Meglos

In an underground city, the people of Tigella's lives are controlled by a mysterious object called the Dodecahedron. The scientific-minded people of Tigella, called the Savants, struggle to harness the power emitted from the Dodecahedron, while the other half of the population, the Deons, worship the Dodecahedron as if it were a gift from the gods. Meanwhile, on the desolate planet of Zolfa-Thura, a shape-shifting creature called Meglos schemes to steal the Dodecahedron for its own purposes. Meglos is a decent serial that never quite crosses the line into excellence. All the elements are there: good cast, good themes, great settings. And yet, it ends up being fairly average. Most of the episodes are shorter than normal, which keeps the pacing tight but leaves the impression that there just wasn't enough material in the script. Jacqueline Hill, who played Barbara during the First Doctor era, plays Lexa, the fanatical leader of the Deons who ultimately sacrifices her own life to save Romana.

Rating: You never know who's who%

The Way of the Dragon

aka Return of the Dragon

In The Way of the Dragon, Bruce Lee plays Tang Lung, a young martial arts student who travels from Hong Kong to Rome to help a restaurateur who's being harassed by gangsters. Tang Lung's "Chinese boxing" skills provide the restaurant with some short term victories against the bad guys, but the campaign of violence and intimidation continues to escalate. The film climaxes with an epic fight between Tang Lung and a hired killer from America played by Chuck Norris. Enter the Dragon might be Bruce Lee's best film but The Way of the Dragon is probably my favorite. The mixture of fish out of water comedy and stellar fight choreography is a refreshing break from the dour plotting of Bruce Lee's other films. And, if you didn't already know, the fight between Lee and Norris in the Colosseum truly is spectacular. 

Rating: 73%

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer

A group of inconsiderate teens stage a big prank at their town's annual Fourth of July Carnival, faking an attack by the North Carolina Fisherman killer. But something goes wrong and one of the participants dies. The surviving teens decide to keep their involvement in the stunt a secret. One year later, they begin to receive threatening notes from someone who knows the truth about what they did the previous summer. I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer is textbook 2000s horror: muted colors, shaky cam, jittery editing, nu metal soundtrack, the whole nine yards. There isn't anything in the movie that ties it back to the previous Last Summer films, other than the use of the Fisherman killer. The basic structure of the movie works but none of the characters are particularly likeable and the reveal of the killer's identity at the end of the movie is pretty dumb.

Rating: 52%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy 6: City Under Siege

A crime wave grips the city and the police seem powerless to stop it. At the behest of the governor, Commandant Lassard and some of his favorite Police Academy graduates are brought in to help. But, despite their best efforts, the gang responsible for the crime wave always seems to be one step ahead of the police. City Under Siege feels a little tired compared to the previous Police Academy films. All of the gags feel like they've been done before. That said, the chase sequence at the film's climax, which reminded me of the Las Vegas chase sequence in Con Air, goes big and I have to give the movie points for that. Sergeant Fackler, not seen since Police Academy 3, returns for one last accident-filled hurrah. Commandant Lassard's nephew Nick has seemingly joined the main squad following his introduction in Assignment Miami Beach. And Billie Bird, who played the gun-toting Mrs. Feldman in Citizens on Patrol, has a cameo in the movie, although she seems to be playing an entirely different character this time around. Sadly, this is the last film in the franchise to feature Hightower, Hooks, Proctor and Commissioner Hurst.

Rating: 60%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Gerrit Graham, who played one of the members of the Wilson Heights gang, was also in Child's Play 2, C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. and Sidekicks.

The Leisure Hive

Finding Brighton Beach a bit too dreary, the Doctor and Romana set off for a luxury resort on the planet Argolis. But, after some mysterious accidents occur, the Doctor is put on trial for murder. The Leisure Hive kicked off Tom Baker's seventh and final season as the Doctor. This season is also notable for being the beginning of John Nathan-Turner's stint as Doctor Who's lead producer, a position he would hold for the remainder of the classic series. After taking the job as producer, John Nathan-Turner made a number of controversial changes to the show. The Leisure Hive opens with a new title sequence and an updated theme song, Tom Baker's classic costume gets a monochromatic revamping and poor old K-9 gets blown up in the first five minutes. The Leisure Hive is an average story at best. The direction is a little shoddy and many scenes are frustratingly underlit.

