Note: Back to the Movies is a special feature on the FilmNerds blog in which Matt Scalici will be watching the Top 50 highest-grossing movies of 1983 in order from 50 to 1.

Once again we reach one of the rare 1983 films that I’ve actually seen before taking on this project and it’s probably indicative of the timelessness of the comedy in National Lampoon’s Vacation that it’s one of the few comedies that most people my age (meaning those of us born in 1983 and after) have seen on cable or home video and enjoyed it enough to watch it again. It’s a little astounding to think about an R-rated comedy pulling in this kind of money ($61.4 million would be an impressive take for an R-rate comedy even today) but when you think about this movie’s pedigree, it probably wasn’t much of a risk for Warner Bros. at the time.

Harold Ramis was still a relatively new name on the scene as a director but he had already made a massive impact both financially and in terms of influencing the entire comedy scene at the time. Ramis made his name coming up through Second City and The National Lampoon Show, two institutions that basically defined comedy in the late 1970s and early ’80s. In his time with those two groups, Ramis worked alongside John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chrisopher Guest and Gilda Radner among others and his work as a screenwriter for Animal House and Meatballs almost immediately made him the go to comedy writer in Hollywood by 1980. That year, Ramis made his directorial debut with Caddyshack, a phenomenally successful R-rated comedy that gave Hollywood confidence in not only Ramis but also the film’s star, Chevy Chase. Over the next few years, Chase took on some moderately successful projects, including another 1983 release called Deal of the Century from William Friedkin, but it wasn’t until Vacation that Chase really found his comedic groove.

Chase’s performance as the likably pathetic, affably goofy Clark Griswold is a perfect fit for Chase’s primary comedic persona at the time. He’s a bumbling idiot with what Adam McKay and Will Ferrell would call “unearned confidence”, a comedic device as old as comedy itself and one that still works today with the McKay-Ferrell movies. Clark’s ill-fated cross-country road trip to the Disneyland stand-in Walley World is a series of increasingly disastrous episodes and while each of the episodes is darkly funny in its own weird way, the real comedy comes from Clark’s refusal to admit that anything’s wrong, a move that most moviegoers recognize as classic fatherly behavior.

The screenplay is perhaps the earliest major success for ’80s legend John Hughes, who based the script on his own short story about a family trip to Disneyland in the 1950s. Hughes scored two major hits in 1983 with his screenplays for Vacation and Mr. Mom (coming later in the countdown) and those two highly-successful hits led to his incredible run of 20 commercially successful screenplays over the next ten years, many of which he would direct himself.

The comedy in Vacation is a bit of a mixture of different styles but the constant is that it’s all pretty irreverent. Whether it’s making you feel bad about laughing at something like an obnoxious dog dying (or even an obnoxious relative) or just going for relatively easy laughs about porn and marijuana, Vacation sort of covers the bases of ’80s R-rated humor but most of it is at least done with extremely clever and incisive dialogue that takes what could be a cheap attempt at shock comedy and turns it into really smart satire. This scene between Clark and his son Rusty (played by a young Anthony Michael Hall) is probably one of the best examples of the movie’s ability to walk the fine line of satirizing the traditional family comedy without really mocking it outright. There’s clearly some affection for the sort of “Aww shucks” chat with dad but at the same time Hughes, Ramis and Chase make sure the scene takes a turn towards the irreverent without seeming mean-spirited.

(Click image to view clip)

Randy Quaid’s turn as Cousin Eddie is probably the most memorable portion of the film for most fans today, and for good reason. Quaid, who was already a well-known character actor at the time, gets the film’s scene-stealing lines during a bizarre and uncomfortable stop-over by the Griswolds in a weird, Arizona redneck world and while Quaid gets all the attention, maybe the most outrageous and oft-repeated line from the episode comes from Eddie’s daughter, played by a very young Jane Krakowski (later of Ally McBeal and 30 Rock fame).

Beverly D’Angelo’s performance as wife/mother Ellen is certainly nothing all that impressive and it’s obvious she’s here to serve the classic ’80s role of “hot, older woman”. It’s a little strange how the standards of what’s considered sexy change over time, since she’s supposed to be Clark’s somewhat plain and nagging wife while “Girl in the Ferrari” played by Christie Brinkley is clearly intended to be the real catch of the movie. I think most male audience members today would definitely find D’Angelo more appealing, but that’s just my non-scientific opinion.

Like many of Ramis’ movies, Vacation is scattered with great little single-scene performances from underrated comedy stars like Eugene Levy (as a sleazy car salesman), Brian Doyle-Murray (as a campground operator) and John Candy (who is absolutely delightful as a bumbling security guard at Walley World). Probably my favorite of these small roles comes from Eddie Bracken, a long-time Hollywood character actor who is a dead ringer for Walt Disney here, sweater, mustache and all.

Most of the comedy in Vacation still holds up very well today, in fact there are only really a handful of jokes that probably don’t play as well 27 years later. One would be an early joke involving Clark and his kids playing a video game, something that the filmmakers seemed to think was inherently novel and funny on its own. This is the third movie of the last four on my list that have prominently (and somewhat inexplicably) featured video games so I have to imagine that the idea was something that made filmmakers think they were being particularly timely in 1983.

That’s going to happen with almost any comedy, especially mainstream comedies, but overall Vacation stands up extremely well almost three decades later, a real feat for any comedy that relies so heavily on appealing to younger audiences who are always demanding something new and fresh when it comes to comedy. Ramis and Hughes understood young audiences in the ’80s perhaps better than anyone else in Hollywood and their collaboration was clearly a home run.

Next Up: Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay get up to some Risky Business.

The Movie: Kill Bill, Volume I

Spoiler Level: High

The Setup: The Bride (Uma Thurman) is hell-bent on a mission to kill the five assassins who ruined her life and nearly killed her and after acquiring a samurai sword from the legendary sword maker Hattori Hanso, The Bride sets off to take out perhaps her most powerful enemy, Japanese-Chinese-American gang leader O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). In an astonishingly and perhaps unprecedentedly violent sequence (perhaps the subject of another Great Scenes post one day), we have just watched The Bride hack her way through 88 members of O-Ren’s gang and with the remaining survivors screaming in pain in the background, The Bride makes her way onto O-Ren’s rooftop garden for a final showdown.

Why It’s Great: Like so much of Kill Bill, the showdown with O-Ren is a scene that both works in perfect harmony with the rest of the film and stands alone and apart from everything else that comes before and after it. Tarantino is almost taking us through a door into another movie when The Bride slides back the doorway to reveal the snow-covered gardens on the roof of the House of Blue Leaves (indeed the visual effect very much makes it appear as though she is walking into a movie screen).

