Summer Blockbuster 2020: June 26 – WALL-E (2008), DAYS OF THUNDER (1990), BLADE RUNNER (1982), HERCULES (1997), FACE/OFF (1997), THE GREAT MUPPET CAPER (1981), COMING TO AMERICA (1988), ST. ELMO’S FIRE (1985), RUNNING SCARED (1986), SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (1993), HEAVEN CAN WAIT (1978)

It’s the calm before the 4th of July box office.

Welcome to Week 9 of Summer Blockbusted 2020.

Through the end of August, I am curating a weekly slate of movies from summers past, ranging from big blockbusters to small counter-programming indies, and dramas and comedies in-between. With most multiplexes still closed, these are classics you can enjoy again or discover for the very first time in the safety of your home theater.

Every single Friday. All summer long.

(To read more about how each week’s slate is determined, click here.)

This week: films that were released over the last weekend of June.

My REC OF THE WEEK is a Muppet double-feature that you can stream now on Disney+.

For each film, I’ve included archived video reviews from Siskel & Ebert, whether I agree with them or not. (Some are direct YouTube links, others are to the website SiskelEbert.org.)

Also included when possible: links to streaming services where these movies can be seen. (If a link isn’t provided, you can rent the film through most VOD platforms.)

(Find links to other weeks from Summer Blockbusted 2020 at the end of this article.)

NOW PLAYING…JUNE 26, 2020

• REC OF THE WEEK: Muppets Double-Feature:
  The Muppet Movie / The Great Muppet Caper
  • The Muppet Movie (June 22, 1979) 97 min; Rated G
    Streaming on Disney+
  • The Great Muppet Caper (June 26, 1981) 98 min; Rated G
    Streaming on Disney+
  • Even though forty years old now, these first two big screen Muppet adventures still play surprisingly well, a double-bill that even feels inventive after all this time. The first is a Muppets origin story; it tracks Kermit’s journey from Florida to Hollywood as he meets the entire Muppet Show crew along the way. The second Caper finds the gang in London foiling a jewel heist.
    d
    To distinguish the two, I’d describe the first Movie as a Mel Brooks-styled quasi-genre parody goof-fest. (Brooks even appears in one sequence, in a film packed with all-star cameos.) Caper, on the other hand, is more sophisticated, blending the clever slapstick of Airplane! with the dry humor of Monty Python (John Cleese cameos this time, in a movie that mostly dials back on the all-star stints).
    d
    If I had to choose one to watch it’d be Caper, and the choice is a rather easy one. Nothing wrong with the original, it’s funny and sweet, but Caper had me laughing hard and often on a recent re-watch. The comedy is super-sharp, including some inspired running gags (like Kermit and Fozzie being identical twins), and is further boosted by a supporting bad guy turn from Charles Grodin. His brilliant sensibilities are perfectly matched for Caper’s, especially when he becomes romantically-obsessed with Miss Piggy.
    d
  • The Muppet Movie (Final numbers: $65.2 million domestic and worldwide.)
  • The Great Muppet Caper (Final numbers: $31.2 million domestic and worldwide.)

