Conan the Barbarian (1982)

Director John Milius' action-adventure, swords-and-sorcery fantasy film featured muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger (in a star-making role after he had reigned as Mr. Universe and starred in Pumping Iron (1975)) as the vengeful and bitter title character Conan, in a tale filled with blood, sex, violence, and sword-fighting choreography.

He sought revenge for the slaying of his parents when he was young by charismatic snake-cult leader Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones). On his journey, the orphaned Conan became a slave to the Wheel of Pain (a gigantic mill-grinder), a pit fighter gladiator, a thief, and ultimately a swordsman-for-hire.

In the carnage-filled film, the bloodthirsty, brawny warrior joined forces with cunning thief/archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and pretty Amazonian warrioress-lover Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), Queen of the Thieves, to combat Doom's snake cult of Set and avenge his parents' death.

- "What is best in life?"
- "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

"Grant me one request. Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to Hell with you!"

The opening scene of the destruction of the Cimmerian village including the death of Conan's father (William Smith) by armored and trained rottweilers and the slow-motion death of Conan's mother by beheading, and the death scene of Thulsa Doom by severing his head from his body and holding it out.

Diner (1982)

Writer/director Barry Levinson's influential period comedy film and character study of male friendship was a classic episodic rites-of-passage film set in the late 50s. It centered around a Baltimore, Maryland diner, where six Jewish male buddies in their twenties hung out for six days between Christmas and New Years; the ensemble comedy's taglines expressed the film's theme: "What they wanted most wasn't on the menu" and "Suddenly, life was more than french fries, gravy, and girls"; on a budget of $5 million, it made less than $15 million, and lost its sole Academy Award nomination (Best Original Screenplay).

Many of the scenes in the film (over an extended Christmas holiday period in 1959) were held at the Fells Point Diner between a group of six post high-school graduate male friends (many up-and-coming stars) - featuring their many fast-paced, late night, often mindless, guy-talk discussions (with overlapping dialogue, both scripted and improvisational); an approaching marriage for one member of the group brought the confused, struggling, chauvinistic group together at the diner for more eating and drinking, arguing, and talking about sex, sports trivia, the direction of their lives, and 45 rpm records. Their confusion about a direction in life was captured in this line by one of the characters: "Do you ever get the feeling that there's something going on that we don't know about?"

On Christmas night in the film's opening during a Christmas dance, the six guys were introduced (in the order of their appearance): indebted compulsive gambler, aspiring law student at the Univ. of Baltimore and ladies man Robert "Boogie" Sheftell (Mickey Rourke) who worked days in a beauty parlor, irresponsible, troubled, rebellious, and often-drunken rich trust-fund kid and college drop-out Timothy "Fen" Fenwick, Jr. (Kevin Bacon), TV and appliances store clerk Laurence "Shrevie" Schreiber (Daniel Stern) who was unhappily-married to Beth (Ellen Barkin in her screen debut), annoying, rambling and wisecracking Modell (Paul Reiser) and about-to-be-married nervous fiancee Edward "Eddie" Simmons (Steve Guttenberg); a 6th member would be arriving soon - Masters in Business graduate student William "Billy" Howard (Timothy Daly) who was on a holiday break who hooked up with his unmarried girlfriend Barbara Kohler (Kathryn Dowling) who revealed that she was pregnant, but didn't want to marry him out of convenience.

There were many classic scenes: Modell and Eddie intensely and passionately debated about the best make-out music (Frank Sinatra or Johnny Mathis). Later when "Boogie" was asked the same question by Eddie, he gave a quick reply: "Presley!"

During a minor diner argument, the annoying, wise-cracking Modell eyed Eddie's uneaten roast-beef sandwich and hinted: ("You gonna finish that?"); after further discussion with the exasperated Eddie, "Shrevie" was the one who grabbed half of Eddie's sandwich ("Fine, I'll take the sandwich!") and took a bite out of it.

In the town's Strand movie theatre during the evening showing of A Summer Place (1959), with his friends observing from nearby seats, Boogie proceeded to conduct his betting challenge by creatively using a popcorn box with blonde date Carol Heathrow (Colette Blonigan); he stuck his privates into the bottom of the box to fool her into touching his "pecker" as she reached into the popcorn box in his lap; after she screamed and fled to the theatre's ladies room, "Boogie" followed and claimed "It was an accident," (although she asked: "Your thing just got into a box of popcorn?").

