Let the revels begin, let the fire be started—we're dancing for the restless and the broken-hearted

STREETS OF FIRE

1984

Directed by Walter Hill

Written by Walter Hill and Larry Gross

Spoiler alert: moderate

It's in your nature to destroy yourselves

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

It's not quite the triumph one might have cautiously hoped for when they heard that both Cameron and Hamilton were coming back, but at least Terminator: Dark Fate still understands what the series was about in the first place.

2019
Directed by Tim Miller
Written by David Foyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray, Charles H. Eglee, Josh Friedman, and James Cameron

Spoiler alert: moderate, though I suppose the movie itself would have it as "high"

King Week: Who made who?

In which Halloween-related marathoning has resulted in reviews of several spooky movies from the mind of the world's favorite horror author, Stephen King.

MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE

1986
Written and directed by Stephen King (based on the short story "Trucks" by, you guessed it, Stephen King)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Predator Week, part IV: The day the Earth stood up, walked out of the theater, and asked for its money back

THE PREDATOR

So now I can see why I might have dragged my feet on finishing this particular retrospective—it must have been a premonition of utter shit.  Not only the worst film in its series, The Predator is quite probably the worst film of its whole year, and damned if I didn't expect much, much better from this franchise and from these creators than that.

2018

Directed by Shane Black

Written by Fred Dekker and Shane Black

Spoiler alert: high

Predator Week, part III: Space what now?

PREDATORS

Predators presents one big new idea for the franchise, with a lot of littler new ideas that dovetail into it, and most of those ideas range from good to honestly great... and yet, what we get with this film is not really too much better than what we got in 1990, or in 2004 (and if it's better than what we got in 2007, dude, so are several varieties of cancer).

2010

Directed by Nimrod Antal

Written by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch

Spoiler alert: moderate verging on high

Predator Week, part II: Oh, it's the urban jungle, I get it

PREDATOR 2

Predator 2 never quite justifies its existence, but it mostly earns your attention, and that will have to do.

1990

Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Written by Jim Thomas and John Thomas

With Danny Glover (Lt. Mike Harrigan), Ruben Blades (Danny Archuleta), Maria Conchita Alonso (Leona Cantrell), Bill Paxton (Jerry Lambert), Gary Busey (Peter Keyes), Kevin Peter Hall (a Predator, why is he credited as "the Predator"? the Predator is dead)

Spoiler alert: moderate

It's so [checks notes] bad

TURBO KID

It's shocking enough that Turbo Kid simply isn't obnoxious in its pandering (though pander it does, for 95 straight minutes), but, somehow, it's actually good.

2015

Written and directed by Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell

With Munro Chambers (The Kid), Laurence Leboeuf (Apple), Aaron Jeffery (Frederic), Edwin Wright (Skeletron), and Michael Ironside (Zeus)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Predator Week, part I: The most dangerous game

PREDATOR

Quite possibly the 1980s' finest combination of brains and brawn, you'd think Predator would be rated even higher than it already is.

1987

Directed by John McTiernan

Written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, and David Peoples

With Arnold Schwarzenegger (Dutch), Carl Weathers (Dillon), Bill Duke (Mack), Richard Chaves (Poncho), Sonny Landham (Billy), Jesse Ventura (Cooper), Shane Black (Hawkins), Elpidia Carillo (Anna), and Kevin Peter Hall (the Predator)

Spoiler alert: we're all going to die

Alien Week, part V: The chariots of the gods

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR

AVP isn't exactly great, but is absolutely some brand of "good enough," and it's entirely impossible for me to understand how this is the one that wound up pissing everybody off.

2004

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, and Paul W.S. Anderson

With Sanaa Lathan (Alexa Woods), Lance Henriksen (Charles Bishop Weyland), Ian Whyte ("Scar"), and Tom Woodruff, Jr. ("Grid")

Spoiler alert: moderate

Alien Week, part II: The starship troopers

ALIENS

The great JC (the other one; no, the other other one) brings this franchise to its highest possible point.

