Twilight Zone: The Movie

Watching Twilight Zone: The Movie has always come with one great big caveat, can you enjoy the movie knowing that three people lost their lives during an accident on set? It's not an easy thing to get past. If you are able to set that aside for an hour or two, there is still plenty to enjoy in the movie. Sure, it's pretty well impossible not to think about the accident during the film's first segment. Directed by John Landis, "Time Out" is the story of an angry racist who gets to experience what it's like to be on the other side of bigotry and hatred. The second segment, "Kick the Can," directed by Steven Spielberg, doesn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the movie but is helped by Scatman Crothers' endless supply of charisma. The movie really kicks into high gear in the back half, with remakes of two all-time classic Twilight Zone stories. "It's a Good Life," directed by Joe Dante, pairs a lot of Dante's favorite cartoons and character actors with some memorable special effects from Rob Bottin. And finally, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," directed by George Miller, which features John Lithgow (in a role originally played by William Shatner) as a man desperately trying to convince his fellow passengers that there's a gremlin on the wing of their plane. The movie also includes appearances from Albert Brooks, Dan Aykroyd, Vic Morrow, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Cartwright, Dick Miller and narration by Burgess Meredith.

Rating: 74%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Steven Williams, who played a bar patron in the first segment, also played Creighton Duke in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and a tree trimmer in Better Off Dead.

Mad Max

I was surprised that I'd never seen this movie before, but now that I've seen it I can say it's largely forgettable. Basically it is a car chase movie in which Mel Gibson plays Regular Max, a cop "A Few Years From Now..." who has to deal with gangs of punks and bikers. Then they kill his family and he turns into Mad Max and gets revenge. It's really well directed and looks amazing, especially considering it was an indie film, but the pacing is all askew and the movie has absolutely no direction until the last half hour or so. Anyway, if you like car chases there are a few good ones, and Mel Gibson is way baby face and says zero antisemitic things which is a plus.

RATING: 52%