1989- The Greatest Summer Movie Season Ever?

  
   The summer movie season, as we know it today, officially began with the release of Steven Spielberg's monumental "Jaws" in 1975. Nearly every summer since has been a heated battle for box office supremacy as a rapid succession of action-packed spectacles vie for your hard-earned dollars. With each passing year it gets a harder to find the films that actually deserve it, which got me thinking- what IS the greatest summer movie season ever?

   According to my research, there are quite a few contenders(1982, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1993, 1994, 2002, 2004, 2008), but ONE summer stands a little taller than all the rest. The summer of '89 was nirvana for a nine year old, and the adults didn't have it too bad either as I later discovered once my tastes had matured a bit. So let's get down to business because there's PLENTY of it. Join me as I journey back to the crackling climax of the most fun decade in film history.

   You can have Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Bay's CGI robots. I'll take Harrison Ford on horseback, galloping after a tank filled with Nazis in the desert any day of the week. Don't let "Crystal Skull" cloud your judgment. Indiana Jones is the greatest hero of the 1980s without question, and Ford is the decade's premier leading man. His third and final(I'm still in denial) adventure got the season started off right on Memorial Day weekend. I was there with my family and it was two hours of pure cinematic bliss. "Raiders" will always get more respect and deservedly so. That unforgettable 1981 romp has sheer novelty on it's side, but I'll be damned if "Last Crusade" isn't it's equal. We got an action sequence for every mode of transportation and Sean Connery's casting was a stroke of genius. The moment the original 007 bellows "Junior!" for the first time(at roughly the 47 minute mark, that's how many times I've seen it), you're in movie heaven.

   The holy grail is the ultimate artifact and Indy was the ultimate source for pure summer escapism. "LC" feels like the end of an era in retrospect, and while I love the '90s for entirely different reasons, Scorsese and Tarantino had us rooting for the bad guys and there was a noticeable shortage of swashbuckling. Spielberg got more 'serious', tackling historical passion projects like 'Schindler's List", "Saving Private Ryan" and "Lincoln", while "Jurassic Park" went down as his last truly great popcorn flick(although I'm partial to "Minority Report "). Our greatest living director undoubtedly enhanced my childhood and countless others, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank him for making me the man I am today. And Harrison Ford's three-day old beard, of course. Dr. Jones is always welcome in my living room. The 1930s version, that is.

   I love how diverse this summer was. That's the late, great Robin Williams pictured above celebrating one of his earliest triumphs, "Dead Poets Society". Back in Robin's heyday, 'good' movies weren't limited to that rigid Oct-Dec Oscar bait block. Now you're hard-pressed to find a worthwhile drama any other time of year. You can practically disregard everything that comes out between January and April, but that's a discussion for another day. Anyway, there were actually smart entertainment options for adults interested in more than just explosions and FX. That's something I sorely miss.

   The unorthodox, inspirational Mr. Keating more than held his own against extremely formidable fantasy fare with $96 million in ticket sales, eventually earning four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. The Captain lost to "Driving Miss Daisy", but this film was still an absolute victory. Seize the day. Robin sure did.

   Five years earlier, Bill Murray became a permanent movie star and Dan Aykroyd became a temporary one, in Ivan Reitman's supernatural comedy sensation "Ghostbusters". I mentioned 1984 being a stellar summer for that very reason(along with first runner-up "Temple of Doom") which made 1989 a banner year for devotees of several '80s properties. But apparently it wasn't so easy getting this foursome back in proton packs. Supposedly, a mandatory meeting was held in early 1988 with all the key players to find out who or what was stopping everyone else in the room from making a massive pile of $$$. That meeting ended with studio top brass demanding that the sequel be in production within six months. That sort of pressure usually doesn't translate to quality or creativity, so we basically got the same movie all over again. I know a lot of people that weren't complaining, though.

