Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Movies That Made Us’ On Netflix, A Docuseries That Gives A Little More Info On ‘80s And ‘90s Blockbusters

If you listen to DVD audio tracks where the directors and stars of blockbuster movies talk about everything that went into making those movies, you probably know all of the information the series The Movies That Made Us will give. But, even the most ardent fans might find one or two tidbits from this series, produced by the people who brought us The Toys That Made Us. Read on for more…

THE MOVIES THAT MADE US: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Since each episode of this 4-part docuseries is so different, we’ll just mention the Eighties-tastic intro, complete with a closeup of the insides of a VCR and a correctly-labeled videocassette.

The Gist: Along the lines of The Toys That Made Us, Brian Volk-Weiss has extended his docuseries brand to discuss the stories behind blockbuster movies from the ’80s and ’90s. The first set of episodes of The Movies That Made Us take a deep dive into four biggies: Home Alone, Dirty Dancing, Die Hard and Ghostbusters.

Layered between the goofy soundtrack, and jokey-chipper narration from Donald Ian Black, we get information about the origins of each movie, some of the bumps and detours the projects took before any film was exposed, and the impact each hit had when it came out.

For instance, Dan Aykroyd originally wrote Ghostbusters from his interest in his great grandfather’s involvement in seances and other occult-adjacent activities. The “starting a business” angle was suggested to Aykroyd by Ivan Reitman, who directed the film. Aykroyd wrote roles for his SNL buddy John Belushi and shooting star Eddie Murphy; Murphy’s role ended up going to Bill Murray, who was as enigmatic back in the ’80s as he is now. The planning and shooting of the film came together in a scant ten months. Oh, and the entire time, Columbia Pictures couldn’t clear the name Ghostbusters because it was used by Filmation for a 1970s kids series starring Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker.

Die Hard, on the other hand, was based on a novel that was the sequel to The Detective. Because of this, Frank Sinatra had the first option to take the role of John McClane, almost 20 years after he starred in the movie version of The Detective. Of course, he turned it down, but Bruce Willis was certainly not the first choice of producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon and director John McTiernan. Writer Steven E. de Souza was busy punching up the humor in Jeb Stuart’s original screenplay, and his pace was literally just days ahead of the shoot. And we also found out why the late Alan Rickman had such a look of shock when Hans Gruber finally fell off the side of Nakatomi Plaza.

Our Take: Like its toy-related cousin show, The Movies That Made Us feels like a light, surfacey, latter-day VH1-style documentary that’s designed to make Gen Xers and older millennials nostalgic for the movies they watched as kids. But, because Volk-Weiss gets some pretty good interviews, insights into the making and history of the blockbusters come out that goes beyond the trivia you might see on the film’s IMDb or Wikipedia page.

For instance, the Die Hard episode is a fount of information, mainly because McTiernan, de Souza and Stuart were interviewed. Sure, there’s no Bruce Willis, but we hear from Bonnie Bedelia and Reginald VelJohnson, two key supporting players. So we find out just how skittish everyone was at having Willis as the lead, and why the “wiseass” manner that made him such a hit on the TV series Moonlighting wasn’t going to work on the big screen. We also found out that the film shot at the then-under-construction Fox Plaza, while Fox corporate employees were working on the active floors in between the roof and the lobby.

Getting Aykroyd and Reitman was a key to the Ghostbusters episode, as well. But the real key was talking to Richard Edlund, who left ILM at Reitman’s request to create Boss Films, who had to create the film’s complicated effects in such a compressed timeline. The fact that Boss also did the effects for Die Hard was a fun connection when watching the two episodes back to back (as was William Atherton, who played both films’ signature assholes, something he’s done in many films and TV shows).

Parting Shot: Generally we see someone from the cast or crew revisit a location used in the film. Reitman and Aykroyd revisit the New York Public Library. VelJohnson revisits Fox Plaza.

Sleeper Star: We loved VelJohnson’s story. He was close to quitting show business before he got the part as Sgt. Al Powell in Die Hard. From there, he got the role of Carl Winslow on Family Matters, which likely set him up for life.

Most Pilot-y Line: You may be OK with the hyper tone and jokes made about how things went during filming. We thought they were distractions. But the episodes gave so much context to the profiled films — some we already knew, but a lot we didn’t — that the gimmickry didn’t really detract from how much we enjoyed the show.

Our Call: STREAM IT. You may know everything about the movies profiled in The Movies That Made Us. But we bet you’ll come away from each episode with a few more tidbits you didn’t know before.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream The Movies That Made Us On Netflix