1980: Give the past the slip

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know."

- Harry S. Truman

The main reason I started exploring these anniversary milestones was as an excuse to reminisce about the major pop culture events that I was there for; a means to keep a journal for the stuff I should've journaled the first time. Lately I've been moving away from my own timeline into years I have no emotional connection to - either because I was too young to remember or I just hadn't yet been born. As a result it's forced me to get more philosophical and abstract (and probably pretentious) about trying to conure up some objective sense of nostalgia for all of us to share, but really it's just my lust for history gussied up into some Kumbaya singalong we can all participate in. It sucks showing up to the party only to find out you missed its peak -- and so I'm here to learn about the past, and I'm condemning myself to repeat it. 

 

Same as the start of any decade (in the 20th century at least), the fashions and feels of the previous era bleed into the next one in nebulous ways. TV shows like Little on the Prairie and Alice were still cracking the Top 10 in ratings, Barbra Streisand and Bob Seger were topping the charts in record sales, and popular songs like "Upside Down" by Diana Ross and "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. felt very much like a culture we were about to leave behind. But while some things remained as jarring reminders of the 1970s, there were plenty of totally tubular debuts that became synonymous with The Reagan Era. Pac-Man and The Rubik's Cube were released globally. U2, Iron Maiden, and The Sugarhill Gang released their debut albums. Magnum P. I. and Bosom Buddies premiered. John Lennon was killed. Mount St. Helens erupted. The Iraq-Iran War began. And, Ronald Regan was elected President of the U.S. The aftertaste of bell-bottoms and Disco was certainly still swishing around the zeitgeist, but the decade of brash greed and big hair was breakin' its way into history one power move at a time. 

 

In today's culture, "The 1980s" has practically become a brandname as recognizable and marketable as Nike and Nintendo. The phrase itself conjures up a lotta stylized imagery and audio that, while they may be clichés, are all rooted in very real aesthetics/institutions/scenarios; you could've walked out of a matinee of Friday the 13th as you cranked Gary Numan on your Sony Walkman on your way to 7-Eleven for some Jell-O Pudding Pops, all before the end of Year Zero. But unless you were entirely hip and persistently progressive, you were still riding the vibes of the 70s; with Carter still in office and The Doobies still on the dial it was hard to tell which way was forward. Surprisingly, one avenue that seemed to be largely directionless was the movies. 

 

Mainstream American Cinema is like chips & dip to me - particularly when I was younger. That's actually true for most of the planet, and it was especially true in the big splashy era that was The 80s. But from my own point of view, the razzle-dazzle was not yet present at the beginning of the decade, and frankly the hard-hitting originality of The 70s had also faded away - at least as far as Hollywood was concerned. I will point out that three monumental, iconic American Comedies were released that year, and I suppose that's a pretty impressive legacy. But for me, 1980 was most notable for European Horror: an intermingled parade of cannibals, zombies, witches, and ghosts that found their way to The States - in fictional and literal terms. There were a few significant shocks from the U.S. but many of them were incredibly tame and immensely boring - especially when held up against the splatter that would inspire the eventual subgenre that became "80s Horror" and turned me and everyone else in my generation into confirmed ghost story and horror film addicts. 

- Paul

1. The Fog

In a time when "spookiness" began to fall out of favor, a master of the medium was gaining momentum, and his grasp of mood may've peaked right here; when a writer/director also composes their own music score, you're entirely at the mercy of their world. It's so fitting that it's an honest-to-god campfire tale because I grew up with this movie and so its urban legend angle still works on me with those same childhood chills. 

2. STAR WARS: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

The original movie brought fun and optimism to the gritty 1970s cinematic landscape. Ironically, its sequel brought forboding bitter pills to kick off the safe decade of happily-ever-afters. But this was most exciting because this world was still brand new; unlike Superman or James Bond, we couldn't be sure how menacing it could get, and they wielded that power like a Master Jedi. 

3. City of the Living Dead

It's my favorite zombie movie - if you can even call them that; they seem to have a variety of super powers that allows them to move through walls and eviscerate victims telepathically. (And you thought running zombies were trouble.) There's so much grotesque creativity in this movie and it's executed with such excess that it's nearly a Comedy. It goes hard, in a way mainstream Film no longer does. 

