Cinematic Throwbacks: October 1984/2004/2014

1984:

Four decades ago, a film came out that both established its star as a movie star, and announced the arrival of a filmmaker who would become one of the greatest showmen in film history.

Obviously, The Terminator pre-dated my movie fandom, but I started to know about when T2 was coming out. It was this big, hyped movie, but I didn't even know the original movie was a thing. 

I'm even pretty sure that I saw the sequel first, and it's kind of jarring to watch the original after that.

The original film was not made to push forward grand new special effects technology. You watch it even in the early 90s, and you can see how fake some of the model work is. But for its time, this was still pretty good.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was already a rising action star before this film. But this was the film that really cemented him as an action icon. Humorously, he was originally going to okay Kyle Reese (the Michael Biehn human character), which would have made no sense. And, hysterically, OJ Simpson was one of the names talked about to play the actual terminator.

The physically imposing, monosyllabic cyborg was a perfect fit for Schwarzenegger, who was still not quite adapted to the English language. Reese was played by Biehn, who had quite a run of hits through that era.

The other key part was Sarah Connor, which went to Linda Hamilton. The buffed up, tough, muscular Sarah of T2 is a huge contrast to her in this movie, where she is largely a damsel role. It was fortunate that Hamilton proved able to do both.

James Cameron has become so synonymous with epic productions that here too, it's jarring to see a film of his that has such a simple, streamlined plot. It's just a chase movie. There are a couple of quiet moments where some backstory gets talked about, but it's primarily just bad guy chasing good guys.

There are people who prefer the original movie. Not me, I think T2 is the masterpiece, but you don't get there if the groundwork wasn't laid as well as it was here, with one of the 80s coolest action movies. 

2004:

For some reason, Friday Night Lights always gets forgotten by me when bringing up some of the best sports movies.

I think it's because this was based on a book, written in 1990, and based on a real story of a real Texas high school team in the late 80s. In the time it took to actually make a direct film adaptation of the story, the pieces of it had already found their way into other films, most obviously Varsity Blues, which hits almost all of the same beats as this film does.

Friday Night Lights has more grit, and aside from the usual smattering of inaccuracies in the service of a movie narrative, it is the more realistic one.

Billy Bob Thornton is great as the coach. Derek Luke and Lucas Black are the standouts among the players. Luke's breakdown after finding out his playing career is probably over is heartbreaking stuff.

Director Peter Berg was behind the TV series adaptation, one of the 2010s best shows,  which also somewhat dwarfs this film's impact. He brought over a bunch of actors to that series, too.

The film is really good, though. It's formula, but good formula. The requisite big game finale is exciting. All the football action is well done. 

2014:

Imagine one of the most tense and gripping films in recent memory being about an aspiring jazz drummer.

Whiplash, the breakthrough film for eventual Oscar winner Damian Chazelle, was one of 2014's very best films. There wasn't anything quite like it.

Miles Teller is the aspiring drummer, who attends a musical conservatory. He gets spotted by the band instructor, played by J.K. Simmons, and invited to join the band. So obviously, Teller is on top of the world and thinking he's on his way. But he soon finds out that Simmons is wildly abusive both verbally and even physically. Whatever Teller says or does is wrong, and everything sets Simmons off.

You would think that a film largely consisting of watching one man relentlessly abuse another would make for a hard watch, but it isn't. The filmmaking is so electric, and the performances are so captivating that I find the film impossible NOT to watch.

The film is unnerving. The Teller character is clearly an asshole himself (he callously dumps his girlfriend, played by a pre-Supergirl Melissa Benoist), but Simmons is off the charts. Simmons had already amassed a long character actor career using his charmingly gruff persona, but here turns that up all the way into pure psychosis. He won the Oscar for this, and I can't think of many acting awards in recent memory that they got this correct. 

There is a great scene late in the film where he and Teller have a quiet conversation, and he dials it down to trick Teller (and us) into thinking that he was only being a certain way to try to weed out the potential great talents. 

And this leads into a finale that, the first time I saw it, had me as nervous as any horror film could, cause you don't know what Simmons might do. But then it pivots and goes a different way. It's brilliant stuff, and it's still the best thing Chazelle has made. 

David Fincher has been one of the best working directors for 30 years now, but he isn't really known for his comedy. Gone Girl isn't really a comedy either, but it is the blackest of black comedies, in the guise of a thriller.

Ben Affleck is unhappily married to Rosamund Pike, who goes missing early in the film. What evidence there is (or isn't) points to Affleck as the culprit. It's not much of a spoiler to say that Pike has actually faked her own kidnapping/murder as revenge for her husband, well, being boring. She's a paycho.

Knowing the mid-film twist isn't really the point. There is no killer to reveal, or motive to uncover. Gone Girl finds its most juice in satirizing the media, who wind up covering this as a big story. I feel like these stories used to pop up as big deals a lot more before this film came out. Wonder if it shamed the media into not doing that.

Obviously, Affleck is a meta casting, given his own history with the media. And what timing that the anniversary falls as he is again being attacked in the media for a failed marriage to a narcisstic nutcase.

Pike got the Oscar nomination from this. I have never liked her before or since, but she nails the part of this calculating person perfectly.

The supporting cast is great, and unexpected. Tyler Perry as the hotshot defense lawyer. Carrie Coon is fantastic as Affleck's sister. Neil Patrick Harris of all people plays a mysterious man from Pike's past.

Fincher has gone back into his cold, precise drama mode since this, but I wish he would dip back into something this pulpy and fun. 

What an interesting career Keanu Reeves has had. He began as the quintessential dopey sufer boy, then became a big action star, and even tried out being a romantic leading man a few times. He's got a handful of the most iconic action flicks of the last 35 years on his resume, but also a slew of absolute bombs.