   It just took too long to get "GBII" made. If it had come out in 1986 or '87, the box office could've been doubled and we wouldn't have been subjected to a decade of endless rumors and speculation about a third film because it would've been out in '89! THAT'S how you roll out a franchise, folks. This shit has to be done in a timely fashion. The GB craze was over by the early '90s(even the animated series concluded in '91) and there weren't nearly as many people humming Ray Parker's immortal theme song on their way to work. Both films became a permanent fixture on cable and I know I stopped my channel-surfing more than once when I saw that dancing toaster, but Dan Aykroyd's voice was the only one crying out for a trilogy. The reason can be found directly below.

   The most financially successful movie that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas had nothing to do with opened on June 23, 1989. You couldn't escape this bad-ass logo that year if you wanted to, and why would you? You see, things were quite a bit different then. Superheroes movies weren't released once a month, there wasn't this coldly calculated 'Cinematic Universe' crowding up the multiplex, swallowing up the expendable incomes of a generation that wasn't even alive when Michael Keaton kick-started a sub-genre by whispering two words("I'm Batman"). I know that Chris Reeve took flight more than a decade earlier, but the "Superman" series crapped out a couple of years before, casting serious doubt on the long-term viability of the whole superhero thing. Tim Burton deserves the credit(or the blame, depending on your point-of-view) for getting this ball rolling. "Batman" wasn't just a movie. It was a mass-merchandised pop culture event with unprecedented hype, and you could feel it in the air. It HAD to been seen, or you were getting excluded from conversations about the Batmobile, Nicholson's OTT Clown Prince of Crime and Kim Basinger's luscious blonde locks(okay, maybe I'm alone on that one). A climate like this will NEVER be recreated because superhero movies AREN'T special anymore. Blame Marvel for that.

"You got $60 million? But I'm the hero".

   This film's popularity just can't be overstated. There were only two possible choices for Halloween that year, and it's impact can still be felt more than a quarter-century on. Sure, the first set of Bat flicks didn't progress the way they were supposed to during the Clinton administration thanks to that shameful Schumacher and parasitic WB execs, and there's a tendency to bestow savoir status on Chris Nolan. But as great as "The Dark Knight" was, let's not forget where it all began.

   Every summer has a sleeper hit and you're looking at it. Long before Pixar and DreamWorks went to war, a non-animated family film could still draw a big crowd, and "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" did just that. Joe Johnston's high-concept hit was an agreeable back-up plan for many parents that were secretly glad "Batman" was sold out because they heard about the Joker's hand-buzzer. Little kids were unafraid of Rick Moranis who was on quite a roll(more on that later) and Wayne Szalinski was the kookiest scientist this side of Doc Brown. "Honey" managed to land among the top twenty-five highest grossers of the entire decade without ever taking the top spot at the box office, ultimately becoming the most successful live action Disney film ever circa 1989. Those are some impressive credentials.

   While not exactly a classic, the film seems to be fondly remembered by my age group(the '92 sequel "Honey, I Blew Up the Kid", not so much) for it's giant Cheerios, perilous blades of grass and that cute ant(admit it, you cried).

   I'd just like to take a moment and show some love for "The Karate Kid Part III", because it's so ludicrously entertaining.  Daniel-san and Mr. Miyagi's swan song was released on June 30 and took a worse beating at the box office than Daniel took from 'karate's bad boy' Mike Barnes, in that tense tournament finale, thanks to the two abovementioned blockbusters. Terry Silver couldn't compete with Jack's Joker or that scary painting in "GBII", but he's still a slime-ball for the ages. Thomas Ian Griffith's pony-tailed, malevolent force of nature more than made up for Daniel's incessant whining(no wonder clay-making cutie Jessica Andrews only wanted to be a platonic pal).  His private karate lessons are the reason my viewings of this movie has reached the triple digits, and I'm unashamed of that. If a man can't see, he can't fight.

   Anybody that shits on "KKIII", and there were MANY pompous critics that did just that(a wholly unjust 16% on RT) is missing out on a delicious slice of '80s awesomeness. Just kick back and enjoy this film next time you come across it on cable(I'll bet it's on right now) because it was the last time a story such as the elaborate revenge plot cooked up by that California crime syndicate known as the Cobra Kai dojo would ever be deemed acceptable to a mass audience.

