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Just like I told you before. Another episode with some jolly old tales of Malden life. 

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Here's a quick hit from the loft. These are movies that always seemed to be on the cable box '85. And I got caught up in them every time. It was like  the O.G. doomscroll, but with a great return. Don't even ask my how the '85 episode is longer than the '81–'84 episode.....

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Study aid for the Green Line Physical Characteristics test.

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SPEED LIMIT: AWKWARD

In this episode, we’re breaking down the 1985 classic Back to the Future, directed by Robert Zemeckis. We follow Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a guitar playing, skateboard riding, teenager who accidentally erases his own existence. While Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) turns a DeLorean into a time machine, proving that if you’re going to mess with the space-time continuum, you might as well do it with gull-wing doors.

Marty gets stuck in 1955 and has to play matchmaker for his own parents. He meets the younger, significantly nerdier George McFly (Crispin Glover), who is essentially a human doormat, and Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson), who develops a crush on Marty that makes the us all want to hide under our seats. It’s a bold cinematic choice to have a mother flirt with her future son, but hey, it was the '80s! Meanwhile, they have to dodge the town bully, Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), a man whose intellectual capacity is roughly equivalent to the dump truck of manure he ends up covered in.

And a fantastic supporting cast who keep the 1950s (and '80s) feeling alive. From Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells), Marty’s supportive girlfriend who spends most of the movie waiting on a porch, to the stern Mr. Strickland (James Tolkan), who has apparently been bald and angry since the dawn of time. We also can't forget the musical stylings of Marvin Berry (Harry Waters Jr.), who calls his cousin Chuck to let him know he found that "new sound" Marty stole from the future. It’s a wild ride and a great reminder that your parents were once just as awkward as you are.

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Here's a quick hit from the loft. These are movies that always seemed to be on the cable box between 1980-1984. And I got caught up in them every time. Hypnotic. It was like  the O.G. doomscroll, but with a great return.

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Another brotherly tale of 28 and 36 Spring Street lore. Go ahead and google map it for reference. Maybe you can even follow the foot chase a little.

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This is a minisode on one of my favorite films. One that feels so real for my age and station at the time that I feel like I could walk right into it. Just deserved a revisit. Hope it doesn't put you to sleep.

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A John Hughes/Chris Columbus joint, Home Alone is the heartwarming tale of an upper-middle-class family who go to Paris and accidentally leave their youngest child behind like an extra carry-on they didn’t feel like paying for. Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister—played by a pint-sized, eyebrow-acting Macaulay Culkin—responds to this minor hiccup by eating junk food, watching gangster movies, and turning his house into a suburban Saw trap for two burglars whose crime is mostly being too stupid to quit. Those burglars are Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, delivering what may be cinema’s most sustained assault on human skulls outside of a cartoon.

In a way, Home Alone is basically It’s a Wonderful Life if George Bailey wished everyone away and immediately started committing war crimes against local criminals. While Catherine O’Hara panics her way across continents and John Heard quietly realizes he’s a terrible father, Kevin learns that family matters… but also that you can permanently disable two grown men with household items. It’s Christmas magic, but with more concussions and far fewer angels getting their wings.

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'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through our house

Not a creature was stirring, not even that big mouth

Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that the MPD would stay in the Square

The renters were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of alchy bums danced in their heads

And mummy in her Star Market smock and I in my head spin hat

Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter

Away to the window I flew like a flash

Tore through the plastic and threw up the sash

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave a lustre of midday to objects below

When what to my wondering eyes did I see

But a rented U-haul and my brotherly thieves

With their friend Paul as the driver so lively and drunk

I knew in a moment this was more than a funk

More rapid than eagles these coursers they came

And one whistled, and shouted, and gave them all aim 

To the top of the porch and to the back driveway wall

Now stash away! Stash away! Stash away all!