At the 1:46 mark, Santa Esmerelda’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” takes over on the soundtrack, a curious musical choice considering that in its entirety, it’s a rather cheesy, Latin-tinted disco-pop hit. Tarantino though is able to see through the context of the song itself and pick out the admittedly dramatic instrumental break in the middle of the song and turn it into the perfect musical accompaniment to his Sergio Leone-esque moment of dramatic tension that serves as the climax of Volume I (and some would say, the climax of the entire two-part story).

The posturing and tension-building continues in almost unbearable fashion and at the 2:56 mark, a quick slash from The Bride hacks off a piece of O-Ren’s sheath and as the horn section fades in on the soundtrack, the look of terror crawls across O-Ren’s face as she realizes for the first time that she may not win this fight. It’s not until almost a minute later that the tension is finally broken and while the rest of the scene is far less about stylized tension and more about resolution and payoff, I believe that solid minute of anticipation is perhaps the high point of Quentin Tarantino’s career as a filmmaker. It’s a representation of everything he’s about as a filmmaker, a post-modern mash-up of genres (kung fu, spaghetti western, exploitation) set to a soundtrack that would be entirely out of place in any of those genres and somehow it not only all works together but it manages to create a sincere, nail-biting moment of emotional tension that rivals even those great showdown scenes that came before it (like the end of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” discussed earlier here on The Great Scenes).

I’d also be remiss not to mention the performances of Lucy Liu and Uma Thurman, who are both the unquestionable stars of the entire Kill Bill saga (As a villain, David Carradine’s Bill doesn’t hold a candle to O-Ren). They both do a nice bit of acting in this scene that has a lot of emotion going on without a lot of words being spoken to spell it all out for us. These women were both friends and perhaps still feel a little of that friendship towards one another. At the same time, there is no denying the situation they are in. The Bride is there to kill O-Ren or die trying. Despite the fact that she has already dispatched with the first name on her “Death List”, there’s a real sense that in this epic tale of revenge, O-Ren is the first and biggest step on the road to vengeance for The Bride. Unlike the other foes we meet in Volume II, O-Ren is given a rich backstory and is shown as not just a pesky villain to be eliminated but a worthy anti-heroine in her own right. The meeting of these two characters couldn’t be preceded with any more anticipation and although the ending is satisfying, the anticipation is the real star of the show here.

The FilmNerds crew is back once again with FilmNerds Recommends, our monthly feature where we do our sacred duty as film geeks by telling you which movies we think are worthy of your valuable home entertainment time. March is truly a dry season when it comes to new releases in theaters with studios dumping off their least promising projects before the summer season gets rolling. This month, as we occasionally do, the FilmNerds crew has chosen four of the month’s big releases and given you alternative choices that offer a more satisfying variation on the same theme. Every FilmNerds recommendation is currently available on Netflix so if you see a pick you like, simply click on the DVD cover art to link straight to the movie’s page on Netflix.

Instead of The Adjustment Bureau

Ben Stark’s Pick – Blade Runner (1982)

Honestly, this Philip K. Dick adaptation from Bourne Ultimatum writer George Nolfi looks pretty good to me. I’ll probably be waiting for its arrival at the local $1 theater, and in the mean time I’ll keep watching another PKD story, Blade Runner. It’s been a recent slow-going mission of mine to revisit each cut of the Ridley Scott classic on blu ray, and it’s been a pleasure so far.

Corey Craft’s Pick – A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Because I know no one else is going to even approach this one, I’ll be the in-house defender of Steven Spielberg’s wonderful A.I. Artificial Intelligence, one of the most thought-provoking, fantastical science fiction films of recent years. (Though it’s hard to believe that movie is a decade old this year… wow.) Working from a story by sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss that had enticed Stanley Kubrick in the later years of his life, Spielberg took over the film after Kubrick’s death and made a movie that artfully (yes, ARTFULLY) melds their two sensibilities in a robot’s fairy tale journey that examines the very question of what it means to be human. The ending, which has been misunderstood time and time again, caps the movie off with a stunning answer. But haters, as they always do, are going to hate.

Ben Flanagan’s Pick – Inception (2010)

I hate to make such an obvious and recent reference, but revisiting Christopher Nolan’s would continue to serve us all well, not necessarily because we must take more time to process Nolan’s universe and set of rules but because of the power and warmth of the narrative. The more I watch the film, the less I’m wrapped up in the technical mastery and instead am consumed by Nolan’s protagonist Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio in his best performance) and the sacrifices he makes to return to his children. He puts his family, colleagues and employers at great risk in a simple effort to make things right for himself, but more importantly, to ensure his son and daughter have at least one parent. Nolan never wants to overemphasize the technology or specifics of his modern world, instead insisting we simply roll with it and buy into Cobb’s emotional journey.

Graham Flanagan’s Pick – Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca is one of the most underrated “intelligent” sci-fi films to emerge in recent years. Written and directed by The Truman Show scribe Andrew Niccol, this October 1997 release under-performed at the box office, despite receiving a favorable 82% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. Blending elements of film noir with a heavy dose of dystopian cynicism, Gattaca presents a world in which people who haven’t been genetically engineered to perfection must battle discrimination on all fronts. Ethan Hawke plays an aspiring astronaut whose natural-birth prevents him from climbing the ladder at a space-exploration company. He pays a paralyzed man (Jude Law) who was genetically engineered for the rights to his identity so that he can pursue his dream. The fascinating plot never feels contrived, and Niccol creates a uniquely imaginative world in which it dreamily unfolds.

Matt Scalici’s Pick – Equilibrium (2002)

This isn’t quite the hidden gem it was a few years ago but at the time it was released, I was baffled at how little attention this very smart, very violent high-concept film received. The idea of a society medicated into apathy and controlled by a group of geometry-obsessed supercops seems like it would get a lot of traction these days among certain political communities but all that aside, it’s simply a thoughtful yet bad-ass sci-fi action movie with a strong lead performance from Oscar-winner Christian Bale.

Instead of Take Me Home Tonight

Ben Stark’s Pick – The Party (1968)

There’s no more obvious pick here than Blake Edwards’ The Party, starring Peter Sellers as a bumbling extra who accidentally gets invited to a swanky Hollywood shindig. As with the best of Edwards, much of the comedy comes out of background details, including a waiter who becomes progressively drunker throughout the night.

