1980’s

[6] Lily Tomlin stars in this gender-bent retelling of Richard Matheson’s short story. Tomlin plays Pat Kramer, who after being exposed to a combination of myriad household chemicals, begins to physically shrink. As she becomes a reluctant worldwide celebrity and her family tries to adjust to her ever-changing size, an evil corporation plans to kidnap her and use her ailment as a weapon of warfare. …

[6] Michael J. Fox stars in this adaptation of Jay McInerney’s novel about a New York yuppie named Jamie who keeps life’s problems at bay by constantly partying and doing drugs. With the help of his bad-influence friend Tad (Kiefer Sutherland), Jamie barely ever has to think about his unfulfilling job as a fact-checker for a magazine, the fact that his super-model wife left him, …

[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 …

[7] Producer/director Sean S. Cunningham admits Friday the 13th was a post-Halloween cash grab, but slasher fans decided there was plenty of room in the world for more than one killer franchise. All Cunningham needed was a great title that lent itself to recurring significance, and a compelling core piece of mythology — that a little boy drowned at Camp Crystal Lake when the teenaged …

[8] Gordon Warnecke and Daniel Day-Lewis star as young lovers trying to forge their own way in life by opening a successful laundromat in London. Warnecke’s character rails against the old-world expectations of his Pakistani father and uncle (Roshan Seth and Saeed Jaffrey), while Day-Lewis tries to break free from the influence of his skinhead friends. Somehow, the two make it work, and begin to …

[5] Writer/director John Hughes serves up this comedy star vehicle for John Candy, who plays an unreliable uncle called upon to babysit his nieces and nephew while their parents are away on emergency travel. As you can imagine, the meat of this movie is in Uncle Buck’s interactions with the children. Hughes is a master at letting characters breathe within the confines of tight story …

[3] Tom Hanks stars as a snobby college graduate who escapes gambling debts by joining the Peace Corps on a bridge-building mission in Thailand. But when he discovers that struggle for control of the new pathway will make the local village the center of bloodshed, he and his Corps friends decide they must undo the work they have done. Volunteers is a very un-funny movie. …

[8] Colin Firth and Hart Bochner star in this bold drama/thriller from writer/director Martin Donovan and co-screenwriter David Koepp (who teamed together a few years later on Death Becomes Her). Firth stars as a movie theater manager in Buenos Aires who welcomes Hart Bochner as a new roommate in an apartment building full of nosey neighbors. As his roomie wins over the favor of the …

[7] Joan Collins and Jon-Erik Hexum star in this made-for-TV movie about a young cowboy who moves to New York where a modeling agent believes he can hit it big in ads, commercials, and beyond. Naturally, the cowpoke (the insanely handsome Hexum) begins to fall in love with the agent (Collins) and his career begins to soar. But jealousy soon sets in when Collins sets …

[7] It’s 18th century France and everyone’s the Vavavoom de Floofenberg dressed to the nines and powdered like a doughnut. Yes, Dangerous Liaisons is one of those dreaded costume dramas. But like any good one, if you strip away the gilding and highfalutin language, it’s really a tale as old as time — modern, even. Glenn Close is a horny, devious widow who employs her …

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