Three Favorite Movies in STRANGER THINGS 3

*Warning! Mild spoilers ahead, but only related to minor incidents. No major plot points are discussed.

The third season of Stranger Things continues its love affair with all things 80s, including the movies of that decade and the heyday of the local video rental store, which gives the final episode of the season an opportunity to name drop a number of films that reveal aspects of the characters' personalities. A visit to the video store presents fan favorite Steve and new character Robin with an opportunity to name their three favorite films as a test of their movie knowledge and personal taste. Not surprisingly, Steve goes with some pretty obvious recent choices, while Robin plays the movie snob card by naming three classic films.

Robin (played by Maya Hawke) appears throughout the season as a new kind of girl in the character mix, but one with her own 80s movie roots. She's the edgy, prickly, smart girl who doesn't care about popularity or the usual high school status symbols. Sarcastic and bored with her job at Scoops Ahoy, she torments Steve but also proves herself to be a useful, loyal friend to the former high school golden boy. When asked to name her three favorite movies, Robin lists The Apartment (1960), The Hidden Fortress (1958), and Children of Paradise (1945). Her picks are especially esoteric for a teenager living in small town America in the mid 1980s, where it would have been difficult to see any of those three pictures, but they're intended to show her as a "serious" cineaste who leans toward foreign classics and film school standards. They immediately win the approval of the video store clerk, as well.

Steve's taste is, as Robin admits, "pedestrian" in comparison with her own. His picks, after much stumbling, are Animal House (1978), Return of the Jedi (1983), and Back to the Future (1985), the last of which Steve had just caught parts of during his misadventures with Robin, Dustin, and Erica. We've seen Steve grow a lot as a character since his initial appearance in Season One, but his first choice of Animal House reminds us of the kind of guy Steve used to be and might have remained if not for his experiences with the other Hawkins kids. He doesn't know the names of the specific episodes of Star Wars, either, and he loses even more credibility with the clerk by saying he likes "the one with the teddy bears" instead of going with the more fanboy approved The Empire Strikes Back. Ironically, Robin has included in her list Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, one of the films that George Lucas heavily borrowed from for A New Hope, thus showing that the best approach is to name not an actual Star Wars film at all but to show your depth of knowledge by picking one of its inspirations.

In a season packed with movie references, especially shout outs to horror films like Day of the Dead (1985), The Thing (1982), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 and 1978 are equally relevant), and Alien (1979), along with a heavy dose of The Terminator (1984), the final episode's video store scene is a chance for the show to engage the cultural significance of movies very directly and mention some films that fall outside its horror/action/80s frame of reference. Robin's list is more about a hardcore movie buff's idea of what matters, but Steve's list is more in tune with the specific cultural moment in which the show takes place.

Honestly, in retrospect, they're both perfectly good lists, just reflective of very different movie watching moods and perspectives. When I was 18, back in 1990, I certainly hadn't yet seen any of Robin's picks, but I had seen all three of Steve's (I only saw Animal House because I was in college by then and away from parents who strictly cut off my access to R rated films). My top three would probably have been something like The Princess Bride (1987), The Lost Boys (1987), and, yes, Return of the Jedi (I also like the teddy bears. Fight me.)

What were your three favorite movies when you were 18? Were they "classics" or things you had only recently seen for the first time? How does your knowledge of movies - from the 80s or otherwise - enhance your enjoyment of a show like Stranger Things? I'd love to see your thoughts in the comments!

PS - If you're interested in my early teenage experiences with serious cinema watching back in the 1980s, check out "My First Summer of Cinema - 1988."

Reel Resistance: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

When it comes to movies that deliver on vicarious Nazi punching, it's hard to beat the original Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). The third installment of the trilogy is good for that, too, but the 1981 picture features all the adventure of a classic serial and all the patriotic verve of WWII era Hollywood. It plays like a feel-good morale booster for a dark time, and that's what makes it such an excellent movie to revisit in 2017. These are the times that try men's - and women's - souls, and sometimes you just really want to watch the Ark of the Covenant melt off Nazi faces.

