Baumer's Top 100 films you have probably heard of but more than likely haven't seen. #1: Cute Clever Mischievous, but don't feed them after midnight!

[baumer]

Number 85

The Last American Virgin (1982)

Directed by Boaz Davidson

Starring:  Lawrence Monoson, Diane Franklin, Steve Antin

Box office:  5.8 million

 

Ok, so I can't help it, this list will contain a few 80's teen films that perhaps you have never heard of.  This might be one of them and that is a shame imo.  It's a film that clearly tried to endear itself to young people by having as much nudity as one could allow in a teen film without it being X-rated.  And there's a lot of it.  And this is what 80's teen films before John Hughes, were known for.  But once you get past all the bare breasts and asses flashing across the screen, what you have is a film with a lot of heart and a script that was a little too honest.  In fact, it cut to the bone.  The final scene is one that has stuck with me....some 30 years later.  It has stayed with me because it's a little too realistic.  Teen comedies like Fast Times and more recently American Pie, always end on a high note.  It's better that way, you want people feeling good when they leave the theater.  This film, produced by the super B-movie team of Menahem Yorum and Golan Globus, dared to be different and essentially flipped the middle finger to conventional teen movie tropes.  This is a story about high school and it has all the typical high school stuff.  Dating, partying, skipping school, sex and so on.  Diane Franklin, in her first film role, shines as Karen, the new girl in school.  Gary, played by Lawrence Monson of Friday the 13th The Final Chapter and Mask (1984) fame, takes an immediate liking to her but she naturally falls for his much better looking blond, thin, tanned California bad boy friend, played by Steve Antin, who you might know as Andi's jock boyfriend from The Goonies (he also went on to become David Geffen's lover for about a decade).  Also making his film debut is Brian Peck, who went on to become  sex offender and someone who is good friends with Brian Singer, doing the commentary on X-men with him.  I'll leave it all at that for now because this is not about that sordid affair, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.  

 

The Last American Virgin also has one of the best soundtracks of all time.  With names like U2, REO Speedwagon, Devo, The Police, Journey and Lionel Ritchie, the soundtrack is incredible.  This is another highly recommended film.

 

 

 

[narniadis]

Whelp I haven't seen any of the ones since my last comment.... so adding a bunch to the list.

[baumer]

Thanks for reading and commenting everyone.

[75Live]

Love all the additions.  I have seen them all so far, except maybe the one is in question, so I'll take the 99% success rate so far  

[baumer]

Of u have @75live lol

[75Live]

9 minutes ago, Baumer said:

Of u have @75live lol

 

yeah I forgot, I'm supposed to stick with just saying the ones i haven't seen  

[baumer]

No no....please....this is fascinating to me. You have seen near dark the last American Virgin and earthlings. That is incredible in my book.

[75Live]

11 minutes ago, Baumer said:

No no....please....this is fascinating to me. You have seen near dark the last American Virgin and earthlings. That is incredible in my book.

 

Thanks   Yeah it's why when people have asked me what kind of movies I like, I really can't answer because I don't fall into one genre.  I like movies from horror, to comedies, to yes even documentaries about animal rights.  If it's good or pulls me I don't care what kind of movie it is.  

 

Ok true that gets me into watching some of the worst dreck ever made, but that's the other side and the chance I take by trying most films   

Edited July 19, 2016 by 75live

[baumer]

Coming up:

 

Gene Simmons plays a Middle Eastern terrorist.

 

Mephistopholes is such a mouthful in Manhatten

[The Stingray]

Why do you speak in cyphers?

 

[baumer]

Number 83 

Angel Heart (1987)

Directed by Alan Parker

Starring:  Mickey Rourke, Lisa Bonet and Robert DeNiro

Box office: 17.1 million

"They say there's just enough religion in the world to make hate one another but not enough to make them love."

 

I'm going to post my original review, but the truncated version.  It's much much too long for this list.

 

The basic premise of Angel Heart is a detective story at heart. This is a 40's style film noir complete with rain soaked streets, seedy detectives and lots of questionable characters. We meet Harry Angel ( Roarke) as he is taking a phone call from a stranger. This stranger is from the law firm Winesap and MacIntosh. They would like to meet with him as they have a client that is familiar with his work. The client's name is Monsieur Louis Cypher.

"Is your client foreign? Is he a foreign gentleman?"

Harry then travels to a church ( strange enough place to meet a client who wants to hire a detective) where he enters the room and is first greeted by Winesap (who looks a lot like Stephen Tobolwolski), and then he sees his client. But what we see first is long, perfectly manicured finger nails, a strange cane, a ring that has either the star of David in the middle of it or a strange cult like pointed symbol, you decide. Also, the client's hair is put up in a bun and the man dressed impeccably. The man does not rise to shake Harry's hand. But he smiles with a diabolical, facetious grin that seems warm and inviting but reeks with deceit.

