1982 I caught up on during the pandemic, thank goodness! It’s sneaky great, with lots of movies that became templates for other great films later, and symbols for great filmmakers too. And then there’s Tron. Ah Tron: historically important. As a movie? Just weird.
Growing up is always hard isn’t it? This movie about twentysomethings growing up in the late 1950s gives a wonderful template that would be followed by countless movies after it, including casting an incredible cast like Mickey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, and Ellen Barkin held together by an even better script by the great Barry Levinson.
The movie that made Eddie Murphy a star. Murphy plays Reggie Hammond, a con who gets released for 2 days to help Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) track down a couple men who broke out of prison and are on a killing spree. Walter Hill’s movie also created the buddy cop template, putting two people who don’t like each other together for humorous and action packed results. The Nolte/Murphy combo is electric onscreen, finding that perfect balance of prickly but totally entertaining.
This movie was like rocket fuel to the movie industry. It’s a blast to watch, smart as hell, and brimming with fascinating high schoolers that would become stereotypes after this. This movie was so important it launched the careers of Amy Heckerling, Cameron Crowe, Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Judge Reinhold. Plus, Phoebe Cates created a sexual fantasy that’s probably in the all time movie pantheon.
Ignore the out of context memes. This movie is Sylvester Stallone’s dirty, dark take on the PTSD of American troops as they returned from Vietnam. Before Rambo became a joke, he was a former Green Beret traumatized from his past, treated like dirt in the town he ends up in. That treatment triggers him into war mode, terrifying the town and the audience with his abilities and trauma.
John Carpenter turns the 1951 Howard Hawks movie into a special effects horror nightmare. Claustrophobic and uneasy, the thing is a shapeshifting creature that can inhabit anything it kills, meaning it could very well be amongst the living. The blood test scene is one of the scariest of the year.
Many Star Trek fans were disappointed by the first Star Trek movie. They would not be disappointed in this one, a first class entertainment. That’s in large part due to Ricardo Montalban as the titular villain, oozing vengeance and charismatic narcissism, and a plot that takes some really big risks with the main crew of the Starship Enterprise.
Paul Newman launched into his later career with this courtroom classic. Newman plays an alcoholic lawyer chosen to defend a helpless family in a medical malpractice case against the Catholic Church. The movie succeeds on Newman’s talent, of which there’s plenty, acting the hell out of the movie and elevating it into something special.
Ridley Scott went from space to futuristic Los Angeles. He brought with him Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a detective hunting rogue androids who started to think for themselves. The movie’s visuals have been a benchmark for overcrowded city living, and the questions are as timeless in sci-fi as ever: the line between man and machine, corporate greed, the nature of love, etc.
A larger than life figure deserves a larger than life movie. Everybody knew who Ben Kingsley was after his portrayal of the great Indian leader, charismatically channeling the Mahatma with aplomb. The movie also shows how smart Gandhi was in his revolutionary means of non violent protest and use of the press to his advantage.
Steven Spielberg’s company gets its symbol from one of the many memorable scenes from this wholly uplifting movie about an alien who wants to get back to his family. Spielberg has a way of finding these special moments that just take our breath away: here, with Reese’s Pieces, Fingers, and the phrase Phone Home. Movie magic from cinema’s greatest magician.
