"How About A Nice Game Of Chess?"

There's a lot of things I miss about the '80s: the cold war, working Pac Man arcade machines, Ally Sheedy, and the almost complete absence of cellphones (to name a few). It was while watching WarGames that all these fond memories came flooding back to me. For those who don't remember, WarGames was a precautionary cold war tale in which Matthew Broderick comes within seconds of causing World War III. Using technology that predated the Nintendo, Broderick manages to hack into NORAD computers and set in motion the mutually assured destruction of both Russia and the United States.

WarGames is a prime example of what makes watching '80s movies so enjoyable today. It's like watching a time capsule full of antiquated technology, products, popular culture and politics. In one brief scene Broderick and Sheedy are sitting in front of Broderick's computer (a beastly machine that uses 8" floppy discs) drinking cans of Tab and playing a computer game with graphics just slightly ahead of Pong. Broderick even uses one of those modems that you have sit the phone's receiver on.


The movie is also full of notable '80s character actors like Barry Corbin, Eddie Deezen, Maury Chaykin and Alan Blumenfeld. There is even a scene at the beginning of the movie with a young Michael Madsen, a full nine years before he cut the ear off a cop in Reservoir Dogs.

Bonus Section

I had been thinking a lot lately about the song "Any Sense of Time" by the old school Halifax band The Inbreds, so I was quite blown away when I heard it on the season finale of Trailer Park Boys. So, for your enjoyment, I present:

[MP3] The Inbreds - Any Sense of Time

(FYI: I'm stealing this download link, so I don't know how long it will be good for.)