1986

Written and directed by James Cameron

With Sigourney Weaver (Ellen Ripley), Michael Biehn (Cpl. Dwayne Hicks), Carrie Henn (Newt), Lance Henriksen (Bishop), Jenette Goldstein (Pvt. Vasquez), Bill Paxton (Pvt. Hudson), and Paul Reiser (Carter Burke)

Spoiler alert: get away from her, you bitch

Alien Week, part I: The terror from beyond space

ALIEN

As the film that kickstarted the whole cycle of sci-fi horror in the 1980s, we are forever in Alien's debt; and for being awesome in and of itself, we absolutely must pay it the respect it's due.  But, guys, sometimes a near-masterpiece can just be a near-masterpiece, and you don't need to give it full marks merely to recognize how important, or even how good, it actually is.

1979

Directed by Ridley Scott

Written by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusett, David Giler, and Walter Hill

With Sigourney Weaver (Ripley), Tom Skerritt (Dallas), Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), John Hurt (Kane), Yaphet Kotto (Parker), Harry Dean Stanton (Brett), Ian Holm (Ash), Helen Horton (Mother), and Bolaji Badejo (the Alien)

Spoiler alert: joking, yes?

Cimmerian Week, part V: Hey, maybe all this movie needed was a beard, and a little eyeliner

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

It may not be entirely devoid of any good points, but taken as a whole, Conan the Barbarian '11 is just about as bad as a remake of a great film could ever get.

2011

Directed by Marcus Nispel

Written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, and Sean Hood

With Jason Momoa (Conan), Ron Perlman (Corin), Rachel Nichols (Tamara), Nonso Anozie (Artus), Said Taghmaoui (Ela-Shan), Rose McGowan (Marique), and Stephen Lang (Khalar Zym)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Cimmerian Week, part III: You're a brave girl, but danger is my trade!

RED SONJA

The legend of Conan continues without Conan, but not without Schwazenegger, and what we get is a bog standard fantasy-actioner that does nothing very well and nothing very poorly.  It is content, instead, to just exist.

1985

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Written by Clive Exton and George MacDonald Fraser

With Brigitte Nielsen (Sonja), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Kalidor), Ernie Reyes Jr. (Prince Tam), Paul L. Smith (Falkon), and Sandahl Bergman (Queen Gedren)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Census Bloodbath: Hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me with those laser beeeeeams

October's end draws near—and so once again it's time to pull the old switcheroo with Brennan Klein, the finest human being I know not related to me by blood or sexual intercourse!  And so shall it ever be: while Brennan reviews three wonderful Cardboard Science classics over at Popcorn Culture, handpicked by yours truly for their moral uprightness and fine craftsmanship, we intend to wallow in whatever sleaze and gore that Brennan's deemed fit for me to review, in the form of three entries from Brennan's centerpiece feature, the increasingly-complete encyclopedia of the 1980s' slasher phenomenon that he calls Census Bloodbath.  But we take our duties seriously here, and, as usual, I'm having a blast.

CHOPPING MALL

1986

Directed by Jim Wynorski

Written by Steve Mitchell and Jim Wynorski

With Kelli Maroney (Alison Parks), Tony O'Dell (Ferdy Meisel), Karrie Emerson (Linda Stanton), Russell Todd (Rick Stanton), Barbara Crampton (Suzie Lynn), Nick Segal (Greg Williams), John Terlesky (Mike Brennan), Suzee Slater (Leslie Todd), Paul Bartel (Paul Bland), Mary Woronov (Mary Bland), and Dick Miller (Walter Paisley)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Cimmerian Week, part II: "And I suppose nothing hurts you." "Only pain!"

CONAN THE DESTROYER

Even though there are still things to love about this watered-down sequel, it's one damned hard comedown.

