1993 Capsule Reviews

Schindler's List
rating: *****
review: This is Spielberg at the height of his powers, telling a story that speaks for itself in terms of significance, but also subverts a lot of expectations by casting its hero as anything but a superhero.  Liam Neeson has never again had a role like this.  Ralph Fiennes, meanwhile, is good enough to have parlayed his bad guy into a very good career in which he's rarely played the bad guy again.  Except, y'know, as Voldemort.

Groundhog Day
rating: ****
review: For a generation, embodied the concept of the repeating day narrative, and easily served up Bill Murray's most endearing performance.

Grumpy Old Men
rating: ****
review: I've never understood why critics tend to be so grumpy about this one.  It's classic comedy at its finest, improbably reuniting a classic comedy pairing (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, the original Odd Couple) for the best comedy of their careers.

True Romance
rating: ****
review: In the rush to capitalize on Quentin Tarantino's sensational debut, Hollywood turned to...Quentin Tarantino for some help.  His script helped make this arguably better than Tarantino's own Reservoir Dogs.  It's a preview, at the very least, for the kind of filmmaker Tarantino would become.

Heaven and Earth
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone returns to Vietnam to explore the native experience in this little-known drama.

Philadelphia
rating: ****
review: Tom Hanks' first great drama is also the one that netted him his first Best Actor Oscar.

Much Ado About Nothing
rating: ****
review: Guaranteed to make anyone leery to embrace Shakespeare to in fact love the Bard.

Robin Hood: Men in Tights
rating: ****
review: Mel Brooks directly parodies Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and despite what history tends to say, ends up with another classic.

The Snapper
rating: ***
review: Colm Meaney, the Irish actor who for years plied his trade in Star Trek TV shows, had a series of movies in which he got to stretch a little, and this was his first direct spotlight in them.

Mrs. Doubtfire
rating: ***
review: Robin Williams finds all but the perfect role post-Aladdin, and most of it works perfectly, until you look back at it in hindsight.  Jim Carrey made this kind of movie better in Liar, Liar.

The Fugitive
rating: ***
review: Classic retelling of a cult TV series features Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in one of their signature movies, but spends so much time in the chase that neither one, upon further examination, has too much to do, as made all too clear in how each of them followed it up.  Jones made the quasi-sequel U.S. Marshalls, which made it all too clear how little his character really had to work with, and Ford made more action movies with more clearly-defined roles.  But it's still a milestone.

Kalifornia
rating: ***
review: This is the movie Juliette Lewis made before Natural Born Killers and is every bit its spiritual predecessor.  The problem is, it's not as good.  It's a Hollywood version of Quentin Tarantino without Quentin Tarantino.  This time it just doesn't work.  But the good news is that it's also got Brad Pitt, so it's worth watching anyway.

The Thing Called Love
rating: ***
review: In the eternal search to discover what kind of actor the mature River Phoenix would have been, fans will always examine what he left behind to find out.  This otherwise standard drama also has a young Sandra Bullock going for it, so it's not a bad place to start.

Gettysburg
rating: ***
review: In many ways, as full of romanticism as Gone with the Wind.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
rating: ***
review: It's sad that the greatest martial artist ever to appear in the movies didn't live long enough to be in a movie truly worthy of his talents.  This is close enough.

The Man Without a Face
rating: ***
review: In the wake of Mel Gibson's sensational The Passion of the Christ, well-meaning but horribly misinformed fans thought this was some kind of biopic.  It's a good movie, but it's...definitely not Gibson's life story.

Dave
rating: ***
review: Is Kevin Kline really the president?  No.  Is this still a fun movie?  Yes!  Of course, it's also just the tip of the iceberg in the emerging Hollywood obsession with presidential movies, which still sees no end in sight.

Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
rating: ***
review: I can think of fewer movies that have impacted the culture more with less memory with what actually happened in the movie.  Less a holiday classic and more Burton's, perhaps, ideal movie.

Jurassic Park
rating: ***
review: A whole cultural phenomenon in its own right (and last year spawned a sequel that again rehashed a plot that really has nowhere to go), part of the dinosaur obsession of that time, that helped define the '90s blockbuster.