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly

If police should appear, they'll slip away sly

So up to the back of the house the coursers they flew

With a truck full of trees, and all those wreaths too

And then, in a twinkling, I heard all the proof

The prancing and pawing of each Chippewa boot

As I drew in my head, and was turning around

Down Spring Street came the throngs with a bound

They weren't dressed in furs, but heard something afoot

And their money was crisp as in our hands it was put

Departing with a bundle of pine they had flung on their back

Bought from the neighborhood peddlers open round back

Their eyes—how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry!

Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like a cherry!

Their droll little mouths drawn up like a bow

While bolt cutters and work gloves lay muddied in snow

Held was the stump of a lead pipe tight in his hands

To make them believe the trees were shorn from our own Robbin' Hood land

Some even sold by a broad with a slim little face

Our mother the matriarch known to put all in their place

The chubby and plump, the blind and the deaf

And we'd chuckle when at our back door she'd offer a right or a left

As occasionally with a wink of an eye and a tilt of a head

Some renters were left on sidewalks thought to be dead

Jamie spoke not a word, but went straight to his work

Knocking out redwood Big Bob; without even a smirk

Now back to the telling of our story at hand, the one of the boys selling trees minus the brand 

Rarely giving a wave, from the peak of back porch stairs

Knowing the close shave averted from one of their dares

He reached for his pocket, to his team he gave a bundle

Knowing those fine trees were now homed with the humble

Then I heard him exclaim, ere he walked out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!”

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It’s Thanksgiving, and we're carving up some Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and it’s not just as a holiday classic, but as a masterclass in comedic discomfort delivered by two legends at the peak of their powers: Steve Martin and John Candy. Martin is a symphony of simmering fury. A brilliant performance of the slow-motion dissolution of a WASP executive’s sanity. Meanwhile, Candy's a bulldozing force of good-natured, oblivious optimism. Martin’s precise, explosive rants are only possible because of Candy’s seismic, childlike sincerity. Elevating what could have been a simple road trip comedy into a biting, yet ultimately heartwarming, testament to the fact that even the most insufferable human beings deserve a little mercy... but only after they’ve endured absolute hell.

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The Monster Squad (1987) is what happens when a bunch of middle school monster nerds decide to take on Dracula, the Wolfman, and the rest of Universal’s greatest hits — armed mostly with sarcasm, bike helmets, and the power of friendship. The film was unfairly dismissed when it came out, possibly because audiences weren’t ready for a movie where a kid yells, “Wolfman’s got nards!” and somehow, it becomes cinematic poetry.

Over the years, The Monster Squad has crawled out of its coffin and earned its cult status — a true hidden gem for anyone who loves practical effects, 80s charm, and kids who apparently skipped all adult supervision. It’s equal parts monster mash and love letter to classic horror, proving that sometimes the movies we ignored at the box office are the ones that stick around in our undead hearts forever.

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Another pull from one of The Malden Chronicles episodes that's worth a revisit. 

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Jacob’s Ladder is part psychological horror, part spiritual breakdown, and all sweaty paranoia. Tim Robbins nails it as a Vietnam vet whose post-war life turns into a fever dream of demons, flashbacks, and truly bad subway etiquette.  It's the kind of movie that makes you question reality, mortality, and why anyone would trust a chiropractor named Louis with existential advice. 

Come for the psychological trauma, stay because you can’t tell what’s real anymore.

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People, places and things. 

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Grab your flamethrower and your blood test kit, because we’re thawing out John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) — the frosty freakshow where Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, and the gang learn the hard way that trust is dead and the dog is definitely not okay. And remember, it’s not paranoia if your best friend’s head just grew spider legs.

And that Entertainment Tonight intro music I used just happens to be from June 25, 1982. Youtube is a strange and wonderful place.

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Groovy.

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This is a special double header is brought to you hot from theater to loft. Bask in the greatness of a franchise that we're glad to see propagate through the decades. From Leslie to Liam, and Priscilla to Pam. Chef's kiss.

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July 3, 1984, 5:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time.

"Burt, I...I think things are gettin' outta hand!"

