Happy Birthday to David Cronenberg’s 1986 adaptation of The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.
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“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
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One of the most disturbing movies ever made turns forty years old today
Aliens came out forty years ago today
One of the seminal motion pictures of the science-fiction and action genres hit theaters on this date in 1986.
And it still holds its own four full decades later. Aliens is going to prove to be as timeless as its predecessor. I love pretty much everything about this movie.
Bit of a side note: a week and a half before 9/11 I had dinner with Jenette Goldstein, the amazing actress who played Vasquez. She’s an absolutely delightful woman.
Happy anniversary Aliens. And no doubt we will be enjoying you just as much forty more years from now as we do today.
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Thirty years ago we celebrated our Independence Day!
It occurred to me that it was thirty years ago today that the science-fiction blockbuster Independence Day came out in theaters…
I saw this movie seven times that summer! The only other movies I saw during the summer of ’96 were Twister and A Time to Kill. And I can tell you exactly on which dates I saw Independence Day each time.
It was on July 4th that was the first time. I was working a summer job at a bindery and we had a few days off for the holiday. Ed, my best friend at Elon, and I caught the movie at the now-non-existent Janus Theaters in Greensboro, North Carolina. We loved it so much that we caught it again two days later. And then a little over a week later my friend Bennie from Belgium was visiting for a week, and we saw it together. Then a
... Chris and Tammy’s Great Adventure: Ten Years Later…
Today is June 12th, 2026.
It was ten years ago today, June 12th of 2016, that I packed up the bare essentials in my car (clothes, Bible, computer, my dog’s belongings, the iPad Pro, a Boy Scout pocketknife, and a black cast-iron skillet), and then my dachshund Tammy and I left Reidsville and set out into the unknown.
I didn’t know what our final destination was going to be. The entire enterprise was predicated on the notion that God was going to lead me along the way, to wherever it was that He needed us.
The only reason we went west at all is because Ed, my best friend since college, invited me to join him for a special screening of the original Ghostbusters in Asheville. Here we are, note that Ed is wearing his customized film-quality Ghostbusters uniform:
That’s how it began: the year-long adventure across America for
... What ever happened to May the 16th?
If it’s something significant that happened in my life, the tendency is that I’ll always be aware of its anniversary when it comes around. Sometimes they’re good anniversaries. But most of the time the bad ones overshadow the good.
If you have read my book Keeping the Tryst, then you are aware that there is a date that I spend some time on: May 16th, 1986. That is the day of the cruelest betrayal that has ever happened to me.
I was just over twelve years old, still a child but on the cusp of the unfolding of youth’s great transformation that leads ultimately to adulthood. What happened that day destroyed much of that experience for me. I will never know what I could have become had that innocence not been taken from me at just that moment in my life. Not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually also. ...
Happy 50th Showbiz Anniversary to “Weird Al” Yankovic!
It was fifty years ago tonight, on March 14th, 1976, that radio personality Doctor Demento played a song that had been submitted by one of his listeners. “Belvedere Cruisin'” was composed and performed by a sixteen-year-old young man with an accordion from Lynwood, California. His name was Alfred Yankovic.
Doctor Demento could not have known it then, but he was premiering the music of one of the greatest artists that has ever come in the history of pop culture.
Happy fiftieth anniversary to “Weird Al” Yankovic!
Here is the recording of that fateful evening:
There is another Weird Al anniversary this week. March 12th marked the thirtieth anniversary of the release of the album Bad Hair Day. For a number of reasons that is one of my favorite albums by Yankovic.
Here’s looking forward to many more years of Weird Al music!...
Happy fortieth anniversary to The Legend of Zelda!
Released on this date in 1986.
I played the heck out of The Legend of Zelda when I got my Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas 1988. It was so much fun exploring around, setting fire to every bush that was within reach. To say nothing of always keeping bombs on hand to blow up possible hidden entrances to shops (or to caves with old men who make you pay for destroying the front door).
Now I have the Zelda theme playing in my head and it won’t stop! I don’t have anything to play the original game with but I think in honor of the fortieth birthday of the start of the franchise I’ll play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on my Game Boy Advance.
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It’s the Fortieth Anniversary of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
The first issue of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns hit the stands on this date in 1986.
Four full decades later, it remains perhaps the most definitive tale of Batman’s persona as a human being. Watching an older Bruce Wayne turn his back on his age and embracing his heroic persona once more is nothing short of magnificent… and also engenders much reflection on the part of the reader.
I first read The Dark Knight Returns in June of 1989: the “Summer of Batman” when the Caped Crusader was seemingly everywhere. It was unlike any comic book I had yet experienced. It totally changed how I perceived Batman and his world and it forever raised my expectations on what graphic novels should deliver.
Frank Miller, thank you for bringing us this story. It will always be my favorite Batman story and no doubt it is for many other fans ...
Calvin and Hobbes ended thirty years ago today
On Sunday, December 31st 1995, the last Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published. For ten years readers had laughed and thrilled at the antics of Calvin and his wild imagination. It has gone on to be regarded as among the greatest comic series of all time.
Here is that last cartoon, which ran thirty years ago today. The very greatest finale of anything, ever…
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Ten years ago tonight, the Force awakened…
It was on this day ten years ago that Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released in theaters.
I caught the first show of it on opening night, at a theater in Raleigh, North Carolina. Chad, my best friend since childhood, and his wife and I saw it together. And it truly was a very special night. It was the first time in all our history together that Chad and I had seen a new Star Wars movie with each other in the theater. It was like God was winking at our shared childhood. Made all the more poignant because a few months later Chad and his wife became parents to a beautiful little girl.
Yes, I’m aware of the reputation that the Star Wars sequel trilogy has come to have. I would be a fool to not acknowledge that particular gundark in the room. I have shared ...