Corey Craft’s Pick – Boogie Nights (1997)

I never went to any parties, so as far as depictions of parties in film, your guess is probably a lot better than mine as to what constitutes a cool party movie. But for the sake of being contrary, let’s pick a really depressing answer and say Boogie Nights, which seems to have a lot of scenes at parties. And also scenes on pornographic film sets. But the sprawling cast of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scorsese homage (that’s not a stretch to say at this point, is it?) has a whole lot of fun and parties hard until the seventies come crashing down, and when they come crashing down, they crash hard. And none of those parties seem very much fun, and you’re left with some dude standing in a corner throwing firecrackers into the air while you zone out to “Jesse’s Girl.” Yeah, that’s my favorite party movie.

Ben Flanagan’s Pick – Dazed and Confused (1993)

Tied with its predecessor American Graffiti as my favorite “one night out” movie, Richard Linklater’s high school comedy speaks to teenagers and college students alike who struggled with the thought of being stuck in their small hometown forever and maybe came to the conclusion that it might not be such a horrible thing if you’re surrounded by friends. Rarely do filmmakers actually “get” the high school experience, often opting to set up pathetically unrealistic party scenarios instead of a bunch of folks meeting up in the middle of nowhere to stand around a keg and hang out. While a psychotic homeowner has never stuck a pistol in my face prior to my slamming the accelerator and peeling out under a sea of gunfire, I feel like we’ve all more or less shared an experience like that. One of my favorite scripts from a filmmaker I feel actually matters to our generation.

Graham Flanagan’s Pick – Back to the Beach (1987)

With Summer rapidly approaching, I highly recommend taking the party to the greatest spot known to man: the beach – with 1987′s Back to the Beach. 1960s teen-icons Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon star as fictionalized versions of themselves in this tongue-in-cheek homage to their American International Pictures-produced series of movies that included Beach Blanket Bingo and Muscle Beach Party. Filled with humorous contrasts between the idealized world of 60s beach parties and 1980s sensibilities, the film chronicles Frankie and Annette’s attempt to reclaim a Hawaiian beach from a gang of four-wheeler riding baddies, one of whom is dating their teenage daughter (Lori Laughlin). Again the material is as self-aware as it gets, resulting in a fun, often hilarious send-up of a forgotten era. Watch out for memorable cameos by Pee-Wee Herman, Dick Dale and O.J. Simpson.

Matt Scalici’s Pick – Valley Girl (1983)

I caught this highly underrated teen party movie as part of my ongoing Back to the Movies series here on FilmNerds (end of shameless promotion) and was shocked not only at how incredibly likable the young Nicholas Cage was in his first major movie role but also how sensitive and compassionate this movie turned out to be in the face of a major trend towards brainless sex comedies in the early ’80s. The various party scenes in Valley Girl are a great reflection of the painful and awkward experience of falling in love with someone you don’t know from across a room at a party.

Instead of The Lincoln Lawyer

Ben Stark’s Pick – Amistad (1997)

Although only its climax really takes place in court, Amistad still contains one of the most amazing courtroom speeches of all time. The setting caveat aside, Spielberg’s long melodrama is a mature and measured look at slavery and its horrors.

Corey Craft’s Pick – To Kill A Mockingbird (1962)

To Kill A Mockingbird is the answer here, because no courtroom scene in cinematic history compares to Atticus Finch’s impassioned monologue to save Tom Robinson, and Gregory Peck gives one of the most iconic performances ever. That movie probably inspired an entire generation to go into law.

Ben Flanagan’s Pick – A Time to Kill (1996)

I’ll take you back to the mid-90s, when Matthew McConaughey could act, or at least made better choices. Honestly, I’m hearing The Lincoln Lawyer actually isn’t half-bad, so maybe we get an extension of his excellent work as Jake Briggance in Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of the John Grisham’s powerful novel. Shouldering the burden of leading an ensemble of borderline southern accents, the Texas-born McConaughey comes across as genuine in this forward, slightly gritty mainstream courtroom drama. I gladly bought into the hammy performances and sweaty (Ashley Judd) atmosphere, but thanks to McConaughey’s gripping monologue in his closing argument, the story comes front and center.

Graham Flanagan’s Pick – The Verdict (1982)

You’ll experience one of Paul Newman’s greatest performances in Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict, which features a script by David Mamet. Newman stars as an alcoholic, small-time civil attorney who takes on a medical malpractice case from which he hopes to quickly profit with an out-of-court settlement. However, once he recognizes the severity of the injustice that has occurred, Newman’s character seizes the opportunity to change his ways and finally do the right thing. Sidney Lumet is no stranger to courtroom dramas; this, along with 12 Angry Men, serves as one of his finest entires in the genre. Newman gets strong support from Jack Warden, as well as James Mason who – along with Newman – received an Oscar nomination for his work here.

Matt Scalici’s Pick – The Caine Mutiny (1954)

While only the latter part of the film takes place in a courtroom, The Caine Mutiny features what many would call Humphrey Bogart’s most impressive performance as a naval captain that skirts the line between insanely demanding and just plain insane. The courtroom scenes are a really clever exploration of the precarious situation of declaring your boss insane without being insubordinate, something that anyone who’s ever had a bad boss has probably spent a lot of time thinking about…

Instead of Sucker Punch

Corey Craft’s Pick – Crank (2006) or Crank 2: High Voltage (2009)

The Crank movies. And if you have to ask why at this point, I don’t know what to say.

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Ben Stark’s Pick – The Transporter (2002)

Ignore Corey’s pick. Instead, check out Crank’s less methed-up cousins, The Transporter Trilogy. The first film really loses its moment about half-way through, the second is basically a Wile E. Coyote movie, and the third actually attains a level of balance. Take all the films together, divide them by three, and you have a really slick, enjoyably cartoonish modern action flick.

Ben Flanagan’s Pick – Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003)

The most exquisite junk food you’ll ever taste, Quentin Tarantino’s most thoroughly entertaining film pits a beautiful blond hell-bent on “retiring” the folks that tried to murder her and her unborn child. If you ever wonder whether a filmmaker is having any fun behind the scenes, look no further than the first half of Tarantino’s blood-spattered epic. It’s loud, colorful, disciplined and unspeakably reverent to the MANY films, television series and musicians that influenced it. But while it makes heavy references to things from the past, I’d wager it’s one of the more original films of the past 25 years. He may have borrowed bits and pieces from his favorite works, but this is 100 percent Tarantino to the letter. Every day, I think of a new favorite scene or chapter, and today it’s nearly every minute we get to spend with Sonny Chiba’s Hattori Hanzo.

