Popcorn Cinema: 1987, Alex P. Keaton, Wall Street, and the Worst Babysitter Ever

When I watch a movie, there are two of me in the same seat. There’s that regular movie-going guy who likes blood and boobs and stuff that explodes, rarely stopping to deeply consider what he’s seeing. We call the kind of movies that guy likes POPCORN MOVIES. But there’s someone else who tags along with him. This guy might like some of the same things as his friend, but he is a seeker and connoisseur of SERIOUS CINEMA, a fan of foreign movies, and a sucker for cinematography, thematic motifs, and character development. This guy doesn’t just want to see a movie, he wants it to change his life. Both of these guys are just nuts about the movies of 1987.

POPCORN: What’s up with the scrapbook, dude?

CINEMA: When I was younger, I kept one for each year. This one’s all about 1987.

POPCORN: Demon dogs! The year we graduated from high school? Surprised you’d ever wanna think about that again.

CINEMA: Why?

POPCORN: Dude, not the best years of your life. You couldn’t get a girl with a net. Probably cuz you were one of those Trapper Keeper kids. And those clothes, man. It was like you were in the Army . . . the Salvation Army.

CINEMA: As if you were any better. You were like Animal from THE MUPPET SHOW, but with a smaller vocabulary.

POPCORN: Yeah, but I didn’t care, dude. That made me totally rad.

CINEMA: I’m so sure. You’re just jealous because I went to the prom.

POPCORN: With Lola Gooch! That chick had a bigger mustache than Tom Selleck. Look at the pictures, dude. Y’all look like a penguin and a peacock smashed into the grill of a Mack truck.

CINEMA: Whatever. At least I was into some cool stuff. I was listening to some great songs in 1987. It was the end of the world as we knew it, but REM felt fine. Jody Watley was looking for a new love. Sinead O’Connor wanted my hands on her. The Screaming Blue Messiahs wanted to be a Flintstone. The Ramones just wanted to live.

POPCORN: Wait. Am I in one of those Time-Life commercials?

CINEMA: Bag your face. Let me paint you a picture of the world as it was in 1987.

POPCORN: Make it so, homeboy.

CINEMA: Everything was supersized in the 80s. Big bright colors everywhere. Big hair. Big shoulder pads. Big money and big lies to go along with it. Big John Studd.

POPCORN: “Look at my circumstance, and the bulge in my big, big, big, big, big, big, big.”

CINEMA: Right, and definitely a lot of big, big, big movies. The best way to see the 80s is to consider that FAMILY TIES’ Alex P. Keaton was one of the decade’s most endearing heroes. Here was an arrogant, condescending (yet somehow still thoroughly likable) throwback to the conservative 1950s, rebelling against the idealism of his peace-and-love hippie parents.

POPCORN: For a little dude, he was huge.

CINEMA: He was. The show was intended to focus on the parents, but they weren’t who the audience responded to. It was the smart-ass young Republican, disgusted by the idea of anything non-profit, that America fell in love with. So the writers essentially had to go back and rearrange their entire premise.

POPCORN: Damn kids.

CINEMA: In 1987, the show had reached the height of its popularity, though it began to quickly wane in the final seasons. Changes were in the air, not just on television and in the movies. As FAMILY TIES gradually bowed out, it focused less on Alex’s politics and more oh his humanity.

POPCORN: It was like that scene in ROBOCOP where, like, the robot cop figures out he had a family before he got all messed up and they turned him into a robot cop.

CINEMA: Exactly . . . and that movie came out in ’87 as well. It was as if we were taking a moment from the Day-Glo engorgement of the 80s to collectively rediscover that we actually had a heart. The Iran-Contra hearings had begun as well, with the government being called to answer for some of the lies they had told the country. Lieutenant Colonel Ollie North was being questioned –

POPCORN: -about being a covert, sneaky guy –

CINEMA: More or less. He had been selling weapons to Iran in order to encourage the release of American hostages in Lebanon. Some might say that his heart was in the right place, though nothing is ever black-and-white when it comes to the government. Investigators attempted to follow the chain of command back to the president. When questioned about his activities, North would ultimately claim that what he’d done was his patriotic duty –

POPCORN: “When American lives are in danger, yes, I did stab that puppy in the head seven or eight times.”

CINEMA: The only thing anyone truly learned was that there were even more lies in the government than we had imagined –

POPCORN: Shocking, dude.