4. The Shining

There's barely a single frame in the whole picture that isn't recognizable and/or renowned -- even the dissolves and title cards are championed. I call attention to that because that's exactly how is should be; you could say Kubrick quite possibly had an eye for detail, but I'd be quick to nominate this movie as his most meticulous in terms of poise and precision. Like a spine-tingling symphony. 

5. The Blues Brothers

You'd undoubtedly find this in the Comedy section, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the best Action Movies of the year and maybe all time. Even the music (which is aces) takes a backseat to the car carnage that honestly gets overlooked on all the Car Chase Movie lists. 

6. Airplane!

Like Strangelove before it, this parody has proven to have more longevity than the material it's spoofing. The funniest part is that I didn't know any of the Airport movies when I was little so I actually got caught up in the drama of the food poisoning, war flashbacks, and glue sniffing. 

7. Caddyshack

Save for its tedious youth subplot it's like a greatest hits album of 1980 comedians - or at least one of those cereal variety packs. Even as a kid I thought the gopher puppet was lame, and as an adult I've finally reached the point where I think Ted Knight gives the funniest performance. 

8. Zombie Holocaust

Zombies vs. Cannibals: everyone loses, the audience wins! Not to be confused with Dr. Butcher M.D. which is a shorter cut of this film and does not feature Nico Fidenco's music - which is notable to me as it's in my Top 5 movie scores of all time. 

9. Times Square

If I didn't know any better I'd swear this movie was made just as an excuse to showcase Robin Johnson's virtuoso acting abilities; I'm never entirely convinced this isn't some documentary about this vibrant troubled teen and they just built a story around her (accompanied by one of my Top 5 soundtracks of all time). 

10. The Elephant Man

Regardless of costumes and context, most Period Films can never fully disguise their actual year of production. Watching this movie I'm only ever convinced I'm looking at Victorian England -- at the very least there's nothing here that indicates "Another One Bites the Dust" was on the radio while it played in theaters. 

11. Canibal Apocalypse

A truly bombastic title for a movie that is actually pretty intimate and illuminating. Really it's a Vietnam Movie in the vein of Rolling Thunder and Deer Hunter - for all I know the cannibalism plot is just a metaphor for postwar trauma. 

12. Inferno

I've seen this movie several times and I still don't know what's going on - yet it always has me on the edge of my seat. Elaborate set pieces, profound cinematography, genuine surprises, and disgusting brutality is truly more than enough to make compelling Cinema. 

13. Nightmare City

Diabolical zombies that punch and kick and stab and shoot guns, all in addition to their normal flesh eating habits - it's just as unpredictable to the movie's victims as it is to the audience. 

14. Raging Bull

I embraced this movie in a big way, back in my film school days but I eventually lost touch with the melodramatic side of it. But still, all the sequences in the ring truly are some of the greatest spectacles Marty's ever pulled off. 

15. Alligator

Not since Jaws has a Creature Feature managed to be so effortlessly engrossing with minimal use of a creature. Robert Forster headlines a cast of character actors in what is largely a satisfying police procedural. It's just a bonus that the rarely-seen alligator does, indeed, kick ass. 

16. Christmas Evil

With the Slasher boom already beginning to take "shape", this grim allegory went off in a different, better direction that focused less on mindless casualties and more on the sad degeneration of its lead "monster". It's also an aggressively Christmassy Christmas Movie. 

17. Dressed to Kill

Whenever I review any Brian DePalma movie, I declare it to be "his most Brian Depalma movie" -- but I really mean it this time. More than any of the others, this film dares you to not take it seriously. And whether you do or don't, you're gonna enjoy it either way. 

18. Humanoids From the Deep

Whenever I hear "low budget 80s Monster Movie" it's always cooler in my head than what they put on the screen. Humanoids actually fulfills my expectations in most areas - particularly the monsters themselves (designed and created by Fog maestro Rob Bottin). 

19. The Godsend

Evil kid situations usually get dragged down in a lotta exposition and plot. This is a refreshing take (for any genre) that maintains its eerie mystery while managing to unfold at an alarming pace. Also the kids in these kindsa movies can sometimes come off as annoying, but this little girl is super sinister. 

20. Cannibal Holocaust

I adored it for its cinematography and music score - and I still very much do. I'll always hesitate revisiting it without shielding my eyes with my hands - so I'm forced to make a compromise, because the movie does not. 

