Cinematic Throwbacks: July 1992/2002/2012

1992:

Boomerang holds a special place in my movie history, as it was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in theaters. I don't exactly recall the particulars of how this came to be. I know I was a tag along with my mom and sister. I don't think she even knew what this movie was, cause, uh, there's some stuff here that a 13 year old probably shouldn't watch (although cable had already sullied my innocence).

Boomerang to this day is probably my favorite Eddie Murphy movie. My familiarity with Murphy was a little all over the place as of 1992. His peak was probably just before I got into watching movies, so I missed the boat on things like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. Pre-Boomerang my favorite and most watched Murphy flicks were definitely Coming To America and The Golden Child, just because they were always on cable.

Boomerang was definitely my first in theater Murphy movie. I loved it right away, probably for some of the reasons any 13 year old would. This movie has Robin Givens and Halle Berry.

This movie is as much about the supporting cast, an absolute murderers row of on the rise stars. Top of the list is Berry. I knew who she was by then, but this is the movie that made her a favorite and made her a star. She has never been better to this day, other than Monster's Ball I guess, but this remains my favorite performance of hers. She is perfect here. Just irresistible.

But at the time Givens was her equal. Holy shit is Robin Givens on fire in this. Absolute movie star stuff top to bottom. Completely up to the task of sparring with Murphy. Preposterously hot (guarantee one scene of her in her underwear jump started my puberty). I don't know what the hell happened where she did not springboard from this like Berry did. She literally was only in 1 more theatrical release in the 90s.

Beyond them you have Martin Lawrence just before he got big, David Alan Grier, Tisha Campbell, Chris Rock for a couple scenes, John Witherspoon, and even Lela Rochon, another 90s stunner who had a moment but just didn't keep it up. I don't know wtf Grace Jones is doing in this. Hated her character for all 30 years. 

And at the center is Murphy in full on charismatic movie star mode. With Murphy too his career after this was weird. I kind of liked some of his subsequent stuff, but it was a few years til The Nutty Professor gave him another hit. But Boomerang was this untapped side of him. I wish he had done more movies like this. 

It's one of the best romantic comedies of all time. It's really funny. I remember at the time the movie got ripped for some of the extraneous scenes (like the dinner) but they're fucking funny. You would have to be nuts to cut Witherspoon's stuff.

This film also endures because the soundtrack was fucking incredible. If I ever tried to make a list of best 90s soundtracks this is way up there. "End Of The Road" was a giant, but "I'd Die Without You" by PM Dawn (RIP Prince Be) was even better, and the soundtrack also launched Toni Braxton. And you got a bunch of other great early 90s R&B. 

It all came together with this movie. It wasn't THAT big of a hit, surprisingly, but a lot of bigger hits that year are forgotten. 

No list of the best baseball movies of all time is accurate if A League Of Their Own is not included. 

1992 was still smack dab in the era where baseball was my favorite sport (I mean, the Twins were defending champs). So there was no way I wasn't going to want to see this movie. And I think at the time this story was all new to me. I don't think I had any idea there was a women's baseball league during WW2.

Penny Marshall was a big director at the time, probably the biggest name female director ever by that point. And she had the pull to assemble a big time cast. Geena Davis was probably one of the 5 biggest actresses at the time, although this was really her last hit before a string of bombs ended things. Tom Hanks was just about to rip off one of the all time movie star runs. Madonna was, well, very famous. Tbh it's absurd that she shares that poster. Not that she's bad in the movie. I think this is actually one of her better performances and she does well in the ensemble, but she's a relatively minor character.

Lori Petty should have been on the poster. She seemed to be a rising star at the time, although that really flamed out fast. This was Rosie O'Donnell's first movie and she's actually pretty good in it. There's some good performances by the other women who were and stayed unknowns. David Stathairn is excellent. Jon Lovitz is gold in his couple scenes.

And this very good cast is used to tell a really good story. It manages to be a funny comedy, a smart drama, and a moving tearjerker all at once. It still feels fresher than a standard sports movie. Great production design. I love all the old timey baseball stuff.

