Cinematic Throwbacks: February 1976/1996/2016

1976:

I may be old, but there's a whole history of film that took place before I was born. Even to this day, I have not seen a whole lot of what are considered the greatest films made, if they came out prior to 1979. 

There ARE some films made before then that I am a big fan of, and often my go-to choice as my favorite film that existed before me is Martin Scorsese's 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver.

I think I might have actually watched this for the first time in my college film class. Before that, I knew the basics. I knew the "you talking to me" scene. I knew Jodie Foster played a teenage prostitute.

In arguably his most famous role, Robert Deniro is Travis Bickle, a New York City cab driver, roaming the streets of that seedy, dangerous 70s New York. He appears like a decent enough guy on the outside, but he's an isolated person with no family and no close friends. 

The episodic film finds him attempting a romance with Cybill Shepard, but their first real date ends as bad as possible, and then he gets stalker-y. He becomes fixated on a local politician and nearly carries out an assassination attempt. Then, he decides his mission is to rescue Foster's character. 

It's an iconic character, and a fascinating one. He's obviously got issues, but he never actually gets violent against any decent people. He shoots a robber, and then a few scumbags at the building Foster turns tricks in. The movie ends on a kind of happy note (if you think that last cab scene is real), but you don't get the impression that Travis is going to have a happy life. Deniro didn't win an Oscar for this, probably cause he had just won a couple of years earlier for Godfather 2, but it remains his definitive work.

Martin Scorsese's direction is stellar. The score is amazing. It's a great looking film, where you feel every little grimy detail.

1996:

Famed Hong Kong action director John Woo dipped his toe into the Hollywood water with the little seen 1993 JCVD flick Hard Target, but he made his real breakthrough with his dandy 1996 action blockbuster Broken Arrow.

This coincided with the mid 90s revival of John Travolta, who jumped on board this film not long after Pulp Fiction hit. He and Christian Slater are a couple of military pilots testing out a new stealth bomber equipped with a couple of nukes. Ah, but Travolta is actually the bad guy and schemes to steal the nukes and sell them to some other bad guys. Slater has to stop him, with the help of Samantha Mathis's plucky park ranger. So we get a Pump Up The Volume reunion. 

Pretty much the whole movie takes place in the Utah desert, a cool setting for an action movie. I.also kinda like that the whole thing takes place during the day.

And as I keep rewatching so many of these older movies, I get more and more appreciative of real settings and real stuntwork and minimal CGI. Woo stages some fantastic action scenes in this.

Travolta goes so over the top in this he's in the atmosphere. He obviously is relishing being the bad guy, which makes it surprising that he was originally cast in Slater's role. 

Slater actually has a pretty good 90s filmography, but he was nearing the end of his run as an above the title star here. I really liked him in this, though. Mathis is great, too, and this was kind of the end for her as any kind of movie star. Not sure what happened there. 

Humorously, there was a lot of hype given to former NFL star Howie Long playing Travolta's main henchman, which was supposedly this springboard to movie stardom. I have no idea why. Long is a generic bad guy, with only a handful of lines, which he delivers terribly. They gave him 1 movie after this, and that was it. 

Hell of an overall supporting cast in this, though. A murderers row of character actors, like Delroy Lindo and Bob Gunton and Frank Whaley. 

It's a fun flick, and was a big hit, and without it, we might not have gotten the next Travolta-Woo collaboration in Face Off. 

Last year, we got a true abomination of a sequel. Happy Gilmore 2 was one of the worst comedy sequels (hell, sequels period) I have ever seen. 

But it wasn't bad enough to ruin the original. The original Happy Gilmore remains one of the greatest Adam Sandler movies. It holds up as a sports movie, and the jokes still hit.

I randomly saw this movie twice on its opening day. Sandler was one of my favorite comedy stars already off of SNL and Billy Madison. You could tell this was a little bit more of a movie than Billy Madison was. There's a shade more craft here. 

Happy is a wannabe hockey player turned golfer, whose unusual behavior and powerful swing makes him an instant star on the tour and an instant enemy of the smarmy star Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald in one of the funniest comedy bad guy performances ever). 

This is one of the best ensembles of any Sandler comedy. Carl Weathers as Chubbs the golf pro. Julie Bowen is really appealing as Happy's love interest. Ben Stiller pops up for a couple of scenes as an evil nursing home attendant. And of course, there is the whole Bob Barker scene.

