THE KARATE KID (1984)

"Go find the balance."

When twenty-something year old teenager Daniel Larusso's (Ralph Macchio) mother upends his life by moving from New Jersey to Los Angeles for a job, Daniel bitches and complains, but makes the best of it by (literally on his second day in town) hanging out at the beach with the dude from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES and mackin' on Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue).  Shue's ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and his gang of karate buddies come rolling up on their motorcycles all pre-THE LOST BOYS style and bring the ruckus.  Daniel ends up getting kicked in his pretty face.  This violent behavior helps push Ali into Daniel's arms.  At the same time, Daniel befriends his apartment complex's handyman Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), who's a secret karate badass.  The tensions between Johnny and Daniel keep rising (another more brutal beat down, Daniel pushed down a hill, Daniel destroying Johnny's weed, etc.) until finally they agree to fight it out once and for all at a local karate championship in two months.  Unfortunately, Daniel doesn't know karate.  This is where Mr. Miyagi steps in.

THE KARATE KID is a great movie.  Yes, it's dated and anybody with mild intelligence can correctly predict the ending, but it doesn't matter because the journey is so much fun.  Multiple memorable characters that became 80's cultural icons, perfect pace, impressive photography (that long shot when they enter the championship was bad ass!), excellent acting, awesome music, wonderful onscreen chemistry between the entire cast, beautiful California locations, cool skeleton Halloween costumes, tons of memorable scenes and quotes, a masterful script that blurs the lines of good guy/bad guy and creates characters that are very human, a number of interesting actors as supporting characters, skeleton getting kicked in the nards, one of those rare endings that leaves the viewer equally satisfied and wanting more.

Highly recommended.  Anybody interested in 1980's American culture (or just wanting to see a good movie) should watch THE KARATE KID.  If you need me, I'll be out in the backyard painting the fence...both sides.

[Post-review side note: If you like THE KARATE KID, then you should watch "Cobra Kai".  It's an amazing show that is so much fun that it actually makes the original film better!  Check it out.]

Part 2 - The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
Part 3 - The Karate Kid Part III (1989)
Part 4 - The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Remake - The Karate Kid (2010)

WHEN TIME RAN OUT... (1980)

Note to self: never build a resort hotel next to a volcano.

Holden and Newman are back together again, baby!!!  Hell yeah.  This time, instead of fighting a towering inferno, they're fighting, well, actually they're just running like hell from a pissed off volcano.  And that's about it.  The End.

WHEN TIME RAN OUT... is alright.  I don't like the three dots at the end of the title, but the location photography in Hawaii is beautiful and the build-up stuff is fun.  William Holden is a rich dude and very busy, so when his hotel manager guy, James Franciscus, tells him everything is okay, he believes him.  So what if the volcano right next door to the hotel is smoking and lava's bubbling like it's a fucking witches cauldron.  That's nature, baby!

And the volcano ain't the only thing blowing it's load around here...Holden proposes to his secretary (Jacqueline Bisset), but she's secretly seeing local oil man (Paul Newman); Franciscus is cheating on his wife (Holden's goddaughter) with a hotel employee who happens to be engaged to another employee who is secretly Franciscus' illegitimate half-brother!!!  What the hell?  That's a lot to take in.  It's awesome and so pointless!  I love it.

Poor looking special effects, medium pace that actually gets slower as the film goes on, random tidal wave, Jacqueline Bisset in a low cut t-shirt, people crowding a helicopter like it's a zombie movie, zero nudity, a glass-bottomed elevator thing that actually lowers people down into the volcano(!!!), lava bombs, silly story.  Honestly, the best thing about WHEN TIME RAN OUT... is the cast.  The movie's not very good (it kinda feels like an old made-for-TV movie), but it's fun watching all of these big names running around.  (Red Buttons' speed walk is goddamn hilarious!)  I have no regrets about watching it and will most likely watch it again occasionally...at least the first two acts.  The third kinda stunk. 

Rumor has it WHEN TIME RAN OUT... had a budget of $20 million and brought in less than $4 million at the box office.  Ouch.

Post-review thoughts: I have absolutely nothing to back this up, but while watching the film, I kept thinking to myself that the character of Mona seemed like it would be perfect for Shelley Winters.  The actress even seemed to act a little bit like Shelley, at least to me.  It wasn't until later that I discovered the actress, Sheila Allen, was actually producer Irwin Allen's wife.