25 Years Ago This Month: June 1989

So in 1988, I believe I saw only two films in the cinema. I quadrupled that number in 1989, two of them arriving to theaters in June of that year. I can't say for sure I saw them right away, but most likely pretty quickly after my school year ended. Remember when superhero movie franchises began once a decade? Superman in 1978, followed by Batman eleven years later, and then Spider Man thirteen years after that? Then after that it just didn't stop. Now there's a new one about every month.

The biggest release of the year, and box office king of 1989, was the Tim Burton-directed Batman starring the unlikely Michael Keaton as the caped crusader and Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Kim Basinger, being a big star at the time, was cast as reporter Vicki Vale, the journalist with the alliterative name who is not Lois Lane. Nicholson was perfectly cast as the maniacal villain and no one could have imagined a better performance of the part until Heath Ledger. Everyone was suspicious, and rightly so, of Keaton as the hero. He was known for his comic roles and he had recently been great in the title role in Burton's Beetlejuice, but I always liked him in the part. I like his aloofness, his ability to deliver the comic lines without coming down on them too hard, and then be serious behind the mask.

25 Years Ago This Month: June 1987

Kevin Costner got his big starring break in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, written by playwright David Mamet, whose own directorial debut came the same year. Sean Connery won an Oscar for playing sidekick and mentor to Costner's Eliot Ness. Andy Garcia makes one of his earliest screen appearances.

Harry and the Hendersons was a beloved little family film most of us probably remember fondly. John Lithgow is the head of a family that hits a sasquatch with his car while on a camping trip (?) and then takes the man-bear-gorilla home for a bit of light family entertainment/comedy/moralizing. Kevin Peter Hall, who played Harry, is otherwise best known for playing the Predator in both Predator and Predator 2.

Speaking of which, Predator was released the same month! Now this is a movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka former California governor) gets called in for a Central American jungle mission with his elite group of commandos that includes Carl Weathers (aka Apollo Creed), Jesse "The Body" Ventura (aka former Minnesota governor), and Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black. Then they get eliminated one-by-one at the hands of a technologically advanced alien creature. Schwarzenegger faces him mano a mano in the finale. Classic!

From My Collection: The Departed Movie Review

When Frank Costello asks a man how his mother is and he replies that she’s on her way out, Frank’s rejoinder, “We all are. Act accordingly,” sets a tone for the film. As the title suggests, death hangs like a pall over Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. It is a film in which most of the characters live with the fear of death around them at all times. They are cops and they are criminal mafia.

The story is of two young men, played by Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, who become embroiled in an elaborate plot to take down Costello’s crime organization from one end and infiltrate the Massachusetts State Police Force from the other. Damon plays Colin Sullivan, the mole inside the State Police investigative unit for organized crime. He is recruited by Costello as a boy in an extended prologue that introduces most of the major players. Then there’s DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan, a new police recruit fingered for a special deep undercover assignment to help bring Costello down.

The Pledge Movie Review

This review was written in January 2001 and is presented here for the first time.

The commercials for The Pledge, a new psychological thriller directed by Sean Penn based on the book by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, suggest that it's a standard detective story. One might expect the hero of the film to hunt a crazed killer, who continues to feed on prey until he leaves enough clues for said hero to catch him. But it's more about the lengths to which this detective (recently retired) will go to stop the killing.

Jack Nicholson plays Detective Jerry Black, who gets involved in one last case three hours before his retirement officially begins. The crime is a gruesome one, in which a seven-year-old girl has been raped and mutilated, then left in the snowy wilderness for a young boy to find. Jerry makes a solemn promise to the parents of the deceased that he will catch the killer. This is the titular vow that motivates his every action throughout the film.

25 Years Ago This Month (June 1985)

One of my favorite childhood movies was released this month.

That movie was The Goonies which went on to finish the year at number 9 on the box office list with $61 million. I didn't see it in the cinema, but I watched it incessantly once we had it on video (taped off cable, I'm sure). I knew about every line, although not as well as I knew every line to Star Wars. The Goonies still holds up as a decent pre-adolescent adventure movie.

One movie from 25 years ago that doesn't hold up so well: Red Sonja, which took in only $7 million at the domestic box office. I remember watching it a couple times on cable. I enjoyed it because it was a Conan: The Barbarian spinoff and I loved Conan (still do, by the way).

Cocoon also opened that month. I remember watching it on cable, but it was a bit cerebral for my 7 year old mind. And it was about people who just seemed absolutely ancient to me, which is why it still surprises the hell out of me that while every other elderly actor from that film is dead (Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Maureen Stapleton, Jack Gilford, Gwen Verdon), Wilford Brimley is still alive! But that's because he wasn't even a senior citizen at the time. He was only 50 at the time of filming. And Stapleton, who played his on-screen wife was a youthful 59. All the other actors were well into their 70s. Cocoon took in $76 million to finish sixth for the year.

John Huston's second to last film and last Oscar nomination came for Prizzi's Honor starring Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner and Anjelica Huston.

Also opening in June 1985 were the forgettable D.A.R.Y.L. starring Barrett Oliver, also known as the kid in Cocoon; Perfect starring John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis which rates a 3.8/10 on IMDb and a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes; the Brat Pack film St. Elmo's Fire; and Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider.

Births 25 years ago:
-Michael Phelps - American hero of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, winner of a record 14 Olympic gold medals, winner of the most gold medals in a single games when he won 8 golds in Beijing setting 7 world records in the process - celebrates his 25th birthday this month.
-German footballer Lukas Podolski also turns 25 this month. Look for him to score a bunch of goals for Germany starting on the 13th against Australia in this month's World Cup.

Nazi history 25 years ago:
-A body believed to be Nazi criminal Josef Mengele a.k.a. Angel of Death (that wonderful man who performed grisly experimental surgeries on Jews in Auschwitz - in the name of science, of course) was exhumed in Brazil. Several years later DNA conclusively proved it was Mengele's body.

Non-movie related history 25 years ago:
-The Discovery Channel was launched.
-Air India flight 182 exploded from a bomb over the Atlantic off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 people aboard. A Sikh terrorist group was responsible.
-Route 66 was officially decommissioned putting an end to a seminal route through the American heartland.
-Claus von Bulow (portrayed by Jeremy Irons in the 1990 film Reversal of Fortune) was acquitted of trying to murder his wife.