FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE…
I have loved THE PHANTOM since it opened on June 7, 1996, so you may have seen me going on about it before, for example when I wrote about it in 2010. This year, when I settled on doing a summer of ’96 retrospective, I knew I wanted to skip a few major movies I’ve reviewed before. But I couldn’t skip THE PHANTOM. Not only is it in competition with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE for my favorite of the summer, and the one I’ve rewatched the most over the decades, but it’s a major piece of evidence in my thesis for this series: that some of ’96’s so-called failures still mean much more to me than its record-smashing mega-hits. Obviously normal people love INDEPENDENCE DAY and THE ROCK, and their directors are still continuing on the paths started by those movies. I can’t deny their importance to cinema history. But they were only ever important to me as movies I rejected, and they don’t even have that power anymore. But I’m still fascinated with some of the arcane treasures the general public left on the reject pile.
Billy Zane (DEMON KNIGHT) is The Phantom, and though he may always be more remembered for playing a rich asshole with short-sighted views on Picasso, I think this is his greatest achievement. He does perfect super hero poses and movements, he got buff for the role in the days when they usually used rubber muscles, he somehow conveys both a wholesomeness and a wry sense of humor. He shows you how to be in on the joke and still believe in the character. (read the rest of this shit…)
June 14, 1985
At various points in the movie Oliver’s performance will remind me of Haley Joel Osment’s in A.I., but it’s a very different approach to the story. Rather than a dark fairy tale journey through a fantastical future world, this is what happens to a character like that trying to pass for human in a normal ‘80s suburb.
August 23, 1991
a.k.a. SNAPSHOT
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles was an ABC TV show that ran from 1992-1993. I never saw an episode. I still haven’t, because the version that’s on video is called The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones and it’s re-edited. According to legend (as well as Wikipedia) the Chronicles were hour long episodes about Indiana Jones as a young man having adventures and/or chronicles in different exotic locations. The stories would jump around in time, so sometimes it would be Sean Patrick Flanery (
You know what movie gets a bad rap, or unfairly ignored? Well, you probly already guessed it’s gonna be the one I wrote the title of above and then there’s a picture of it to the left. Maybe this is not the best format for a guessing game of this type, now that I think about it. If that’s your answer then you are correct, THE PHANTOM from 1996 starring Billy Zane gets a bad rap or is unfairly ignored.
