A 1984 Voyage into the Unknown

 

1984 was supposed to be bad year for all of us if you believed George Orwell’s dystopian novel written in 1948. For me it was a memorable year and turning 16 was something I excited about. Being born in August means that the summer movie season is always an important time for me, but the Christmas movie season was also a big event and many of the films that opened around the holidays in 1984 still give me a thrill. Of all the films I saw at that time of year there were two that have special significance for me.

Living in Peterborough, Ontario at the time I was envious of the large capacity cinemas in Toronto. In 1984 a few of the old movie palaces were still in business and none was more spectacular the University Theatre on Bloor Street. The art deco theatre, built in 1949, was the largest cinema in Canada, with 1300 seats and a giant curved screen.

For me, going to the beautiful University was a more spiritual experience than going to church. The sheer size of the auditorium with its grand balcony made you feel in your bones the excitement of movie-going.

In May of 1980 I had stood in line for an hour at the University to see The Empire Strikes Back a day after it opened. The crowd was electric with excitement, for this was a sequel to the most popular film we had ever seen: Star Wars in 1977. The audience (including me) reacted ecstatically to the film.

In December of 1984 I decided to make a special trip to Toronto and the University Theatre to see another much-anticipated film, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, the sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Being of a younger generation I had never seen 2001 on the big screen, only on television where its state-of-the-art design and special effects were impressive but diminished by the reduced size of the image. 2010 boasted the cutting edge of model and camera effects available to filmmaker Peter Hyams during this era before CGI. I can remember holding my breath and gripping the armrest while anxious astronaut John Lithgow executed a very long and dangerous spacewalk between two spacecraft. I was stunned and a little frightened by the recreation of the vast airless expanse of space near Jupiter. This was the first film I had ever seen starring Helen Mirren, whose Russian heritage made her ideal casting as a Soviet cosmonaut. Leaving the cinema that afternoon I felt like I had experienced as close as I would ever come to space travel.

Later that same day I went uptown to the Hyland Cinema at Yonge and St. Clair, where I saw the controversial adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel Dune. The Hyland was not as grand as the University, but with 790 seats it was still bigger than any cinema we had in my hometown. Still buzzing from my previous voyage into space, I was completely unprepared for this mind-blowing film. From its strikingly original production design and costumes, to its eclectic international cast of actors, Dune was a unique product that resulted from Dino De Laurentiis, a very commercial producer, hiring an idiosyncratic artistic filmmaking talent, writer-director David Lynch. With no points of reference for its singular world-building story, anyone watching the film who hadn’t read the book felt like they had been dropped in the ocean and told they had to swim to shore without any aid. At first, I felt overwhelmed by the detailed sci-fi mythology and unpronounceable names of characters. However, I very quickly decided to just let the film wash over me, keeping track of who and what I thought important while enjoying the other-worldly atmosphere created by the filmmaker’s imagination. I appreciate what Denis Villeneuve did with his version of Dune in 2021, but having survived this challenging film in 1984 has meant that Lynch’s vision will be what I measure all others by.

After my trip to Toronto, I enjoyed many other films during the holidays of 1984 including City Heat, the only film starring Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds; Starman, director John Carpenter’s sentimental sci-fi romance film; Runaway starring Tom Selleck as a cop in the future fighting evil robots and high tech weaponry; Johnny Dangerously an hilarious gangster comedy starring Michael Keaton; and finally A Passage to India, the multiple Oscar nominated last film of David (Lawrence of Arabia) Lean. None had the impact or sense of an event that I had sitting in those two now long forgotten cinemas.

1984 was a pretty good year for Hollywood movies, but I will remember it for my trip to Toronto, when I took a cinematic journey to the far reaches of space and beyond.

The Golden Years of Koepp

 

In Hollywood, screenwriters are one of lowest jobs on the creative totem pole. Since the beginning, producers and directors have used multiple screenwriters on any given project, often without credit. One of the most well-known names from this profession is David Koepp. He has been a successful working screenwriter for over 30 years. Koepp wrote or co-wrote some of the most memorable films of the 1990s and 2000s including: Death Becomes Her, Jurassic Park, Carlito’s Way, Mission Impossible, Spider-Man, Panic Room and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the years 2025-26, Koepp has had his best years ever with five of his screenplays playing in cinemas. I loved them all, with my favourite being a project particularly close to his heart.