CINEMA: – but, when Ronald Reagan said that he didn’t recall particular events, it turns out he was actually in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It’s possible that he wasn’t even aware that he was telling any lies.

POPCORN: Whatever gives you hope, man. Wasn’t that the same year Michael Douglas was all, like, greed is good?

CINEMA: Yeah, WALL STREET was in theaters, and it was . . . well, huge. Movies are usually a reflection of the times that made them, and Gordon Gekko embodied much of what the decade had been about. It seemed like half the world had embraced the blatant pursuit of money above all else. Here was that ambition, writ large on a motion picture screen –

POPCORN: Dude was like Alex P. Keaton if he never got hugged by his mom.

CINEMA: – but, like Alex, he was a beloved and fascinating personality. It always floors me that we can so easily accept behavior on film that would infuriate us in reality. How would you feel about a real-life Alex or Gordon Gekko?

POPCORN: Probably wanna kick his ass.

CINEMA: But these kind of characters were like role models to so many. Sometimes even to us. In ’87 the average yearly income was about $24,000, which meant that most families we knew were probably making about half of that.

POPCORN: Dude, I remember the family spending Christmas Eve huddled around a space heater, munchin’ on free government cheese.

CINEMA: That’s a Dickens of a Christmas, pal.

POPCORN: Then I’d go to school and some well-to-do dick-weed in an Izod shirt would try to rag on my clothes. When kids started shootin’ up their schools later, I’d think about that shit. I could never do that, but dude . . . I understand. Just sayin’. Didn’t you go all MIAMI VICE that one year? Sports jackets and t-shirts.

CINEMA: Sadly, about a year too soon. In the Midwest, being too much of a trailblazer didn’t win any points with the popular crowd. It usually just got you beat up.

POPCORN: Dude, I was blazin’ some trails too.

CINEMA: Yeah, all those trails behind the high school. Huh-HA! Even the reaction to the Rich-kid Casual look of Biff and Muffy was carefully cultivated, ripped-up acid-washed jeans that cost more because they had been professionally ripped at the factory –

POPCORN: All my shit was ripped by amateurs, man.

CINEMA: In 1987, a gallon of gas was eighty-nine cents. Going to see a movie was still only a few dollars. Disposable contact lenses became available. Prozac debuted, and so did Red Bull.

POPCORN: Speaking of bull, wasn’t there a lotta TV preachers that year?

CINEMA: Yeah, they were all over the place. God revealed to the world that he did, in fact, exist, by demanding that televangelist Oral Roberts come up with eight million dollars or he’d be called home. Roberts appealed to his followers for the money, which they foolishly provided. Personally, I would have liked to see what happened had he only managed to extort a couple hundred from these idiots.

POPCORN: Oral, heh-heh. And there was that other one –

CINEMA: Jim Bakker?

POPCORN: Yeah, him. The dude with the wife who had spiders for eyes. He got caught with his wiener stuck inside the church slut. Him and that presidential candidate dude –

CINEMA: Gary Hart?

POPCORN: Yup, he got caught with his wiener in some model. Or maybe it was in a boat.

CINEMA: Lots of wieners in trouble that year –

POPCORN: Except yours, heh-heh.

CINEMA: Jerry Falwell would have had us believe that it was because of all the porn that was available. It corrupts the mind, don’t you know? Fallen preachers always prefer to get their illicit sex from hookers or children anyway. So Falwell took HUSTLER to the Supreme Court.

POPCORN: That’s cool. Not sure I’d be readin’ it in front of judges, though.

CINEMA: (sighs heavily) Meanwhile, Klaus Barbie finally went to trial for his crimes –

POPCORN: Barbie got busted?

CINEMA: No, you space cadet, Klaus Barbie. The Butcher of Lyon. He was a captain of the Gestapo in World war II, directly responsible for the deaths of up to 14,000 people, personally torturing numerous men, women, and even children. It is said that he somehow used dogs in his sexual abuse against these people.

POPCORN: Dude.

CINEMA: Yeah, and the U.S. intelligence services employed him after the war in their efforts against the Communists.

POPCORN: That’s fucked up.

CINEMA: There’s a lot more to this story, but it was all coming to an end in ’87 when Barbie was finally brought to trial in France –

POPCORN: Pound Puppies, dude.

CINEMA: What?

POPCORN: Pound Puppies were huge that year. The Real Ghostbusters. GI Joe.