STATIC SHOTS

STAR WARS: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

It's time to let old things die

Hello. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you? Have you stayed strong in the face of social discord or are you letting the bastards get you down? More importantly, is my cordiality transparent enough to set the tone of my tirade? Without rushing things I don't think it's too early to say it's been a long year that also seemed to go by too fast - but clearly nothing is good enough for people like me. We're always busy populating this site with the stuff we love and why we love it, because that's our general approach to life and what it has to offer... but along that journey there are distractions and aggravations and lamentations and any schlub with advice to spare will tell you that it's healthy to talk about those things. I would never burden or bore you with the battles of my own personal life - this blog is largely a land of Pop Culture. And Boy Howdy! there are some battles to be fought in that land! So pull up an ice block and lend an ear because there's been some awful developments in the world of Art & Entertainment and I don't want you to think I haven't noticed. 

Save for a new PTA or QT movie, I don't feel any excitement when I go to the theater anymore. Some would blame my age, I blame the mediocrity of the movies - but that's a separate argument. Point is, as usual, I was entirely lukewarm on the idea of seeing Joker: Folie à Deux; while I liked the first one as much as the people who liked it, I disliked it as much as the people who didn't. At the end of the day it's the only comic book character I truly like as portrayed by one of my favorite working actors, and from that angle it melded harmoniously enough to recommend. So I found myself in a theater watching the sequel, not because I sought it out, but because, like everything, it was just the next thing. And what I found was exactly how everyone describes it - that is, to say, the people who actually have the tools to describe it beyond a single four-letter word. And while most people's observations were accurate, that is not to say I digested it in the same way as them. 

Look I'm not gonna review the goddamn thing, I'm as sick of it as you are - but I will say that the fact that we're all sick of it is a problem in and of itself. Personally I can't think of any recent movies that generated this volume of discussion - the only problem was that the "discussion" was an avalanche of lowbrow toxicity and aimless frustration saturated in grammatical errors. One of the items on my very concise and coherent list of complaints I had about the 2019 film is how causally it would insult the intelligence of its audience. And then, in the purest and most maddening example of irony imaginable, the Sequel attempted some very mild abstractions and it went largely over the audience's head. Little to no surprise in a year that gave us the most generous helping of fan service to date. That's not based on some vague barometer - to my understanding, Marvel released a movie about Marvel movies. Conversely, Todd Phillips released a movie that grown men thought would turn them gay if they watched it. As much as people crave competition, there really wasn't one - not in this case. 

I thought Joker 2 was considerably better than the first one, but it was still just a B/B+. That's why I haven't gone on some aggressive defense jag in its honor; it's pretty good but not enough for me to go out ridin' fences. And that's where we're at: as Film Criticism was once as much of a valued art form as Film itself, the new adjacent form entertainment is audience reaction. There's always been published "audience polls" and such for as long as I've paid attention, but now we have all these shared public forums where brains of all sizes can flesh out the reasons for their trivial point systems. But even still it comes down to the numbers; a lengthy essay (or even a girthy paragraph) is no match for a cluster of stars or a drawing of a tomato. And these services are put in place for a reason: just as the snobs need validation from IndieWire and Sight and Sound to inform their preferences, the "real fans" need their voices to be heard, free of all that pretentious academia put forward by critics. "If critics don't like it, that probably means it's good." And therein lies the root of that great moronic divide that's always haunting me and that I'm always complaining about: the senseless belief that there's a difference between "good" movies and "entertaining" movies. And naturally, professional critics know what's "good", amirite folks?

I've watched many of you abandon social media as a whole, and while I'm sad to lose your company in the vacuum of cyberspace, I commend your discipline; the greatest tragedy we've come to realize is that communication on a global scale is apparently bad for our health. Oh well. Masochist that I am I still rattle around these URLs just so I can read it over and over again...

I lie awake in bed staring into the darkness, pitying these poor souls who're convinced there's an illusive list of criteria that only the greatest Cinema can possess. And then I, an accredited scholar of Film and Film Studies, find myself struggling to calculate what these unique attributes could possibly be. Every once in a while I'll still muster the energy to engage with these commoners to find out if they have any ideas as to what makes a quality picture, and the common response is simply a list of the duties performed on a basic film production. 

