🎬 2025 Movie #27 | Fandango (1985)

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This blog is a personal journal of all the movies, Tv-Shows, & Games I consume during a year which enhances my overall experience. The ratings that I give are fully based on my personal preference and enjoyment at the time of watching and I'm writing spoiler-free reviews. (All HBD earnings are used to get extra Hive Power Delegations!)

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I'm in a phase where I'm seeing and consuming more content about movies than actually watching them. This to a point where my backlogs grows with 2-3 movies a day while I only realy watch a couple at best each week. The good thing though is that this gives me plenty of choise and yesterday, this fell at the 1985 (Cult) movie Fandango as it is one that only has a 90-minute runtime. I picked this movie up along the way as video named Forgotten Kevin Costner Movie Tarantino Calls a "Masterpiece which triggered me. I never really heard of this movie but it is the kind that I like discovering, not known with a relatively low rating on IMDB (6.7) but with a known director who sees something in it.

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(Completely spoiler-free YouTube Video about Fandango)

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The Movie starts off with a definition of what fandango is and means which certainly is something that adds to this movie at some point in time.

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Fandango (7.5/10)

There is something about watching older movies that I generally can appreciate as they act as some kind of direct time window into the past. This is the 1st movie where kevin Costner was the main character and the debut of Kevin Reynolds who later ended up making Robin Hood Price of Thieves and also Waterworld who both had Kevin Coster in it. He plays a young frat boy in this movie while he was already around the age of 30 which didn't really help to make things believable but it also never really bothered.

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So the movie takes place in the 70s and starts with a frat house party of a group of friend who call themselves "The Groovers" celebrating graduation. It turns out that 1 of them was about to get married but called it off as he was drafted for the Vietnam war. The main Character played by Kevin Costner also revealed he was drafted while the others move on after collage with the next phase of their lives with the pressure to find jobs. So they somehow end up going on a road trip one last time togheter to Mexico and a place in the desert where one day in the past they burried Dom.

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The Movie starts a bit hectic in the first 15 minutes or so but that goes away as the road trip moves on and it certainly is a fun ride. There are like 3 or 4 main things that happen in the road trip and I kept wondering if it all was going to take us somewhere which it certainly did at the end. It's a 90 minute movie that has a nice pace with quite some things happening to the point where if this one was made in 2025 it would at least have a 2-Hour runtime. I like that it's compressed though with quite a lot happening in the 90 minutes never feeling like it's dragging.

Movie Plot (Spoiler Free):

"Austin, 1971. After graduating from the University of Texas, The Groovers, five close-knit roommates, realise that parting ways is more complicated than expected. So, determined to make the most of their remaining time together, they embark on an epic road trip across the Lone Star State in a teal 1959 Cadillac. As they confront the looming challenges of an impending wedding, the Vietnam draft, and the pressure of finding a job, the young travellers must look life in the eye and embrace the uncertainties of adulthood."

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Overall I'm glad that I watched this one as I had a really fun time with it while the story came toghether in a satisfying way at the end. This while the movie certainly isn't perfect as the fiendship between the 5 guys during the trip never really shines through that much and they all feel like they are a bit too old for the roles they play. However it never bothered me and the movie kind of gave a feeling of If The Breakfast Club was a road movie with some friends. One of the youtube videos I watched afterward about Fandango stated that The Last Picture Show which is from 1971 and gets a 8.0/10 on imdb is a better version of Fandango so I also added that one to my watchlist.

Trailer Which I'm glad that I didn't watch before seeing this movie...

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Conclusion
If a movie gives me a really fun time it always gets a good score by default and that is exactly what Fandango did. It has a perfect 90 Minute runtime as an old movie that holds up with an ending that comes toghether in a nice way. At the same time, I doubt that I will remember many details of this film years from now or that it will keep sticking in my head for days. So a 7.5/10. Not quite the masterpiece for me that Tarantino sees it as but surely better than the 6.7/10 imdb score. I also understand that this one is seen as a cult movie and I'm glad that I got to see it.

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#	2025 Watched Movies	Score
#01	Heretic	7.8/10
#02	A Different Man	6.9/10
#03	Look Back	6.9/10
#04	Caddo Lake	7.5/10
#05	Sing Sing	6.0/10
#06	Paris, Texas	9.2/10
#07	The Greatest Night In Pop	7.2/10
#08	Sometimes I Think About Dying	7.3/10
#09	Memory Lane	6.8/10
#10	Winter In Sokcho	7.6/10
#11	On Falling	6.8/10
#12	Carry-On	6.9/10
#13	The Brutalist	6.6/10
#14	Dune Part Two	6.1/10
#15	Companion	7.8/10
#16	Under The Silver Lake	7.2/10
#17	After Life	7.5/10
#18	Hit Man	7.3/10
#19	The Edge Of Seventeen	7.3/10
#20	Anora	6.6/10
#21	Mickey 17	7.6/10
#22	Taste Of Cherry	7.3/10
#23	My Old Ass	7.7/10
#24	Drop	6.4/10
#25	A Silent Voice	7.9/10
#26	Conclave	7.0/10
#267	Fandango	7.5/10

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