This week, Neil Calloway looks at what films are celebrating milestones this year…
With 2017 now underway, it’s time to stop looking at what happened in film in 2016, and start looking forward to the new year by looking back. Here are some film anniversaries you can look forward to.
2017 will mark the tenth anniversary of the release of such films as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Spider-Man 3, the three highest grossing films of 2007. That’s right, it was hardly a classic year at the cinema, though you can mark the decade since the release of Zodiac in March and There Will Be Blood in December, films worth certainly worth revisiting.
It’s also twenty years since 1997, which means we’ll probably get anniversary edition Blu-rays of Titanic and The Full Monty. Yes, it’s really been that long. You’re older than you think.
Looking at films that celebrate their 25th anniversary this year is quite fruitful, with Disney’s Aladdin sure to get a mention, and psychological thrillers that gained prominence in the early nineties such as Basic Instinct, Final Analysis, Consenting Adults and Single White Female all marking their quarter century. Perhaps we’ll see a revival of those kind of films (Single White Female has been slated to be adapted into a TV series). Will Smith made his film debut in 1992, appearing in the worthy but dull homeless drama Where The Day Takes You, and Quentin Tarantino began his directing career with Reservoir Dogs. The Bodyguard, the movie that spawned the highest grossing film soundtrack ever, was also released. Buffy the Vampire Slayer also hit the big screen, but it would have to wait until its TV adaptation before it got any recognition.
It’s been thirty years since the release of Three Men and a Baby, which would be ripe for an all female remake, but women bringing up kids is just life, and not exactly great territory for comedy. Predator also sees its thirtieth anniversary this year, and is always worth revisiting, if only for the rare opportunity to see two future US Governors in a film together. Sticking with Schwarzenegger and Ventura, The Running Man is thirty years old in 2017, and has the bonus of actually being set this year too. Any similarities between the dystopian United States that it portrays and actual events is entirely coincidental.
1977 – forty years ago now – saw the release of Saturday Night Fever, a film which held the record for the biggest selling soundtrack for years, as well as Close Encounters of The Third Kind, and debut films for David Lynch, Ron Howard and Ridley Scott; respectively Eraserhead, Grand Theft Auto and The Duellists. It also saw the release of some space film called Star Wars, an interesting little movie that hasn’t got the recognition it deserves. You might be able to track down a second hand copy if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Going even further back, 1967 was a pivotal year for cinema, one which saw the release of films that paved the way for the youth oriented cinema we have now – The Graduate (the year’s highest grosser) and Bonnie and Clyde among them. It also saw the release of the directorial debut of Martin Scorsese.
That’s the last fifty years, and enough to keep you busy for a while with anniversaries and excuses to foist some classics on your loved ones in the coming year.
Neil Calloway is a pub quiz extraordinaire and Top Gun obsessive. Check back here every Sunday for future instalments.
Originally published January 1, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
