A Room with a View (1985)

Produced by the Merchant Ivory team, this adaptation of E.M. Forster's 1908 novel is arguably the ultimate costumer.

A young woman named Lucy Honeychurch navigates relationship troubles and the social restrictions of Edwardian England.

Helena Bonham Carter is immensely lovable in the main role.

There's so much subtle, gentle wit on display, and the Italian locations look lavish.

Surprisingly, Forster seems to work much better on film than on the page (see also Howard's End, which also starred H.B.C.). Rich and vibrant characters come alive through a sparkling script. Simon Callow is excellent as the Reverend Mr Beebe. Judi Dench is also on top form as the novelist Eleanor Lavish. 

The rest of the all-star cast includes Julian Sands, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott and Daniel Day-Lewis.

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.

Pale Rider (1985)

Western.

Clint Eastwood is once again the enigmatic stranger who rolls into town with a horse and a history. This time he’s a preacher who helps a community of gold miners defend themselves from the greedy, land-grabbing LaHood (Richard Dysart) and his bully henchmen. 

His charisma is undeniable, so when a mother (Carrie Snodgress) and her daughter (Sydney Penny) both fall in love with him you can see why. The complex relationships between the preacher and the various family members are expertly explored. 

The tension builds in a subtle way and the ending is hugely satisfying.

The Jewel of the Nile (1985)

Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito reprise their roles from 1984's Romancing the Stone. Six months have passed and the couple now embark on a new adventure in Africa, seeking the "Jewel of the Nile" and tackling a demented dictator. 

It’s just as daft as the original and I enjoyed it a lot, despite the common consensus that it was a disappointing sequel.

It’s spectacular, silly and fun. There’s a particularly strong scene in which Douglas drives a fighter jet around crowded streets, causing havoc.

On the down side, DeVito doesn't really need to be there and the plot sometimes struggles to accommodate him. But Turner is endlessly appealing – charming and funny enough to rise above the good-natured but sometimes less than sparkling material.

Water (1985)

Michael Caine plays the Governor of the (fictional) Caribbean island of Cascara. The generally quiet, happy life on this remote British colony is interrupted when it’s discovered that there’s a potentially lucrative natural supply of mineral water beneath the ground. Suddenly, everyone from US oil magnates and the British Prime Minister (Maureen Lipman as Margaret Thatcher) to Cuban guerrillas and a French water business want a stake in Cascara’s future. 

The cast features many actors known from TV roles, including Billy Connolly, Leonard Rossiter (in his final performance), Fulton Mackay, Ruby Wax and Fred “Herman Munster” Gwynne. 

I’m not a fan of Connolly, but thankfully he’s fairly restrained in this part – partly because his character has vowed to communicate only via song. On the down side, there’s a long, cringeworthy scene in which he plays on stage with a band including George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton. Half of the Beatles and the world’s most famous living guitarist, and all they could come up with was a snug, dreary, tepid mess. 

That aside, it’s a playful, good-natured comedy that’s both intelligent and very silly. I like the way the various plot threads come together. At its best it recalls a less subtle and sophisticated version of Local Hero, particularly for the strong sense of community it develops.

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

I had wanted to see this film for 35 years, but unfortunately it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. 

Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is a bored housewife who becomes obsessed with the personal ads in her newspaper – particularly those between a couple called Susan and Jim. Her life changes when she starts stalking Susan (played by Madonna) around the streets of New York and becomes accidentally involved in a crime involving a pair of stolen Egyptian earrings. Then Roberta has a bump on the head and can’t even remember her own name. She’s forced to begin a new life with a new identity, while simultaneously being pursued by a killer.

Not funny enough to work as a comedy nor exciting enough to work as a drama, the story often falls flat. It tries to become a sort of farce but then misses opportunities to squeeze comedy out of absurd situations. Compare it to What’s Up, Doc? to see how it could have been done so much better. 

Arquette is fairly sweet as the lead character. Madonna is pretty good, too, largely because she barely speaks. Roberta’s husband (Mark Blum), sister-in-law (Laurie Metcalf) and new boyfriend (Aidan Quinn) are merely so-so, largely because of the average script. Deadpan comedian Steven Wright is also present, but criminally underused. 

The soundtrack is bizarrely inappropriate, with clanking synths and drums almost drowning out everything else. Only Madonna’s “Into the Groove” and a burst of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” redeem it. 

As it lumbers towards a laboured conclusion, you realise that the “Egyptian earrings” plot is one thread too many. It could have been ditched entirely to keep the focus on the various relationships, as there’s enough going on already with the strands about memory loss and mistaken identity. It’s far from a terrible film – just a bit of a mess.

Witness (1985)

Unusual and striking thriller directed by Peter Weir. A child from an Amish community witnesses a murder that Philadelphia detective John Book (Harrison Ford) is assigned to investigate. When it turns out that the Chief of Police is in on the crime, Book goes into hiding among the Amish people he now has to protect. There, he meets a young widow (Kelly McGillis), who he begins to fall for, and he starts to understand her very different way of life. 

The film brilliantly balances a standard thriller with a full-on study of another culture within the USA. It does this with real empathy. There’s a lengthy sequence in which you see a traditional “barn raising”, a custom demonstrating how the community chooses to work collectively to assist its members. 

Ford is his usual charming self, effortlessly watchable as ever, but Kelly McGillis (later in the woeful Top Gun) is the real revelation. She manages to seem simultaneously innocent, naive, frightened and smoulderingly passionate. Her very expressive face conveys so much. There’s a hugely romantic scene in which she and Ford dance to Sam Cooke’s “(What a) Wonderful World”. It expresses her joy, delight and nervousness so well. 

