Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Premise: A woman (Kathleen Turner) in the midst of divorcing her high school sweetheart (Nicolas Cage), reluctantly attends her 25-year reunion. During this event, she loses consciousness, and wakes up back in 1960, her adult consciousness inhabiting her teenaged self.

It's nice! Super sentimental, but it possesses more self-awareness than most nostalgia bait, which helps keep things from getting too saccharine. Turner's performance as Peggy is a big reason the film is as successful as it is at managing the tone. She quickly comes to term with her apparent time-travel (rationalizing it as a dream, or maybe a hallucination she is experiencing in the moment before death) and largely seems game to enjoy herself. Unlike Back to the Future, which this is obviously of a piece with, there is no apparent ticking clock or "disappearing from the timeline"-type stakes. Given this, Peggy amiably dons her cheerleading gear and reintegrates into her senior year barely missing a beat. However, Turner never lets the audience forget that, despite everything, she is playing an adult Peggy, who is playing her teenage self. Occasionally, this is expressed in a big way, such as when she crumples in on herself upon hearing her long-dead grandmother's voice on the phone. However, I was most impressed in the little ways that the mask slips, such as when the corners of her lips quirk up in wry bemusement (or exasperation) at the earnestly expressed grandiose plans of her peers. It was like watching footage of someone re-reading their diary, fond nostalgia jockeying for position with acerbic hindsight and embarrassment. A phenomenal, deeply affecting performance, and I'm not surprised she got an Oscar nod for it.

The cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth, also nominated, further enhances the elegiac tone. The reunion is shot through a thick haze, blanketing everything in frame with a gauzy softness that belies the coming magical turn, while also evoking the kind of liminal social space which events like school reunions occupy. Admittedly, I could have just been primed to look for parallels by recognizing his name in the credits, but I thought there were striking similarities between how Cronenweth shot Peggy’s reunion with how he photographed the “retirement” of Zhora in Blade Runner. A little less slow-motion and squibs, to be sure, but the same dreamy quality, the same periodic washes of technicolor peppered with glittering motes of refracted light. Of course, in Peggy’s case, this kaleidoscope comes from rather more mundane sources than Blade Runner’s cyberpunk cityscape, generated by the same rental smoke machines, gel lights, and silver streamers which get trotted out for school events to this day.

Specious though this connection may be (even to me), I find there’s a little bit of thematic resonance between the two scenes. Zhora is a woman pursued by a man with ill intent, whose “crime” was wanting more life. She is shot in the back as she runs down a long hallway, boxed in on all sides, ultimately collapsing with her dreams unrealized. Peggy entering the reunion, then, is Zhora entering that hallway. Despite her best efforts she can’t shake the man chasing her, at first metaphorically (in conversation and gossip), and then literally when Charlie unexpectedly turns up. Finally, she is overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotional and physical stimuli during her coronation as Reunion Queen. She collapses to the floor with a psychedelic kaleidoscope of color playing across her face, mirroring Zhora’s death. Thankfully for Peggy, this ain’t that kind of movie, and she’s afforded the opportunity to address her desire for “more” life. Not “more” in the Blade Runner sense (a quantifiable period), rather, “more” as a qualitative measure: getting more from the life she’s already lived.

That’s more than enough galaxy-brain-film-nerd talk though. Even without the Turner performance and solid craft on display, the movie’s cast is enough to recommend it as a curio if nothing else, with early turns from Sofia Coppola (in a nothing part, admittedly), Nicolas Cage, Jim Carrey, and Kevin J O'Connor.

REWATCHES

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), dir. Peter Weir. Premise: Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany have adventures in the British Navy, chasing down one of Napoleon's privateers along the coast of South America.

Fantastic. I can't imagine there being a better adaptation of Napolonic-era naval life. Stuffed to the gills with nautical details, but it never becomes pedantic (the way I imagine reading the novels might, happy landlubber that I am). Its perhaps a touch episodic, but I think that's of a piece with the movie's emphasis on authentically depicting naval life. There's not a single character or filmmaking choice which feels at odds with that goal. Crowe is magnificent, Bettany as well. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely should, even if historical epics aren't typically your thing. Ideally on a Sunday afternoon with your dad.

Universal Soldier (1992), dir. Roland Emmerich. Premise: JCVD and Dolph Lundgren are reanimated soldiers programmed to be perfect killing machines. Unfortunately, when a journalist (Ally Walker) uncovers their existence, some wires get crossed and JCVD decides he must protect her for long enough to earn the right to return home, while Lundgren leads the team of Franken-soldiers to put them both down.

JCVD's alleged status as a crook bloke notwithstanding, this is a solid little early-90s action programmer. Feels very of its time, and I mean that in a good way. Has just enough 80s in its DNA to feel dangerous and exciting, while allowing for the fact that the 90s had arrived, and things were different now. For instance, there is gratuitous nudity in the movie, but it's hero who strips down for the camera, not the damsel (and, whatever your personal persuasion, JCVD's butt in 1992 is worth seeing).

It's not high art (the movie, that is; I could and might argue dat ass is in fact art), but things move along at a decent clip, Lundgren seems to be having a ball chewing up the scenery, and JCVD surprised me with how good his comedic instincts were, even this early in his career. Like, I don't think people acknowledged how self-aware he clearly was until the JCVD movie came out in 2008 and he spelled it out for everybody. Even just no-selling "What accent?" when Walker is trying to find out who he is and where he's from got a chuckle out of me, and I couldn't help but laugh at his facial expressions while he's housing plate after plate of diner food, ignorant of the mounting bill.