Of course, Harrison Ford's errant archeologist is a terrible example of an academic; imagine being his department head or an unfortunate student in one of his classes. You'd have to mount your own expedition into the heart of darkness just to get your graded midterm back. His research methods and cavalier attitude toward site preservation probably drive real archeologists to drink. It's clear that Steven Spielberg's movie really wants to differentiate its heroic tomb raider from the villainous ones, which is why Jones is an archeologist who steals things to put them in museums rather than sell them for his own gain.

Archeological ethics aside, Raiders holds up beautifully more than 35 years after its original release. It's still a delight even if you know every line of dialogue by heart. Every fight and action sequence retains its excitement, a testament to the film's pacing and score as well as the performers themselves. Ford is very much the swashbuckling star, but Karen Allen's Marion has tremendous appeal of her own, especially when she's out-drinking men twice her size. Characters in these films have become old friends to many fans, including Denholm Elliot's delightfully dotty Marcus Brody and John Rhys-Davies' genial Sallah. The bad guys are a memorable bunch, too; Ronald Lacey plays the sadistic and creepy Major Toht, while Paul Freeman is the greedy collaborationist Belloq, who enjoys taking relics away from Indy at every opportunity. Both get their glorious and much deserved comeuppance in the finale, when Raiders kicks over into full supernatural mode with the assertion that the power of the Ark is real and seriously hates the Third Reich.

The message of Raiders made a huge impact on Gen Xers, who grew up with similar themes in Star Trek and Star Wars movies, but in the Indiana Jones films the point is more overt because of the explicit depiction of fascism and the fragility of a more historically realistic world. It's hopeful in that we see Indiana and his friends triumph over the forces of evil, but it's also horrific because we know that these bad guys were - and are - real. In a world teetering on the brink of upheaval and awash in dangerous nationalist propaganda, Raiders of the Lost Ark feels both comforting and bracing at the same time. It captures the strange cyclical nature of history, this movie from the 1980s set in the 1930s but still speaking to viewers in 2017. Here we are again, folks. Better grab your whip and fedora.

More Reel Resistance:

75 Years in CASABLANCA (1942)
Classic Movies for Courage

My friend at Critica Retro is also posting about about #TheResistance at the Movies, so check out that blog, too!

Movie Lines We Live By

People love movie quotes in general, but sometimes lines from films become more than mere trivia items and evolve into part of the viewers' vocabulary, especially in groups where people have the same viewing history. In fan communities these lines become part of a code that denotes membership in the "inner circle" - people who can endlessly trade lines from Firefly, Doctor Who, or Star Trek recognize one another by the level of their knowledge. In more personal settings, however, the quoted lines can actually serve as a kind of shorthand communication between speakers: knowledge of both the source and the context is a given, and speakers are able to express a number of things at once, reinforcing the power and nuance of their shared experience.

I sometimes wonder what outsiders make of the conversations my husband and I have, since they are loaded with movie quotes that mean very particular things to us, and perhaps to us alone. We have been watching movies together for 22 years, more than 16 of those as a married couple. Along the way, we have collected enough movie lines that we could probably have an entire conversation composed of nothing else. The lines that become part of our vocabulary - a sort of cinematic "twin language" - reflect shared experience and interests, both personal and generational. In other words, we're a pair of Gen X geeks, and it definitely shows in the movies we quote to one another.

Here are some of the movie lines we live by, along with a little commentary about where they come from and what they mean to us.

"Chefs do that." - The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Renny Harlin's noirish action picture stars Geena Davis as an assassin with amnesia; early in the picture she begins to recover some of her memories and forgotten skills, including some radical knife wielding abilities. My husband simply cannot pick up a knife in the kitchen without this line coming into play, but we also use it when one of us does something unexpected while cooking. Accidentally drop a plate and then catch it in mid-air? "Chefs do that." Almost lost a finger chopping broccoli? Ditto.

