“
In reality, videogames did not come to life and fictional spaceships did not buzz your hometown. Implausible shit like that only happened in cheesy ’80s movies, like TRON or WarGames or The Last Starfighter.
”
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Ernest Cline (Armada)
“
Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.
”
”
Bert V. Royal (Easy "A")
“
I lived through those books, songs, television shows, and movies - the way the characters talked, looked, acted. I thought that could translate over into reality, that I could make their world my world. I wanted so badly to run away from my life. But you can't bury yourself in other people's pages and scenes. You aren't David Copperfield or Tom Sawyer. Those love songs on the radio might speak to you, but they're not about you or the person you pine for. Life is not a John Hughes film.
”
”
Jason Diamond (Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from '80s Movies)
“
Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.
”
”
Easy A movie
“
I was racking up prescription slips like Boy Scout badges. What didn't I have?
”
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Jason Diamond (Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from '80s Movies)
“
to be a Cubs fan is both a birthright and a curse.
”
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Jason Diamond (Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from '80s Movies)
“
Jane remembers those years, though, as if they had been [a movie]--in part because her friends...always talked about everything as if it was over ("Remember last night?"), while holding out the possibility that whatever happened could be rerun. Neil didn't have that sense of things. He thought people shouldn't romanticize ordinary life. "Our struggles, our little struggles," he would whisper, in bed, at night. Sometimes he or she would click on some of the flashlights and consider the ceiling, with the radiant swirls around the bright nuclei, the shadows like opened oysters glistening in brine. (In the '80s, the champagne was always waiting.)
”
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Ann Beattie (Walks With Men)
“
...among a certain generation of people, the work I did as a young man will forever burn brightest... more importantly, it is the memory of the work that is so valuable to people. Because in the memory of those movies exists a touchstone of youth, of when life was all ahead, when the future was a blank slate, when anything was possible.
”
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Andrew McCarthy (Brat: An '80s Story)
“
Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boom box outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.
”
”
Olive Penderghast
“
The modern geek is more than just a refined version of the stereotypical movie geek from the ’80s.
”
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Jeff Potter (Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food)
“
He looks like the rich-boy villain in an '80s teen movie - the one who bullies the sensitive misfit, the one who will end up with a pie in the puss, the whipped cream wilting his upturned collar as everyone in the cafeteria cheers.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
“
The ’80s were a much simpler time, mainly because the only superhero movie franchise anyone could complain about was Superman, and the Internet didn’t exist so you couldn’t even complain about it to too many people—just, like, your mom and maybe your imaginary friend or whatever
”
”
Brian Alan Ellis (A Series of Pained Facial Expressions Made While Shredding Air Guitar)
“
The Government set the stage economically by informing everyone that we were in a depression period, with very pointed allusions to the 1930s. The period just prior to our last 'good' war. ... Boiled down, our objective was to make killing and military life seem like adventurous fun, so for our inspiration we went back to the Thirties as well. It was pure serendipity. Inside one of the Scripter offices there was an old copy of Doc Smith's first LENSMAN space opera. It turned out that audiences in the 1970s were more receptive to the sort of things they scoffed at as juvenilia in the 1930s. Our drugs conditioned them to repeat viewings, simultaneously serving the ends of profit and positive reinforcement. The movie we came up with stroked all the correct psychological triggers. The fact that it grossed more money than any film in history at the time proved how on target our approach was.'
'Oh my God... said Jonathan, his mouth stalling the open position.
