Cinematic Throwbacks: August 1973/2003/2013
1973:
And as luck would have it, they ran a Fathom Events screening for its 50th anniversary, so I got to go see it on the big screen. And now I think I must not have ever seen it, because it isn't pretty good. It is fucking fantastic, one of the best films of the 70s (that I've seen), and a film whose DNA exists in countless movies that followed.
This was George Lucas's first hit. He had made THX 1138 but that wasn't a hit. This wound up being one of the biggest hits of all time at that point. And it got him a best director Oscar nomination.
The film takes place over one night in 1962. It's the last day of school, with much of the principal cast having graduated. The meandering, episodic film follows a collection of characters through the night. There are shenanigans, love stories, and lots and lots of driving.
Like all great films of its ilk, it was a launching pad for a crop of new stars. This was Harrison Ford's breakthrough, though his part is relatively small. The main 4 we follow are Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith and Paul Le Mat. Howard was the biggest name of the bunch due to his child stardom. Dreyfuss went on to become a very big star for years. The latter two wound up more as character actor types. All are really, really good here. Best of the bunch is Dreyfuss, who brings such a fun humorous touch to all his scenes.
The women in the cast didn't have the same level of breakouts. Cindy Williams became big on TV. Mackenzie Phillips, here the youngest of the cast and incredibly spunky, also found more success on TV. Candy Clark got the ensemble's one Oscar nomination for her incredibly winning performance.
Watching this film, as it went on it became one of those films that you kind of don't want to end. Supposedly the original cut of the film was 3 1/2 hours. I would watch that. This is just a fantastic hangout movie. Not a bad scene in the bunch. Everything's got either a funny moment or a great performance or a classic song.
Every single teen or high school movie since this (and I've probably seen most) owes at least some debt to American Graffiti. The most obvious one is Dazed and Confused, but I spotted moments here that get homaged (or, y'know, ripped off) in many others in the genre.
And obviously this film is also immeasurably important to film history because its success allowed George Lucas to go get Star Wars made. I mean, is this literally one of the most important films ever made? 🤔
In 2003, Thirteen felt about as provocative as a film about teenagers could be. Kids drinking, having sex, stealing. It felt like a real reflection of that particular moment in time.
Evan Rachel Wood, in her breakthrough performance, is a naive high school girl who wants to be in with the cool, popular girls, specifically the one played by Nikki Reed. She gets there by basically appropriating her whole personality.
Directed by a pre-Twilight Catherine Hardwicke, Thirteen probably hasn't aged that well. Again, what seemed daring and extreme in 2003 now seems pretty tame. I mean, the cast of Euphoria would eat the cast of Thirtieen alive.
What makes the film still effective are the extremely good performances. Holly Hunter, as Wood's free-spirited mother, whose permissive nature unravels as her daughter gets deeper and deeper into her delinquency, was deservedly Oscar nominated. Wood is fantastic, in a performance that launched her career. And famously, the film was co-written by Reed, who I really thought was going to be a major deal for years to come. Didn't really happen.
The 3rd movie in the American Pie franchise, American Wedding, only brought back some of the cast. This one is centered around the marriage of Jason Biggs and Alyson Hannigan. None of the other girls from the earlier ones return, and also no Chris Klein this time.
Stifler sure is back though. Seann William Scott really takes over much of this movie. He is really over the top here. At least in the first 2 he felt like a real person. This time he is just a caricature, and kind of creepy at times. But...he is also the source of a lot of the best laughs in this, in particular his rivalry with Finch over January Jones.
At the time I actually felt that in terms of just pure laughs this was the funniest of the series. I'm not sure I.would go that far now, but it's a funny movie. Probably goes a little too far with the grossout humor a couple times (the "chocolate" truffle scene 🤮).
But there's a whole farcical bachelor party scene that escalates in really funny ways. And a dance off sequence that absolutely should not work, but does.
Fred Willard pops up for some funny moments, and of course Eugene Levy remains the glue. If anything the movie vastly underutilizes the talents of Biggs and Hannigan.
I would place this 4th among the proper series, but it may be the only comedy series to even get 4 winners.
2013:
No list of most underrated sequels is complete without Kick Ass 2.
The original Kick Ass (which featured in my very 1st throwbacks blog) achieved instant cult status, and was a decent moneymaker. So I was all for a sequel.
And boy did it deliver...just not for many. Kick Ass 2 was a pretty massive critical and audience failure, and also a box office flop. I'll never get this one.
Kick Ass 2 picks up more or less right after the first one. Aaron Taylor-Johnson's title character still wants to fight crime. He goes to school now with Chloe Moretz's Hit Girl, and wants to team up. The early part of the movie has her training him, and mostly kicking his ass.
Then for a good chunk of the movie, Hit Girl is trying not to be Hit Girl anymore, so Kick Ass goes off and finds some other aspiring crimefighters, most notably Col. Stars and Stripes, played by an almost unrecognizable Jim Carrey. Carrey famously disowned the movie prior to its release due to its violence, which was baffling. Did he not know what film this was? It's a shame, cause it's an interesting performance and character.