• Sleepless in Seattle  (June 25, 1993) 105 min; Rated PG
  Streaming on Showtime Now through June 30
  • “You make a million decisions that mean nothing, and one day you order takeout and it changes your life.” – Annie Reed (played by Meg Ryan).
    d
    It’s lines like that – i.e. actual genuine insights – that make Nora Ephron’s soulmate-destiny romance actually resonate with real-life credibility.
    d
    When Harry Met Sally… brought sophistication back to the rom-com in 1989, but Sleepless In Seattle turned that anomaly into a trend, and both were written by Ephron. She also directs here, re-teaming with Meg Ryan, but swaps Billy Crystal for Tom Hanks (who would go on to win Best Actor Oscar that same year for Philadelphia). Sleepless would ignite a rom-com Golden Age that would last the decade, an era from which even less successful second-tier entries like Only You now play like classics.
    d
    The biggest miracle? Ephron keeps her romantic leads apart for virtually the entire movie, yet the fated love of these soulmates feels as real as any ever contrived in the history of the movies.
    d
    No matter how much you may love this classic, I guarantee that it’s still even better than you remember. (Final numbers: $126.7 million domestic; $227.8 million worldwide.)
  • The Siskel & Ebert review for Sleepless in Seattle isn’t on YouTube, but an episode that included their take on it was uploaded to SiskelEbert.org. Click to 7:53 into the episode to see it. https://siskelebert.org/?p=6152
    d
• Heaven Can Wait (June 28, 1978) 101 min Rated PG
  Streaming on Amazon Prime
  • This fantasy-comedy from 1978 isn’t what you think of as a typical summer movie, nor is it what you’d deem as Oscar bait despite its 9 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
    d
    Co-directed and co-written by star Warren Beatty — his collaborators were, respectively, Buck Henry (The Graduate screenwriter) and Elaine May (Ishtar) — Heaven Can Wait was a remake of a 1941 film that sees Beatty’s LA Rams QB Joe Pendleton die before his time. Due to the error, he works out a temporary deal with two bureaucratic angels to inhabit the body of a recently deceased billionaire of similar age whose time had come.
    d
    Beatty’s Shampoo co-stars Julie Christie and Jack Warden joined him again in a top notch ensemble that saw Beatty, Warden, and Dyan Cannon all Oscar-nominated and Charles Grodin who should’ve been. Cannon was especially deserving; she is hilarious as the billionaire’s cunning wife.
    d
    It’s not quite as tightly plotted as it needs to be, with characters occasionally making romantic leaps simply because the script (or editing) needs them to. Other allowances and suspensions-of-disbelief are also required, but they’re all pretty easy to make with a cast this good (and funny) and a heart this sincere. (Final numbers: $81.6 million domestic and worldwide.)

• Blade Runner (June 25, 1982) 117 min Rated R
  • Not even Harrison Ford in his Han-and-Indy prime could boost this dark and gloomy sci-fi noir to blockbuster heights, but the legacy of its status as a cult classic was enough to spark a fascinating sequel just a couple of years ago. That didn’t fare so well financially, either, but at least it was consistent.
    d
    Look, Blade Runner isn’t for everyone, and by now you probably know if it’s for you or if it isn’t. But if it is then it continues to reap rewards, especially given the various alt-edit options that are available.
    d
    Director Ridley Scott has delivered some groundbreaking movies over the years (from Alien to Thelma & Louise to Gladiator and more), but Blade Runner may still be his crowning achievement. It truly is the work of a visionary. (Final numbers: $27.5 million domestic; $39.3 million worldwide.)

• Running Scared (June 27, 1986) 107 min Rated R
  • Buddy Cop movies were a dime-a-dozen in the 1980s, but all it took for one to stand out was the right pairing. Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal did just that in 1986 with Running Scared.
    d
    This Chicago-set entry may not have ascended to Lethal Weapon heights, but it works almost like a mix of that franchise and Beverly Hills Cop, employing the best aspects of action-comedy attitude with two very distinct personalities. As a plus, this pair doesn’t butt heads with constant oil-and-water friction (as is often the case for the genre). Instead, Hines and Crystal were like smart-aleck soulmates, riffing off each other as if they’d been besties for their entire lives.
    d
    Oh, and the action’s great, too. Director Peter Hyams (who also served as cinematographer) constructs the genre staples rather well, especially an extended car chase that pops up a little over an hour in, speeding through subway tunnels and across above-ground railways. (The finale at a Chicago high-rise is also visually striking.)
    d
    In an era often bogged down by a glut of sequels, Running Scared strangely never got one but deserved to. Oh, and it had Michael McDonald’s “Sweet Freedom” as its main soundtrack theme! For me, that’s definitely a major plus in its favor. (Final numbers: $38.5 million domestic and worldwide.)
  • The Siskel & Ebert review for Running Scared isn’t on YouTube, but an episode that included their take on it was uploaded to SiskelEbert.org. Click to 5:47 into the episode to see it. https://siskelebert.org/?p=1011
    d