Romper Stomper
rating: **
review: Russell Crowe's breakout film is probably not what you'd expect.  His subsequent Hollywood career really doesn't reflect it at all, which is kind of weird.

El Mariachi
rating: **
review: Robert Rodriguez's breakout film is more recognizable, meanwhile, because it was basically remade, better, as Desperado.

It's All True
rating: **
review: Fascinating attempt to reconstruct, as a documentary about a documentary, a lost Orson Welles film, which curiously falls apart when it unwisely presents an extended sequence that for its lack of completeness, fails miserably to provide the coda that would have sealed the deal.  More successful is the credits music featuring Welles boisterously detailing his observations on Brazilian music as we listen to it.

Cool Runnings
rating: **
review: An odd mix of a comedy attempting to simultaneously provide a feel-good message.

Tombstone
rating: **
review: I continue to contend that it's outclassed in every regard by Wyatt Earp.

Hocus Pocus
rating: **
review: Odd comedy that attempts to make witches sympathetic by making them as pathetic as possible.

Free Willy
rating: **
review: The most famous example of that era's push to make people care about whales as an endangered species. 

1992 Capsule Reviews

Malcolm X
rating: *****
review: Spike Lee's masterpiece, a biopic of the '60s black leader not named Martin Luther King, Jr.  Denzel Washington has his first great starring role as the eponymous icon.

Reservoir Dogs
rating: ****
review: Quentin Tarantino's explosive debut features a complete revision of the hoodlum genre and career-making performances for every member of the cast.

Aladdin
rating: ****
review: Disney's third exceptional animated film in as many efforts brings the quality level back down to earth, although finds a real phenomenon in giving Robin Williams perhaps his greatest role as the Genie.

A Few Good Men
rating: ****
review: The only thing wrong with this movie is that Jack Nicholson ultimately steals the show right from under lead Tom Cruise, who proves overmatched on this occasion.

The Cutting Edge
rating: ****
review: For a nation that was at that time obsessed with figure skating, it's good that someone made a really good movie out of it at the same time.

Sister Act
rating: ****
review: Whoopi Goldberg's greatest role fires on all cylinders except in the plot that is kind of shoehorned in to make it happen in the first place.  But it's nice to see Maggie Smith and Harvey Keitel try to redeem thankless roles around her.

Batman Returns
rating: ****
review: Tim Burton's second dance with the Dark Knight takes all of its notes from the Burton playbook, and succeeds as everything, basically, except a Batman movie.  Which is just weird.

A River Runs Through It
rating: ****
review: Robert Redford delivers one of the two ridiculously earnest movies Brad Pitt made in this period (along with Legends of the Fall).  You can swap the term "earnest" with "elegiac," depending on how much you go along with it.  This was like a movie version of The Waltons. 

A League of Their Own
rating: ****
review: This was an era in which supporting performances could very easily upstage the main event.  Hence why I still love quoting Tom Hanks' immortal: "There's no crying in baseball!"

Bram Stoker's Dracula
rating: ****
review: This sensational revision of the character back to its roots is perfectly in-line with the rest of Hollywood in this era.

Chaplin
rating: ****
review: Robert Downey, Jr. matures as an actor in this portrait of an early Hollywood favorite.

Wayne's World
rating: ***
review: Like Bill and Ted, Wayne and Garth are two comedy icons from this period that kind of became period specific.

Noises Off
rating: ***
review: A fine adaptation of classic live theater farce.

Brain Donors
rating: ***
review: An attempt to revive classic Hollywood farce.  (Previously I pointed out how Hollywood seemed to so eagerly try and bury this period.  I think it's because it tried so hard to reinvent the wheel.)

Unforgiven
rating: ***
review: Almost like an update of The Shootist, John Wayne's classic final film, Clint Eastwood introduces the new normal of the Hollywood Western, in which something big (an aging cowboy played by an iconic actor returning to form) is necessary for anyone to care again about the genre.

Scent of a Woman
rating: ***
review: Ironically, another emerging actor (this time Chris O'Donnell) unwittingly duplicates Tom Cruise's experience in A Few Good Men, this time with Al Pacino, and far too early in his career.