Graham Flanagan’s Pick – RoboCop (1987)

While many might throw it in the science-fiction category, I have to go with another title from that fabled year of 1987: Paul Verhoven’s Robocop. Featuring cyborgs, big guns, hilarious villains, cocaine, hot 80s women, murderous robots and much more, it rarely gets more absurdly fun than this. All of the action is anchored by one of the great 1980s action scores by composer Basil Poledouris. While Verhoven triumphed numerous times in his subsequent career, Robocop still stands tall as his strongest effort and remains one of the classic examples – if not the classic example – of over-the-top 80s action movies.

Matt Scalici’s Pick – Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

Firstly, let me say that I’m definitely going to see Sucker Punch and expect it to be better than the movie I’m recommending here. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is not a terribly good movie all in all but it has some spectacularly fun action sequences. Director McG doesn’t do a lot of things well but never let it be said that the guy can’t film explosions, women running from explosions, women riding motorcycles through explosions and all manner of other things involving women, explosions and slow-motion photography. See the other recommendations in this category first and if you still feel like you haven’t seen enough action, check out Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.

Note: Back to the Movies is a special feature on the FilmNerds blog in which Matt Scalici will be watching the Top 50 highest-grossing movies of 1983 in order from 50 to 1.

Like most people born in 1983, I’ve never felt particularly connected to the Superman movie franchise. By the time I was old enough to watch and appreciate movies, the Superman movie franchise founded by producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind had devolved into a parody of itself with movies like Supergirl and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace becoming cinematic punch-lines rather than box office heroes like their predecessors. On top of that, the only other silver screen impression I have of Superman in my lifetime is Bryan Singer’s bland misfire Superman Returns, a movie that aspired to make you believe a man can fly…and still be uninteresting.

Many comic book enthusiasts (a group which does not include yours truly) hold Superman up as one of the truly great, if not the greatest, superhero characters in the history of the medium but it’s a character that’s had a hard time finding success in movie form, even during the 21st Century boom of comic book movies. I can’t speak to the comic books themselves, only to the character’s existence in the world of movies, but personally I’ve never felt Superman is a terribly interesting character and I think his lack of dimension has really held back DC and Warner Brothers from moving forward with a Superman film that can capture the attention of audiences in the 21st Century. I’m sure I’ll get some argument on this point from Superman fans and comic book enthusiasts of all kinds but I think the problem with Superman lies with the fact that he can do absolutely anything and has only one weakness, which itself is a rather uninteresting and all-too-convenient MacGuffin. Many writers will tell you that restrictions and boundaries are what lead to true creativity and the problem with Superman is that the boundaries are far too broadly drawn. There’s no problem Superman can’t solve, except of course Kryptonite and the problem there is that Kryptonite just is what it is and has no interesting properties or characteristics other than being “the stuff that kills Superman”.

Roger Ebert was skeptical at the very idea of making superhero stories into films even after the success of the first two Superman films. In his 1983 review, Ebert said “What’s amazing is that the first two Superman movies avoided that description, creating a fantasy with a certain charm. They could have been manipulative special-effects movies, but they were a great deal more. With this third one, maybe they’ve finally run out of inspiration.”

All that said, the Salkind’s first attempt at a Superman film in 1978 remains a fantastically entertaining and successful movie as does Superman II, in spite of some of the most chaotic behind-the-scenes activity in movie history. Director Richard Donner was hired by the Salkinds to direct Superman and Superman II simultaneously, an ambitious production idea that ended with Donner being fired after completing about 75 percent of the second film. The Salkinds hired Richard Lester (who directed the Salkind-produced Three Musketeer films in the ’70s) to complete Superman II and after seeing that film rocket to financial success once again, decided to keep Lester on for a third Superman film.

The problem was that although the Salkinds were extremely happy with their move to replace Donner with Lester, nearly everyone else involved in the production of the first two films were less enthusiastic. Gene Hackman, who many would argue was the most popular star from the cast of the first two films, refused to reprise the role of Lex Luthor following Donner’s dismissal. Screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who was hired by Donner to rewrite what he thought were rather silly screenplays for the first two films, also refused to participate in the franchise without Donner and while she denies it, many believe that public comments by Margot Kidder regarding his displeasure with the move led to Lois Lane’s role in the third movie being reduced to a laughably small cameo.

In my opinion, the loss of Mankiewicz may have ended up being perhaps the single-biggest loss that came from the fallout of the Donner-to-Lester move. That’s because the screenplay for Superman III, written by David and Leslie Newman, is so utterly ridiculous and unnatural feeling that no director, whether it be Lester or Donner, stood a chance of adapting it into a decent movie. Ilya Salkind’s original idea for Superman III involved Superman returning to the world of Krypton, facing off against cosmic supervillain Brainiac and teaming up with fellow Kryptonian Supergirl but Warner Bros. quickly shied away from what probably sounded like a special effects budget of unparalleled proportions.

Instead Warner Bros. came back to the Salkinds with their own idea. I imagine the pitch went something like this:

“Hey guys, listen that idea about Superman in space fighting evil aliens and teaming up with a super-hot girl version of himself – yeah that all sounds great. But what about this instead: Richard Pryor plays a computer geek who uses kryptonite to turn Superman evil! It’ll be cool AND hilarious at the same time!”

Frankly, however the idea was pitched it’s hard to believe that any adult with half a brain who was in the room thought it sounded like a good idea. Why turn Superman into a comedy? Why turn the ultimate good guy into a bad guy? I guess I can see some of the appeal of putting Richard Pryor into what’s supposed to be a fun, summer action movie. Pryor had already proven to be a major box office draw and he was tremendously fun to watch, the kind of actor you can just let roam around in a movie and he’ll find a way to be funny.

With Hackman and Kidder out, I also see some of the logic behind bringing Robert Vaughn in as the villain and Annette O’Toole as love interest Lana Lang. Vaughn’s villainous Ross Webster is clearly the same type of villain as Lex Luthor, a smarmy and clever corporate thief for whom greed is the only superpower. He’s a comedic villain and Vaughn does a great job of making his ridiculous and highly expository dialogue still palatable. O’Toole strikes me as fairly goofy at the beginning of the movie (the running joke of her being completely misunderstood by Clark gets old pretty fast) but actually starts to grow on me as the film goes on. She’s definitely not a conventional beauty and her chemistry with Reeve is nowhere near what we saw with Kidder in the first two films but she’s still ultimately pretty likable.

