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Rewinding The ’80s
Cinema Under the Influence of Music Videos, Action Stars, and a Cold War
Description
Take a trip back to your favorite video store with this in-depth journey through the highs and lows of 80s cinema—with profiles of hundreds of films—and how Hollywood studios around the globe reflected a period of cultural change.
The movies were flying blind in 1980. “New Hollywood” was over and the era of auteur-driven, personal films that had defined moviemaking since the late ‘60s came to a symbolic end with Heaven’s Gate (1980), replaced by a new world of multiplex blockbusters supported by massive marketing campaigns. But beyond the high-school comedies and hardbody action films came a new wave of cinematic excitement—an era defined by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Purple Rain, When Harry Met Sally, E.T., and Top Gun, each of which are now classics for a new generation of nostalgic movie lovers. The decade saw works that uniquely captured an era of cultural and technological change, from new indie auteurs to the highs and lows of animation, an emergent LGBTQ+ cinema, the last days of the Cold War, and the explosive impact of MTV. With wit and authority, author John Malahy provides fresh insight about the films, filmmakers, and stars who illuminated each of the exciting new facets of Hollywood throughout the decade.
Illustrated with more than 200 full-color photos, Rewinding the ’80s is a lively, intelligent, and immersive look at an indelible moment in modern history.
The movies were flying blind in 1980. “New Hollywood” was over and the era of auteur-driven, personal films that had defined moviemaking since the late ‘60s came to a symbolic end with Heaven’s Gate (1980), replaced by a new world of multiplex blockbusters supported by massive marketing campaigns. But beyond the high-school comedies and hardbody action films came a new wave of cinematic excitement—an era defined by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Purple Rain, When Harry Met Sally, E.T., and Top Gun, each of which are now classics for a new generation of nostalgic movie lovers. The decade saw works that uniquely captured an era of cultural and technological change, from new indie auteurs to the highs and lows of animation, an emergent LGBTQ+ cinema, the last days of the Cold War, and the explosive impact of MTV. With wit and authority, author John Malahy provides fresh insight about the films, filmmakers, and stars who illuminated each of the exciting new facets of Hollywood throughout the decade.
Illustrated with more than 200 full-color photos, Rewinding the ’80s is a lively, intelligent, and immersive look at an indelible moment in modern history.
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Praise
“[An] entertaining chronicle of the blockbuster films of the 1980s. . . . Using quotes from critics, interviews with actors and directors, and more than 200 photographs, Malahy takes readers for an enjoyable ride through a decade of excess.”
—Library Journal
“A coffee table compendium that covers a heroic amount of ’80s cinema. It’s equal parts guidebook and catalog, with attention to exploring something beyond the blockbusters and Brat Pack epics that make up so much of our cultural-visual shorthand for the Reagan Era.”
—Nashville Scene
“A brightly illustrated, fun to read look back at the decade, the era when home video (primarily VHS) and cable provided new production channels for filmmakers and new ways for audiences to watch. Music videos proliferated, multiplexes mushroomed despite competition from home entertainment and ‘’the robust market for soundtrack albums’ changed the way music was used in movies.”
—Shepherd Express
