My cinema year: 1984

TOP US FILMS OF 1984

(Number I saw at the cinema then: 1. Number I have seen now: 10)

1. Beverly Hills Cop
2. Ghostbusters
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
4. Gremlins
5. The Karate Kid
6. Police Academy
7. Footloose
8. Romancing The Stone
9. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
10. Splash

I’ve written a fair few film reviews over the years but thankfully have never had to write a review of Ghostbusters. Why “thankfully” you may ask? The simple answer is, because it was such a big film during my early childhood that I really cannot view it impartially. Is it a good film or is it a bad film? I honestly can’t tell.

Perhaps that’s not quite true. I can say fairly confidently that it isn’t a “bad” film per se. It’s also so fondly remembered that it had definitely achieved a degree of classic status. As Adam Buxton has noted, it was also marketed very well. I later had the Atari computer game (“Don’t cross the streams!”). I love the Stay Puft Marshmallow bit. I actually thought he was real for a while too. Not “real”: but I thought he was a genuine US advertising symbol who had been turned into a monster for the film. But he wasn’t. He was entirely made up for Ghostbusters.

Nearly thirty years later, I actually selected Ghostbusters the song to be played at my wedding (although not for the ‘first dance). It was a popular choice. But is it a genuinely good film? I honestly don’t know.

As with E.T., I had a shock early on: the library ghost sequence is easily the scariest bit in a not very scary film. But I was older now (eight, in fact: I’m sure I didn’t see it until 1985) and was now confident enough to still enjoy the film. I went to see it with my mum who didn’t like it at all. I seem to remember her being so bored that she read a magazine during the film. My memory may be playing me false here, however. How would she have read a magazine in the dark? I don’t think she liked it though anyway.

For the first time, I’ve actually seen all ten films listed, so I’ll run through them all quickly. 1984 seems to have been a much better film year than 1983:

Beverly Hills Cop: Really surprised this beat Ghostbusters to the top spot. Okay, but nothing special as I remember. People went nuts about the theme tune though.

Temple of Doom: Okay, but EASILY the worst of the three 1980s Indy films. I first saw it when it was broadcast on TV on Christmas Day a few years later. Part of the problem is that while the first film is based around the mythical Ark of the Covenant and the third one is based around the mythical Holy Grail, this one’s based around the…er… famous temple of Doom? It might as well be called Indiana Jones and ‘the Chamber of Bollocks.” Too silly, too much screeching, too many jumpy bits. And a bit racist, let’s face it.

Gremlins: Was scared to see this for a while after hearing an American relative describe how evil and demonic the Gremlins are. Of course, I saw it eventually, perhaps in my teens and wasn’t scared at all. It’s great fun. And all the “don’t get them wet/don’t feed them after midnight” stuff is genius.

The Karate Kid: Didn’t see this until my thirties when my wife made me watch it to fill a gap in my cinematic education. It’s okay. I suspect I’d like it more now if I had seen it as a child.

Police Academy: The sort of thing I used to end up watching on video at a friend’s house in the late 1980s. Confused me for a while: are all gay men big leather-clad bikers? Generally not a big fan. But I did later see Police Academy 6: City Under Siege at the cinema. No excuse really.

Footloose: Didn’t see this until my twenties. I still like it a lot though. John Lithgow can do no wrong in my eyes. The “Let’s Here It For The Boy” bit always makes me a bit sad though. Chris Penn was clearly so fit and healthy-looking then. What on Earth went wrong?

Romancing The Stone: Good, as I remember. We saw it as an end of term treat at junior school. It was a relatively ‘dangerous’ choice. The sequel’s not as good though.

Star Trek III: It’s easy to forget how popular Star Trek films were at the time. No one really watches them now. This was an odd numbered Star Trek film though and thus DULL.

Splash: An early video choice for the family. Very likeable and the first time I’d seen Tom Hanks in anything.

Underrated: Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner has directed some of the best loved films ever made.

He has mastered different genres to such an extent that you might not have realised that some of his films were even made by the same person. Who would, after all, assume A Few Good Men was linked to This is Spinal Tap? Or that Misery had anything to do with The Princess Bride? Or even that When Harry Met Sally was directed by the same man as Stand By Me?

Reiner directed them all.

Reiner has a long background in comedy. His father Carl Reiner was a noted US comedy star (now in his nineties) and directed the Steve Martin classic The Man With Two Brains. And like Ron Howard, Rob Reiner was a familiar face to US TV audiences long before he became a director. He was a regular on the long-running Seventies US comedy show, All In The Family. This is reflected in the fact that a good number of Reiner’s films have been comedies.