And it manages to deliver a lot of great baseball action. Naturally things build to a final game (Rockford makes it to game 7 without Davis though?) and that finale is really exciting. It even builds to a great ongoing mystery: Did Davis drop the ball on purpose? I hope not. Petty's character is a brat and would not deserve the kindness. And she ran the bases recklessly. 

I could have done without the bookend involving the players (all played by older actors) reuniting years later in Cooperstown, but that's really the only stumble in one of the best baseball films of all time.

2002:

It's rare enough for a comedy sequel to live up to the original, but a comedy threequel? Few comedy franchises even get to 3, but when they do few are good. American Pie did it. Naked Gun did it. There aren't many success stories here.

The Austin Powers series hit its high point with the first 2. Seems kind of split on which one people like more (I would say 2 by a hair). Nobody thinks Goldmember is the best, but it's pretty damn funny.

Yeah you can feel the series showing some wear and tear. Some of the repeated jokes feel stale. This movie has very little funny material for Austin at all. And Goldmember is a new character that is kind of a dud. But everywhere else this movie is super funny. Lots of Dr. Evil laughs. Some great gags with Mini Me. Great Godzilla joke. 

Among newbies, Michael Caine is a blast as Austin's fahzhah. Fred Savage has a giant mole on his face and it shouldn't be so funny but it is. And Beyonce, well, she can't act at all, but this movie is really the only time she has ever been likable. 

The movie of course peaks early, as Britney pops up in the credits doing that ehh remix of "Boys" and becoming a fembot. She should have used those machine gun boobs on her dad. And she also appears in the closing credits, hitting on Mini Me. I wish she had the female lead in the movie, but alas. 

2012:

The Dark Knight was always going to be one of the all time hardest acts to follow. One of the greatest comic book films of all time, if not films period. A massive hit. The iconic Joker. What could even a great filmmaker like Christopher Nolan possibly do to top this?

Well, I mean, he didn't. The Dark Knight Rises is not as good as its predecessor. And that's completely understandable. But I feel like the film's reputation is just that and nothing else. This is also a really great film. A few more legit nitpicks than the previous film, but come on.

Heading into that summer this was the film for me. The Avengers was the warm up act. But it turned out that the warm-up act kind of stole the thunder too. Still, both films were in my top 3 for the year (with Django Unchained in the middle).

The big suspense.heading in was what Nolan would do with a film that was.absolutely a concluding film. There was not going to be another film in this series. We knew there would inevitably be more Batman films, but not THIS Batman.

At the time I was a little disappointed that Nolan didn't go all the way and have Batman die. I love how the ending was done, complete with the unfulfilled tease of Joseph Gordon Levitt taking over, but I wish he had still done it.

My main gripe with the film was how little time we get with Batman being Batman. A little bit in the middle (including the incredible first Bane fight) and then the climax. But early on Bruce is a recluse, and then there is that middle act where he is in that prison.

But it's a stellar film. Tom Hardy's Bane is a legitimately scary villain. Anne Hathaway is fucking awesome as Catwoman. Michael Caine is arguably the MVP, injecting a tremendous amount of emotion into just a few scenes. The score is again fantastic. DC has been chasing these films ever since. 

If Sony weren't so stupid, The Amazing Spiderman likely never exists. Even after Spiderman 3 disappointed basically everyone, there was still going to be a 4th Raimi/Maguire film. But studio interference (which also heavily contributed to ruining 3) drove Raimi away, and so Sony decided to do a reboot.

Now, they chose to not just do a reboot, but to really do a repeat in many ways of the original Raimi film. It got this new version off on the wrong foot right from the start. 

I'm in the camp that actually thinks Amazing Spiderman 2 is better, but that movie was not well received and led Sony to the Marvel deal and here we are today. 

And part of that today is Spiderman: No Way Home, which brought both previous Spidermans into the MCU. The Raimi films, despite 3, did not need rehabilitating. But do the Amazing films seem better now??

Mixed bag. The first half of Amazing Spiderman is really quite good, even with some of the stuff that's repeated. Andrew Garfield is not really convincing as Peter Parker the nerd, but he's incredibly likable. Emma Stone is of course a divine Gwen Stacy, and her chemistry with Garfield is a lot of fun. I love how quickly she finds out he is Spiderman. This movie's Aunt May and Uncle Ben (Sally Field and Martin Sheen) are arguably an improvement over the Raimi films. I enjoyed the relationship between Peter and Dr. Conners (Rhys Ifans) who later becomes The Lizard.