I really can’t complain about the cast much. I’d say given the dreadful screenplay they had to work with, I’d say they did a pretty good job. The story, which involves Richard Pryor being recruited by the evil Ross Webster to hack into satellites and change the weather, is so muddled and absurd that it’s not even worth fully recapping here. There’s also a somewhat controversial element to the story that involves Superman turning evil after being exposed to small amounts of, you guessed it, kryptonite. This “evil Superman” storyline really isn’t ever given any kind of explanation and has no consequences on the rest of the story elements. It’s mainly just a chance for the producers to film a scene in which Clark Kent fights with Superman (whether this is an actual physical split of Superman’s being or just a psychological battle being creatively expressed on screen is never actually made clear).

Probably my favorite moment of the “evil Superman” sequence (and by favorite I mean the moment that made me laugh the hardest at its utter absurdity) is a scene that almost perfectly expresses the complete lack of self-awareness or irony that Superman III has. It features a wonderfully stereotypical Italian man who is doing what all stereotypical Italian men do – selling statues of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It’s a joke that gets another callback at the end of the movie, where it actually made me laugh even harder the second time despite the fact that I knew it was coming.

This clip almost perfectly sums up the overall tone of Superman III, a movie that doesn’t ask to be taken as seriously as the first two Superman films and certainly succeeds at accomplishing that. It’s OK to have fun with a classic hero and it’s even OK to parody that hero outright (see the James Bond spoof Casino Royale for a great example) but if you’re going to do that, the rules of action/adventure film no longer apply. You are in the realm of comedy and if Superman III is to be judged as a comedy, it’s not a particularly funny or original one.

Next Up: The Griswold family makes its screen debut in National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Miguel Arteta’s work thus far has been a little bit all over the map, from the disturbingly dark Chuck & Buck to the somewhat cartoonish lunacy of last year’s Youth in Revolt. Cedar Rapids is definitely on the cartoonish end of the scale but its impressive sense of restraint keeps it grounded and authentic, leaving us with a movie that’s simultaneously darkly funny and touchingly sincere.

This comedic premise is pretty simple: a naive bumpkin from a small Midwestern town (played by Ed Helms) heads to the “big city” of Cedar Rapids, Iowa for a regional insurance conference. “Fish-out-of-water being impressed by things that aren’t that impressive” is a cheap gag that’s been done many times and while Cedar Rapids gets a few good chuckles out of it early on, it quickly moves away from that overused idea and becomes more of a classic coming-of-age story. The twist of course is that the character who is coming-of-age isn’t a young man but rather an insurance salesman in his 40s. Most of the laughs come not from Helms’ Tim Lippe gawking wide-eyed at the wonders of a moderately-sized city but rather from the fantastically immature, high school-like social dynamic of the insurance convention.

At the forefront of that dynamic is John C. Reilly’s Dean Ziegler, a man who is completely in his element for the length of the film. Reilly has been funny in plenty of movies but never has he looked so completely comfortable in a comedic role as he does here. He creates a character that is that rarest of creatures, the drunken blowhard who in spite of his tremendous ego remains sympathetic (we all know a Dean in our lives). It takes Tim a while to warm up to the abrasive Dean but eventually the two becomes fast and close friends, a fact confirmed by Dean to every other character he encounters for the rest of the film. Reilly comes close to stealing the show, though his interaction with Tim is the heart of the movie and drives Tim’s story forward, an impressive feat in and of itself since it would have been easy to let Dean’s outrageous antics continue to dominate the movie.

Handling a blend of dark comedy and small town hyper-innocence is a very tricky matter. Some people do it well (like the Coen Brothers and Jared Hess) but most fail miserably, a group that I would say also includes Arteta at an earlier stage of his career. This time Arteta gets it. He doesn’t patronize his characters or ask us to laugh at their struggles. He takes their crises and conflicts seriously, no matter how trivial they might actually be, and gives us plenty of reasons to root for Tim rather than scoff at him.

There are a couple of really nice supporting performances from Anne Heche as the married saleswoman who cuts loose at the conference and does a great job as both a platonic and romantic female lead at various stages of the film, and Isiah Whitlock as the nerdy and mild-mannered Ronald. Whitlock, who was both terrifying and hilarious on “the HBO program The Wire“, shows here that he can play understated equally well and his presence gives us a nice straight man in the group.

If I have any complaints about the film, they would come during the party scene in which Tim finds his way to a drug-filled party in the backwoods of Cedar Rapids. For one the party scene features Tim doing things that just aren’t believable even in a somewhat cartoonish comedy like this. My biggest grip is probably the disappointment I felt after seeing Rob Corddry appear in the scene in what seemed to be a promising small role but ends up being completely underutilized. Alia Shawkat as the kind-hearted prostitute Bree is tolerable but doesn’t really bring a lot to the role.

While the party scene is an underwhelming episode, it’s certainly doesn’t hinder the film’s main storyline from resolving in a satisfying and sincere way. While I hate to borrow from another reviewer in my own review, I think Roger Ebert, as he so often does, summed this film up quickly and succinctly with the phrase “a sweet comedy with a dirty mind.” At its heart, this is a movie about nice people trying to do the right thing and because they’re human, they get up to some slightly mischievous antics. Comedy is perhaps more subject to personal tastes than any other form of filmmaking but at least for this reviewer, Cedar Rapids hits that sweet spot between wicked black comedy and light-hearted wackiness.

The Movie: Network (1976)

Spoiler Level: Low

The Setup: Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is a veteran anchor for the UBS Evening News.  Due to a combination of declined ratings and a hint of depression, Beale announces on national TV that he will kill himself live on air the following evening.  This prompts his resignation followed by a reinstatement by the network when the corporate heads realize that this altered personality of Howard Beale is actually improving their ratings.  They set Beale up as modern-day prophet; someone to tell it like it is in a very harsh way.  The network assumes the shock value of this side-show gimmick will increase the ratings, but Beale has a real impact on the people of America.  Upon learning that CCA, the UBS parent company, will be bought out by another even larger company in Saudi Arabia, Beale goes off on a rant on live television and demands that his audience send telegrams to the White House in protest of this deal.  Up to this point, the big dogs at the top have both benefited from and gotten a kick out of Beale’s depressed and manic state of mind.  However, Beale has gained enough support and influence from his viewers that his most recent tirade could seriously put a hold on this Saudi Arabia deal.  In an effort to put a stop to Howard Beale, he has been summoned by the CCA chairman, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), who dramatically and fiercely lays it out for Beale in this brilliantly executed monologue.

(Click image to view scene)

Why It’s Great: This monologue alone earned Ned Beatty a Supporting Actor nomination.  Beatty breaks the world down for us in savagely depressing terms and alleviates all of our hopes, leaving us in despair with his very colorful, very dramatic monologue.

