his problems and carry him away from ordinary life. However, his search for answers creates a series of unpredictable encounters that push him further from reality and closer to...