1990

What was it about 1990 that brought out three films that were sequels to excellent movies from the early 1970s?

I'm not crazy about Chinatown (1974) and I've never seen The Two Jakes. The first was directed by Roman Polanski and the second by Jack Nicolson. From what I've heard, The Two Jakes holds up pretty well, maybe not as good as Chinatown, but as a good movie on its own.

John Boorman made the first sequel to The Exorcist, The Exorcist II: The Heretic. The movie has its problems; I won't go into all of them, I'll just mention that dumb machine that lets people sync their thoughts and dreams together. Also, it's very dated. But it's a visually intetresting movie with a jarring soundtrack. If I smoked pot still I'd want to watch this high.

Whe I was younger I found William Peter Blatty's novel Legion on the front porch so I sat out there and read it on our old couch one summer. It was so creepy and fucked up, even Blatty's author photo on the back jacket scared me. He looks evil. Blatty directed The Exorcist III: Legion and it's even scarier than the book. Ask anyone who's seen it and they'll mention the nurse scene (I'm not gonna say anymore). You should rent this movie this month. Or do an Exorcist marathon one night. They're all worth seeing.

I've watched all three Godfather movies a bunch of times. Most people say that Part II (1974) is the best and I agree. But I don't agree with people who say that Part III sucks. I think it's very interesting and it came out great, especially considering that Copploa did it mostly for the money and there wasn't any real plan on what to do with the characters. If Pacino didn't feel like doing it they were just gonna kill off his charcter and do something else. Plus, Sophia Coppola was perfect for the role of Mary and she did an excellent job. Part III deserves a second chance. The only thing that bothers me (and it's bothered me ever since I saw the original trailers for the movie) is the special effects when the cardinal is falling down from the stairs. So fake.

When a movie is very good, like The Exorcist or The first two Godfathers, it's really tricky to come along years later and make a quality sequel, but in 1990 Blatty and Coppola succeeded.