It's Feeling 1984* Up in Here (*the year, not the Orwellian Dystopia)

If one had fallen into a coma sometime in the autumn of 1984 and woke up today you may have a hard time convincing them that twenty-six years had passed if the first thing they see is a movie theatre marquee touting a selection of A Nightmare on Elm Street, The A-Team and The Karate Kid or the NBA finals featuring the Lakers and Celtics.

The pop culture recycling mode seems to be stuck in the mid 80's for the third year running. Another Indiana Jones film is being discussed, the Star Trek film franchise has been reborn and toy lines and morning cartoons from the era are being turned into big budget live action (and turgid) summer movie blockbusters.


Last year, to mark it's 25th anniversary, I was dabbling with doing a retrospective of the 1984 Summer movie season. My subtitles for the never materialized project were to be either "The Year Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying about Art and Love the Blockbuster" or "The Greatest Movie Summer Ever to be an 8 Year Old Boy".

In terms of the former, it was the year that the producer had officially become the power player and the director continued to fall down the totem pole, not to say there were not interesting directors helming big budget Hollywood films, there were: Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Carpenter to name a few, but ambitious auteur driven works like Once Upon a Time in America, Streets of Fire, Under the Volcano and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai languished while high concept franchise potential fare with cross marketing appeal (toys, clothes and Saturday morning cartoon) flourished, spawning, by my count, 30 films (be they sequels or remakes) that continued their respected franchises after summer '84, and that number will probably only rise. (note: I have a breakdown at the very end of this article of the "spawn of Summer '84", please let me know if I missed anything.)

As for the other claim, yes I was an eight year old burgeoning cinephile in 1984, and it's the first year I really remember seeing all the big films of the summer. Furthermore, it seemed as if all the films were pretty much aimed towards me and/or my proclivities (which they were).


While I have many happy memories of that summer, it was also a pretty difficult one for me personally, my Dad was unemployed for a large part of the year after losing his own business and my parents were on the cusp of separating, eventually divorcing within a year. In that respect the fantastical and exciting world mainstream cinema offered provided much needed escape and solace to my impressionable self.

With that in mind, I present a countdown of my ten favorite films of the Summer 1984, circa the summer of 1984. To clarify, basically what I am doing is raiding my memory bank by 26 years and providing a list of what my eight year old self considered the cream of the crop cinema wise at the time.


Before though let me offer this caveat, I am of the increasing mindset that nostalgia is really becoming the killer of good taste. Just because you enjoyed something when you were young and had yet to fully experience cognitive development doesn't mean it's actually good. Yeah, I loved The Goonies too, at age nine, let's not confuse it with one of the pinnacles of cinematic achievements though. We need to seek out challenge and evolution in our art and stop letting happy childhood memories cloud our judgement. If for no other reason than what are we going to be remaking and prequeling in twenty years? Some of the films in this list are bad, and I fully acknowledge that. This is by no means a Best of the year list, mainly because I wasn't exactly watching stuff like Amadeus, Stranger Than Paradise, Paris, Texas and Once Upon a Time in America at the age of eight.

Now with all of that out of the way, I present to you:

Lil' Colonel Morty's Favorite Films of Summer '84 (circa 1984)

10. Conan the Destroyer


See I told you that there would be some bad films on this list. A recent attempt to watch this film on cable was an endurance test I checked out of after about ten minutes. After the success of the first way better, and more violent, Conan the Barbarian, Universal trying to eek out more money from kids too young to see an R rated film but who loved the comic books and the Universal Studios live action show, replaced machismo laureate director John Milius with Richard Fleischer and toned down the savagery to garner a PG rating. Basically allowing for someone like me to see it. One thing Destroyer does have going for it is one of the more bizarre collection of supporting cast ever assembled, including Wilt Chamberlain, Mako, Grace Jones, Olivia d'Abo (the sister from Wonder Years) and Andre the Giant.

9. Purple Rain


In an article on the ESPN website, writer Bill Simmons once contemplated that for men of our generation their first encounter seeing breasts in a movie was either those of Joyce Hyser in 1985's Just One of the Guys or Apollonia's in Purple Rain. Due to my dad's lenient nature, and the fact that it wasn't uncommon in the era for a PG movie to feature brief nudity, I doubt that was the case for me, but let's just say 26 years later, that scene is the only one from Purple Rain that I really recall. I find it funny that Prince was so ubiquitous on MTV and radio in 1984 that most parents didn't give a thought to the film's R rating, despite the general lasciviousness of his music itself.

