RIP Richard Donner

Grand Parade, Cork, 1994. The O'Meara's are on holidays. the kind of holiday that dickheads call a staycation nowadays. The Savoy (?) cinema is showing the big film of the moment, Four Weddings And A Funeral. My choice of Beverly Hills Cop 3 has been instantly vetoed as too violent so Hugh Grant romcom it is. That is until the person behind the counter notices that my brother is looking rather small for a 15 year old so no weddings/funerals for us and a very pleased me. The other choice is Maverick. A western starring Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster. Fair enough. Let's see what it's like.

It rocked.

It was one of the many times the films of Richard Donner rocked my childhood. That flight through the sky above Metropolis with Kal-El and an awed Lois Lane. The reveal of One Eyed Willie's pirate ship at the end of The Goonies. Rutger Hauer's and Michelle Pfeiffer's well earned kiss at the end of Ladyhawke. The night we stayed up and got horrified by hanging nannies and impaled priests in The Omen and were thrilled by Riggs and Murtaugh taking on a ship full of evil South Africans in Lethal Weapon 2.

"DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY!"

Every Saturday my mother used to let us choose a film in the local video shop and we rented out The Goonies so many times that it took me until me mid 30's before I could watch it again. It's not a perfect film, tbh, it's not really a good one, but it was just so much fun. That was the connecting thing between so many of Richard Donner's films. Fun. The man knew how to make fun films. There were no arty pretensions, they weren't made to please critics or win awards. His films were made to entertain and that's why so many of them are remembered fondly 30 and 40 years later. There were duds of course, Assassins, Conspiracy Theory, the godawful Timeline but everytime he came back with a crowdpleaser. His last film, 16 Blocks from 2006, is often overlooked but it's a brilliantly put together and paced action thriller and Looper aside, the best thing Bruce Willis has done in 15 years.

Richard died yesterday. He'll be missed. A director whose movies had a genuine and profound effect on a whole generation.