The lighting and framing of Beatty in the shot is suggestive of a vision of God.  The desk lamps are aligned so that it resembles a dream-like tunnel of light leading straight up into the heavens.  It’s reminiscent of a runway to the cosmos as Arthur Jensen gives us a smack down by filling us in on the cold hard truth of “the natural order of things today”.

Peter Finch, the posthumous Best Actor winner, is virtually silent during the entire scene.  This scene is the linchpin of the film.  There’s a decisive and dark turn at this point.  It was suggested earlier in the film that Beale had a vision from God.  Here it is quite literal that Beale is playing the part of a prophet that has been struck by a vision and given a message.  His face is eerily lit and he wears the reaction of one frozen with awe.  He has heard the voice of God and must carry out His message to the world.

Note: Back to the Movies is a special feature on the FilmNerds blog in which Matt Scalici will be watching the Top 50 highest-grossing movies of 1983 in order from 50 to 1.

That Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill is one of the most popular, memorable, and perhaps influential movies of 1983 is without question. Its $56.3 million box office take has been augmented in the years since by at least that much again in home video sales and add to that the six-time platinum selling Motown-heavy soundtrack that stands as arguably one of the most popular soundtrack albums in history. With the exception of the No. 1 movie on our countdown, there’s an argument to be made that as it pertains to the world of 2011, The Big Chill is perhaps the most culturally relevant film from 1983.

But that’s not the discussion I want to have today. That the film was and still is hugely popular is not debatable. What is debatable is whether or not The Big Chill is a film that resonates with, or indeed makes any sense at all to, any generation of viewers other than its target audience, by which I mean Baby Boomers. This is a movie made by, about and for people who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s and were at this point firmly adults when the film hit theaters in 1983. They were hippies in their hearts and yuppies in their bank accounts, a contradiction that the characters in The Big Chill spend a lot of time agonizing over inside of their enormous, well-appointed house.

There’s no sense in me trying to hide my personal bias here: as someone born in 1983, I am very much not a Baby Boomer and while my parents technically fall into the Baby Boomer generation by definition, they were born at the tail end of it and culturally were very much not a part of that generation. This is a generation with a very clear identity and it’s an identity that I’m not afraid to admit I just don’t get. The issues I have with these characters are basically the same issues I have with most Baby Boomer characters from movies of this era: they come off as extremely self-centered, narcissistic and irrational people who care more about appearing to be principled than actually living that way. That’s not a personal judgment I’m making about any human beings in the real world but it’s an observation I’ve made about characters that are meant to appeal to that generation.

For those who aren’t familiar, The Big Chill is a movie about a group of college friends who reunite for the weekend when one of their old pals commits suicide. I’m not going to run through every single character in The Big Chill because not only do I not care about all of them but giving each of them just a small paragraph would make this by far the longest review of the Back to the Movies series. Instead I’ll focus on the best and the worst of the bunch.

As for the best, Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum stick out to me as the most appealing characters in this movie. They are the least consumed with themselves and the at the same time the actors playing them seem the least concerned with looking constantly tormented, focusing instead on bouncing off the other actors in the room. Goldblum, who was not yet a household name (his single line in Annie Hall was probably his most memorable work to date at this point) puts that trademark nebbishy self deprecation on full display here as a journalism student-turned-tabloid writer. His relentless and ineffective pursuit of Chloe, the dead man’s girlfriend (played by Meg Tilly, who is much less interesting here than she was in Psycho II) provides some nice self-aware humor in an otherwise self-obsessed screenplay. Kline on the other hand has a largely thankless role as Harold, the humble hippie who has somewhat surprisingly found himself in the position of successful businessman. Like Goldblum, Kline focuses his performance much less on the “who am I and how did I get here” anguish and let’s the dialogue handle that part. Kline has always been a remarkably likable actor and he’s definitely got that understated leading man quality here, though his South Carolina accent is far from perfect.

As for the bad, William Hurt‘s Nick certainly jumps out as the most stereotypically self-obsessed a-hole of the bunch, essentially begging his friends for reassurance and attention by acting out like a child for the length of the film. The fault is not Hurt’s, it’s the character himself and the way he’s written. And while I wouldn’t characterize Glenn Close‘s performance as bad, I’m absolutely baffled as to why she received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for this role as an almost completely forgettable, uninteresting and largely conflict-free woman.

Perhaps what’s most perplexing to me about Glenn Close’s character, and about the film as a whole really, is her role in the absurd subplot involving Mary Kay Place‘s character trying to convince one of the men to impregnate her so she can have a baby and be more fulfilled by her life. This entire episode of the film, and particularly the way in which it’s resolved, is so utterly ridiculous that if anyone from the Baby Boomer generation finds it remotely believable or even emotionally satisfying, it’s a stronger confirmation than ever of my hypothesis that The Big Chill is a movie that is far too audience-specific to ever become a timeless film.

Actually, I take that back. There’s one scene that makes this movie even less timeless. The infamous “kitchen dance sequence” in which the entire cast gets their dorky, white, middle-aged groove on is without a doubt the most cringe-worthy moment of cinema I’ve witnessed during this Back to the Movies project to date. Yes, some might say this is just pure fun, a bunch of characters cutting loose and showing us how comfortable they are with one another, how despite the fact that they are all together because of a suicide they still can’t help but have a good time around each other. You could say all of those things and they might all be right but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t watch the clip below without putting my hands over my face in sheer embarrassment.

I’ll credit this scene for at least being one of the only moments in the movie in which the soundtrack is used appropriately. Kasdan’s garish use of music throughout the movie is at times poorly chosen, poorly mixed and poorly timed. The music becomes the focus of many scenes rather than a background element, yet another element that makes this film feel so indulgent of that nostalgia factor that only really resonates with people born to a specific generation.

I fear that what might be happening here is the classic problem of a film that originated a number of cinematic tropes suffering from the success of the very tropes it helped create. Maybe some of these eye-rolling cliches didn’t feel so unoriginal in 1983. I’m willing to grant The Big Chill that perhaps part of why it feels so terribly unenlightening and unoriginal is because its enormous success inspired so many copycats. That still doesn’t help with the fact that at the end of the day, it’s a terribly shallow movie that despite an awful lot of huffing and puffing, doesn’t really say anything. In the end, its characters go back to their lives, maybe having learned something but probably not. This is the kind of movie that meant a lot at the time but simply doesn’t stand the test of time and will probably grow even less relevant as time marches on. A glance at the list of Best Picture nominees from most years will probably reveal at least one film that fits a similar profile and while this movie holds a time capsule-like appeal that gives us a window into a very specific time and place and attitude, it’s not a film that will speak to the human condition of viewers from any time other than 1983.

