Cinematic Throwbacks: June 1984/1994/2004/2014

1984:

The mantra for years was that, when it came to the Star Trek film franchise, the odd ones were bad, and the even ones were good.

Nah, sorry, for me that idea never held any water. Because of Star Trek 3.

A direct sequel to the beloved Wrath Of Khan, the film picks up with the Enterprise returning home after the battle that concluded that film. The ship is beat up, the crew is still grieving Spock, and McCoy is having weird after effects of the mind-meld he had with Spock before he died. Eventually, the crew has to go against orders and return to the Genesis planet to save McCoy, and possibly bring Spock back.

The first third or so of the film is a little slow, but the thing really starts rolling during the sequence of Kirk and co. stealing the Enterprise. I think this is one of my favorites in the whole franchise.

The return trip brings the Enterprise into conflict with a Klingon leader played by a sneering Christopher Lloyd, and also both Kirk's son David and the Vulcan Saavik (no longer Kirstie Alley) return to the story.

Along with the Enterprise stealing, the other really iconic moment here is when the ship is destroyed. I think as a kid I was scared by this scene. I was a Trek fan as a kid, but saw everything way out of sequence, I'm sure.

Trek 3 is not as epic as 2, but more than holds its own as a great adventure. Shatner is really good. DeForest Kelley gets a lot more to do here.

Leonard Nimoy not being in this movie, until the very end, allowed him to direct it, and he does a good job. The film really moves, and all the big moments hit.

Ghostbusters has become this big franchise and occasional target for incel whining, but 40 years ago it was just a smash hit comedy, and showcase for some of the biggest stars of the era.

This is definitely one of those movies I watched a ton as a kid, and part of the key to why it was so big was that it appealed to everybody. Younger chaps like me could like the ghosts, while older people could get into the comedy.

The cast could have been very different. It was always intended to star Dan Aykroyd, but it would have been alongside John Belushi and Eddie Murphy. But Belushi died, and Murphy didn't want to do it, so in came Bill Murray, and boy did that work out. Murray was already an established star by now, but this movie really cemented his peak on screen persona.

The casting wound up kind of perfect. Murray, Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis (later joined by Ernie Hudson) were the perfect meshing of styles. The latter two handle the majority of the intentionally gibberish-y scientific jargon but make it fun. 

You've also got Sigourney Weaver, and I think demon-possessed Weaver really awakened something in my young loins. Rick Moranis is hilarious. The whole movie finds that great balance between being really funny and self-mocking, but also taking the plot just seriously enough. 

And they don't just blow off the ghost aspect. They actually made it look good, at least by 1984 standards. Obviously some of it is super dated, but it just adds to the charm.

This remains one of the biggest comedies of all time. Everybody's career got either a huge bump or a huge start from this. And of course it has become a franchise, including the massively underrated Ghostbusters 2. 

1994:

Granted, 1994 was a real explosion year as far as my moviegoing went, but I think the only movies I had seen more than once in theaters by that point were Home Alone and Christmas Vacation (might be forgetting something). And none more than twice.

In the summer of 1994 I saw Speed 4 times. 

Doing this blog is kind of a full circle thing. Speed was the first movie I ever wrote a review for. I wrote (by hand) reviews for virtually every movie I saw from then until like 2008. And then, obviously, various online outlets and now this award winning blog.

Why was this the start? Cause Speed is awesome! I probably HAD to get it down on paper. Come to think of it, I should copy over some of these reviews, but that would require a lot of work.

Heading into that summer, I don't think Speed was way up on my most anticipated list. I didn't know the director. I knew Keanu Reeves, of course. I only knew Sandra Bullock from Demolition Man, which I think I had recently rented.

This was just going to be "Die Hard on a bus," an action quickie that probably wasn't that impactful. But then of course, it was incredibly impactful, launching careers and standing the test of time for now 30 years as peak level action filmmaking craftsmanship.

I have seen Speed many times over the years, but the thing that kind of stood out to me the most on this anniversary viewing was how tight this is. These days it seems like every big movie is obligated to go on for 2 1/2 hours. Speed, on the other hand, is comfortably under 2 hours. Yet we still get the elevator rescue appetizer, the bus main course, and the subway dessert. All of it has complete setups and resolutions. All of it is exciting. All of it includes great character moments. 

And like it is with many action movies from the 90s and before, I really appreciate how real everything is. Outlandish premise, sure. (Where can you consistently drive 50 anywhere?) But they really jumped a bus over a freeway gap. They really blew that sumbitch up.

Jan de Bont made his directorial debut with this, after being a cinematographer on a bunch of big films (including Die Hard). He was a natural, and kicked off a run of films. His name being attached to Twister is what really got me hyped for that one.