But the movie really bores with all the backstory involving Peter's missing parents. Nobody could possibly care about this stuff. It pops up a lot in TASM2 as well. The Lizard winds up being a total waste of a villain. Denis Leary seems to be in a different movie. And generally the whole thing feels like a rehash. That's why I thought TASM2 was better. At least it was its own thing.

But, post No Way Home, it does seem better overall. You just take it as a multiverse story and it works. 

Perhaps the strangest film of the early 2010s McConaissance, Killer Joe is about a truly skeezy trailer trash family who hires a dirty cop, the titular Joe (McConaughey) to kill the family matriarch to collect an insurance claim.

But of course nothing works out, and Joe proves to be a real psycho. This film has some of the most brutal, shocking bursts of violence I have ever seen. The finale is especially rough. Props to Gina Gershon for even being willing to take on her role.

And McConaughey shows no fear in coming off as horrible, whether it's in the violence or in everything that takes place with Juno Temple's character.

As dark comedies go they don't come much darker. And yet the ending is kind of silly and leaves you laughing. 

Ruby Sparks is about a writer (Paul Dano) with writer's block, who begins writing about his dream girlfriend Ruby, who for reasons unexplained becomes real, in the form of Zoe Kazan.

This was the first follow up for the directors of Little Miss Sunshine, and while this movie didn't make nearly as big a splash I think I actually liked this movie more.

It's a sharper than normal romcom, that's very slick about showing how even a relationship in which one person literally invented the other can flounder. Oh yeah, Dano is able to control Kazan's behavior just by typing it out. For most of the movie this is used for comedy, but it does go to a darker place late in the film.

I have never liked Dano, and even here he's kind of just okay, but his weirdness fits the role. Kazan is a lively treat in one of the few big roles she has gotten. She also wrote the movie, and she and Dano were a couple then...and still are. So that's kind of sweet. 

Other non-deep dive flicks:

1982:

-Tron: I've never actually seen this one. Saw the sequel and sorta liked it. 

1992:

-Honey, I Blew Up The Kid: I saw this in theaters. I haven't seen it since. 

-Mo Money: The SECOND R-rated film I ever saw in theaters. I watched this a lot back in the day. Damon Wayans had it. 

-Cool World: A weird animation/live action mix with early Brad Pitt and a cartoon Kim Basinger. 

-Universal Soldier: One of Jean-Claude Van Damme's bigger hits. Never saw it. 

-Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Ah yes, the movie that...eventually...led to the best TV show of all time. Never would have guessed. The movie is pretty forgettable, although Kristy Swanson was a piece back then. 

-Bebe's Kids: An animated flick based off the comedy of Robin Harris from House Party. 

-Death Becomes Her: Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn in a weird Robert Zemeckis movie. Baffling how this was so bad. 

2002:

-Men In Black 2: A very big disappointment. Even the song wasn't as good. 

-Like Mike: Lil Bow Wow. Movie star. Sure, why not. I remember I had to watch the trailer everytime I saw Attack of the Clones. 

-Halloween: Resurrection: Maybe the most maligned entry in the franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis got killed. Busta Rhymes fought Michael with kung fu. 

-Eight Legged Freaks: I liked this knowingly campy giant spider movie quite a bit. Early Scarlett Johansson. 

-K-19: The Widowmaker: A submarine thriller with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. I'm honestly unsure if I ever saw this. 

-Road To Perdition: This was the big prestige film of summer 2002. Sam Mendes's follow-up to American Beauty, with Tom Hanks and.Paul Newman as old time hitmen. 

-Reign Of Fire: Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale battling dragons. 

2012:

-The Watch: A terrible Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn/Jonah Hill comedy about a neighborhood watch crew battling aliens. 

-Savages: A forgettable Oliver Stone movie. 

Coming in August....

Well it's August so there aren't many big ones, but a few good flicks then 10, Signs turns 20, and Fast Times At Ridgemont High turns 40.