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The Addams Family
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Screenplay: Caroline Thompson
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd
They really don’t make them like they used to, do they? I mean, come on, The Addams Family was funny without being too crude, dark without being dreary and with cartoonish violence in spades—a kids movie good enough for adults.
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Addams Family Values
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Screenplay: Paul Rudnick
Starring: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd
How great is Wednesday’s speech about American colonial exploitation and the genocide of the Indigenous American population before she completely annihilates the whole camp? Nobody was doing stuff like that back then.
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An Inconvenient Truth
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Starring: Al Gore
Al Gore went from being boring to being the most woke bummer at the party. Here’s a movie about how we’re all screwed by climate change. Thanks, human race.
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Batman
Director: Tim Buron
Screenplay: Sam Hamm
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson
Batman had to go through some rough patches before we were treated to the Dark Knight Trilogy. This movie isn’t perfect, Joker’s stroll through the art gallery to Prince’s “Partyman” is particularly cringe worthy, but overall it was pretty good.
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Batman Returns
Director: Tim Burton
Screenplay: Daniel Waters
Starring: Michael Keaton, Danny Devito
Batman Returns is where Tim Burton really hit his stride with his time at the helm of the franchise. It was dark, it was, at times, disgusting, and where Batman seemed to be Burton a bit too hemmed in, Batman Returns allowed him to make the movie truly his.
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Carrie
Director: Brian De Palma
Screenplay: Lawrence D. Cohen
Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie
One of the original body-horror classics and it’s probably an hour-and-a-half long euphemism for puberty.
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The Dark Half
Director: George A. Romero
Screenplay: George A. Romero
Starring: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker
Stephen King’s cocaine years were a hoot, man. In this semi-autobiographical film, an author creates a separate persona who writes separate novels (which happened in real life with King’s Richard Bachman) but the public gets wind so he has to have a real-life burial… for the persona. It’s all very heady stuff but then there are some murders and the persona might be to blame? You probably can guess where this is heading.
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Disturbing Behavior
Director: David Nutter
Screenplay: Scott Rosenberg
Starring: James Marsden, Katie Holmes, Nick Stahl
In the 90s adults were so afraid of teenagers and this fear spawned a myriad of “terrifying teen” films. Nowadays, most teenagers are so busy trying to buy Supreme gear and curating their SnapChat feeds that adults are more or less just confused by them.
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Lars and The Real Girl
Director: Craig Gillespie
Screenplay: Nancy Oliver
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider
In the future, we probably won’t even date or marry flesh and blood humans. In fact, we probably won’t be able to tell advanced androids and humans apart. We’ll go back and look at films like this and say, “What was so weird about that?”
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The Loved Ones
Director: Sean Byrne
Screenplay: Sean Byrne
Starring: Xavier Samuel, Robin McLeavy
The Loved Ones is probably one of the best horror movies to come out in the last ten years. The less you know the better but it’s a twisted revenge film starring a power drill. Funny, bloody and a very good time.
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The Men Who Stare at Goats
Director: Grant Heslov
Writers: Peter Straughan (screenplay)
Stars: Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey
This movie had it all: great cast, great source material and a competent director (the guy who did True Lies!) but for some reason it just wasn’t very good. Actually, we take that back, it’s a great movie to put on while you’re folding laundry or writing a paper—fantastic background music.
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My Girl
Director: Howard Zieff
Screenplay: Laurice Elehwany
Starring: Anna Chlumsky, Macaulay Culkin, Dan Aykroyd
It’s all fun and games until you start throwing rocks at beehives. How are you seriously going to do that when you know you’re allergic? C’mon, Tommy!
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My Girl 2
Director: Howard Zieff
Screenplay: Janet Kovalcik
Starring: Anna Chlumsky, Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis
The main character of these two movies is named “Vada Sultenfuss,” which sounds like a throwaway name for your newest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
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The NeverEnding Story
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Screenplay: Wolfgang Petersen
Starring: Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver
If you didn’t watch this movie as a kid, I feel sorry for you. What was your childhood even like? When Artax dies in the Swamp of Sadness, forget about it—waterworks. Honestly, how could you do that to children? Second thought—maybe you were better off never knowing the tragic story of Atreyu and Artax.
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River’s Edge
Director: Tim Hunter
Screenplay: Neal Jimenez
Starring: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye
If River’s Edge had never come out, the world may have never been introduced to the genius of Keanu Reeves. In addition, we’re treated to the absolute insanity of Dennis Hopper opposite Hollywood-madman Crispin Glover. This film is a true classic of wayward teen cinema.
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Robocop
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Screenplay: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Starring: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen
It’s weird that there are so many movies from the 1980’s that tackle themes that are so prevalent today. The first Robocop expertly examines themes of gentrification, the militarization and privatization of the police force and capitalism run rampant. Also, it’s gory as all hell.
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Robocop 2
Director: Irvin Kershner
Screenplay: Frank Miller
Starring: Peter Weller, John Glover
Robocop 2 wasn’t as smart as it’s predecessor but it did prove to be prophetic as the city of Detroit did eventually go bankrupt. Unlike in the film there isn’t a greedy corporation hell bent on owning it afterwards (though the guy who invented Quicken isn’t far off).
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Surfer, Dude
Director: S.R. Bindler
Screenplay: S.R. Bindler
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson
Forget Dallas Buyers Club. Forget True Detective. This is peak McConaughey. Here, he plays a surfer who’s just trying to ride this big wave we call life, man.
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Saw the Devil
Director: Jee-woon Kim
Screenplay: Hoon-jung Park
Starring: Byung-hun Lee, Min-sik Choi, Joon-hyeok Lee
I Saw the Devil is consistently ranked one of the scariest movies of all time. The film is classic revenge torture porn but classy.
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Let the Right One In
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Screenplay: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar
The English language version entitled Let Me In is a decent approximation but, really, you should watch the original Swedish version to get the full picture. This movie came out right when vampires were all becoming apathetic, brooding teenagers and totally reinvigorated the whole genre.
Bonus: Old School TGIF Lineup
Hulu is completely upping their game by releasing the entire series of the all old school TGIF lineup sitcoms. It looks like Boy Meets World is still being held on tightly by Disney but all the other shows are present and accounted for:
Family Matters, complete series
Full House, complete series
Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, complete series
Perfect Strangers, complete series
Step-By-Step, complete series
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