Reeves was already kind of a star by this point, but this kicked him up a notch. I still think this is one of his best performances. He's very charismatic. Dennis Hopper was already kind of a predictable villain choice, but he's a ton of fun here. Really liked Jeff Daniels as Keanu's partner. 

And now, to the Sandra Bullock of it all. I had seen Demolition Man by then, and she is adorable and cute and funny in that. But all of that got cranked up to absurd levels in Speed. She is that extra sauce that elevates this movie to legend status. It absolutely made her not just a star, but a big star. She is SO hot and SO likable and SO good in this. And she has great chemistry with Keanu. You never question for a second how you could fall for someone in a situation where you could die at any moment. I'm pretty sure I would still place this #1 on my favorite Bullock performance list. And she probably held my favorite actress title for at least a little while.

Now, she was also so good that they tried to build the misbegotten Speed 2 around her (after Keanu passed). She's even hotter in that movie, but yeah, it didn't work. It's not one of those sequels that's bad enough to tarnish the original though. 

2004:

They keep making Spiderman movies. And some of them have been very good. But they just can't match the high water mark of this franchise.

Spiderman 1 was a sensation. It wasn't THE movie to launch the comic book movie wave, but it's financial success was so huge and so overwhelming that it was definitely the one most responsible for the oncoming deluge.

Spiderman 2 took everything that worked in the first movie, and took it up a notch. Better story, better villain, better performances, better fx. It's everything you hope for in a sequel.

The backbone of this film is Peter Parker's struggle to balance his Spiderman responsibilities with his real life. He can't hold a job ("pizza time"), he can't keep up with his college classes. And he can't tell anybody that he is Spiderman, so he can't be with MJ or tell Harry the truth about his dad.

Into all this comes Doc Ock, easily my favorite villain of the Raimi films (or any of the films for that matter). I still chuckle at the idea of the super tiny chip on his neck being the only thing standing between him and rhe robot arms controlling him. Alfred Molina is superb, instantly making the doc a very likable character before the turn, and a threatening but sympathetic villain after. 

These IS kind of another villain in the movie. Harry is a complete prick, and honestly the worst part of the film. I really never liked James Franco in this era anyway. 

The Peter-MJ romance does work. Yeah there's the guy she almost marries, who is a nothing character (I think in the comics he has some importance). But Kirsten Dunst is still pretty charming here, and helps sell the hokey stuff. 

Spiderman 3 drowned in the hokum, but it wasn't like the earlier films didn't have their moments of cheese or sentimentality. That Aunt May speech about heroism is great. You know what, Rosemary Harris is great in all these movies and never got her due.

All of the action is great. Spiderman and Doc Ock fight on top of buildings, in the streets, and in that iconic train sequence. And there's the fight at the end too, but smartly the film isn't really resolved with that fight, but with Peter getting through to Doc as a person. 

Everything just clicked on this one. And of course the film was another gigantic success financially, and also critically. You never.in a million years would have believed that the next film would be such a failure.

But Spiderman 2 remains one of the great sequels, and one of the great comic book movies of all time. 

Ah the good old days of 2004, when the worst the Republican party was giving us was the war criminals Bush and Cheney.

Amidst the illegal war in Iraq and the 2004 election cycle, here came Michael Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11. This is not his best film (that would be Bowling For Columbine), but it is his most impassioned. For two hours Moore destroys the Bush administration, exposing how they exploited 9/11 to start an illegal war to make money for right wing contractors and their buddies, and also how they declared war on Americans through bullshit like the Patriot Act and those terror alert warnings.

It's weird that I almost have nostalgia for this time. I don't know, there was something about that time after 9/11.

The film opens with the 2000 election (brazenly stolen from Al Gore), which was the 1st one I really followed, and through Bush's utter failure of a 1st year in office. It shows the moron sitting there in that classroom while the US was under attack. The film digs into all these connections between the Bush administration and the Saudis, which I'm so sure were just coincidental.

Much of the film focuses in on the illegal Iraq war, which was 100% waged for oil. And which dragged on for years. Meanwhile Bush literally says on camera that he doesn't spend much time thinking about getting Bin Laden. Asshole. 

Naively, I think there was hope that the film would tip the scales in the election and get Bush out of there. Thanks to the Swiftboat bullshit that didn't happen. The film was a massive success though, and I believe is still the highest grossing documentary ever. 

Naturally the right pounced on the film, but even in a 2 hour film with tons of information, the scumbags could only nitpick on a couple small things. Fact is, the film is a blistering takedown of the 2nd worst president of modern times. 

2014: 

The 2010s gave us quite a few sick teenager movies. The Fault In Our Stars was the biggest hit of the bunch.

