Cinema Maven

06/07/2026

Day 7 of 30 Days of Blockbusters is:

JURASSIC PARK (1993) Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by David Koepp and Michael Crichton, from Crichton’s novel, the film stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, BD Wong, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, and Richard Attenborough.

Paleontologist Alan Grant (Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Dern), and a chaos-theory mathematician Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park’s mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find themselves trapped on the island during a storm and find out the park isn’t safe at all, after various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.

Like E.T., this film is known for its magic and special effects, with a heaping side of humor. Unlike E.T., this one had the added advantage of its source material, Michael Crichton's best-seller. Crichton also co-wrote the screenplay. Knowing that his novel was too long for one movie, he chose which subplots, action scenes, and characters to cut. The screenplay was thus tighter, and, along with good editing, it was well-paced, all of which also contributed to its success. [Much of the cut stuff became part of the third movie.]

Among its records:
--It became the newest highest-grossing film of all time, stealing the record from another Spielberg film, E.T. It was the third and final Spielberg film to be part of this ten-film exclusive club. It held the record a mere four years.
--It set a new record for opening weekend, at $50.1, which was incredible then, though now that number is regularly passed by the biggest hits.
--It set a new record for reaching $100 million (nine days). Interestingly, while a few of its predecessors spent months atop the box office, Jurassic Park spent only three.
--The major reason it surpassed E.T. was thanks to its international box office, where it became the first Hollywood film to surpass $500 million overseas. It helped the movie realize close to a billion in 1993 dollars.
--Adjusted for inflation, it sits at well over $2 billion.

FUN FACT: In the video rental business, it was not uncommon for customers to mispronounce a title's name. One of my favorites was this movie, which got the occasional JURAFFIC PARK. It was easy to make jokes with that one.

06/07/2026

June 07
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06/06/2026

Day 6 of 30 Days of Blockbusters is:

E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL (1982) Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, the film stars Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Robert MacNaughton, Dee Wallace, C. Thomas Howell, and Peter Coyote.

After a gentle alien becomes stranded on Earth, the being is discovered and befriended by a young boy named Elliott. Bringing the extraterrestrial into his suburban California home, Elliott introduces E.T., as he dubs the alien, to his brother, Mike (MacNaughton), and little sister, Gertie (Barrymore), and the children decide to keep its existence secret, while working to get the alien home. But after E.T. becomes ill from being away from home too long, the government intervenes, and a dire situation develops for both Elliott and the alien.

This fantasy, told from the point of view of children, and often shot not much above the ground, lets the viewer see the world as they do. For this and many other reasons, including the sheer magic of the story and its fantastic special effects, E.T. became an instant hit. Here are some of the records it broke:

--It surpassed STAR WARS to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for eleven years
--It remained the top box office film for a record 16 weeks (Non-consecutive); that record still hasn’t been broken
--For eight weeks straight, it made over $10 million at the box office, a feat not matched until HOME ALONE, nine years later
--It held the highest-grossing second weekend for years
--Adjusted for inflation, its earnings are over a billion dollars
--In an era when the vast majority of films came out on VHS in six to twelve months after their theatrical release, Universal held off so it could do more rereleases. It was six years before E.T. came out on VHS, so popular did it remain in the cinema

06/06/2026

June 06
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06/05/2026

Day 5 of 30 Days of Blockbusters is:

STAR WARS (1977) Written and directed by George Lucas, the film stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, and (as the body and voice of Darth Vader), David Prowse and James Earl Jones.

The Imperial Forces, under orders from the powerful Darth Vader (Prowse, voiced by Jones), hold Princess Leia (Fisher) hostage in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker (Hamill) and Han Solo (Ford), captain of the Millennium Falcon, work together with the friendly droid R2-D2 (Baker) and C-3PO (Daniels) to rescue the beautiful princess, help the Rebel Alliance, and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy. As they do, former Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Guinness) begins teaching Luke the Jedi ways, and tells him that Vader killed his father, Anakin Skywalker.