On the villain side, Christopher Mintz-Plasse is back, and is now a full on villain dubbed The Motherfucker. Just as Kick Ass has his team, MFer also assembles a team of villains, including a mammoth female Russian bodybuilder named Mother Russia, and a masked Daniel Kaluuya in an early role.
Where is Hit Girl? Well, she is off on her own storyline about her trying to fit in with the popular high school mean girls. So yes, this was another of those superhero movies in the early 2010s with storylines requiring their superheroes to not be superheroes for large chunks of the film.
I didn't totally mind, cause sue me, Moretz is ridiculously cute in this movie. And it was fun seeing her be more of a normal girl. It's stupid as hell that she is positioned as being some ugly outcast. The Carrie remake had the same issue. But this movie clearly elevates anytime she is on screen. She's the star.
Hit Girl of course re-dons the mask and weaponry for the big finale, which considering the film's relatively low budget is pretty fucking exhilarating. The fight between Hit Girl and Mother Russia is awesome.
There was more meat on this bone, but there were no more Kick Ass movies. So what is it that this movie lost?
I don't think this is quite as good as the first one. I think this one has better action and fights, but the original had more laughs and probably maintained the tone better. This movie gets surprisingly dark and violent at a few points. Mother Russia brutally murders some cops. Kick Ass's dad is murdered. There's a sort of rape joke that I could see being super offensive. I didn't love how they wrote out Kick Ass's gf from the first movie either.
But this movie is an incredibly fun watch. I've probably rewatched this the most of any film from 2013.
One of my absolute favorite films from 2013, The Spectacular Now is both one of the decade's best high school movies but also one of its best romances.
For me this film is the one that totally locked me in to Shailene Woodley. But before we get to her we are following Miles Teller. Teller's Sutter Keely in this movie always felt to me like an update of Ferris Bueller. He's super outgoing and friendly, kind of a life of the party. But this film shows the darker side of it. He is pretty aimless, may be an alcoholic, and early in the film breaks up with his girlfriend (Brie Larson, fantastic).
Which is where Woodley's Aimee comes in. They start hanging out, almost at random, but soon are dating. The chemistry between Teller and Woodley is fantastic. Even though she is presented as some sort of unattractive outsider (preposterous of course), you totally buy into why he would be into her.
There's a storyline involving Sutter's dad (Kyle Chandler) that kind of follows a predictable path but is well done. Mary Elizabeth Winstead shows up for a few scenes as Sutter's older sister. The connection there is the director James Ponsoldt, directed her in the criminally underappreciated Smashed a year earlier.
The film belongs to its two leads. This was the first time I saw Teller, and it was obvious that he had star potential that I don't think has fully been tapped yet. And Woodley is sublime, completely sweet but not in some idealized way. She's dreamy but real. This is still probably my favorite performance of hers.
Other non-deep dive flicks...
1983:
-Risky Business: The movie that really made Tom Cruise a star.
1993:
-The Fugitive: I was never a big fan of this movie at the time. It was a huge hit. It got a best picture nomination, and won Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar. But I've actually watched it on TV a few times recently and have come around on it.
-The Meteor Man: Robert Townsend's superhero movie was a pretty big flop. Too serious and preachy.
-Manhattan Murder Mystery: A decent Woody Allen movie.
-Hard Target: John Woo's American debut, and one of the better Van Damme movies.
-Father Hood: I saw this in theaters, cause Halle Berry was in it. Patrick Swayze goes on the lam with his kids in tow. It wasn't very good.
2003:
-Freddy vs Jason: I thought this movie delivered exactly what it had to. I wish there had been another.
-Uptown Girls: Brittany Murphy being cute and loveable, having to take care of bratty Dakota Fanning.
-Gigli: The infamous Bennifer bomb. Tbh it's bad but not THAT bad, and Lopez never looked hotter.
-Freaky Friday: Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis switched bodies.
-S.W.A.T.: A generic cop action movie with Sam Jackson, Colin Farrell and Michelle Rodriguez.
-American Splendor: Good movie with Paul Giamatti as a real life comic book artist.
-The Battle Of Shaker Heights: Notable as the first movie to come out of the Project Greenlight series.
2013:
-2 Guns: A decent action movie team-up by Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. Paula Patton in this, gawd dayum!
-Elysium: Neill Blomkamp's less acclaimed follow-up to District 9. Solid dystopian future sci-fi, with Matt Damon.
-Short Term 12: It took years for me to finally see this acclaimed and excellent indie set in a group home for troubled teens. Absolutely insane cast full of future stars, with Brie Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek and even Stephanie Beatriz.
-We're The Millers: This road trip comedy was a big hit but it did nothing for me.
-The Butler: The drama with Forest Whitaker as the man who was the white house butler for decades. John Cusack played Nixon. It was wild.
-Jobs: The first of the Steve Jobs biopic, this one starring Ashton Kutcher.
-Getaway: A really dreadful action movie that somehow starred Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez.
-The Mortal Instruments: One of the many failed attempts to kickstart the next Hunger Games.
-The Lifeguard: Pretty solid indie with Kristen Bell. One of those coming back home stories.
Coming in September...
Some major anniversaries.
One of my favorite movies of all time, Dazed and Confused, turns 30. As do the Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance, and The Program, one of the great football movies.
And a handful of 20s and 10s too.
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