The Breakfast Club (1985)

The famous John Hughes teen drama is another one from the “wanted to see what all the fuss was about” list. 

Five high school kids spend a Saturday together in detention. Initially wary of each other, they begin to bond as they start to understand what they have in common. 

Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy star as the strangers who become friends. It’s made for teenagers and it might seem excruciating if you are any older than that yourself, but the film works because each of the characters is fairly well drawn. Also, the dialogue and settings are like those of a play: it’s essentially composed of people talking in a room – albeit with a few “pop video” sequences.

The only real criticism is that the teacher (Paul Gleason) is a one-dimensional representation of “authority” and “adulthood”. He could have been a far more nuanced character, but – unsurprisingly, given the target audience – the film prefers to build a simplistic us-and-them opposition. Adults are not cool because they don’t care and they don’t understand. That point aside, it’s an engaging 97 minutes. 

The big theme song is Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, which features prominently and which became a number one single in the USA.

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)

Fascinatingly 1980s “Brat Pack” drama about seven friends who have just graduated. They are about to embark upon adult lives, and they drink and smoke excessively while attempting to navigate their tangled relationships.

It’s possibly the template for Friends, but without the jokes and the strong writing. In fact, there’s something rather unappealing about the film’s self-consciousness.

Morally, it seems quite confused and the troubles encountered by these wealthy, spoiled kids – what we’d now call “first-world problems” – don’t seem especially important.

There’s a completely flawed thread about one of them (Emilio Estevez as Kirby) becoming obsessed with a medical student (Andie MacDowell). Something in the execution of this plot simply doesn’t ring true. It would have been a tighter storyline if he’d been infatuated with one of his six friends, pulling the focus back into the main group.

The seven main actors get equal billing in the credits (named alphabetically), which suggests there were ego and/or payment disputes in the background, but some of them are stronger than others. Demi Moore is probably the most credible as the cocaine-addicted party girl. Rob Lowe is hard to believe as the thrill-seeking, sax-playing Billy, who somehow had time to have a wife and child already. I also don’t believe Judd Nelson’s character would have liked Andrew McCarthy’s character, or that glamorous yuppie played by Ally Sheedy would have had time for earnest, frumpy girl played by Mare Winningham.

While there are some good lines (the script is better than it might have been), it’s ultimately as immature and shallow as its characters.

WarGames (1983)

Genuinely exciting thriller about a teenager (Matthew Broderick) who accidentally triggers the countdown to nuclear armageddon by hacking into US military computers. It’s fascinating to watch now, given how things have changed in terms of technology.

There are some unbelievable moments – hacker left alone in a room in a high-security military installation with access to a computer – but overall the story is surprisingly timely and plausible. In 2019 we are at the mercy of automated systems. And with Donald Trump as president, this sort of crisis seems all too possible.

It’s highly entertaining, with more of a nail-biting escalation than most James Bond films. The pacing is excellent too: it never lets up.

Apart from Matthew Broderick’s distinctly odd parents, the film is well cast. Ally Sheedy is appealing as Jennifer Mack, the hero’s school-chum-turned-girlfriend, and John Wood is effective as the eccentric, damaged Dr. Stephen Falken, who invented the WOPR (War Operation Plan Response) supercomputer.

There’s a happy ending, of course, but not before the moral – the futility of mutually assured destruction – has been firmly established.