The Muppet Christmas Carol
rating: ***
review: The Muppets concede that they need to do something drastic to be relevant again, and turn to adapting classic novels.  My dad swears by this version.  Doesn't hurt to feature Michael Caine.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
rating: **
review: Exactly like the first one, only not as fresh.

The Mighty Ducks
rating: **
review: Kicked off the young actors craze.  Ended up inspiring a real NHL team.  About what you'd expect, otherwise, from a sports film.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kids
rating: **
review: Yeah, somehow this happened.  No doubt fun to watch, but...

Toys
rating: **
review: Not bad, Robin Williams, but also a waste of your potential.

1991 Capsule Reviews

JFK
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone's perfect movie, whether you believe his conclusions or not, in which he deconstructs Kennedy's assassination and a version of the popular conspiracy theory narrative that has built up around it over the years. 

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
rating: ****
review: Fans still consider Wrath of Khan to be the perfect Star Trek film, but it's hard to contend, at least for a film featuring the original cast, with this nuanced portrait of Starfleet/Klingon relations that also covers real-world political events from the Cold War that inspired it.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
rating: ****
review: The movie that officially launched James Cameron's blockbuster career is nearly perfect, and helped Hollywood finally begin to deconstruct the Star Wars phenomenon once and for all, so that in another decade, this kind of movie is released all the time.

Hook
rating: ****
review: Routinely listed as one of Spielberg's rare misses, this is another 1991 deconstruction (I guess that was the running theme) that probably asked audiences to think too much about Peter Pan to succeed on its own merit.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
rating: ****
review: Kevin Costner in this period was absolutely untouchable, although this movie also stands as the starting point of audiences questioning whether the lead actor was in fact ethnically miscast.  In truth, it doesn't matter.  Despite the ongoing love for the romanticism of Errol Flynn, this is by far the better movie.  This was a whole era in which moviemaking started to grow up.

The Doors
rating: ****
review: Honestly, I think this second Stone flick from the years has just gotten lost in the shuffle.  It's an excellent portrait of Jim Morrison, and Val Kilmer absolutely nails his performance.  Probably a victim of the emerging Stone backlash.

The Fisher King
rating: ****
review: Terry Gilliam begins to mature as a filmmaker, pulling all his best impulses together, which doesn't hurt when he's got Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams to work with.

Beauty and the Beast
rating: ****
review: Famously the first animated feature to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, this was Disney maturing along with the rest of Hollywood plain and simple.

What About Bob?
rating: ***
review: A minor Bill Murray classic, in which he drives Richard Dreyfuss crazy.  Kicked off a Dreyfuss renaissance that culminated in Mr. Holland's Opus.

The Commitments
rating: ***
review: Classic rock drama that happens to feature an Irish cast.

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
rating: ***
review: These were excellent (heh) movies, but another case where this whole period in film history was somewhat hastily pasted over for later '90s developments.  Basically Bill & Ted's Divine Comedy.

White Fang
rating: ***
review: This was my introduction to both Jack London and Ethan Hawke.

My Girl
rating: ***
review: More so than the young stars, including an oddly supporting turn from sudden megastar Macaulay Culkin, it's actually the unusually melancholy performance from Dan Ackroyd as the father that sticks with me.

Thelma and Louise
rating: ***
review: Don't tell the girls, but this female Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is better known, to me and possibly to a lot of other fans, as the movie stolen by a young Brad Pitt.

Point Break
rating: ***
review: The juxtaposition between Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves is even more excellent than Bill and Ted, but it's a movie that juggles the line between cheese and awesome even more uncomfortably.  Eventually gave birth to an excellent film series: The Fast and the Furious.

Shipwrecked
rating: ***
review: This was a childhood favorite, and paved the way for my Pirates of the Caribbean obsession.

The Rocketeer
rating: ***
review: Like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, its wonderful nostalgic anachronism is fun to watch, but doesn't quite duplicate, say, Indiana Jones.

Life Stinks
rating: **
review: Mel Brooks in an original movie that set the tone for a lot of '90s cynicism that eventually coalesced around Seinfeld.

Fried Green Tomatoes
rating: **
review: One of those archetypal chick flicks that you would probably have to be specifically geared toward to rate higher.  But then, you can probably guess some of my own biases.  So at least I'm being honest.