Next Up: Richard Pryor joins Christopher Reeve for Superman III.

The pre-summer months are usually the season for the absolute dregs of the Hollywood studio system, a dumping ground for movies that weren’t deemed attractive enough to compete with the big boys of the summer and not artistically relevant enough to be released in the fall. There’s always the occasional gem that crops up in the early months of the year, particularly in the last few months before the official kickoff of the summer movie season in May. Today, we’re taking a look at a handful of movies that might actually be worth your $10 that will hit theaters before the official start of summer (in this case, we’re considering May 6th to be the official kickoff of summer movie season with the premiere of Marvel’s Thor).

Red Riding Hood (March 11)

We here at FilmNerds are no fans of the Twilight series but there’s no denying that director Catherine Hardwicke’s got game. Her early critically acclaimed directorial work on Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown established her as a name worth watching and yes, even her technical contributions to Twilight were something to be admired. Here Hardwicke is paired with one of the hottest young names in Hollywood in Amanda Seyfried and gets to explore similarly gothic territory that will likely appeal heavily to the “Twihard” crowd. Lukas Haas and Gary Oldman showing up in supporting roles makes this horror/fantasy/romance film worth keeping an eye on.

Paul (March 18)

Yeah, I know…the CGI alien looks annoying. But that’s just because you’re conditioned to hate computer generated comic relief characters! Don’t let the mistakes of George Lucas make you believe that CGI inherently means “not funny”, especially when we’re talking about a movie written by Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (two-thirds of the team that brought us Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) and directed by Greg Mottola whose past credits include Superbad, Adventureland and work on Arrested Development. Sign us up.

Sucker Punch (March 25)

Zack Snyder is the king of the pre-summer hit. With the exception of his odd venture into animation last year, every film Snyder has made has been released in March and has done surprisingly well at the box office. This time Snyder yet again brings a March-released effects-heavy action thriller, though unlike his previous three films Sucker Punch is an entirely original idea rather than an adaptation. We’re still not entirely sure how this mash-up of teenage beauties with guns and swords battling giant robots and dragons is all going to come together but it sure doesn’t look boring.

Source Code (April 1)

British director Duncan Jones made a splash last year with the little-seen but highly-acclaimed sci-fi/psychological thriller Moon and his follow-up focuses on a time traveling Jake Gyllenhaal who transports himself back to try and stop a bomber from destroying a crowded train. Time travel movies are always subject to heavy scrutiny for getting mired down in their own rules but based on Jones’ work in Moon, a movie that did an excellent job of bringing the characters to the forefront and the high concept to the background, I expect Source Code to break that pattern and give us a truly thoughtful time travel thriller.

Your Highness (April 8 )

After establishing himself as one of the most revered young voices in filmmaking early in his career, David Gordon Green has suddenly and surprisingly plunged himself into the world of stoner comedy with Pineapple Express, the HBO series Eastbound and Down and now his homage to epic ’80s fantasy Your Highness. James Franco and Danny McBride take top billing as the male leads but the real star might turn out to be recently crowned Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, who will likely be a major focus of the movie’s pre-release advertising.

Hanna (April 8 )

Joe Wright is one of a handful of young British directors making waves these days and while The Soloist didn’t exactly pan out, Wright’s adaptations of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement were superb and Oscar-worthy films making his latest film more than a mere curiosity. Atonement star Saoirse Ronan stars as the titular Hanna who appears to be some kind of child assassin being hunted by an intelligence agent played by Cate Blanchett. The score by The Chemical Brothers seals the deal for us on this one.

Water for Elephants (April 22)

Of any of these picks, I’m most skeptical about this one but there’s plenty of reasons to think this movie could attract big crowds this spring. Reese Witherspoon’s drawing power is on the wane but Robert Pattison gets a chance to prove his non-Twilight acting chops while supporting performances from Hal Holbrook and Cristoph Waltz give this movie plenty of high-caliber credibility. While the trailer is a little saccharin, the novel the film is based on has a big following and that alone could be enough to make this a surprise pre-summer hit.

Note: Back to the Movies is a special feature on the FilmNerds blog in which Matt Scalici will be watching the Top 50 highest-grossing movies of 1983 in order from 50 to 1.

The story behind our next film is astoundingly complex and thankfully has already been well-documented by a number of other fine web publishers so I’ll spare you the intricate details of its production. Suffice it to say that Never Say Never Again is one of the most bizarre anomalies of 1983 Hollywood, a film that seems so unlikely to have ever been made and yet was not only a huge commercial success but perhaps one of the most creatively successful installments of the entire James Bond franchise. If, that is, you can even consider it a part of the James Bond franchise.

Never Say Never Again was one of two Bond films released in 1983, the other being the wildly successful Octopussy that we’ll be reviewing later in our countdown. But unlike Octopussy (and every other Bond film ever made), Irvin Kershner’s Never Say Never Again was not produced by EON Productions, the UK-based company that since 1961 has existed for the sole purpose of creating the James Bond film series. There’s a long and complicated history behind why exactly this happened (if you’re interested, Bond fansite Universal Exports has a fantastic write-up here) but I’ll give you the short version: Author Ian Fleming was having a hard time getting his James Bond novels turned into film adaptations and decided to collaborate with producer and writer Kevin McClory on a screenplay that made Bond into a bit more of a superhero, a story that eventually became the novel Thunderball but also contained a number of elements that became a major part of the Bond film franchise beginning with Dr. No in 1962. McClory sued Fleming and won and was awarded the film rights to Thunderball.

Unfortunately, it gets even more complicated. Despite the fact that there was a pending lawsuit, the folks at EON went ahead and commissioned a screenplay based on Thunderball and ended up purchasing the film rights from McClory on the condition that McClory would get the rights back after ten years so he could produce his own James Bond films.

And that’s exactly what McClory did in 1983 when he released Never Say Never Again, a second adaptation of Thunderball that once again starred Sean Connery as James Bond, just as the original adaptation did. The title comes from an apocryphal tale about Sean Connery telling his wife after finishing production on Diamonds Are Forever that he would “never again” play James Bond. Connery’s wife reportedly told him to “Never say never again”. I’m not sure I buy that Sean Connery and his wife speak to each other like characters from a Bond film but whatever, it works.

