Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s June 7, 1985, and we’re off to see The Goonies and Perfect.
The Goonies
How do you review a film that very well could be considered the defining work of an entire generation?
Mikey (Sean Astin) and his friends are all about to lose their houses to the rich folks in town who want to tear them down. In a last-ditch effort to save their homes, they go in search of the treasure of One-Eyed Willie, an old folktale around their area of a pirate who had a ship full of treasure. Along the way, they run into a family of criminals and learn a little about each of themselves before they ultimately save their homes from the wrecking ball.
It has been some time since since I watched The Goonies, and while I still enjoyed it, it does have some definite plot and pacing issues. (The first act of the film moves at the pace of a snail, and how anyone made it past the falling rock trap after they fell makes zero sense.) All of that being said, no viewing of 1980s films is complete without this film. There wasn’t a kid/teenager alive in the 80s who didn’t want to be a Goonie, and we still want to be one.
It’s wholesome (well… mostly) and fun, and very worth your time to watch if you’ve never seen it.
Perfect
How can a movie this ‘sexy’ be this blasted boring.
Rolling Stone reporter Adam Lawrence (John Travolta) is working on a story about a businessman who is being tried for selling computers to the Soviet block. When he wraps up that story, he moves on to one about how health clubs have become the new singles scene of the 80s. While researching for his story, he meets Jessie Wilson (Jamie Lee Curtis), a trainer at The Sports Connection. She is hesitant to speak with him on the record due to a past negative experience with a reporter, but eventually warms to him, only to encounter further trouble with him later.
This movie is unclear about what it is trying to be. Is it a story about the growing health craze? Is it about journalistic ethics? Is it a romance? It’s all these things and more, and it fails at each and every one of them.
The most shocking thing to me was when Adam’s story gets completely rewritten overnight by another writer at the magazine, and yet they still gave Adam the byline. The ethics of this moment are so outside the realm of sanity that I can’t believe they even tried to pull it off as real.
The film is boring, boting, and, oh yeah, boring. I couldn’t wait to be done with it and never have to think about it again.
1985 Movie Reviews will return on June 14, 2025, with D.A.R.Y.L., Prizzi’s Honor, Secret Admirer, and The Stuff.
