There are a few things about this week’s post that will probably disturb most of my friends who end up reading it (though I’m not sure how many of my friends actually read anything I write, so I might be safe):

1. I’m writing about a John Travolta film.
2. I’m posting a soundtrack comprised mostly of tracks by the Bee Gees and Frank Stallone.
3. I’m admitting how much I love Staying Alive (1983).

Despite the fact I’m losing a little of my friends’ respect with each word I type, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I know it’s not cinematic genius, but Staying Alive is a 1980s dance movie. It has Cynthia Rhodes. It has Finola Hughes. Did I mention it has dancing, ’80s style? I think 1980s dance movies are second only to 1980s bad horror movies in my list of guilty-pleasure film genres; no matter how horrible they are, I’ll watch them. The costumes, the music, the hairstyles, the makeup, the bad plots and over-the-top acting — I just can’t get enough. I know, I probably need a 12-step program.

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I’ll be honest — I watched The Idolmaker (1980) because of Prince. I had read in a couple of biographies that the film partly inspired him to create some of his most famous side projects, like the Time and Vanity 6. As someone who wants to see and hear anything that might have influenced a favorite artist, I immediately added the film to my Netflix queue.

I have to say that I’m shocked I’d never seen The Idolmaker before since I’m a huge fan of movies about music and musicians, both real and fictional. But somehow I managed to not even know of its existence until last year. The film is loosely based on the life of Bob Marucci, the legendary rock promoter who discovered acts like Frankie Avalon and Fabian; Ray Sharkey plays a songwriter-turned-producer who makes stars out of two unknowns in the late 1950s, one of whom is played by Peter Gallagher in his feature-film debut (the other is played by Paul Land, with Jesse Frederick providing vocals). The Idolmaker also marks the feature debut of director Taylor Hackford, who went on to direct another, more famous music biopic, the Academy Award-winning Ray (2004).

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This week’s post comes to you by request from my friend Dan. I’ve actually been wanting to write about Summer School (1987) for a while, but just managed to find the last few songs I’d been searching for so I could give you a complete soundtrack.

When I was a kid, my mom used to run the video department at our local grocery store. My family had just gotten our first VCR and, with mom’s discount, we were able to rent videos pretty often. The film I requested most often when asked what I wanted to rent: Summer School (well, maybe I asked for Return of the Jedi more often, but whatever). Why was this movie so popular with me? Well, it has one of my favorite scenes in a comedy: the classroom horror scene. I was highly impressed by the creativity of those kids in that scene, and, as a big fan of horror films, I always wanted to see something like that happen at my school. But, alas, my friends and I didn’t have much talent for creating gore.

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You’re a female high school student and an aspiring journalist who enters into a contest sponsored by a local newspaper, hoping to win the prize of a summer internship at the publication with a scathing exposé on the nutritional value of your school’s lunches. When you find out that the journalism teacher who oversees the school paper didn’t deem your piece good enough to be one of the finalists in the contest, you decide it isn’t that your topic isn’t interesting or your article isn’t well written, but that you’re being discriminated against because you’re a girl. What do you do? Well, if you’re Terri Griffith (Joyce Hyser), the main character of the 1985 film Just One of the Guys, you cut off your hair, stick a sock in your pants, put on some of your brother’s clothes, and enroll in a neigboring high school as a guy to prove your point. Perfect logic, right?

Now, what do you do if the teacher in charge of your new school’s paper also thinks your exposé is boring, even though you’re now a guy? You keep up your charade to find something new to write about, of course. You befriend a loner who loves James Brown (Clayton Rohner) and give him a stud makeover. You make friends with the most popular girl in school (Deborah Goodrich), pissing off her meathead boyfriend (William Zabka). You unwittingly attract the attention of a hot girl (Sherilyn Fenn) who only wants to get in your pants. And you do this all while keeping your new, secret life from your preppy boyfriend (Leigh McCloskey).