Indeed, movies do have these things - so much so that they've gone as far as to categorize them for award shows and the like. But there it is: films with "good editing, good writing, good cinematography, and good acting" are, by definition, objectively good. Seems so simple it's as though it was fabricated by the mental midgets who actually believe it; I'm no culinary expert but I can tell you food tastes better when the ingredients are really good. I'm also not a scientist but I believe matter is at its strongest when it contains elements. Point is, the film bros are adamant about that figmental weather gauge that's been calibrated by the uppity critics and out-of-touch filmmakers who they admire and respect - until they have a difference of opinion regarding the state of Modern Cinema. 

Quentin recently came under fire for his daring observation that there are simply too many remakes nowadays. That's right, the moviegoing public unanimously vilified a genuine Film Expert for expressing an interest in risk and originality; as if to say "no, we want more remakes". Coppola, Gilliam, Cronenberg, Villeneuve, Nolan, Ridley Scott, and Alejandro González Iñárritu have all joined Scorsese in publicly disparaging the Comic Book scene, and while the general response is "ok boomer, you don't know what good cinema is", the bootlickers don't have the resolve (or the cognitive dissonance) to defend these foul franchises; it's a wasteland of guilty pleasures, and when the fans are forced to confront that guilt, they lash out with the very ugliness that gives the World Wide Web its reputation. To agree with these giants of filmmaking (regardless of whenever their prime was) would be admitting to your own poor taste, but when we assert that "art has the potential to be objectively good and correct", to whom do we look to set the dial? And I have to assume that this idea of "correct" and "well-crafted" Cinema is gaining so much traction because of the ongoing decline in quality - but that statement in and of itself reveals my own subjectivity. I guess what I'm really pushing for is a truer and more nuanced appreciation from my peers; for people to have the bravery and ability to articulate their own feelings, rather than just being like "let someone else do it". If for no better reason than I'd personally like a better understanding as to why they keep droving out for this dreck. 

I've always remained publicly sensitive about people's love for a lotta these big franchise films - particularly the Comic Book Movies. My polite excuse has repeatedly been "I've not seen many of them so I can't judge either way", but I should think everyone's been perfectly able to see through my bullshit: I've got a pretty strong understanding of how studio marketing and movie trailers and posters work, and if they're doing their jobs adequately then I'm obviously not seeing these films on purpose. And I say it time and time again - I don't care that they're "Comic Book Movies"; I've seen protagonists and antagonists and explosions before so this isn't some entirely new genre that's too intelligent or innovative to grasp (or too dumb or disorienting to dismiss). But this sort of passionless platform of unrelatable characters and expository dialogue and pushbutton animation and an obnoxious preoccupation with continuity and cameos and mythology is never gonna be appealing to me -- and those are just the superficial elements; some years ago I was in a situation where there was a TV nearby with a Captain America movie playing on mute, and just watching the cutting and compositions of basic dialogue scenes and the transitions between them didn't feel too dissimilar to the countless student films I saw in school. Put differently, even when I disregard how vapid the content is, it's presented in a laughably amateurish way - and it's frustrating because I think even the fans know this to be true. 

My son recently said something along the lines of "I only wanna see movies I like with characters I know." While that 6-year-old mentality may be publicly prevalent, it takes the honesty of a child to say it out loud. My plan was to go to my grave having never watched Beetlejuice 2, but once he found out about its existence and release it would've been extremely petty of me to prevent him from seeing it. Miraculously, the movie made me feel as though I was a child again - specifically when I got an overwhelming urge to lie down in the aisle of the movie theater out of immense boredom. What a puerile miscarriage of a movie, but the otherwise agreeable audience reception was a loud indicator that microwaved leftovers will always be preferable to trying new things. Fans of Zack Snyder will tell you that one of his strengths is that his adaptations are "comic book accurate", as if to say he dares not deviate into anything too intensely original. It doesn't matter how godawful the STAR WARS prequels were, they'll remain superior to the Disney Sequels because they never colored outside the lines. And so I don't scratch my head in bewilderment when whatever remaining theaters that are left are filled with video game graphics and ramshackle nostalgia; You get what you fucking deserve! 

