“Echo Park” (1986)

The opening title lets us know right away that this is an ’80s film, made in the era of Swatches, Nagel prints, and neon fonts–long before anyone even knew what a font was. The Tangerine Dream-like original score reminds us of how ’80s movies sounded.

“Echo Park” drew me in for three reasons. The first is its co-star, Susan Dey. As a boy, I wanted to kiss the TV screen whenever Lori Partridge came on. As a teen, I made a point of seeing any movie that Susan Dey was in, even if it was dubbed into Spanish on KMEX.

“The Van” (1977)

You know Stuart Getz from his Brady Bunch appearance as Charley, the affable red-haired loser Marcia breaks a date with (“something suddenly came up”) when the captain of the football team asks her out the same night.  In the end, Charley gets the date with Marcia because, after she is nailed in the face by a football in the most graphically violent Brady Bunch footage of all time, the football captain gets one look at Marcia’s swollen nose and cancels their date on the spot, explaining that “something suddenly came up.”