8. Top Secret!


Top Secret! actually garnered my first celebrity sighting, as we saw Val Kilmer, who wasn't really a star yet (this was his acting debut) coming into the opening night screening at the Bruin theatre (I think, could have been the Village) while my family was vacationing in Los Angeles. While I was too young to get a lot of the old rock n' roll and war film references that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker were parodying, there were enough sight gags: the big eye, the large breasted woman emerging from sand and of course, the cow with galoshes along with catchy music and furious action to make this a favorite. And now that I get the references, it's even funnier!

7. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock


Another film that we caught at one of the great Westwood single screen theatres on the same vacation. I don't have any recollection of seeing Wrath of Kahn during the summer of 1982, all of my cinematic memories of that year revolve around rewatching E.T. over and over again, so it's possible that this was my first experience with the Star Trek series, and while it didn't supersede my love (at the time) for the Star Wars trilogy, I became a fan.

6. The Last Starfighter


If I wasn't at the cinema in 1984, it was likely I was at the arcade playing Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Air Hockey, Skeeball or Tron. So the combination of sci-fi and action tropes within the world of video games was a perfect concoction for me. Sure it's protagonist, the working class dreamer with his head in the stars destined for greatness is a note for note stealing of Luke Skywalker's character, but at that age it didn't even occur, or matter, to me. Color me shocked that a remake with a Wii or PlayStation 3 instead of arcade as the instigating portal isn't already in the works (cue Variety announcement in five, four...)

5. The Karate Kid


Take martial arts add equal parts average middle class kid fighting back at tormenting bullies (and getting the girl) with director John G. Avildsen (Rocky) prowess for training montage sequences and the result are karate studios popping up in suburban strip malls throughout the country. Who didn't replicate the Crane kick in their backyard or try to catch a fly with chopsticks (I actually accomplished this once using my fingers as chopsticks) after watching this film? Interesting piece of trivia, while The Karate Kid was the fifth highest grossing film of 1984, it never reached higher than # 3 in the weekly box office cume.

4. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom


For the second year in a row, Return of the Jedi prior, my Dad got me out of school early to get in line for the big Memorial Day weekend release. While Temple is slagged on by some, the utter enthusiasm in Spielberg's filmmaking, the whole last act is as close to an actual rollercoaster that film can achieve, makes it the second best of the Indiana Jones series (IMO, I guess). Sure, Kate Capshaw is annoying, but I get what Spielberg was aiming for with her character even if it's not achieved. And I really don't get the Short Round hate at all, maybe because he was about my age when I saw the film thus allowing me to pretend that I could possibly be Indiana's sidekick clouds my judgment, but I think giving Jones a man Friday or Robin adds some nice interaction and some emotional resonance to the character, besides displaying what type of dad he would be (not so great). Along with the number 3 film on the list, this film resulted in a new rating, PG-13, for such scenes as the dining on monkey brains (Temple is not the most culturally sensitive film) and the heart removal scene, which of course, were big favorites for this eight year old boy.

3. Gremlins


Out of all the films on this list, Joe Dante's subversive satire on the Spielberg boy and his pet/alien aesthetic (made all the more impressive due to the fact that this film was executive produced by Spielberg himself) and children consumer culture in the mid-80's which led to in- store parental fights and the black marketing of such highly sought after toys as the Cabbage Patch Kids and Care Bears, holds up the best. While at the time of the release, the subtext may have flown over my head, I was a huge fan of the aforementioned Spielberg aesthetic and a burgeoning horror film enthusiast, so the combining of the two proved alchemic.

2. Ghostbusters


I think pretty much everybody loves this movie, no matter their age, and twenty-six later lines of dialogue are sprinkled in people's everyday conversation: "Dogs and cats living together" "I've been slimed" "Yes, it's true, this man has no dick", etc. Bill Murray pretty much invented the smartass reluctant hero here. And I am pretty sure t-shirts with the Ghostbusters logo were given away to boys living in suburbs at some point.

