Captain America

You know, a lot of bad things have been said about this early adaption of the Marvel hero, but honestly...it could have been so much worse.

Granted, the lead actor is rubbish, admittedly, the story is lacking (not keeping wholly to the origin backstory) and some of the direction seems to have gotten lost (ha haaa), but, the shield is bang on and it's the best you've got til the new film gets released.

Plot: Cap is just some limpy fella, until the American government enhance him by, it would seem, electrocution (rather than the super-soldier serum in the comics) and he heads off to fight the scourge of WWII, the Red Skull (an Italian super baddy with a V2 rocket). Cap gets stuck on said projectile and ends up trapped in the ice in the arctic. Then, in the late 1980s/90s, some scientists find him, he thaws out and tries to catch up and get Red Skull a second time. Red's older, but still feisty and gives Cap a run for his dollars.

It's a bad script. Pale and you wonder why Stan Lee allowed it, but then you realize that the Marvel Studios of the 1980/90s weren't the quite as marketable as the recently sold 2010's Studio (sold to Disney for $4 billion I hear).

Fun Fact: The film was meant to be released to coincide with the Captain America 50th Anniversary, but despite trailers before the Tim Burton Batman, the film headed direct to VHS...and some theatres in Europe (we'll give anything a shot it would seem).

The Entity

Based on the 'factual' events surrounding Doris Blither's poltergeist visitation in 1976 L.A, we are treated to a rather raunchy and pushy ghosty...a tad rapey too.

Plot: Lady (Barbara Hershey) lives with teenage son and two young daughters, is happily working, living her life and attending secretarial school while waiting for her fella to propose, when some invisible, over weight and smelly chap gets a little too frisky and starts raping her. Knowing she's right, but erring on the side of caution, she does what any chick that ain't seen The Exorcist or Poltergeist would, she goes to a therapist (Ron Silver-RIP, The West Wing). He starts all this science mumbo jumbo and that don't work, so some paranormal investigators pop over...then the film gets good.

I saw this film years ago and as an adolescent could understandably barely remember anything but the invisible boob groping. The film is much better than just that, I'll add...though that's well done too.

Fun Fact: Atari made a video game based on the film, but oddly never released it...I wonder why?

Duel

You can't go far wrong when Stevie S directs, and in his first outing he happens to be bulking out a feature version of a Richard Matheson (I am Legend) short story.

Seems for Mr Spielberg there wasn't a great deal to be done script wise. The story follows a salesman, who overtakes a smoke expelling truck on a highway and is promptly chased...alot. That's ya lot folks. It's good though. It shows how much tension and horror can be evoked from such little substance. You can probably name half a dozen similarly themed features with this undertone.

Budget: $450,000

Fun Fact: Matheson's short story was originally published in Playboy magazine.

Arena

Following on from films such as Robot Jox, Arena is a Sci-Fi of a similar ilk. Think Kick Boxer meets a film version of that CGI chess game in Star Wars.

Plot: The year is 4038 and the galaxy/universe derives its entertainment from a inter-species game of ultimate boxing. Creatures and human-like folk from all over gather to come to fisticuffs on stage and grab some cash. It's been quite some time since a human won and as such, competitor Steve Armstrong is looked on not only as the rank outsider, but also as a bit of a joke...so, in true sporting underdog fashion, what's a fella to do?!

Sadly, I've failed to find the budget for this 'masterpiece' of Sci-Fi, so I'll leave it to you to workout.

Fun Fact: Writer Danny Bilson also wrote The Rocketeer and the TV series, The Flash.

Night of the Comet

Within this film we unite two actresses from earlier reviews. Catherine Mary Stewart (The Last Starfighter) and Kelli Maroney (Chopping Mall) play Reggie and Sam, sisters forced to survive in a world caught short on the day a rare comet shoots across the sky.

Plot, as such, the population of the world is reduced to dust or turned to zombie-ish creatures (depending on the extent of your exposure to the comet rays or something) and the only people to be ok are thems that were encased in steel (like a room or truck cabin). So, two sisters go looking around a desolate L.A. and come across a bloke, Robert Beltram (Star Trek Voyager) and both fancy him, because it's the eighties and judging by earlier reviewed film, Chopping Mall, chicks in the eighties are rather loose. Anyway, some government think tank comes to find survivors to test out a serum and stuff.

