Episode 103: 2007 - Big Bay Strikes Back!

History itself has conformed to a shape that tells us the 80s Kids had a destiny, an epic birthright and a pleasing plot arc. For we have arrived at 2007, a mere three years from the finish line to find a wasteland, a cinematic apocalypse lurking in an unexpected location.

2007 was so devoid of worth that it's amazing that people let it pass as if it was just another year. Forget the fact that this is the year of the first Bayformers, we have and we feel much better for it. This is the year in which you could count the number of truly successful movies on the digits of two hands and not even need the thumbs.

Hot Fuzz, Enchanted, Stardust, a Potter, a Bourne and we're pretty much done. Sure we had 300 featuring Gerard Butler in a pair of Y-Fronts and a cloak, a Spartan outfit indeed. We had a tepid Simpsons Movie. After those meagre pickings however you're in the arena of "letting things off the hook".

Ratatouille did nothing for Pixar's reputation, Spider Man 3 is still derided for the creation of emo-Parker, I Am Legend was a vehicle for Will Smith's massive ego, Beowulf gave Sue a headache because of the 3-D and Leo a headache because of everything else, the less said about Bridge To Terabithia the better. The mediocre dross keeps spewing.

The Golden Compass is like dust on the wind, 1408 is all but forgotten, Blood & Chocolate thankfully missed the Twihard wannabe boat, The Invasion was the remake ashamed of its own story, The Number 23 is as disappointing as only the 22nd sequel in any franchise could be, Hitman failed to hit the mark, Shooter suffered from a remarkable lack of action and War demonstrated that you shouldn't ever put Jet Li and Jason Statham in the same place at the same time.

Ian tries to lighten the mood with a wry observation arising from the implications of AvP:Requiem. It's no good, however, we're trapped in a tin can in a vacuum at the mercy of our arch-nemesis and the air is running low. Truly the darkest point of the journey, so grim Justin can't even be bothered to make an out of context remark. Let's just hope we can extricate ourselves from this mess before it's too late...

Incidental Music by incompetech.com


Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/103Films2007BigBayStrikesBack/103%20-%20Films%202007%20Big%20Bay%20Strikes%20Back.mp3

Episode 102: Hellraiser - Cinema Release For Some, Straight To DVD For Others

The Hellraiser series is an odd duck. A film series that has, over the years, churned out movies featuring that most iconic demon/angel with a love of S&M who cares not for the 'safety word' as he carries off for torture any who have been foolish enough to solve a certain puzzle box.

The films have wavered in quality for arty reactions against the mindless slasher genre to patchwork visions of hell to actually being a mindless monster movie before becoming a property that while yearning for another 'Must see' entry in the canon seems to flounder every time and could be argued fares much better as something roughly jammed into a horror script that wasn't even supposed to feature them.

And so a strange chain of 9ish movies stretching from our 80s home land and into more or less modern day lies before us, and while fan differ on exactly where the golden era exactly falls the jumbled sequence of largely unsynchronized films and DVDs seems to hang together as a body of work, where a wild and fascinating mythology seems to emerge between the cracks.

Realizing there's always safety in numbers the 80s kids have enlisted the aid of horror enthusiast J R Park to help as they navigate their way through one of the most fascinating franchises out there. Hellraiser films good and bad take us between ultimate pleasure and ultimate pain. To think... we hesitated... Incidental Music by incompetech.com

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/102Hellraiser/102%20-%20Hellraiser.mp3

Episode 101: Victorian Action Detective and the Fate of the Dinosaurs

It's after midnight at the beardy discussion diner. The 100th party is over, Justin's eaten too much cake and passed out, so out come the weighty philosophical ideas. What's baking Leo's noodle this week is the twin dilemma that lurks between current copyright law and our digital ability to back up everything.

On the one hand it is sad that copyright material that is not cherished and preserved is lost forever, but creative things are lost all the time. Sure, for some reason we all know about Robin Hood the outlaw of Nottingham who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor but what about Melvin Tabard the Cheeky Bandito of Cleethorpes. He robbed from a variety of people, pooled the money and gave it back to them divided equally, also known as the Dutch Deliverer? We've all forgotten him, or I just made him up to illustrate a point.