1. Cloak and Dagger


This might be a surprise to some of you, but for a brief period of time, pretty much age 8-10, I thought this was nothing less than THE GREATEST FILM EVER MADE. Obviously, it's not, but I caught it again about five or six years ago and it's still a quality enterprise. Director Richard Franklin got his start making well crafted thrillers for the Australian exploitation market like Road Games and Patrick, he also studied under Alfred Hitchcock for the last few years of Hitch's life. He made his American directorial debut with Psycho II and then helmed this Hithcockian thriller aimed at the adolescent set without condescending to its audience.

Superficially, I was a perfect mark for the film that combined action, suspense, some PG rating boundary pushing (the grandmother with the missing fingers), Henry Thomas coming off of E.T., ATARI games and Christina Nigra who was one of my first childhood crushes (eerily, my wife looked a lot like her as a girl). But on another level, a reason this film resonated with me at the time is that the essential theme is about a boy who does not spend enough time with his father, and while my relationship with my father has always been great, one of the results of the divorce was that he was no longer living with us full-time.

So what was your favorite film of the summer of 1984? Or if not 1984, which summer movie season caught your imagination?

The Spawn of Summer 1984 Glossary

-Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom kept the franchise alive for two more entries
-There were seven more Star Trek films and one remake with a sequel on its way (not counted) after they successfully searched out Spock
-Ghostbusters, Gremlins and Purple Rain (or had you forgotten Graffiti Bridge?) each had one sequel
-The Karate Kid had three sequels and a remake
-While Conan the Destroyer was the last of the original series, a new Conan film is being released in 2011
-The Bachelor Party has a straight to DVD sequel
-The Muppets had three more sequels after taking Manhattan and a reboot is in the works for a Christmas 2011 release (not counted)
-The Neverending Story had two sequels (hey, it never ended) and a remake is in the works (not counted)
-Revenge of the Nerds had three sequels (one theatrical, the others TV movies) and a remake has been discussed for several years now
-There were two straight to video sequels that followed in the wake of Meatballs part II
-A Red Dawn remake has been made and will be released whenever China allows us to

How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980, Robert Scheerer)

Part of the 1980's Project

Though it opened about five months beforehand, it's hard not to compare How to Beat the High Cost of Living to the more commercially successful, and better, film, Nine to Five. Both find a trio of middle class women in financial stand still while the men around them continue to succeed, spurring them into criminal acts, in Nine to Five it's the kidnapping of their chauvinistic boss, in How to Beat... it's robbing a ball of money that's part of a mall giveaway promotion. But where Nine to Five addresses real social issues in a fantastical and easily digestible matter, How to Beat has no social agenda or real grasp of the economic state of America in the late 1970's, resulting in just a baseless list of ills, whiny and uninteresting characters and for a film that purports to be from a feminist perspective, oddly sexist.

Like Nine to Five (and both Sex and the City movies for that matter), How to Beat...was directed by a man, Robert Scheerer, who's many credits are pretty much relegated to scripted television. Drive-in impresario Samuel Z. Arkoff is credited as a producer, his American International Pictures had been bought up by Filmways at this point (which would be bought by Orion, which would end up with MGM, whose catalog is now in the possession of FOX, but I digress). The script by Robert Kaufman (story credit to Leonora Thura) is structured like a pilot for a sitcom (it's score is also eerily reminiscent of Seinfeld's bass line driven opening theme in spots): three women (Susan Saint James, Jessica Lange and Jane Curtain, sorry for all the parenthesis in this paragraph) find themselves at a crossroad in their life: the divorcee mother of two (Saint James) is pregnant with her lover who won't agree to get married, the happily married Lange who's antique business is surviving only thanks to her husband's loans and is sued by said husband and the stay at home housewife (Curtain) who finds herself newly single after her husband runs away with a younger woman, decide to, I don't know, get back (?) by pulling off a heist and steal the contents of the above mentioned ball of money from the local Eugene, Oregon mall where they shop.

The film's major flaw is that not one of the three characters are distinctive or interesting for that matter. While the actresses themselves are fine (especially Lange, if you get what I mean...grr), there's really little difference other than superficial between the characters, and while granted it makes some sense since they went to high school together, the results are not compelling. There's a reason that most sitcoms have an array of archetype characters, contrast makes for tension and comedy. Compare them to the three leads in Nine to Five, while not racially diverse, there's no doubt a Lily Tomlin is not like a Jane Fonda who is certainly nothing like a Dolly Parton who all represented different aspects of social, political and regional identification. Unlike the Nine gals, the characters lack any ambition and constantly blame others for their current economic and social strives, a laundry list that includes Arabs, the Carter administration, European women, lesbians and even the United States military for assisting with the rebuilding of Japan and Germany after World War II. This could have made for something interesting, had the filmmakers took a critical viewpoint of the characters a la the Coen brothers, but alas, we are supposed to sympathize with them.