The best part is actually the narration at the start, which reeks of 1950's nostalgia and is wonderful to boot. If only the rest had gone the same route. There isn't much redeeming about this story, but it's a laugh and shows that Sci-Fi can be accomplished on a shoe string and still look fun, if not all that good.

Budget: $700,00-3,000,000 (disputed between director and studio)
Gross: $14,418,922

Fun Fact: Director Thom Eberhardt wrote the screenplay for Honey, I blew up the kid...urg!

The Breakfast Club

What's a group of malfunctioning teens to do on a saturday detention...?

Directed by 80's legendary director John Hughes (RIP) and starring the cream of the 1980's crop, Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, this comedic coming of age/realization film is one of a series along the theme. All of which achieved Cult status within a heartbeat of their respective releases; Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and Something Kind of Wonderful to name but a few.

Set in a high school, a group of kids are punished with detention for an array of misdemeanors. These kids represent all the facets of school popularity and cliques, enough to appeal to viewers on every step of the ladder to acceptance. During their time together, the boys and girls quarrel, fight, eat lunch and reach a new understanding...some even get some tongue action into the bargain.

A mark of the success of this film is in it's cultural impact as well as the gross: $45,875,171.

 Fun Fact: The role of the tough loner was originally cast with John Cusack, with Nicholas Cage in the running for a while also, before going to Judd.

Slaughterhouse-Five

This adaptation of a cult Kurt Vonnegut novel, lives up to and cements the already iconic status of the existing story.

The film follows Billy pilgrim, a WWII soldier unstuck in time and as such yo-yoing between the front, a Dresden prisoner of war camp, home (twenty or so years on) and a human zoo on the alien planet of Tralfamadore...but thankfully, he's joined by a sex starlet and lives happily ever after.

Vonnegut must have been a joy at a dinner party. His imagination sees the boundaries, then hop, skips and jumps over them.

Fun Fact: Vonnegut loved this film! He gushed over how amazingly true he saw it to his own work. The film also won the Prix du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.

The Abyss

Following on from Titanic cinematic success (ha ha), James Cameron, the one man film mogul, brought aliens again to the big screen...this time he found them deep in the worlds ocean.

Starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as the separated married heroes, playing opposite cameron fav, Michael Biehn (Aliens grunt leader guy), we witness first contact with the UFO's (Unidentified Floating Objects) and the varied human reactions they illicit. Using technology to the maximum, as ever he does, Mr Cameron re-develops and and expounds on the legend of Sci-Fi film making and pushes the audience to lose themselves in an epic of fantastic proportions.

In case you missed it, this is my favourite of the Cameron back catalogue.

Budget:$70,000,000
Gross: $110,000,000

Fun Fact: Cameron wrote the first draft of Rambo-First Blood. Also, the breathing liquid in the film is a real invention...awesome!

Gremloids

Possibly one of, if not the worst Sci-Fi films of all time...that and Starcrash.

A clear parody of Star Wars, Gremloids follows Lord Buckethead (I'm not kidding) and his quest to dominate the peoples of the universe.

I don't need to say much about the film, but the stand out scene has to be where our heroes are chased, on flying shopping trolleys, through a supermarket. Truly inspired film making.

Oh and by the way, the poster makes the film look much better than it really is. Imagine you'd tried to make a science fiction film in the 1980's on a budget of £3.50...I give you Gremloids!

Fun Fact: Lord Buckethead stood as an independent in the UK general elections in both 1988 and 1992, against Maggy Thatcher and John Major...he actually topped 150 votes one year.

Time After Time

Now, just imagine your name is H.G.Wells, you're a bit of a 1890's Gent and you happen to have invented a time machine. So, you get all ya mates over to brag. Thing is, one of ya mates (a well respected doctor) also happens to be Jack the Ripper. Then imagine that the old bill turn up at ya door  chasin' the fella...what do you think Jack's gonna do?!

That's right! Jack hops in the machine and hightails it to 1979 San Francisco...as you would. Thankfully for H.G, he's got some kinda return to sender on the machine and he gets it back, then heads of after him and finds himself a duck outta water...yada yada yada.

It's a fun twist on the whole Time Machine and Ripper stories. Two of the best from the nineteenth century actually. Malcolm McDowell does moderately well as Mr Wells and David Warner (you'll recognize him- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II) is dark, but not quite menacing enough as Mr Ripper (more blood curdling please).

