Critics Corner

Figured we could use a catch-all thread to post non-review film writing from around the web. Things like essays, analyses, lists, etc. And I'll kick things off with the AV Club's ranking of Sam Raimi films, which gets a thumbs up from me for having The Quick and the Dead in the top 10 where it rightly belongs.

https://www.avclub.com/sam-raimi-movies-ranked-worst-to-best-1848866228

Man this thread is gonna be quieter without Fat Elvis around.

Definitely don't agree with the order of a lot of those films, but I second that it's great to see The Quick and the Dead getting some much needed love.

commodorejohn wrote:

Man this thread is gonna be quieter without Fat Elvis around.

(Makes frantic shushing motion)

The AV Club looks at the ridiculously stacked year of 1982.

https://www.avclub.com/summer-1982-movies-star-trek-khan-et-blade-runner-thing-1848871001

I feel like that should've been a multi-part article. So many classics released that year. It's still surprising how many of them did badly. I hadn't realized Fast Times wasn't a hit on release. It definitely found an audience on cable.

I was 14 that summer. I saw ET in the theater on my birthday. Despite the main (human) character being a few years younger than me and, admittedly, my early teen self wanting to be too cool for something that earnest, I was floored and won over in no time, crying along with everyone else at the end of the film.

I really, really wish I had seen The Thing on the big screen. Khan, too. Good news is that this September, Khan's getting a 40th anniversary screening in actual theaters, so I'll be finally getting to see it as intended.

Fast Times made $27 million on a $5 million budget, so it was profitable. And you have to remember this was in a time when breaking $100 million was still kind of a big deal -- Aliens was considered a hit four years later and didn't even break $90 million.

I saw KHAN theatrically back in 1982.  AWESOME.

Not jealous of you at all Judas. (yes I am)

Although I got to see HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER in 70MM theatrically (1990) so there.

Judas Booth wrote:

I saw KHAN theatrically back in 1982.  AWESOME.

11 year old me saw this in the theater as well, and I swear that ear scene messed me up worse than some of the terrible exploitation/horror movies my dad used to take me to when I was way too young. I think it was because I could separate reality from things like Gates of Hell, Halloween, etc, but that ear scene felt a bit too real (for lack of a better term).

Yeah, that ear-bug was prime nightmare fuel.

Oh the ear scene in KHAN still makes me flinch.

I bet my dad dragged my mom to the theater at the end of 82, so I was probably kinda sorta there and saw them!

E.T. was the only one I saw on the big screen. At least I had the privilege of seeing it back when the feds carried guns.

What an exceedingly dull movie Tron was for a ten-year-old. Or any-year-old.

I feel like 1982 is a little early to blame the current problem of all-spectacle empty calorie blockbusters on. Yes film studios gradually realised if you make big spectacle films with big budgets the audience will shower it in money, but I'd argue in the eighties and even some of the nineties film makers still fought to infuse blockbusters with character development and drama.

Roke wrote:

What an exceedingly dull movie Tron was for a ten-year-old. Or any-year-old.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I fully acknowledge its achievement in terms of groundbreaking effects and its admirable ambition. But I find the actual film to be something of a slog. Tron: Legacy, while also not being all that good of a film, is better paced.

TRON is definitely A Film With Issues, though I like it anyway. The funny thing is that TRON: Legacy actually has most of the same issues, in slightly varying proportions. In either case, at least we got kickass soundtracks out of the deal.

commodorejohn wrote:

TRON is definitely A Film With Issues, though I like it anyway. The funny thing is that TRON: Legacy actually has most of the same issues, in slightly varying proportions. In either case, at least we got kickass soundtracks out of the deal.

Both have the same final-third issue of "interminable approach to some-place-or-another to do something vague and forgettable". I recently watched both movies again, and it's like the final thirds just refuse to register in my mind.

But whereas Legacy has aged visually like a cutscene from an old videogame, the original Tron still looks absolutely fantastic. Maybe I'm just a sucker for digital nostalgia, but those light cycle races and tank battles are absolutely ageless.

What a curious pair of films. It's as if a small bunch of weirdos with extremely niche tastes hoodwinked Disney to bankroll a major motion picture that caters to their specific fetishes - and not once but twice.

Roke wrote:

What a curious pair of films. It's as if a small bunch of weirdos with extremely niche tastes hoodwinked Disney to bankroll a major motion picture that caters to their specific fetishes - and not once but twice.

Yeah, basically. I understand how it happened the first time, as Disney was casting about looking for direction in a post-SW world, but how'd it happen again, especially given how hyper-corporatized the Mouse was by the late '00s? The mind boggles.

I saw TRON theatrically. It's got pacing issues (which I realized even then) but holy shit is the film on rails once they get to the lightcycles.

Never did get that Kosinski Black Hole remake/reboot. I don't know if it would've been good, but damnit, it would've been pretty to look at.

Dammit, I still want that.

I'll take Kosinski updating the best special FX from the 80s:

Tom Cruise!