We were only a few years into the new millennium when it had occurred to me that it'd been a long time since I'd seen a truly original movie - like, roughly since the beginning of the 2000s; big or small, Indie or Hollywood, the heavy rotation of life-changing Cinema had seemed to come to a halt. That was it? 18 years old and I'd completely lost touch with what was new and exciting? I'd like to say it was a slump, but here we are, and there doesn't seem to be any Enlightenment or Renaissance creeping up on us any time soon, and it all coincides with that Y2K changeover. And it's not hard to understand why...

This century began with a sorta "Four Horseman of the Apocalypse": STAR WARS, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Spider-Man. You could argue there were more, or implicate others, or defend these because you liked them, but it is undeniable that they've cast an everlasting shadow from under which we will not escape for a long time; nearly 25 years of pronounced cultural stagnation and it is in no doubt due largely to the success of these four conglomerates of Fantasy and Action that captured the hearts and minds of audiences and producers alike. Nearly all media has attempted to match the model created by these four installments and the only new measures we've seen is some lateral expansion: nothing new, just more of this. The urge to binge multiplied by the advent of streaming; radio serials updated for lower standards and shorter attention spans. TikTok and all that. In an age where we spend $400 million on shaky special effects and turn on subtitles just for fun, visuals and writing seem to be weaker than ever. The storytelling angle has become the singular focus, and the central theme of these stories are all the same: "Here's stuff you remember from before, and be sure to stick around for more." They've become a goddamn bingo card; a system of checks and balances to ensure absolute satisfaction with no loose ends. It's become STAR WARS Prequels x 1000. In 2023, Fangoria Editor-in-chief Phil Nobile Jr. observed the following: 

Of course he's able to melt down my entire complaint into a single paragraph - and it so eloquently explains why a moviegoing public can't cope with a shirtless Kylo Ren or a singing Joker -- "this absolutely does not fall in line with what I'm used to!" With this kind of dogmatic approach to art - to anything - how could there ever be progress? Here, I'll make an objective observation: 20th Century Cinema was better. Everyone goddamn knows it, otherwise they wouldn't keep tryna remake the shit every two bastard weeks. Danny DeVito once said something to the effect of "Hollywood will keep trying until they get it wrong." Can't really say it's their fault - the public fights originality in every possible form; for better or worse we got a wholly original Barbie doll movie and the common reaction was "Welp, Hollywood has officially run outta idea." 

People don't just form their opinions based on the consensus, they hijack it entirely; we know what all the good and bad movies are because those areas have been drilled, and the emergence of social media keeps us up to date on the new stuff. I used to love riding on the bandwagon and sharing the excitement and adoration of The New Big Thing but I didn't come to make friends - my connection to the movie came first, and if it didn't happen for me then that was my cross to bear. It's difficult to share a conflicting point of view nowadays without fear of coming across as attention-seeking or problematic, so the leading lesson I'm preaching is this: dare to feel what you feel without bending to unanimity or licking boot, and make sure you have the vocabulary and the valor to back it up -- because they'll come for you.

- Paul

THE PHANTOM MENACE - 25 Years Later

A long time ago, just a couple miles from my house, I attended the matinee showing of STAR WARS Episode I: The Phantom Menace on the afternoon of Wednesday May 19, 1999. For the first time ever I bought my ticket days in advance so that I could skip school to witness the earliest possible showing of the first new STAR WARS movie since I was 3 months old. I attended alone but the electricity of the crowd created a palpable camaraderie; we were all there for the same thing, we all loved STAR WARS, we all wanted to see that double lightsaber, and we all knew nothing could ever be sillier than the Ewoks. 

If you were alive and aware in '99 you remember what it was like. You didn't have to be into STAR WARS or even see this movie to feel the force of the ad campaign that dominated every corner of consumerism. Outside of the licensed toys there was fast food, clothing, toiletries, trading cards, costumes, personalized checks, and anything else onto which you could stamp a picture of Natalie Portman's kabuki face; every magazine had a cover story, every cable network had a special. Weird Al had a song. I was 16 and from my perspective everyone everywhere was excited and optimistic and happily got caught up in the hype. And then everyone saw it. 

