zwolanerd

Sometimes people make fun of me for the things I like by saying “it’s not popular like ____________!” and I think that’s the dumbest possible argument I’ve ever heard about anything. You would expect to see more Ford Escorts on the road than Cadillacs. I’ve ridden in both and, hey, the Cadillac is a much better car – at least for the reasons I’d want a car. Your specifications may vary, so your conclusion might differ.

So when I compare my top ten list from 1987 to the top-grossing list from the same year and see that there are only two movies that show up on both lists, I’m not too worried about it. If you’d rather watch Fatal Attraction than Predator that just tells me your checklist is different than mine. My checklist just ranks invisible nearly-unstoppable alien hunters over women that boil rabbits.

10. Roxanne – The scene where Steve Martin’s character has to come up with 20 better insults for himself is the highlight of this movie, hands down.

9. Full Metal Jacket – I dated a girl for a while in high school whose dad was a Vietnam Vet. He said Platoon was the better picture of what it was like but this one was also hard for him to watch.

8. The Running Man – This movie is ridiculous and I’m not going to make excuses for it, but I’m also not going to remove it from its position on this list.

7. The Untouchables – Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert DeNiro, and a great supporting cast in a movie that isn’t necessarily historically accurate, but does have that “baby buggy down the stairs during a shoot-out” scene, so that wins most things.

6. Raising Arizona – Man, the Coen Brothers.  I don’t necessarily “get” everything they do, but I mostly like it. This movie has some weird, weird stuff in it (that biker guy!) that I don’t remember until I watch it again, but Nicolas Cage and (particularly) Holly Hunter are so good in this.

5. RoboCop – “Dead or alive, you’re coming with me!” Mega violent, sure, but also a think piece on crime, punishment, and what the measure of a man is.

4. Predator – “If it bleeds we can kill it” might just be the best summation every Arnold movie ever without meaning to be. I can’t be the only person who wanted Arnold and the Predator to team up in some sort of all-out warfare/buddy cop movie, right?

3. Lethal Weapon – There’s a reason Mel Gibson was a huge star for a long time, and this is a big part of it.

2. Planes, Trains and Automobiles – I saw both this and The Running Man for the first time on the same night, and I do not think it hyperbole to refer to that night as “formative.”

1. The Princess Bride – I, like many, balked at the title of this one before I saw it. Then, like many, realized its greatness. It might be the perfect movie.

By my count that’s four comedies, four action movies, and two dramas (that also happen to heavily feature guns). Three of the action movies also qualify as sci-fi, so this list fits my overall perception of my tastes as a whole. And, yes, you’d think that you could extrapolate the list out to assume I’d like Spaceballs, which was also released this year (and, actually, on this particular day that year). You would be right, too, at a certain point in time. My appreciation of that movie has waned over time, but I did enjoy it back in the day.

Tags: Tuesday10, Yearly

Written by: Mark