It's night and day watching Sandler in this versus the sequel. Maybe it's just that early career hunger. When he was trying, he was as funny as anybody. I wish he would get back to that. 

2016:

Deadpool was not the first time we saw the character on screen, or played by Ryan Reynolds. He was a supporting character in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but to say the response to his usage in that movie was bad is an understatement.

But that wasn't the end of the story. Reynolds really wanted to get a real Deadpool movie made. He went and made that Green Lantern movie that I didn't think was that bad, but which bombed. I suppose if that had taken off, Deadpool maybe never happens.

A few years later, it's finally a go. The movie arrived at a good point in the 2010s superhero boom, right when the time was right for a character whose whole deal is that he is aware he is a comic book character, and makes fun of his own existence. Reynolds, ever the quippiest of actors (and not always in a good way), couldn't possibly be a better fit for this.

Deadpool also came out when the Fox era of X-Men was starting to wind down. Apocalypse came out shortly after this to middling success. But Deadpool being such a smash even with an R rating gave Fox the confidence to make Logan what it was.

It's a very funny movie. The sheer number of jokes guarantees that, although plenty fall flat. It's sometimes a little too pleased with itself. Everything that references the X-Men universe is great. They even make a great joke about how none of the big X-Men characters show up here. We do get a very funny version of Colossus, and the underutilized Negasonic Teenage Warhead.

Morena Baccarin has never been more stunning than in this movie, one of the few roles she's had where she gets to let loose. The villains are average. TJ Miller always sucked.

Unpopular opinion, but I liked Deadpool 2 a lot more. This movie sets up the character well, and a few other pieces, but the 2nd one has better comedy and a better plot. 

Other non-deep dive flicks...

1986:

-Pretty In Pink: Not my favorite of the Hughes movies. 

-Hannah and Her Sisters: Very good Woody Allen movie. 

1996:

-Black Sheep: The other, lesser Farley-Spade team-up. It's not that bad, just no Tommy Boy. 

-Rumble In The Bronx: Jackie Chan's 1st big crossover movie. I saw every one of these for a while. 

-Dead Man Walking: Susan Sarandon won her Oscar for this death row drama 

-Mr. Wrong: Ellen DeGeneres as the straight lead in a romcom. Hey, it was 1996. 

-Mary Reilly: A Julia Roberts bomb. 

-Bottle Rocket: I didn't quite know what to make of this when I saw it in 96 or 97, and had no idea what Wes Anderson would become. I watched it again this month and did like it more. You can see the seeds. Luke Wilson, in particular, is great in this. 

-The Late Shift: This was an HBO movie about the Letterman vs Leno battle to replace Johnny Carson. It's entertaining. I watched it a lot back in the day. 

2006:

-Final Destination 3: This is the one with the rollercoaster and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I liked this the most of all the sequels. Great death scene involving a tanning bed. 

-Something New: As a white guy madly attracted to Sanaa Lathan, I like this modest romcom where she dates a white guy  

-Eight Below: Haven't seen it since theaters, but I recall liking this Disney movie with Paul Walker and a bunch of sled dogs. 

-The Pink Panther: Steve Martin took over the role, and Beyonce was in this. It's not very memorable. 

-Date Movie: This was the 1st of the dreaded Friedberg/Seltzer spoofs, which made the decision to try to parody the funny parts of comedies. 

2016:

-The Witch: Robert Eggers's breakthrough film, about a family of early Americans possibly being slowly torn apart by...something. A real masterpiece of tone, and this was also the breakthrough for the fantastic Anya Taylor-Joy. 

-Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Natalie Portman was once in line to star in this, but it took so long to get made she only produced. It's a one joke movie that never really elevates, but it's alright. Lily James wound up starring and is the best thing about it. 

-Hail Caesar: A lesser Coen Brothers movie. 

-Zoolander 2: When they make a bad years-late sequel to a comedy that I already think wasn't very good. 

-How To Be Single: Decent romcom with Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson. 

-Eddie The Eagle: One of those underdog sports movies, this one about a kid who becomes an Olympic ski jumper. I just remember this being one of the all-time examples of "I am sick of seeing this trailer"

-Triple 9: Insane cast for this crime thriller that nobody remembers. 

Coming in March...

Fargo hits the big three-oh. V For Vendetta and Inside Man turn 20. And has it really been 10 years already since the infamous Batman v Superman?