Since your parents are conveniently out of town, and your horndog teenage brother (Billy Jacoby) and your best friend (Toni Hudson) are going along with your plot, things are pretty easy. That is, until you fall for your new nerd-turned-stud BFF and decide to take a chance and tell him who you really are — by showing him your boobs, of course. You’re heartbroken when he wants nothing to do with you, and the fact that the new article you wrote about life as a teenage boy won the local newspaper’s contest is only a small consolation. But don’t worry — everything works itself out. And your new, short haircut even looks cute on you.

Another classic so-bad-it’s-amazing movie from the 1980s that my brother and I used to watch all the time on cable. There’s a very good chance that Just One of the Guys contained my first encounter with “brief nudity” in a movie, and I’m surprised we got away with watching it. This film holds a special place in my heart because I developed a serious crush on Clayton Rohner after seeing it — a crush that, I admit, continues to this day. What can I say? I’m a sucker for obscure character actors.

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So, we’ve already discussed one of my favorite John Cusack movies, Better Off Dead. This week I thought we’d talk about the other film he did with director “Savage” Steve Holland: One Crazy Summer (1986). It’s a wacky, offbeat comedy starring Cusack as Hoops McCann, a wannabe basketball star who isn’t any good at the game, though he is a pretty decent cartoonist. He decides to channel his basketball frustrations into illustrating the perfect love story.

To help Hoops get some perspective, his good friend George (Joel Murray) takes him to Nantucket for the summer. Hoops meets all kinds of interesting characters, including the Stork twins (Bobcat Goldthwait and Tom Villard), who are mechanics; Ack-Ack (Curtis Armstrong), a marine’s son who just can’t please his father; and Cassandra (Demi Moore), a cornrow-sporting musician trying to save her grandfather’s house from a family of greedy land developers. As Hoops spends more time with this group, he begins to figure out more about himself and how to create his perfect love story.

As with many of my favorite ’80s films, the soundtrack doesn’t seem to be available for purchase, which is a shame. There are so many songs featured in One Crazy Summer that I associate with the film and many of its characters no matter when or where I hear them (”Down on the Corner” is a prime example). I managed to track down almost everything, though none of Demi Moore’s songs could be located, I’m sad to say. As always, if you have something that I couldn’t get my hands on, share it! Now, I’m off to watch a John Cusack movie marathon.

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“Fair is fair!” I don’t think that’s the official tagline of The Legend of Billie Jean (1985), but it’s certainly the favorite quote of anyone I know who loves the movie as much as I do. My brother and I often said it to our parents when we were getting in trouble as children, to which one of them would usually reply, “Do you want your $608?” I’ve been known to randomly text the phrase to friends on late drunken nights, though it’s much more effective when said in person, complete with double fist pump. And it’s through this quote that I bonded with a now very good friend as we reminisced about our favorite ’80s movies.

I wasn’t lucky enough to see The Legend of Billie Jean when it was in theaters, but it was a staple in my household via many, many airings on cable. I even still have the original videocassette we used to tape the movie off of HBO back in the day (believe it or not, the next movie on the tape is Supergirl). It’s a movie I never get sick of watching, and it’s a travesty that it still hasn’t been released on DVD.

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Inspired in a screwed-up way by the economic crisis and the chaos on Wall Street, this week’s pick is about a stockbroker pretending to be a high school student to escape his troubles, because let’s face it — there are probably plenty of stockbrokers who would like to go into hiding right now.

Hiding Out (1987) stars Jon Cryer as Andrew Morenski, a successful young broker who is supposed to testify against a mob boss but is forced into hiding when the other witnesses are killed and an attempt is made on his life. With practically nowhere else to go, he decides to hide out at his cousin Patrick’s (Keith Coogan) house and pose as high schooler Max Hauser, thinking there’s no way anyone will think to look for him there. Of course, he hasn’t been in high school in years, so he has to adjust quickly to how things have changed while still keeping his true identity a secret. This becomes increasingly difficult for him as he becomes popular with the student body and starts to fall for one of his classmates (Annabeth Gish). Eventually, the mobsters catch up with him and he has to stop running.

As a big fan of Cryer’s turn in Pretty in Pink, I was pretty excited when this movie came out. It’s nothing brilliant, but it’s fun and has some sentimental value, at least for me, and sometimes that’s all you need. The official soundtrack, which features Pretty Poison’s hit “Catch Me (I’m Falling),” is long out of print. I actually do have a copy of the CD, though, so I’ll give you the whole thing; I even included tracks that don’t appear on the official release. Listen to it as you run from your Wall Street troubles.

