Pretty Poison is a surprisingly well done romantic-drama with crime thrown into the mixture and features great performances from Anthony Perkins, unsurprisingly, as well as what should’ve been a star-making role by Tuesday Weld.
Pete’s Dragon is a fun flick for the entire family with respectable visual effects work on the dragon and some fine performances from the human cast with the kids coming across well and avoiding the pratfalls of child actors in these types of movies.
Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story is hardly a great western, in fact it’s a movie filled with a bunch of western clichés and some so-so acting by lead Trace Adkins. Still, there’s a moderate amount of entertainment if only to see Judd Nelson as an outlaw.
Return of the Living Dead 3 is of course a silly horror film with a romantic twist; the performance by a young Melinda Clarke (credited as Mindy Clarke) is fantastic playing a still sexy undead.
Black Christmas didn’t quite grab me as it has others, but there is certain creepiness and combined with a fun cast and some genuine scary moments here and there, along with a twist that’s ingrained in most people’s minds, the film at least was entertaining.
Dreamscape is a sometimes cheesy 1980s sci-fi thriller but incredibly fun featuring a great cast from a young Dennis Quaid to veterans Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer. Not sure how much replay value it has but it was enjoyable enough.
Star Trek: The Animated Series is a fine release from Paramount and although the animation itself has all the hallmarks from the 1970s, the stories at least are well written and these serve nicely as unofficial fourth and fifth seasons of the original series, highlighted by its original cast.
War Dogs could’ve been better but as it is, the performances by Jonah Hill and Miles Teller were solid, as was Bradley Cooper’s brief role, yet the story never quite hit its mark for me. At the very least, it is worth a rental.
Moby Dick is a classic adaptation of the, well, Herman Melville’s classic novel and features some fine performances by Gregory Peck and Richard Basehart, not to mention Orson Welles in a small role.
Hell or High Water was one of the bigger surprises of a downtrodden 2016 and while I don’t think it’s perfect, as a character-driven, modern-day Western, it is fantastic with performances by Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine (in that order).
Although I preferred the original C.H.U.D. versus this sequel, there’s still some fun to this campy 1980s comedy-horror that is made to be watched amongst friends.
Hands of Stone isn’t a half-bad boxing drama biopic and yet by the end, I wasn’t exactly connected on any level with the story and outside of some nice performances, there’s not much that stands out.
The Squid and the Whale is a poignant family drama featuring some really fine performances, the main one being Jeff Daniels who shockingly (or not) did not at least secure an Academy Award nomination. But beyond that, this is a story which transcends generations.
Punch-Drunk Love isn’t one of Paul Thomas Anderson’s greatest work, yet it’s still a lovely film nevertheless, what was most impressive then and now is seeing that Adam Sandler can turn in a well done, dramatic performance and paired with the exquisite Emily Watson makes for a poignant little romance-drama.
Re-Kan is a cute little anime series that has a far more supernatural element compared to others which seemed geared more toward science fiction or inner spirit plots and characters, so it was at least a nice change-up.