In another classic scene, three members of the group (Billy, Eddie and Modell) watched as one of their friends Earl Mager (Mark Margolis) attempted to eat "the whole left side of the menu." Earl answered in the affirmative when asked if his challenge included the Maryland fried chicken dinner; Eddie and Modell were astonished: "Twenty-two deluxe sandwiches and the fried-chicken dinner! It's not human. He's not a person. He's like a building with feet. You know what I mean? It's unbelievable"; afterwards at dawn, the guys cheered Earl as he drove off in his small Nash Metropolitan.

One of the most realistic scenes was the "Don't Touch My Records" scene. Neglected and under-appreciated wife Beth and exasperated music-obsessed "Shrevie" argued vehemently with each other; the conflict began after Shrevie asked: "Have you been playing my records?"; he complained about her improper filing of one of his treasured LP records according to category, alphabet, and year - she had placed a James Brown record filed under the J's instead of in the Rock n Roll section: ("To top it off, he's in the rock n roll section instead of the R&B section - how can you do it?"); he also went further and criticized her lack of knowledge about Charlie Parker yelling: "Jazz, jazz! He was the greatest jazz saxophone player that ever played!"; "Shrevie" became fanatical: "Every one of my records means something - the label, the producer, the year it was made, who was copying whose styles, who was expanding on that, don't you understand? When I listen to my records they take me back to certain points in my life, OK? Just don't touch my records, ever!"; she was left with tears welling up in her eyes as Shrevie left their row house to take a drive.

Before his wedding in just two days, momma's boy and football fanatic Eddie required the off-screen Elyse to take a pre-nuptial 140 question trivia test (65 was passing) about the Baltimore Colts pro football team; if she failed, he threatened cancelling the marriage; during the oral test-taking, friends and family members gathered around the basement to keep score where he grilled her; when it was over and Elyse scored 63 points, Eddie announced solemnly: "The marriage is off!"

At Eddie's nightclub-bar bachelor party with Billy, Eddie described the first time he awkwardly tried to "cop a feel" of Ruth Ray's teenaged breast; Eddie worried what would happen to his friendships once he was married: 'I'll tell you one thing that happens when you get married. You have to give up your old friends. Because the wife wants you to get new friends"; Billy suggested for the live-band musicians to increase the tempo: "Hey, come on, pick it up, you guys. You guys wanna pick up the beat, or what?"; he took a place at the piano to liven things up, as Eddie joined the go-go dancer/stripper (with a boa) to dance on stage.

Eddie changed his mind and decided to marry Elyse. At the end of the ceremony, the newlywed tossed her wedding bouquet into the air - after an uncertain trajectory, it landed on the table in front of the Diner guys - in disbelief; the iconic image of their freeze-framed full-color pose turned to sepia and then black and white; it signified that they were on the cusp of marriage, adulthood and real responsibility.

"You wanna bet she goes for my pecker on our first date?"

"When you're datin', everything is talkin' about sex, right? Where can we do it? You know, why can't we do it? Are your parents gonna be out so, so we can do it, you know? Tryin' to get a weekend just so that we can do it....Everything is just always talkin' about getting sex. And then planning the wedding. All the details....But then, when you get married, it's crazy, I don't know. You can get it whenever you want it....So all that sex-planning talk is over with. And so is the wedding-planning talk 'cause you're already married....I cannot hold a five-minute conversation with Beth....It's just, we've got nothin' to talk about."

"Every one of my records means something! The label, the producer, the year it was made ... When I listen to my records they take me back to certain points in my life, OK? Just don't touch my records, ever! ... "

The popcorn date scene in which "Boogie" fooled his blonde date Carol Heathrow (Colette Blonigan) into touching his "pecker" when she reached for a handful of popcorn.

The scene between a married couple - neglected and under-appreciated Beth (Ellen Barkin in her screen debut) and exasperated music-obsessed 'Shrevie' when he complained about her improper alphabetical-categorical filing of his treasured record collection.

