REEL RETRO CINEMA | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Dec23

If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Bison: 1994’s STREET FIGHTER

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 23, 2024

If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Bison: 1994’s STREET FIGHTER

REEL RETRO CINEMA: A 30th ANNIVERSARY appreciation for a movie that’s better than you remember… By ROB KELLY When I sat down in the movie theater on December 23, 1994 — 30 years ago — to watch Street Fighter, I had absolutely no expectations. Actually, that’s not strictly true—I knew I was seeing a Jean-Claude Van Damme film, and I had seen a few of his movies already and been generally unimpressed, so I wasn’t expecting anything more from one of his movies that was also based on a video game. But having never played the game, I had no particular affection for, or fealty to, the trappings and lore of the source material. So I wouldn’t be judging Street Fighter the way I would a comic book movie. Since it’s many years and even more movies later, I can’t recall my reaction to the film as it unspooled before me, other than it was a cheap-looking piece of junk, easily watched and even more easily forgotten. The friends I saw it with, big fans of the game, hated it. I went on with my life, and promptly never gave Street Fighter a second thought. (Fun Fact: After just one more trip to the movies, I went and saw Before Sunrise, which would go on to become my favorite film of all time, pretty much blotting out the memories of every mediocre or worse movie seen just before or after) Flash forward to September 2024, and I was going through the filmography of the late, great Raul Julia for that month’s episode of my podcast Fade Out. Not only was Julia’s premature death a tragedy, but also his final movie, after a lifetime of great work, was Street Fighter. The film fates can be so cruel sometimes. So I sat down, 30 years later, to rewatch Street Fighter. And you know what? I really liked it. Yes, it’s clearly a fairly cheap-looking production. Yes, it still stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, who (for me) is devoid of much charm or magnetism as a leading man. But something I hadn’t appreciated then that I did this time, was that Street Fighter is completely in on the joke. It knows how silly this all this, and it plays into that in ways I had completely forgotten about and genuinely made me laugh...

Dec09

Dig This INSIDE LOOK at the 1977 SPIDER-MAN TV Pilot

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 9, 2024

Dig This INSIDE LOOK at the 1977 SPIDER-MAN TV Pilot

REEL RETRO CINEMA: With the Marvel Legends action figure coming, let’s go back to the movie! — UPDATED 12/9/24: Hey, didja hear that Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line is coming out with a Nicholas Hammond Spider-Man action figure? Well, they are! Perfect time to reprint Rob Kelly’s REEL RETRO CINEMA column from our 2017 SPIDER-MAN WEEK! For the complete index of features, click here. — Dan — — By ROB KELLY For those who have never seen the original 1978-79 Spider-Man TV show (and that’s most of you, since it has never been released on Blu-ray, DVD or streaming), it was commissioned as a TV movie that would serve as a “backdoor pilot” to an ongoing series. The movie, which debuted in September 1977, was a ratings success, and after some post-pilot tinkering (cast changes, mostly) the series launched in April 1978. For some reason, instead of giving it a regular time slot, though, CBS used it as a heat-seeking missile, airing episodes in clumps to run against other networks’ hit shows, hopefully draining some of their audience away. In an age where you had to actually sit in front of your TV and watch a program lest you miss it forever, this was an insane, maddening strategy, and it couldn’t have done Spider-Man any favors. Anyway, Spider-Man tells the story you’re all familiar with, but with some major changes: Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) works as a photographer for the Daily Bugle, where he is on the receiving end of blustery abuse from publisher J. Jonah Jameson (David White). He is also a grad student, and one day while working on some experiments involving radiation, he sees an unwanted visitor. Peter gets bit, you know the rest. Except here, there is no Uncle Ben, so our hero’s decision to become Spider-Man is mostly done on a whim. Not too long after the spider bite, he notices he can climb walls, crawling all over the outside of the townhouse he shares with his Aunt May (Jeff–yes, Jeff–Donnell). After stopping a mugging by scaring the bejeezus out of the crook by scampering up an alleyway wall, he attracts the attention of random passersby — and then the Daily Bugle. Jameson wants pictures of this “Spider-Man” of course, so Peter goes home and makes himself a snazzy suit. For the most part, Hammond...

Home » REEL RETRO CINEMA