Enemy Mine
108 minutes. Rated PG-13. “Earthman, your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!” Based on the award-winning 1979 novella by Barry B. Longyear and directed by Wolfgang Petersen (notably of Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story fame) Enemy Mine is one of my favorite hard science fiction movies from the 1980’s. I call it hard sci-fi simply for the excellent examples of xenobiology, the alien flora and fauna, and the detailed creation of...
The Freshman
1990.102 minutes. Rated PG. “Mein Herz schwebt in Blut! That means ‘My Heart Swims In Blood.” It’s a tale as old as time; small-town innocent moves to the big city and gets mixed up in unsavory activities, questionable characters, and hi-jinks ensue. But the song as old as rhyme? Well, That’s Amore! In the 1990 film The Freshman, we get a veritable smorgasbord of pompadours, mafiosos, a comical New York University film school...
In The Loop
2009. 106 mins. Rated R. ‘Climbing the mountain of conflict’? You sound like a Nazi Julie Andrews!” Loose lips sink ships, they say. Nowhere is this more a truism than the insane world of politicians, where a careless whisper can turn rumor into a full-blown war. In the Loop is just that; a brash and giddy tongue-in-cheek whirlwind peek behind the curtain of politics and political insiders, both stateside and across the pond in...
Tremors
96 Minutes. Rated PG-13. “This valley is just one long smorgasbord.” A tiny desert town, tons of guns, underground monsters, and a whole lot of killing; this is the perfect storm that is Tremors. When I was a kid I was absolutely fascinated with movie monsters, usually the bigger the better, and this movie is chock-a-block with one of my personal all-time favorites. Reminiscent of Shai-Hulud, the great sand worms from Dune, as well as...
Cocoon
1985.117 minutes. PG-13. “Face-eating, Jack? Is that some kind of delicacy?” Come with me, back to a time when Wilford Brimley wasn’t hocking oats or talking about his diabetes, when Don Ameche stopped betting against Eddie Murphy, and the kid from The NeverEnding Story finally stopped reading that damn book. This movie takes us back to a simpler time, that sweet-spot in the 1980s where many of the science fiction films had a lot of...