That's not to say the film is without its moments, when it finally settles into the schematics of the heist, some good comedic bits are derived from the situation, including Saint James' character needing to bring her kids with her to a store break-in when she can't find a sitter and Lange's character twice forgetting her inability to swim when trying to grab the stolen loot. However, the overall goodwill is tainted when the happy ending the characters so desire all revolve not around taking the money they obtained and building an independent life for themselves, but rather happily back into the arms of men (one of whom is played by Dabney Coleman from, you guessed it, Nine to Five, though way more sympathetic here). So, in summation, if you want to see a 1980 comedy about a trio of women committing a crime in an attempt to better their station in life, there's a better option than How to Beat the High Cost of Living, if I only I could remember it's title....

(Some of) The Cinemas of Paris

"I'm French. We respect directors in our country"

On my trip to Paris and Italy I brought along my digital camera, as is a tourist's wont, and filled up its memory card with such pictorial wonders as my wife in front of the Trevi fountain, myself in front of the Trevi fountain, both of us in front of the Trevi fountain and last but not least, the always intriguing Trevi fountain by itself. Since this is a cinema related blog I will not bore you with those pictures here, but never fear eventually they will be placed on Facebook and/or Flckr, where I have zero qualms about boring you (and if you're on Facebook, there's pretty much a 99.7% chance you are bored, it's a scientific fact), and focus instead on the pictures I took of the cinemas I ran across in my travels.

This post are from Paris, Italy will follow.

La Pagode
Rue de Babylone


When I asked my French friend Pierre for any historical or interesting Parisian cinema suggestions, his first (and only) reply was La Pagode, a turn of the century (20th century, that is) Japan themed first run two screen theatre. Unfortunately I didn't efficiently capture the splendor of this French institution in better detail, but hopefully these pictures, however poor in quality, give you a sense of the design, similar to the Grauman erected Chinese, Egyptian and Mayan theatres that were built in the late 1920's in America. La Pagode was used as a ballroom and did not start showing films until the 1930's.


Even more unfortunate, I did not actually go to see a film there. We went by twice, once at the beginning of our trip and then again on our last full day in Paris, but even though both screens had changed films over the course of time, neither of the film offerings were in English, and unless the films consisted of only seven words (some combination of: Hello, Goodbye, Thank You, Yes, Coffee, One and Shit) I would have difficulties following along.

The films that were playing were the latest film from director Luc Besson, Les Aventures Extraoardinaires d'Adele Blanc-Sec (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec), L'Arnacoeur (Heartbreaker) starring Roman Duris (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) and Johnny Depp's baby's mama, Vanessa Paradis, this year's Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language film (Argentina), El Secreto de sus Ojos and Imogene McCarthery, which according to IMDB is a French spy spoof.

Studio Galande

Rue Galande

And here your humble blogger stands in front of the Studio Galande, which was close to the apartment we were staying at in the Latin Quarter. The exterior wall promoted a wide array of different cinematic offerings (A Prophet, A Single Man, Invictus, White Ribbon, and some classic French films (titles of which I cannot remember) and one Italian giallo (sorry...bad memory). It appeared from their schedule that the offerings change daily. Additionally, they had midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on the weekends. Nice to see that that tradition crossed over the Atlantic.

Pay close attention during Before Sunset, and you will see Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy walk past this theatre early in the film.

L'Epee de Bois Cinema

Rue Mouffetard

Mouffetard is my wife's favorite neighborhood in Paris (she lived there for a little under a year in her late teens) so we spent a lot of time in the area. I found this little cinema (and little is apropos as it only seats 75) there, like the Galande it had several different movies playing on their schedule including French films and English language fare such as The Ghost Writer, Precious and The Princess and the Frog.

