Ahh, the 80s.  Also known as my formative years, since I was 13 in 1980.  But most of the movies that came out in the early 80s were ones I either wasn’t interested in seeing or wasn’t allowed to, which means I didn’t see most of them until a good decade later. Fortunately for me, my husband’s Dad had taken him to see a lot of movies, so when we went to the video store, Chris knew which ones to rent.

And now thanks to DVDs, we can watch 80′s classics with much better quality and sound than those videos we rented. Recently released is the I Love The 80′s collection, of which I reviewed two- “Top Secret” starring Val Kilmer, and “The Naked Gun” starring Leslie Nielsen.

Written and directed by the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams, the trio also responsible for movies like “Airplane” and “Ghost”, Top Secret! spoofs both World War 2 spy movies and those cheesy teen rock and roll movies that Elvis Presley used to make. Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) is an American rock singer asked to perform “behind the Iron Curtain”, specifically East Germany. The East German military is in the process of developing a devastating weapon that would allow them to conquer the world, but they need public attention focused elsewhere. That’s where Nick comes in.

Nick arrives, becomes inadvertently mixed up in the rebellion, and suddenly he must not only protect his own life by evading the authorities, he must also team up with the rebels to thwart the Communists’ plans at world domination.

Okay, it might not sound funny, but this is a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker movie. The sight gags are constant and hilarious. The DVD extras are an audio commentary by the directors and some alternate scenes.

It’s full title is “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!“, and it is freaking hilarious. The movie is based on a failed TV series that David Zucker created for star Leslie Nielsen, just called “Police Squad”.  Nielsen plays Lt. Frank Drebin, who is a moron with no sense of humor, which makes him the perfect foil for the constant sight gags of this movie.

Veteran actors  George Kennedy, Ricardo Montelban, Priscilla Presley and yes, O.J. Simpson are the costars, and while the storyline involving a plot to assassinate the Queen of England during a Major League Baseball game is just plain dumb, that’s part of the beauty of the film. It’s just funny, funny, funny. The commentary by David Zucker is almost as funny as the movie itself. Never seen it? SEE IT.  Both DVDs are available on Amazon.com.

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