As someone who grew up in the 80s, I always have a nostalgic feeling about my childhood (like probably everyone has). The Netflix series The Toys That Made Us therefore was something I loved, because the subject was toys from that era. It is a fun series to watch because of it’s quick and often funny editing. When it was announced that The Movies That Made Us would be released, I was very curious if this concept could be translated to films. The first four episodes are about four extremely successful films: Dirty Dancing, Home Alone, Ghostbusters and Die Hard.
The formula used for The Toys That Made Us also works on a different subject. Various stakeholders were interviewed for each title and these conversations are interspersed with set of photos, images from the films and b-roll recordings. And the result is wonderful viewing material for every film fan.
What is striking about each of these films is how difficult the process was to get them made and how many problems you can encounter. Whether that is budget, special effects or even actors. The anecdotes that are told are interesting to hear. For example, Home Alone has for the most part shot in an abandoned school and the swimming pool was the place where the flooding scenes were filmed. The helicopter scene in Die Hard would originally be recorded in a few days, but Jan de Bont says that they only had half an hour in the end because the police wouldn’t allow more. And the effects in Ghostbusters were often the first (not yet perfect) take, simply because there was an enormous amount of time pressure to release the film on time. A series that you can enjoy binge watching and where you learn more about film history.
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I love the 80s too. Ghostbusters episode was entertaining with a few revelations. If you want something that goes a bit deeper there’s Hadley Freeman’s book Life Moves Pretty Fast: The lessons we learned from eighties movies
Hadn’t heard about this book before, but probably will be checking it out! Thanks 🙂