   Now would be a good time to mention that 1989 was the year that the buddy cop movie peaked. Sorry, Tango & Cash, but this is the duo I turn to when I'm in need of a fix. If Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon shot people, they still wouldn't hold a candle to Gibson and Glover. Timothy Dalton's dull second Bond outing "License to Kill" didn't stand a chance. James Cameron's underwater epic "The Abyss" was largely ignored. That's how serious this summer was. Riggs and Murtaugh's explosive encore blasted onto screens in mid-July, knocking the Dark Knight out of the number one spot at the box office, and stayed there for three weeks. Did I mention it was rated R? It's easy to see why I'm so nostalgic for this era, because there was literally something for EVERYONE.

   This film's robust box office(it was third for the year behind "Batman" and "Indy") secured Mel Gibson's position on the A-list, allowing him the freedom(no pun intended) to step behind the camera for his 1995 masterpiece "Braveheart". Mel's ex-wife and his seven or eight kids should be extremely grateful that the multiple gunshot wounds Riggs suffered at the bottom of that ship in the rip-roaring finale weren't fatal, because "LW3" and "4" ended up bolstering all of their bank accounts, too. What I'm trying to say is that the winning formula of action and laughs("They FUCK you at the drive-thru") was perfected right here, and as long as the "Lethal" family stuck to it(they did), the only bomb was on Murtaugh's toilet.

The greatest romantic comedy not called "Annie Hall" dropped in late July to pose the eternal question- can men and women ever really be just friends?  Yes and no, according to director Rob Reiner and screenwriter Nora Ephron in their career-defining collaboration. This may honestly be the best film of the year, if I put aside my aging fan-boy allegiances. Billy Crystal has never had a better showcase for his sardonic wit and Meg Ryan has never managed to be more appealing despite her MANY appearances in the genre. Just think about how overwhelming it was for theater patrons between May-August to look up at the marquee and see all of these titles. You could watch Riggs go ballistic on a boat or have lunch with Sally Albright. You weren't regretting either decision.

 How adorable was Meg Ryan in '89? This is the Meg I choose to remember before Russell Crowe and some nameless plastic surgeon ruined our relationship. We weren't even able to stay friends. That's how bad things got. Fortunately, film is forever and I can relive the good times whenever I want. Ditto for Rob Reiner.

   Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan weren't the sole source of laughs in 1989. Steve Martin was the hottest comedic performer of this era not named Eddie Murphy, and he extended his late '80s hot streak("Roxanne", PT&A") in Ron Howard's humorous look at uh, parenthood from every conceivable angle. The comedy landscape has become increasingly dire in recent years, as evidenced by this past summer's slate("Neighbors", "Sex Tape", "Tammy", "Let's Be Cops"). I'm not trying to take some puritanical stance here, but all this crass crap really leaves me yearning for inoffensive family-friendly comedies like "Parenthood" and "Uncle Buck"(that John Candy classic came out in mid-August). This film boasted an ensemble that included Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards, Tom Hulce, Keanu Reeves and (yes) Joaquin Phoenix. They all contributed to the $100 million box office total(the magic number in those days). Wait a minute, I'm forgetting someone...

   How hot was Rick Moranis in '89? "Parenthood" made it a hat trick for the bespectacled SCTV graduate who had not one, not two, but THREE $100 million hits that summer. I know what you're thinking- how was this comedic titan allowed to retire so quietly? The answer can be found in 1996's "Big Bully", one of the few films that can be seen in it's entirety on YouTube(as of this writing), so check out his "funny" feud with Tom Arnold sometime.

Actually,... DON'T.

   So, there you have it. You know it was a hellacious summer when Brian De Palma's "Casualties of War" is an afterthought. This Sean Penn-Michael J Fox face-off would have been a definite highlight of any other year. Oh, and speaking of MJF...

   I know I'm cheating here, because Marty and Doc made they're long-awaited return on Thanksgiving Eve. My point is, forget the summer. Was 1989 THE greatest movie YEAR EVER??