Pacific Heights (1990) – John Schlesinger

I remember when this one came out. I was very eager to see it, as until this film, and Batman before it, I had only seen Micheal Keaton in comedies. So throwing him in a thriller, as the baddie? How could I not tune in. Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine portray Patty and Drake a…

One Good Cop (1991) – Heywood Gould

Who doesn’t love Michael Keaton? I remember when this one came out, the videocassettes lined the shelves of my video store but I never took it home, though I did like the look of the cover art. Anyway. I finally got around to it, and I quite enjoyed it. Alongside Keaton is Rene Russo, Benjamin…

Dark Skies (1996) – The Awakening

I don’t know if television audiences of the 20th century couldn’t handle more than one show about alien conspiracies at a time, but Dark Skies came along three years after The X-Files had gone away, and although it garnered a passionate audience and solid reviews, it just couldn’t make it out from under Mulder and…

Mister Magic (2023) – Kiersten White

Kiersten White’s Mister Magic is an unnerving and spooky tale that definitely has a commentary on religion and those who believe. Mister Magic was a radio program, and later a television show that ran until the 90s when the final episode ended in tragedy. It seems a number of people remember the show, and remember…

TAD 2023: UFO Sweden dir. Victor Danell

Do you want to believe? Young Denise (Inez Darl Torhaug) does. She remembers the night her father disappeared chasing down UFOs, and it’s been an obsession ever since. She’s grown to be a young woman, tech savvy in the mid-90s and is determined to find the truth of what happened. As she begins to cross…

Unlawful Entry (1992) – Jonathan Kaplan

Kurt Russell, Madeline Stowe and Ray Liotta star in this early 90s thriller that puts three stellar actors into a halfway decent script and hopes that their charisma and charm will see it through. For the most part, it succeeds, not least of which because they are all great actors. Russell and Stowe are Michael…

Escape Plan (2013) – Mikael Hafstrom

Escape Plan feels like a bit of an action throwback and leans into the escapist (pun intended) entertainment of the 80s and early 90s. And what better way to do that than with two of the biggest stars of the 80s Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a professional escape artist. He…

The Last Action Heroes (2023) – Nick de Semlyen

If you were wandering the aisles of the video stores in the 80s like I was, you were always looking for something fun and exciting to watch and a good percentage of the time one of the films that found its way home with me, or passed to me by a friend at school would…

Empire Records (1995) – Allan Moyle

Empire Records was one of those films that gained cult status in the video store I worked in when the film was released to, yup, VHS. My staff loved it, and it would go into high rotation as something played in the store. Set in a music store, the film is set over the course…

Beverly Hills 90210 – The Ultimate Collection

Teen drama. The words are synonomous whether you watch television or not, because every teen is drama, whether they admit or not. And Darren Star knew he had struck gold when he took typical teen stories, filled with angst, love, heartbreak and social issues and placed them in what, thanks to the show, has become…