Fun Fact: Director Nicholas Meyer was nominated for the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay.

Ghost World

Adapted from a comic by Daniel Clowes (not a super-hero one I'll add) and directed by Terry Zwigoff (Crumb and Bad Santa), this tale follows a pair of unimpressed/disenchanted teens, recent high-school graduates, deciding what to do with their lives following a decision not to attend college. 

Starring Thora Birch (fresh from American Beauty fame), Scarlett Johansson (fresh from Eight Legged Freaks fame) and co-starring Steve Buscemi (not so fresh from Reservoir Dogs fame), this film is dry, understated and engrossing in its mundanity. 

Ghost World is one of the new breed of cult films. With conversation led comic adaptations getting the film treatment almost as readily as the action led variety, it's good to see that intelligent and witty writing still flourishes in the land of hopes and dreams.

Budget: $7,000,000

Gross: $8,761,393

Line of the film: "I'm taking a remedial high school class for fuck ups and retards!"

Fun Fact: The film was released in 2001 on only five screens...and still, eventually made a worldwide profit.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

In 1975, a group of oddities known collectively as Monty Python created a comedic retelling of the life of Arthur, king of the Britons (the fella with the round table and some knightly mates).

Plot: Arthur is off to find a few decent blokes (not like the silly ones at Camelot, who sing and dance and stuff) to help him on his holy quest to find the cup of Christ. On his way he meets Sir Galahad the Pure (and oh so chaste), Sir Robin (a bloody coward), Sir Lancelot the Brave (possibly Gay?) and an overly brave and deluded knight capable of sustaining loss of all limbs and still trying to fight. Along route, the gang of misfits encounter shrubberies, the very large forest dwelling knights who say Ni and the fearsome Rabbit of Caerbannog.

If you were to look up odd, silly and ridiculous in a dictionary, the faces of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman and Michael Palin would stare back at you and grin inanely.

Only children and people who have seen this film understand the pleasure that can be derived from wetting one's self. Joyous!

Budget: (doing it in £ this time) £229,575
Gross: £80,371,739

Fun Fact: With the monsterous popularity this film has enjoyed, it's no surprise that a musical version was created and has performed worldwide, Spamalot.

The Quiet Earth

This 1985 New Zealand film takes depressive futures to a new high...low...whatever.

Plot: Fella wakes up (scientist bloke) and finds that everybody had vanished. No radio signals, no T.V, no nuthin'! Turns out, he's been involved in an experiment for a global energy grid, but it all went a bit squiffy and everyone is dead...everyone apart from a chick and a Maori fella (seems they died accidentally at the same time as the scientist fella and somehow that means they live). We all know that a car with three wheels doesn't corner well. What happens with an emotionally charged threesome?!

I saw this film as a young teen and it's haunted me ever since. A great tale, both moral and timely.

Budget: $1,000,000
Gross: ?

West World

Plot: In the near...ish future (1973), folk go to amusement parks, just like today. However, amusement parks of the future are not quite the Alton Towers and Disney happy that we enjoy today. Making use of technology for activities of all sorts (that means robots, for nookie and stuff), future blokes and birds nip to the park and play about in Medieval, Roman and Wild Western worlds. Thing is, when robots go bad, who stops 'em?

Starring Yul Brynner (Magnificent Seven) in one of the many roles this icon is remembered for, James Brolin (father of Josh Brolin) and written by Michael 'Jurassic Park' Crichton, West World is one of the first scary Sci-Fi's. It takes technological marvel and douses it in fear and paranoia.


Fun Fact: There is a sequel, Futureworld, there was a short lived TV show, Beyond West World and Quentin Tarantino and Arnold Schwarzenneger were approached about a remake. West World was also the first film to use CGI.     

Weird Science

Just imagine you're a teenage boy...ok, got it? Now, imagine you can't get a girlfriend...got that? Good. Now, imagine you and your equally geeky mate decide to create a girl on your 1980's home computer...and you'll need to wear bra's on ya heads too...ok, now watch Weird Science.

Directed by the recently departed legend, John Hughes (The Breakfast Club), Weird Science encapsulates every fantasy a teenage boy has, hot chick (Kelly LeBrock-all for you), popularity, parties, drinking...and some mutant biker guys too (not in my fantasy I'll add).

This film, erm...advised me on masturbation, that's all I'll say (when I was young I mean!).

Very, very funny!