Rating: Don't cross your bridges before they're hatched%

Invasion U.S.A.

Communists have invaded America and only one man can stop them, former CIA agent Matt Hunter. Invasion U.S.A. is an exercise in excess. Every scene in the movie goes big. Chuck Norris's character carries dual Uzis. When the terrorists attack a residential neighborhood, they don't blow up one house, they blow up six. When a car explodes, it crashes into five parked cars. Also, there are fan boats, multiple vehicles being driven inside a shopping centre and Chuck Norris wrestling an alligator. Plus, for some reason, the movie is set at Christmastime.

Rating: 71%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Summer Rental

After being forced to take some time off from his stressful job as an air traffic controller, Jack Chester packs up the car and drives his family down to Citrus Cove, Florida. Between the noisy neighbors and the overcrowded beaches, the vacation is far from smooth sailing (pun intended, you'll see.) Things only get worse for Jack after he runs afoul of Al Pellet, a big-time townie snob played by Rambo's Richard Crenna. Much like The Great Outdoors, Summer Rental is light on plot. Whether or not the movie succeeds will depend on your appreciation of John Candy's comedic stylings. Crenna is great in the villain role. And Rip Torn plays Scully, a local restaurateur who helps Jack learn how to sail. There's a great scene where Jack and Scully get drunk and play darts, which is a microcosm of the film overall, it's goofy but it's also heartfelt.

Rating: 74%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

Commandant Lassard and (most of) his favorite Academy graduates head down to a police convention in Miami Beach, where Lassard is set to be honored as the Police Officer of the Decade. But, after a mix-up at the airport, Lassard gets kidnapped by some jewel thieves. Can our favorite cops rescue Lassard and stop the crooks or will Proctor and Captain Harris just mess things up again? The gags are bigger and more cartoonish in Police Academy 5 but the change in scenery keeps things from getting too stale. Tab Thacker returns as Officer House from Citizens on Patrol and, in this installment, we're introduced to Commandant Lassard's nephew, Sergeant Nick Lassard. Nick is played by Matt McCoy, who does a good job, but, let's be honest, he's no Steve Guttenberg.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: The jewel thieves include René Auberjonois from Deep Space Nine, Archie Hahn from Meatballs Part II (and several Joe Dante movies) and Ruben Rabasa from the focus group sketch in I Think You Should Leave.

Shada

The Doctor and Romana are summoned to Cambridge by Professor Chronotis. The Professor, a retired Time Lord, asks the Doctor to return a book he borrowed from the Panopticon Archive on Gallifrey. The book, The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, is actually an important artifact that contains clues to the location of Shada, the secret Time Lord prison planet. But returning the book won't be easy because, 1. the Professor accidentally loaned the book out to a colleague and 2. there are other parties who mean to get the book for themselves. Shada, famously, was never completed. A technician strike halted filming partway through and the BBC decided not to finish filming after the strike ended. Some of the footage from the serial was later used in The Five Doctors, after Tom Baker declined to appear in the special. Fans first got to see the remaining footage in 1992, when a reconstruction of the serial was released on VHS. In 2017, Shada was released on DVD with the missing scenes recreated via animation. And in 2021, the serial was updated again for the Blu-ray release. While it's fantastic that Shada was eventually released, it's not exactly a hidden treasure. Of all the Doctor Who scripts credited to Douglas Adams, Shada might be the worst one. The characters aren't particularly interesting, there aren't many jokes and the plot isn't very compelling.

Rating: You've got a lot to unlearn%

Con Air

After serving eight years for manslaughter, former Army Ranger Cameron Poe is on his way home to his wife and the daughter he's never met when his prison transfer plane is hijacked by the criminals onboard. It's just that simple. Con Air, if you didn't already know, is a sensational action movie from the late 90s. Nicolas Cage and his ridiculous accent are backed up by a murderer's row of talented character actors, including: John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Colm Meaney, Dave Chappelle and Danny Trejo. The movie is expertly constructed and moves at a brisk pace. The action scenes are well done and there's enough humor in the movie to keep it from being too serious. The funniest part might be that, by the end, the movie has you rooting for Steve Buscemi's character, a notoriously brutal serial killer.

