My Review of "The Movies That Made Us: Season 1"

The Movies That Made Us, is a TV series that talk about some iconic 80's movies. They explain how they were made and some of the obstacles that they had to overcome to get made. I wasn't sure if I was going to get into this series but I was quickly enamored by each episode and I quickly binged it.

Being able to binge this TV series isn't actually that tough. There are only 4 episodes and each episode is up to 50 minutes long. Technically you can just watch the episodes you're interested in because each episode is focused on a particular movie.

The first movie is about the movie Dirty Dancing. I've never seen Dirty Dancing but I understand some of the popular references that come from the movie. It was interesting to see some of the barriers that the makers of this movie had to go through to get it done. The ingenuity of the filmmakers had me interested from start to finish.

The second movie was Home Alone. I'm sure pretty much everyone has watched Home Alone at least once. It's pretty much become a quintessential Christmas movie. I had no idea all of the issues they had to go through to get this movie made. After watching this episode I started to realize this would be a common theme to the episodes. It makes sense too because pioneering a genre is always difficult to do. I keep forgetting that they only made copycats and sequels of the movie because the first movie made so much money.

The third movie that was talked about was Ghostbusters. This was a classic that I'm truly attached to. I was intrigued with the information they gave me from start to finish. This is one episode that I may re-watch only because I'm a fan of the original Ghostbusters movie. Then again I've already watched it and I don't know how much more info I'll get out of it from watching it again.

Lastly, they talked about the movie Die Hard. Another classic that some consider a must see Christmas movie. The budget on this movie wasn't really talked about. It was interesting to hear about all the naysayers of the movie and of the actors that worked on the movie. No one can predict whether somethings going to be a big hit or not I guess.

Some common things to watch for in these episodes are the actors and directors they got to interview. Their takes on the movie was pretty interesting. They of course couldn't get interviews with the big stars of the movie but the interviews with the filmmakers was good enough.

I also liked that they were able to show the locations of the movie sets today. We can see how the places have changed and how some of the places have become shrines to the movies that were made there.

The edits for these episodes were pretty funny too. They'll repeat certain quips or anecdotes that certain actors or key players made throughout each episode. You'd think that this would be annoying after a while but they do it in a way that really makes it funny. The narrator, Donald Ian Black, was able to make light of all the situations and make it a fun enjoyable ride. He is a very animated narrator and keeps us engaged with what's going on.

Overall, I had a really good time watching the 4 episodes but hate the fact that they only did 4 episodes. It should have been more but then again they would have needed a bigger budget to allow for more episodes. I'm really looking forward to the next season. I'll have to give this TV series an 8 out of 10 because it was really entertaining from start to finish.