04 Jun 2020

Reassess Pool: 10-Favorites Lists from 1995 to 1999 … and What They'd Look Like Today

By Mike Schulz

As a change of pace from recent articles showcasing five similarly-themed offerings that debuted when I was between three and 26, allow me to present a compromise of 77 winners from the period of 1995-99: my official-in-print 10-favorites lists from the ends of those years, and what those lists would now look like after 20-plus years of consideration and reconsideration.

31 May 2020

Must Go Faster: Home-Viewing Options If You're Missing Summer-Blockbuster Season

By Mike Schulz

Here are five unforgettable summer blockbusters from 1975 to 1994 that you're probably familiar with – all of them ideal for different moods, all of them Oscar winners (from 19 nominations overall), and all of them worth revisiting even if it's snowing. Which, in our area, could be anytime but summer.

28 May 2020

Come Play with Us, Danny: Five Initially Traumatizing Movies I've Grown to Love

By Mike Schulz

The following home-viewing options are five works that, for whatever reason, scared the bejeezus out of me as a child and now make me almost nothing but happy. The Towering Inferno ain't among them. Some phobias are eternal.

24 May 2020

The More, the Merrier: Five Movie Winners with Staggeringly Huge Casts

By Mike Schulz

The following are five of my favorite 1975-1993 ensemble movies with significant roles for more than a dozen name performers, with mentions of the most valuable players in ascending order of ardor. The six actors nominated for Academy Awards for these films were ineligible for MVP inclusion, as they probably found it heartening enough just to hear their names read aloud before learning that their Oscars were being awarded to others. Hmm. Was that actually heartening … ?

22 May 2020

Carpe Diem!: Cinematic Examples of Jobs Done Well

By Mike Schulz

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.

17 May 2020

They're as Mad as Hell, and They're Not Gonna Take This Anymore: Great Movies for When You're Feeling Angry

By Mike Schulz

What follows are five of my favorites from the 1970s and '80s that give me the pleasure of being riveted by others' anger when I'm feeling some myself and want to dispel it without throwing a public fit or composing an online treatise on the subject. The latter of which I suppose I'm doing right now. Damn it.

14 May 2020

I Was Building a House: Five Standouts from the Summer Before I Became a Quad Citizen

By Mike Schulz

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 … .

10 May 2020

I'm Not Gonna Be Ignored, Dan: Formative Performances from a Critic's College Years

By Mike Schulz

In honor and celebration of my college-senior theatre-major friends who are now graduating yet were denied the opportunity to enjoy one final send-off performance, allow me to guide you to five of my personal favorite film performances from the years in which I attended Augustana College.

07 May 2020

Depth of Focus: Five Great Movies About Movies

By Mike Schulz

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?

04 May 2020

How's the Peeping?: Early Movie Triumphs of Philip Seymour Hoffman

By Mike Schulz

It's not the anniversary of his birth, or even his death, and he didn't pass away recently. But more and more lately, I find myself missing Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor who finally lost his long battle against drug addiction on February 2, 2014. These days, of course, I miss everyone – even people, like Hoffman, who I only saw on-screen. I've been feeling his absence more acutely than usual, though, over the past several weeks, and for reasons that are only partly professional.

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