Movies of 1984
1984 was a good year. The Detroit Tigers won the World Series. Van Halen released a great album. Our great nation-state declared war on Eurasia, then Eastasia, then Eurasia again, all while systematically streamlining our language to eliminate thoughtcrime and creating a super-civilization. All hail Big Brother!
But 1984 was also good for one other thing: movies.
Here's a partial list of movies that came out during 1984:
This is Spinal Tap
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Karate Kid
Revenge of the Nerds
Dune
Gremlins
Johnny Dangerously
The Natural
Terminator
Ghostbusters
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Beverly Hills Cop
Police Academy
Splash
I don't think there have been 14 movies that good at the Loew's multiplex in the last 5 years put together.
Look at that list. And those aren't even the Academy Award contenders. How many of them have you seen? Probably all of them. If not all of them, most of them. And if not most of them, you're either under the age of 16 or a complete moron who's living a barren existence and will likely die angry and unfulfilled. It's OK; you're not alone. Plenty of people live and die that way, but you've got a chance to change your fate and turn things around by seeing these movies. I assume you're in the process of updating your Netflix queue, so I'll wait for a minute while you take care of that.
Good? OK, I'll keep going.
7 of the 14 movies on that list spawned sequels, (that's not including The Muppets Take Manhattan, which is itself a sequel) and 6 of those 7 spawned multiple sequels. And really, isn't that a good indicator of a movie's greatness: its ability to force the hand of greedy movie studio executives to greenlight crappy, watered down sequels?
The Book
UNDERRATED
The Yankee Pot Roast Book of Awesome Underappreciated Stuff
by Geoff Wolinetz,
Nick Jezarian,
and Josh Abraham
Published by
Citadel/Kensington Books.
On sale June 24, 2008.
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