1980’s

[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 …

[6] Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas, The Karate Kid) stars as a high school senior who resigns herself to babysitting when her date cancels at the last minute. But when her friend runs away from home and makes a panicked call from the bus terminal in downtown Chicago, Shue decides she has to rescue her — even if it means dragging a 9 year-old girl …

[7] Charlie Sheen and Maxwell Caulfield (Grease 2) star as high school graduates who take a weekend car trip to L.A. where they start a killing spree. Sheen’s character slowly begins to wrestle with his lingering empathy, while Caulfield’s grows more homicidal. The film heads toward a climax where the boys turn on each other while the cops are hot on their tails. The Boys …

[3] John Travolta returns under the curious direction of Sylvester Stallone for this sequel to the mega-hit Saturday Night Fever. But whereas Saturday Night Fever was a sincere story about a young man with big dreams and lessons to learn, Staying Alive is just a plodding procedural love-triangle that climaxes in an over-the-top music number of camp proportions. Travolta’s Tony Manero character seems to have …

[3] It’s not Tim Matheson or Kate Capshaw’s fault. Really, it isn’t. Both of them are plenty attractive and charismatic to carry a film like this. The problem is that A Little Sex is a boiled-down reduction of every rom-com ever made. Matheson plays a guy who talks his long-time female buddy (Capshaw) into getting married. But since he can’t keep his wiener zipped up, …

[2] Dennis Quaid stars in this remake of a 1949 thriller about a literature professor who has 24 hours to live, and he spends that time trying to figure out who poisoned him and why. I like Dennis Quaid a lot, but nothing can save this movie from the fact that it was made by pretentious film school hacks with an absurdly improbable screenplay. Quaid’s …

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