The Silence of the Lambs
rating: **
review: Source for our ongoing obsession with police procedurals on TV, made iconic in the few minutes Anthony Hopkins appears as Hannibal Lecter.

King Ralph
rating: **
review: I vaguely remember this John Goodman movie, but the similar Dave with Kevin Kline ages better in my memory.

Jungle Fever
rating: **
review: It's kind of funny.  Spike Lee came around at a time when there was considerable racial unrest.  It's a little odd that there isn't someone like him right now.  This was one of the movies in his string of studies on the subject, that isn't quite up to par.

Highlander 2: The Quickening
rating: **
review: There are actually two cuts of this movie available, one that completely excises the apparently controversial origin element of the alien origin for the immortals running around in this series.  I kind of like both.

Hudson Hawk
rating: **
review: One of the poster children for vanity projects from this period and their incredibly poor reputations, I actually like it.  Bruce Willis clearly just wanted to have fun, but he became pigeon-holed as someone who instead had to be grim all the time.  Now he has no fun at all.  See what happened, folks?

The Neverending Story II
rating: **
review: It's definitely one of those historical ironies that a movie with this title had a sequel that didn't not beg for another sequel.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II
rating: **
review: Pegged in history as part of the Vanilla Ice phenomenon.

1990 Capsule Reviews

Dances With Wolves
rating: *****
review: Crosses the Western with the war flick with compelling aplomb as the signal effort in the meandering path toward redeeming the Native American's place in his own, ah, country.

The Godfather Part III
rating: ****
review: Routinely dismissed as the cruel death of a beloved film saga, this is, rather, the necessarily coda in which Michael Corleone finally takes stock at the legacy he's created, and how he might yet walk away.

Awakenings
rating: ****
review: I like to think of this as the one where Robert De Niro proved he could be understated and still dominate the screen.  Plus it's a nice bookend to Robin Williams' prior Dead Poets Society.

Hamlet
rating: ****
review: For years Hollywood attempted to contextualize Mel Gibson as something other than a crazy lunatic.  Here I think it missed the boat in realizing how well he fits in with Shakespeare.

Home Alone
rating: ****
review: So outlandish it had to work, and so it did.

Pretty Woman
rating ****
review: Only a breakthrough performance could make it so easy to forget that Julia Roberts is a hooker in this movie.

Goodfellas
rating: ***
review: So often lauded as a return to the gangster flick of yore, it took Scorsese to make the subsequent Wolf of Wall Street to realize these are bad guys everyone's rooting for, and completely irredeemable ones at that.  Hand it to Ray Liotta's snappy voiceover.

Mo' Better Blues
rating: ***
review: Spike Lee's first collaboration with Denzel Washington.  It gets better.

Young Guns II
rating: ***
review: There's a case to be made that this one's better than the original.

Dick Tracy
rating: ***
review: Warren Beatty's career kind of ended with this flick, a harbinger of how the rest of the decade would go with outlandish cinematic figures.

Edward Scissorhands
rating: ***
review: A fairy tale as only Tim Burton could tell it, incomprehensible and endearing at the same time.

The Freshman
rating: **
review: For whatever reason, Hollywood loved gangsters in a big way again at this time.  So it was only natural for Marlon Brando to put in his two cents.  He was not actually all that amused.  I think this is the point where scholars will have to begin examining his career more closely, to discover what he thought and why he ended up doing what he did with the rest of it.  Because he literally no longer saw his place in it.  A pity, because eventually, there would have been, if he'd only stuck it out.

Rocky V
rating: **
review: I think fans hate this one because it's legitimately the most depressing one, and perhaps the most honest.

Kindergarten Cop
rating: **
review: So bewildering it makes the most sense in its most memorable line: "It's not a tumah."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
rating: **
review: To a kid, it makes perfect sense.  But to anyone else, it just looks silly.

Ghost Dad
rating: **
review: Excluding his current predicament, Bill Cosby failed to become a box office star because his first real stab at it just seems so tepid.

1989 Capsule Reviews

Born on the Fourth of July
rating: *****
review: This is where Oliver Stone helped define the morality of the US as a quagmire of polarizing views we've yet to emerge from, with Tom Cruise finding his voice as the innocent turned cynic.

