I thought that the Men In Black movies were substitutes for the Ghostbusters films in the 90s since that whole phenomenon had run its course by that time and I thought that The Mummy was just a substitute for IJ, but I thought that any chance it had at a legacy was destroyed by its sequels (the most well-remembered thing in any of those movies is the terrible scorpion monster with The Rock’s face badly CGI’d onto it, and that’s because people think it’s the worst special effect of all time) so I would be stunned people would go to theaters to see a rerelease of it, unless Brendan Fraser winning that Oscar has sparked some sort of reinterest in his old films. Of course, there’s also the Tom Cruise movie that everyone hated.

I liked The Mummy as a kid, but I liked lots of junk as a kid and probably wouldn’t be able to make it through the whole film today, sort of like Twister or Independence Day, summer films that were really about showcasing new CGI/special effects junk. Or, for that matter, The Phantom Menace, which has so much cultural baggage to it I wouldn’t be able to watch it without reviewing the response to the movie and the legacy of the movie more than the actual movie, but which I confess to liking very much when it came out.

The Goonies survives exclusively because of 80s kid nostalgia. I had a chance to see it on a big screen at the student union with some friends when I was in college, probably around 2002, maybe?…and by the time it was over we were all pretty embarrassed, even though it must have cost $1 to get in. Some of the dialogue and acting is REALLY cringe-inducing today.

Back To The Future is, at this point, probably the most fondly remembered film of the entire 1980s. It’s the one with the most nostalgia devoted to it, beating out the John Hughes stuff and the James Cameron action movies. Maybe not Raiders Of The Lost Ark though.