[5] Somehow, Roger Corman’s rip-offs tend to be the best around. This one takes aim at Alien, centering around a team of scientists who accidentally breed a genetic mutant that escapes and starts eating them, all one by one. The dialogue is atrocious in a ‘so bad, it’s good’ kinda way and the special effects are hit-and-miss, but Tim Suhrstedt’s cinematography is far better than …
[6] A nasty heiress (Goldie Hawn) falls off her yacht and gets amnesia, only to be discovered by a handyman (Kurt Russell) she once screwed over. To get revenge, he convinces her that she’s his wife and the mother of his three unruly sons. Overboard‘s screenplay mines the tried-and-true ‘fish out of water’ scenario to great effect, but make no mistake about it — this …
[7] Michael J. Fox stars in this Vietnam War flick from Brian DePalma, but combat isn’t the focus here. Fox plays a soldier who puts his life on the line when he tries to free a young Vietnamese woman that his patrol has kidnapped and raped. Even after the woman’s suffering is over, Fox’s character still has to keep a watchful eye for ‘freak accidents’ …
[5] Eternal opportunist Roger Corman piggy-backs on the success of Star Wars with this low-budget space adventure about a young man who assembles a rag-tag team of mercenaries to protect his people when another race threatens enslavement. Battle Beyond the Stars is among the more watchable films in Corman’s canon. Most of that is owed to a fast-paced script by John Sayles (Matewan, Passion Fish) …
[3] A team of L.A. college tennis players try to pull their shit together to win a championship before the dean pulls the plug on their program. I’m all for a good teen sex comedy, but Jocks is neither funny nor sexy enough to satisfy on either level. Instead, you get scenarios out of ’70s sitcoms and one-liners that feel like they were written by …
[3] Ill-conceived both corporately and creatively, Grease 2 lacks any reason to keep you watching. The plot is basically a gender-reversal of the first film’s storyline, but without any interesting characters to latch onto. The songs are horrendous. Repeat: the songs are HORRENDOUS. The only reason to watch Grease 2 is to gawk at the beautiful faces of Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield. It ain’t …
[3] Cocktail is everything awful about calculated ’80s studio film making. It’s as if Touchstone Pictures said, ‘Hey, we have Tom Cruise and a killer soundtrack — quick! Someone write a script!” And that script (based on a book by the screenwriter) throws in everything and the kitchen sink in a desperate attempt to recapture the success of Dirty Dancing, Top Gun, and An Officer …
[2] The short review: WTF? The longer review: From the first opening frame, you know right away this is a cheap, watered down, bargain basement Superman movie. (Thank you, Golan-Globus Productions!) But even if you can overlook the astonishingly awful visual effects, the movie will still disappoint you in other more substantial ways. For starters, the dialogue is pointed, the relationship between Clark and Lois …
[7] Two lovers are bewitched by a jealous Bishop — the man (Rutger Hauer) is transformed into a wolf by night, the woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a hawk by day. They only see each other in human form for a fleeting second at sunrise and sunset. With the help of a pick-pocket (Matthew Broderick) and a drunken friar (Leo McKern), they journey to the Bishop’s …
[6] Paul Newman stars as an alcoholic ambulance chaser who tries to redeem his career with a high profile medical malpractice case. Directed by Sidney Lumet from a script adapted by David Mamet, The Verdict is a solid combination of character study and courtroom drama. Good supporting performances from James Mason, Lindsay Crouse, and Charlotte Rampling. One thing I especially liked about the film is …
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