Bill Duke

[4] Ten years before he picked up Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Richard Gere played a ho himself in American Gigolo. As a male ‘chauffeur’, Gere’s plenty pretty to look at, aided by an array of Armani suits and moody cinematography by John Bailey. He even gives us a sustained full-frontal shot. But the fantasy fulfillment element of American Gigolo quickly dissolves into a tedious, …

[7] Predator is a tongue-in-cheek matinee mash-up of a combat movie and a sci-fi monster flick. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the leader of a commando squad who leads his men into the thick of a jungle where an alien bounty hunter starts picking them off one by one. It’s really Alien in the jungle, with Arnold taking Sigourney Weaver’s place. But the paint-by-numbers screenplay doesn’t …

[5] Bird on a Wire is a big, goofy Hollywood action spectacular with two likeable stars at its center. Mel Gibson plays an FBI informant in witness protection and Goldie Hawn plays an old flame he left at the altar when the feds reassigned him a new identity. Now they’re reunited and on the lam from a dirty fed and his hit men. This is …