August has always been a strange month. In Florida, it’s back-to-school month. Also “back to hurricane” time again. For all of us ’80s fans, August is definitely an odd month for movies.
Sure, some gigantic movies opened in August during the decade. Risky Business, National Lampoon’s Vacation and Dirty Dancing all arrived during the dog days of summer.
But we’re not here to talk about those.
We’re here for the other August movies. The ones you vaguely remember seeing on HBO. The ones whose VHS boxes stared at you from the shelves at Blockbuster or Pik-A-Flik. The ones starring people who would later become huge stars (or people who already were huge stars and probably hoped we’d eventually forget these movies existed).
Here are 10 that always stand out to me.
10. Moving Violations (1985)
Released Aug. 16, 1985
If Police Academy had been about traffic school – which is NOT a great idea – you’d pretty much have Moving Violations.
John Murray (yes, one of Bill Murray’s other brothers) stars alongside Jennifer Tilly in a comedy about a collection of terrible drivers sentenced to traffic school. I’m “laughing” already – just not at the plot.
It didn’t become a franchise. Probably for the best.
9. The Man With One Red Shoe (1985)
Released Aug. 19, 1985
Remember when Tom Hanks spent a good chunk of the ’80s starring in wonderfully odd comedies?
Here he’s an innocent concert violinist who gets mistaken for a spy because – you guessed it – he’s wearing one red shoe.
The cast is considerably better than you probably remember: Hanks, Dabney Coleman, Charles Durning, Carrie Fisher and Jim Belushi. Wow. That can’t lose, right?
But alas, it’s not Big. It’s not Splash. It’s not even Bachelor Party.
But if you’re a completist when it comes to Tom Hanks’ strange journey through the ’80s, it’s worth another look. (You can, however, skip “Every Time We Say Goodbye.”)
8. Real Men (1987)
Released Aug. 21, 1987
Jim Belushi and John Ritter in a Cold War spy comedy involving the CIA, aliens and a mysterious glass of water. Yes, I absolutely adored it. Still do.
Ritter plays a wimpy suburban dad who gets dragged into an absurd espionage mission by Belushi’s super-confident secret agent. The result is exactly as bizarre as that description suggests.
This is the kind of movie that makes you wonder whether you actually watched it in 1987 or dreamed the whole thing after falling asleep with HBO on.
7. Volunteers (1985)
Released Aug. 16, 1985
Tom Hanks again! I just wrote this up on Facebook yesterday so revisit that if you need a refresher course.
The movie also stars John Candy and Rita Wilson, whom Hanks would marry three years later.
Volunteers tends to disappear between Hanks’ early comedies and the incredible run that began with Big. But John Candy alone makes it worthy of rediscovery.
And yes, there was apparently a time when Hollywood looked at Tom Hanks and thought, “This guy should exclusively play jerks and weirdos.”
6. The Rescue (1988)
Released Aug. 5, 1988
This might trigger a memory you haven’t accessed in about 35 years.
A group of Navy SEALs is captured during a mission; the U.S. government can’t rescue them, so their teenage children decide to do it themselves.
Because it worked in “Iron Eagle,” so let’s just try it again with a lesser cast.
The young cast includes Kevin Dillon and Marc Price — Skippy from Family Ties — and the premise is essentially Red Dawn meets The Goonies with a little Cold War patriotism sprinkled on top.
It’s almost impossible to imagine this movie being made in any other decade.
5. Youngblood (1986)
Released Aug. 15, 1986
Before Point Break, before Speed and long before John Wick, Keanu Reeves was playing hockey with a wicked French-Canadian accent. And it was glorious!
Technically, Rob Lowe is the star here. He plays Dean Youngblood, a talented young player trying to prove himself in Canadian junior hockey. Patrick Swayze is his veteran teammate, and Reeves plays the goalie.
Read that cast again.
Rob Lowe. Patrick Swayze. Keanu Reeves.
And somehow Youngblood isn’t brought up constantly whenever people discuss ridiculously ’80s movies.
It should be.
4. The Last Starfighter (1984)
Released Aug. 10, 1984
Calling The Last Starfighter “forgotten” might get us angry letters from a certain segment of our audience.
And I welcome them while pointing out that my wife only watched this for the first time a few months ago.
Lance Guest plays Alex Rogan, a teenager who discovers that the video game he’s mastered is actually a recruiting tool for an interstellar war. (Ernest Cline of “Ready Player One” fame would later use it as a blueprint for his second book “Armada.”)
Rewatch this movie if only to witness the genius of the late Robert Preston and Dan O’Herlihy.
Maybe “underappreciated” is the better word.
3. Three O’Clock High (1987)
Released Aug. 9, 1987
One of the decade’s great overlooked high-school movies.
Casey Siemaszko plays Jerry Mitchell, a mild-mannered student who accidentally angers the terrifying new kid, Buddy Revell. Now Jerry has until 3 p.m. to figure out how he’s going to survive the inevitable fight.
That’s basically the entire movie.
And it works.
While The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Fast Times at Ridgemont High became permanent parts of ’80s culture, Three O’Clock High never quite joined them.
It deserves another shot.
2. One Crazy Summer (1986)
Released Aug. 8, 1986
John Cusack. Demi Moore. Bobcat Goldthwait. A cartoonist. A boat race. A giant dolphin costume.
Yep. Savage Steve Holland made another movie.
Is it as good as Better Off Dead?
No.
Is it occasionally hilarious, completely ridiculous and unmistakably a product of the 1980s?
Absolutely.
It’s the kind of movie that could only have existed in a decade when studios occasionally handed people money and apparently didn’t ask many follow-up questions.
1. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Released Aug. 10, 1984
Try explaining this movie to somebody who’s never seen it. (Try explaining it TO ME, who has seen it twice and still can’t wrap my mind around it.)
Peter Weller plays Buckaroo Banzai, who is simultaneously a physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot, rock musician and adventurer.
He and his team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop aliens from the 8th Dimension.
Also involved: John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Lloyd and Ellen Barkin.
It bombed.
It confused people.
It developed a devoted cult following.
And 40-plus years later, people are still trying to decide whether it’s brilliant, ridiculous or brilliantly ridiculous.
That’s enough to make it our No. 1 forgotten August movie of the ’80s.