For that segment of the population that doesn’t remember a time before e-mail and smartphones, the 1980s have taken on the faint haze of nostalgia, a romanticism borne from such snappy oddities as skinny ties, checkered sneakers and Andrew McCarthy. Don’t believe it, youngsters. It wasn’t all lollipops and John Hughes.

Not even the syrupy gaze of nostalgia can help Valley Girl, among the surfeit of teen comedies that passed like gallstones through movie theaters in the Eighties. Dull, uneven and flat as a (insert teen flick joke here), the picture is a particular letdown coming from well-heeled director Martha Coolidge, whose credits include 1985’s infinitely more entertaining Real Genius. It also marks the gangly film debut of Nicolas Cage, whose hipster loner shtick is a pale version of what he would later bring.

Deborah Foreman stars as Julie, a good-looking, popular, high-school hottie in San Fernando Valley who’s tired of her good-looking, popular, high-school hottie boyfriend, Tommy (Michael Bowen). In true Capulet fashion, she is drawn to Randy (Cage), an L.A. County punker whose haircut and clothes suggest a certain mousse-addled worldliness … if The Fixx embodied worldiness.

All the language curiosities of the Valley ring especially hollow coming a year after Moon Unit Zappa and daddy Frank had skewered the pampered class in the song “Valley Girl.” By contrast, the comedy and satire (?) of the picture feels like an afterthought. In the final outrage, Valley Girl has the audacity to skimp on the nudity, opting instead to simply peter out in a wheezy climax at the prom — a scene only marginally less competent than 96 percent of soft-core porn viewed by lonely salesmen in discount airport hotels.

At least it boasts a bitchin’ soundtrack populated by the likes of The Psychedelic Furs, Modern English, Sparks and The Plimsouls. Good for iTunes. —Phil Bacharach

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Before I watched it just now, Splitz lingered in my memory as one of those movies every video store in the ’80s seemed to have, but no one ever seemed to rent. It had one of those strange video covers you always noticed on the shelf, but never felt obligated to pick up. I had always assumed it was about a bunch of sexy girls who triumph over the domination of another group of sexy girls via the power of aerobic cheerleading — kind of a combination of H.O.T.S. and Heavenly Bodies.

Turns out my imagination was wrong, and it’s really about how a trio of sexy female musicians join forces with their manager to help a bunch of homely girls triumph over the domination of two groups of other homely girls via the power of intramural college athletics.

What really surprised me about Splitz was how much I was charmed by it. That’s not to say it’s a good movie — it’s far too hamstrung by the competing sensibilities of its four credited screenwriters to work as a successful whole — but I found it full of enough charming characters and worthwhile moments to allow me to patiently get through the scenes that were obviously written by whichever of the four writers was a hack-tastic moron.

I will admit that I’m probably biased by my affection for movies that feature sexy all-girl bands. As a fake band, The Splitz are a surprisingly catchy trio — nowhere near as good as The Carrie Nations, but in the same league as Josie and the Pussycats. Robin Johnson (Times Square) especially stands out as Gina, the group’s lead guitarist who looks like a New Wave goddess, but sounds just like Jo from The Facts of Life (which is really much hotter than it sounds). —Allan Mott

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Dear Hollywood,

I miss Deborah Foreman. Why did you stop making movies with her in them? Did she do something to piss you off? I’ve checked online, and the most recent photographs I’ve seen prove she’s still as hot as ever. Have you seen Valley Girl or April Fool’s Day or Waxwork or Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat? If you had, you’d know she was that rare actress who effortlessly mixed genuine sex appeal with likable adorability.

No greater proof of that exists than My Chauffeur, where she played an adorably sexy space cadet mysteriously hired by a secret benefactor to be the first female driver at a stuffy limousine company. Sure, it’s a haphazard, uneven production made by the schlockmeisters at the now-defunct Crown International Pictures, but she’s hilarious in it. And sexy. And adorable.

Just watch her wonderful under-reaction to the news that her and Sam Jones’ blossoming intimate relationship might be an incestuous one and tell me why she didn’t at least get her own badly written, cheesy ’80s sitcom! Truthfully, I can take or leave the rest of the picture — including the bizarre appearance by a fetal Penn & Teller — but that hasn’t stopped me from watching it a dozen times since it first came out.

Okay, maybe you’ve tried to get her back and she refuses to return your phone calls. Try harder. With Amanda Bynes teetering on and off the edge of retirement, we need all of the sexy-adorable we can get.

Yours Expectantly, —Allan Mott

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Until recently, the Doberman movies of the 1970s represented that rarest of film franchises: a series I didn’t even know existed. Indies all directed by one Byron Chudnow, they walk a weird line between comedies and crime films, all featuring Doberman Pinschers trained to commit and/or thwart felonies. Ostensibly family pictures, they’re kind of weird; therefore, I love them.

Following The Doberman Gang and The Daring Dobermans — in which the dogs robbed a bank and pulled off a high-rise heist, respectively — the five canines return in The Amazing Dobermans as guard dogs to freelancing security expert Daniel (Fred Astaire), an ex-con turned Jesus freak who lives in an RV. Daniel does no dancing, but plenty of Scripture-quoting and, via a chunky remote control with buttons marked “jump” and “go,” dog manipulation.

Crossing their paths is Lucky (James Franciscus), who owes $13,000 in gambling debts to a mob boss, but is really a Justice Department agent undercover. To that end, Lucky befriends a circus midget named Samson (Billy Barty), gets a job shoveling elephant poo, and falls for Justice (Barbara Eden), who rides Wonder Horse under the big top in a bejeweled bikini that highlights her great ass.

From there, a third-act caper takes place that involves the Dobermans, dynamite, an armored car and a goon who looks Gene Shalit. Like the two films preceding it, Amazing is harmless fun. What else would you expect from a movie where one of the bad guys is played by somebody named Roger Pancake? —Rod Lott

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The second film in Canadian director Rafal Zielinski’s immortal Screwballs trilogy (Screwballs and Screwball Hotel round out the series, which does not include the crassly retitled Colleen Camp vehicle Screwball Academy), Loose Screws is less a sequel than an updated remake of the ’60s-set original, featuring the same character archetypes, but only two of the original actors.

In Screwballs, we watched as four different kinds of douchebags (cool, rich, nerdy and fat) competed to see who would be the first to behold the unclad body of gorgeous class prude Purity Busch, despite the fact that they seemed to find naked female bodies everywhere they went. In Loose Screws, we watch those same douchebags compete to see who will be the first to bed hot French teacher Mona Lott (presumably no relation to our humble editor), while also earning points for all of the other naked bodies they connive to uncover.

Both films conclude with the four plucky young assholes coming together to unclothe the objects of their desire in front of large audiences. In the first film, they use magnets; in the second, an unspecified gaseous aphrodisiac.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to quickly shake the film’s frequently miserable attempts at comedy and come away knowing that a surprising amount of attractive Canadian women were willing to appear nude for the sake of art in 1985. Beyond that, Loose Screws remains memorable only for its two strange attempts at musical numbers, both of which are just inexplicable enough to stay with you for far longer than the film itself deserves. —Allan Mott

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