Harry then gets the facts of the case and is told that he will be searching for a crooner that owed Louis some money but disappeared during the war. So in essence, all Louis wants from Harry is to find out if this crooner is alive or dead. Cypher offers him a lot of money to find the guy and so Harry accepts.

"You must want this guy pretty bad," Harry says with a chuckle.

"I don't like messy accounts," Cypher replies dead-seriously.

And then just before the meeting concludes, Louis says to Harry,

"I've got a funny feeling we've met before." Harry has no recollection of ever meeting the man, and he would remember seeing how Cypher sticks out like a sore thumb.

From here Harry goes on a labyrinthine journey to find out what happened to this crooner. It takes him from Coney Island to New Orleans. And along the way, dead bodies begin to show up. First he interviews a doctor that had something to do with the case. He shows up dead in the next scene. Next we see an old guitar player named Toot Sweet and then he shows up dead, "strangled with a part of the body meant for pissing with." Now Harry is a suspect in two murders and it just keeps getting worse.

Every 20 minutes Louis Cypher shows up to check on his progress. And every time he does, more strange religion seems to get introduced to the plot. This French gentleman is obviously a fanatical, devout, religious iconoclast. He is not just seeking this missing person for personal accounts, it seems more like a reckoning. And the further Harry gets into the mystery, the more liable he is to be implicated in things that he had nothing to do with. To make matters worse, Cypher tells him that he has old fashioned and bucolic ideas about justice, "You know, an eye for an eye, that sort of thing." Finally Harry, in desperation, asks him in one of their sittings, "Who the @^&* are you Cypher?" Cypher's reply, "Watch your language, this is a church."

Also examine some of the intriguing lines that slither out of DeNiro's mouth. Lines like, "They say there is just enough religion in the world to make man hate one another, but not enough to make them love." Or: "Would you like an egg Mr. Angel?" After Harry says no, Cypher replies, "you know, they say the egg represents the soul." He then bites into the egg and chews it with perfect equanimity. You can never tell if Cypher is mad or satisfied. All we know is this man is here to find a missing person. Some of the time he cracks a smile but what he is really smiling about is just somewhere underneath the surface.


Angel Heart is not the type of horror film that will scare you every five minutes with ghosts that bounce balls down stairs or with pumpkin candles that flicker coyly enough to see a shadow float across the ceiling. But what it will do is turn your insides upside down with the promise that something pernicious and final is about to take place. Angel Heart is opulent with undertones of doom and sumptuous with forbidden overtones. Just as Blair Witch attacked us with what could be there, Angel Heart admonishes us to stay away from things that should not be there. Harry Angel has entered into an inchoate project and it is one that he will wish he never sought out in the first place.

This is one of the best films I have ever seen, and along with Halloween and Jaws, not only does this film rank highly on the horror charts, it demands to fit into the top films ever made list. I am not sure where I would put this film because to compare a film like JFK and Raiders of the Lost Ark with an atmospheric, spine tingling film like this is like asking me who has better breasts....the woman from Gods of Egypt or Stupendous tits from Friday the 13th remake.  Right @CJohn
 

And this film might be the king of all twist endings.  

 

And for the record, I fucking love this movie too.

 

 

[CJohn]

STUPENDOUS TITS

 

 

[Jake Gittes]

Angel Heart is goddamn amazing.

[baumer]

I honestly don't know anyone who has seen Angel Heart that didn't love it.  It was imo, easily the best film of 1987.

[baumer]

Stupendous from F13th

 

[Jake Gittes]

23 minutes ago, Baumer said:

I honestly don't know anyone who has seen Angel Heart that didn't love it.  It was imo, easily the best film of 1987.

 

Heh, I'd rank it #3 after The Dead and Withnail & I. All three are brilliant.

[The Stingray]

1 hour ago, Jake Gittes said:

 

Heh, I'd rank it #3 after The Dead and Withnail & I. All three are brilliant.

 

No way those artsy-fartsy movies you mention are better than Predator and RoboCop. 

 

[baumer]

Predator is second best film of 87

[The Stingray]

1 hour ago, Baumer said:

Stupendous from F13th

 

 

But I can't see her perfect nipple placement. 

 

[Jake Gittes]

4 minutes ago, The Stingray said:

 

No way those artsy-fartsy movies you mention are better than Predator and RoboCop. 

 

 

I don't care who you are back in the world, you diss my favorite movies sight unseen one more time, I'll bleed ya, real quiet. Leave ya here. Got that?