CINEMA: What about the Koosh ball?

POPCORN: You’re a Koosh ball. How ’bout the Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos?

CINEMA: Or the talking ALF doll.

POPCORN: Dude, that thing was like you. It never shut up. Heh. Oh, and Bravestarr!

CINEMA: Yeah, the post-apocalyptic Indian marshal and his robotic horse, complete with some kind of lesson for the kiddies at the end of each episode.

POPCORN: “There’s always another way to get what you need. It might not be the easiest way, but in the long run it’s the best. It’s called the honest way.”

CINEMA: Isn’t that special?

POPCORN: Who could be behind that? Oh, let’s see, maybe . . . Satan.

CINEMA: So, by the time WALL STREET was released into theaters, this era of proudly flying the flag of greed was coming to an end. More or less. The Stock Market crashed that October, the Reagan years were winding down (amidst all kinds of governmental underhandedness being brought into the light), and the world started to look a little different for a while.

POPCORN: Cuz we graduated, bro.

CINEMA: Probably. Here we were, fresh young adults, newly freed from the dual prisons of school and parental authority, set loose upon a world that had possibly begun to change. So what did we do with all of this freedom and burning possibility?

POPCORN: We went to the movies!

CINEMA: We went to the movies.

POPCORN: Like, twice a week. We owned the midnight movies, dude.

CINEMA: We did, and it was probably the most amazing year for movies in our lives. Just look at everything that came out that year. It’s a long list, and these are just some of them. Are you ready for this?

POPCORN: You got it, dude.

CINEMA: ANGEL HEART. BLACK WIDOW. CAN’T BUY ME LOVE. A CHINESE GHOST STORY. CRY FREEDOM. DIRTY DANCING. Eddie Murphy RAW. EVIL DEAD II. FATAL ATTRACTION. FULL METAL JACKET. GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM. HELLRAISER. INNERSPACE. LA BAMBA. LETHAL WEAPON. LOST BOYS. MOONSTRUCK. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: Dream Warriors. NO WAY OUT. Dario Argento’s OPERA. PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES. PREDATOR. THE PRINCESS BRIDE. RAISING ARIZONA. ROBOCOP. THE RUNNING MAN. STAKEOUT. THE STEPFATHER. THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN. THE UNTOUCHABLES. WALL STREET. WINGS OF DESIRE. THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK.

POPCORN: Oooh yeah, dig it. You forgot about that fourth Superman flick, where the atomic bomb creates a huge douche. Or Mallory’s brother in TEEN WOLF TOO. And how ’bout WHO’S THAT GIRL? Dude, you loved Madonna.

CINEMA: Did not.

POPCORN: Did too. Don’t you remember? You had that huge scrapbook and wrote all those things about her. Tried to hide her in the headphones, but you were singin’ right out loud –

CINEMA: You can’t prove it.

POPCORN: Sure I can. It’s probably all right here in this other scrapbook –

CINEMA: Get away from me. Anyway. Lots of iconic movies that year, unforgettable films. But we’re not going to talk about any of those. Everyone knows most of the movies on this list. Instead, here’s the first item up for bids.

POPCORN: Dude, ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.

CINEMA: Righteous.

POPCORN: Your KARATE KID girlfriend finally got her own movie. She was all singin’ into the bedpost, and, like . . . still babysitting when she was in her twenties. That ever seem kinda weird to you, dude?

CINEMA: There’s a lot about this movie that seems weird now, though I missed it all back then. The plot involves Chris Parker, played by the lovely Elizabeth Shue, daydreaming about her heartthrob boyfriend and imagining that he’s going to propose. But the jerk stands her up, so she takes this babysitting job instead. She’s supposed to be a high school senior – and so is the boyfriend – though both actors look like they could be playing young parents instead. So Chris goes to watch her charges, Sara and Brad, but gets a call from a ditzy friend who’s stuck in a sketchy bus station. Rather than calling the girl’s parents, Chris decides to pack the kids in the station wagon and head off into downtown Chicago –

POPCORN: Worst. Babysitter. Ever.

CINEMA: Of course, adventures ensue. Most of them involve a car theft ring that the super-duper-white suburbanites encounter as soon as they reach the inner city. There’s also a subplot with a Playboy centerfold who looks amazingly like a dolled-up version of Chris. This must be the most widely sold, best publicized issue of Playboy ever –

POPCORN: Dude, it was advertised on the side of a bus stand!