If that isn't the understatement of the '80s. Return Of The Living Dead is serving up more brains, just in case all that mystery meat in them hotdogs you ate on the 4th whet your appetite. James Karen, Linnea Quigley, Clu Gulager and Don Calfa bring the heat in this comedy horror. Sure, pitting punks against zombies might be a staple of the genre now, but at the time it was a radical idea. Like chocolate and peanut butter, give me more please. Now!

The heat in the barn made us a little lethargic on this July episode. If I didn't know any better, I might have thought there was some 2-4-5 Trioxin in the air.

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"My name's Louden, Louden Swain. Last week I turned 18. I wasn't ready for it. I haven't done anything yet. So I made this deal with myself. This is the year I make my mark."

What to say about Vision Quest? It's a staple of any well rounded '80s film diet. Unless you're cutting weight at an unhealthy rate. And let it be known, since I don't think I quite drove it home during this episode....this is one of my all time (unlikely) favorite movies.

Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino make this a most pleasurable trip into making one's mark on the eve of adulthood. Michael Schoeffling delivers as Kuch in one of the better roles of his short film career. Frank Jasper as Shute! A nicely stacked cast against a fantastically stacked soundtrack, with Tangerine Dream bringing up the rear on the score. 

As Elmo would say "it's ain't the one hour and forty seven minutes....it's what happens in the one hour and forty seven minutes." Fairly profound. He also said "A cooze doctor in outer space?", so...

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This scientific romp was part of the ultimate trio released in August 1985. Real Genius, Weird Science, and My Science Project were released within one week of each other and just one month after Back to the Future. With Martha Coolidge at the helm, this movie spared the usual sophomoric fare we all love the '80s for. I love those sentence-ending prepositions. I ain't know much, but I know what I like. And I likes me some Val Kilmer. 

With no pandering to the usual bully/nerd tropes, this movie was rewritten and executed in a way that reveres the nerds and underdogs, full stop. 

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Just some low key stories for posterity in this episode. Linden love and the lumps along the way.

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Once again sitting down with my brothers Jamie and Jeff. This is the caliber of story that barely makes the cut for public consumption. Anything south of this stays in the family vault of recordings. If you've listened to any of The Malden Chronicles, the background and reference as to how this kind of scenario came to be is of little concern. And how it all went away is a tale unto itself. If you find it offensive or hard to take, please forgive me.

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Here's another one from 2020 that was never going to see the light of day. It was originally over an hour. We can't put anyone through us walking through the movie minute by minute, so it's now about 25 minutes. Enjoy the silence....

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November 27, 2020: We're going back to 2020 with this episode. Well before The Movie Loft Podcast was available on any streaming platform. As I've mentioned before, we have a whole unreleased first season in the back of our vault. It may not rival the Paisley Park archives, but there are obviously some uncut gems in there. And No Retreat, No Surrender is one of them. A 1986 classic featuring JCVD 1.0. 

I was truly shocked to find this in there. Trust me when I tell you that there are some unreleasable episodes. We were feeling our way to the middling road we find ourselves on today, and it wasn't pretty. So how does this one feel so current!? We had it! Then we lost it. When we found it again, I guess we knew it was time to launch the zeppelin. How in the world I got Tony and Phil to discuss so earnestly a movie they despised, I was made for this...at least this movie.

There's also a lot of Christmas and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood chatter in this episode.

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Here is an excerpt from The Malden Chronicle – Crime Does Pay episode. This is a slightly longer edit of the original story, so you can hear that some of what hits the cutting room floor is just as juicy.

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This is an excerpt taken from The Malden Chronicles – Tales Of The City episode. I always remembered it as a story of my brother intervening to protect a woman from her attacking boyfriend. How wrong I was....

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This is an excerpt from The Malden Chronicles – Rooms For Rent episode. 

That time a stereo of ours grew some legs and moved to a new address.

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This is an excerpt from The Malden Chronicles – Rooms For Rent episode. 

That day at the Granada Theater when the Melrose football team wanted to see what all the fuss was about with the Malden/Medford rivalry.