Glory
rating: *****
review: Hollywood begin embracing black actors in this iconic look at the mixed rewards of integrated armies in the Civil War, the search for redemption that as of today continues.

Dead Poets Society
rating: *****
review: For a generation, this is what the legacy of Frank Capra looked like, an impossibly inspiring figure whose greatest supporters are the students who make him a hero.  Arguably the late Robin Williams' greatest film and the one most likely to be identified as anything but.

Batman
rating: ****
review: The modern superhero flick begins to emerge, missing only one thing: the chance to view the superhero as anything but a loner freak...But then, the director is Tim Burton.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
rating: ****
review: Still to my mind the perfect Indiana Jones flick, with the rugged professor matching wits with his own father instead of glory or a girl.  Still notable for showing a glimpse of the man River Phoenix might have become, very much, well, Indiana Jones.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
rating: ****
review: Terry Gilliam kind of merges the lessons of Time Bandits and Brazil by letting the supporting cast, including a young Uma Thurman, take over.

Field of Dreams
rating: ****
review: Where Dead Poets Society leaves off, Field of Dreams picks up, with masculine hero worship embracing fatherhood again.

Do the Right Thing
rating: ****
review: Spike Lee emerges with a voice ahead of his time, literally presenting a pressure cooker situation and letting it play out.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
rating: ****
review: A teenage comedy ahead of its time, about as close an answer to Back to the Future as anyone's come, leaving out any semblance of science to just let the fun settle in.

The Abyss
rating: ***
review: The mature James Cameron begins to emerge.

Henry V
rating: ***
review: Kenneth Branagh introduces the Bard to modern cinema.

When Harry Met Sally...
rating: ***
review: A chick flick that became a cultural touchstone but maybe reaches too far.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
rating: ***
review: A far more noble effort than fans have yet to admit, but also the time the franchise embraced the Star Wars fix of the decade.

Back to the Future Part II
rating: **
review: Incomprehensibly attempts to duplicate the first one by doing everything in reverse.

Earth Girls Are Easy
rating: **
review: Jim Carrey plays a supporting role in this wacky movie about aliens getting a crash course in human culture.

Kickboxer
rating: **
review: About as basic a movie in this genre as you can get, but still a relatively entertaining one.

Who's Harry Crumb?
rating: **
review: Recommended for fans of John Candy.

K-9
rating: **
review: From that brief period where Jim Belushi looked like he might be taken as seriously as his brother.

The Little Mermaid
rating: **
review: This Disney breakthrough is best remembered for its songs.

All Dogs Go to Heaven
rating: **
review: Pleasant enough for children.  But seriously, what was with all the dogs from this period?

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
rating: **
review: A special effects movie that inspired Hollywood to go way, way overboard.

Ghostbusters II
rating: **
review: No one says how great this one is.  It just kind of exists.

Weekend at Bernie's
rating: **
review: Such a nutty concept it can't help but be memorable.  Notice I didn't say good.

Akira
rating: **
review: Japanese anime is something you either really get or scratch your head at.  Witness its popular American debut.

1988 Capsule Reviews

Big
rating: ****
review: Hollywood finally figures out what to do with Tom Hanks.

U2: Rattle & Hum
rating: ****
review: U2's chances of becoming the next Beatles fizzled when US audiences didn't respond kindly to this doc featuring the band's efforts to embrace the native culture.  But it's essential for fans, and anyone still looking for great music and the next big thing.

Die Hard
rating: ****
review: Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman are actually more memorable than the movie that made their careers.

Young Guns
rating: ****
review: The perpetual battle to make Westerns popular again gave the Brat Pack one of its battles, and they ran with it quite memorably.

Talk Radio
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone tackles something that only got bigger in the years ahead.  But it was a noble effort.

Beetlejuice
rating: ***
review: Honestly, I think it'd have more cultural staying power if it had been a cartoon.

A Fish Called Wanda
rating: ***
review: The adult comedy kind reached a definitive turning point with this one. 