'Six months afterward we ripped ourselves off and got secondary reinforcement onto television. We pulled a 40 share. The year after that we phased in the video games, experimenting with non-narcotic hypnosis, using electrical pulses, body capacitance, and keying the pleasure centers of the brain with low voltage shocks. Jesus, Jonathan, can you *see* what we've accomplished? In something under half a decade we've programmed an entire generation of warm bodies to go to war for us and love it. They buy what we tell them to buy. Music, movies, whole lifestyles. And they hate who we tell them to. ... It's simple to make our audiences slaver for blood; that past hasn't changed since the days of the Colosseum. We've conditioned a whole population to live on the rim of Apocalypse and love it. They want to kill the enemy, tear his heart out, go to war so their gas bills will go down! They're all primed for just that sort of denouemment, ti satisfy their need for linear storytelling in the fictions that have become their lives! The system perpetuates itself. Our own guinea pigs pay us money to keep the mechanisms grinding away. If you don't believe that, just check out last year's big hit movies... then try to tell me the target demographic audience isn't waiting for marching orders. ("Incident On A Rainy Night In Beverly Hills")
”
”
David J. Schow (Seeing Red)
“
Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one in the journalism community is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband, David, has left her, and her career has stagnated. Regardless of why Evelyn has chosen her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jump-start her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s Upper East Side apartment, Monique listens as Evelyn unfurls her story: from making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the late ’80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way. As Evelyn’s life unfolds—revealing a ruthless ambition, an unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love—Monique begins to feel a very a real connection to the actress. But as Evelyn’s story catches up with the present, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
”
”
Taylor Jenkins Reid (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo)
“
By sighing and saying, “Remember when” too many times, one can fall into the trap of believing the present holds nothing sacred, the past nothing profane.
”
”
Kevin Smokler (Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to '80s Teen Movies)
“
Outside, the sign says “Sushi-Yo” in bright green neon letters. Inside it looks like a sushi bar frozen in time from the ‘80s. They’re playing Ghostbusters on a neon jukebox. Old-fashioned pinball machines light up the corner. The booths are themed after popular bands and movies.
”
”
Sheri Fink (Cake in Bed)
“
It feels like we're in some old movie from an ancient time like before they invented computers and internet and cell phones. You know, like the 80's.
”
”
Sybil Nelson (The Kiss of Life)
“
You said that like a movie title.”
“I know. I was thinking of Bill and Ted.”
“You think our sex life is like an ‘80s stoner comedy?”
Billy grinned. “No, but I do think it’s an Excellent Adventure.
”
”
Nick Pageant (Billy's Turn (Rose City Stories #2))
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When we return to our elementary school playground or the site of our first kiss, we're dropping in on our own history years later. Visiting those same places in the present not only collapses time, but also memory.
”
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Kevin Smokler (Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to '80s Teen Movies)
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moving as seamlessly from sex to violence as an ’80s action movie.
”
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Daniel Polansky (A City Dreaming)
“
Time travel ain’t no Michael J. Fox movie. You
mess with timelines, you might end up with butterfly effects that’ll make Chernobyl look like a spilled Slurpee.
”
”
River L. Davis (Gnarly Little Thrill)
“
How can I be ?
Proud of my struggle, but having nothing to show.
Guns , petrol, tires , gas, everything blows
Now I am standing on top of Museum building burned into ashes.
It Is smoke in the mirrors.
Look at our Repercussions.
Our legacy, our reputation.
Canvas and portraits of arrogance
Lies, deception, fractions results of politicians
Insurrection results of a failed mission
Blood used to paint our image
Poor quality in this fotos, because nothing changed.
You might think it is the 80’s,
because you can see tribalism and racism.
A perfect black and white picture.
Sound of freedom turned into sound of violence,
Ambulance, Police siren , people crying and dying
Hunger and poverty used as tourists attraction
They say look more poorer, so we can get more donation.
I am getting global media coverage,
Because I am queuing and walking long distance for food,
Not because we are getting killed , abused and treated unfairly.
They look at me and say Africa is starving
Took my pics , post them on social media. Now they are laughing.
Being born with a price tag, that says you not worth it, because your black.
Government looted everything from the poor
Now the poor are looting the government.
It is like a stolen movie.
Those who started it all and who are behind it, are not getting their credit and spotlight .
If we change looting to colonization , then they would be heroes.
Not sure whether to say goodbye or good night
Because when you're in Phoenix , this might be your last night.
”
”
D.J. Kyos
“
Life, unfortunately, is not like an ‘80s movie, in which a character has an epiphany, a triumphal rock track plays on the soundtrack, and everyone smiles at one another: roll end credits. If my teenage years were a movie, they were more like an extremely depressing and directionless European art house film that goes on for ten hours with no logical character motivation.
