25 Years Ago This Month: May 1989

Even though they were made during my lifetime, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom felt to me like they were from another time. Of course that's primarily because I was not cognizant of them when they were released and promoted and swept up huge sums of box office dollars. So when Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released, it felt like it was made for me. I had no inkling that it was made for me AND an older generation (not even all that far removed from my own really) who were looking to recapture the spirit of the first two films. For me, it was an amazing opportunity to see Dr. Jones on the big screen. The fact that he was up against Nazis again made it seem all the more like the repeat of Raiders that eleven-year old me was looking for. To watch it again now would probably diminish the film in my mind, though not as badly as the second film, I guess. Last Crusade went on to be the highest-grossing film of the year worldwide.

From My Collection: Blazing Saddles Movie Review

I can’t imagine sitting down and watching Blazing Saddles now for the first time and coming away enjoying it very much. It’s got some funny gags, classic lines, and as a satire of the Western genre and the marginalization of black people in the United States it can be searingly funny. But much of what made the film work so well was that it was made the early 70s. Mel Brooks was a well-known name, but he was not yet a well-known satirist. The Producers was a big success a few years earlier, but Young Frankenstein would follow later in 1974 and still to come were High Anxiety and History of the World: Part I.

25 Years Ago This Month: July 1986

The major:

James Cameron's Aliens, the highly successful sequel to Ridley Scott's masterpiece of terror from 7 years earlier, featured great effects that still look great today, some terrifying scenes to rival the original and a tone and approach that took the series in a whole new direction. It's a sequel, but also in many ways an original work

Heartburn was a Mike Nichols (director) and Nora Ephron (writer) collaboration which was a mostly autobiographical account of the end of Ephron's marriage to Carl Bernstein. Stars Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep were not enough to rescue this film.