John Lithgow – Yesterday's Movies

Twilight Zone: The Movie

July 16, 2023temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I first learned that there was a movie based on The Twilight Zone when I read that the first meeting between John Lithgow’s character and William Shatner’s guest character on “Third Rock From the Sun” had them comment that they had similar terrifying experiences on an airplane, and that was a reference to the fact that Shatner had starred in the Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, and Lithgow had played the same role in the Twilight Zone: The Movie remake of that story. I thought it was odd that of all the iconic stories told on The Twilight Zone, they chose that one to make a movie out of, but simply titled it “Twilight Zone”, as if the one story summed up the entire show. I much more recently looked it up and discovered that multiple stories are told in the movie, which really makes a lot more sense.

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Cliffhanger

November 5, 2021temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

There’s really only one thing I can say about what I know about this movie. It’s pretty clearly meant to be a “Die Hard on an X” type adventure. There’s a single guy accidentally in the wrong place at the right time thwarting bad guys. Like Under Siege. Like Air Force One. Probably like other movies I’ve blogged and can’t remember.

However, it’s also Sylvester Stallone fighting the bad guys single-handedly, so it’s probably also meant to be like Stallone movies like First Blood, or rather, like the Rambo sequels that dropped the main thematic point of the original.

All of that is to say that I don’t know what this movie is, but I’m pretty sure I know exactly what other movies they wanted me to think of by making it.

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Harry and the Hendersons

August 18, 2016temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I get a sense this movie was conceived as a response to the success of E.T. Instead of an alien hiding in a suburban family’s home, it’s a sasquatch. This time around the entire family is in on the secret (and the dad seems to be the one taking point on how to handle hiding him), but there’s still government people looking for him and he can’t stay forever. Not a total knockoff like Mac and Me, and produced by the same companies, this might be more of a spiritual sequel.

I know nothing about what any of the family does other than John Lithgow, but I assume the kids play with Harry, do cute kid stuff with him, and are generally the main catalyst for sasquatch antics.

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Footloose

November 18, 2011temporalparadox1 Comment

Before watching the movie:

This is another notable classic that I never got around to seeing before. I’ve been a fan of the title song ever since it was used in a 90s commercial for half a dozen Paramount movies at once, but that’s not necessarily enough to expect the others to live up to.

On the other hand, the classic status, notability of Kevin Bacon, and possibly the fact that they remade it (if it’s as good as they say it shouldn’t have needed to be remade, but that’s not an argument producers hear).

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