Rating: 80%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Wild Life

Seen by some as a spiritual sequel to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Wild Life is an easygoing coming-of-age comedy. The film focuses on Bill (Eric Stoltz), Bill's younger brother Jim (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), Bill's ex-girlfriend Anita (Lea Thompson), Anita's friend Eileen (Jenny Wright) and Eileen's party animal boyfriend Tom (Chris Penn). Hoping to make the big leap into adulthood, Bill gets his first apartment. He reluctantly takes Tom on as a roommate to help make ends meet. Anita starts dating a cop, who turns out to be married. Eileen tries, desperately, to get Tom to grow up. And Jim slowly learns that there might be more to life than heavy metal and the Vietnam war. It's a little surprising that The Wild Life never became a big hit, it has a lot going for it. The main characters are backed up by a fantastic supporting cast, including Rick Moranis, Hart Bochner, Randy Quaid and Ben Stein. The score is done Eddie Van Halen, which gives the movie a nice, propulsive energy. While not as universally appealing as Fast Times, The Wild Life is definitely a fascinating slice of life flick.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol

Hoping to fight crime and improve public relations, Commandant Lassard starts a new community action group: Citizens On Patrol. With the help of his favorite academy graduates, the C.O.P. program recruits and trains civilians to aid in police work. The program is successful at first, getting a wide variety of volunteers, everything from young skate punks to an elderly gun nut. But with Commissioner Hurst and Captain Harris scheming behind the scenes, the whole program might be over before it starts. Police Academy 4 plays like a greatest hits version of the previous three films, so nothing feels particularly original here. The plot is pretty thin, with various set pieces having little relevance to the overall story. I'm looking at you, ninja gang. This time around we see the glorious return of G.W. Bailey as Captain Harris, now with Proctor in tow. Something about that pairing just feels right. Unfortunately, this is the last hurrah for Sweetchuck, Zed and Nogata. But, perhaps worst of all, the movie ends with Steve Guttenberg's Sergeant Mahoney getting into a hot air balloon with Sharon Stone's character (yes, Sharon Stone is in this movie) and flying off, never to be seen again.

Rating: 65%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: The young skate punks are played by David Spade and Brian Backer, who was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The Burning.

The Horns of Nimon

A transport ship hauling precious cargo to the planet Skonnos gets stuck in a gravity whirlpool. Soon enough, the TARDIS gets drawn into the same whirlpool. When the Doctor and Romana board the vessel, hoping to free everyone, they find out that the ship is carrying radioactive materials and human sacrifices to be given to a creature called the Nimon. But what is the Nimon and what is it up to on Skonnos? I wish I could tell you that it was something cool or interesting but that is not the case. The Horns of Nimon is a pretty weak serial overall. The acting isn't very good. In the Nightmare of Eden review, I praised Lewis Fiander for going big with the Professor Tryst character but in The Horns of Nimon Graham Crowden, who plays Soldeed, goes way too big. He even mugs to the camera a couple of times. Some of the background actors look bored and seem to be waiting for their scenes to end. The look of the Nimon isn't very good either. The combination of platform shoes and a large head must have made it very difficult for the actor, spoiler alert: actors, playing the Nimon to walk because everytime the Nimon moves it's in big, swaying, unbalanced steps. All of that, along with a fairly boring storyline, make The Horns of Nimon pretty forgettable.

Rating: We're up a gum tree without a paddle%

Total Recall

Every night, Douglas Quaid dreams about Mars and a mysterious brunette. Are they just dreams or are they memories buried deep inside his brain? Is it even his brain? Total Recall is an ultra-violent sci-fi action movie directed by Paul Verhoeven, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. The plot combines a twisty-turny spy narrative with clever sci-fi concepts and then Verhoeven throws in enough violence to put his own RoboCop to shame. I keep bringing up the violence because Total Recall is so unbelievably, gleefully violent. At every opportunity, Total Recall goes over the top and then some. If you've seen the film, you might remember that there is a woman in the movie with three breasts. You don't get to see her topless just once. No, you get to see her topless three times because that's the kind of movie it is.

Rating: 82%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Robert Picardo, from Star Trek: Voyager and countless Joe Dante movies, provided the voice for Johnnycab.

