Basil Poledouris

[6] Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh star in medieval tale of a young noble girl (Leigh) who is kidnapped by a band of traveling mercenaries. While her betrothed (Tom Burlinson) searches for her with a rescue team, she begins to feel at home among the bandits — and even in love with their leader (Hauer). Under the direction of Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Spetters), …

[7] A well-structured, lovingly-crafted sword and sorcery flick. Arnold Schwarzenegger, limited as he may be, was born for this role and Basil Poledouris’ score is among the best ever recorded for film. Writer/director John Milius seems rushed at times, but some scenes are extraordinarily polished. I love the first half-hour most of all. The death of Conan’s mother could not be done better. It’s all …

[7] Cherry 2000 is good corny fun. It takes place in a somewhat post-apocalyptic 2017 (almost there!) where gender dynamics and sex politics have gotten so complicated, that many men prefer to bond with robots rather than flesh-and-blood women. That’s the part of the movie that genuinely fascinates me — but these ideas are dealt with pretty early on, with the rest of the film …

[6] There’s no denying the pervasive corniness of Randal Kleiser’s adaptation of The Blue Lagoon. Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins play teenagers who have grown up in isolation on a remote island after being shipwrecked as children. The film half-asses the characters’ sexual awakenings (what the film is all about) and never stops testing your suspension of disbelief. But the film still works as escapist …

[8] Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) continues his knack for combining violence, gore, dark humor and social commentary in this loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s serialized novel about humankind’s future war against a race of insect-like aliens. I can almost enjoy the movie for the action alone. It escalates beautifully, with plenty of exciting sequences and spectacular visual effects. But it’s the satirical …

[10] In the not-so-distant future, a Detroit policeman is murdered by a vicious cop-killer, only to be resurrected as the ultimate cyborg law enforcer. But will RoboCop have free will, or will he be slave to the corporation that facilitated his rebirth? On one level, RoboCop is an action film sprinkled with generous amounts of extreme violence and gore. But the movie also has unexpected …