Take Me Home Tonight - 1980s Movie Review of the Week

Just saw "Take Me Home Tonight," the 1980s comedy with Topher Grace and Anna Faris. Set in 1988, the story follows an MIT grad who can't get his life together, but wants desperately to make a connection with his high school crush at the year's big annual party. For those watching carefully, he attended the fictional "Shermer High School," a nod to the fictional Shermer, Illinois, where many of John Hughes 1980s teen comedies were set. This film includes extended cameos by "Terminator" star Michael Biehn and 1980s redhead vamp Angie Everhart.

Great comedy, good pacing and a genuinely funny story. Worth a watch. Now let's breakdown the 1980s stuff here...

1980s nostalgia trips are in a tough position. They have to recreate the look and feel of decade that many people have only pastiche memories of, so the visual broad strokes of the 1980s get crammed into the film anachronistically. "Take Me Home Tonight" is set in 1988, but its well-intentioned flubs are numerous.

Examples: Grace's character works at Suncoast Video Company. There is a prominent poster for "Back to the Future" in the store, however "Back to the Future" came to VHS almost two years before so it is unlikely the store would be featuring this video. Similarly there is a poster for "Biloxi Blues," but that film was theatrically released in 1988, so it probably didn't get released on VHS until 1989 or later. Even weirder are the posters in the store for "Howard the Duck" and "American Graffiti." "Howard the Duck" was released in 1986 and was a flop, so there's no chance it would be the feature poster in the store window. Then there's "Graffiti" which was 1976, so that film being in the background must simply be a thematic reference.

In the opening of the film, the characters are in a music store where there are feature walls for Madonna's "Like a Virgin" (1984) and Whitney Houston's "Whitney" (1987) side-by-side. Again, it is unlikely "Like a Virgin" would still be on the feature wall. At best it would have been Madonna's 1986 album "True Blue."

At one point in the film during the party they play the Motley Crue classic "Kickstart My Heart," but this song was released in 1989. Whoops.
But all is forgiven when they go to a yuppie banker party and amongst the exotic cars pulling up at the California mansion is a 1981 DeLorean DMC-12. It just isn't the 1980s if a DeLorean isn't somewhere around.