American Splendor

American Splendor, the comic, was based on the life and experiences of Harvey Pekar, a lonely curmudgeon from Cleveland. American Splendor, the movie, is a biopic of sorts about Harvey Pekar and the American Splendor comics, starring Paul Giamatti as Harvey Pekar. The actual real-life Harvey Pekar also appears in the movie, narrating parts of the story and commenting on the film itself. On paper, it sounds like it shouldn't work but it does. It's a charming comedic drama that occasionally breaks the fourth wall with documentary-style moments featuring the real people being depicted in the film. Paul Giamatti, in an early leading role, gives a memorable performance.

Rating: 80%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Recruits

Hoping to impress the governor and secure funding for a new freeway, the mayor of Clam's Cove announces a new civilian-led traffic enforcement division of the police force. Captain Magruder, attempting to embarrass the mayor, selects only the dumbest, drunkest and horniest recruits for this new squad. Recruits is less of a comedy and more of a delivery system for boobs. There isn't a shirt, towel or bikini top in the movie that can't be removed by a pratfall. I'm pretty sure that there's only one woman in the cast who doesn't show her boobs, but even she strips down to her underwear at one point. If Police Academy is too highbrow for you, then you just might be the perfect audience for Recruits.

Rating: 53%

(Recruits on IMDB)

Nightmare of Eden

The Empress, an interstellar cruise liner, comes out of warp off course and collides with another ship orbiting the planet Azure. The two ships are unstably merged together. The Doctor and Romana, responding to the distress signal, attempt to separate the two ships. Their plans are soon complicated when it's discovered that someone aboard the Empress is trying to smuggle a deadly drug known as Vraxoin. Nightmare of Eden is a painfully average serial. None of the characters are all that interesting, with the exception of Professor Tryst played by Lewis Fiander. Fiander goes pretty big with his performance and it adds some much needed energy to the proceedings. The Mandrels are a well designed monster that don't come across as all that menacing. And, finally, the most interesting ideas in Nightmare of Eden seem to have been lifted from the far superior story Carnival of Monsters.

Rating: Of course we should interfere%

The Street Fighter

Terry Tsurugi is one mean S.O.B. And when I say that, I'm not trying to suggest that Terry is cold or gruff like so many other action movie protagonists often are. Early on in The Street Fighter, when a brother and sister can't pay Terry the money they owe him, he kills the brother and sells the sister into slavery. That's Terry for you, our "hero." As the movie goes on, there are some attempts to humanize Terry, but he remains pretty vicious and unrepentant throughout. The crux of the plot finds Terry taking on the Mob and the Yakuza after they try to kidnap a young heiress. The Street Fighter is a particularly violent movie. When it was released in the US, an early success for New Line Cinema, it received an X rating. The fight scenes are well shot, with great uses of long takes and slow motion. Sonny Chiba gets the full Bruce Lee treatment in his portrayal of Terry, with many loving shots of him training and cruelly dispatching scores of bad guys.

Rating: 73%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Transformers: The Movie

By 1986, Hasbro had already sold a lot of Transformers toys and they thought the best way to get kids to buy a bunch of new Transformers toys would be to kill off all of the characters that the kids had come to know and love. And so they made The Transformers: The Movie, which opens with an extended battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons in which many prominent characters are killed, including Optimus Prime. Yes, that's right. Not only did Hasbro think it was a great idea to kill off Optimus Prime, the flagship character of the Transformers brand, they thought that was something that kids needed to see on the big screen. And then, at some point later in the film, somebody says "shit." Because, you know, it was meant to be a movie that the whole family could enjoy.

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy 3: Back in Training

The governor announces a plan to close one of the city's two Police Academies, putting Commandant Lassard and Commandant Mauser in a competition to be the last Academy standing. All of Lassard's favorite graduates come back to help out after Mauser gets up to his old tricks. Police Academy 3 marks the return of Leslie Easterbrook's Lieutenant Callahan to the series. Bobcat Goldthwait and Tim Kazurinsky's characters from Police Academy 2 also return to join the academy alongside Fackler's equally accident prone wife, Tackleberry's brother-in-law and Brian Tochi as Cadet Nogata. Back in Training borrows a few beats from the first two films but, considering the whole thing ends with an extended jet ski chase, I'm not complaining.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Creature from the Pit