"Honestly... Who throws a shoe?" - Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

The actual line in the original Mike Myers spy spoof is reversed, but if either of us says "Honestly!" we are compelled by a deep-rooted psychological force to follow it with "Who throws a shoe?" It's a perfect expression of disbelief at a ridiculous event. The first Austin Powers movie is really quite a goldmine of domestic quotes, including "One MILLION dollars!" and "An EVIL petting zoo?"

"They told me they fixed it!... It's not my fault!" - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

No self-respecting Gen X geek could get by without quoting Star Wars a couple of times a day, but in a domestic setting this line from Lando Calrissian proves especially handy. My husband tends to employ it most often whenever plumbers, carpenters, or car repairmen are involved, but computer technicians also inspire the line. When you expect something to work and it doesn't, it's time for the Lando line.

Other household favorites from the original trilogy include "I am not a committee!", "Would it help if I got out and pushed?", "I've got a bad feeling about this," "Would someone get this walking carpet out of my way?" and "I have altered the agreement. Pray I do not alter it further." We don't quote the prequel trilogy because that stuff is heresy. It would be like Baptists quoting the Book of Mormon.

 "You must not read from the book!" - The Mummy (1999)

I really couldn't tell you how many times we have watched Stephen Sommers' remake of the classic mummy movie, but it's enough that the dialogue has permanently embedded itself in our brains. Being a family of avid readers, we find a lot of use for this line about The Book of the Dead, but the film is full of gems that pop up regularly in our conversation. An icky corpse on a murder show often prompts, "Looks like you boys found yourselves a nice gooey mummy."

"She's a gasper!" - Rising Sun (1993)

My husband quotes this line, in a terrible Sean Connery impression, every time kinky sex is part of a plot on a TV show or film (or in the news). He can't help himself. In the original reference, the dead woman engaged in choking as part of bedroom play. For us, the line stands in for any crazy sex quirk, but of course the Connery impression only cements the idea of the act as ridiculous. At this point, I really don't remember that much about the movie, aside from it not being an especially good film, but this line will live on in our household vocabulary.

"Jesus, Grandpa! What did you read me this thing for?" - The Princess Bride (1987)

Of all the quotable lines in The Princess Bride - and there are dozens of them - this is the one that gets the most play at our house, primarily when one of us has suggested a film, TV show, or book that is a lot more violent or horrible than we expected. All one of us has to say is "Jesus, Grandpa!" and we know it's time to hit the stop button on the DVD player. It's also a handy line to communicate the inappropriate nature of a film or show for our kid - "No, I think that would end up being a 'Jesus Grandpa' experience. Let's skip it."

Runners-up from The Princess Bride include "Remember, this is for posterity, so be honest," often used when talking about how sick or injured one of us is, and "Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything," which is a particular favorite in my conversations with my over-taxed BFF.

This list could go on for a long time, but I think you get the idea. I'll leave you with ten more of our favorite lines and their sources. In the comments section, feel free to tell me about some of the movie lines you live by!

"Cats and dogs living together...!" - Ghostbusters (1984)
"Cute plan, though." - Heist (2001)
"I like you, Clarence. Always have. Always will." - True Romance (1993)
"There's a snake in my boot!" - Toy Story (1995)
"The stars at night are big and bright - *clap clap clap* - deep in the heart of Texas!" - Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)
"Two girls with green eyes!" - Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
"Snake Plissken... I heard you were dead!" - Escape from New York (1981)
"It's not a tumor!" - Kindergarten Cop (1999) *NB - We didn't even see this movie, and the line still stuck! Probably tied with "Consider this a divorce!" - Total Recall (1990) Both have to be uttered in the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger impression possible.
"Damn! We're in a tight spot!" - O Brother Where Art Thou?" (2000)