Blue Steel (1990)

Blue Steel (1990)

[5] Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Strange Days) co-writes and directs this female cop thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis plays a new cop on the New York streets who shoots a grocery store bandit to death. The film takes…
Normal (2003)

Normal (2003)

[7] Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson star in playwright/director Jane Anderson's story about a rural midwestern family weathering the father's decision to undergo a sex change. Wilkinson portrays the father, who endures prejudice from his coworkers and family. Lange plays…
Pet Sematary Two (1992)

Pet Sematary Two (1992)

[4] Mary Lambert returns to direct the sloppy, uneven sequel about new characters who discover the burial ground with resurrection powers from the first film. She's working with a solid cast that includes uber-baddie Clancy Brown (Highlander, Carnivale), Anthony Edwards,…
Cast a Deadly Spell (1991)

Cast a Deadly Spell (1991)

[6] This made-for-cable fantasy/noir yarn features Fred Ward as a private detective searching for a book of spells in an alternate 1940s Hollywood where monsters and magic are part of everyday life. Think Who Framed Roger Rabbit with magic instead of…
Hail, Caesar! (2016)

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

[6] The Coen Brothers are at it again, this time with a wonky tale of 1950s Hollywood studio politics mixed with political scandal. Hail, Caesar! is scattershot in its narrative. Josh Brolin's character is marginally the main protagonist. Brolin plays…
Starship Troopers (1997)

Starship Troopers (1997)

[8]

Director Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) continues his knack for combining violence, gore, dark humor and social commentary in this loose adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s serialized novel about humankind’s future war against a race of insect-like aliens. I can almost enjoy the movie for the action alone. It escalates beautifully, with plenty of exciting sequences and spectacular visual effects. But it’s the satirical edge that helps distinguish Starship Troopers. The whole movie is designed as a recruitment film for a fascist society. When our ‘heroes’ win in the end, the movie has its tongue firmly in cheek, dressing them as full-blown Nazis while Leni Riefenstahl-like propaganda leads us into the closing credits.