Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Cher, Dennis Quaid, and Liam Neeson. If you’ve ever sat through jury duty and thought, This could make a great movie, congratulations — you’ve just pitched Suspect, the 1987 legal thriller that turns a slow, gray Monday in municipal court into 121 minutes of cinematic tedium. This isn’t a thriller. … Read More “Suspect (1987): Courtroom Dreck in a Trench Coat” »
Directed by Richard Marquand. Starring Glenn Close and Jeff Bridges. In the grand tradition of mid-’80s courtroom thrillers that think a typewriter and some gavel banging are all you need to pass for suspense, Jagged Edge stumbles into the room like a hungover law student faking confidence in a bar exam. On the surface, it’s … Read More “Jagged Edge (1985): A Dull Blade That Never Cuts Deep” »
Black Widow wants to be a slick cat-and-mouse thriller — a slow-burn battle of wits between a career FBI agent and a cunning murderess. What it ends up being is a movie that feels like someone tried to stretch a Dateline episode into two hours while smoking clove cigarettes and pretending it’s art. Debra Winger … Read More “Black Widow (1987): Femme Fatale Fatigue with a Side of Government Boredom” »
The Bedroom Window tries very hard to be a stylish, suspenseful Hitchcockian thriller. What it ends up being is a 103-minute test of your ability to suspend disbelief — not about the plot, but about Steve Guttenberg landing Elizabeth McGovern. Let’s be real: Guttenberg, the affable everyman of the Police Academy universe, is suddenly recast … Read More “The Bedroom Window (1987): A Thriller Where the Only Mystery Is How Steve Guttenberg Got Cast” »
Ah, Bad Influence. That early ’90s cautionary tale where corporate yuppiedom gets corrupted by slick hair, mirrored sunglasses, and a boatload of Rob Lowe sleaze. Directed by Curtis Hanson — who would later go on to make actual good movies — this film feels like one long, cologne-drenched commercial for moral decay. Except instead of … Read More “Bad Influence (1990) – Rob Lowe Slimes the Screen, and James Spader Just Lets Him” »
“White Palace” wants you to believe it’s a daring May-December love story. What it really is, though, is the cinematic equivalent of finding a cigarette butt floating in your glass of merlot. It tries to be sexy, soulful, and socially edgy, but ends up being a midlife crisis wrapped in cigarette smoke and mashed potatoes. … Read More “White Palace (1990) – A Cougar Romance Drenched in Cheap Wine and Sadness” »
Sometimes you fall in love. Sometimes you fall into a trap. And sometimes you fall into Mädchen Amick’s eyes and forget your own name while she’s sharpening the knives behind your back. That’s Dream Lover — a slick, shadowy, underappreciated erotic thriller that poses as a romance, saunters into domestic bliss, and then kicks you … Read More “Dream Lover (1994) – When Love Wears Lipstick and Carries a Scalpel” »
You ever walk into a movie expecting Stephen King horror and come out wondering if you just watched a weird incest-themed cat hate crime disguised as a monster movie? Welcome to Sleepwalkers. Directed by Mick Garris and “written” by Stephen King—though that word should probably be in quotation marks, because this feels less like writing … Read More “Sleepwalkers (1992) – Incest, Cats, and Stephen King’s Bad Ideas” »
There are bad movies. Then there are movies that feel like they crawled out of a 99-cent VHS bin at a truck stop in 1997, smelling like melted plastic and broken dreams. The Boyfriend School is one of those movies. It stars Steve Guttenberg, fresh off the fumes of Police Academy mediocrity, playing a cartoonist … Read More “The Boyfriend School (1990) – Romance by Way of Head Trauma” »
Wild Things 2 is what happens when a film studio gets bored, digs around in its leftover swamp water, and decides, “Hey, remember that sleazy, twisty, wet fever dream from 1998 with Neve Campbell and Denise Richards? Let’s do that again—but with less plot, fewer brains, and zero charm.” Enter Susan Ward, who plays Brittney … Read More “Wild Things 2 (2004) – The Dollar Store Version of a Trashy Flick” »
