Dissecting The 80s

It's a brand new theme month in honor of Kurt Russell's 70th Birthday: Russell-Mania! (Oops, all Carpenters). We're celebrating one of our favorite Star/Director combos in cinema, Kurt Russell and John Carpenter. Up first is the wacky, weird and wonderful Big Trouble in Little China, featuring perhaps Kurt's coolest performance, plus Kim Cattrall and the great, undersung Dennis Dunn! All this and...

Favorites-bruary continues with Tripp's Pick: Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which turns 35 this year! Is Ferris an asshole? How are they paying for this day? What is the timeline? Why did they originally have the art museum last?! All this and more!   “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/...

It's the start of a new tradition: Favorites-bruary! Each February, we'll each feature one of our favorite movies! Andrew's up first with Little Shop of Horrors, the 1988 musical version of Corman's crazy plant flick. How great is Rick Moranis? Finding the bones of 90s Disney movies. Dissecting Tripp's musical issues.  All this and more! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licen...

Cannon-uary continues with the "good" Cannon movie: Runaway Train! What's Eric Roberts whole deal in this? Does Tripp make more than one Soul Asylum reference? What's up with Jon Voight's character? Why is the warden SO ANGRY? Plus, we do all our Jon Voight impressions as him from Anaconda! All this and more! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: B...

It's the triumphant return of Cannon-uary, with Sylvester Stallone's bizarro-world version of Beverly Hills Cop: Cobra! What's with Chekov's matchstick? Why is there almost no plot whatsoever? Who cut this down to 80-some minutes? Plus, gratuitous violence, dummy deaths, and all sorts of nonsense. All this and more! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Com...

A little treat for ourselves is the final episode of 2020: One of our all-time favorite movies! Hear this episode in full at Patreon.com/Dissectingthe80s, and unlock move than 13 hours of bonus content! Lorraine is VERY hot for Marty, Doc is a treat, Michael J. Fox's insane schedule, drinking butterscotch schnapps, Tasty Eddie Van Halen Jams (RIP), plus digging into BTTF 3 a bit! All this and more...

 Merry Christmas, gang! We're tackling a truly odd duck of a movie: Santa Claus: The Movie! Why is John Lithgow wearing these enormous teeth? Why does this movie spend 50 minutes doing Santa's life story with absolutely, positively no conflict whatsoever? What's going on with the workshop? Why are all these children flying!? All this and more!  “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com...

It's the best board game adaptation ever: Clue! It's a miracle this movie is fun, Tim Curry is a treasure, Andrew loves Madeline Kahn, so much twisting and turning, Tripp talks too much about Knives Out and Battleship and many fun weapons abound! All this and more!  “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.or...

We've added a new stretch goal (an additional bonus track!) and will be doing an annual Christmas-mentary for all Patreon supporters! Patreons who sign up at the $5 tier unlock more than ELEVEN HOURS of bonus content immediately, with another full-length episode AND a short commentary coming their way in December! Visit Patreon.com/Dissectingthe80s to learn more. Thank you so much for supporting t...

Happy T.Hanks-giving, y'all! We hope you're staying safe out there, so here's an episode a few days early! How great is Joe Dante? The difficulties of pronouncing Rick Ducommun, The Luck of the Irish, THE LEGEND DICK MILLER RETURNS (RIP), what is Carrie Fisher doing here? Plus, thoroughly mediocre Jimmy Stewart impressions! All this and more! “Deep and Dirty, NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (...

Continuing our NoVampire month is the Kathryn Bigelow-helmed impossible-to-find Near Dark! Why on earth is it SO hard to find this movie? What, exactly, are the rules? Is Bill Paxton the coolest vampire? Why is Homer carrying a gun? Is this all a metaphor for addiction? But seriously, WHAT ARE THE RULES? All this and more! “Deep and Dirty, NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod ( incompetech.com ) Li...

It's the start of a brand new themed month: NOVAMPIRE! We kick things off with the fun cult classic: Fright Night! This episode features: a detour about JK Rowling's terrible turn, Roddy McDowall as Tripp's favorite kind of character, Just a lot of inappropriate behavior from Jerry Dandridge, the revelation that vampires are Omnisexual and a whole lot more! “Deep and Dirty, NewsSting, Ouroboros” K...

