Blue Thunder / Wargames

BLUE THUNDER, 1983, Sony Pictures, 109 min. Deja vu 1983! The government has unleashed its newest weapon: a heavily armed helicopter that can spy on you from 1,000 feet and incinerate entire city blocks. The only ones who can stop Big Brother (in the form of Malcolm McDowell’s fascist cop) from using it against us are Vietnam vet-turned-police chopper pilot Roy Scheider and his tech-savvy partner, Daniel Stern.

WARGAMES, 1983, MGM Repertory, 114 min. Gentlemen, please: no video-gaming in the war room. For Matthew Broderick's seminal teen computer hacker, coming of age, saving the world and getting Ally Sheedy means accidentally triggering World War III (and causing big headaches for the likes of Dabney Coleman and Barry Corbin). Director John Badham's tale of a boy, his modem and Armageddon is as suspenseful -- and unnerving -- as ever.