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Howard the Duck
: :If you concentrate on the fact that Howard the Duck was a notorious box office dud (still brought up today) and considered one of the worst films of the '80s, it's entirely possible to enjoy this special effects piffle. Howard, played by a special effect puppet, lives on a planet where ducks evolved instead of apes, but one day he's sucked into a vortex and deposited on Earth. There he befriends Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), lead singer for the ...
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Death Race 2000
: :Paul Bartel's 1975 cheap-o satire about a futuristic international sport--an anything-goes car race where drivers score points for hitting pedestrians--stars David Carradine as a hero behind the wheel and Sylvester Stallone as his nemesis. The film is clever and macabre enough as a modernist satire, but finally overplays its hand in grim, decadent humor. The sets are gloriously artificial, and former Warhol star Mary Woronov is in sexy, comic form. --Tom Keogh
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The X-Files (Movie)
: :The definitive American television series of the '90s comes to the big screen with an anticlimactic whimper. And how could it be otherwise? Why should material so perfectly realized in one medium necessarily translate well into another? The series is crisply and thoughtfully executed in just about every detail, but the heart of its appeal lies in the elegant handling of complicated and evolving ongoing story lines, which is not something movies are especially good at. The big-screen drive ...
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Star Wars - Episode II, Attack of the Clones
: :If The Phantom Menace was the setup, then Attack of the Clones is the plot-progressing payoff, and devoted Star Wars fans are sure to be enthralled. Ten years after Episode I, Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), now a senator, resists the creation of a Republic Army to combat an evil separatist movement. The brooding Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is resentful of his stern Jedi mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), tormented by personal loss, and showing his emerging 'dark side' while ...
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Forbidden Planet
: essential video:This 1956 pop adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest is one of the best, most influential science fiction movies ever made. Its space explorers are the models for the crew of Star Trek's Enterprise, and the film's robot is clearly the prototype for Robby in Lost in Space. Walter Pidgeon is the Prospero figure, presiding over a paradisiacal world with his lovely young daughter and their servile droid. When the crew of a spaceship lands on the planet, ...
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I Come in Peace
: essential video:This 1956 pop adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest is one of the best, most influential science fiction movies ever made. Its space explorers are the models for the crew of Star Trek's Enterprise, and the film's robot is clearly the prototype for Robby in Lost in Space. Walter Pidgeon is the Prospero figure, presiding over a paradisiacal world with his lovely young daughter and their servile droid. When the crew of a spaceship lands on the planet, ...
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Godzilla 1985
: :In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original Godzilla film, the lizard king returned to the big screen after a decade of inactivity for this 16th Godzilla feature. Originally released in Japan in 1984 as The Return of Godzilla, this modern sequel sweeps away decades of sequels and even recaptures the awe and grandeur of the original film, while adding modern technology and increased military firepower. But let's not get too carried away: this is ultimately a classic ...
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Until the End of the World
: essential video:Shot on location in numerous countries, this ambitious Wim Wenders fantasy takes Sam Neill, Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, and a ragtag group in pursuit around the world and back again. Though set in 1999 under the shadow of impending disaster as a wobbly nuclear satellite threatens to Chernobyl the planet, the leisurely gait of their worldwide escapades has a distinctly '40s-era decadence. The ultimate object of their quest is a machine that records visual information from one ...
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Jurassic Park
: essential video:Steven Spielberg's 1993 mega-hit rivals Jaws as the most intense and frightening film he'd ever made prior to Schindler's List, but it was also among his weakest stories. Based on Michael Crichton's novel about an island amusement park populated by cloned dinosaurs, the film works best as a thrill ride with none of the interesting human dynamics of Spielberg's Jaws. That lapse proves unfortunate, but there's no shortage of raw terror as a rampaging T-rex and nasty ...
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The Matrix - Standard Collector's Edition
: essential video:By following up their debut thriller Bound with the 1999 box-office smash The Matrix, the codirecting Wachowski brothers--Andy and Larry--annihilated any suggestion of a sophomore jinx, crafting one of the most exhilarating sci-fi/action movies of the 1990s. Set in the not too distant future in an insipid, characterless city, we find a young man named Neo (Keanu Reeves). A software techie by day and a computer hacker by night, he sits alone at home by his monitor, ...
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