The Reel Review
Are you curious who else was up for the roles Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey made famous in Dirty Dancing? Do you know who Dan Ackroyd initially had in mind to star in Ghostbusters? Or how Macaulay Culkin landed his role in Home Alone? The answers to these and other behind the scenes details of iconic films are revealed in this breezy, entertaining docu-series on Netflix.
The Dirty Dancing episode is the best of the four, 45 minute episodes, with excerpts from the actual screen tests, stories of how the script escaped a dumpster-bound fate to become a straight-to-video production company’s first (and only) big screen hit, and details of the on-screen chemistry (and friction!) between stars Swayze and Grey. The other films profiled in the jokey, 80s themed series – about the making of Home Alone, Ghostbusters and Die Hard – also are chocked full of interesting trivia sure to delight fans of the original films.
In The Movies That Made Us, creator Brian Volk-Weiss has crafted a fun, nostalgic series sure to delight older fans of these iconic films who are also curious about the inner workings of the movie-making business. While it’s a bit hammy and doesn’t include interviews with many of the film’s biggest stars, what it does include is still great fun.
REEL FACTS
• Dan Ackroyd’s family was a big fan of the paranormal, which prompted his interest in ghosts and ultimately, writing Ghostbusters.
• Dirty Dancing was the first and only film hit for the defunct Vestron Pictures, its library now owned by Lionsgate.
• Interior scenes for 1990’s Home Alone were filmed in a soundstage built inside the gymnasium at the former New Trier High School in Chicago, which had also been used for the films Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Uncle Buck.
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