Koepp began his miracle year with the screenplay for Presence (2025), a haunting family drama directed by Steven Soderbergh. Soderbergh uses a clever observational camera style to communicate the point of view of a ghost or presence in an average suburban American house after a new family has just moved in. Less interested in jump scares and cheap shocks, Koepp has fashioned an emotional chamber piece that uses the supernatural to deepen the resonances as he comments on the modern alienation of parents and their grown children. Due to its ghostly first-person narrative, Presence was a hard sell to audiences. Happily, it ended up as a significant financial success, mostly due to its low budget. Pay close attention, this is a film that gets better with a second viewing.

Koepp immediately teamed with Soderbergh for an encore, now switching genres and countries with the British espionage drama Black Bag (2025). Spotlighting the starring duo of Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as a cool pair of married spies, Koepp keeps the audience guessing with this smart and stylish exercise in paranoia by asking the question: “Can you trust your spouse if neither of you can be honest about your jobs?”. Soderbergh and Koepp are clearly enjoying themselves with their colourful cast of characters, including the tongue-in-cheek casting of 007 Daniel Craig’s Miss Moneypenny Naomie Harris, and ex-Bond Pierce Brosnan as a sardonic spy master. This is John Le Carre territory updated for a savvy post millennial tech generation. Despite good publicity and solid praise from the critics, Black Bag failed to connect with a wide audience. Hopefully it will feel more at home within the variety provided by streaming programming.

For his summer blockbuster of 2025, Koepp returned to the franchise that made his name. Jurassic Park Rebirth (2025) is not so much a re-boot as it is a “requel”, continuing the original legacy storyline while featuring new characters that can take the series in a different direction. An improvement on the previous Chris Pratt Jurassic trilogy, Rebirth introduces Scarlett Johansson as a tough mercenary, and Jonathan Bailey as a paleontologist leading a specimen recovery team to one of the experimental genetics islands now completely populated by mutant dinosaurs. Although slightly burdened by the second longest running time in the series, this is a very entertaining late entry that benefits from Koepp’s extensive knowledge of the subject matter as well as his confident staging of the suspense scenes. If the franchise were to continue, it needed the kind of assured script that Koepp has delivered.

In 2019 David Koepp published his first novel Cold Storage, a sci-fi horror story that had started as an outline for a movie. Koepp has said he enjoyed the new medium of a longer narrative, taking advantage of the opportunity to deepen the backstories of his characters in a way that a shorter film script cannot. With its sterling pedigree and popular genre ingredients the novel was sold a film project almost immediately. Not surprisingly, Koepp was hired to adapt his own work, and he wasn’t afraid to alter the satirical tone of the book to a more comedic blend of gore and laughs. The resulting film of Cold Storage (2026) has to be one of the most affectionate recent homages to the horror comedies of the 1980s. Extra value is provided by two bona fide horror heroes: Joe Keery, one of the stars of the retro 80s Netflix series Stranger Things, and Brit scream queen Georgina Campbell, highly praised for her role in Barbarian (2022). Fresh from his hilarious turn in The Naked Gun (2025), Liam Neeson gives another facetious performance as a bioterror operative who suffers from chronic back pain at the most inconvenient times. Shot in 2023, this European production sat on the shelf for over a year before being dumped into cinemas in February 2026 where it received little advance publicity. Sadly, despite strong reviews, cinema goers only had a week to see it before it disappeared. Hopefully this labour of love will its audience on streaming.

Koepp soon had another project opening in the summer blockbuster season of 2026. One that came with high expectations as he re-united with his War of the Worlds (2005) director Steven Spielberg for another alien invasion epic tantalizingly entitled Disclosure Day. Thankfully this was a welcome return to the era when Spielberg was the most popular and talented filmmaker working in Hollywood. Koepp and Spielberg acknowledge that Disclosure Day is meant to be the third part of an alien encounter trilogy beginning with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and followed by E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). The story idea was developed by Spielberg and Koepp after researching the many recent alien spacecraft sightings that have re-ignited interest in the subject. Ever the showman, Spielberg can’t resist giving the audience the rollercoaster ride that it craves. With an infallible instinct where to put the camera, he effortlessly whips up a pleasing blend of suspense, emotional drama and action thrills. It is a solid piece of entertainment, although far from completely original. For example, keen cinephiles might nit pick his inspirations, including a villain obviously influenced by his friend and fellow film director Brian De Palma’s 1978 sci-fi/thriller The Fury. It is Spielberg’s most satisfying piece of genre filmmaking in nearly 20 years and it is all thanks to David Koepp – the screenwriter with the golden touch.