Connery’s return to the Bond franchise was a huge story in the entertainment world in 1983, as was the fact that EON was already simultaneously producing their next Roger Moore-starring Bond film scheduled for release on exactly the same weekend. Eventually, Warner Bros. flinched and moved Never Say Never Again to October, probably a good idea in the end as Octopussy had the advantage of a younger star and the always important factor of franchise legitimacy. The only equivalent I can think of in today’s Hollywood would be the studio-produced versions of Marvel franchises like Fantastic Four or Daredevil, movies that didn’t carry the same automatic credibility as the films produced by the new Marvel Studios. One would think that because Never Say Never Again featured the actor that was considered THE definitive James Bond, legitimacy wouldn’t be an issue but Connery’s face and voice aren’t the only things that make James Bond what it is as a franchise.

For one there’s the music. John Barry’s iconic theme music is perhaps more of a defining characteristic of the Bond franchise than any actor, even Connery, and out of respect for the folks at EON Barry chose not to participate in Never Say Never Again. This absence is definitely felt in the film as the music in its place, a bland, jazzy mix that sounds more suited to soft porn movies than an action film, makes a very bad impression right from the very opening frames of the movie when we’re typically expecting a psychedelic collage of female silhouettes while a brassy ballad blares in the background. Instead we get this soft Sergio Mendes-penned title theme that feels remarkably wrong as the soundtrack to Connery’s stealth maneuvers.

I’ll admit that after watching that, I felt that it was going to take a lot for Kershner to get me back on board and really thinking of this as a “Bond film” in my mind. Thankfully, Kershner stepped up to the challenge and delivered what I would consider to be a classic Bond film in every way, loaded with lots of thrilling action with a bare minimum of the cheesy, cornball humor that leaves audiences rolling their eyes at certain installments of the franchise. The film starts out with a small conceit that admits to Bond’s advanced age by having MI-6 send him to some sort of sanitarium for him to “detoxify”. While Bond is there relaxing we get our first real action piece of the film, an absurd fight scene between Bond and an assassin played by Pat Roach (who you might remember as the dude who got diced by a propeller in Raiders of the Lost Ark) in which nearly every room of the entire building appears to be damaged.

The evil plot being hatched by SPECTRE this time around involves, as usual, stealing nuclear weapons and holding the world hostage but the method for stealing the weapons gave me a nice chuckle. Through her beguiling and evil ways, SPECTRE agent Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera in a ridiculous but Golden Globe-nominated performance) seduces an Air Force pilot who has undergone an operation to give him identical retinas to the President of the United States, thus giving him the key to unlocking the warheads. It’s one of those pitch-perfect, absurdly fun Bond story details that only makes sense when you’re watching a movie (it certainly doesn’t make any sense when you read or write it). Anyway, it isn’t long before the poor Air Force pilot is dispatched by Fatima Blush via the old reliable “pull up beside him and throw a poisonous snake into his moving car” method of assassination.

While Fatima is fairly ludicrous femme fatale, the main villain of the story, Maximillian Largo (played by German actor Klaus Maria Brandauer) goes down as perhaps one of the most complex and interesting Bond villains in the franchise’s history. Brandauer wisely underplays the eccentric maniac and turns what could be a laughable super-villain into a jealous, insecure egomaniac working hard to protect his fragile confidence from the threat of Bond’s bravery and machismo.

Brandauer’s nice blend of brooding psychosis and traditional Bond Villain bravado is on display during perhaps the most interesting and outrageous scene in the movie, a video game battle between Bond and Largo. The special effects, which are absolutely cutting edge for 1983, aren’t really interacting very closely with the characters but they create a really intriguing blend of danger and technology that would eventually become an integral part of the Bond films as special effects continued to progress. At it’s core though, this is still a classic Bond showdown scene, with Bond keeping his cool as the villain continues to change the rules of the game, throwing in the occasional “Perhaps I didn’t explain…”

This movie is loaded with lots of unconnected little fun scenes, including a fun comedic performance from Rowan Atkinson in his first ever film performance, a truly excellent car/motorcycle chase sequence that is absolutely on par with any Bond car chase ever made, and perhaps most impressive a shark escape scene that appears to include a real stuntman fending off a live shark underwater. While I’m sure that last scene contains at least some amount of clever editing and trick photography, it contains enough unquestionably real shots of man and shark in the same frame that I’d have to call it the most impressive underwater stunt work I’ve seen.

I’ve yet to mention the performance of a young Kim Basinger and that’s probably because there’s not a lot to talk about there. Basinger certainly didn’t get the part because of her acting skills, which have grown more formidable with age, but her performance as Domino Petachi is largely about looking scared, being blonde and wearing tight jazzercise outfits. I’m not surprised she became a bigger star after being seen in this movie but I wouldn’t have predicted that she’d eventually win an Oscar based on her work here.

What starts off as a disappointingly “off-brand” feeling Bond film turns out in the end to be one of the better installments in the franchise in my opinion, at least from a pure action standpoint. While Warner Bros. distributed the film, it was produced independently by Jack and Talia Schwartzman’s company Taliafilm. If you aren’t familiar with the name Talia Schwartzman (who as it happens is the mother of actor Jason Schwartzman) you may know her better as her maiden name Talia Shire, star of the Rocky and Godfather films and sister of Francis Ford Coppola. There are various rumors and whispers that Coppola did made some uncredited contributions to the screenplay for Never Say Never Again, and if I had to guess I’d say his work probably involved turning Largo into the three-dimensional, emotionally tortured villain that he is rather than the predictably flat Bond villain he could have been.

Next Up: Hope you like Motown music and watching white people awkwardly dancing to it. It’s The Big Chill.

During a recent cleaning session, a tape was unearthed from the show that in many ways is the mother of the FilmNerds podcast, a college radio program called The Graham Flanagan Show which aired on the University of Alabama student radio station New Rock 90.7. Back then, host Graham Flanagan would spin his favorite tunes and chat about film with various guests, including Matt Scalici and Graham’s younger brother Ben. In this particular episode recorded on March 24, 2004, the guys discuss Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which had just been released. They also touch on some of the major movie news and talking points of the day including:

• How great an idea it would be for Mel Gibson to make a movie about the story of Hanukkah.
• How it was basically an inevitability that Troy would be the year’s biggest film and an Oscar contender.
• And how Christian Bale would be a great pick to be the next James Bond.

Call it a prequel. Call it FilmNerds: Episode I. Call it FilmNerds Babies. Either way, enjoy this clip of the guys doing their thing and chatting about movies before any of them had worked an honest day in their life.

NOTE: The audio ends abruptly due to the fact that the cassette tape it was being recorded onto (yes, a cassette tape) ran out.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD – The Graham Flanagan Show (3/24/04)