I thought I maybe kinda liked it, that was my initial takeaway. I knew I felt let down somehow, but my anticipation for it clouded any articulate assessment. That + the movie itself was so dry and convoluted that it made it harder to point to specific things to criticize. I knew I was mostly on the same page as everybody else about Jar Jar and the pace and the performances and the political plot, but unlike every other STAR WARS fan who ever lived, I was prepared and capable to accept the movie as is - and what it is is a clunky Science Fiction flick that feels nothing like STAR WARS. I went back to see it two more times (which is something I just used to do with anything I found even remotely interesting) and during the third viewing I was overcome with a debilitating headache which even then I took as a sign that my body was rejecting my efforts to grasp onto any hope I had of actually enjoying this movie. 

And in the following years there were two more prequels and it became evident that Jar Jar Binks was the least of our problems as the sobering truth came into focus that this is just how these movies are: stilted and flavorless and overly calculated to the point that it wasn't much more than a graphic depiction of a spreadsheet consisting of plot points and political science. I revisit them for the moments that are good, which are usually superficial action sequences free of their designated context, but the space around them is ultimately "cringe." But now, so many years later, Phantom Menace still stands tall as a unique and bizarre experience, but also film. 

On May 4th (as in May the Fourth) of this year, I revisited Episode I - not just the movie, but the movie theater in which I first viewed it -- this time with a 5-year-old child who enjoys STAR WARS just as much as I, and is just as apathetic towards the Prequels as I. It's been quite the sociological survey since he got into these films a little over a year ago: without subjective influence, he loves the Original Trilogy, he likes the Sequel Trilogy, and he's mostly unenthused with the Prequels. I suppose despite George's insistence that these movies are made for indifferent children, quality prevails.

I've revisited many movies on The Big Screen that I initially or eventually came to know best on home video and always found that the theater experience demanded fresh attention. Such was not the case with the Menace - it was the same tedious slog it's always been, but I think I finally hooked into its peculiar rhythms and I actually took interest in what is basically the bulk of the movie: the Tatooine sequence. 

At a running time of over 45 minutes the entire "getting to know Anakin" portion of the film is the film, and it's coherent, it's logical, and most often it's quite engaging, and while there's no spike in skillfulness when it comes to the dialogue, it unfolds in a way that's almost as fun as a STAR WARS movie. Even the pod race (which is a fantastic achievement in cinematography, editing, effects, and sound) acts as an adequate finale to this otherwise cohesive "Part One", but instead the movie continues into the next drag of an act involving the Jedi Council and Senatorial debates. 

Man does it get tedious. It's always during this stretch that the weight of the incompetence of this movie really hits me. After the pod race was over my son became so bored he started asking me questions about the architecture of the theater we were in, and I was happy to participate. Granted we'd both seen the film many times, but the sound and vision of the theater environment still isn't strong enough to pull in my attention during the slower bits, and that's mostly due to the fact that the movie is empty of enough nuance or depth to make you wanna look any deeper. Having said that, the prequels are famous for "Easter eggs" and little peripheral animations for the fans, and watching it again on a bigger screen for the first time in a quarter century I took extra special notice of Jabba the Hutt's slave girls. 

Off to the left in the shadows is Diva Funquita and all the way to the right in the famous gold bikini is Diva Shaliqua. For me this is the biggest kinda fan service, as the trollops of Jabba's Palace in Return of the Jedi are one of the most vivd flagships of my own personal nostalgia (Leia included). The biggest strength of the Prequels is that they're populated with minor characters with no dialogue but full-fledged backstories and elaborate names. Characters like them had more of an existence in the Expanded Universe books and animated series and other spinoffs, but mostly it was to sell toys. You're not a real collector unless you have a Graxol Kelvyyn! 

George's backend came largely from the merchandise, and so more characters = more cash. Once he stepped away Disney didn't follow this model so the sequels were a bit more sparse in characters and weapons and vehicles and I believe they suffered a bit for that. But otherwise, the Disney trilogy has only magnified how cold and rigid and boring these Prequels are - to me at least. In recent years a lotta folks have "come around" on the Prequels, succumbing to the notion that not only are they "not that bad" but "actually pretty good." Poor deluded creatures. These are the kindsa people who give nostalgia a bad name - they're no better than the Boomers. Or, perhaps they actually did like these movies all along and were afraid to admit it. Or, maybe the quality of modern popular movies has dipped so far beneath The Phantom Menace that it now seems superior. 

