National Lampoon’s European Vacation Sometimes an installment in a popular franchise (particularly a comedy one) can find itself being unfairly maligned for even years after (especially if the entry afterwards is considered to be on a par with the original), but when it can still be compared favorably to 90% of today’s movie comedy output, […]
National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon I Airplane!-style spoofs are often known to be pretty much letdowns, especially in recent years (Meet The Whatevers, Genre Movie), but this 1993 production directed by Police Academy sequel writer Gene Quintano is for the most part pretty damn funny and solid, choosing as its target the Lethal Weapon Series and […]
National Lampoon’s Vacation Among the things that made movie comedies of the 80s better and funnier than any other era was besides the superior writing and character development they had, there was also a penchant to take some chances with the material being used in such a way that certain parts might come off a […]
Natural Born Killers Despite his proud insistence as a borderline lunatic left winger, Oliver Stone has always had a propensity as a writer and director to offer both insight and understanding to both sides of the fence as well as harsh critical analysis of those whom many would think he supports. This film, not so […]
Near Dark Those of the current generation enamored with the Twilight saga and are interested in seeking out vampire movies from the past will find that this 1987 film (released around the same time as Lost Boys) has an absolutely ENORMOUS amount of hype around it from cult horror fanatics, but ultimately it comes across […]
Necessary Roughness Generally, sports movies (or at least movies about a team sport) take great pains to be able to build its story around a large, varied ensemble cast, each with their own lovable little quirks and character traits, seamlessly brought together to create a story where you care for most of the actors in […]
Negotiator What was billed as the ultimate cinematic team-up between stars Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey is ultimately undone by ridiculous story elements, cheesy dialogue, and a sadly leaden pace. The film’s gimmick is that of two top police negotiators squaring off in a battle of wits, though ultimately it is more a battle […]
Network It’s very rare when a film (and its screenwriter) takes on the role of a virtual prophet, successfully predicting the future of mass media (and the world itself) in such a stunningly accurate way that one wonders if a time machine was made accessible to that writer so that he could write the story […]
New Jack City The gangster genre has always been among the most colorful of all movie types, violent, glorious displays about a criminal’s rise to power and inevitable downfall. While obviously little can be done to change the basic formula of such films (outside of having the bad guy “win”), what can make one rise […]