Search for 1984

Sometimes, pure technical accuracy isn't enough. Sometimes, artistry has to be taken into account. One such case in point is Barry Levision's The Natural, arguably the best baseball movie ever made. The film works not because it is flawless in i...

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the first theatrical collaboration of Japanese animation icons Hayao Miyazaki (directing his second feature film) and Isao Takahata, led directly to the formation of Studio Ghibli, which was founded only a l...

It’s said that one of the reasons George Lucas deferred making the Star Wars prequels from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s is because the special effects technology he needed wasn’t available. I was reminded of this while watching Wolfgang...

"Whatever you do, don't fall asleep." - Nancy The dream - or nightmare - is a staple of the modern horror movie. After all, even as manipulative as the device is, it's still a proven way to jolt an audience. Filmmaker Wes Craven understood th...

John Milius' 1984 action/adventure film, Red Dawn, has long faded from the memories of all but a small group of intense devotees. It is perhaps best remembered, to the extent that it's remembered at all, as the answer to a number of trivia question...

Over the years since its March 1984 release, Alex Cox’s debut feature, Repo Man, has developed a reputation as a “cult classic.” Unlike many other films to claim that badge, this one deserves it. Largely dismissed by mainstream audiences dur...

With a film like Sixteen Candles, I find myself wishing I could create my own cut. Some of the material works marvelously well, but the stuff that doesn't takes the movie down with it. For teen films in the '80s, this was a watershed picture - an...

With a title like The Search for Spock, did anyone really expect that they wouldn't find the erstwhile first officer? So, with the resolution never in doubt (especially considering that Leonard Nimoy was directing), the real question to ask is...

Upon its release in 1984, Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense was hailed by many critics as the "greatest concert film of all time." The picture, which captured a live concert performance given by the Talking Heads, used state-of-the-art direct-to-...

Upon its release in 1984, Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense was hailed by many critics as the "greatest concert film of all time." The movie, which captured a live concert performance given by the Talking Heads, used state-of-the-art direct-t...