Great Movie Re-Watch

Tango & Cash (1989)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Tango & Cash (1989)

Directors:

Andrey Konchalovskiy

Albert Magnoli

Writers:

Randy Feldman

Jeffrey Boam

Starring:

Sylvester Stallone

Kurt Russell

Terri Hatcher

Jack Palance

Blurb:

Framed by their ruthless arch-nemesis, a mismatched LAPD crime-fighting duo has to put its differences aside to even the score with the evil kingpin who put them behind bars once and for all.

Thoughts:

The title and idea of Tango & Cash are awesome. You’ve got Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell as, basically, buddy cops. They’re taking down criminals in their own way until they’re framed by a weird old white dude that has a thing for mice. It’s a great premise, and the first half of the movie is fine. Sadly, the last half doesn’t make sense, and it’s clear that someone else directed it.

Honestly, reading up on the film, it’s a miracle it got made. They went twenty million over budget, and Stallone fired the director and the original director of photography. Supposedly he was also the producer, director, writer, and star all at one time. He wasn’t given credit for it, and the Wikipedia isn’t one I’d trust completely, so take that with a bag of salt. It’s possible he felt inferior because Russell is so clearly the better actor.

I’d say this is around the time Stallone’s career started to take a downturn. He still did some good movies, but they were more hit or miss. He’s a better actor than Schwarzenegger, but he’s got a type he can play, and he should stick with it. Stallone is definitely not a comedian. He should have learned that in Cobra, but he didn’t. His jokes did not land in Tango & Cash, and it made his character seem off. Stallone has the superior butt, but Russell has better comedic timing.

Apparently, Stallone is trying to make a sequel, but I don’t see Russell doing it. I didn’t read anything about them having issues, but I find it hard to believe that Stallone was a joy to work with.

Only one more movie left in the 80s!

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Director:

Steven Spielberg

Writer:

Jeffrey Boam

Starring:

Harrison Ford

Sean Connery

Denholm Elliot

Alison Doody

John Rhys-Davies

Julian Glover

River Phoenix

Blurb:

In 1938, after his father Professor Henry Jones, Sr. goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. finds himself up against Adolf Hitler’s Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.

Thoughts:

Okay, I’ve got another hot take to go on top of my Ghostbusters II one. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is my favorite Indiana Jones movie. Watching it again cemented that for me.
Indiana is a shit archeologist and a shit professor, and the only reason he has a job is nepotism. Man almost immediately bails on his students when he’s actually available to work. He also goes around destroying anything with potential historical value if it stands in his way. He’s never mentioned his father before and what we know of his father isn’t endearing, but Indiana won’t let anything stand between him and saving his dad.

There are a lot of issues in the story. I spent most of my re-watch pointing all the things that didn’t make sense. Like, why in the flashback to his youth is Indiana all about things being in a museum, but then in Temple of Doom which happens next chronologically, is he all about money? Then in Raiders, he’s back to it belongs in a museum. Temple Indiana doesn’t fit.

Why is he carrying around a flaming torch in a tomb he’s said he could retire from all the petroleum in it? He is literally dripping flames onto this “oil.” Of course, this is after he destroyed a library floor which should have gone against both of his professions. Dude, could you not wait an hour or so before hammering a hole into an ancient tile? Your dad has been missing for days at that point. Are a few more hours going to make a huge difference?

The whole movie is a bunch of good scenes with shit that doesn’t make sense in between, which seems to be standard Spielberg at that point. Big set pieces and damn the logic of everything else. Reading the Wikipedia entry for the movie, it sounds like a miracle we even got this coherent of a story. Several people wrote drafts, including Chris Columbus, who wrote two. Spielberg and Lucas started location scouting for his and then bailed because they decided it was too racist and unbelievable. If the creators of Temple of Doom think your script is racist and unbelievable, then… *yikes*

There’s a lot in the Wikipedia article for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Including the fact that the prologue inspired Lucas to create the Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, which is not available to stream anywhere and is only available on DVD split into three volumes and cost over $90. I’ve seen a couple of the stories when I was a kid, and I’d love to watch all of them, but I find it difficult to spend that kind of money on a DVD. Paramount needs to get that up on their streaming service. It might get me to subscribe.

I believe there are only two women with lines in this entire movie. Both of them are Nazis. There are a couple of rich German women on the airship, but they didn’t say anything. This is pretty par for the course when it comes to these movies. However, it was pretty gross that both Jones’ men slept with Elsa. It says a lot about the treatment of women in this movie that that’s almost an improvement.

I appreciate a good adventure movie, but The Mummy movies have aged much better than the Indiana Jones ones. I’d love to see more of this type of movie being made again. There are so many movies I’d love to see made with an eye toward fixing their treatment of women and minorities. Hollywood loves to remake and reboot. Why can’t they do that and make things good? I’m not asking for a remake or reboot of Indiana Jones. That would be wrong. There’s a lot I don’t like about these movies, but they need to be left alone. I just want an adventure movie that doesn’t make me cringe in embarrassment.

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

Director:

Rob Reiner

Writer:

Nora Ephron

Starring:

Billy Crystal

Meg Ryan

Carrie Fisher

Bruno Kirby

Blurb:

Harry and Sally have known each other for years, and are very good friends, but they fear sex would ruin the friendship.

