Flashdance, 1983.
This movie is just ace. My sister is the dancer in our family, but this movie about a female welder, who achieves her dancing dream with no training, was enough to allow me to dream! This is such a sexy movie, the early 80’s fashion and music is perfect; off the shoulder sweat tops, killer red heels, perms and trashy electro girls dancing at the bar. Jennifer Beals as Alex, is gorgeous, and the fact that the famous dance at the end was danced by a man in a wig makes this movie even more super!
Dogs In Space, 1986.
Starring the late Michael Hutchence, who was, possibly one of the most handsome men ever to walk the planet, this indie film is gritty but beautiful. The lead characters played by Hutchence and Saskia Post are just stunning, the film has a really romantic undercurrent beneath the melancholy and drama of these social misfits in Melbourne.
St Elmo’s Fire, 1985.
Without question, a classic of the 80’s. This is a true American ‘Coming of Age’ movie and I adore it. The characters, the story line and the aesthetics are so of its era. Demi Moore is sexy as hell in it and I cannot get enough of the young Andrew McCarthy. The pink apartment with an over sized painting of Billy Idol on the wall makes this film just about as perfect as it gets.
True Romance, 1993.
The word sexy does not even come close when describing this movie. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are mesmerizing, and Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken are just about the coolest thing ever. Arquette’s character, Alabama Whirly is one of my biggest icons in life, she’s just about the most cutest, feistiest and sexiest girl that my eyes ever saw, and the love story in this is heart thumpingly good. The early 90’s fashion with kitsch pops of colour is beauuutiful, the whole styling of this movie rocks my ruddy world.
Pretty In Pink, 1986.
I don’t know how any girl could not love this movie. So perfectly 80’s, this film started off my love affair with thrift and vintage. Molly Ringwald’s character is the poor girl in a school full of ‘rich kids’ and she hangs with the indie crowd. Her fashion is thrifty, lacy, pink and eclectic. She remakes an old second hand dress into her prom dress and her individuality and refusal to conform was a big inspiration to me as a young girl. Again, this stars the superbly handsome Andrew McCarthy and the love story running through the movie is genuinely sweet. One of a whole heap of John Hughes movies from this era, his movies were perfect at capturing the American idea of growing up; high school stereotypes, rich kids, poor kids, proms and American suburbia. When I lived in USA as a student years later, I was quite thrilled to find that many of these fictitious facts were actually very real. America was just like in the movies, the parties we went to made me feel like I was in a John Hughes movie for real! The character Iona, played by Annie Potts, seen with a beehive in these pictures, had a massive influence on me. I loved her quirkiness and I think she made me wanna grow up to be like her; to have my own business and be able to wear 50’s prom dresses whenever I liked. Yay, dream achieved.
The Doom Generation, 1995.
An American boyfriend in the late 1990’s introduced me to this movie and I fell in love with it straight away. So frickin sassy, Rose McGowan is so cool in this, the styling is sexy and a perfect example of the time. Twisted and weird, this film has heaps of style and abstract nonsense. It kinda parodies the horror genre whilst at the same time meaning what it says. Just ace.
Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985.
Aesthetics are equally as important to me as the plot when I watch a movie, I have to find beauty in the actors and actresses and the fashion and the styling. All these movies here are beautiful to me, my eyes literally spin with glee at the coolness, sexiness and gorgeousness of them. Desperately Seeking Susan is up there with the best of them for me. I’m not a massive Madonna fan by any means but, in the 80’s she was amazing, and the character she plays here is so effortlessly cool. Her fashion is superb, she’s a bubble-gum chewing, thrift wearing girl with the best attitude and I love it. I still, to this day wanna find a pair of ankle boots exactly like hers. This is 80’s fashion at it’s utter best.
Natural Born Killers, 1994.
One of THE best movies ever made. Based on a screenplay written by Tarantino, this movie, directed by Oliver Stone is stunning. I consider it an out and out love story. A bloody, gun shooting, mass murdering, drug addled love story. Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson are two of my most favourite actors and they are spellbinding in this. I can never get bored of this 90’s classic. The trippy cartoon sections and the underlying message of mass media overdose is amazing. This is a film I will always count as a masterpiece.
The Breakfast Club, 1985.
Another classic from John Hughes, this movie is heartwarming and hilarious. Great characters, and I love the fact that it’s set in one time and one place. Again, the fashion and music is 80’s through and through, as a girl growing up in a small English town, movies like this were thrilling to escape into.
Clerks, 1994.
This is still one of the films I have most laughed at. I love all of Kevin Smith’s films, but this is just the best. Perfectly acted, such a dry and sarcastic script which is hard to get in American movies. Filmed in black and white and set in one place, on one day, Clerks is a work of genius.
