Episode 107: The 80s Kids ABC of Movies: MNO

There's some unexpected crossing over on 80s Kids Story Time this week where M and O provide a chance for the kids to find out what they have in common.

It turns out that Ian and Justin both feel some concern that they might be judged, in a cosmic sense. Justin and Leo, on the other hand, are just both at home among hairy gentlemen with big swords, but find luminous dragons an issue.

Aside from this the week's dark volume of lunatic tales ponders on the fatality that comes to British actors called Sean, the possibly copyright infringing silent creatures of the night, and numinous presences that take full advantage of the "N" loophole!

It's enough to drive anyone mad. Possibly best to settle down for a nice meal at a high altitude, and watch out for snipers on the way home from the registry office, won't you?

Music by incompetech.com



Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/Episode107The80sKidsAbcOfMoviesMno/107-the-80s-kids-ABC-of-cinema-MNO.mp3

Episode 106: 2008 - The Revenge Of The 80s Kids

Striking back against Big Bay this week the 80s Kids revel in the year of the Revenge of the 80s Kids. 2008 was the year in which the modern world, and by the modern world I mean the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was born. After the joys of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, though, what more did 2008 have to offer?

The Punisher is brutal, for sure, and this probably leads to it being unfairly sent to the Marvel Studios naughty corner. Don't forget the other comic book joy on offer this year, DC's finest hour was born in the form of The Dark Knight, and Guillermo Del Toro presented us with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Don't get me wrong, there was dross on offer in 2008: The Spirit, Eagle Eye, Quantum of Solace. The thing is, though, that when 2008 got it right it got it so so damn right. Let us not forget The Forbidden Kingdom, Doomsday, Death Race, Transporter 3, Vantage Point and Pineapple Express.

That roster alone should tell you that the 80s Kids were being well served in 2008, let us not forget that this year also gave us the film that told us being a LARPer was fine, nay, not just fine but cool, in the shape of Role Models. Let's grab out rubber swords and geek out about one of the most joyfully nerdy years in cinema history.

Incidental Music by incompetech.com


Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/106TheRevengeOfThe80sKids/106%20-%20The%20Revenge%20of%20the%2080s%20Kids.mp3

Episode 105: Arc Shows - The Inevitable Filler Episode

...And then the main characters found themselves embarrassingly in medias res without a chance to properly adjust. Such has become the lot of the television protagonist, their stories creatively non-linear, their issues never resolved in a single episode, their tales always working in the most convoluted of twists.

This week the Kids from the 80s, for it is they, look at the phenomenon of prestige television in all its forms, from The Wire to Breaking Bad, from Abrams to Kring, all the big hitters are here. Asking the questions that must have occurred to all modern viewers of the telly box at some stage the kids pontificate about the problems of making things up as you go along and the limiting factors of studio interference and actor contracts.

Incidental Music by incompetech.com


Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/105ArcShowsTheInevitableFillerEpisode/105%20-%20Arc%20Shows%20-%20The%20Inevitable%20Filler%20Episode.mp3

Episode 104: The 80s Kids ABC of Cinema - JKL

Back we go! Back to the toy box of the 80s kids to pull forth the pack of letter blocks, separate out three and challenge the kids to make a word from the results. Unfortunately the letters returned are JKL, so anything that is not a noise you make when you first stub your toe is out of the question.

Conversation soon turns, inevitably, to film picks. Ian's first pick is about extreme woodworking, at least it's undertaken by a professional... Justin gets insulting with his first choice leading Leo to rifle through his Smiths records for a soothing tune about the ineffectiveness of snooze alarms on a significant other.

Moving onto K, Leo has an axe to grind, as long as he's dancing while he grinds it, of course. Justin's pick is up to something and wears many hats in order to achieve its nefarious aims. Ian will put things right as long as he doesn't lose an eye playing with knives, or starfish, or both.

They decide, predictably enough, to round off with L where Justin is contemplating failure. Ian is making a high score which could lead him into serious trouble. As the others depart Leo finds himself as the only one left... or some other way to describe that situation.

Incidental music by Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com


Direct Link: https://archive.org/download/104The80sKidsABCOfCinemaJKL/104%20-%20The%2080s%20Kids%20ABC%20of%20Cinema%20-%20JKL.mp3

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