The scene of a pre-nuptial 140 question trivia test (65 was passing) about the Baltimore Colts pro football team required by virginal momma's boy Eddie (Steve Guttenberg) for his off-screen fiancee Elyse just before their New Years Eve wedding.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Female director Amy Heckerling's energetic, candid and unassumingly real high-school film, her directorial debut feature film, was the quintessential teen film of the 1980s. It included a number of stereotyped but realistic roles derived from screenwriter Cameron Crowe's (a former Rolling Stone writer) undercover study-exposé of L.A. high school life during 1982 at a San Diego HS:

• Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn), a stoned, unforgettable, bleached blonde California surfer dudewith checkered sneakers: "I've been stoned since the third grade"
• Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a pudgy teenaged high-school freshman who awkwardly lost her virginity in a baseball dugout to older stereo salesman Ron Johnson (D. W. Brown), and after another sexual experience became pregnant and had an abortion
• Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates), sexually-curious Stacy's 'worldly' friend who taught her with a carrot, in the school's cafeteria, about how to deliver oral sex ("There's nothing to it, it's so easy")
• Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), a strict US history teacher
• Mike Damone (Robert Romanus) a ticket-scalping lecherous male who impregnated Stacy during a quick sexual encounter in a pool house changing room

"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine."

"When it comes down to making out, whenever possible put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV."

"Surfing's not a sport, it's a way of life. No hobby. It's a way of looking at that wave and saying, 'Hey bud, let's party! Ha, ha, ha.'"

The slow-motion sequence of the emergence of red-bikinied Linda (Phoebe Cates) from an outdoor swimming pool and the slow opening and shedding of her bathing suit top from the middle (a fantasy mental disrobing by self-pleasuring Brad (Judge Reinhold)) - often rated by males as the best nudity scene in any film.

First Blood (1982) (aka Rambo: First Blood)

This entry includes the other Rambo films: Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and its sequel Rambo 3 (1988) and twenty years later Rambo (2008). [The 1980s Reagan era helped to provide the perfect backdrop for the Rambo films, in which the title character refought the disastrous Vietnam War.] Note that the first film of the franchise was less jingoistic, exploitational, cartoonish, and propagandistic than the following three sequels.

Sylvester Stallone starred in a series of testosterone-filled, jingoistic, war-oriented films, including this one as surviving ex-Vietnam Green Beret John Rambo. The Rambo character was a misfit, cartoonish, long-haired, self-righteous super-hero - a revenge-seeking, buffed up, brooding ex-Green Beret Vietnam veteran (of Special Operations Command) who went on a one-man killing spree.

The traumatized war veteran went berserk using his guerrilla training after being mistreated and unfairly arrested in a small town in the Pacific Northwest by the small-town sheriff Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy).

He 'refought' the Vietnam War as a 'one-man army,' using VC bushwhacking techniques during his battle against a variety of enemies, including the sheriff, a posse, and hundreds of National Guardsmen.

"For me, civilian life is nothing! In the field, we had a code of honor: You watch my back, I watch yours. Back here, there's nothin'!...Back there, I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment. Back here, I can't even hold a job parking cars!"

Ex-Green Beret Vietnam vet John Rambo's final impassioned, preachy speech to Green Beret Col. Samuel Trautman (Richard Crenna), his former commander, about his hostile, unjust reception as a returning Vietnam War Vet.

48 Hrs. (1982) (aka 48 Hours)

And Another 48 Hrs. (1990)

Director Walter Hill's profanity-filled action-comedy was one of the first buddy-cop films, years before Lethal Weapon (1987) and Rush Hour (2000).

In this male-bonding film, Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy (21 years old and in his feature film screen debut while still a cast member of TV's Saturday Night Live) were paired as two bickering, 'odd-couple' buddy-cops: temperamental, hard-nosed, hard-drinking detective Jack Cates in his '64 Cadillac convertible and smooth-talking con Reggie Hammond. Both disliked each other immensely, with racial overtones, and ended up in a fistfight with each other in an alleyway.

Their insults were hostile: ("Now get this. We ain't partners, we ain't brothers, and we ain't friends" and "You're just a crook on a weekend pass! You're not even a goddamn name anymore! You're just a spearchucker with a number stenciled on the back of his prison fatigues! And I'm through f--kin' around. You tell me the truth or you're gonna get the living s--t beat outta you").

The film's title referred to the amount of time that Reggie had been released from prison in Jack's custody to track down cop killers named Albert Ganz and Billy Bear (James Remar and Sonny Landham), Reggie's former gang members - leading to a bloody finale.

"I'm your worst f--kin' nightmare, man: I'm a nigger with a badge - which means I got permission to kick your f--kin' ass whenever I feel like it!"

