(For an explanation of this, read the Introduction. Other posts in this series can be found here.)
Movies We Still Care About
- Back to the Future
- The Breakfast Club
- Fletch
- The Goonies
- Ran
- Rocky IV
- Teen Wolf
- Weird Science
- Witness
Other Notable Movies
- Brazil
- Clue
- Commando
- Gymkata
- Rambo: First Blood Part II
- Real Genius
- Young Sherlock Holmes
Best Picture Nominees:
- Out of Africa (Winner)
- The Color Purple
- Kiss of the Spider Woman
- Prizzi’s Honor
- Witness
Top Grossing Films (US)
- Back to the Future
- Rambo: First Blood Part II
- Rocky IV
- The Color Purple
- Out of Africa
- Cocoon
- The Jewel of the Nile
- Witness
- The Goonies
- Spies Like Us
Rotten Tomatoes Top Movies
- Ran (97%)
- Back to the Future (96%)
- Brazil (96%0
- Re-Animator (93%)
- The Breakfast Club (91%)
Movies We Still Care About
Ran
Ran is Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of King Lear set in feudal Japan. While most Kurosawa films tend to be too slow for modern western audiences, Ran is full of stunning visuals and epic battles that are sure to hold an audience’s attention. The trailer gives a pretty good sense of the scope of the battles and the beauty of the cinematography.
Rocky IV
This is the true story of how Sylvester Stallone won the cold war by punching a Communist.
Okay, maybe it’s not entirely a true story. But it came at the turning point of the Cold War, right when it seemed like the Soviets were achieving dominance, and just before things in Russia started to collapse. Coming when it did, and featuring a scrappy American underdog overcoming the dominant Russian through sheer pluck, it really fell into a place of cultural significance. One thing to note in the montage I posted above is the contrast between Drago’s training, which is all high tech, and Rocky’s training, which is all primitive. That tied into the American self-image of the time – Rugged individualist cowboys against an industrial machine.
Teen Wolf
Teen Wolf is a wish fulfillment fantasy, where the unpopular loser suddenly acquires magic abilities that make him powerful, cool, and the envy of everyone who previously looked down on him. Thus it can be a reflection of the hidden desire of every teenager who feels like an outcast. (Which as I mentioned in my write-up of The Breakfast Club, is most teenagers.)
(It’s also an obvious metaphor for puberty, but I won’t get into that.)
Follow up question: Is Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck a teen wolf?
Other Fond Memories
(These are movies that fit the category of “Movies We Still Care About,” but for which I personally can’t think of anything interesting to say. Please don’t take a movie’s inclusion in this category as any sort of criticism. You are encouraged to voice your thoughts on these films in the comments section.)
- Weird Science
- Witness
Other Notable Films
Rambo: First Blood Part II
As I mentioned in the 1982 entry, all the iconography of Rambo comes from Rambo 2, rather than First Blood. When you picture Rambo, this is what you’re imagining. Shirtless Sly Stallone, with the headband, killing villages full of bad guys with exploding arrows. You know, this:
Real Genius
As I mentioned in the 1984 entry, Real Genius tackles some of the same subject matter as Revenge of the Nerds, but with an air of affection rather than mean-spiritedness. Real Genius made being a nerd seem fun, and inspired a generation of kids to embrace their intelligence and weirdness rather than be ashamed of it.
Young Sherlock Holmes
Chris Columbus exploded on the scene as a screenwriter in 1984 and 1985, with Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes. He then switched to directing and more or less gave up wriitng, which is a shame considering how brilliant his first three films were.
Young Sherlock Holmes is probably the least remembered of those three, but is still highly entertaining. I think where it runs into trouble with audiences is in how different it is from the original Conan Doyle stories. Fans of the original were turned off by the liberties taken, while people who weren’t into the literature didn’t have interest in seeing it in the first place.
But if you ignore the Holmes connection and just think of it as two Edwardian teenagers getting wrapped up in a crazy mystery and adventure, it’s a lot of fun. (For the record, I’m a fan of the original stories, and I don’t mind how different Young Sherlock Holmes is, because all of the changes are in service of making an excellent movie.)
And it’s also interesting for its pioneering use of CGI. (And since the CGI was supposed to be people’s hallucinations, it made sense in the film that it was so crappy looking.)
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Do you disagree with any of these choices, or think that I missed something? Leave a comment below.
Cinema Badger 