Cinematic Throwbacks: March 1972/1992/2002/2012

1972:

Okay, The Godfather is one of the most acclaimed, most iconic, most talked about films of all time. What can I possibly add? 

It was only pretty recently that I even watched these movies in full. I have a lot of holes in my pre-90's film viewing, what can I say? 

They did stick this thing back into theaters for the 50th anniversary, so I got to see it on the big screen, and yeah, got into it the most ever. 

Everyone knows the story. Everyone knows the famous lines and scenes. Al Pacino has one of the great character arcs ever. Marlon Brando with one of the most memorable performances of all time. Incredible cast. Iconic score. It's one of the few films released before my time that really lives up to its reputation. 

1992:

Not many movies are as purely enjoyable as this one is, at least when basketball is the focus. Even fewer are as good in their first 20 minutes as this. I could watch that first long basketball sequence over and over.

This was just a great match of director and stars. Ron Shelton was known to me at the time because of Bull Durham, and he hit again here with a similar formula of mixing a really sharp romcom with a sports backdrop. And the pairing of the both on the rise Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson was a homerun. We might have kept getting movies starring those two if their follow-up was better than Money Train. Their chemistry is so much fun in this. 

The first half or so of the movie is pretty much perfect. The Snipes-Harrelson interplay, all the basketball, tons of great lines. The rest of the movie trips up at times by both having some really stupid moments of Harrelson being a complete imbecile, and WAY too many scenes of Rosie Perez being totally intolerable. I appreciated certain moments of hers as a youngsta, but damn is she grating. 

Still, for that opening half alone this is one of the best basketball movies of all time. 

2002:

Blade was the first great modern comic book film, and over the years has gotten at least some credit as such.

Blade 2 might be even better. I fucking LOVE Blade 2. Guillermo Del Toro, years before he became an Oscars guy, stepped into this franchise and was a perfect fit. This is one of the most distinctive looking comic book films of all time.

Wesley Snipes was so perfect as this character, one of the all time fits. I'd still put him near the top of the list of best comic book movie casting.

This movie has Blade teaming up with a team of vampires (including Ron Perlman of course) to take down a new breed of vampires called Reapers, who kill humans and vampires alike. The Reapers are one of many opportunities here for Del Toro to indulge in his grotesque character designs. They are very memorable. 

They bring back Kris Kristofferson's Whistler through some iffy retconning, but I like the character so it's cool. And a pre-Walking Dead Norman Reedus is fun as Blade's new assistant.

The action scenes are all awesome, even if, yes, you have a few moments of some very bad early 2000s CGI. It has plenty of those ultra cool and badass moments the first 2 in this series thrived at.

Even with the deluge of the MCU and other comic book franchises, this still stands out as one of the best of its kind. 

This remake/update has kind of been, well, lost to time. I always thought it was pretty damn good though, at least until it goes for a rather generic big action climax.

The H.G. Wells story was updated by director Simon Wells, his great grandson. I only know the basics of the original story, but I guess this film version changed a whole lot of elements. Some for the worse, like the aforementioned action climax. But some for the better, like the destruction of the moon and the fleshed out backstory of the time traveler (Guy Pearce).

The movie is full of neat visuals, particularly those showing the passage of time. The whole thing, even in 2002, had a welcome throwback feel. Pearce is really enjoyable in this. Nothing dates this more than the large role given to forgotten pop star Samantha Mumba. Jeremy Irons went way over the top as the big bad. 

2012:

Quite simply, The Raid: Redemption is THE BEST pure action movie of the 2010s.

I had no idea what I was in for when I went to see this movie. I know I knew something about it, and had heard great things. Wiki said this was a March release but I'm pretty sure I saw it in May. But it had nobody in it I knew of, and a director I didn't know.

Holy shit. This thing is expertly done. A very simple plot in which a bunch of cops are breaking into a high rise slum to take down the gang lord who runs it. It's just enough of plot and character to hang everything on.

But nobody remembers the plot. The sequel actually gets more plot heavy, and not for the better. 

The fight sequences, which comprise most of the runtime, are unbelievable. They are fast, intense, brutal, and applause-worthy creative. I remember people just gasping in the theater at some of this stuff. This is not the kind of stuff that can be described in words.

The main star is Iko Uwais, but the single most memorable presence is a character aptly named Mad Dog, who is just completely insane and iconic. There is a big three-way fight at the end involving him that is just unbelievable. 