Rarely has a movie caused so much furor over the future of film as this one. It was made on a low budget (though the studio famously reduced budgets on its other sci-fi projects to get this one completed). Its director, George Lucas, founded Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) specifically to make the special effects. [ILM would quickly become, and remains, the premier special effects company.] It was not only well-received by most critics (though a few, like Pauline Kael, were critical), but during awards season, Hollywood lavished the movie with award nominations, including the Oscars, from which it earned twelve nominations, including Best Picture. [It won eight Oscars, including a second one for John Williams, for another now-iconic score. The Visual Effects also got ILM its first Oscar.]

EVERYONE thought it would be a failure, not least Lucas. It wasn’t based on hugely successful prior source material, and other than Alec Guinness, whose role was small, there were no name actors in it. [Ford was still mostly unknown until this movie, and James Earl Jones was known mostly for his stage work, again, until this movie.]
The pundits were wrong. The film was a MASSIVE success. Among its achievements:

--It was the #1 film of 1977
--Its initial run in the theater lasted over six months
--It was the number one film at the box office for over 15 weeks, non-consecutive
--It was the number one film of the decade
--It broke JAWS’s record as the highest-grossing film ever. This new record would hold for five years.
--STAR WARS grossed over ¾ of a billion dollars in its initial run, some seven times what JAWS earned. The numbers were obscene for those days.
--When adjusted for inflation, STAR WARS remains the 2nd highest-grossing film ever, right behind GONE WITH THE WIND.
--It spawned a huge franchise that included two immediate sequels, a prequel trilogy, another sequel trilogy, and a variety of other films and television shows set in that universe.

ABOVE, I alluded to the furor surrounding the film. At the time, there was none. It was simply a film people either liked or didn’t, and people thought was good or wasn’t. But its massive box office changed everything. Studios began to see action-based movies as the sure-fire way to a blockbuster, and it became all about the money. To be fair, not even then did anyone realize just how true that would become. More serious art and smaller budget, quality films began to be squeezed out. Martin Scorsese, director of some of the greatest films ever made, has been famously critical (though he also recently appeared in a Star Wars movie). Spielberg, another director of multiple great films and the most successful ever at the box office (he has four on this list), famously decried sequels. It is easier to look back now and see how STAR WARS negatively impacted the industry as an art form.

FUN FACT: One can understand the negative and still like, even love, the film. More importantly, one can understand its huge influence and that, in its way, it's a great film.

STAR WARS was my choice for Alternate Best Picture in the Oscar Special Features this spring.

06/05/2026

This is a very bad year for Buffy actors...and fans. This is just devastating. Rest in peace, Tony.

Anthony Head, the British actor known for his roles in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and 'Ted Lasso,' has died. He was 72.

06/05/2026

June 05
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06/04/2026

Day 4 of 30 Days of Blockbusters is:

JAWS (1975) Directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley, based on Benchley’s novel, the film stars Roy Scheider, Ricard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, and Robert Shaw.

After a young woman is killed by a shark while swimming near the touristy New England Amity Island, police chief Martin Broday (Scheider) wants to close the beaches. Still, Mayor Larry Vaughn (Hamilton) and local business leaders overrule him, worried it will affect the town’s Fourth of July weekend’s financial success. Brody brings in shark expert Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss), who confirms that the shark is a great white and still in the ocean. A fisherman named Quint (Shaw) offers to help Brody capture the killer shark, and the three men embark on a hunting trip in an epic battle of man vs. nature.

A SECOND FILM from this list that can easily be considered a masterpiece, the more so because it was made before Spielberg was famous, and thus had a low budget to work with, this film earned a few Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, but noticeably not Best Director); it won for its iconic score, Editing, and Sound. [If you are curious about Visual Effects, the obvious award for action/horror, this film was not nominated in that category; the shark was not a good effect.]