After Romana reinstalls an emergency transceiver that the Doctor had deemed 'a bore,' the TARDIS makes an abrupt landing on the planet Chloris. The Doctor quickly takes interest in an enormous metallic eggshell lying in the middle of a dense jungle. Before he can reach any conclusions about the eggshell, the Doctor and Romana are arrested by the local authority and sentenced to death. Their lives are temporarily spared by the Lady Adrasta, who takes an interest in the Doctor's theories about the mysterious metallic eggshell. But the Lady Adrasta's benevolence is only out of self-interest as the Doctor and Romana soon learn that there's a terrible secret on Chloris and it's at the bottom of a deep, dark pit. There might be a lot to like about The Creature from the Pit but it's far from perfect. It definitely could have been a better serial if it weren't for two major flaws. First, the story really runs out of steam in the last episode. And second, the titular creature looks terrible. It's supposed to be an impressively large, amorphous green blob but the end result looks more like an inflatable Halloween costume with laughably phallic limbs.

Rating: He's only a little dog, you know%

Die Hard with a Vengeance

John McClane, the hero of Nakatomi Plaza and the Dulles Airport, is at an all time low in Die Hard with a Vengeance. Estranged from his wife, suspended from the force, and in the midst of an epic hangover, John becomes a terrorist's plaything. McClane and a reluctant good samaritan (played to perfection by Samuel L. Jackson) are sent on a series of missions, with an epic explosion awaiting them should they fail. Die Hard with a Vengeance probably has more jokes per minute than any of the other Die Hard movies, but I'm not complaining. Willis and Jackson play off of each other so well, it's a shame Jackson's character never returned in any of the other sequels.

Rating: 79%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Colleen Camp, who played Kowalski, also played a cop, Corporal Kirkland, in Police Academy 2 and 4.

Spring Break

Due to an overbooking mishap, two Spring Break newbies get paired up with some seasoned party animals. Bawdy hijinks ensue. Technically, there is a little bit more to the movie than that but nobody ever watched Spring Break for the subplots about political campaigns and shady real estate deals. It's a movie that was made for people who wanted to see boobs and butts on the big screen. Spring Break definitely tries to replicate some of the humor and debauchery of movies like Porky's and Animal House, but never quite manages to achieve those heights.

Rating: 62%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment

With crime running rampant in his precinct, Captain Pete Lassard calls up some freshly graduated recruits from the Police Academy. Will these rambunctious rookies be able to clean up the streets or have they been set up to fail? Police Academy 2 brings back most of the cast from the first film. Notable absences include Leslie Easterbrook's Sergeant Callahan and G.W. Bailey's Lieutenant Harris. Notable additions include Colleen Camp as Tackleberry's love interest Corporal Kirkland, Art Metrano as the new antagonist Lieutenant Mauser, Lance Kinsey as Mauser's lackey Proctor, Tim Kazurinsky as a local merchant named Sweetchuck and Bobcat Goldthwait as Zed, the leader of the Scullions. The gags are a little bigger in Police Academy 2, more in line with a movie like Airplane! And most of the raunchiness from the first film has been toned down as well.

Rating: 67%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Commandant Lassard's brother, Captain Pete Lassard, was played by WKRP's Howard Hesseman.

City of Death

The Doctor and Romana are having a lovely time in Paris when a time slip alerts them to a dangerous plot about to unfold. An alien, masquerading as an aristocrat, has been stealing and selling rare historical artifacts in order to fund his experiments in time travel. And he's about to go for his biggest score yet, the Mona Lisa. City of Death might be Douglas Adams' most beloved contribution to Doctor Who. While he wasn't the sole writer on the serial, his fingerprints are all over it. It's filled with clever ideas and witty dialogue. It's well cast too, with Julian Glover playing the aristocrat/alien and Tom Chadbon playing Duggan, the Inspector who never met a problem he couldn't solve with violence.