Budget: $7,500,000
Gross: $14,739,936

Fun Fact: There was a TV series in 1994, running for an astounding 88 episodes...pretty awful though. Look out for a young Robert Downey Jr as the High School bully...what a git and Bill Paxton (Aliens) as a rather insensitive elder brother.

The Final Countdown aka U.S.S Nimitz

Plot: In 1980, the USS Nimitz happens to sail through a kinda rip in time. As luck would have it, they happen to pop out just before them pesky Japanese decide to do some bombing on a harbour in Hawaii. Now, the real question, other than how the hell did we get here and how the hell do we get back, is what the hell do we do now?!

It's the age old question...if you could go back and kill Hitler when he was a child, would you?

Starring Kirk Douglas (old legend) and Martin Sheen (new...ish legend), this film does well, despite a limited budget and clearly average special effects (ha ha, I used 'average' and ''special' in conjunction), to come up with an enthralling concept and a joy to all alternate history buffs. The aircraft alone are a brilliant reason for tuning in.

Fans of The Philadelphia Experiment will love this one.

Budget: $12,000,000

Gross: $16,647,800

Fun Fact: Kirk Douglas was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actor, but having seen this film, I imagine it's more for his reputation than his performance in this outing.

Prayer of the Rollerboys

This is what happens during a recession...watch out UK.

So, the USA has hit a bit of a down turn. The economy has gone belly up and as always when society goes a bit funky, drugs and vice run rife. On this occasion we see our lead actor, Corey Haim (RIP) working as a pizza delivery guy, trying to make ends meet and look after himself and his younger brother. Corey meets a chick, Patricia Arquette, a cop and the pair get down to the nasty. There's also a gang that sells drugs and skate around on roller blades and wear beige trench coats too, sort of an early trench coat mafia type of thing. Corey has to save the day.

All told, this is a pretty bad film.

The main bad guy looks like a hybrid of Keifer Sutherland and Corey Haim...like, if they'd mated, somehow...

Fun Fact: Corey Haim was nominated as Best young Actor at the Saturn Awards.

Robot Jox

50 years after the Nuclear War, the surviving super nations decided that while they weren't buddies, it was best that full scale encounters be halted. With that in mind, they figured gladiatorial battles would be better.
Forget Kirk Douglas, forget Russell Crowe, what the future really needs, is Gary Graham!

Hang about...you never heard of Gary Graham?! Really?...yeah, me neither.

Any who, Gary gets in this giant armoured robot with projectiles and lasers and stuff and fights for the Western Market (USA mainly) against the Russian Confederation. The winners win countries. Bit stressful, but better than all out war.

It's good. Really...ok, it's average, even though it's written by Sci-fi supremo Joe Haldeman (Forever War-soon to be directed by Ridley Scott).

It had an estimated budget of $10,000,000! I don't know how, 'cos mainly it looks like Ray Harryhausen went Sci-fi with his stop motion stuff.

Fun Fact: There's a sequel, Crash and Burn.

Rocky

What can you honestly say about this film that hasn't been said?

It's a story that carries through the generations and obviously, so do the sequels...of which there are many.

Plot: Rocky, a good, but average boxer is picked out of a hat to face the heavy weight champion of the world. Fancying himself in with a shout, the softly spoken and understated ruffian trains loads, usually to musical accompaniment and montage, fights the champ and, well...you know the rest.

Shot in 1976, on a budget of $1,000,000 this film made over $225,000,000!!!!

What?!!!!!

Stallone even wrote the thing!

Fun Fact: Roger Ebert (famous film reviewer, like what I am, obviously) gave the film 4/4 and likened Stallone to a young Brando. Best Film, Best Director and Best Editing honours were won at the 1976 Academy Awards.

Point Break

Think what you will about the acting talents of messers Reeves and Swayze, in this iconic film, the pair work.

Directed by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow, this 1991 crime/surfing film is awesome in so many ways.

Plot: Mr Keanu Reeves is a former college football star, injured, he joins up with the FBI (as you do) and forms a partnership with Mr Gary Busey. Mr Busey is on the trail of these bank robbers, the ex-presidents and staunchly believes them to be surfers, robbing banks where the breaks are best. How do you usually catch bad guys in these films? You go undercover. Busey as a surfer might not work, so in goes Reeves.

He meets this chick, Lori Petty (Tank Girl) and gets a few lessons. Then they hook up with Mr Swayze and do some surfing and some sky diving.  

