[4] Somehow, Oscar-winners Rod Steiger (In the Heat of the Night) and Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire) got swindled into starring in this sub-par creature feature about a scientist (Hunter) who performs Frankenstein-like genetic experiments in her basement. On her deathbed, she begs her son (a wooden David Allen Brooks) to destroy her experiments before it’s too late. And wouldn’t you know it? One …
[6] It’s mawkish, awkward, and in need of a subtlety injection, but I like Making Love anyway. As one of the earliest big studio mainstream films to feature openly gay characters who are neither serial killers nor flaming queens, I have to give the flick some cred. Michael Ontkean (Twin Peaks) and Kate Jackson (Charlie’s Angels) play best-friend newlyweds whose relationship begins to deteriorate when …
[7] For a movie that was no doubt jumping on the E.T. and Star Wars bandwagon, The Last Starfighter manages to carve a niche for itself. Teenager Alex Rogan (Lance Guest) wins the high score on a mysterious video game and is suddenly recruited by an alien to defend the universe from some cosmic bad asses. What counts here is charm. The Last Starfighter oozes …
[8] Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) directs this lavishly mounted fantasy film that’s high on style but low on action. The sets are jaw-dropping, whether it’s the huge, scintillating fairy forest or the fiery underground dungeons of hell. Makeup artist Rob Bottin (The Howling, The Thing) showcases some spectacular Oscar-nominated work. Just look at Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show‘s Dr. Frank-N-Furter) as Darkness, …
[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 …
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