I saw this in theaters. It felt a little weird being a then 35 year old guy watching a teenage romance, but it was worth it. This was a very good film that really delivered.

This film was all about Shailene Woodley. In less than a year we got The Spectacular Now, Divergent, and this. She had rocketed up my favorite actress list by then.

Her character has cancer, and she meets and falls in love with fellow cancer patient Ansel Elgort (her brother in Divergent). As one would expect in a film of this type, there is going to be a tearjerking ending.

This film could so easily slide into pure sap. It occasionally does (the Anne Frank house scene is just...how was that allowed?), but largely stays authentic, which is a great credit to Woodley. She is incapable of inauthenticity. I really don't understand why her career seems to have stalled out so bad. 

Elgort is okay. He has kind of a base level charm. Laura Dern is very good as Woodley's mom. Willem Dafoe rips into his extended cameo as a reclusive author. 

Other non-deep dive flicks....

1974:

-Chinatown: Revered as one of the great detective films. I watched it during COVID, I think, and found the plot absolutely impenetrable. 

1984:

-Gremlins: Fun little monster movie. I honestly think the sequel is considerably better. 

-Top Secret: The forgotten ZAZ spoof, starring Val Kilmer. It's really, really funny. 

-The Karate Kid: I know I watched this one a lot. Daniel always bugged me in how he was such a pussy in every scene except the finale. 

-Bachelor Party: Just watched this one pretty recently. Tom Hanks in a ribald 80s shenanigans comedy that's not really all that funny. 

1994:

-The Lion King: Never cared about this one, sorry. I have always liked the Elton John songs from it, though. 

-City Slickers 2: Absolutely one of the worst comedy sequels of all time. It should just never have happened. 

-Little Big League: A big movie for us Twins fans, and sure it's fun to have the Twins in a movie, but I never found the thing more than average. Fittingly, even in the movies the Twins couldn't win a playoff game, though. 

-Fear of a Black Hat: A hilarious and almost completely forgotten parody of early 90s rap. It's extremely funny, and with legitimately good songs too. 

-The Cowboy Way: Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland are cowboys who go to New York. I saw this in theaters, but remember nothing. 

-Wolf: Jack Nicholson turning into a werewolf. Film wasn't as fun as that sounds. 

-I Love Trouble: Featuring the natural romantic coupling of Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte.

-Wyatt Earp: Kevin Costner's 3 hour western was usurped by the more popular Tombstone. 

-Renaissance Man: Danny DeVito doing one of those inspirational teacher movies. Featuring early Mark Wahlberg. 

-Getting Even With Dad: A dumb little Macaulay Culkin comedy. I saw this the day of the OJ Bronco chase. 

2004:

-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: I think this was the first one I found lefitimately good. 

-The Chronicles of Riddick: The Pitch Black sequel took a major pivot into a totally different kind of story. Wasn't really successful at all. 

-Napoleon Dynamite: One of the decade's big cult comedies. I never really got this one. 

-The Notebook: I saw this in  theaters with my mom and sister, and remember the entire damn theater crying as the credits rolled. I don't think it's a bad film, but man, do I wish Britney had gotten that lead role. 

-The Terminal: A Steven Spielberg oddity where Tom Hanks is stuck living at an airport. 

-Dodgeball: Another comedy I just never got. This was one of my ex's favorite movies ever. 

-White Chicks: I truly cannot believe there are people out there who actually liked this piece of shit. 

2014:

-Edge of Tomorrow: Tom Cruise is an unwilling soldier who winds up having the power to re-live the day in this Doug Liman action flick that is generally agreed to be one of the decade's more underrated blockbusters. Of all the movies to use that Groundhog Day conceit, I do think this one is one of the better ones. We don't have to watch too many repeated moments. There's a lot of humor. Cruise welcomely plays it more goofy. And Emily Blunt, this might be her movie star peak. 

-Transformers: Age Of Extinction: They dragged Michael Bay back for a 4th Transformers flick, this one starring Mark Wahlberg. It's the weakest of the franchise. It has some good Bayhem, but probably the franchise's worst collection of human characters. 

-Obvious Child: I never thought much of Jenny Slate on SNL, but this popular indie comedy really surprised me, and launched her as a real actress. 

-They Came Together: An almost completely ignored spoof of cheese romcoms. It's actually one of the 2010s funniest movies, with pitch-perfect goofy performances by Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler. 

-22 Jump Street: The obligatory average sequel to the average original. 

Coming in July...

I'll be busy on the rewatch again.

Forrest Gump and True Lies turn 30. 

Anchorman turns 20, which is kind of a big deal. 

And a bunch of good ones turn 10.

Plus, it's the 25th anniversary of American Pie. Suck me, beautiful!