Honestly, you can't go wrong with this film. It has all the action and cultural homages that a cult film requires and more importantly...it has SWAYZE!!!! (RIP).

Budget: $24,000,000
Gross: $83,531958

Fun Fact: The film went through a couple of titles before settling on Point Break, with Johnny Utah (after the lead character) and Riders of the Storm also touted. Swayze cracked four ribs during the film and leapt from a plane 55 times...I'm guessing 'cos he kinda liked it in the end?

Legend

In 1985, Ridley scott (fella that made Alien) fancied making a fantasy film. So, he got himself a young lad on his way up the old acting laddery thingy, Tom Cruise, a rather tasty young lady named Mia Sara (Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and some fella named Tim Curry.

Plot: The Devil (that'll be Tim, in oodles of red paint and with very large antlers on 'is 'ed) decides he wants to take over never never land (or somethin'), but to do that he needs to stop the daylight. Now, as we all know, the only way to do that is to nick off with a couple of Unicorn horns...you with me so far? Good. So, Devily bloke sets his Goblin underlings after them. To find the Unicorns they follow Tom (as he knows where they 'ang out) and Mia to a bit of forest somewhere. Anyway, there's plenty more, but I'll not ruin it...that and I can't be bothered carrying on, it's all so fantastic (ha haaaa).

Budget: $30,000,000
Gross: $15, 502,112

Bit of a box office bomb, mainly for the romantic rambling and general weirdness of it all, but definitely a cult classic now.

Fun Fact: Unsurprisingly, the film received the Best Make-up Oscar nomination that year.

Excalibur

Ok, I like an Arthurian legend film as much as the next bloke...possibly even more, but off the back of Sword in the Stone (a Disney classic), with comic wolves, owls with large eyes and wizards in bermuda shorts, it's entirely possible that my pre-pubescent mind might have had a difficult time with this version.

Plot: So there's this the king and Merlin's his mate. King says to Merlin, I right fancy that lassie in the other castle. Merlin says to King, bit naughty that. King says, hook me up or we ain't friends no more Merl. So, Merlin makes the King look like the other King, so he can gets his 'rocks off' (not the Primal Scream version...or maybe it is?), then Arthur comes along and pulls the sword from the stone (as there ain't any in the line of succession anymore), then there's a round table, a load a knights and for some reason or other, Arthurs' mate Lancelot is a bit of a bounder and shags Arthurs' mrs (this scene's a tad graphic...as is most of the flick).

Still, I kinda like it. There's loads a shiny knights, sword play (no jokes please) and a bit of magic.

Budget: No clue?
Gross: $34,967,437

Fun Fact: It's got Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart and a rather raunchy Helen Mirren (like she'd ever be anything else?!) as the evil half-sis Morgana.

Mad Max

Set and shot on the dirt high ways of Australia, Mad Max is the story of Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), a policeman in a world where an apocalypse is right around the corner, following the collapse of the oil based world, when the wells ran dry.

Plot: The leader of a motorcycle gang escapes police custody, but being the main man, Max, chases him and it results in the leaders death. Bit later, the blokes gang come across Max's family on their summer holiday and kill 'em. Max goes nuts and then there's a couple of sequels.

Leather clad and driving the atypical muscle car, this is the character that shaped post-apocalyptic cinema.

Budget: $650,000

Gross: $100,000,000 (over the years I assume)

Released in the early summer of 1979, Mad Max was directed by George Miller, who would subsequently go on to film the second, third and is still, even now, some thirty years on, endeavoring to create the forth; Mad Max-Fury Road...possibly animated.

Fun Fact: Mel turned up to his Mad Max audition black and blue, following a drunken brawl the previous night. "We need freaks", stated the casting agent.

Enter the Dragon

In 1973, The Deadly Three (originally titled, Blood and Steel) was released as Enter the Dragon. In the final film in a glittering career (responsible for changing cinema going for ever), Bruce Lee Kung-fu chopped, kicked, slapped and loads more things 'ed...his way through a cacophony of villains on the island of the evil Mr Han, at the urging of a British Intelligence officer and with the aide of a couple of other blokes, Jim Kelly and John Saxon, having all been invited to a contest of skills.

Script-wise, you can't say much about this film (despite being co-written by Lee himself). It was however the pre-cursor to a slew of would be martial arts tournament films, Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle-BloodSport, most notably.

