1982

[7] Director Sidney Lumet (Network, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead) brings Ira Levin’s hit play to the big screen, showcasing Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve as warring playwrights who resort to real murder to further their careers. Caine plays the mentor desperate for a comeback after suffering a series of duds. Reeve plays the idolizing student whose written a new play Caine thinks will …

[4] In this animated rock musical out of Canada, a waning pop star named Mok seeks to summon a demon for his own nefarious gain. But to do so, he must find a voice powerful enough to open the gateway to the demon’s dimension. He finds that voice in Angel, a singer vying along with her boyfriend, Omar, for the top spot in their band. …

[6] Peter Gallagher and Daryl Hannah play a young American couple vacationing in the Greek Islands whose relationship hits a rough patch when Gallagher takes a shine to a French archaeologist (Valérie Quennessen). But guilt and jealousy give way to something more congenial, and the archaeologist eventually moves in with the Americans as a polyamorous relationship is born. Summer Lovers is written and directed by …

[6] A group of teens crash a boat on a small island where they’re terrorized by a deformed giant, the product of a rape whose isolationist mother taught him to fear the outside world. Humongous borrows heavily from Friday the 13th and other horror touchstones, but director Paul Lynch (Prom Night) manages to make the storytelling feel somewhat fresh through surprisingly good staging and camera …

[5] Jason Voorhees is back, and this time he’s stabbing in three dimensions. For the third installment of the Friday the 13th franchise, Paramount Pictures added the gimmick of 3D to attract young horror fans. But even if you don’t watch it in 3D, all the pitchforks, arrows, yo-yos, and eyeballs that pop toward the camera lens still have their cheesy charm. The story’s not …

[2] A woman and her boyfriend travel to her brother’s British estate after learning of his sudden passing. Once there, the sister-in-law begins flirting with both visitors while conspiring with a Satanic cult that likes to have sex. A lot. I mean, a whole, whole, really big lot of sex. I think about half the run-time of the movie is women squirming in exaggerated ecstasy. …

[3] In this adaptation of the DC Comics series, a scientist working on a bio-engineering experiment is killed in a lab explosion that turns him into a creature, half-man and half plant. Super-strength and the ability to heal people are perks of the transformation, which come in handy since the military is trying to find him and steal his formula for their own nefarious purposes. …

[7] In perhaps the grimmest animated movie ever made, two dogs escape certain death at a laboratory research facility only to find themselves forever on the run from the scientists and the local sheep farmers. Director Martin Rosen (Watership Down) spectacularly defies any and all expectations you might have about an animated movie with The Plague Dogs, his second Richard Adams adaptation. The two dogs, …

[8] Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton star in this stage musical adaptation (based on a true story) about a bordello madam and a county sheriff who fight a tabloid television reporter’s campaign to close a legendary Texas whorehouse called the Chicken Ranch. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a bawdy good time, with charming performances from Parton and Reynolds, fun musical numbers, and comic …

[5] A straight detective (Ryan O’Neal) and a closeted gay police clerk (John Hurt) are summoned by their police chief (Kenneth McMillan) to pose as an undercover gay couple to try and solve a series of murders in the gay community. Yes, Partners is a buddy-comedy version of Cruising, where the straight man overcomes a mild case of homophobia and the closeted gay man begins …

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