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This is a short excerpt from the Midnight Madness epiode. The Song Remains The Same riot at Granada Theater, Malden Square, December 1980. 

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I'm splashing out four dollars for going six minute over my plan this month....you better appreciate it. Whatever your favorite six minutes may be, imagine that is where I spent all that extra scratch, just for you. 

On Christmas night, we went to see Nosferatu in the theater for a TMLP field trip. And although Robert Eggers had us huddled together and quaking with fear afterward in the lobby, we still had something left in the tank. Enter Running Scared, a 1986 Peter Hyams epic tale starring Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal. The cast is rounded out nicely by Steven Bauer, Joe Pantoliano, Dan Hedaya, Jimmy Smith and our true hero, Jonathan Gries.

And there may just be a very special guest at the table to help us ring in the new year! Dropping that ball like it's hot.

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Christmas is a coming and the egg is in the nog! 

Enjoy our holiday double header of A Christmas Story and Black Christmas! Two great Bob Clark offerings that go great together. And don't forget to get over to Zayre for those last minute gifts for the grandparents. They're usually bought real close to the register itself. Am I the only one that was confused about Sears and Zayre as a child? Probably.

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Here's some holiday company brought to you from a few Maldonians, Derek, Mic and Jamie. They sit down with me to shoot the proverbial shit. It should have been more Christmas centric, and that's in there for sure. I just took my hands off the wheel too much. So the edit is light and the episode is long. Hopefully you can find your way through this TMLP visit. 

And if you are a Maldonian, maybe you got an honorable mention. We were all over the road with this one.

Merry Christmas! 

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Here's an excerpt from and olde Malden Chronicles that needs to be highlighted this Christmas season. Enjoy Jamie's lost Christmas Eve of 1982. All the way from Malden to Littleton Massachusetts....the spirits were felt.

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This is a simple tale of entrepreneurship, from brothers Donahue. Delivered early this year, here is the 28 Spring Street holiday classic, Robin Hood Trees. You don't need to sift through our catalog to find it. And what brings you this gem before Thanksgiving has even arrived at your miserable doorstep? Well, I was behind an 18 wheeler filled to the brim with trim this morning. All that green being delivered to Christmas tree lots in my neck of the woods. The truck even turned onto my road! For shame.

Here's to doing and drinking, not sitting and thinking.

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The Evil Dead is Sam Raimi's entrance into the world of proper filmmaking. And what an entrance it is. With his ragtag group of friends in tow, Sam handles this supernatural horror flick and all the demonic entities that have been conjured along with it handily. Trust us, Bruce Campbell and his boomstick make this the must-see spookablast treat of the Halloween season!

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There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to . . . 2015's The Witch: A New England Folktale. 

This Robert Eggers masterpiece is worth every lock of Michael J Fox's hair I harvested to get us there. Ralph Ineson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Harvey Scrimshaw and Kate Dickie made it more than worth our while. And being set in the 1630's in our neck of the woods is a siren song that refused to be ignored. You've seen it. You love it. Now you'll love us for loving it!

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Creepshow is the pinnacle of '80s horror anthology, and we're here for it. The dream team of horror came together to create this masterpiece. And that team is George Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini.

Tell me how a cast including Leslie Nielson, Ted Danson, Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, Adrienne Barbeau, E.G. Marshall and Fritz Weaver (among many others) somehow created a campy comic book based horror anthology for the ages. I'll wait.

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The Fog is a sleeper in John Carpenter's canon. The soundtrack is not! This 1980 movie demands your attention with a stacked cast (see what I did there) of Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hal Holbrook, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh, John Houseman, and of course Tommy Lee Wallace. 

Beautifully shot and scored on a modest budget, this movie has aged like a fine wine. So many films that were critically panned have become classics over time, and John Carpenter has his share in that column. Which is a shame. I'm sure that had he been embraced as the master he was/is, we'd have more of these gems to enjoy. 

Creeping death to us all. 