"...instead of bein' where I oughta be, home in bed with my gal givin' her the high hard one, I'm out here doin' this s--t: roamin' around the streets with an overdressed, charcoal-colored loser like you."

"I've been in prison for three years. My dick gets hard if the wind blows."

"I was great. Should have my dick bronzed."

The scenes of continual bickering between the couple, and the scene of Reggie entering a redneck bar and interrogating patrons with blustering attitude by pretending to be a cop: "I don't like white people... I hate rednecks. You people are rednecks, which means I’m enjoying this s--t!"

Porky's (1982)

Also Porky's II: The Next Day (1983), and Porky's Revenge (1985) (aka Porky's 3)

By the early ’80s, producers knew that a little nudity could go a long way in attracting young audiences. This crude, slapstick comedy and sexploitation film helped to launch the teen sex film, with scatological scenes and lots of gross-out, body-oriented jokes. Suddenly, theatrical films originally made for "dirty old men" were being targeted at teenagers. Porky’s ushered in a flood of similar teen-oriented material, some of it superb (Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and The Last American Virgin (1982)). The film was the ultimate precursor to American Pie (1999) almost two decades later.

The vulgar and distasteful coming-of-age sex comedy, attracting mostly male audiences worried about their virility or the size of their manhood, by writer/director Bob Clark told about several Florida high school (Angel Beach) boys in the 1950s, especially aptly-named Pee Wee Morris (Dan Monahan), who all sought to lose their virginity. During the opening title credits, Pee Wee woke up to check his penile length with a wooden ruler - and was disappointed each morning with the results.

Porky Wallace (Chuck Mitchell) was the name of the mean-spirited, redneck, good ol' boy corpulent owner of a popular biker/bar-brothel just across the county line, who tempted the underage boys with prostitutes and then scammed them out of their money.

Pee Wee also made a prank pay-phone call to Wendy (Kaki Hunter), a waitress at Deadbeat's - a roadside diner hangout, asking her: "Hello. Hi. I'm lookin' for a friend of mine. He's s'posed to be there....His name's Michael Hunt... uh Mike, Mike. Yes, Mike." The clueless Wendy turned to the patrons and asked in a loud voice: "Is Mike Hunt here? Is Mike Hunt here? Has anybody seen Mike Hunt?"

In one of the other early scenes, horny gym teacher Ms. Honeywell (Kim Cattrall in an early role) was nicknamed "Lassie" because of her orgasmic howling during intercourse with Coach Brackett (Boyd Gaines) in the equipment room.

All of the females in this infantile film were objectified as sex objects or props for this comedy, to be spied upon or fantasized about from afar. In the "Peeping Tom" scene in the girls' shower-room, one of the teens exclaimed after viewing through a peep-hole: (Tommy (Wyatt Knight): "Jesus Christ! It's the mother lode"; Billy (Mark Herrier): "I've never seen so much wool! You could knit a sweater." Tommy: "This has gotta be the biggest beaver shoot in the history of Florida"). The towel-clad girls discovered the boys ogling them after Pee Wee (with a mostly blocked and obstructed view) yelled out at obese Nola McNeil: ("Goddammit, will you move it, you lard-ass!"), revealing their hidden location.

Tommy first placed his tongue through the spyhole, and one of the girls slapped soap onto it. To play along further, he stuck his member through the hole: ("I'll give you something to play with"), and she reacted knowingly: ("Hey, wait a minute, I know that guy") just as head gym coach Ms. Balbricker (Nancy Parsons) appeared. She charged forward to make a painful two-handed grab and cried out in glee: "I've got you *NOW*, TOMMY TURNER! And I'm taking you to the principal!...Somebody get me the principal! Mr. Carter! Somebody get me the principal!...You disgusting, little, filthy, pervert!... (Tommy escaped from her grasp) You freak! You filthy little pervert. I know you're in there. You dirty little dickhead!"

In the principal's office in the most hilarious scene of the entire film, Ms. Balbricker implored the school's prudish principal Mr. Carter (Eric Christmas) to have a penis line-up to identify the boy who displayed his member through the peep-hole.

- "Jesus Christ. It's the Mother Lode!"
- "I've never seen so much wool. You could knit a sweater."
- "This has gotta be the biggest beaver shoot in the history of Florida."

