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Trailers: Make My Day

Jan 03, 2020

A collage of images from the films Gremlins, The Terminator, The Killers, River's Edge, The King of Comedy, and First Blood, created for the Wexner Center for the Arts film series Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan, based on the book by film critic J. Hoberman

The popular cinema of the 1980s reflects a society torn between hyper-masculine aggression and apathetic cynicism, with a darkness stoked by fear of the Cold War, economic uncertainty, and the lingering trauma of Vietnam. The relationship between the world on screen and the cultural and geopolitical realities of the era are explored in the latest book by esteemed film critic J. Hoberman, Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan. 

On Thursday, January 16, the former Village Voice writer will join us for a reading and signing, followed by a three-day series of some of the films covered in the book. Below are vintage trailers for all of the feature films to screen, including The Terminator, Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (a film also relevant to today, thanks to Todd Phillips' Joker), and 1964's The Killers from Dirty Harry director Don Siegel. It features Reagan, in his final film role, as a ruthless villain.

Here's complete info on the reading and screenings.

 

River's Edge

 

The Killers

 

Gremlins

"Make My Day is not a work of film criticism. Nor is it strictly speaking a history. I see it rather as a chronicle in which political events and Hollywood movies are folded into each other to illuminate what, writing in 1960, Norman Mailer termed America’s ‘dream life.’"
J. Hoberman

The Terminator

 

First Blood

 

The King of Comedy