In honor of my Augustana College friends who are graduating this weekend yet were denied the opportunity to enjoy a proper on-campus send-off before entering the cold, cruel workplace world, here are five titles under the collective blanket of “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up” – home-viewing options from 1976 to 1990 featuring excellent examples of pros at their inspiring peaks of performance. Consider it my cinematic commencement address. I don't know why I've never been asked to give a real one. Probably because they'd anticipate my being crude. Those jackasses.

There were loads of huge hits in the summer of '92: Batman Returns and Lethal Weapon 3 and Sister Act and A League of Their Own … . But as usual, the releases that affected me most and lingered most were the ones that went dark, even for comedies – works that continue to resonate more than a quarter-century after my initial viewings. Here are my five favorites – all but one seen gratis, and all of them enjoyed before I had to start paying for movies all the time like some kind of chump … .

I've expended a lot of wordage over the past several (hundred?) weeks guiding you to home-viewing options in the wake of closed cineplexes. So for a refreshing change of pace, what say I let others do it for me?

I guess you know you've been self-quarantining for a long time when you realize you're now writing sequels to articles you wrote when the self-quarantining began. But I also didn't come nearly close to praising all the comedies I wanted to five weeks back, so a sequel we all get! Besides, you can either spend eight hours reading about and then watching these five excellent titles from 1985 to 1994 or watch Tiger King for the seventh time, so … .

Where's everybody going … ?