”
”
Hadley Freeman (Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia)
“
the ’80s is known as the Greed Decade, then for Black people in horror, it was the Bleed Decade, with almost every major Black character in a major studio horror movie biting the bullet… or the axe… or the machete… or the impossibly sharp ceiling fan.
”
”
Robin R. Means Coleman (The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror Cinema from Fodder to Oscar)
“
It's the last day of the first month of the new mill ... mil ... whatever. We don't have space ships, robot butlers or hoverboards. 80s movies lied to us.
”
”
Rachael Eyre (Diary of a Teenage Lesbian)
“
Basically, it was the equivalent of Star Trek II adding in a quick scene of Spock mind melding with Dr. “Bones” McCoy while saying “Remember” as a lifeline to resituate the doomed Spock in the third Star Trek movie, to tell audiences that there was a possibility of life after death for their fallen hero.
”
”
Jason Waguespack (Rise and Fall of the 80s Toon Empire: A Behind the Scenes Look at When He-Man, G.I. Joe and Transformers Ruled The Airwaves (Rise and Fall of the Syndicated Toon Empire Book 1))
“
1970. Life was so good in the 70s and 80s compared to these days with no cell phones, killer music, awesome movies, classic cars and EVERYONE GOT ALONG GREAT.
”
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J. Micha-el Thomas Hays (Book Series Update and Urgent Status Report: Vol. 3 (Rise of the New World Order Status Report))
“
Full disclosure. I’m a guy weaned on the reruns of 1970’s and 80’s action/adventure TV shows. You couple that with a pretty white trash upbringing that, when not down at the comic book shop and learning about the art of Jack Cole and obscure Italian crime movies from Von Rudy, translated into an inordinate amount of time spent hanging around Lemons Speedway unsupervised while my mother looked for love, and you’ll see that my convincing a broken down daredevil stuntman drinking buddy of my mom’s named No Eyes Majewsky into teaching me how to pull out of a parking space like Jim Rockford and then raise hell on four wheels seemed like the most natural thing in the world.
”
”
Adam Marsh (ATOMIC BEBOP HULLABALOO (A Dizzy Pendergrass Happening))
“
Screws fall out all the time. The world's an imperfect place.
”
”
John Bender
“
Jeez, these kids are so date-y. As in the guys wear suits and they go out to dinner. Did sixteen year olds EVER do this? You see this a lot in 80s teen movies too. Maybe I am just jaded, because nowadays sixteen year olds have orgies in their finished basements.
”
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Robin Hardwick (If You Lived Here, You'd Be Perfect By Now: The Unofficial Guide to Sweet Valley High)
“
The Outsiders.” Yeah, I’m an 80’s movie nerd.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Absent-mindedly she stroked her belly, trying not to imagine that it already felt a little rounder.
”
”
Michelle Duffy (Trapped in an 80s Teen Movie)
“
I held the sign above my head for a moment like the guy in one of Emerson's favorite '80s movie say anything and prayed that from the back of the room Emerson was smiling but I couldn't see her. I have a speech planed. But I was paralyzed just mutely stood there holding my sign I knew I was making a fool out of myself but I couldn't say a word Emerson had to know she was the only person I would ever do this for. "Ask her!" Clarissa had her hands cupped around her mouth shouting up at me she yelled it out again "ask her!" already a few of her teammates picked up the chant "ask her! ask her! ask her!" I still couldn't see Emerson and I forgot every word of my speech but I took a deep breath. "Emerson, prom?" Every second felt like an eternity once those words left my mouth the audience was silent I felt abuse sweat trickle from my brow but then I saw her Emerson walked briskly up the center aisle of the auditorium and a relief caressed through my veins because she was smiling she ran up the steps and I dropped the sign on to the floor split the difference of the stage stopping a foot in front of her I stared at her my heart in my throat "yes!" she said with a huge grin a smile spread over my face and I sprung forward and wrapped her in a huge hug the audience started clapping and she wrapped her arms around me tightly. I hadn't admitted my feelings yet but this was definitely a good start.
”
”
Betty Cayouette (One Last Shot)