MTV Is Dead: The 7 Best Films of 1983

Thirty-five years ago the movie landscape looked a lot like it does in 2018. So far this year we've seen the release of a Star Wars movie, a gangster remake, a teen comedy, a few coming-of-age films, a Tom Cruise flick and the Christmas movies are only a couple of months away. Maybe there's something to that line about the more things changing, the more they stay the same.

7. A Christmas Story

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There's a reason this movie is aired 24 hours straight on Christmas Day every single year. It's funny and a reminder of what it's like to be a kid during the holidays. This is the movie that taught millions of kids not to touch poles with their tongues in the middle of winter. It also inspired millions of dumb kids to give it a try.

6. Krull

5. Private School

Private School exemplifies what Hollywood did best in the 1980s -- teen comedies. In the 1990s, Tinseltown tried to duplicate it success with the genre with less than stellar results. But then again, flicks like Private School set the bar so high that the effort was probably guaranteed to fail. Familiar faces abound, including: 80s superstars Matthew Modine, Martin Mull, Phoebe Cates and Sylvia Kristel; and Betsy Russell, who went on to portray serial killing moralist Jigsaw's wife in the Saw franchise.

4. WarGames

WarGames made Matthew Broderick a star. Yep, it came out 3 years before Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's also one of the few decent movies about computer hackers (Ferris also had hacking skills and used them to change his grades -- just like David, the hacker in WarGames). The story illustrated the potential destruction that hackers (and to a greater extent, governments with stockpiles of nuclear weapons) can cause. But it probably inspired more people to want to be hackers than not. The movie also introduced the general public to NORAD -- North American Aerospace Defense Command -- a facility built under the Rockies for use in protecting the President and other government VIPs in case of a nuclearr attack. It's worth noting that David, the hacker who starts all the trouble in the movie, lives in Seattle, which is a 19-minute drive from the birthplace of Microsoft -- Bellevue, Washington. A software developer in the movie, Dr. Stephen Falken, even has a drone shaped like a pterodactyl.

The deal is that David hacks into what he thinks is a video game company computer, but is really a classified U.S. Air Force program designed to launch a nuclear strike under threat conditions. The software uses war simulations to learn but while David thinks he's playing a video game, the system, the War Operations Plan Response (W.O.P.R. -- Yeah, exactly.) believes the U.S. has been attacked by the Soviet Union. If the system responds accordingly it will initiate World War III, which would be devastating to North America, Asia and possible the entire planet. The best line is the computer asking, "Shall we play a game?"

The Terminator, which features a supercomputer that develops artificial intelligence -- Skynet -- that does initiate Global Thermonuclear War in order to kill off mankind, hit theaters the very next year. Somehow, the planet and mankind survive in that movie.

3. The Outsiders

The Outsiders is a virtual Who's Who of 80s superstars. You've got Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Ralph Macchio, and Patrick Swayze all in one movie. On top of all that, music legend Stevie Wonder provided the film's theme song.

The movie's real strength, however, lies in its unforgettable story of male teen-hood during the "greaser" era.

2. Return of the Jedi

This would-be conclusion to the Star Wars saga has not held up well in some respects. While it garnered critical praise when it debuted, Return of the Jedi is now the lowest rated entry in the original trilogy. The ewoks were always a bad idea, the "Special Edition" updates are anything but improvements, Harrison Ford is noticeably fatter despite being in suspended animation since The Empire Strikes Back (c'mon it was only three years -- Carrie Fisher's wearing a bikini for fuck's sake) and Boba Fett's death is just lazy. But then again, the stream of Star Wars releases since ROTJ debut have made it look better and better.

There really is a lot to admire. The space scenes were, and still are, outstanding. The Death Star run at the end of the movie is phenomenal. There is nothing like it anywhere else in cinema. Speaking of which, the Death Star itself looks incredible. As redundant as it is, the unfinished Death Star 2.0 looks so much better than the final product -- seen in Star Wars. Better still, the dogfight in space is the absolute best of any movie of any era -- with the possible exception of 2016's Rogue One. The fact that it was done without the benefit of CGI is astounding.

Darth Vader fulfills the prophecy that he'd bring balance to the Force -- for the second time (the first was 20 years earlier in Revenge of the Sith) -- and in spectacular fashion as he allows his son to beat him in a fight (which is really the only way Luke had any chance at all, given that Vader had not one, but two Force mentors and had been a Force practitioner for about 30 years before Luke ever even saw a lightsaber) and ultimately behaves like any real father of any galaxy. Think about the revelations regarding Vader's progeny and consider the ramifications in context of the suffering he willfully inflicted on the heroes during the first two films. If the movie isn't complicated, the man certainly is (at least he is until his actions defy all logic, common sense and even the slightest semblance of actual human behavior in the prequels).

Jabba the Hutt is stupendous as the absurdly overweight drug kingpin. He shows that you don't have to carry a gun, wear an expensive suit or even be human to be a gangster. He also introduces sex into the Star Wars universe. It's impossible to ignore the strippers and sex slaves (wearing collars attached to chains, no less) roaming around his palace. When you see the hate in Princess Leia's eyes it's clear that she'd felt more than Jabba's gaze.

The Emperor is at his best and the stoicism of his silent, red-clad Imperial Guard is a nice, ominous touch.

Lando Calrissian becomes the hero and quite possibly proves that Han Solo is not the best pilot to have manned the controls of the Millenium Falcon.

It's also nice to see what Luke has become -- and a little chilling to see what he may be becoming. Take note of his color of choice, for example. The apple doesn't seem to fall very far from the tree in the Skywalker family. For better or worse (or perhaps, for better and worse), his past has taken quite a toll on him. The excitable kid that couldn't wait to leave the farm in Star Wars is gone
forever.

For a time, the movie was officially titled, Revenge of the Jedi. There are plenty of posters with that title still floating around eBay. Supposedly, the title was changed because the thinking was that vengeance is out of character for jedi. The fact is, vengeance seems to be exactly what Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda have in mind. According to a Los Angeles Times interview with Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back producer Gary Kurtz, certain script ideas, such as Han Solo being killed in the middle of the movie and ending the film with Luke Skywalker walking off "like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns," were abandoned because the happier ending was thought to be more conducive to increased toy sales. Just think -- this popcorn movie could have been art. Oh, well.

1. Scarface

Since at least 2011, Universal Pictures, the studio that owns the rights to the Scarface franchise, has been planning a third incarnation of the legendary story. Yep, third. Contrary to popular misconception, Al Pacino's 1983 classic about a Cuban immigrant-turned-cocaine kingpin is actually a remake of a 1933 classic about an Italian immigrant-turned-beer baron. The Tony Montana version was released 51 years after the original.

The early 80s remake was written by Oscar-winner Oliver Stone. Modern movie fans aren't familiar with Paul Muni, the star of the original film, who brought that version's Tony Camonte to life. But Al Pacino's Tony Montana is seared into pop culture. Pacino/Montana's best lines have been sampled in countless hip hop songs and his face remains a hugely popular image on countless t-shirts, posters and screensavers. Let's not forget about the video game -- 2006's Scarface: The World is Yours.

FYI, the original Scarface was loosely based on the life and career of Al Capone. The title itself was borrowed from his nickname. Rumor has it that Capone even sent a letter to the movie's director Howard Hawks that read, "Thanks for the immortality."