A combination of factors contributed to the film's success:
--A highly anticipated adaptation of a best-selling novel
--Directed with deft hands by someone already mastering his art
--A great mixture of humor and a perfect build of suspense
--Powerful performances by its leads, who knew how to balance the humor and suspense
--That iconic John Williams score mentioned above
--The equally iconic poster
--The socio-economic-political times at the moment: it was the first summer after Nixon's resignation; the Vietnam War had ended just that spring; and the country was in a recession.
--When else are you going to release a summer film except in the summer, a time when filmgoing was one of the most popular summer pastimes.

YET *THIS* SUMMER film was released just two weeks before the Fourth of July. Not only were people already flooding to the beach (so to speak), but that pace would be picking up. Not after people saw this movie. Sociologists later called it the *Jaws effect,” and beach towns reported significantly lowered tourism and swimmers. For years, poll results suggested that the film made people afraid of the ocean. For decades (and probably still to this day), when one thinks of summer blockbusters, one thinks first of this film, because it is inherently tied to summer in a way other blockbusters aren’t.

REGARDLESS of the various reasons, the film went on to set several records:

--It was the biggest hit of 1975.
--It was the first film to cross $100 million at the US box office during an original run.
--JAWS became the highest-grossing film ever, surpassing the record broken just three years earlier with THE GODFATHER., though JAWS held the record less time than any of the films that had reached that pinnacle, a mere two years. [In fact, that two years is less than any film that reached the pinnacle afterwards.]
--Adjusted for inflation, the film remains the 7th highest-grossing film ever. Quite an accomplishment.

FUN FACT: JAWS spawned three sequels, one okay, and the other two notoriously bad. And they all exceeded their budgets in box-office returns. Despite that, not only were each of them more than double the original's budget, but all three COMBINED earned only HALF of what the original made. As Spielberg once said, sequels are a “cheap gimmick”. (He, himself, has made only a single sequel.)

ANOTHER FUN FACT: As a tween, I saw the film five times in the theater. It was my favorite film of the year. But that first time, during the scene when Dreyfuss dives at night on the sunken boat, it scared me so badly I ran to the nearest trash can and threw up. Nothing severe, but enough to remember it all these years later. This movie has unlimited rewatchability for me. Well played, Steven. Well played.

06/04/2026

June 04
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06/03/2026

Day 3 OF 30 Days of Blockbusters is:

THE GODFATHER (1972) Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and written by Coppola and Mario Puzo, from Puzo’s novel, the film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, John Cazale, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Richard Castellano, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, Al Lettieri, Gianni Russo, and Abe Vigoda.

Don Vito Corleone (Brando) is the head of a powerful crime family, wielding enormous influence over many different people in different areas, in part with the help of his chief advisor, Tom (Duvall). Vito expects his oldest son, Sonny (Caan), to lead the family when Vito is gone. He has two other sons: Fredo (Cazale), who isn’t qualified to lead, and Michael (Pacino), a college boy and war hero, whom Vito wants to keep out of the business. But after Vito is shot, and Michael is picked to get revenge, he joins the family and is drawn into the cycle of violence and betrayal, despite his intentions of legitimizing the family. His decisions also directly influence his relationship with his non-Italian wife, Kay (Keaton).

Winner of a few Oscars, including Best Actor (for Marlon Brando) and Best Picture, the film is one of the few on this list to be widely (and correctly) considered a masterpiece.

The MPAA post-Hays Code rating system went into effect near the end of 1968. THE GODFATHER was rated R, mostly for its violence, a rating that should have lowered its potential box office in those early years.

It had the opposite effect. The novel it was based on had been a New York Times bestseller, it had an all-star cast, and it very quickly gained a reputation for excellence. The film was the number one picture at the box office that year, the first R-rated film to achieve that.

But that isn’t even the weirdest part of its box office story. This famously violent film went on to break the record to become the highest-grossing film ever, stealing that title from the family film, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, only seven years after it, in turn, had taken the title from GONE WITH THE WIND. The Godfather’s legacy continues to this day, and it continues to make money on rereleases. But that title of highest-grossing was a title it held for only three years.