There definitely seems to be an upswing in melodrama for this season of Hill Street Blues, and The Russians Are Coming is no exception. Written by Dennis Cooper from an idea by Cooper and Jeffrey Lewis and an unpublished story by Stanley N. Wellborn, this episode first debuted on 15 December, 1983. This episode marks…
Tag: 1984
The Eyes of the Dragon (1984) – Stephen King
1984 was the year I discovered Stephen King through ‘Salem’s Lot, my first King novel. But I remember my mother was a big King fan (still is) and we had arranged to get her The Eyes of the Dragon as her birthday or Xmas present. It wasn’t your usual King story, and I think that…
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – Steven Spielberg
Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Doom was one of three movies that came along when I was a youngster that really started to cement my interest in the way films were made. And they were all thanks to movie magazines that came along at just the right time. In 1982 there was one…
Purple Rain (1984) – Albert Magnoli
Prince was an icon on the verge and his film Purple Rain catapulted him to legend. Using his own life as the basis for the film, the story features electrical musical performances, sometimes subpar to adequate acting, and an engaging tale that highlights everything that he was capable of. Prince plays the Kid who tries…
The Natural (1984) – Barry Levinson
Barry Levinson and Robert Redford deliver one of the all time great baseball fairytales with their adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s stirring novel of the same name. Set in a gloriously rendered version of yesteryear, the film follows Roy Hobbs (Redford) the best ball player that ever was. The film gives us this hazy beautiful look…
Tank (1984) – Marvin J. Chomsky
1984. A few short months before my family would be posted to a new home in the middle of the ocean, I was of an age that I was allowed to go see movies in the theatre with my friends (despite the fact that the theatres were in the city proper and not on the…
Sixteen Candles (1984) – John Hughes
There are lots of things that still work with John Hughes teen comedy, Sixteen Candles, but there are so many problematic things that have really begun to overshadow the story’s heart. There’s some racism, there’s some things that walk the line up to and over harassment and assault, and that really takes the shine off…
Battlestar Galactica 10: The Long Patrol (1984) – Ron Goulart, and Glen A. Larson
I don’t know who gave the okay to adapt The Long Patrol to a novel, and let it be a standalone tale. Despite the fact that Starbuck is the story’s central character, I hated it when it originally aired, I hate it every time I rewatch the series, and I hated reading an adaptation of…
Battlestar Galactica 9: Experiment in Terra (1984) – Ron Goulart and Glen A. Larson
This week, I dive into another Galactica adaptation. Not coming out until 1984, years after the show was cancelled, this novel adapts a pair of episodes, Baltar’s Escape and Experiment in Terra (which on retrospect feels like a trial run for the Bellasario created Quantum Leap). This time out there are no Adama’s Journals or…
TIFF 2021: Dune dir. Denis Villeneuve
Magnificent. Triumphant. THIS is the movie I saw in my mind’s eye when I first read Dune in 1984 when I was anticipating the Lynch film (which I love for its own reasons). The visual aesthetic, the sound and production design, the score (I swear Hans Zimmer isn’t the only one throwing a few nods…
The Mind Reels 