1984

Directed by Richard Fleischer

Written by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas, and Stanley Mann

With Arnold Schwarzenegger (Conan), Tracey Walter (Malak), Mako Iwamatsu (Akiro the Wizard), Grace Jones (Zula), Olivia d'Abo (Princess Jehnna), Wilt Chamberlain (Bombaata), Pat Roach (Toth-Amon), Sarah Douglas (Queen Taramis), and Andre Rene Roussimoff (Dagoth)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Cimmerian Week, part I: The riddle of steel

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

Blessed with a director, a composer, and a team of designers all operating at the very height of their powers—and blessed further by a cast with all the right skills to pull this story off—Conan the Barbarian set fire to the box office back in '82, and it's no mystery why.

1982

Directed by John Milius

Written by Oliver Stone and John Milius

With Arnold Schwarzenegger (Conan), Sandahl Bergman (Valeria), Gerry Lopez (Subotai), Mako Iwamatsu (The Wizard of the Mounds), William Smith (Conan's Father), Nadiuska (Conan's Mother), Max von Sydow (King Osric), Valerie Quenessen (Osric's Daughter, The Princess), Sven-Ole Thorsen (Thorgrim), Ben Davidson (Rexor), and James Earl Jones (Thulsa Doom)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Steven Spielberg, part XXXI: The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Hardly the travesty of the holy Original Trilogy that crybabies constantly say it is, the fourth Indy film is actually a rather fine adventure movie that does almost everything it does pretty damned well—but, unfortunately, does very little perfectly, which I'm afraid does set it decisively apart from its predecessors.

2008

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by David Koepp, Jeff Nathanson, and George Lucas

With Harrison Ford (Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.), Shia LaBeouf (Henry "Mutt" Williams), Karen Allen (Marion Williams nee Ravenwood), John Hurt (Dr. Harold Oxley), Ray Winstone (George "Mac" McHale), and Cate Blanchett (Col. Dr. Irina Spalko)

Spoiler alert: you saw it, and you probably hated it

Steven Spielberg, part XVI: And this time he's bringing his dad

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

With our director returning to his most popular franchise, we arrive at what is—in many important respects—the least of Indiana Jones' original trilogy, and the one that undeniably breaks from the tone and tenor of its two predecessors.  Yet somehow The Last Crusade makes a solid claim to operating on the same rarefied level, albeit in a very different way.  It claws its way back to the pinnacle by being the most personal to its maker—not to mention the most human in its achievement.  Yes, this is the Indy film that makes everybody cry.  Or maybe it just makes me cry—but I really hope it's everybody, just so I don't feel as ashamed as I probably ought to be.

1989

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Jeffrey Boam, Menno Meyjes, Tom Stoppard, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg

With Harrison Ford and River Phoenix (Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.), Sean Connery (Dr. Henry Jones, Sr.), Denholm Elliott (Dr. Marcus Brody), Richard Young (The Man With the Fedora), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah), Kevork Malikyan (Kazim), Robert Eddison (The Knight of the Grail), Michael Byrne (SS-Standartenfuhrer Ernst Vogel), Alison Doody (Dr. Elsa Schneider), and Julian Glover (Walter Donovan)

Spoiler alert: and for this one, you've seen it around sixty times, maybe seventy

Steven Spielberg, part XII: Adventure has a name

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM

Look, I know.  All right?  I know.

1984

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, and George Lucas

With Harrison Ford (Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.), Ke Huy Quan (Short Round), Kate Captshaw (Willie Scott), D.R. Nanayakkara (The Village Priest), Roy Chiao (Lao Tse), Roshan Seth (Prime Minister Chattar Lal), Raj Singh (Maharajah Zalim of Pankot), and Amrish Puri (Mola Ram)

Spoiler alert: you may well have seen this a hundred times—but you have at least seen it once

Steven Spielberg, part VIII: The new hero

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

No introductions required.

1981
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by George Lucas, Philip Kaufman, and Lawrence Kasdan
With Harrison Ford (Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr.), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah), George Harris (Capt. Katanga), Denholm Elliott (Dr. Marcus Brody), Alfred Molina (Satipo), Ronald Lacey (Maj. Arnold Toht), Wolf Kahler (Col. Dietrich), and Paul Freeman (Dr. Rene Belloq)

Spoiler alert: you have seen this movie fifty times