Archive for the '1984' Category

Film #181 - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It has always been my least favorite of the original crew “Star Trek” films. This is mainly because it feels to me like an obligatory film, not one that grew organically.
Wrath of Khan had proved that Star […]

Film #172 - Johnny Dangerously (1984)

Monday, August 6th, 2007

What’s to be said about Johnny Dangerously? Made in the wake of Michael Keaton’s success in Night Shift and Mr. Mom, it is a big, showy comedy about 1940s gangsters. It tries, soemwhat, to emulate the Airplane!-style of over-the-top comedy, but only partially succeeds. It is resuced by spirited performances from its […]

Film #151 - Broadway Danny Rose (1984)

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

Well, we hit one of my favorites again. This time, it’s my favorite Woody Allen film: Broadway Danny Rose. As far as I’m concerned it’s the perfect balance between the two sides of Allen’s filmmaking. It is a film steeped in show business, has lots of humor, solid and believable drama, and […]

Film #071 - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is quirky. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is odd. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is probably the strangest mainstream science fiction movie I’ve ever seen. I love it. But I can certainly understand why […]

Films #047 & #048 - Ghostbusters (1984) & Ghostbusters II (1989)

Thursday, April 12th, 2007

How the mighty can fall in the eyes of the public. It is a well known axiom that sequels are generally inferior to the original. Especially when the original is something of a genre-defining project. Such is the case with Ghostbusters and its put-upon sequel Ghostbusters II.
Ghostbusters was, of course, a groundbreaking […]

Film #013 - Purple Rain (1984)

Monday, February 12th, 2007

Purple Rain is the film and album that truly put Prince on the map. Oh, he had had success before, particularly with 1999 and the song “Little Red Corvette”. But it was nothing like the full assault that was Purple Rain in the summer of 1984. And it’s easy to see why. […]

Film #010: Supergirl (1984)

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

After delving deeply into the Superman mythos last year, I was in the mood to revisit one of the lesser known corners with 1984’s Supergirl. First of all, it has a lot of problems. The story is a bit nonsensical and the character of Lara/Linda/Supergirl isn’t properly fleshed out. (Is she an […]

Film #009: This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

I was in the mood for something easy to watch, so I next chose This is Spinal Tap , since I’ve seen it so many times that I don’t need to focus in too hard on it anymore. Tap is an all-time classic, with phrases like “goes to eleven” becoming commonplace in popular culture. […]

What, No Nazis?: Film #184 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Tuesday, July 11th, 2006

Viewed July 3, 2006
Kate Capshaw’s character, singer Willie Scott, is the perfect example of all that is wrong with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: beautiful on the outside, devoid of any value on the inside.
Now, I have read that George Lucas originally intended Indiana Jones to be more of a James Bond type […]

Film #156 - The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984)

Thursday, June 8th, 2006

Viewed June 5, 2006
As I continue my quest to watch all the Pixar work I had not yet seen, I finally watched the proto-Pixar film The Adventures of André and Wally B. It was made by the Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project on a computer that Cray let them borrow in hopes that Lucasfilm would […]