Rating: Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably%

Cyborg

A cyborg, carrying vital information, attempts to travel from New York to Atlanta. The cyborg tries to secure the protective services of a slinger named Gibson, but is quickly abducted by a violent gang. Gibson follows the gang to Atlanta, not to protect the cyborg but to get revenge on the gang's leader. Cyborg was cobbled together by Cannon in an effort to recoup some of their losses after a Masters of the Universe sequel and their live-action Spider-Man movie fell through. The special effects and costumes are charmingly cheap. The locations are great and do a lot to elevate the film. The film's acting and script, however, leave a bit to be desired. Also, spoiler alert/reminder to those who haven't seen the movie in a long time: JCVD does not play the titular cyborg.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Peanut Butter Solution

aka Opération beurre de pinottes

While exploring a burned out building, Michael sees something so terrifying that all of his hair falls out. After a few days, his hair shows no signs of returning. In desperation, Michael tries a hair growth formula given to him by a pair of ghosts. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Michael's hair returns but, because he mixed the formula incorrectly, it won't stop growing. He gets kicked out of school for being a distraction and eventually gets kidnapped by a former teacher, who uses Michael's hair to make magic paint brushes. The Peanut Butter Solution might be the most infamous Canadian children's film ever made. It lives on in the minds of Canadian forty-somethings as a half-remembered fever dream. Many people who saw this movie as a child aren't completely sure whether or not the film was real or if they're actually just struggling to unpack a strange repressed memory.

Rating: 63%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Police Academy

A new mayor decrees that the Police Academy must accept all applicants regardless of height, weight, strength or ability. And it's not long before they start coming out of the woodwork. The worst of the worst end up in D Squad, D as in dirtbag, where Lieutenant Harris runs the cadets ragged, hoping to convince them to drop out. But the cadets face their first real test after a massive riot breaks out in the city. The original Police Academy, the only entry in the series to be rated R, has to be on the Mount Rushmore of raunchy 80s comedies. I grew up on these films, so I can appreciate them for what they are, but they're definitely a hard sell due to their casual racism, sexism, homophobia and the fact that so many people hate cops nowadays. But, damn, if Michael Winslow doesn't make you laugh then you might not have a sense of humor.

Rating: 72%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Destiny of the Daleks

Destiny of the Daleks begins with a bit of housekeeping. First we find out that K9 has laryngitis, which is both meant to excuse his absence from the rest of the serial and explain away the fact that a different actor will be performing his lines. Then we find out that Romana has regenerated. Mary Tamm, who had portrayed Romana during the Key to Time season, had chosen not to continue on with the show and was replaced by Lalla Ward. Lalla had played Princess Astra during The Armageddon Factor, which required a little bit of business up front to explain why Romana had changed and why she looked like someone we'd already seen elsewhere. And finally, we get a reminder that the Doctor installed a randomizer in the TARDIS at the end of the Key to Time season, so that he could avoid being followed by the Black Guardian. The randomizer is a fun return to form for the show as the first two Doctors never knew where they were going. The Fourth Doctor and his newly regenerated companion end up on Skaro, the Dalek homeworld. They soon encounter a group of robots called the Movellans, sworn enemies of the Daleks. Together, though for different reasons, the Doctor, Romana and the Movellans try to stop the Daleks from finding and reviving Davros, the creator of the Daleks.

Rating: My condolences to you%

First Blood

Despondent Vietnam vet John Rambo is just passing through town when he gets hassled by the local fuzz. What those cops don't know is that they just brought a slingshot to a gun fight. By the time it's all over, one man will be dead and the town's property values will have taken a nosedive. First Blood, Rambo's first outing, is a fairly self-contained actioner with plenty of shootouts, chases and explosions. Stallone is backed up by an excellent supporting cast, including Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy, Bill McKinney and David Caruso. First Blood is a great starting point for a franchise that only gets bigger and more outlandish as it goes along.

Rating: 78%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Hot Dog ...The Movie

Harkin Banks, a wide-eyed bumpkin from Idaho, travels to California to compete in a skiing competition. On his first night, Harkin comes into conflict with the local ski champ, Rudolph "Rudi" Garmisch. But, luckily for Harkin, he soon falls in with a group of fun-loving goofballs who call themselves the Rat Pack. Can Harkin defeat Rudi and win the competition or will all the babes and partying get in the way? Hot Dog ...The Movie is a lot trashier than I remembered. I always though Ski School was the horniest ski comedy but Hot Dog ...The Movie certainly gives it a run for its money. Hot Dog isn't a particularly well made movie but it might have more boobs per minute than any other ski comedy.

Rating: 59%

(Image from Wikipedia)