July 26, 1985
THE HEAVENLY KID is another mildly-watchable but understandably forgotten also-ran from the overflowing Summer of 1985. It’s kind of a teen comedy and kind of an adult romance, with a fantastical/supernatural type gimmick.
It opens in the early ‘60s when Bobby Fontana (Lewis Smith, SOUTHERN COMFORT), a super cool James Dean type leather jacket wearing rebel, drives off a cliff during a dangerous challenge race over some macho bullshit (or “honor,” he calls it). He comes to on a crowded subway car that he doesn’t seem to realize is his transport to the afterlife. He’s stopped at the train station escalator to “Uptown,” and angel/bureaucrat/whatever Rafferty (Richard Mulligan, TEACHERS) puts him back on the train until he can receive his assignment to earn his way up.
So yeah, there’s some DEFENDING YOUR LIFE and BEETLEJUICE type satirical fantasy in here, but he’s on that train until 1985, when he’s finally given his mission to help out clueless high school nerd Lenny Barnes (Jason Gedrick right before IRON EAGLE). (read the rest of this shit…)
When it comes to Summer of 1985 fantasy movies that might be a little too dark and scary for their family audiences, 
THREE THE HARD WAY (1974) is directed by Gordon Parks Jr. (this is #3 of his four movies, after 
SLEIGHT is a 2016 film from director J.D. Dillard, who later did that fun woman-trapped-on-an-island-with-a-monster movie 
When Stuart Gordon died at the end of March I decided it was finally time to watch SPACE TRUCKERS, a movie I had been meaning to see for literally 23 years. You know how it is. You get busy sometimes.
THE OLD GUARD is a pretty good Pandemic Summer blockbuster, because I’m sure it would’ve felt underwhelming if it had been advertised for months and played on the big screen, but as a movie I read mentioned once or twice and never saw promoted until shortly before it dropped on Netflix, it was enjoyable.
Late last year there was this new entertainment websight or lifestyle brand or whatever that was kind enough to recruit me for a bi-weekly column about the films of badass cinema. After twelve installments I decided to quit, and a couple weeks later they closed up shop, because what would be the point of doing it without my column, and/or there was an unrelated scandal involving the company that owned them. But they were nice enough to give the writers permission to put up our pieces on our own blogs and what not.
I am a devotee of MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME. Obviously I love the whole series, some of them even more than this one, but there are many special qualities particular to this installment. 
