35 years of Summer Blockbusters - May 5th

May 5, 2006 - Four years ago Mission Impossible: III opened to less box office, but better critical reviews than the previous sequel. The first film directed by J.J. Abrahms, the film had style and a big plus with Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain. Yet the script relied on the same traitor within plot device from the previous two movies, so it felt tired. The greatest thing about the original TV series was the ability to keep the stories fresh week after week. The writers for the Mission Impossible series can't do it with three films over 10 years. Tom Cruise had a big falling out with Paramount so a fourth film seemed to be in doubt. But they have kissed and made up and we may see the IMF team back at work for the summer of 2011. At The Movie House Rating **1/2 stars.

May 5, 2000 - Ten years ago Universal Pictures released "Gladiator" the first weekend in May. This film is the reason the official summer blockbuster season now begins on the first Wednesday or Friday in May. Prior to Gladiator the summer season had been beginning on the second weekend in may for the previous five years.

Gladiator brought new life into the old-fashioned sword and sandals epics and was a huge success. The film made $35 million at the box office in it's first weekend and held the #1 spot for two weeks.

Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe the film was met with mostly positive critical reviews and received five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor for Crowe. This was one of the rare times a summer film won the Best Picture award. The film was hugely popular overseas and on home video and both a prequel and sequel are in the planning stages. At The Movie House rating ***1/2 stars

May 5, 1978 - Thirty two years ago Burt Reynolds directed himself in the black comedy "The End". The film was well received and made $30 million at the box office, not a bad total in 1978. People forget that from 1972 to 1984 Burt Reynolds was one of the top stars in Hollywood and his pictures could always be counted on to bring out large audience and fill box office cash registers. I saw this film at the Sunrise Mall Cinemas 32 years ago. My memory is vague but I recall only finding parts of it funny. I always felt a little bit of Dom Deluise went a long way and he practicaly stole this picture from Burt Reynolds. At The Movie House rating **1/2 stars