This film has been hugely influential for action movies. No doubt the John Wick movies owe The Raid a huge debt. 

Thus begins the brief cultural obsession with The Hunger Games.

I had never heard of these books before the movie was announced. Ironically this was seen as cashing in on Twilight even though Hunger Games itself led to way more actual imitators.

For me the interest going in was due to Jennifer Lawrence. Now, I feel like her career as of March 2022 has stalled out in a big way, but in March 2012 she was absolutely one of the hot new things on the rise, and playing Katniss Everdeen in  Hunger Games was correctly positioned as the thing that was really going to make her a big star.

It did. Hunger Games was a huge hit, a big deal, and made Lawrence a very big star. And looking back on the whole thing now, she is easily the best thing about it, and the thing that holds it together. 

The sequels brought on Francis Lawrence as director, a more skilled big scale action filmmaker. But this one was helped by Gary Ross, best known for smaller films like Seabiscuit and the excellent Pleasantville. The action in this movie is just ok. There is an enormous amount of world building, some of it done successfully, some not so much. Sorry, I never liked Elizabeth Banks or Stanley Tucci in these.

I always felt that the premise suffered in comparison to Battle Royale, the Japanese cult classic about kids killing each other in a competition, which predates Hunger Games by many years and is much better. It's obviously a ripoff, but a ripoff CAN still be good.

My biggest pet peeve with this first movie is how it goes out of its way to never have Katniss have to do anything morally gray. The only people she kills are in clear self defense. She is even prepared to commit suicide at the end rather than kill. 

I think the second film is the best of the bunch, but that this first installment works as well as it does is due to Lawrence, who brings just the right amount of gravitas and humanity to every scene.

 

Other non-deep dive flicks:

1992:

-My Cousin Vinny: I think I actually saw this in theaters. Marisa Tomei won her Oscar for it. 

-Basic Instinct: I was probably too young to watch this movie as often as I did back then, but hey, Sharon Stone and Jeanne Tripplehorn. 🤷‍♂️ Beyond that stuff though this is a pretty entertaining lurid thriller. 

-The Cutting Edge: The figure skating movie I'm sure I watched sometimes. 

-Ladybugs: The movie where Rodney Dangerfield coached a kids soccer team. 

-Gladiator: Not the Russell Crowe movie. This one is about underground boxing. I watched this a lot. Early Cuba Gooding Jr. Brian Dennehy was a legit scary bad guy. 

2002:

-40 Days and 40 Nights: One of the many failed attempts to make Josh Hartnett a movie star. I thought this was okay though, and it intro'd the ever so briefly big Shannyn Sossamon. 

-We Were Soldiers: A Mel Gibson war movie. I don't remember much about this. 

-All About The Benjamins: Ice Cube and Mike Epps teamed up for a very forgettable action comedy. 

-Ice Age: The only one of these movies I saw was the first one. 

-Resident Evil: I had very high hopes for this movie. It wound up being one of the biggest disappointments of that year, and somehow they just kept making them. 

-Showtime: A very bad Eddie Murphy/Robert DeNiro action comedy. 

-Death To Smoochy: A REALLY awful comedy with Robin Williams and Edward Norton. 

-The Rookie: A solid entry in the Disney true story sports movie canon. This one was about a pitcher who became a rookie at age 35. 

-Sorority Boys: Another very bad comedy. This one was about a trio of frat boys who dress up as women for some reason. 

-Clockstoppers: This was the one about a kid who could freeze time. I think this one wasn't that bad. 

-Panic Room: David Fincher's thriller that was kind of a disappointment. Most notable now as the debut of Kristen Stewart, who I thought was a boy when I first saw this. I mean, she DID look boyish. 

2012:

-A Thousand Words: A very forgettable Eddie Murphy comedy. 

-21 Jump Street: This movie was pretty popular, and spawned a sequel, but about the only thing I remember about this was the Johnny Depp cameo. 

-Jeff Who Lives At Home: A Jason Segel comedy where he played one of his likable doofuses. 

-Silent House: Some early Elizabeth Olsen here. 

-John Carter: The huge bomb that pretty much put an end to the idea that Taylor Kitsch would be a movie star.

Coming in April...

Well, almost nothing. Looks like I will only be deep diving into a few flicks hitting the 10 year mark. 

But May...May gonna be epic.