Goldeneye arrived on Home Video this week in 1996, after a November 16th, 1995 theatrical release.Right as James Bond was dying. Not in a dramatic shaken-not-stirred type cliffhanger, but more of a slow, embarrassing, nobody’s-returning-calls kind of way. Moore had turned him into a cartoon but the overcorrection for Dalton had left 007 as someone … Read more
Being a good person is worthless. That’s all – no notes, caveats or exceptions. Everything we need to know is in those 6 words. Unfortunately, it’s not a lesson you can just be told – luckily The Dark Crystal (1982) drops some hints on how we can learn it. Right from the very beginning it’s … Read more
Neil Jordan had already established his art house credibility with The Company of Wolves, and Mona Lisa, he was one of the most interesting directors working in the British Isles, and Hollywood took notice. But of course, Hollywood being Hollywood, it snatched an indie director with real potential and handed him a big commercial production. … Read more
The original NeverEnding Story wasn’t always the sacred object nostalgia’s turned it into. In North America, it grossed about twenty million against a twenty-seven million dollar budget, and critics were mixed. Its cult following grew retroactively through cable and VHS, the way a lot of 80s kids’ films did. People loved it because they grew … Read more
My Girl isn’t the film I was expecting to see. For context: it came out the year after Home Alone. Macaulay Culkin was the biggest child star on the planet, an adorable little scamp with the comic Munch scream who proved a well-prepared eight-year-old could take out two grown men with paint and a blowtorch. … Read more
Felonious Monks and Furious Egos: one of the best films you’ve probably forgotten. The Name of the Rose (1986) took over four years to make and faltered several times before it finally ascended to cinema screens. Casting a washed-up action star was a long shot that nearly crucified the film’s finances but the decision turned … Read more
This was a rare VHS I bought sight unseen. Blockbuster had it in their previously viewed bin after barely two weeks as a new release, and at that price, the Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken marquee value was enough to take the chance on a 5.99 purchase. I went in cold, not really registering it … Read more
Growing up, I always gravitated towards the characters who didn’t quite know how to say what they meant. The ones who stood slightly outside every conversation, watching the room with a disconcerting intensity. When I spotted characters like that, I got glimpses of how I might render from the outside. I recognized them immediately, I … Read more
The Legend of Billie Jean made about three million dollars, got shrugged off by critics, and by rights it should have disappeared into the ether. Many films like this do. But Billie Jean keeps jumping back onto the pop cultural radar, and every time it does, people find a different film inside it. For the … Read more
Batman’s boffo loomed large over the 90s, and Hollywood spent most of the decade scrambling for the next big superhero blockbuster franchise. They clearly didn’t know what worked. But they read down the checklist at least as far as Art Deco aesthetic and a classic IP grandpa would approve of. While Underoos A-listers like Superman … Read more