Mentally ill from Amityville: 28 days later

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR

1979

Directed by Stuart Rosenberg

Written by Sandor Stern (based on the book by Jay Anson)

Spoilers: moderate, but sort of inapplicable, right?

What a disaster: The Zeus Katachthonios adventure

CAVE-IN!

1983

Directed by Georg Fenady

Written by Norman Katkov

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: "Geological faults"? I knew sooner or later you'd get around to that tired old chestnut

THE NIGHT THE BRIDGE FELL DOWN

1983

Directed by Georg Fenady

Written by Arthur Weiss, Ray Goldstone, Michael Robert David, and Alvin Boretz

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: What comes after "Cenozoic"?

METEOR

1979

Directed by Ronald Neame

Written by Stanley Mann and Edmund H. North

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: God went down with the Titanic

S.O.S. TITANIC

1979

Directed by William Hale

Written by James Costigan

Spoilers: N/A

What a disaster: The lateral inferno

CITY ON FIRE

1979

Directed by Alvin Rakoff

Written by Jack Hill, Dave Lewis, and Céline La Frenière

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: They're not even about airports after the first one, not really

THE CONCORDE ...AIRPORT '79

1979

Directed by David Lowell Rich

Written by Jennings Lang and Eric Roth

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: Can't you see the morning after?

BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

1979

Directed by Irwin Allen

Written by Nelson Gidding (based on the novel by Paul Gallico)

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: Stop saying "tram"

HANGING BY A THREAD

1979

Directed by Georg Fenady

Written by Adrian Spies

Spoilers: moderate

What a disaster: She's gone with the hula hula boys, she don't care about me

HURRICANE

1979

Directed by Jan Troell

Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. (based on the novel The Hurricane by James Norman Hall and Charles Nordoff)

Spoilers: well, there's a hurricane in it, but moderate, I guess

What a disaster: So long and thanks for all the carbon dioxide, you NIMBY dipshits

THE CHINA SYNDROME

1979

Directed by James Bridges

Written by T.S. Cook, Mike Gray, and James Bridges

Spoiler alert: between moderate and high

Walt Disney, part XXX: Of course, that's our problem in all of these pictures... people can't be coming out of the theater saying, "That's great effects animation," or somewhere along the line we've goofed

THE BLACK HOLE

1979

Directed by Gary Nelson

Written by Gerry Day, Jeb Rosebrook, Bob Barbash, and Richard Landau

Spoiler alert: high

Alien Week, part I: The terror from beyond space

ALIEN

As the film that kickstarted the whole cycle of sci-fi horror in the 1980s, we are forever in Alien's debt; and for being awesome in and of itself, we absolutely must pay it the respect it's due.  But, guys, sometimes a near-masterpiece can just be a near-masterpiece, and you don't need to give it full marks merely to recognize how important, or even how good, it actually is.

1979

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, David Giler, and Walter Hill

With Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), John Hurt (Kane), Yaphet Kotto (Parker), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), Ian Holm (Ash), Helen Horton (Mother), and Bolaji Badejo (the Alien)

Spoiler alert: joking, yes?

Joe Dante, part III: The music that expresses the culture, the refinement, and the polite grace of the present day

ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

Gabba gabba hey.

1979

Directed by Allan Arkush and Joe Dante
Written by Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, Joseph McBride, Allan Arkush, and Joe Dante

With P.J. Soles (Riff Randall), Dey Young (Kate Rambeau), Vince Van Patten (Tom Roberts), Clint Howard (Eaglebauer), Paul Bartel (Mr. McGree), The Ramones (The Ramones), Lynn Farrell (Angel Dust), Dick Miller (The Police Chief), Loren Lester (Fritz Hansel), Daniel Davies (Fritz Gretel), and Mary Woronov (Prinicipal Evelyn Togar)

Spoiler alert: mild

Steven Spielberg, part VII, and Robert Zemeckis, part II: Is there anything honorable to destroy in Los Angeles?

1941

The movie that finally explains why Spielberg finds it worthwhile to produce the Transformers franchise—besides those many hundreds of millions of dollars, anyway.

1979

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and John Milius

With Bobby Di Cicco (Wally Stephens), Dianne Kay (Betty Douglas), Treat Williams (Cpl. Chuck "Stretch" Sitarksi), Ned Beatty (Ward Douglas), Lorraine Gray (Joan Douglas), Sgt. Frank Tree (Dan Akroyd), John Candy (Pvt. Foley), Frank McRae (Pvt. Jones), Tim Matheson (Capt. Loomis Birkhead), Nancy Allen (Donna Stratton), Robert Stack (Gen. Joseph Stilwell), John Belushi (Capt. "Wild" Bill Kelso), Christopher Lee (Capt. Wolfgang von Kleinschmidt), and Toshiro Mifune (Cmdr. Akiro Mitamura)

Spoiler alert: mild

John Carpenter, part V: We're caught in a trap, but I can't walk out—because I love you too much, baby

ELVIS

I know a lot more about Elvis than I did before I watched this movie, and I care either the same amount, or less.

1979

Directed by John Carpenter

Written by Anthony Lawrence

With Kurt Russell (Elvis Presley), Shelley Winters (Gladys Presley), Season Hubley (Priscilla Presley), Ribert Gray (Red West), Charles Cyphers (Sam Phillips), and Pat Hingle (Col. Tom Parker)

Spoiler alert: negligible

Hey, fella! You're a turkey!

This is Kinemalogue, the cinema blog (it's Greek so that means I'm educated in all the wrong ways).  We will almost certainly discuss things other than movies, from time to time, because there's a lot of things I love and hate that aren't movies and which I will compulsively shout into this vast emptiness about.  But we'll grok that fullness when we come to it.  The primary mission for now is to share thoughts on new, old, and very old movies.

In commemoration of their combined release on Blu Ray, over this troika of virgin posts, I'm gonna tell you what I thought about one of film's most celebrated post-apocalypses, from its humble Ozsploitation beginnings in 1979, through its 1981 breakout into the mainstream and what Roger Ebert (pbuh) infamously declared one of the best movies of 1985, to my hopes for the Mad Maxes to come.

Oh, and: welcome home.  We love you.

MAD MAX

1979
Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, James McCausland, and Byron Kennedy

With Mel Gibson (Max Rockatansky), Joanne Samuel (Jessie Rockatansky), Steve Bisley (Jim Goose), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Toecutter)

Standing tall amongst the classic films of our childhoods—or adulthoods, or pre-existences, or post-existences, if you can still get Netflix service at the Omega Point—in any event classic films of the late 70s and early 80s—Mad Max has the distinction of being the movie I think I’d most like to see get remade; because despite its enormous importance to its own franchise, to the genre of badass 80s action cinema, and indeed to the culture as a whole (see how Mad Max taught us not to descend into biker barbarism?), it also has the distinction of being only marginally good.

Rest assured, gentle reader, I do not dislike this first outing in Max’ trilogy, and am not unsympathetic to the fact that it is director George Miller's debut effort.  However, to see Max for the first time in perhaps two decades, after dozens of viewings of Road Warrior and Thunderdome, is almost necessarily to be unimpressed by it.

"Can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?"