Cinemas Action Ecoles

Rue de Ecoles

And now, the one theatre we did actually patronize, twice, the Action Ecoles. It's a two screen repertory theatre that was in the midst of a British Hitchcock festival the first week we were there. We caught The 39 Steps which was in a double bill with Young and Innocent, while The Lady Vanishes was playing on the second screen. On the second week we caught John Huston's The Misfits (the films were shown in their original language with French subtitles). As much as I love our New Beverly here in Los Angeles, it's only open nights, while the Action Ecoles has showings all day, beginning at 2pm, everyday.

After doing some research I discovered the Action Cinemas is actually a small chain of repertory houses (dear me, what a wonderful thought) with two other theatres. Here's the link to their website: http://www.actioncinemas.com/index.html

The second picture is from within the small, but very comfortable theatre, which is actually underground!

Cinema le St-German-des-pres

Rue Guilaume Apollinaire

Sometime American movies that fail to find distribution in their home country end up premiering in Europe. That is the case with Todd Solondz's thematic sequel to Happiness, Life During Wartime, which had just opened the week we were in town. Sadly, I couldn't quite convince the wife to endure the latest Solondz squirmfest (or myself either I guess, it was a vacation after all). It looks like it will finally will hit American screens at the end of July.

Champs-Elysees

I have to say that like Times Square in New York and Hollywood between Highland and Vine in Los Angeles, Champs-Elysees was my least favorite part of the city: indistinct, overcrowded, full of slow walking tourist and chain stores you can find anywhere else. Though, I went to the best pay toilet ever there, so it's got that going for it (and I guess the Arc de Triomphe was okay too).

The next five photos are from cinemas on or along the famous avenue. It's interesting to note that while some American films like Iron Man 2 (which opened nine days earlier in Europe than America), Kick-Ass, Greenberg and Green Zone were released with their English language titles in tact, others like Robin Hood (Robin du Bois), the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot and Brooklyn's Finest all had titles altered and/or translated into French. The funniest of all though is that apparently the not as sexually oppressed Europeans have no concept of what a Date Night is, so the title of the Steve Carrell/Tina Fey vehicle was changed to Crazy Night for French audiences (it's Italian language title translated to Folly Night in Manhattan).

Miscellaneous

The final few photos were snapped on our last day in Europe, so far less attention was paid to the locations, architecture or film selection, but I thought I'd share them anyway, so here you go:

Coming soon: Part II-Italy

Trailer of the Moment: Colonel Mortimer Will Have His Trailer!

In celebration of Clint Eastwood's 80th birthday today here's the trailer for thee film which inspired the name of this here blog, the second film of Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy, For a Few Dollars More.

Some interesting aspects concerning this trailer:

1.) The groovy red and blue font of the title and actor's names

2.) Pretty much no mention of any plot points, it focus primarily on action sequences

3.) Makes no reference to Eastwood's character as being "The Man With No Name" a major focus of United Artists' advertising strategy (see poster to the left)

4.) When A Fistful of Dollars was released many of the Italian names of the cast and crew were Americanized to hide the films European origins. After Dollars' overwhelming success, it seems like the ruse was no longer necessary so director Sergio Leone gets credited here both by the pseudonym Bob Robertson and his actual name as does actor Gian Maria Volonte who was credited in the first film as John Wells.

Here's the trailer:



If you happen to be watching Turner Classic Movies today, they are showing a selection of Eastwood films including his three collaborations with Leone.

As for the man himself, he shows no signs of slowing down, after directing five films in the last three years, he has another one set for release this year and is already in pre-production on his next project.

Death Gets Out On the Highway, Looking for Adventure

R.I.P. Actor-Director Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)


The world will be a less interesting place without him in it. So tonight have a drink in memory of him, but just make sure it's a Pabst Blue Ribbon and not a fuckin' Heinkein!

The Long Riders (1980, Walter Hill)

Part of the 1980's Project

"You're a whore. You will always be a whore. That's why I like you." - Cole Younger (David Carridine), The Long Riders

I open with this quote not just because of it's general awesomeness (self evident) but because it perfectly encapsulates not only Walter Hill's film based on the James-Younger clan, but his whole career, unapologetically dedicated to crafting smart genre fare straight forward in nature focusing on morally ambiguous lead characters. He, like John Carpenter, claims that every film he directs is a western to some extent, utilizing narrative and thematic tropes from the genre into such diverse film undertakings as buddy-cop (48 HRs), street gang (The Warriors) and Southern survivalist (Southern Comfort) films, but The Long Riders was, until 1995, Hill's only picture to be actually set in the Wild West of the 1800's, and it plays as an eulogistic tribute to the entire genre up to that point, covering aspects from such directors as John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, as if Hill knew the unfortunate decline in the genre in the forthcoming decade after a mini-resurgence in the mid 1960's through the 1970's.