"Is Mike Hunt here? Has anybody seen Mike Hunt?"

"What do you use for a jock strap, kid? A peanut shell and a rubber band?"

The scene of sex-starved Pee Wee being stranded outdoors naked, and being confronted by the cops. Also, the "Peeping Tom" scene in the girl's shower-locker room, during which time Tommy (Wyatt Knight) placed his member through a spyhole, and gym coach Ms. Beulah Balbricker (Nancy Parsons) charged forward to make a painful two-handed grab.

National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

And other films in the series: European Vacation (1985), Christmas Vacation (1989), and Vegas Vacation (1997)

In this comedic road film, the always-clumsy and dim-brained husband Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) took his family cross-country in a gigantic pea-green "Wagon Queen Family Truckster" station-wagon with a broken-down engine, bound for California's theme park Wally World (unbeknownst to them, closed for repairs) - with all of their arduous misadventures:

• becoming lost in East St. Louis where their hubcaps were stolen
• sing-alongs in the car
• visiting long-suffering wife Ellen's (Beverly D'Angelo) beer-swilling, hayseed cousin-in-law Eddie (Randy Quaid) in Coolidge, Kansas who ate Hamburger Helper without the meat
• Eddie's young daughter Vicki (Jane Krakowski) bragging about French kissing: "Daddy says I'm the best at it " and also showing off a shoebox full of weed, while Eddie's son Dale (John Nevin) bragged: "I've got a stack of nudie books this high"
• the parody of the Psycho (1960) shower stabbing scene
• the death of Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) enroute to Phoenix who was tied to the top of the station wagon
• Clark's man-to-man talk in the desert with his son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and sharing a beer with him
• Clark's encounters with a flirtatious and tempting vixen (blonde supermodel Christie Brinkley) in a passing red Ferrari and skinny-dipping in a pool

After arriving in California, they raced to the entrance of Walley World (to the tune of "Chariots of Fire") only to be told by an animatronic Moose character that the park was closed, although they took security guard Lasky (John Candy) as hostage.

- "How do you like yours, Clark?"
- "Oh, medium rare, a little pink inside."
- "No, I mean your bun."

"I think you're all f--ked in the head. We're ten hours from the f--kin' fun park and you want to bail out! Well, I'll tell you somethin'. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f--kin' fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our god-damn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy S--t!"

"You want me to strap her to the hood?...She'll be fine. It's not as if it's going to rain or something."

The vibrating bed scene.

Scarface (1983)

Director Brian De Palma's X-rated (then revised to R) crime film (with a script by Oliver Stone) starred "Godfather" actor Al Pacino as Tony Montana. It was a violent update of Howard Hawks' gangster classic Scarface: The Shame of a Nation (1932), soaked with blood and cocaine powder in a story of "Scarface's" rise from Cuban emigre-dishwasher to early 80s Miami drug lord - and his subsequent fall.

Along the way, he acquired icy and slinky blonde cokehead trophy wife Elvira Hancock (Michelle Pfeiffer), who first appeared in a tight backless dress as she descended in a glass elevator.

The film's tagline was: "He loved the American Dream. With a Vengeance," and much of the film's imagery and language has been co-opted by gangster rap. Pacino's over-the-top, unrestrained and operatic portrayal of the monstrous crime lord in this morality tale included profanity-strewn dialogue, an incestuous liking for his sister Gina (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), and an excessive addiction to snorting mounds of white powdery cocaine.

The film concluded with the bullet-ridden and coke-convulsed body of one-man army Tony Montana in a bloody standoff at his mansion with an M16, and his death by a point-blank shotgun blast in the back, sending him crashing down thirty feet to his indoor fountain below.

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the woman."

"I never f--ked anybody over in my life didn't have it comin' to 'em. You got that? All I have in this world is my balls and my word and I don't break 'em for no one. Do you understand?"

- "Anything beats lying around all day waiting for me to f--k you, I'll tell ya that."
- "Don't toot your horn, honey. You're not that good."

"F--k 'em all! I bury those cock-a-roaches!"

"Can't you stop saying f--k all the time?"

"Say hello to my little friend."

The intense and controversial dismemberment scene during a bad drug deal in which Tony's friend Angel Fernandez (Pepe Serna) was chain-sawed to death (off-screen with bloody splattering and spray) while hanging by his wrists in a motel bathroom shower.