Popular Nostalgia

You are browsing the archives ofFilms Archives - Popular Nostalgia.

Remember those school disco mid 90s days when we would spin around unrhytmically to this track while squeezing our partners bum before heading home at 10pm full of the joys of spring? We all do, don’t worry. This track, which Bryan Adams held at the top of world charts for around 100 years before, during […]

Mona Lisa the film was nominated for an Oscar and Bob Hoskins performance won many other awards. It tells the tale of a man released from prison who is given a job as a driver for an up-market prostitute. It’s very London – though, the seedy side thereof. The film is well shot and shows […]

Trainspotting was incredibly famous for being really disgusting and nearly getting banned. You get to see Ewan McGregor’s tackle and a baby’s head spinning round like on the exorcist. It was like gold dust to young teens at the time – the most horrifying film available. My friend managed to one-up us all by reading […]

I watched “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” for the first time last night. Everything about it is so Eighties – the discontentment with the rat race, the power-suiting secretary, the smoking indoors and the Range Rover in the middle of London. Richard E. Grant plays the madman very well indeed and that boil is […]

Several hundred thousand boys have spent several hundred thousand hours rewinding this scene to check whether you actually see anything. Stupid, really, considering they could just go out and get a girlfriend, but this scandalous moment made Basic Instinct and Sharon Stone’s career (and confirmed my suspicion that Michael Douglas is creepy). Stone plays a […]

The pythons were: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin and they broadcast on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their madcap approach to comedy broke all the boundaries and they were as controversial as they were successful. If I could, I would play every Python episode and film […]

The first James Bond film to hit the screens, Doctor No changed the course of movie-making for the rest of the century. Unutterably cool, calm and collected, the gentleman killer-spy was to cultivate a generation of admirers. Here is the first use of those famous words: “Bond. James Bond”.

Enter the Dragon was almost as life-changing for 70’s kids as James Bond. Dangerous, exotic and full of epic fight scenes, Bruce Lee’s films marked a new era for the West -martial arts had arrived. Everyone wanted to learn Kung-Fu or Karate. Kids all over Europe and America sought the secrets and mastery of Chinese […]

Remember the fighting skeletons? The Hydra guarding the Golden Fleece? The Crashing Rocks that threaten to smash Jason’s boat to pieces and the giant sea monster that holds them apart? Christmas repeat classic -Jason and the Argonauts was always on. Despite the fact it was made in the 60’s and has wierd, shaky, stop-motion special […]

I remember watching the Sinbad films on a weekend. I always thought the creatures were really funny because they didn’t move properly and the special effects were always shaky, when in fact they were ground breaking in their time -created by the same man who did special effects for Jason and the Argonauts. The Sinbad […]

Clueless typifies teenage girls in the 90’s. Well, how every girl wanted to be in the nineties anyway. For some reason, I always thought that Alicia Silverstone (who plays the main character Cher) was the same actress as Joan Hart (who plays Clarissa and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch). Compare these two images yourselves. Every young […]

How many times have you seen that glass-of-water-scene recreated since Jurassic Park came out in 1993? Responsible for the nightmares of a whole generation of ten-year-olds, this uber-blockbuster was a great excuse to show people getting eaten by dinosaurs. The most horrifying part was when the guy got eaten whilst on the toilet and the […]

Following the death of King George VI on 6 February 1952, Princess Elizabeth immediately became Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith. She was the first monarch in over 200 years to succeed to the throne whilst abroad. However, the desire for a sunny day and a big party to accompany the coronation […]

Romeo & Juliet – the first time I cried at a film -and one of the last. Deeply upsetting for 11 year old girls the world over. The good chest shots throughout this film made it even harder to part with the photogenic Leonardo Di Caprio. Good job that every girls’ magazine had printed a […]

“Jack, Jack,” Rose whispers as he slips into the depths of the Atlantic… …and the sound of a thousand little girls’ hearts breaking. Everyone wanted to be Kate Winslet in this epic movie until they saw the inevitable. In the same way as Sixth Sense, someone spoilt this film for me by telling me that […]