80s news
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Global 80s hit ‘Shattered Dreams’ has been given a modern makeover – for a special reason
Lynn Goldsmith never thought she would do a book about the 1980s.
Global 80s chart hit “Shattered Dreams”, by Johnny Hates Jazz, has been given a modern makeover – for a very special reason. The song made the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in 1987 – and now singer and songwriter Clark Datchler is releasing a soulful new recording of the track in support of Polish charity “Poland Welcomes”, which runs shelters for women and children who have fled the war in Ukraine.
Rock Hall of Fame inducts ’80s hitmakers
Duran Duran has stumbled into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Freshly inducted into the Hall by Robert Downey Jr at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on Saturday night, the 1980s English stalwarts took the stage and launched into their 1981 breakthrough hit Girls on Film.
The shrieking crowd was there for it, but the music wasn’t. The band was all but inaudible other than singer Simon Le Bon, whose vocals were essentially acapella.
A massive outdoor ’80s music festival is coming to Cardiff’s Bute Park
The UK’s biggest outdoor retro music festival Let’s Rock has announced it’s coming to Cardiff next summer. The popular event will take place at the city’s Bute Park on May 27 and is set to feature a ‘who’s who’ from the ’80s pop scene.
The concert will be headlined by Soft Cell and Wet Wet Wet, while the rest of the line-up includes the evergreen likes of Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley, Imagination, Nik Kershaw, Go West, Heather Small from M People, Heatwave, Hue & Cry, Five Star and many more.
It’ll also be the first time in nearly 20 years that Marc Almond and Dave Ball have played together as Soft Cell at an outdoor festival. The duo, who’ve sold over 10million albums worldwide and enjoyed twelve UK Top 40 hits, reformed in 2018 to play a sold-out reunion show at London’s 02 and recently released their first album of new material in two decades.
AFM: Veronica Ferres Joins the Cast of ‘Red Sonja’ (Exclusive)
German star Veronica Ferres (Rossini, Crisis, Salt & Fire) has joined the cast of sword and sorcery reboot Red Sonja.
Ferres will play the mother of Red Sonja and the Goddess Ashera in the new film, which is being pitched as more an adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s original Marvel comic than a reboot of the 1985 feature starring Brigitte Nielsen and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 80s film was a notorious flop. Producers Millennium Media are also handling international sales.
Italian-American actress Matilda Lutz (Revenge) is playing Red Sonja. Wallis Day, Robert Sheehan, Michael Bisping, Martyn Ford, Eliza Matengu, Manal El-Feitury and Katrina Durden co-star.
Owner of San Antonio’s new retro bar Be Kind & Rewind discusses his love for movies
As a kid born on Halloween in 1984, Alex Amaro, 38, saw a lot of horror movies growing up.
Mostly because his two older siblings would pop cassettes such as Killer Klowns from Outer Space into the family’s VCR. Some of those memories have crept into the aesthetic of Amaro’s new downtown bar Be Kind & Rewind, which opened Friday, Oct. 28. The nightspot’s name refers to the request the now-defunct rental chain Blockbuster Video made to its customers when returning VHS movies.
Be Kind & Rewind, 115 Alamo Plaza, is designed with 1980s through 2000s pop culture as its theme, and there’s a video wall featuring clips of movies from that era, including A Nightmare on Elm Street, Die Hard and Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.
E.T.: Henry Thomas was not happy with the 20th anniversary release of the 80s classic for one reason
Steven Spielberg’s all-time classic, E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial, was out in an IMAX re-release to celebrate its 40th anniversary. In addition, the original mechanical puppet used for the movie will be auctioned off this winter. Audiences all over can either revisit or experience this 80s phenomenon for the first time in several ways. There was even a much-maligned “special edition” version of the film released on the 20th anniversary taking its cue from the 20th anniversary Star Wars special editions with updated special effects, deleted scenes, and changes made by Spielberg.
The updated effects included using CGI to make E.T. more expressive and fluid, as well as replacing guns in the hands of the FBI with walkie-talkies as Spielberg felt it was inappropriate for them to pull weapons for a case involving children. Henry Thomas, who played the lead, Elliot, in the film, shared his thoughts via ScreenRant. Thomas explains,
A Texas man bought a knockdown and built a mansion on the lot full of nods to a sci-fi movie, Ferrari, and ’80s rock bands. Now, he’s listing it for $3.96 million.
He found inspiration in one of his favorite films: the sci-fi movie “Tron: Legacy.”
“I set out to build a home that looks like it’s from the year 2050,” Jackson told Insider.
As a real-estate developer and designer with his own firm, Acquiesce Design, Jackson was heavily involved in the construction process. He also designed his own furniture.