At any rate, I sat in a mostly-empty theater on a Saturday afternoon in 2024 to rewatch the highest grossing picture of 1999, so apparently everyone cared even less than I. Needless to say the experience was very different than the first time I was there - especially in the moments before anyone there had actually seen the film and there was an audible shriek of excitement when the "long time ago" title card came up. And therein lies its own incredibly layered nostalgia: me, here, reminiscing about a 25 year old movie that sparked a collective reminiscence for a then-22 year old movie. But the biggest nostalgic thing for me is that sense of unity; everyone was openly let down with the Prequels in some respect, but we all took the ride together, and the fanboys remained on the fringes of the internet's infancy. Today we drown in STAR WARS fatigue, and social media is there to remind us of the toxicity of fandom. In hindsight, much of the recent STAR WARS "content" has been superior to George's tiresome origin trilogy in many ways, but his Prequels at least felt fresh, original, experimental. They were spaced out with legitimate anticipation. They were, and continue to be, unique - for better for worse. Hot drive-thru cuisine is sometimes better than reheated leftovers. 

- Paul

Pop Culture Details From My 6th Birthday Party

This year marks the 35th Anniversary of my being 6 years old! A remarkable achievement, I know! But that's not what this is about, nor is it about celebrating some milestone that's divisible by 5. This is about an exploration of some photographs taken on a Saturday night in mid-February of 1989 and the evidence therein to corroborate that context. Come with me on this journey. 

Sadly, though unsurprisingly, my attire remains timeless, which was a conscious decision even then; the shirt-and-tie combo was just how I dressed, much to the bemusement of peers and family, but in my mind it was a neutral cosplay I could pull off in plain sight while I pretended to be whatever hero or villain I chose to be on any given day. And to think Nicholson's Joker was roughly four months away from validating and solidifying this fashion choice for me. 

It's weird to imagine my world before Batman, before Dick Tracy or Edward Scissorhands or The Simpsons or various other Danny Elfman-related things. What kinda vacuous, empty void were the 1980s anyway?? Certainly there must have been other outlets of entertainment, especially for someone my age. Fortunately this picture of my birthday cake exists, lest we forget. 

I included this photo in a STAR WARS essay I shared some years ago to illustrate the expanse of my love of the films (and particularly the character). But doing that math now raises the notable point that, at the time of this photo, there hadn't been any new theatrical movies in nearly six years and yet the Force was still strong in not just me but the culture; you could still go to Kmart or Woolworth's or wherever and get a Vader helmet cake pan as though it were just a normal baking accessory. (Credit to my Great Aunt Olly for the skills here.) 

Typically a child's birthday party will have a consistent theme in which everything falls under the same pop culture canopy: the cake, the plates, the cups, the napkins, the hats, the piñata, sometimes even the gifts are all Looney Tunes, all Scooby-Doo, all Paw Patrol. Now I don't know what kinda input I had (if any) when it came to these party supplies, but each bit of tableware has been pulled from different areas of my 6-year-old mind and I don't know how that was accomplished. Let's start with the Real Ghostbusters paper plates.

While wrapped and sold separately from the other accoutrement, I'd have to assume they were all sold in the same aisle and probably the same shelf, and yet whomever purchased these disregarded a potential set and looked beyond, went further, cut deeper when it came to something as significant as, say, the napkins.

Again I choose to point out that had I required a full-blown California Raisins bash I coulda whooped it up in style - and I would've been perfectly fine with that; their inexplicable burst of popularity captivated me as much as it did the rest of the nation (world?). Though on this particular Night to Remember I settled for a mild paper accent of Raisin and a box of delicious Colorforms. 

And beneath the cake and plates and napkins and wicker bowl of Kit Kats and Peanut M&Ms lie the paper cloth that really tied the function together. 

DuckTales rounded out this collage of consumables and ephemera that was eaten/discarded just hours later so this photograph lives on as an emblematic coat of arms representing only this very narrow gulch or interests. And they were about to meet their match. 

I was late to the game with this toy of toys. But I was aware of it (as my GTFO face suggests) - I'd played one before and understood its addictive colors and sounds and it stayed with me, though I never believed I'd have a System in my living room that I could play whenever the TV was allotted to me. And for the entirety of the following day, it was: I woke up and began playing Super Mario Bros. in my pajamas, and continued to do so until it was time for bed. I never got dressed and I had food brought to me, and most of that day was spent trying to conquer World 1-1. But there it was - I would be able to cross the finish line of the 80s on the right side of history; I was Charlie Bucket no longer, deprived of this millennial birthright, and the central thread of The Wizard would eventually have a more relatable context. This is why childhood nostalgia is so powerful; life would never be this good again. 

