80s Movies: Aliens (1986)

Aliens, if you didn't already know, is the 1986 sequel to 1979's Alien. We've largely avoided sequels - and even the first films of franchises - during 80s movies month, with a couple of exceptions. But this one deserves including for a number of very good reasons.

Firstly, it's almost unilaterally agreed that this is the best of the Alien films. Start the old "sequels that were better than the first film" conversation in the pub and Aliens is usually one of the first films to get a mention.

Secondly, it's got some great people in it, most of whom I associate specifically with that decade. Sigourney Weaver has come to be defined by her role as Ellen Ripley (and, of course, also starred in 1984's Ghostbusters). Lance Henriksen delivers a star performance as Bishop. Bill Paxton is... well, Bill Paxton, in that same meathead character he always plays - here it's Pvt Hudson, but it could easily be bonehead Chet from Weird Science or the slightly more well-meaning Bill Harding from Twister.

There's also Paul Reiser - the comedian I know best from My Two Dads and Mad About You. Here he's playing a slightly dubious, whose-side-is-he-on company suit. It's an odd casting choice but, like each of the others in Aliens, it works well.

80s Movies: Highlander (1986)

Highlander is a fine example of not just film-making, but legend-making. In a single movie it created a world that has become easily recognisable from a single image (Sean Connery atop a ruined castle; Christopher Lambert surrounded by lightning) or line ("There can be only one."). As a story, it spawned a franchise including the greatest number of straight-to-TV movies that I can easily bring to mind. There always seems to be a MacLeod running around decapitating immortals on one satellite channel or another.

Christopher Lambert is great in this movie. I think it's fair to call it a career-defining role for him. Sean Connery plays a pretty important part, given that his actual appearances throughout the film are relatively few in the grander scale of the storyline. The two of them easily dominate the film, in the best possible way, with the kind of friendship that only a shared burden - that of the immortals - and an off-screen camaraderie could produce.

In fact, friendship plays a recurring theme throughout the film - given the seemingly solitary nature of being immortal, MacLeod manages to befriend a number of his counterparts, which leaves me wondering how the plot might have unfolded if they were the only ones left (given that "there can be only one"...).

80s Movies: Flight of the Navigator (1986)

Today's 80s movie is genuinely one of my all-time favourites, despite the fact that I still don't think I fully understand what happens in it. Joey Cramer stars as 12-year-old David Scott Freeman in one of the most believable alien abduction storylines ever made. I mean, of course it doesn't have you thinking they actually hired some aliens to come make the film with them - but it's very easy to suspend disbelief and go along with this one, which makes for a smooth ride.

As for understanding Flight of the Navigator: it's set in 1978. But the first thing that happens is that David travels eight years into the future, to 1986 (which is actually the present, in terms of when the film was made). Only he hasn't travelled into the future really - he's just forgotten the eight years in between, which he lived through. But they wouldn't have seemed like eight years to him anyway; they'd have seemed like only a few minutes, perhaps, as he spent the time travelling faster than light speed to the planet of Phaelon and back.

For a kids' film, it's a pretty convoluted plotline involving aliens, time travel, relativity, genetics, astrometric starcharts, spacecraft with the morphing abilities of the T-1000, and Sarah Jessica Parker. It's not easy to grasp - and it's the 80s, so the military show up in force - but it's a lot of fun and the peril is low even on the zero-to-mild scale.

80s Movies: Short Circuit (1986)

"No disassemble, Stephanie!" - because to be disassembled is to be dead. That one premise pretty much sums up the plot of Short Circuit. Weirdly, the actual central theme of the movie is of outsiders - Ally Sheedy (WarGames, The Breakfast Club) is stuck in what seems like a dead-end relationship and a fairly unfulfilling career, while Fisher Stevens (Hackers, Super Mario Bros.) as Ben Jabituya is an ethnic stereotype that would be unlikely to make it past the first script meeting these days. Along with Number 5 (who also appears in Short Circuit 2) and Steve Guttenberg (Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby) as Newton Crosby, the main protagonists of this film are all either out of place or downright outcasts.

Despite that fact, they are never portrayed as anti-heroes - instead, we're with them from the very beginning, which in itself paints Number 5 as something of a coward when, newly enlivened by being struck by lightning, he runs away from the military training field and begins the wild goose chase that forms the storyline for the rest of the film.

80s Movies: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Ah Ferris Bueller's Day Off, now here's a classic 80s movie if ever there was one. The story of one man's struggle to take it easy, to quote the tagline on the posters, was a massive success in 1986, and has gone on to become a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of fun-loving, anti-authoritarian slackers everywhere.

Strangely I don't think I saw this movie until atleast 2003 when was at university, so I can't really blame it for my own lazy, work-shy approach to life, the seeds of which were certainly already in place by the age of 18 (don't you just hate when you can't pin all your personal shortcomings on popular culture). Anyway, when I did see it I had high expectations, and I was absolutely not disappointed.

Writer and director John Hughes made this movie coming off the back of successes with The Breakfast Club and Weird Science in 1985, and was already a hot property in Hollywood. He wrote Ferris Bueller as a tribute to his native Chicago, and with Matthew Broderick (Wargames) already in mind for the title character. Broderick was 23 at the time of filming, but had the young looks and innocent boyish smile to pull off the role of charming high-school truant with aplomb.

80s Movies: Labyrinth (1986)

You remind me of the babe. What babe? The babe with the power... Labyrinth remains one of my absolute favourite movies - and not in a nostalgic way, either. I love it because... well, partly because it's a full-on 80s movie, but also for a million other reasons. Brilliant dialogue, superb puppetry, two of my favourite actors - David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Zoolander) and Jennifer Connelly (Inventing the Abbotts, Dark City) - and a storyline that's genuinely unpredictable.

We're talking about a film that is forever in my recently watched DVDs pile - and when I'm not watching it, I'm often listening to Bowie's incredible soundtrack. Majestic, magical, and much-maligned, his compositions might not be totally timeless but they suit the film absolutely perfectly.