Forgotbusters re-examines movies that were among the top 25 grossing films the year of their release, but have receded culturally, in order to explore what originally attracted audiences to them, and why they failed to endure.
by Nathan Rabin
A comeback brought Jane Fonda back to the big screen at the expense of her dignity and ideals.
The charming stuntman movie Hooper and suicide comedy The End cleaned up at the box-office at a time when the public simply could not get enough Burt Reynolds.
Hanks delivers an Academy Award-worthy performance in Turner & Hooch, which casts him as a neatnik cop paired with a slobbering dog.
The subject of an intense feud between Pixar and DreamWorks, 1998’s Antz exists in the shadow of the much better Pixar film released months later.
In Michael and Phenomenon, peak-comeback Travolta played a pair of superhumans in the service of sappy material.
In adapting Mark Millar and J.G. Jones’ comic-book miniseries, the 2008 film stripped away much of its central premise, and its central nastiness. But that didn’t hurt the movie.
This Christmas hit, starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, can barely hide its contempt for its audience.
Sam Peckinpah’s greatest financial success adapted a novelty song from the 1970s CB craze, but the film was a creative dead end.
As take-no-prisoners cop Marion “Cobra” Cobretti, Sylvester Stallone embodied a thirst for law and order at any price.
Robert Redford plays a billionaire who offers a million dollars for one night with a happily married, cash-poor woman played by Demi Moore. The premise sparked many conversations, all of them more interesting than the film itself.
A 1991 Top Gun parody directed by one third of the team behind Airplane!, Hot Shots! leans hard on easy references, just like the sorry work of parody’s modern heirs
Blake Edwards’ surprisingly perceptive, sad 10 briefly popularized Bo Derek (and cornrows on white women), but don’t hold that against it.