If anything, this lengthy series of photos illustrates the immediacy of youth obsessions and their fleeting endurance, as it was always onto the next thing. It seems narcissistic to suggest that it was a blessing to be this age during this period of time, but as I now have a nearly-6-year-old son whose primary interests are STAR WARS, Ghostbusters, Batman, and Nintendo makes me feel as though I was in on the ground floor of pop culture - as it was and as it (apparently) forever shall be. 

- Paul

Surprise Supporting Characters That Make Good Movies Even Better!

Everyone has their favorite side characters. Some folks, like myself, gravitate towards them to the point that they become more exciting than the leads. But this list is not a list of them. These are characters we didn't even know we needed until they showed up somewhere around the halfway mark in what seemed to be an otherwise competent motion picture. Some rolled in with a specific plot function, some were crucial to the resolution, some were wild detours that nearly defined the movie. It's a bit of an abstract concept but stay with me.

- Paul

Cousin Eddie

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

The movie had already been plenty funny up to the point of his arrival, that wasn't really in question. But the real triumph here is that the momentum of the plot (not that there really is one) had reached a crescendo as the house lights began functioning, and for about a minute everything in the story had been resolved, and Eddie and his family begin the second act on the spot, creating a new (though ridiculously trivial) dynamic to the ensemble. 

The Brain Gremlin

Gremlins 2: The New Batch

In the first movie we get to see them play cards and shoot guns and eat things, and that was the basis of their personality. Cut to the sprawling spectrum of character traits in this sequel that are apparent even before they become genetic supervillains. And then beyond the mayhem and destruction, we get a literal antagonist - a leader to the creatures and even more of a Final Boss than Mohawk - and suddenly we have actual quotable Gremlin lines (to be mimicked with perfect Felix Unger inflection). 

The Cenobites

Hellraiser

Sure we all love them, but were they truly integral to this initial setup? If they didn't look so damn cool I'd vote 'nah'. It's hard to approach this movie with fresh eyes -- even when it was fresh these bondage demons became the movie's biggest marketing tool. So imagine, for a moment, going blindly into this film and becoming engrossed in the story with its heroes and other monsters, and suddenly these motherfuckers show up in an ominous fury of wind and lightning and exposition. Their brief shadowy reveal at the very beginning was a total mistake. 

Harlan and Marlon

I Love You to Death

Every shade of this movie is dark and it casually balances moments of lighthearted silliness and poignant melancholy, and amongst the heartbreak and various murder attempts it maintains its superior Comedy status. Then we literally hire two new characters to enhance the nucleus: in reality, a pair of drug addicts who're paid to kill someone, and William Hurt and Keanu Reeves play them like Cheech & Chong, and so the balancing act becomes that much more impressive. 

The Emperor

STAR WARS Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

We become aware of his existence in Empire, but for as ominous as that was it proved largely inconsequential. And then somehow, Palpatine returned. Darth Vader had become the culturally iconic villain, but apparently the conflict between he and Luke involved an added Third Party, and suddenly STAR WARS became something new; it had a decrepit warlock who could shoot lightning from his hands. 

Mike Pipper

The Final Sacrifice

In the structure of the actual movie, this grizzled hermit eventually shows up to provide the exposition - a common character assignment, nothing special. But through the lens of Mystery Science Theater he has the same effect as the Cousin Eddie approach: the movie was already adequately ridiculous and Troy and Rowsdower provide ample entertainment, so who knew we needed the add-on of this rootin' tootin' cartoon character. 

George Hanson

Easy Rider

You know. The "Nicholson Bike Movie"? To those who don't have a deep lust for this movie like I and others do, it's easy to forget that Jack is merely a detour in this odyssey, but a memorable and necessary one. For the duration of his screen time we're certain that he's just part of the dynamic now, and it's a shame (particularly for Hopper and Fonda) that he wasn't because he seemed to have it all figured out, and he was here long enough to enlighten us about America, Freedom, and Aliens.