It is the film by which most action films, martial arts ones mainly, are judged. Long may directors try to better it. I look forward to the results.

Budget: $850,000
Gross: $90,000,000 (world wide and over a bit of time too)

Fun Fact: Stunts were provided by Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung among others. There's also a cameo by Bolo Yeung, the bad guy in BloodSport.

Idle Hands

Few studios can be said to have the courage to commit to a cautionary tale about the perils of laziness and the subsequent results...bravo Columbia Pictures (never again I dare say).

Plot: Slacker/loser/pot smoking/lay about Anton (Devon Sawa-best known for being in Final Destination and the Eminem video, Stan) and his possessed hand. Basically, the hand is infected by a demon (effectively) that is in search of a soul to take back to hell. In the spirit of every demonic possession film, there's a religious sort after it, this time it's a Druidic High Priestess in the form of Vivica A. Fox (Kill Bill), chasing it.

It's a ridiculous concept. Think teen comedy meets Cheech and Chong meets The Exorcist meets Addams Family. Cousin IT on a murderous rampage...with laughs.

Not the best return at the box office though.

Budget: $25,000,000
Gross: $4,152,230

Fun Fact: In addition to the delights of Jessica Alba's bum in small pants, we are also graced with Nightmare on Elm Street legend Robert Englund, as the voice of the maniacal hand.

The Neverending Story

Never ending storrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, na na naaaaa na na naaaaaa na na naaaaaaaa, never ending storrrrrrryyyyyyy.

So, now you know the song, lets all sing along.

Plot: Kid gets bullied at school, runs away to the book shop (as you would when you're an 8 year old boy), finds a book, the old man who runs the shop tells him he can't have it, kid nicks the book and high tails it to the dark and dusty attic of his high school to read it. Inside said book is another world, this world, as he reads it comes to life. It's got rock giants, sphinxes, big talking turtles, pointy nosed little folk, a scary wolf (I had nightmares over this thing for years-wimp, I know) and a Luck Dragon (wish on him him and it comes true).

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen (das boot, Air Force One) and starring nobody of note, this film sadly failed to recoup it's budget, like so many eventual cult films.

Budget: $27,000,000
Gross: $20,158,808

Fun Fact: The film is adapted from a German book by Michael Ende, published in 1979 and went on to spawn two sequels. Ende believed that the content of the film was so far removed from that of the novel, he had his name removed from the credits.

The theme song got to number 4 in the UK singles chart in 1984 (nice).

Labyrinth

I hate Paul Bettany!

Do you know why? Because he stole Jennifer Connelly from me!
I saw her first! I watched Labyrinth at least twenty times as a kid. I put in the ground work. Not fair!

Plot: Teenage girl, Sarah Williams (Connelly) is rather miffed at being lumped with her toddler, little brother, while her parents go off having fun. So, with an odd interest in goblins and fantasy, she calls upon the Goblin king (David Bowie) to take the child away...thing is, he does.

The following 80 minutes sees Sarah scouring the Jim Henson universe, looking for her brother and meeting a variety of decidedly peculiar creatures en-route.  

This fantasy feature is a musical and it is with Bowies performance and that of the young Miss Connelly that this film stands tall, with songs like Magic Dance, that are catchy and timeless. The film was oddly a box office failure, but any child of the eighties will happily tell you that this story was memorable and cult in many ways...not least for the barrage of Muppets.

Budget: $25,000,000
Gross: $12,729,917

Fun Fact: This was Henson's final film before he died in 1990 and was produced by George 'i rule the universe' Lucas. Strangely enough, or not, there's also a manga comic sequel.

Office Space

Funny does not quite describe this understated comedy.

Created by the Beavis and Butt-head maestro himself, Mike Judge, this live action film follows the life of a terminally depressed office drone, Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingstone-Band of Brothers) and his realization (under hypnosis) that life can be so much better if he just doesn't care.

With that in mind, Peter sets out to shirk his every responsibility. Very successfully.

There are true comic moments in this film, moments that you laugh at to yourself, out loud (and subsequently embarrass yourself in public).

I'll leave leave this review with one thought...damn it feels good to be a gangster!

Budget: $10,000,000
Gross: $10,827,813

Fun Fact: There's a series of spin-offs with the office odd-ball, Milton (played in magnificently understated fashion by Stephen Root).