This year is not turning out to be an exciting year for cinema. I love movies on the big screen with the popcorn and the dim lights and the overstuffed chairs. Some years have been phenomenal for celluloid entertainment.
1986 was a very good vintage. Top Gun, Crocodile Dundee, Aliens, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Short Circuit, Pretty in Pink, and Rocky IV. The next year brought some good films as well: The Lost Boys, The Princess Bride, Lethal Weapon, Predator, and The Untouchables. 1988 gave us Die Hard—a movie the wife and I still watch every Christmas season.
The year of my high school graduation—1989—brought us Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2, Rain Man, Dead Poets Society, Field of Dreams, The Abyss, Harlem Nights, Major League, Black Rain, Weekend at Bernie’s, Road House, Say Anything, Tango & Cash, and Lean on Me.
Even the lean years of 2020 and 2021 gave us some good flicks like 1917, Bad Boys for Life, Tenet, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Dune: Part One. 2022 and 2023 picked up the game with the likes of Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Batman (which really surprised me), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, John Wick: Chapter 4, Creed III, The Equalizer 3, Cocaine Bear, Godzilla Minus One, Gran Turismo, and The Covenant.
We experienced Dune: Part Two and Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024, but the actor and writer strikes really put a stranglehold on production. But as far as what is coming this year, I am not too impressed with what’s scheduled for the big screen. Is it a dying form of entertainment.
Den of Thieves: Pantera and Flight Risk were as big of disappointments as Gladiator II was. So, 2025 is not coming out of the gates hot, and it doesn’t look like there is anything in the hopper to make up for it.
Marvel has lost its luster with superhero burnout. Can Captain America: Brave New World coming out on Valentine’s Day revive the studio’s output? Nothing else in February piques my interest. I might see Mickey 17 in March because I bought the book but haven’t read it yet. Maybe the new Jason Statham punch ‘em-kick ‘em Working Man at the end of March.
I might see The Amateur or The Accountant 2 in April. I might see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Karate Kid: Legends in May. 28 Years Later in June looks…interesting. But nothing else scheduled for this summer looks vaguely notweworthy to me.
Maybe I’m getting up there too high in age, but I sure do miss the old days of film. Back when I would go donate plasma so I could afford a comic book title and a midnight showing with popcorn and a soda. Those were the days.