AOOOOO! We've got hot werewolf action on this Spooktacular episode! Gary Busey at his unhinged best, Corey Haim in one of his best performances, some insanely under-developed werewolf costuming, wilding out with Stephen King, bad choices with Wild Turkey and the inaugural episode of the game show sure to be sweeping the nation: HOW MUCH DOES IT COST ON CAMEO?! All this and more! Thank you so much...

Spoooooktacular 2020 begins! The VHS cover that made you afraid to sit on the toilet: Ghoulies! Why on EARTH is this movie about Satanism? Who are the Ghoulies and why is there also another set of assistants? Plus, Tripp creates a whole cinematic universe about Drooly Ghoulie! All this and more! Thank you so much for supporting the show! “Deep and Dirty, NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod ( incom...

1985 was too good of a year, so we're sticking with it for another hoot of a movie: Commando! Arnold eats lobsters, every possible one-liner, enormous weapons, just an insane number of squibs, an absurdly high body count, a leather daddy?, many mustaches and a truly delightful montage. All this and more! Thank you so much for supporting the show! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod ( incompetech....

Ziggy Piggy! We're diving into a giant ice cream sundae with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure! Just how great is George Carlin? How did we choose these historical figures, exactly? Why is this history report set up this way? All this and more! Thank you so much for supporting the show! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod ( incompetech.com ) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  h...

We're celebrating the 35th anniversary of Weird Science! Is this a sexy Cat in the Hat or a sexy Mary Poppins? Discount store Matthew Broderick, too much casual sexism and homophobia, a big disagreement on characters, delightful genie weirdness, undefined powers and a lot of praise for Kelly LeBrock! All this and more!    “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creati...

In this bonus episode, we're joined by Screenwriter Ed Solomon, who cowrote the entire Bill & Ted Trilogy, Men in Black, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and so much more! He tells us a bevy of great stories, including inner with Dennis Hopper, getting fired and re-hired on Men in Black, his screenwriting credit issues on Super Mario Brothers (and X-Men!), and of course, a Good Guy Keanu story.   All t...

It's the final episode of season 6, and we're tackling one of the big ones of the "bad movie canon" - Xanadu! Do we both kind of like this movie? Tripp fires up the Goot Signal, Gene Kelly charms us, there's just, like, an absurd amount of roller skating, several script edits make no sense, they spent a lot of time painting old advertisements, booking MSG for a live podcast and bizarre casting cho...

We leapt into the sewers for the 40th anniversary of the delightful creature feature: Alligator! In what was nearly our longest episode ever, we discuss Steven Spielberg's descent into Dad-ness, Robert Forster's thinning hair, Robin Riker's gator knowledge, a truly wonderful puppet, Mr. Gator Goes to Washington, Mr. Six from Six Flags, set destruction and maybe the best wedding in cinema history....

Filmmaker Ted Geoghegan (We Are Still Here, Mohawk, Satanic Panic) joins us to talk about his favorite Friday the 13th film: Part 2!   We talk dream sequence theories, Muffin the dog, Jason's backstory, Ted's pitch for a sequel (which rules so hard), Tom McBride and of course, Ted the character in the film!   All this and more!    “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed und...

We're headed back to Crystal Lake for a little summertime horror! This is Part 1 where Andrew and I discuss the flick in our normal way, Part 2 (also out today) features an interview with filmmaker Ted Geoghegan - check that out as well!   Why must you re-build a camp so close to where a slate of murders happened?! Why is Jason building a fort? What is the deal with the outfits on these gals? Wher...

Cocoon just turned 35, and we've got a BEVY of Ron Howard takes to celebrate! Tripp writes a song, the secret origin story of Back to the Future wrapped up in this cocoon, a compliment for Bryce Dallas Howard (Really!), confusion over what this movie is, a really odd Steve Guttenberg performance, so many weird aliens, Wilford Brimley's hair dye, Don Ameche's Academy Award and so much disappointmen...

Oh man, we are so pumped for y'all to hear this one! It's Deadly Friend - a new to us and completely BONKERS Wes Craven movie, ripped to shreds by the studio, who desperately wanted another Nightmare on Elm Street. Kristy Swanson as a robot, weird Dr. Frankenstein vibes, terrible cops, a nightmare father, a good mom, and so much insanity! All this and more!  “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (i...

Out now on our Patreon page (Patreon.com/DissectingThe80s), it's our Adventures in Babysitting episode for listener request month! Hear this full-length studio episode + EIGHT more full-length episodes at $5 tier and above. All this and more! “NewsSting, Ouroboros” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Keywo...