Rain Man
rating: ***
review: Dustin Hoffman so often went to the character well, he kind of predicted the arc of Johnny Depp's career without anyone noticing.  And then Daniel Day-Lewis had to go and prove how much critics would love it if he only picked dramatic parts...

Eight Men Out
rating: ***
review: If it had featured Shoeless Joe Jackson more prominently, it might seem more distinguished.

Au Revoir, Les Enfants
rating: ***
review: A foreign film!  This French flick about a teacher forced to leaves his students behind during WWII is either a litmus test for how much you'll like this sort of thing, or proof that maudlin entertainment exists in every language.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
rating: ***
review: Probably would have been more significant had it starred, say, Bugs Bunny.

Willow
rating: ***
review: Kind of like the fantasy version of Star Wars.  From a certain point of view.

Coming to America
rating: ***
review: I think this is where Eddie Murphy took the template for much of the rest of his career.

The Land Before Time
rating: ***
review: Launched a direct-to-video series that probably dulled its impact over time.

Gorillas in the Mist
rating: ***
review: Lifeless if exquisite.

Stand and Deliver
rating: ***
review: This is kind of classic '80s looking for that moral voice.

1987 Capsule Reviews

Wall Street
rating: *****
review: Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko became an icon for the so-called Greed Decade, and deservedly got the sequel treatment over Charlie Sheen's character in Money Never Sleeps.  And we haven't really learned anything, alas.

The Princess Bride
rating: *****
review: So beloved by fans but critics are still reluctant to embrace it.  Still, a classic.

Spaceballs
rating: ****
review: The point where Mel Brooks became better known for satirizing specific films than genres, and where critics, sadly, deserted him.  But this is still a classic in its own right.

The Untouchables
rating: ****
review: Kevin Costner becomes a leading man thanks to a rousing gangster flick that's actually about dismantling the bad guys for a change.

Lethal Weapon
rating: ****
review: Hollywood originally embraced Mel Gibson as a loose cannon.  So it's kind of ironic that he was eventually dismissed as a loose cannon.  Unlike Bill Murray in Ghostbusters, a lead character who ends up lost in an ensemble concept, this one's clearly about Gibson but remembered as a buddy flick.  Which ends up very well for sequels, actually.

Full Metal Jacket
rating: ***
review: Stanley Kubrick's last fan favorite movie is far less entertaining a study of war than his previous Dr. Strangelove.  If you were to ask what the unifying theme of his films is, it's what he thought audiences expected of him during that particular period.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
rating: ***
review: You can see it in all the films of the period, Hollywood struggling to find a new moral center.  This attempt to make Superman that center kind of backfired spectacularly.

Masters of the Universe
rating: ***
review: History hasn't been kind to it, but I guarantee a kid would still love it today.

La Bamba
rating: ***
review: Poor Lou Diamond Phillips discovers that everyone loves him when they know what the heck he's doing.  But otherwise struggles to remain relevant.  Not as iconic as the earlier Buddy Holly Story, but still worthy of note.

Critical Condition
rating: **
review: Madcap Richard Pryor.  Seemingly specialized in roles where he was required for a bug-eyed performance.

1986 Capsule Reviews

Salvador
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone in his first major film, tackling major issues right from the start, beginning the Serious Film renaissance he'd continue to lead for the next decade.  Also, this is where you realize how odd it is that James Woods ended up lost in the acting shuffle later. 

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

rating: ****
review: Star Trek travels to the 20th century for a message- and comedy-heavy film, plus kind of wraps up the trilogy begun in Wrath of Khan.  This was the most popular film of the franchise for years, but it begins to show its age.

Stand by Me
rating: ****
review: The first great Stephen King movie, and the clearest indication of how special River Phoenix could have been, but in hindsight also perhaps about how far you can push child actors and get away with it.

An American Tail
rating: ****
review: Doesn't get near enough credit for helping spur the animated renaissance Disney would officially launch a few years later.

Top Gun
rating: ****
review: The moment Hollywood figure out it could do event movies without aping Star Wars.

Platoon
rating: ****
review: Oliver Stone again, full of acclaimed war weariness, but not to the level of Apocalypse Now.  More like Terrence Malick's Thin Red Line.