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It's casual. This Cameron Crowe flick, referred to as the spiritual sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, brings together a cast on the cusp of breaking the decade of movies wide open.....right after its release. We've got Chris Penn (Footloose), Eric Stoltz (Mask), Ilan Mitchel Smith (Weird Science), Leah Thompson (Back to the Future), Randy Quaid, Rick Moranis and Jenny Wright (St. Elmo's Fire). With cameos by Leo Penn, Lee Ving, Sherilyn Fenn, Ronnie Wood, Ben Stein and Robert Ridgely! And a score by EDDIE VAN HALEN!!!!

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Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. We're baaaaack. Another round of scraps from a sit-down with my brothers Jamie and Jeffrey. All that's fit for consumption. Blizzard of 1978, dirt bikes and motorcycles....we've got a little bit of everything for you in this one. Strap on your ear googles and you're ready to go!

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All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Revolution, evolution, masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations
Meditations, United Nations, congratulations

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Let's rumble! This Francis Ford Coppola classic demands your attention. Talk about a formative film! And with a cast of Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise...you just can't lose with The Outsiders. Stay Gold. 

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This George Lucas joint is the jam. Trust us! It's essentially Indiana Jones with a duck. Yeah, Yeah. That's the ticket. Whatever your opinion is, Leah Thompson compels you. The dark overlords possess you. And a baby Tim Robbins begs you. Don't look away. 

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This movie is the perfect all-nighter watch. NYC in the mid 80s'? Please and thank you! And much like the misadventures of Griffin Dunne in this Martin Scorsese masterpiece, After Hours, I just couldn't get this one done. It was a long and winding road that took me at least twice as long as usual. Very apropos. 

Now that it's done. Let's all relish the absolute monster cast of....Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O'hara, John Heard, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Cheech & Chong, Verna Bloom, Will Patton and all the bit players that round out this movie. 

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Here we are with another installment of the Malden Chronicles. Brother James and brother Jeff are proving the less than amusing local color once again. 

What to say? If you've read any summaries on older Malden episodes, you've got the lay of the land. If not, please indulge yourself. It really does provide a little more insight, which inevitably makes the listening experience more engaging. 

In the immortal word of Charlie Daniels...

But I couldn't believe it, I just had to find out for myself
And I couldn't conceive it, I never would listen to nobody else
No I couldn't believe it, I just had to find out for myself
That there's some things in this world you just can't explain

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Game over, man.

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Hoosiers 1986. Gene Hackman takes us to the hoop with this classicg tale of triumph and redemption. Commanding your respect and admiration along the way....unlike that louse of a drunk that Dennis Hopper plays. Shaking and shivering like a scared little bitch below the covers. I'm so cold....waaaaaah.

It was Dentyne.

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Join us on the flat circle, for the first in a seemingly endless loop of Terminator films. One and done. We're giving you the best of the lot. Best of the decade. Best of the genre. 

This is (unarguably) James Cameron's best film, thanks in large part to his brilliant (re)casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Earl Been, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton and Paul Winfield round out this inspired cast. Never forget Dick Miller, no matter how small his part may be.

Bess Motta Forever..... 

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Here we are again with another episode of The Malden Chronicles….Crime Does Pay. A few more unearthed stories from my older brothers Jamie and Jeffrey. Cue the Benny Hill music.

Lean and mean. As usual, this sit-down has been trimmed down to 45 minutes from well over two hours. Dressed up in its best court suit and ready for public presentation. You’ll have to trust the fact that a lot of the other stuff has to remain in the family breast pocket. I couldn’t possibly edit some of the tales in a way that holds together, makes sense, and/or convince anyone that we’re decent human beings. 

Although, I should probably assume that our ship of acceptance sailed with the maiden episode, “I’m Your Huckleberry.”

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Merry New Year!

Trading Places, 1983. Eddie Murphy, Dan Ackroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paul Gleason, Don Ameche, Ralph Bellamy, Denholm Elliot, Jim Belushi, Frank Oz, Giancarlo Esposito, Al Franken, Tom Davis.....You're welcome.

“Those men wanted to have sex with me!”