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I had a hard time deciding what soundtrack to offer you this week, and went through about five different ideas before time ran out and I chose Pump Up the Volume. Right now I’m wrapping up a work-related trip to Seattle, and I had thrown this movie’s soundtrack on the MP3 player to listen to on the plane — my version of the soundtrack, that is, which blends the official one with the tracks that didn’t make the cut. It’s made my travels a little happier, so I hope you enjoy the bonus songs.

Pump Up the Volume (1990) stars Christian Slater as Mark, a high school student from the east coast who moves with his family to Arizona. By day, Mark is a quiet, shy high school student, doing his best to keep a very low profile. By night, he’s Happy Harry Hard-On, the DJ of a popular pirate-radio show. Through his on-air personality, Mark pushes the limits and gets his peers to think about their lives, their school, and the injustices many of them are being dealt. “Happy Harry Hard-On” is a rebel, playing music that is nowhere near mainstream, ranting about the school and its faculty, and even engaging in a fake masturbation session or two. His show becomes extremely popular, and Harry is a hero amongst the teens who listen to him.

But when a student listener who speaks to Harry/Mark on the air kills himself, the community and the high school’s administrators want to put the blame on someone, and that someone is Harry. Mark struggles with his conscience after the death, and battles with the decision to put Harry to rest once and for all. But with the help of his new girlfriend, Nora (Samantha Mathis), Mark decides that Harry and his message are too important to go quietly into the night.

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Just so you don’t think I only watch films from the 1980s, this week I thought I’d step into the ’90s with Empire Records (1995). I love this movie about a Gen X-run independent record store for a few reasons. One is the nostalgia factor. It definitely makes me think of high school — Class of ‘96, in case you were wondering — and the many Saturday nights my friends and I watched it when we were too lazy to go out. It somewhat successfully attempts to capture the essence of my generation at the time (even though some sources tell me I’m part of the “Millennial Generation,” I consider myself to be a Gen Xer) with its hip, young cast, memorable characters, and quotable lines.

Another reason I love Empire Records is its hilariously unrealistic portrayal of working in a retail establishment. Anyone who’s worked retail will probably agree with me on that point. For example, Empire is a huge store, yet there are only one or two people on the floor at a time, usually just standing behind the registers. No wonder they have shoplifters. The staff, including the store manager, spend most of their time in the back room for one silly reason or another. (None of my managers had drum sets in their offices, though that would’ve been pretty fantastic.) The fake funeral — yeah, that would really happen. And how about that lenient stance on employee theft? Damn the man!

I could go on and on. I know it’s supposed to be an “indie” record store, but seriously. Okay, maybe I’m just bitter and jealous that I never worked in a place that fun.

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This week I give you a classic John Cusack film: 1985’s Better Off Dead. The first of his two movies with director “Savage” Steve Holland, and probably my favorite, Better Off Dead tells the tale of down-on-his-luck Lane Meyer. Lane’s beautiful and popular girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Wyss), has just broken up with him for jerk ski jock Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier). He begins thinking of elaborate ways to kill himself, only to fail miserably in the execution.

In addition to dealing with Stalin, who constantly goads Lane until he throws down a challenge to ski one of the most dangerous slopes in the area, Lane has to contend with his bizarre family, his crazy neighbors, and the overly persistent paperboy. In the midst of all this, Lane manages to find someone he can truly connect with: his wacko neighbors’ French exchange student, Monique (Diane Franklin). She shows him that there’s more to life than Beth and helps him stand up for himself and realize he has the confidence to beat 12 Roy Stalins at their own game.

Better Off Dead was always one of my favorite movies growing up. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “I want my TWO DOLLARS!” around my household. Not only did my brother and I recite the film’s more famous quotes, so did my parents. Of course, I have two of the coolest parents in existence, but that’s beside the point. If you’ve never seen this movie, you should run out and rent it right now. I promise, you won’t regret it.

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