25 Years Ago This Month: December 1988

Typical of December, the final month of 1988 was full of releases vying desperately for awards consideration, especially Oscars. Eight films released in this month received Academy Award nominations, including all five of the Best Picture nominees.

As always, we start with what I've seen...

Barry Levinson's Rain Man was the box office behemoth of the year and winner of the Best Picture Oscar the following year. It embodies everything a typical "best picture" is, but mostly it's a rather simplistic portrait of autism produced at a time when virtually no one knew anything about the disorder. A quarter century later, many people can probably tell you something about it, most mistakenly that it's caused by childhood vaccinations. Dustin Hoffman's autistic savant is the very rare exception among people on the spectrum, but in 1988 it led most people to believe that being autistic meant being able to count cards and take the house in a Las Vegas casino.

The Incredible Hulk Movie Review

The Incredible Hulk has the distinction of being not only the best teaser for The Avengers, but perhaps the most capable of standing alone, the most brisk in its storytelling. It falls somewhat short of Iron Man, which elevated the bar slightly by having a charismatic actor and hero in Robert Downey, Jr., who really kept those films light on their feet. Edward Norton in the Bruce Banner role is more sullen and brooding, as anyone with a Hulk affliction likely would be. He can’t risk being around anything stressful or anger-inducing lest he transform into a huge green rage monster, tearing up everything in sight and then waking up nude in another country (his first incident in the film takes him from Brazil to Guatemala).

25 Years Ago This Month: October 1986

25 Years Ago I was probably just beginning to learn my multiplication table in Mrs. Hansen's third grade class. I don't remember much else about what I learned that year. I remember studying European geography, learning the countries and possibly their capitals. Yugoslavia was still a unified country and I remember, even at age 8, that my classmates were immature in laughing at the name because it was like, "You go slav." The things that stick in our memories.

I certainly wasn't going to the movies so much, but I've seen a half dozen or so of the films that opened in October of 1986. There's little that's particularly notable. The list of releases contains the usual mix of prestige projects aiming for the awards season and popular fluff (action and comedy, mainly) to keep the investors happy.

A History of Violence Movie Review

The title of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence superficially refers to the main character Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen). Alternatively it may refer to the mob men, led by Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) who come from Philadelphia to drag him back to his old life. Or does Cronenberg, a Canadian raised so close to the United States yet educated from a different historical perspective, have something bigger up his sleeve? Is he thinking of the story in terms of the violent history of the United States – from a violent overthrow of British rule in the 18th century to the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Remember A History of Violence was filmed in 2004 and released the following year.

25 Years Ago This Month (July 1985)

Back to the Future opened in July 1985 and was the king of the summer box office, taking in $210 million during its run to finish at number 1 for the year and number 9 all-time. It's currently sitting at number 91 on the all-time list. This was one of my absolute favorites as a child and I watched it repeatedly. Michael J. Fox became a major film star as a result, although he'd already achieved big success on his television sitcom "Family Ties." He shot both the TV series and the film simultaneously, acting on the TV sound stage by day, and doing the film shoot by night. That "To be continued..." teaser at the end dogged me for what seemed like an eternity when in actuality it was only 4 years before the much-anticipated sequel was released. Of course, these days the sequel is planned and written while the first film is being shot so they can release it the next year or two years later. Because nowadays the first film is little more than an extended commercial for the sequel. How things have changed in 25 years.