CINEMA: I know, and there’s a copy of it damn-near everywhere they go. Brad’s sleazy friend Daryl shows up with a copy of it just before all of this Chicago madness starts –

POPCORN: That guy, man. Talk about a teenage perv.

CINEMA: Yeah, he’s destined for prison, once they finally catch him. So he’s got this magazine with him, but he need not have bothered. It’s all over the city, laying around at frat parties, bus stops, and – oh yeah, the car thieves have a copy of it too. When Daryl steals their copy, there’s some kind of criminal information written down inside of it or something. I think. Some kind of plot device that makes them pursue the babysitter and her kids . . .

POPCORN: That’s really her, dude. Your angel in the centerfold. But just for the movie. She didn’t, like, really appear in the real Playboy. I checked it out for you.

CINEMA: Thanks, Daryl. So Chris and the kids get menaced by the street gangs from the “Beat It” video, are nearly shot on several occasions, and meet a teenage prostitute who was inexplicably played by director Chris Columbus’s wife. Plus, there’s the borderline racist portrayal of some scary black people they encounter while trying to hide in the blues club –

POPCORN: “Nobody leaves without singin’ the blues.”

CINEMA: – not to mention, the appearance of the f-word in a Disney movie –

POPCORN: “Don’t fuck with the babysitter.”

CINEMA: – which all adds up to a large amount of questionable content for what was considered a family-friendly movie, though none of us really noticed it back then. Chalk it up to the strange times that were 1987, I guess. But the best moment in the film, for me, was the brief appearance of the incredible character actor Vincent D’Onofrio –

POPCORN: “I am . . . in a world . . . of shit.”

CINEMA: Following his cinematic debut in that film, FULL METAL JACKET – which, coincidentally, was also released in 1987 – this was D’Onofrio’s next movie appearance. It might be hard to connect the chubby, slurred-speech psychotic Private Pyle with the studly, golden-locked garage owner Dawson who repairs the damaged station wagon, but that’s the wonder of Vinnie D. The man is truly amazing and almost criminally underutilized by filmmakers –

POPCORN: Dude, find him and get a room.

CINEMA: Whatever. It just might be interesting . . . for you . . . to note that his character was, in some way, the first appearance of Thor in a live-action motion picture. Granted, Sara only believed that he was the mighty Norse god, but he was still presented in such a way that . . . he could have been, you know, for real.

POPCORN: Sara might need some meds in the future, dude. Just sayin’.

CINEMA: I’m not sure there’s going to be a future for Sara, my friend.

POPCORN: What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

CINEMA: Well, these car thieves were pretty hardcore. I mean, they had no reservations about firing their weapons at a teenage girl and a few children. So, the credits roll. Then the crime bosses, Graydon and Anderson, climb down from the side of the building and get up from the ground. The nice car thief who helped Chris and the kids, he’s dead.

POPCORN: Uh . . . okay.

CINEMA: They track the station wagon back to Dawson’s garage in hopes of retrieving a license plate, address, that sort of thing. So, boom, Thor’s dead. They get the information they need from him and proceed to the address listed for the station wagon. Of course, it’s the address of Chris’ parents. Boom, boom, dead. Then they turn off all the lights in the house, lying in wait for Chris to return from her date with the tow-truck driver . . .

POPCORN: Holy crap, dude.

CINEMA: Too much?

POPCORN: Yeah, maybe. No more GODFATHER marathons for you. Seriously, bro, you are disturbed. I’m the one who’s s’posed to be all messed up, but . . . talk to somebody. For real. You can’t do all that 2000s shit to ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING. It just ain’t right.

CINEMA: Alright, I apologize. I wasn’t aware that a movie I enjoyed so much was sacred to you. My bad.

POPCORN: It’s cool, dude. That brings us to my favorite movie of 1987 –

CINEMA: Oh, that wasn’t my favorite movie of the year. No way. I just enjoyed it, despite there being absolutely no reason in the world that I should.

POPCORN: Whatever, man. Anyway, the one I really dug was –

CINEMA: No, wait, look at that. We are out of time.

POPCORN: For real, man? Come on now.

CINEMA: No, really, for real. As usual, you chattered on too long and diverted the conversation too many times. We’ll have to continue our exploration of ’87 next week. Seriously, my friend, we’re out of time.

POPCORN: Eat my shorts, dude.