‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1968) Holds Up, Despite Polanski – Retro Review
It always upsets me when I see people my age disparaging The Beatles. I grew up on my parents’ music, and I held very narrow...
Category: Retro Reviews
The Legend of Crazy Joe: Lean on Me (1989) – Retro Review
If you asked me to sing the school song of any school I actually attended, I would be at a total loss. But if you...
The Way We Were (1973), Objectivity, and What Makes a Masterpiece — Retro Review
There’s a really unfortunate New York Post piece from 2015 that posits that women are incapable of understanding Goodfellas because we’re incapable of understanding the...
The Genre-Bending Sincere Silliness of ‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ (1985) – Retro Review
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure lives rent-free in my brain. It’s a movie of images before it’s a movie of substance, but is substance really necessary when...
When Wrestling Met Rock-n-Roll: Body Slam (1986) – Retro Review
The date was February 18, 1985. A trip to my grandparents back then always meant a chance to watch cable television and more specifically MTV....
Post-War Attitudes and ‘Hair’ (1979) – Retro Review
There’s a big difference between “seeing” and “watching.” You “watch” a movie on your own, in your home, passively. You “see” a movie in a...
10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo’ (1984) – Retro Review
Even before 1984’s Breakin’, starring Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones, Lucinda Dickey, and Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers, became one of Cannon Films’ highest-grossing movies of all-time, there...
Time Bandits (1981) and the Limits of Imagination – Retro Review
Terry Gilliam is a difficult filmmaker — stylistically, politically, personally. He’s divisive as he is beloved for movies like Brazil and The Fisher King and...
School’s In For Summer: Summer School (1987) Movie Review
Fresh off his run on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere and being named People Magazine’s 2nd Annual Sexiest Man Alive, Mark Harmon found himself...
When Men Don’t Listen: Nightmare on Elm Street Characters Review
The way to put an end to Fred Krueger is simple: just stop giving him your energy. Stop thinking about him. Stop worrying about him....