Employing one of the more unique stunt casting coups in film history, The Long Riders features four sets of brothers performing as four sets of brothers: Stacey and James Keach (who also executive produced as co-wrote the screenplay) are Frank and Jesse James; David, Keith and Robert Carridine are Cole, Jim and Bob Younger; Randy and Dennis Quaid are Clell and Ed Miller and Christopher and Nicholas Guest are Charlie and Bob Ford. While this may come off as a gimmicky at first, in the film it provides strong resonance, especially at points when the clans break into inner factions amongst themselves, the true potency of the casting occurs during the final scenes where brothers have to decide to stay with their wounded blood relatives or flee for safety. As the quote I opened this review with shows, one of the film's major themes is acceptance of what you are, Jesse James is a bank robber despite his insertion into a stable married life and a Younger is a Younger no matter if their freedom is at risk.

When the episodic narrative of The Long Riders begins, the James-Younger gang is already well established. The film, which as I mentioned earlier is eulogistic in tone, is about the gradual dissolving of the gang and the first scene depicts the ousting of Ed Miller from the group after he over zealously shoots a bank teller. From there we intercut the actions of the gang with those of the Pinkertons who go to ruthless lengths to catch the outlaws. While an ensemble in many ways, the two characters who get the most attention are Jesse James and Cole Younger as the film compares the disparate ways the two men view the world and their position in it. For example, Jesse marries a humble staid plain woman, while Cole's closest relationship is with an enterprising prostitute, who he actually knife fights a man for her hand. Of course, after winning, he walks away from her.

James Keach provides an interesting if not entirely charismatic performance as Jesse James (probably purposely to contrast David Carridine's performance). As an actor its pretty impressive that he's willing to play James as such a fierce selfish cipher, but Keach is so low key here that I am not exactly sure what James' motivation or true feelings about anything are. Comparatively, Brad Pitt played Jesse James similarly in Andrew Dominik's 2007 film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but his natural charisma still surfaced, and since that film dealt with the cult of celebrity, it was added significance that he is one of the world's biggest star. In contrast, David Carridine as Cole Younger is the piss and vinegar filled heart of the gang and is enjoying himself at every moment where James' seems to be living up to the obligation of being a leader. It's two different methods to addressing the theme of self acceptance, Jesse feels burdened by his status; Cole enthusiastic. This is one of David Carridine's finer roles, and he takes to it with aplomb, he's also generously given the film's best lines including the opening quote of this article as well as a final vicious retort to Jesse James.

The score by Ry Cooder, performed primarily on acoustic guitars, matches the eulogistic tone of the film and lacks the bravado that we associate with the genre through classic scores of Ennio Morricone and Charles Bernstein. It's a beautiful score and Cooder's first, he and Hill would collaborate several more times. Hill also effectively cuts the score and focuses on diegetic sounds in two key sequences, the gang's vengeance against Pinkertons who killed a member of their family and the final shoot-out.

Starting with the spaghetti westerns there was a renaissance for the Western beginning in the mid 1960's, as the rating board was created a director like Sam Peckinpah was afforded freedom to amp up the reality of the era's brutality, and starting with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the revisionist Western was born and flourished throughout the 1970's. For whatever reason, be it the failure of Heaven's Gate or the focus on fantasy films in the wake of Star Wars' historical success (ironic since it was conceived as a Space Western), the genre's presence was pretty much non existent through most of the 1980's, a trend that the mood of The Long Riders seems to have foresaw. However, the genre remains popular amongst filmmakers, and while I doubt it will ever return to the prominence it had in the 1950's, such recent films as the aforementioned Assassination of Jesse James... and the HBO series Deadwood (whose premiere episode was directed by Walter Hill) showed it's still fertile ground for addressing diverse modern concerns such as the celebrity worship, legend versus the facts and the role of governance.

Posterized: Now Playing May 1980

Europe was amazing, thanks for asking. I will have some special France and Italy related posts in the near future as well as some more written content soon (time permitting).

In the meantime, let's take a look at how the start of the Summer Movie Season looked 30 years ago (SPOILER ALERT: at this point, a lot better than this year!)