Highlander
rating: ****
review: Because these films have never breached cult status, they don't get enough credit.  The first is the best, in which Sean Connery finds unexpected new life as a colorful wingman.

The Name of the Rose
rating: ***
review: Speaking of Connery, this is a wonderful sendoff to his leading man career.

Three Amigos
rating: ***
review: Kind of ahead of its time as a comedy, in our era where it's far harder to be a single headliner and instead being lumped in groups.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off
rating: ***
review: It's tough to imagine that such a simple concept achieved iconic status, kind of new school fans adopting old school flavor without even realizing it.

Aliens
rating: So many filmmakers have tried to elevate this franchise to Star Wars status, and so many have failed.  Here it's James Cameron.

Manhunter
rating: ***
review: This original cinematic incarnation of Hannibal Lecter has its partisans.  But it doesn't have Anthony Hopkins. 

Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: There are a lot of big names attached to this movie.  But its achievement is still nowhere near, say, Princess Bride.

The Karate Kid Part II
rating: **
review: Honestly, all I remember is that Daniel continues what he was doing last time.

Crocodile Dundee
rating: **
review: Australia enters the pop culture.

Space Camp
rating: **
review: Space for kids!

1985 Capsule Reviews

Back to the Future
rating: *****
review: This is one of those classics that achieved its status by combining iconic elements and in the process becoming iconic.  Kind of like Ghostbusters the year before but having nailed everything instead of just kind of establishing it.

Brazil
rating: ****
review: Terry Gilliam's first real work of cinematic genius fails in only one regard: Jonathan Pryce was perhaps too perfect a lead.  He's just not memorable as a lead, and so everything that happens around him, or to him, becomes less than it could have been.

Return to Oz
rating: ****
review: As perfect a representation of L. Frank Baum's original Oz vision as we've gotten so far.

After Hours
rating: ***
review: Martin Scorsese achieves more or less what Terry Gilliam did in Brazil, only to far less of a point.

Rocky IV
rating: ***
review: The realism of the franchise dissipates in this blockbuster installment that saw Sly Stallone's hero kind of merge with his other big '80s hit, Rambo.

Once Bitten
rating: ***
review: Jim Carrey's journey to stardom would take another decade after years of work like this, in which he's not the star so much as the guy reacting to situations as wacky as he'd eventually become.

Lifeforce
rating: **
review: No, you don't need to think of this movie in terms of early Patrick Stewart or naked vampires, but it probably doesn't hurt.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
rating: **
review: I've sometimes thought of this as the most satisfying of the original Mad Max movies, only because it develops the world to a more universal degree, but really, it's the full Hollywood version, a relic of '80s action movies inspired by Star Wars.  And just not up to snuff.

Cocoon
rating: **
review: Notable for being that movie where old people are relevant.

Santa Claus: The Movie
rating: **
review: Notable for that movie that tries to put so much magic into Santa that it actually sucks the magic right out.

The Goonies
rating: **
review: This movie is well-loved by those who grew up with it.  But otherwise seems like a relic when watched by others.  We've all got movies like this in our favorites. 

Teen Wolf
rating: **
review: I remember watching this years ago.  But I don't feel particularly compelled to watch it again.  More or less Michael J. Fox doing a teenage Shaggy Dog.

1984 Capsule Reviews

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
rating: ****
review: The follow-up to fan favorite Wrath of Khan is, to my mind, better, with a greater emphasis on the characters who make it matter, better understanding of their psychology, and the risks they're willing to take.  The only problem is that Christopher Lloyd, while at that point arguably the best actor to play a Klingon, is no Ricardo Montalban.

Ghostbusters
rating: ****
review: Bill Murray in his first iconic starring role, with a lot of stuff working around him that kind of took on a life of its own, which oddly makes it easy to forget that this is a Bill Murray film, and therefore mutes its impact.

The Terminator
rating: ****
review: More apocalyptic than the Mad Max movies and more inevitable in its ending, which may actually explain its appeal, and why in 2015 both franchises had new installments, and the popular results went the other way.  This was a good way to kick off the story.  But the next one's better.

The Neverending Story
rating: ****
review: So many fantasy films of the decade try to compete, but this is the one that gets what kids actually wanted to see.