The Raiders of Steven Spielberg: Part Three

 

                                          

                                  The Phantom (1996) Dir. Simon Wincer

“For those who came in late…” reads the text on screen during the opening narration that relates the secret mythology of The Phantom (1996). Created by Lee Falk for the newspaper comic strips in 1936, The Phantom a.k.a. The Ghost Who Walks, is a purple clad hero who is the latest in a long line of men raised to fight crime from his jungle base in the fictional African country of Bangalla. Created after The Shadow and before Batman, the Phantom was the bridge between the early reality-based pulp heroes and the fantasy comic book heroes which were to dominate fandom in the ensuing decades. Directed with a breezy panache by Australian Simon Wincer (Free Willy) and starring a hunky tongue-in-cheek Billy Zane (Titanic), this Indiana Jones homage delivers all the required action-adventure elements including a spunky heroine, exotic locales, death defying stunts, the search for magical artifacts, and a show stopping femme fatale that introduced Catherine Zeta Jones to the big screen. Slightly let down by some lumpy plotting and a forgettable film score, this was the last major attempt to poach on Spielberg and Lucas’ ground before they came back with another sequel themselves. This year we will see Harrison Ford retire his hat and whip under the direction of James Mangold (Logan) with a finale that I hope lives up to the earlier films and their imitators.

The Raiders of Steven Spielberg: Part Two

 

                                       The Shadow (1994) Dir. Russell Mulcahy

 From the pages of the old pulp magazines of the 1930s came 1994's The Shadow, one of the most original and mysterious fantasy characters ever brought to the silver screen. A reformed criminal who is redeemed and taught the secrets of the mind by a Tibetan holy man, the Shadow is a one-of-a kind anti-hero who manipulates and terrorizes both villains and friends alike to serve his own ends as well as the scales of justice. Who better to embody such a handsome and egotistical hero than Alec Baldwin at the height of his Hollywood fame. Transformed by facial makeup partially hidden under a wide-brimmed slouch hat and brandishing nickel-plates .45s under his dark cloak, Baldwin with his sonorous deep voice personifies the duality of this deadly hero of the dark. John Lone (The Last Emperor) makes for a deliciously evil antagonist while amusing supporting performances are provided by Jonathan Winters and Tim Curry. Composer Jerry Goldsmith provides a suitably menacing musical accompaniment to the sumptuous art deco production design. Although Australian director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander) was a good choice to visualize such an effects driven project, he fails to bring the film’s contrived romance to life due to the miscasting of a stiff but sensational looking Penelope Ann Miller. Screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) went onto much bigger success with Mission Impossible (1996) and even wrote the unfairly despised penultimate sequel Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). The idea to go back to the original pulp origins of The Shadow seemed sure fire at the time but audiences were just not ready for the off-beat humour Koepp brings to this fantastical tale of vengeance.

The Raiders of Steven Spielberg: Part One

 

The Rocketeer (1991) Dir. Joe Johnston

Is there a more seminal film for the Eighties generation than Raiders of the Lost Ark? Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas captured lightning in a bottle with this homage to the cliffhanger serials of their youth. They continued to mine this profitable vein for three subsequent sequels with mixed results. After the third and what was presumed the last Indiana Jones film Indiana Jones and Last Crusade (1989), Hollywood tried to find new stories with pulp characters who could substitute for Harrison Ford’s indelible hero with a hat. None enjoyed the success of their inspiration but each are entertaining in their own way. 

1991 saw the film The Rocketeer, featuring Dave Steven’s 1980s comic book hero who fought the Nazis with his golden helmet and jetpack. Directed by Joe Johnston (Jumanji, Captain America) this 1930s era adventure captured much of the jokey fun and rip-roaring excitement of the Indy trilogy but sadly failed to achieve classic status due to a lackluster advertising campaign that needed a star as leading man to sell its outlandish premise to a skeptical audience. Handsome Bill Campbell brings all the necessary charm and energy to the role of the young pilot who becomes The Rocketeer while sharing romantic on-screen chemistry with his girlfriend played by a sparkling Jennifer Connelly. Former James Bond Timothy Dalton clearly relishes his role as the swashbuckling Nazi villain who comes complete with a hulking henchman sporting a Rick Baker facial makeup inspired by 40s horror legend Rondo Hatton. Lavish costume and set design, together with charming pre-CGI special effects are all propelled by James Horner’s majestic score making this feel-good franchise seem like it couldn’t miss. Shockingly it failed at the box office and despite various new adaptations long promised by Disney, over 30 years later Rocketeer fans are still cheering for this unique hero to return to the skies.

THE GUISES OF GUINNESS: Part Two

 

                                    H.M.S. DEFIANT a.k.a. DAMN THE DEFIANT!

