So I’ll admit that I wasn’t alive when this film was unspooled into cineplexes worldwide, but yet I can still admire it for everything it is. Well maybe “admire” isn’t the right word. Well either way, I can see what a crazy piece of 80’s nostalgia it is.

I, like many other music aficionados, consider Prince and The Revolution’s “Purple Rain” to be one of the greatest rock albums ever made in the history of the universe that we live in. And well, I think many consider this to be one of the greatest films ever made featuring leotards. Okay, maybe that’s debatable. But Purple Rain is indeed a fantastic motion picture. Well, actually probably not. It just has all that amazing music. It manages to elevate a pretty laughable movie into a genuinely moving film experience.

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It’s no surprise that Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice, one of the surprise hits of 20 years ago, not only spawned an animated Saturday morning series, but that the series was so well received and a ratings success. Burton’s film is one of the few that can deservedly be called “cartoonish” and have that remark taken as a compliment, and the animated spinoff was a perfect match for the already outlandish, wildly over the top material established on the big screen.

Dave’s Note:  This was supposed to go up in March, but I slacked and lost track of it.

It’s been exactly one year since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made their return to the big screen after a 14-year absence. The question on every Shell Head’s mind: when can we expect the sequel, or, more to the point, are we getting a sequel at all? Following a big weekend opening of $24 million, executive producer Harvey Weinstein famously declared, “Cowabunga dudes! It’s sequel time!” The enthusiasm didn’t last, however, when the movie dropped 62% the following weekend and ended up grossing just $54 million domestically (and a little more than that worldwide).  Considering the film cost $35 million to make, the result was a minor hit and a success as a DVD item, but the push for a sequel has yet to take place. Director Kevin Munroe has moved on and is planning another CGI film, called Gatchaman, and there is no TMNT 2 currently being developed at The Weinstein Company or Warner Brothers.

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From the oft-heard complaints you hear from Trekkies about the fourth, fifth and ninth Star Trek films, you’d think we Spock-eared, Klingon-spouting fanboys (and girls) had no sense of humor. I’m referring to the “too much humor” issue that is both an asset and a burden to the longstanding (and still going) Star Trek film franchise.  Honestly, when you have classically trained actors standing around in heavy make-up, give deadly-serious monologues about what is “logical” and, in order to stage a shaking starship, stumble wildly around the “bridge”, dashes of humor are more than welcome.

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This month marks 20 years since the theatrical release of Willow, the fantasy written and produced by George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard.  When it was revealed that the film was being made, many believed that the title was the codename for a new Star Wars movie (sadly, they had to wait 10 more years for another Star Wars episode). Instead, we have Lucas’ obvious attempt at creating a fantasy film series on the level of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, crossed with the blue print of Star Wars, and a dash of the Old Testament.  Willow was intended as a starter film, the equivalent of The Hobbit, with three bigger, more elaborate films to follow. Lucas’ hopes of putting Star Wars to rest for a while and expanding into another genre were thwarted when Willow was only a mid-sized box office hit and, while a money-maker, a minor disappointment (the three installments that were to follow were released as books, Shadow Moon, Shadow Dawn and Shadow Star, written by Lucas and X-men writer Chris Claremont).  On video, however, the film became a huge cult film and is now rightfully considered one of the finest American fantasy films ever made.

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For a film to truly be a cult movie, it only needs to do one thing: flop. If people feel that they personally have discovered a movie and must share it with their friends, then you have the makings of a cult classic. Films like Napoleon Dynamite, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bad Santa and Garden State are considered cult movies, but they’re not- all those films were box office hits, and found their targeted audiences in theaters first. Alex Proya’s Dark City, his first film after directing The Crow, had a stunning trailer, a good marketing campaign by New Line Cinema and was greeted by overwhelmingly positive reviews, but no one saw it.

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Some movies should absolutely not work and Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of them. Imagine the pitch meeting for this movie: “It’ll cost around $40 million, making it the most expensive production of the day, and it may take two years to complete. The special effects will be groundbreaking…that is, if we get it finished on time. Oh, and, instead of hiring Dan Aykroyd to star, as you suggested, we chose Bob Hoskins for the lead. Never heard of him? He was in Mona Lisa…no, I don’t think he’s ever done a ‘children’s film’ before, but this isn’t really a kid’s movie anyway. This will have sex, a complicated plot, lots of in-jokes for the adults, and it’s a throwback to Raymond Chandler! Sounds like a hit, right? Right?”

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The problem with book-to-film adaptations is that, quite reasonably, the reader expects the highlights of the novel to be in the film. Not too hard to understand, right? Michael Crichton is one of the most popular novelists around and, while some consider his work to be page turning fluff, he deserves his reputation as a science fiction author who cleverly blends known scientific principals with riveting narratives. I’m a fan of his work, though I understand why many dislike his books (and, for the record, “The Lost World” was as bad on the written page as it was on the big screen). Regarding the elaborate adaptation of “Sphere”, directed by Barry Levinson, fans of Crichton rightfully nitpick that, while the film captured the spirit and intellectual intent of the book, it criminally omits the coolest part of the book. More on that later.

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