Thoughts:

When Harry Met Sally… is one of the best romance movies ever made. So many of the movies I’ve watched recently haven’t aged particularly well, but that wasn’t the case with When Harry Met Sally… Yeah, it would have been nice if college Billy Crystal hadn’t been so obsessed with sex, but it was a pretty good representation of a specific section of college man. Maybe not the same group as originally intended, but I’m sure many college guys still believe that men and women can’t be friends.

Watching the evolution of Crystal and Ryan’s relationship is awesome. It could have so easily been too dramatic, it’s the type of story that would work as a straight drama, but the comedy makes it the fantastic movie it is.

Both characters are filled with quirks, but I wondered if Ryan’s character was on the spectrum. Her whole putting the envelopes in the mailbox one at a time and how the sheets had to be a certain way when she slept seemed at least a bit OCD. The way she ordered her food takes picky to the extreme, and yet she had a freaking coconut cake at her wedding. That is one of the meanest things you can do to wedding guests. I will never forget the disappointment I felt as a child after suffering through a horribly long wedding ceremony only to be given yucky coconut cake. It was an unforgivable betrayal.

Crystal plays the same character as he does in most of the movies I’ve watched him in, but he grows. He goes from the college bro who doesn’t believe men and women can be friends to being good friends with a woman. Eventually, yes, their feelings change, but they are friends for a while before that happens. Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes. I married my best friend, so I love reading it happen to other people.

When Harry Met Sally… is famous for a particular scene involving Ryan in a delicatessen. I can’t listen to this scene. I don’t consider myself a prude, but it makes me so uncomfortable that I have to either fast-forward or mute it while it’s happening. I try, but it’s too intimate and makes me embarrassed, so I can’t watch.

On the other side of things, when Crystal has his declaration at the end, I’ve got a big stupid grin on my face, and I can’t look away. There’s a reason this film is on all the big lists. Not just romance lists, either. It is all around a great movie.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Director:

Ivan Reitman

Writers:

Dan Aykroyd

Harold Ramis

Starring:

Bill Murray

Dan Aykroyd

Sigourney Weaver

Harold Ramis

Rick Moranis

Ernie Hudson

Annie Potts

Peter MacNicol

Blurb:

The discovery of a massive river of ectoplasm and a resurgence of spectral activity allows the staff of Ghostbusters to revive the business.

Thoughts:

I will show just how uncultured I am by saying that I enjoy Ghostbusters II more than the first one. I said it. It’s out there. My husband and the internet have informed me I’m wrong, and I accept that. The thing is, I enjoy Ghostbusters II more. Don’t get me wrong, I love the humor in the first movie. It’s hilarious, and the song is much better, but there’s just something about a giant Statue of Liberty walking through New York with upbeat music playing that hits me in the feels.

The film was a flop because I am in the minority. It so thoroughly killed what could have been a huge franchise that we didn’t get another movie for decades. Which, of course, was hated for entirely different reasons. There’s another movie coming out later this year, but all signs point to it being closer to the original than the sequel. Still, it has Paul Rudd in it, so it can’t be all bad.

Weaver was a much better mother than Alley was in Look Who’s Talking. Anytime something was happening to Oscar, it’s like she sensed it almost immediately, and she reacted. She also didn’t question herself and went to people she knew would help. She’s a great character with sus taste in men. Murray’s character is hilarious, but he’s so self-destructive I’m not sure how I would feel being in a relationship with him.

The Wikipedia article is expansive filled with all kinds of information, but nothing stood out as interesting to me. Murray was a bit of a diva again. The movie apparently has a fatherhood subplot with Murray’s whole relationship with Oscar. Eh, I rarely pick up on things like that and prefer to think of Weaver being a super mom.

I’m almost through the 80s! Just four more movies.

Look Who’s Talking (1989)

The Great Movie Re-Watch

Look Who’s Talking (1989)

Director:

Amy Heckerling

Writer:

Amy Heckerling

Starring:

John Travolta

Kristie Alley

Bruce Willis

Blurb:

After a single, career-minded woman is left on her own to give birth to the child of a married man, she finds a new romantic chance in a cab driver. Meanwhile, the point-of-view of the newborn boy is narrated through voice-over.

Thoughts:

Here’s the thing, I’m not a fan of Look Who’s Talking. I don’t hate it. I just don’t care one way or another. It exists. I own it, though, because when I found out I was pregnant with my first child, I consumed a lot of media about babies and pregnancy. So I bought the digital version of the movie. Now, I can’t get rid of it. I could pretend like it doesn’t exist in my library, but once again, my Lawful Good personality won’t allow me to do it.

A young, naive Kristie Alley gets knocked up by a client who is clearly, to anyone else, using her for sex. She catches him “cheating,” goes into labor, and John Travolta is her taxi driver to the hospital. Their romance blossoms from there.

Alley’s character is one of those women who are high maintenance. Her temper is volatile, and she’s always right despite proof to the contrary. Travolta’s character is one of those men who like all of those things despite being the opposite. On top of all of that, Alley is somehow a helicopter parent and a neglectful parent. She reads all the books, does all the recommended things, and also leaves her toddler with strangers and an old man with dementia. She’s always swinging between two extremes.

The movie is fine. It’s a romantic comedy with a mildly disturbing opening credits scene.