                                                             (1962: Dir. Lewis Gilbert)                                      

After his Oscar winning role in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Alec Guinness had finally become an international star without leaving Great Britain. The 1960s would be the decade where he capitalized on this success in big budget historical epics that would be some of the most popular films of his career. Just months before the release of his triumphant collaboration with Lean  in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Guinness would make his most unfairly overlooked costume picture. H.M.S. Defiant or Damn The Defiant! (in North America) was made during the 15 month shoot of Lawrence when Guinness had a two month hiatus. Set during the Napoleonic wars, his role as the humane Captain Crawford is a rare example of Guinness not relying upon heavy make-up or eccentricities to create a character. Guinness's own naval experience during WWII helped him to portray a totally believable and stalwart leader of his crew whose authority is challenged by sadistic first lieutenant Mr Scott-Padgett, played with effete self loathing by Dirk Bogarde. Their clash and the resultant effect this has upon Crawford's own son who is serving as midshipman under him is the stuff of great melodrama. Director Lewis Gilbert (Alfie, You Only Live Twice) is that unique British breed of craftsman at home with both intimate drama and comedy as well as spectacular action. Here he demonstrates his talents by balancing the on-board tensions amongst the crew with rousing battle scenes of ships at sea,. Featuring breathtaking miniatures courtesy of special effects magician Howard Lyedecker (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV Series), these startlingly beautiful tableaux of naval warfare, as photographed in Cinemascope by Christopher Challis (Battle of the River Plate, Sink the Bismark), are like watching a painting by Turner come to life on screen. So successful are these sequences that a later film Bequest to the Nation aka The Nelson Affair (1973) recycled them in place of an inferior re-staging. Following this unpretentious endeavour, Guinness would have both his biggest failure of the decade in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and his biggest success to date in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago (1966), ironically in roles whose quality are inversely proportional to their fame. The 1970s would see his triumphs in a variety of different genres but the great film performances would continue to be in the box office disappointments rather than the blockbusters. (Blu-ray) 

 

THE GUISES OF GUINNESS: Part One

 

         Father Brown a.k.a The Detective (1954: Dir. Robert Hamer)

Alec Guinness came to hate Star Wars (1977). Although his profit participation had provided him with financial security for the rest of his life, the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi seemed to obliterate his previous acting achievements in the eyes of younger viewers. Prior to working with George Lucas, director David Lean was the filmmaker most associated with Guinness but there was another writer-director with whom Guinness had enjoyed a successful partnership. In the post WWII British film industry of the 1940s, Robert Hamer was one of the bright young filmmakers to emerge from the editing room as a directing talent to be watched. Having garnered critical acclaim for a pair of crime melodramas Pink String and Sealing Wax (1946) and It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), Hamer co-wrote and directed Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) an icy black comedy about a ruthless aristocrat (Dennis Price) who murders his way into an inheritance. Guinness plays nine roles - both male and female - as each member of the wealthy D'Ascoyne family is done way with in witty fashion. This tour de force of characterization together with his unrecognizable performance as Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), helped cement Guinness in the public mind as a master of disguise. Hamer and Guinness re-united in 1954 for their greatest collaboration Father Brown, boringly re-titled The Detective for American release. Co-produced by Columbia Pictures, it is an amusing though deceptively spiritual adaptation of the first in the beloved G.K. Chesterton stories of a wily clerical investigator. Once again effecting a bold physical transformation, Guinness cheerfully embodies the heavy paunch and myopia of Father Brown while communicating his unique blend of detective skills combined with a congenial yet unshakeable moral authority. His French nemesis Flambeau is portrayed by the underrated Peter Finch, in a suave performance of criminal cunning that is both elegant and tragic in its palpable loneliness. Finch was not yet the star he would become by decade's end and here he proves every bit the equal of Guinness when sharing the screen. Father Brown enjoyed a fitful success and led to an immediate follow-up project for Hamer and Guinness, To Paris With Love (1955). Although his role as a Scottish Colonel gave Guinness the requisite opportunities for eccentric impersonation, this romantic comedy is unfortunately a light souffle of an entertainment that never adequately rises. Hamer's final film with Guinness proved more worthy. The Scapegoat (1959) is a moody filming of Daphne Du Maurier's novel of mistaken identity. Surprisingly, for a film about assuming the identity of another man, Guinness is at his most subtle and least mannered in both his physical and emotional personification. The film's lack of success is often blamed on its troubled production. Hamer, a tormented homosexual, struggled with chronic alcoholism and as a result he was often left unable to work. This caused particular conflict with Guinness, who as co-producer with Du Maurier had insisted on hiring Hamer for the job of director. In addition, Hamer came into conflict with financiers MGM who altered his director's cut by re-editing and re-scoring the film despite his protestations. Sadly, Hamer would make only one more film School for Scoundrels (1960) before dying at the young age of 52. Guinness however would continue to expand his impressive collection of masquerades. (DVD Region 2)