Pop 
Underdog kids who just want to do their thing, the uptight authority figures who just don’t get it and want that thing to stop, and the triumphant but tragic finale where the kids get to speak truth to power. What if Pump Up The Volume meant talking hard against the Third Reich? That’s right, Swing … 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
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
Many people had no idea Touchstone pictures was owned by Disney back in the day. And this wasn’t by accident. Then-Disney CEO Ron Miller created the label in 1984 so the mouse could release PG-13 and R-rated films without putting the castle on the poster, and thus keep Mickey far away from any F-bomb radiation. … Read more
Every now and then a movie comes along that was so clearly assembled from a checklist of things that sell, you can almost picture the meeting. A John Carpenter screenplay? Put his name on the poster. A cool-looking supercar? Put that on the poster too. Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Hamilton, Robert Vaughn? Recognisable, affordable, and … Read more
Warlock arrived on Home Video this week in 1991, after it premiered at Cannes in May of 1989. It opened in the UK and Australia that June of that year, then disappeared for eighteen months before finally getting a lukewarm US theatrical release on January 11th, 1991. New World Pictures went broke during the delay, … Read more