Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
To mangle a phrase, “The third time’s the harm”, like Police Academy 3: Back in Training takes us back to the series’ roots, but any semblance of cleverness, wit or even dumb fun has been sucked...
Category: 1980s
Innerspace (1987)
Another screwball genre flick from director Joe Dante, and like most of his films, the set-up is solid, but the climax makes the plot come unhinged with non-stop madness and mayhem. Luckily, by the...
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985)
Here, our young cadets have graduated, and have to help one of the precincts in the city, led by Capt. Pete Lassard (Hesseman), brother of the police academy’s Cmdt. Eric Lassard. It seems Pete...
Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1982)
The Golan-Globus production team tries to capitalize on the market for sword and sorcery films created by Conan the Barbarian and the “Dungeons and Dragons” games with a remake of 1973’s Gawain and the Green Knight, but...
Top Secret! (1984)
Top Secret! is another laugh-a-minute screwball comedy from the comic minds of Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the trio that brought you Airplane! This time out, they skewer a variety of targets, predominantly war films (World War II, generally), musicals, and...
Flash Gordon (1980)
Flash Gordon is another glitzy, bloated Dino de Laurentiis big-budget production that emphasizes eye-candy first, story elements last. It’s based on the popular 1930s comic strip of the same name, which itself has been adapted...
Trading Places (1983)
Some people may be too young to remember the days when Dan Aykroyd or Eddie Murphy could make a funny movie or even director John Landis for that matter. They say that comedy is all...
The Big Brawl / Battle Creek Brawl (1980)
I realize that this film, the first attempt to introduce Jackie Chan to American audiences, has been somewhat maligned over the years, but I’ll always have a special fondness for it. The Big Brawl (or Battle Creek Brawl as...
Gilda Live (1980)
Gilda Live films the Broadway show “Gilda Radner: Live from New York”, a sketch comedy primarily featuring one of the original, and most popular “Saturday Night Live” not-ready-for-prime-time players, Gilda Radner. Uncensored and able...
Road Games (1981) | aka Roadgames
Self-declared pupil of Alfred Hitchcock, Richard Franklin, worked closely with screenwriter Everett De Roche (their second collaboration together, after the cult thriller, Patrick) to create another film project. At the time, De Roche had...