A Lobotomy’s Worth of Regret If Unforgettable were a flavor, it would be plain yogurt left open on a warm countertop—bland, bloated, and slightly off. This 1996 sci-fi thriller starring Ray Liotta and Linda Fiorentino wants to be a mind-bending murder mystery soaked in science and sex appeal. What it actually is, is two hours … Read More “Unforgettable (1996): A Murder Mystery So Forgettable, the Title’s Ironic” »
Directed by Duncan Gibbins | Starring Virginia Madsen, Craig Sheffer, Jon Polito, D.B. Sweeney If Hormones Could Write Screenplays… Fire with Fire is a film that wants desperately to be deep, poetic, and swooningly romantic—but instead comes off like someone photocopied West Side Story, ran it through a blender full of Aqua Net and angst, … Read More “Fire with Fire (1986): Romeo and Juliet Go to Detention, Forget to Bring a Plot” »
Directed by Ivan Passer | Starring Peter O’Toole, Mariel Hemingway, Vincent Spano, Virginia Madsen If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if Frankenstein and Weird Science had an awkward, underachieving baby and then handed it off to a drunk philosophy major to raise—Creator is your answer. A film that tries to be romantic, … Read More “Creator (1985): Mad Science, Sad Romance, and the Unintentional Horror of Peter O’Toole with a Turkey Baster” »
Directed by David Lynch | Starring Kyle MacLachlan, a lot of sand, and an entire warehouse of overacting Let’s be clear right off the bat—this Dune isn’t the most recent one. No, this is the 1984 Dune, directed by David Lynch in what must have been either a contractual blackmail situation or a very long … Read More “Dune (1984): Spice Meltdown on the Planet of Beige” »
Directed by Steve Barron | Starring Lenny von Dohlen, Virginia Madsen, Maxwell Caulfield, and a computer that should’ve been unplugged in the first act Once upon a time, back in the synth-drenched haze of 1984, some studio executive said, “You know what kids want? A romantic triangle between a dweeb, a cello-playing blonde, and a … Read More “Electric Dreams (1984): Love, Laptops, and the Birth of Cinematic Malware” »
Directed by Lewis John Carlino | Starring Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Jacqueline Bisset, and a mountain of bad decisions Let’s set the scene. It’s 1983. Reagan’s America is revving up, everyone’s pretending to like jazz, and Hollywood is hell-bent on producing teen sex comedies where the “comedy” is questionable and the “sex” comes with a … Read More “Class (1983): A Coming-of-Age Faceplant in a Suit and Tie” »
Directed by Vic Sarin | Starring Kirk Cameron, Brad Johnson, Chelsea Noble, and a budget that repented halfway through production Imagine the end of the world—but with less fire, less brimstone, and way more awkward stares into the middle distance. That’s Left Behind: The Movie, a low-budget, high-piety exercise in cinematic repentance that somehow makes … Read More “Left Behind: The Movie (2000) — Apocalypse Not Now, Just… Nevermind” »
Directed by Vic Armstrong | Starring Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Cassi Thomson, and the slow death of cinema The world ends—not with a bang, not with a whimper—but with Nicolas Cage piloting a plane, blinking furiously as his career ejects itself mid-flight. Left Behind (2014) is a film so breathtakingly incompetent, so spiritually bankrupt … Read More “Left Behind (2014): The Rapture Leaves Us… and We’re Fine With That” »
Directed by Penelope Spheeris | Starring Jim Varney, Cloris Leachman, Erika Eleniak, and Diedrich Bader’s hair If you’ve ever thought, “What this world really needs is a big-screen adaptation of a 1960s sitcom about rural yokels hitting the oil jackpot,” then congratulations—you are the exact person this movie was made for. The rest of us? … Read More “The Beverly Hillbillies (1993): Clampetts Go Hollywood… and the Rest of Us Suffer” »
Directed by Nick Castle | Starring Walter Matthau, Mason Gamble, and the faint ghost of your patience If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to watch a 95-minute hostage situation where an elderly man is psychologically tormented by a bleach-blonde goblin child while Christopher Lloyd lurks in the bushes like a homeless Nosferatu, … Read More “Dennis the Menace (1993): A Crime Scene Disguised as Family Entertainment” »
