We all do it: sometimes you look back. Thirty years ago was the summer movies showed me the breadth and scope they can assume. After the much-heralded The Goonies opened well (I was fourteen, had barely outgrown it), Back to the Future opened in early July and blew everything away at the box office. That movie took you back thirty years from there. But there were other big movies that summer, and not just at the box office. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome took us back to the outback, showed the father side of a martyr, and how an action movie can be creative, mix genres, and stay tightly to its theme and structure.
I also think of John Boorman's The Emerald Forest. Here was a movie of monumental, sustaining cultural and political importance. The film's major character was played by Powers Boothe, who had seldom had so much screen time. It was also the first time a movie took me away to a faraway land and was subtle: the shot of the two construction workers stopping and talking at the edge of the forest before sauntering away, and the camera pans slowly to the right, showing the natives silently standing among the trees and leaves. The movie's not perfect, but it suggested and beckoned so much else in the world beyond the screen. Not many like it today.
I also think of John Boorman's The Emerald Forest. Here was a movie of monumental, sustaining cultural and political importance. The film's major character was played by Powers Boothe, who had seldom had so much screen time. It was also the first time a movie took me away to a faraway land and was subtle: the shot of the two construction workers stopping and talking at the edge of the forest before sauntering away, and the camera pans slowly to the right, showing the natives silently standing among the trees and leaves. The movie's not perfect, but it suggested and beckoned so much else in the world beyond the screen. Not many like it today.
