Monthly Archives: August 2018

TRON (1982) | Steven Lisberger

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Disney’s first big foray into the realm of computer animation would prove to be a box office disappoiuntmen in 1982, but garner a legion of fans over the years for its revolutionary design work and the influence it still continue to have in science fiction today.  Jeff Bridges stars as Kevin Flynn, video game programmer, who is ripped off of several ideas by an unscrupulous power hungry man named Ed Dillinger. Dillinger soon starts a meteoric rise to the top of a powerful global corporation, Encom, while the computer that runs it has become so powerful that it is a life-force unto itself, thinking and talking (not to mention plotting world domination). Flynn tries to hack into the computer to get evidence of Dillinger’s theft, when the Master Control Program sucks Flynn into its own cyber-world, dubbed “the grid”,  where programs in the voice and form of the programmers that created them are mere toys by which Master Control Program uses for its own enjoyment. Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan and David Warner also star in this film by Steven Lisberger.

Cloak & Dagger (1984) | Richard Franklin

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Henry Thomas plays Davey, a young San Antonio boy with a vivid imagination and a love o fantasy games.  The lines between fantasy and reality blur when he ends up in possession of a video game cartridge that is the conduit for top secret information wanted by some pretty bad hombres who will kill to get it.  With the help of his imaginary friend, the daring man of adventure named Jack Flack, Davey must find a way to survive before more people end up dead — including him!  Richard Franklin directs from a Tom Holland script.

WarGames (1983) | John Badham

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Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy star in this major hit from 1983, one of the first films to break through into the world of hacking and the burgeoning internet, WarGames.  Directed by John Badham, this tells the tale of a teenager who hacks into a database he thinks will allow him to play a not-yet-released video game only to discover he’s in a machine used by the military to launch nuclear missiles in a time of crisis. The computer has games of its own, one called “Global Thermonuclear War”, but the teenager soon discovers that the game may not be a game after all, and the fate of the world hangs in the balance, as the military brass must decide to counterattack what might be a simulation.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) | Sidney J. Furie

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Although he had claimed to be done putting on the red cape after SUPERMAN III, Reeve is lured back to make a fourth entry with a different studio from an idea he had written himself to bring back the series to respectability.  Alas, it didn’t quite work out that way in the end. Superman makes a decision to meddle in Earth’s affairs by getting rid of all of the nuclear missiles, but Lex Luthor has his own super-powered being to take the Man of Steel down before he interrupts the business of war that Lex relies upon for his riches. In addition to Reeve, Margot Kidder returns to a sizable role, and Gene Hackman returns to the series as Luthor.  Where did it all go so wrong when so much seems so right?  Vince takes a closer examination on this episode.

Supergirl (1984) | Jeannot Szwarc

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Just as Kal-El was sent by his parents to Earth from a dying planet in order to save him, so too did Alexander and Ilya Salkind try to save their dying franchise by trying to spin it off with a new character with Kara, Superman’s cousin, better known as Supergirl!  Things didn’t quite go according to plan, however.  Helen Slater is fetching in the title role, and Faye Dunaway suitably sinister, in the best of ways, as Selena, the sexy and scheming sorceress out to conquer the world. Is it fun? Is it dumb?  Is it dumb fun? Yes, yes, and yes!