The unfortunate fact is that since the mid-noughties it has become almost impossible to get rid of a cultural artifact that, at some point, was rendered into digital format. This sounds good in theory but when people en masse prefer to recycle old things in the form of franchises, sequels, prequels and works based on other works how do we ensure that artists continue to create new, far less popular things?

Ironically, copyright and its ridiculous terms has created, in addition to a sort of enforced forgetting, an enforced create something passably new situation. A work may be "heavily influenced" but it is, at least, its own thing.

Does this make copyright an unintentional hero fighting for the cause of novelty? Almost certainly. Is this new idea likely to be popular? Probably not, new things don't gain much traction in this day and age. Good job we have copyright to fence off huge swathes of intellectual property from lazy artists eh? Who's with me! See, that's what I thought. Not a popular idea. But just WAIT for the sequel! Incidental Music by incompetech.com

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/101NostalgiaAinTWhatItUsedToBe/101%20-%20Nostalgia%20ain_t%20what%20it%20used%20to%20be.mp3

Episode 100: The 80s Kids 100th Show LIVEish

Over the many months our humble podcast has operated we have on occasion numbered most (but not all) of our podcasts. The amount of those shows with numbers has now counted unto a definitive positive 100 and with our second anniversary just a mere two pods away it was decided to leap upon this arbitrary base ten number moment of double zero numerical figure happenstance to declare it a combined 100th and Anniversary occasion, what with our one year anniversary falling on episode 50 and all.

So having gotten our motives out the way let me lay out the fun fact we had a jolly good time celebrating the event on Saturday the 4th of April with a live Google hang out. As a matter of archiving that event is now here as an audio only podcast.

Within this tight package you'll see... or rather hear... Leo, Ian and Justin congratulate each other on things podcast related before answering some listener submitted questions, reflecting on the state of the show...

Normally at these mile stones program makers normally speculate that with X number of things gone there's no reason their won't be X number in the future. Sadly we cannot make this boast. And the future of the Revenge of the 80s Kids and what lies beyond it is greatly discussed. Also... clips. So that's nice. Incidental Music by that most enigmatic but oblivious contributor... the vastly talented incompetech.com

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/10080sKidsEpisodeONEHUNDREDLIVEish/100%20-%2080s%20Kids%20Episode%20ONE%20HUNDRED%20LIVEish.mp3

Welcome To The Archive!

Hi Everyone! Leo here. Just welcoming you to the Revenge of the 80s Kids official archive. As you will note the entries beneath are back dated to the date of original broadcast. The files are hosted on the Internet Archive where they ask for the creation date, this is why I happened to have them to hand. So over time this will grow into the centre of the 80s Kids Universe. Enjoy!

Episode 99: The 80s Kids ABC of Cinema - GHI

This week the 80s Kids are continuing their alphabet themed ascent through the films they enjoy, or feel someone else should be enjoying. Today we're having merriment with Movies starting with the letters G, H and I.

Ian's G Film sees him get quite animated in places as he goes off for adventure in distant exotic parts Justin's G Film has him in a very bad mood so best not annoy him. Leo's G Film is about an exciting pastime for all the family aged 8 and above ... but then someone got too competitive, an argument broke out about the rules and someone flipped the table and walk off.

Leo's H film is about one hell of a cop. Justin's H film a laughable Hitchcockian thriller. Ian's H film sees everyone stuck indoors for a maths lesson. Ian's I Film is a sobering tale of an ordinary family trying their best to accommodate their new neighbors.

Justin's I Film is a road trip in which life lessons are dispensed by celebrity cameos. Meanwhile Leo's I film has us all looking within for the small hero inside us all. Incidental Music by Incompetech.com

Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/099The80sKidsABCOfCinemaGHI/099%20-%20The%2080s%20Kids%20ABC%20of%20Cinema%20-%20GHI.mp3