Turbo kid
A Mad Max-inspired romp through 80s genre film, where souped up cars have been replaced by BMX bikes and our hero fights baddies with the help of a Mega Man-esque arm cannon. A bizarre and hilarious little film that you should definitely see with an audience.
https://lamplightreview.com/movie-review-turbo-kid/
Came out on Netflix in 2016
Ohhh, this movie is magical. I love it so much!
I listened to the soundtrack for about 4 years before getting around to watching the movie. Very fun. For how slow the build-up is, Playtime is Over is one of my favorite workout songs, always gets the endorphins running.
This movie is exactly of its era. Blasting 80s nostalgia that’s been filtered through a neon color grade with a snappy pace is exactly something that would come out in 2016.
The Fall by Tarsem. I’ve been so happy the 4k remaster and theatrical re-release has been getting some love now.
Howard the Duck. That movie is wonderful
The Love Witch is a bit of a cheat because it was literally designed to look like it was shot in the 70s (and does an amazing job of it)
Cube was ahead of its time for bizzare setting and body horror.
Citizen Kane.
Yes it is circle jerked hard by film lovers… For good reason.
This is what I might consider the first movie shot in what would be recognized as a modern movie format.
It is told non sequentially, the composition of shots is absolutely incredible.
It’s a movie shot in 1941 that looks nothing like the other movies of the time. Literally decades ahead of its time. It looks like it could have been shot a few months ago as a period piece.
There’s good reason for it being one of the most acclaimed movies of all time.
While filming Citizen Kane, director and star Orson Welles likened making a movie to playing with a toy train set, and that playful inventive spirit shines all throughout the movie.
It’s hard to overstate how important the film is to cinema. It pretty much established what the modern movie is.
That said, based strictly off of entertainment value. IMO it is just absolutely terrible.
That’s interesting. I’m not a film guy at all, and it certainly never occurred to me that it pioneered some of the key stuff in modern movies (although that totally makes sense). But I remember enjoying it! The pacing felt quite good, there were some mysteries and character drama. Not a top movie for me personally, but pretty watchable for a B&W movie.
Sense & Sensibility 🤓
Get it? Because it’s a period piece?
I’ll see myself out
The first “War of the world’s” movie from 1953.
It’s based on a genius, but quite challenging science fiction novel.
I am sure the people in 1953 liked the movie.
When you watch it today, after you have already seen Spielberg’s version from 2005, then it feels like they were way ahead of their time in 1953 (and you would never believe anyway that the book was written even back in 1898).
One of the many little details I love about that movie is Pacific Tech, the university where scientists studied the alien hardware. I noticed they used that as the name of the college in Real Genius. Apparently it’s has been in many movies and tv shows.
You should hear what happened to the radio broadcast of the book.
What happened?
People thought the world was actually ending
It was read like a news broadcast and many people were unaware it was a fictional reading. The story was re-written for this radio broadcast to sound like a news report and caused mass hysteria.
But the truth is, that’s the fictional story. It’s all hyperbole and a bunch of newspapers at the time ran with it, to have some fun and sell some papers. There was never any mass hysteria as reported. No one killed themselves thinking aliens were invading, the broadcast was only listened to by 2% of the US, and everyone was aware it was fake. It was a regular type of thing on this radio program.
TIL. I remember my history book one year in grade school mentioning that show and the hysteria it caused.
I still can’t believe The Matrix is from '99. The themes and the effects hold up incredibly well, it feels far more modern.
It was from the era when choreography mattered. You could roll through an entire fight scene and see what every punch was supposed to be doing. You had some situational awareness where everyone was.
Now we keep getting that stupid crap where they’re changing the scene every punch, with so many scenes per second that you can’t follow through, actually just like the fight scenes and matrix 4.
I strongly disagree, Matrix was very much a product of its time, if it had released a decade before or a decade after it would not have had the same impact.
In the 80s as a general rule people didn’t know of the internet nor were they very computer savvy.
In the late 00s cellphones started to be ubiquitous and people were using broadband almost exclusively.
So there was only a small period of time when people were familiar with the idea of telephone lines carrying data, which is a core concept of the movie (exiting the Matrix through your cellphone or laptop is a lot less cool and less prone to plot hooks).
Not to mention that the 90s were extremely gothic and grimdark about the future. I don’t think a movie that the base premise is in the future humans are enslaved to machines and hooked to a large simulation to keep them from realizing they’re slaves would work in any time period besides the 90s.
There was also that short sliver of the late 90s through early 2000s where the slick black trenchcoat and sunglasses look was considered unironically cool.
The Matrix, Blade, Underworld, and Equilibrium all being in this era. Any movie where characters dress like this to be cool and it isn’t treated with at least a wink to the audience probably either came from this time or is a sequel to something from this time.
That look become uncool 2-seconds after the Columbine shooting.
I’d think so too, but Columbine shooting was 1999. Movies still used it unironically for another few years. In media I think it mostly went away because it got parodied to death.
It’s for sure a product of its time, but it really doesn’t feel like a 1999 movie. Around that time we had
- Sixth sense
- American beauty
- Eyes wide shut
- Being John Malkovich
- Fight Club
Matrix has such a stark level of visual and thematic modernity compared to those. Maybe Fight Club comes near, but the other movies look like they’re from a different decade.
Matrix is a “work sucks” movie the same way that “American Beauty”, “Fight Club”, and “Office Space” was. It is a very 1999 movie.
Agreed with all that, but still, don’t forget how mind blowing it was in 1999. One of the only movies I ever saw twice in the theaters, two nights in a row even.
Even the trailers were wild. First time we saw one in the theater my gf and I looked at each other like, “What the fuck was that all about?!”
The Matrix was to science fiction in 1999 about what Star Wars was in 1977, so far ahead of the game it was like nothing before it.
You’re not gonna believe this but there were movies that are even older.
Surely not?
Big Lebowski.
As long as you’re not playing the fucking Eagles man
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like, uh, your opinion, man.
So, what you’re saying is … sometimes there’s a movie… I won’t say a film, ‘cause, what’s a film? But sometimes, there’s a movie. And I’m talkin’ about The Big Lebowski here. Sometimes, there’s a movie, well, it’s not the movie for its time and place.
Obviously, you’re not a golfer.
It Follows is pretty timeless. (intentionally so, by the director.)
Day After Tomorrow was about two days before its time
Actually, I believe you’ll find, if you refer to the title, that it is a movie about two days after its time
¿Por qué no los dos? (a phrase that itself is both of the 2010s and also timeless)
Eraserhead
I think Eraserhead fits perfectly in the 70s
Napoleon Dynamite, but that’s intentional.
Napoleon Dynamite hits just right if you grew up at a certain time in a rural area. That movie is like watching my own childhood.
That movie is like watching my own childhood.
Hopefully without the intellectual impairments all the main characters have?
The anime Perfect Blue. It was ahead of it’s time. 1997 but the parasocial aspect of society it explores was in it’s infancy compared to current time.
John Wayne’s ‘The Green Berets’ is an oddity. While it’s not out of its time, since the 1960s was packed with war movies, the fact that it’s a Vietnam movie rather than a WW2 movie gives it a surreal quality. It is filmed with the same tone, style, and music as something like ‘The Longest Day’ but it’s about Vietnam making it a million miles away from the style of most Vietnam movies.
Standout scenes include a green beret ranting at a strawman reporter, and the scene where John Wayne smashes an obviously toy rifle to pieces.