There’s also a timeless quality to the film (it doesn’t seem “1980s” at all) that means it holds up extremely well today. 

Ultimately, it’s touching and even profound. A treasure.

Teen Wolf (1985)

Highly enjoyable comedy starring Michael J. Fox as a teenager who transforms into a werewolf. I was expecting the story to be about his struggle to conceal his true identity, but the brilliance of the plot comes from the fact that everyone he knows simply accepts his transformation, which makes him a better basketball player, a better dancer and a cooler guy all round. Suddenly he’s not average anymore. In fact, he does so well as a wolf that he then has to prove himself as...himself.

There are plenty of surreal and witty moments, but it’s also a standard American school comedy-drama with all the usual loyal friends, jealous enemies, feuding girlfriends and grudge-bearing teachers. Michael J. Fox is always easy to relate to and easy to like. There’s just something about him.

This film came out a month after Back to the Future, when Foxmania was at its height, so it couldn’t really fail. It made $80 million from a budget of just $1.2 million. It certainly doesn’t look expensive (much of it takes place on a basketball court), but that gives it a kind of immediacy too. With the exception of one Beach Boys hit, the pop soundtrack was seemingly commissioned especially for the film – third-rate MTV rockers and clunky ballads that are perfect for this particular story. Some of the songs are played in their entirety, giving the whole thing the feel of an extended promo video.

It’s silly, but gloriously so. It doesn’t get bogged down in explaining the wolf origins or even attempt to make sense of them, and is all the better for that.

A truly entertaining and satisfying 92 minutes.

Letter to Brezhnev (1985)

Extremely charming comedy-drama about two young women from Kirkby. Elaine (Alexandra Pigg) and Teresa (Margi Clarke) go for a night out in Liverpool in search of love and adventure, and for once actually encounter it in the form of two Russian sailors.

There’s plenty of sharp wit, and tough, fast-talking Clarke is especially funny. There’s also some subtle social commentary: times are hard in Liverpool. Unemployment is high as Thatcher’s influence is increasingly being felt. It’s an unvarnished, unsentimental portrait of a city struggling with poverty.

Like classic kitchen-sink narratives such as Billy Liar and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, it draws on the juxtaposition between humdrum working lives in the town where you grew up and the dreams of moving on to bigger and better things in the world beyond. It’s extremely moving and the closing scenes are unexpectedly satisfying.

Only one complaint: the shot-on-videotape film quality was poor and fuzzy.

The Sure Thing (1985)

Sweet teen romance directed by Rob Reiner.

Classmates Walter “Gib” Gibson (John Cusack) and Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) take a road trip from their New England college to Los Angeles. Gib (spontaneous but sloppy) is being fixed up with a “sure thing” – a girl who will definitely sleep with him – while Alison (a super-organised but stuffy academic) is meeting her extremely dull boyfriend. But the trip doesn’t go to plan and inevitably the bickering pair end up falling for each other, despite or because of all their differences.

It’s a fairly dialogue-heavy story, which is to be applauded, with lots of funny moments. Both of the leads are easy to like. It’s much smarter than teen films such as Pretty in Pink or St. Elmo’s Fire, and there’s something genuinely endearing about their stumbling relationship. It works as a road movie, too, although we don’t see enough of America as they cross it.

It’s a nice touch that you see a film poster for Reiner’s own This Is Spinal Tap in someone’s bedroom.

Back to the Future (1985)

Absolutely wonderful time-travel comedy starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly. He is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a DeLorean modified by his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). He then has two major problems to resolve. Not only does the car lack the plutonium it needs to get him “back to the future”, but also his presence in 1955 leads to wide-reaching ripples in the fabric of time itself. For example, instead of his mother (Lea Thompson) meeting his father (Crispin Glover), she falls for Marty instead. As events start heading towards an outcome in which the couple never date and marry, Marty and his siblings begin to fade from his family photograph. That’s silly and makes little sense (they would either have existed or not existed), but pretty much all of the clever plotting works perfectly if you accept a few basic leaps of faith.

The direction by Robert Zemeckis is lively and precise. Every detail matters and the dovetailing of events in 1955 and 1985 is ingenious indeed. The storytelling is so clear and uncluttered that a potentially complex and tangled narrative really works. It's both an exciting adventure and a warm-hearted love story. Plus, there are plenty of laughs.

A View to a Kill (1985)

Roger Moore plays James Bond for the seventh and final time. He looks too old for the role (Q and Moneypenny aren’t getting any younger, either), but despite that it’s a better film than I recalled.

Christopher Walken plays Max Zorin, a demented tycoon who plots to flood and destroy Silicon Valley in order to control the world market in microchips. Grace Jones is his right-hand woman. Unfortunately, she is given almost no dialogue and so spends most of the film merely looking fashionable and angry.

There is a genuinely tense and dramatic finale at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, involving Bond dangling by a rope from an airship, which is not for vertigo sufferers. There’s also a surprisingly brutal scene in which Zorin sprays miners with machine-gun fire while laughing his head off.

Tanya Roberts plays a slightly weedy geologist called Stacey. And Patrick Macnee plays a horse trainer named Sir Godfrey Tibbett.

There are plenty of ridiculous moments, as you’d expect. The most absurd is a motorised iceberg that Bond uses as a boudoir in Siberia. Or maybe it’s when Bond quickly cooks a quiche.

I’m a little saddened that I have now seen all of the films, but at least there’s the forthcoming (much delayed) No Time to Die to look forward to.

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.