The View From The Mountain

Even as a kid, I was never that crazy about werewolves. A monster that only appeared during the full moon seemed like a pretty easy creature to beat. Just like how sharks stayed in the ocean, rendering them impotent as long as you stayed out of the water, werewolves could also be easily avoided just by staying inside during nights of the full moon. It didn’t matter what the werewolf movie was--from the original Wolfman, to An American Werewolf in London--werewolf movies never really held an allure for me. But then The Howling was released. Director Joe Dante’s Little Werewolf That Could was released in 1981, and in honor of it being released in 4K this month, I decided to revisit The Howling. I first watched it on video (VHS!) back in the day, and enjoyed it. The main reason was because it was the first werewolf film that I saw that presented the big, furry bastards with a twist: they could change into a wolf any time they wanted; to hell with waiti...

Since 2019 marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of movies that were released back in 1984, I’ve been writing a lot about the cinematic highlights (and lowlights) of that year lately, with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , and Conan the Destroyer being just two of those reviews (with more to come). Maybe it’s because I’ve been writing about so many 1984 movies, but I recently took note of a film called Summer of ’84 . Released in 2018, but taking place back during the summer of Gremlins , and Ghostbusters , Summer of ’84 tries to be a nostalgic look at a bygone era that’s told through the eyes of a group of teens--one of whom thinks there may be a serial killer living in his area. Davey Armstrong (Graham Verchere) begins to suspect that Mr. Mackey (Rich Sommer) his neighbor, who’s also a local cop, might be the serial killer that he’s been hearing about when he spots some suspicious things going on. Davey believes he briefly saw one of the missing boys through a window inside Mac...

Released two years after Conan the Barbarian , Conan the Destroyer was the first and only sequel starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular warrior. John Milius, who wrote and directed the first Conan movie, wasn’t available to helm the sequel due to prior commitments. Milius recommended veteran film director Richard Fleischer for the job. Fleischer helmed The Vikings (which was a film that Milius enjoyed and mainly why he recommended Fleischer for Conan II), as well as the Walt Disney version of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea , and Soylent Green , among many others. Fleischer would also direct Schwarzenegger once again in Red Sonja (released the following year), starring Brigitte Nielsen in the lead role. Conan the Barbarian made a ton of money back in 1982 even with an R rating. Both Schwarzenegger and Fleischer had initially expected Conan the Destroyer to also be R rated--until Universal, the studio that released the Conan movies, informed them that Destroyer must have a ...

I first saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the theater back when it first came out thirty five years ago this week. I was nineteen in the summer of 1984, and I loved the Temple of Doom so much then that I promptly watched it three times in the theaters (movies coming out on home video at that time was a little sketchy; so if I really liked a movie, I usually had to see it as often as I could in the theater). I was a huge fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark (and still am), and, back in 1984, I considered watching Temple of Doom almost like revisiting an old friend. I’ve seen Temple of Doom several times since on home video, first on VHS and then DVD, and I have to admit that each time I re-watched the film my love for it has lessened more and more. When I recently saw it again in preparation for this 35th anniversary review…well, to be honest, while I still enjoyed certain aspects of Temple of Doom , overall, the film is not one of my favorites. One of the reasons that it doesn...

Warning: Spoilers! Coming on the heels of the far superior Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had a lot to live up to--and, to be blunt, the third film in the Star Trek film series (released 35 years ago this year) is sorely lacking when compared to Wrath of Khan . However, Search For Spock , while far from being a great film, does fulfill some important fan service duties to the Star Trek canon. As its name implies, The Search for Spock goes looking for the popular character, who was played by Leonard Nimoy in the classic Star Trek TV series that aired in the late 1960s. But it’s not an easy search; Spock famously died at the end of Wrath of Khan --which was reportedly at the behest of Nimoy, who had grown tired of playing the half human/half Vulcan after three seasons of Star Trek , as well as the first Star Trek film, The Motion(less) Picture , which was released to lackluster reviews (from both critics and fans) in 1979. Yet when Wrath of Kha...

I was catching up on the second and third seasons of Supergirl on Netflix recently, and while I watched this wonderfully fun series with the superb Melissa Benoist playing the present day incarnation of the Girl of Steel, I marveled at the fact that the series’ savvy producers had cast Helen Slater as Supergirl’s adoptive mother, Eliza. Mindful of the fact that this year marks the thirty fifth anniversary of the release of the 1984 Supergirl film (and also because I figured that it was high time for me to view it again) I gave the Helen Slater Supergirl film a re-watch. I watched the 138 minute director's cut, which is on the Supergirl DVD set from Anchor Bay that was released in 2000. Slater, only nineteen when she was cast as Supergirl (which was her very first movie), was a revelation in the title role. Confident without being overbearing, innocent without being too mawkish, Slater was just perfect in this film, serenely embodying the very ideal of what I expected Supergirl...