• Face/Off (June 27, 1997) 138 min Rated R
  • Talk about a movie that is batsh** crazy.
    d
    Completely and utterly preposterous in virtually every way, Face/Off is a quintessential “so bad it’s good” action flick. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage play FBI and Terrorist nemeses that literally swap faces after a high-tech undercover operation goes awry.
    d
    This would be enough for the kind of over-the-top testosterone high-concept nonsense that director John Woo’s pyro-spectacle unleashes (and yes there are doves, Woo’s signature), but of course it’s all made “personal” by having Travolta’s agent driven to revenge because Cage’s Castor Troy (what a perfect name of a 90s action bad guy) killed the agent’s son years earlier.
    d
    The whole thing is so gloriously ludicrous that it ends up being Woo’s most entertaining Hollywood effort (yes, that includes Mission Impossible 2), right down to the eye-rolling “hand stroke over face” expression of sentimentality that Travolta’s family does throughout the whole movie (poor Joan Allen, I hope she made a lot of money for slumming her talents).
    d
    Face/Off is so unabashedly all-in on being what it is that even the end credits song by INXS is called “Don’t Lose Your Head.”  (Final numbers: $112.3 million domestic; $245.7 million worldwide.)

• Coming to America (June 26, 1988) 117 min Rated R
  • Looking back, this summer comedy hit marked a defining moment for Eddie Murphy. Having been the star of movies originally envisioned for other A-listers ranging from Sylvester Stallone (Beverly Hills Cop) to Mel Gibson (The Golden Child) and more, Coming to America was Murphy’s first major release to be creatively conceived and developed by him, for him. It maximized the full breadth of his talents, expanding to multi-character ambitions to a scale only achieved by legends like Jerry Lewis and Peter Sellers.
    d
    Teaming with close friend Arsenio Hall, the duo would play not only the central characters of Prince Akeem and his trusty friend Semmi (who head to America to find the Prince a wife), but the duo peppered the entire movie with various comic relief side characters, sometimes doubling and tripling them up in the same scene (like the barbershop bits, which include a completely unrecognizable Murphy as an old Jewish patron).
    d
    Prior to Coming To America, Murphy reworked and improvised existing material to fit his style. But here, for the first time, he made something that was completely his own from the start, and boy did it pay off. Indeed, as his career would have peaks and valleys throughout the 90s and 00s, it’s no surprise that his biggest post-CTA successes were the Nutty Professor movies that embraced this broad multi-character approach.
    d
    Coming To America represents the Eddie that audiences loved, and the Eddie that Murphy loves being. (Final numbers: $128.1 million domestic; $288.7 million worldwide.)

• Hercules (June 27, 1997) 93 min; Rated G
  Streaming on Disney+
  • For a time, Hercules was the one 90s Disney movie that I flat-out didn’t like. Coming off the heels of ambitious, sophisticated efforts like Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it felt like a desperate retreat into pandering formula.
    d
    Today, I feel differently. Yes, it’s still at the bottom of the 90s Renaissance, but there’s so much to enjoy in Hercules, and to respect. The visual palette and character design is particularly distinguished, the gospel Greek chorus is inspired, and Alan Menken’s “One Last Hope” number (sung by Danny DeVito’s goat centaur Phil) may be the most underrated song of Disney’s 90s canon.
    d
    Yes, it’s still easy to list the shortcomings (the three leads only have one song each so it’s barely a musical, the villain doesn’t even have one, the romance is a dud because the ingénue Meg is obnoxiously cynical and jaded, and the final act is predictably formulaic), but on the whole – and taken as its own thing – Hercules goes the distance with style and verve. (Final numbers: $99 million domestic; $252.7 million worldwide.)

• Pixar Double-Feature: Ratatouille and WALL-E
  • Ratatouille (June 29, 2007) 111 min; Rated G
    Streaming on Disney+
  • WALL-E (June 27, 2008) 103 min; Rated G
    Streaming on Disney+
  • A bit of a hot take here: Ratatouille never did anything for me. And rewatching it again, it still doesn’t. A big favorite of movie critics (many of whom consider it Pixar’s best), my aggressively “meh” reaction is enough to have my cinephile card revoked.
    d
    And yet there it is. Ratatouille is, for me, marred by a formulaic construct that feels more tired and predictable than fresh, with unmemorable characters that lack charisma or distinction, and ends up being way too long. Its heart is in the right place, but what Pixar movie’s isn’t? I cite my minority opinion in this week’s list simply to get it off my chest, I guess, so there you have it.
    d
    WALL-E, on the other hand, may very well be Pixar’s best.
    d
    I probably still default to it as the studio’s top masterpiece, although a Inside Out deserves consideration, too. The concept is genius, the structure both sophisticated and ambitious, its vision of the future is already prescient, and its animation is visionary. While those highbrow accolades may make it sound more cerebral than emotional, WALL-E also jerks the tears and pulls at the heartstrings as well as any Pixar movie ever has (which is saying something). WALL-E is a landmark in animation history and always will be.
  • Ratatouille (Final numbers: $65.2 million domestic and worldwide.)
  • WALL-E (Final numbers: $31.2 million domestic and worldwide.)