Just take a look at this list of Reiner’s incredible output between 1984 and 1996. Chances are, at least one of your favourite movies will be here:

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Reiner himself plays interviewer/director Marty DiBergi in this celebrated rock documentary parody about a fictional English band famed for their punctuality and their tendency to lose drummers: one spontaneously combusts on stage. Another chokes to death on vomit (somebody else’s vomit).

Nigel: “It really puts perspective on things though, doesn’t it?”
David: “Too much. There’s too much fucking perspective now”.

The Sure Thing (1985)

A lesser spotted Reiner but still very much a cult favourite, this stars John Cusack and future ER actor, Anthony Edwards and centres round a college road trip.

Stand By Me (1986)

Funny, poignant and moving, this coming of age drama based on a Stephen King novella (The Body), actually improves on its source material in its depiction of four boys embarking on a macabre camping expedition into the woods to see the body of a local boy in the 1950s. With great performances from its young cast and a number of classic scenes, this is Reiner’s greatest film.

“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

The Princess Bride (1987)

Inconceivable! But true. Rob Reiner also directed this hilarious and wonderful fairy tale which features everyone from Robin Wright, Peter Cook, Billy Crystal, Mel Smith, Andre the Giant to Peter Falk.

“Hello! My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die”.

When Harry Met Sally (1989)

Famous for launching Meg Ryan’s decade of stardom and for “that scene” (Reiner’s late mother is the one who says “I’ll have what she’s having”), this Woody Allen-esque romantic comedy is endlessly watchable.

“When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.”

Misery (1990)

Reiner’s second crack at Stephen King features a chilling Oscar winning turn by Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes the “Number One fan” of unfortunate writer and captive Paul Sheldon (James Caan). By my reckoning, two of the four best Stephen King adaptations are by Reiner (the others would be Frank Darabont’s Shawshank Redemption and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining). Which isn’t bad going.

“I thought you were good Paul… but you’re not good. You’re just another lying ol’ dirty birdy”.

A Few Good Men (1992)

Courtroom drama starring Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Demi Moore and an Aaron Sorkin script. Reiner’s biggest ever box office hit.

Col. Jessup: You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I WANT THE TRUTH!

Col. Jessup: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

North (1994)

The big exception during this period, this all star comedy was a total flop and is often rated as one of the worst films ever. Reiner, arguably, has never fully recovered from this. The critic Roger Ebert famously opined: “I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”

The American President (1996)

Aaron Sorkin again with a film that effectively launched Michael J. Fox’s late Nineties Spin City TV comeback and foreshadowed Sorkin’s huge TV hit The West Wing. US president and widower Michael Douglas woos lobbyist Annette Bening. Fairly unambiguously aimed at helping President Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, this is still a good, if perhaps not great film.

Even ignoring North, it’s an incredible record. I make that six iconic great films in the space of a decade (Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men). Compare this to James Cameron who directed four iconic films over the same period (the two Terminators, Aliens and if you’re feeling generous, True Lies).  Fellow ex-sitcom star Ron Howard directed Splash in 1984 and then ten other movies over the same period up to 1996. Only one of these, Apollo 13, could conceivably described as “great”. So Reiner did very well indeed.

Why then is Rob Reiner not held in higher regard?

There are several reasons:

1. He has genuinely gone off the boil since the mid-Nineties: there’s no denying this. With the possible exceptions of The Bucket List in 2008 (which is only okay), Ghosts of Mississippi, The Story Of Us, Rumor Has It… Alex & Emma and The Magic of Belle Isle were all total duds.
2. The fact that his films are so different from each other is to Reiner’s credit. However, his successes have been so diverse that he has probably suffered from the fact that he is hard to pin down. What is a typical Rob Reiner film? This is difficult to say.
3. His politics may have harmed him. South Park ridiculed him for his anti-smoking stance. He has campaigned for Al Gore, Howard Dean and still campaigns for Hillary Clinton. None of these presidential campaigns was successful.
4. Even his successes were not always huge box office smashes. Even Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride were only modest hits at the time.
5. Unusually, Reiner’s screenwriters – Nora Ephron, Aaron Sorkin and William Goldman have often received more credit for his films than he has. All were admittedly great.

But credit where credit’s due, Rob Reiner: six great films. That’s six more than most directors manage in a lifetime.