About this episode
The twelfth episode of our season on the awesome movie year of 1989 features our future cult classic pick, teen skateboarding drama Gleaming the Cube . Written by Michael Tolkin, directed by Graeme Clifford and starring Christian Slater, Steven Bauer, Min Luong and Richard Herd, Gleaming the Cube was a box-office failure but became an influential piece of skater culture. The contemporary reviews quoted in this episode come from Richard Harrington in the Washington Post ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/gleamingthecubepg13harrington_a0aaa2.htm ), Janet Maslin in the New York Times ( https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/18/movies/review-film-skateboards-vietnamese-and-intrigue.html ), and Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times ( https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-14-ca-22-story.html ).