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Welcome to Marquee History, the weekly column that takes you back to a time when you - or your parents - were younger. Prepare to become nostalgic (and shocked) at how much time has passed when you recall what was new in theaters 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 years ago.

This week's highlights are the 15th anniversary of Cameron Crowe’s pinnacle movie Almost Famous and the 30th anniversary of Agnes of God

Here are the movies that premiered on theater marquees this week...

10 years ago - September 16, 2005

Just Like Heaven
Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon star in this Ghost-like romantic comedy. Jon Heder costars in his first movie since the breakout hit of Napoleon Dynamite. As with most Reese Witherspoon comedies, critics and audiences couldn’t help but be pleased. Just Like Heaven opened at #1 with $20 million for the weekend at 3,508 sites and eventually went on to earn $48 million domestically. Two months into this movie’s release, Reese Witherspoon had another with Walk the Line, which earned her an Oscar.

Lord of War
Nicolas Cage normally plays a hero but in Lord of War he plays an anti-hero, portraying an arms dealer to the world in the 1990s post-Soviet era. Its treatment of the politics of the international arms trade earned respect from critics. Ethan Hawke costars, with Andrew Nicol directing. Lord of War opened with $12 million at #3 behind the previous week’s holdover The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and eventually grossed $24 million in the U.S., enough to buy a couple dozen Tomahawk missiles.

Cry_Wolf
This horror/slasher that involves an internet instant-messenger plot comes from first-timer Jeff Wadlow, who made the movie with the million dollars he won for a short film in the 2002 Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival. The cast, led by Julian Morris, includes Jon Bon Jovi. Critics were not fans of the movie but as with many inexpensive horror flicks, it made back its budget and more. Cry_Wolf opened at #5 behind The 40-Year-Old Virgin with $5.2 million on 1,789 screens, and grossed $10 million.

Venom
Venom is a slasher about an undead killer, starring Agnes Bruckner, Laura Ramsey, and Meagan Good. Reviews were bad. In limited release, Venom opened at #20 with a dismal $1,410 per screen average and couldn’t even gross a million dollars during its run. Director Jim Gillespie of I Know What You Did Last Summer fame hasn’t directed another movie since.

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride opened on five screens this week before going wide the following week, along with other new very limited releases G, The Thing About My Folks, Proof, Thumbsucker, and Everything Is Illuminated.

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