Amadeus
rating: ****
review: Not until Shakespeare in Love did Hollywood (and the Oscars) figure out again that history can be incredibly charming.

Romancing the Stone
rating: ***
review: The very beginning of the movies took on Indiana Jones with their own satisfying, if less iconic, takes.

The Muppets Take Manhattan
rating: ***
review: All of the Muppets movies start to blend together at a certain point.  But they're all amusing to fans.

The Last Starfighter
rating: ***
review: Honestly, if they'd left out the framing story of the kid being really good at a video game, this would age a lot better.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai
rating: ***
review: Honestly, how could this not develop a cult following?  But it's just so gonzo that it was doomed to translate poorly otherwise.  Like Last Starfighter, a version of Star Wars as understood and/or interpreted by others.

Dune
rating: ***
review: This was kind of someone realizing that Star Wars kind of did exist before 1977, but in a story that just plain isn't as good.

The Karate Kid
rating: ***
review: Very much of its time, when the public in general was finally catching up with the late Bruce Lee...

Splash
rating: ***
review: A true fish-out-of-water tale featuring the young Tom Hanks before anyone realized what to do with him (incredibly, fish-out-of-water became his trademark, but this movie literally about that didn't even realize it).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
rating: ***
review: Pretty good, in a generic Indiana Jones kind of way.

Revenge of the Nerds
rating: **
review: People who don't want to like popular things rag on The Big Bang Theory all the time by claiming it patronizes more than celebrates nerds.  But that's...kind of what this popular thing did.  And no one particularly points that out...

Supergirl
rating: **
review: The biggest crime this movie commits is that it has Peter O'Toole in it, and I can't for the life of me remember him in it.  Darned if that's not reason enough to watch it again, but still...

1983 Capsule Reviews

Return of the Jedi
rating: *****
review: Surprisingly, a lot of Star Wars fans think about this conclusion to the original Star Wars trilogy the way they do about the prequels, or possibly even The Force Awakens.  I've never understood that.  It's clearly the most '80s of the originals, full of action the way the previous two were filled with set-up and set pieces.  This is the payoff of the first two in every way, and wonderfully succeeds in my view.

Superman III
rating: ****
review: Honestly, the worst thing about this movie is Lana Lang's annoying kid Ricky.  Everything else is pretty awesome, including Richard Pryor's Gus Gorman, who's a heck of a lot better than Ned Beatty's Otis, just as Robert Vaughn's Ross Webster is a better Lex Luthor than Gene Hackman's...Heresy, I know.  And the internal conflict Superman faces is a lot more Superman than his external conflicts in the first two...I think this is one of those movies where people were so heavily invested in the previous installments that they can't allow themselves to see it for what it is.  It doesn't help that this is pretty close to what an adaptation of an actual comic book would have looked like at that time.

Scarface
rating: ***
review: Al Pacino became such a polarizing figure around this time, it was no doubt because he dared to break the method formula and thrust himself fully into a cartoon role, another stark contrast between the '70s and '80s in prime display.

Monty Python's Meaning of Life
rating: ***
review: I think this one's disappointing only in the sense that after two complete movies, the boys went back to what they'd been doing in a TV series that at that point was kind of beside the point for anyone but diehards.  Otherwise it's a regular hoot.

Trading Places
rating: ***
review: Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy in a movie they both had to make to legitimize their movie careers, kind of exactly what Bill Murray ended up specializing in about a decade later.  The problem is they kept going for easier material until it was too late, and so here we are today, with one of them still showing up regularly, and the other two struggling away.

The Right Stuff
rating: ***
review: I always want to like this one more, but the lack of a true lead makes it difficult.  Otherwise the kind of movie that needs to happen more often, but becomes increasingly rare.  We don't care enough about our own history, no matter how sensational.  Spectacle is now the stuff of fiction and tabloids.

Risky Business
rating: ***
review: Tom Cruise burst onto the scene.  But now it's about all there is to talk about, and pretty much boiled down to him dancing in his underwear.  It's really weird that he stopped trying to be likeable.

The Curse of the Pink Panther
rating: **
review: This was the first time anyone tried to find out if the franchise could work without Peter Sellers.  At this particular point...what's the point?