• Days of Thunder (June 29, 1990) 107 min; Rated PG-13 (30th Anniversary)
  Streaming on Showtime Now through June 30
  • In some alt-timeline where the COVID-19 pandemic never hit, we all would’ve been seeing the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick this weekend. With that on hold until (at least) December, Days of Thunder is the next best thing – and it’s actually a pretty satisfying substitute.
    d
    Designed as “Top Gun on a racetrack” (reuniting star Tom Cruise with director Tony Scott and producer Jerry Bruckheimer), Days of Thunder is a slick, sturdy piece of blockbuster entertainment. Dripping with the same over-the-top machismo and mimicking similar Top Gun beats, this formula is invigorated by an cast that brings fun and conviction to the material rather than just phoning it in.
    d
    Cruise never coasts, Robert Duvall adds a lot, and Nicole Kidman is a formidable romantic lead. The ensemble is solid, too, including a young pre-Talladega Nights John C. Reilly.
    d
    The machismo gets misogynistic once or twice, the stakes are reduced from Top Gun‘s Cold War tensions to merely being “personal” here, and the climactic race at Daytona has Cruise’s Cole Trickle racing through his psychological demons with on-the-nose predictability, but it’s still hard to beat a plot machine this fine-tuned and well-oiled. (Final numbers: $82.6 million domestic; $160 million worldwide.)

• St. Elmo’s Fire (June 28, 1985) 108 min; Rated R (35th Anniversary)
  Streaming on Showtime Now through July 31
  • It’s amazing what the alchemy of a good ensemble and still-effective David Foster music can do for an embarrassingly bad script. St. Elmo’s Fire was angling to be the post-college version of a John Hughes movie (and even included three Breakfast Club actors just four months after that teen movie’s release, along with Pretty In Pink’s Andrew McCarthy), and it played that way, too, becoming a niche hit in 1985 that put director Joel Schumacher on the map. (He passed away this past week at the age of 80.)
    d
    Unfortunately, this is a horribly strained look at young twenty-somethings. The tight-knit college friends are now aspiring yuppies, striving to overcome 80s-era challenges so as to make their way in the world. It’s either too earnest for its own good (McCarthy’s “The Meaning of Life” newspaper piece??!! Oy.) or, worse yet, completely defies anything resembling normal human behavior. Rob Lowe’s philandering alcoholic saxophonist makes no sense even as a dysfunctional adult (let alone a functioning one), Emilio Estevez’s babe-stalker doesn’t fare much better (Andie McDowell is his target), and the rest is either glamorized for being edgy or sympathized for being foolish.
    d
    Still: that cast, and that music.
    d
    It’s impossible to forgive the movie its glaring problems, but those two strengths still make St. Elmo’s Fire a fun nostalgia trip if you’re of a certain age, even when it’s laughably bad (which is often). To paraphrase one particularly eye-rolling line, “It was their time on the edge.” Hooo boy, was it. (Final numbers: $37.8 million domestic and worldwide.)
  • The Siskel & Ebert review for St. Elmo’s Fire isn’t on YouTube, but an episode that included their take on it was uploaded to SiskelEbert.org. Click to 7:47 into the episode to see it. https://siskelebert.org/?p=3230

If you’d like to suggest summer movie titles for future weeks, you can email your requests to: icantunseethatmovie@gmail.com

Other weeks from Summer Blockbusted 2020:

• Week 1 – May 1, 2020
• Week 2 – May 8, 2020
• Week 3 – May 15, 2020
• Week 4 – May 22, 2020
• Week 5 – May 29, 2020
• Week 6 – June 5, 2020
• Week 7 – June 12, 2020
• Week 8 – June 19, 2020
• Week 10 – July 3, 2020
• Week 11 – July 10, 2020
• Week 12 – July 17, 2020
• Week 13 – July 31, 2020