He had sunk into probably his most fallow period of all in the years prior to John Wick. He hadn't had a hit in years, and many of his films weren't even getting released theatrically.

John Wick almost went straight to the small screen too. It was made independently, but eventually got picked up for a big screen release. Still, it wasn't like a hyped movie. It kind of just showed up in theaters. I never even saw a trailer for it, and I'm obviously someone who follows film, so I know this thing wasn't promoted.

And it didn't set the box office on fire. It had to gather word of mouth, which in 2024 is now almost impossible since movies go to digital or streaming within weeks. 2014 was right at the tail end of when a movie had any prayer of a box office slow burn. John Wick became a true word of mouth hit, and because of that spawned a franchise that has become probably the biggest action franchise of the last decade (either this or the Fast and Furious one).

These movies just get bigger and more loaded with lore, but like with The Terminator, that first film is striking for just how simple it is.

Reeves' Wick is a retired assassin, whose wife just died. In her last act, she got him a puppy so he wouldn't be alone. But Wick crosses paths with some Russian gangsters, who don't know who he is, and they break into his house, assault him, steal his car...and kill the dog. You never kill the dog.

What makes this revenge film so fun is that everybody in this criminal underworld knows who Wick is, and talk about him like he is an urban legend. So even these other villains know what Wick is going to do, and that he is unstoppable. I really appreciate these movies where they just step back and watch their main character wreck shit.

And boy does Reeves wreck shit, in a series of visceral action scenes that are kind of familiar now but in 2014 felt like a real shot of life into a genre that had been drowning in shaky cam.

It's strange that this hit so well for Reeves, because Wick doesn't talk a lot, so the film doesn't get to take advantage that much of his singular screen presence. The supporting cast, filled with pros like Willem Dafoe and John Leguizamo, gets a little more to do. 

The film teases this larger universe that the sequels expanded on. But I still think this is the best of the series for how straight to the point it is. 

Other non-deep dive flicks...

1974:

-The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: One of the iconic slashers, all the better because it was grimy and small budget and brutal. I still can't think of many worse horror deaths than being carved up by a chainsaw. 

-The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: The original starring Walter Mathhau. It's not as good as Tony Scott's propulsive remake. 

1994:

-Hoop Dreams: I didn't deep dive on this, but it's one of the great documentaries ever made, following a pair of aspiring basketball players through high school. This was one I saw Siskel and Ebert talk about a lot (they both picked it as best film of the year), and champion when it ludicrously wasn't nominated for an Oscar. 

-Stargate: The sci-fi film that really put Roland Emmerich on the map, and set him up for Independence Day. 

-Only You: Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr in a romcom years before the MCU. 

-The Specialist: A pretty stupid Sylvester Stallone-Sharon Stone action movie. 

-Bullets Over Broadway: Acclaimed Woody Allen movie, which won Dianne Wiest an Oscar. 

-Little Giants: This little league football movie is one that has a following but I wasn't into it. 

2004:

-Team America: Trey Parker and Matt Stone's puppet-starring action spoof/political satire. I'm glad they made this before they devolved into "derr both sides suck" political idiots. Very funny movie, with amazing songs. 

-The Grudge: This Japanese horror remake is just okay, but it hit big and for a brief moment looked like it made Sarah Michelle Gellar into a big movie star. I will forever remain baffled how that didn't happen. 

-Raise Your Voice: A cheesy teen drama with Hilary Duff. I was a Duff fan by this point and actually saw this in theaters, in a wild double feature with Team America. 

-Ray: Jamie Foxx won the Oscar for his excellent turn as Ray Charles in a pretty standard stuff biopic. 

-Sideways: One of that year's big awards movies, directed by Alexander Payne. Elite Paul Giamatti performance. 

-Saw: They're still making these movies. This is the only one that I think worked at all. 

-I Heart Huckabees: David O. Russell comedy more remembered for the behind the scenes drama than anything on screen. 

2014:

-Birdman: This was the big Michael Keaton comeback film, and he is fantastic as a faded star actor famous for playing a superhero, now doing a Broadway play. The decision to make it look like one long take is done about as well as a style like this has ever been done. The film was a worthy best picture winner, and also had top level performances by Emma Stone and Edward Norton. 

-Nightcrawler: A creepy Jake Gyllenhaal plays a guy who spends his nights filming violent or morbid incidents so he can sell the footage to TV stations. Really good film, with an uncompromisingly sleazy Gyllenhaal doing awful things but in a really compelling way. 

-Fury: Outstanding WW2 film about a team of soldiers manning a tank. Brad Pitt gets to hunt Nazis again. 

-Dear White People: This satire of race issues on a college campus gets a little full of itself at times, but it's probably even more prescient now in the age of Trump. This film also really launched Tessa Thompson. 

-Laggies: Keira Knightley (in a rare American accent) is an aimless woman who befriends a teen (Chloe Moretz at peak cuteness). 

-The Judge: One of Robert Downey Jr's rare steps away from the MCU during that era. Kind of a forgettable drama. 

-Dracula Untold: I think this was one of the films meant to launch the Universal monster universe. But it wasn't good. 

-Ouija: Lame horror movie, but it stars Olivia Cooke so I of course saw it. 

Coming in November...

Well, literally my favorite film of all time is turning 30, although MY anniversary with it is in December. 

It's also the 25th anniversary of the opening day double feature of Natalie Portman's Anywhere But Here and Kevin Smith's Dogma, which was, uh, kind of a big deal. 

And a few flicks turn 10, most notable Christopher Nolan's Interstellar.