From My Collection: The Hudsucker Proxy Movie Review

Full disclosure: I’m an almost shameless lover of the Coen brothers. There’s hardly a film they’ve made that I don’t like and with one exception, I own every one of their films on DVD. That doesn’t mean I’m blind to the things that don’t work and the films that fail in some very important aspects. With that said, The Hudsucker Proxy was always a film I liked for its quirky Coen-ness, but clearly I wasn’t crazy about it because it took me fourteen years after I got my first DVD player (and nineteen years after the film was released) to purchase a copy.

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.

Pixar's Cars Movie Review

Pixar’s Cars was the only film in their continually impressive lineup that I hadn’t seen. This was due in part to the fact that it was released during my first year living abroad and I had quite limited access to English language films that were not dubbed into Spanish. Also, it was the first of the Pixar films to receive only lukewarm critical praise. I had little reason to seek it out until this year which saw the release of the sequel.

At first glance it looks like a difficult sell. It’s the story of a rookie on the racing circuit named Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) whose goal to be the first rookie to win the Piston Cup (Cars’ version of the Indy 500, I suppose). His main rivals are an aging racer named The King and a brash veteran called Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). After finishing in a photo finish 3-way tie, a 3-car race is scheduled in California. McQueen wants to get there as quickly as possible to schmooze a big sponsor, but fate leads him on a different path – to a small town in the middle of the desert.

25 Years Ago This Month: March 1986

As usual, let's start with the movies that opened this month.

The first in a series of very well made and popular Merchant-Ivory productions, A Room With a View, starring young Daniel Day-Lewis and young Helena Bonham Carter.

Although it wasn't his film debut, Lucas launched the late Corey Haim's career as a young Hollywood star. Haim plays the title character, a geeky and lovesick high school student. The film also stars Charlie Sheen (post Red Dawn but pre Platoon), Kerri Green (The Goonies), pre "Melrose Place" Courtney Thorne-Smith, pre "Entourage" Jeremy Piven (his film debut) and Winona Ryder (her film debut).

"There can be only one." Highlander, that cult classic starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery.