Yipee-Ki-Yay Mr Falcon

The movies in the 80s — horror movies, family movies, movies about talking pets, and cartoons about talking dinosaurs — they were all somehow incredibly, hauntingly dark as shit. Here are some of the movies from our childhood that left a dent, a scar, a mangled bit of psyche in their wake. Do we have any in common?

It's 1997. You pop a VHS that contains from-cable-recorded copies of Glimmer Man, Fire Down Below, and On Deadly Ground and watch them in succession until you can't take any more horrendous dialog and fake New York accents...or berets and sleeveless cardigans. You switch the input back to TV, and after the screen flickers blue for a moment, and then you're 10 minutes into a Columbo TV movie specia...

There are some actors who were big bright shooting stars, gleaming for a couple years and then gone. Then, there are some actors whose faces we have literally been looking at on screen for our entire lives. Nic Cage is one of those screaming, crying, wacky faces. We take a thorough look at the high notes and some of the lesser known notes of his long, nepotism-launched career.  

At one point, a young Leonardo DiCaprio was in consideration to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000), the surprisingly excellent adaptation of a horribly difficult book to adapt with the same title by Brett Easton Ellis. The role of Bateman, of course, went to Christian Bale. Now, as news circulates that we may be getting a new adaptation of the novel about yuppie madness in 1980s New Yo...

Martin Scorsese has directed a lot of hits, and a few downright classics, but there are also a few semi-forgotten gems in his filmography, the best of which is The Color of Money (1986). It was a weird move for the already accomplished director: a movie about pool hustlers starring an aging Paul Newman and a up-and-coming Tom Cruise and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio that's actually a long-delayed se...

There's yet another reinvention of the Man of Steel on the horizon with James Gunn's forthcoming Superman (2025), so we're taking a look back and the film's we've gotten so far, and imagining the ones we haven't. If we had the talent to do it ourselves, or at least the power to order talented people to do our bidding, what would be our perfect Superman movie? Dave, Tom, and Vinnie sound off. 

It's an odd genre of movies — Christmas movies. They are dramas, romances, horror, action, and some of the most saccharine sap you'll ever come across, but they're all Christmas movies. So, what exactly makes a movie a "Christmas movie" and where do we draw the line? And, of course, we run down our all time favorite Christmas movies — and we get into a more niche category: Holiday Movies. 

They're both ridiculous buddy cop team-up movies from the 1980s and 1990s, but of very different star caliber and budget. Tango & Cash (1989) saw Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell join forces as two LAPD super cops who are framed by Jack Palance's crime boss, who has a weird thing for mice and CCTV monitors. Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) sees post-Rocky IV Dolph Lundgren team up with Brand...

Ah yes, the family-friendly mildly supernatural vehicle for a young Tom Hanks just breaking his way into feature films from the TV world. We all have such fond memories of Big (1988), but have you ever really thought about the psychological damage inflincted on the characters involved? And what the hell happened to Josh after the movie was over — a kid who lived as an adult for weeks and had a num...

It's difficult to overstate the sheer awesomeness of the original Predator (1987). It's just about the perfect action movie, and it's a blending of sci-fi, action, and horror that is extremely rare in all of movie history, not to mention a lightning-in-a-bottle cast that could only work in the late 1980s. So why has every single sequel (yeah, Dave's looking at you, too, Prey) sucked so bad?! We ta...

Kevin Bacon was in not one but two white water rafting slash canoeing movies in his career — one when he was still an up and comer and another when he was an established and bankable movie star. One is a neat little '90s thriller with Meryl Streep, the other is a strange coming of age movie with a super young pre-Hobbit, pre-Rudy Sean Astin. Take a trip into this weird little corner of movie trivi...

We all have them — movies that we're embarrassed to admit that we have watched 100 times alone in the dark of night. We do not speak of them — the universally hated comedies, the saccharine rom-coms, the terrible fantasy flicks. But they betray something about our character, don't they...our guilty pleasure movies. Tom and Dave talk about some of their secret favorites — can you bring yourself to...

Apparently, once upon a time, the plan was to have Oscar-winner Denzel Washington star alongside Morgan Freeman in Se7en instead of Brad Pitt. We got to talking about what that would be like — and it was a whole lot of fun. 

It happens every once in a while — two movies with nearly the same subject matter are release within months of each other. One is well received and becomes a big hit, and the other one is largely unsuccessful and forgotten. And it's not always the first movie to come out that wins. Dave and Tom take a look at the beloved '90s western Tombstone (1993) that tells the classic story about Wyatt Earp a...

WOLFMAN'S GOT NARDS!!!! There are two kinds of people who grew up in the late 1980s and 90s: Goonies people, and Monster Squad people. Dave and Tom are most definitely Monster Squad people.  This movie started off as a reboot of the classic Universal monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, The Gillman (The Creature from the Black Lagoon), and the Mummy, in classic monster-meet-up f...

If you know, you know. If you don't, then when you get the THAT scene in Bone Tomahawk (2015), you're gonna know. But this flick isn't all about that one scene. The horror is wrapped in an extremely solid Western deftly acted by a tremendous cast. It's also absolutely insane and will have you peeking through the gap in your fingers more than once. Take any movie about a posse heading out of town t...

Monster Movies! They're the cornerstone of any nutritious Halloween season breakfast. What's your favorite "monster movie"? Dave and Tom throw up their picks and then move on to a couple of super niche werewolf movies from the 1980s: Wolfen (1983) and Silver Bullet (1985). One features Albert Finney, his tremendous flowing mane, his impeccable fashion sense, going up against a pack of super smart...

Ah slasher movies  — a gem of a horror subgenre born of the exploitation flicks of the 1970s and then the sequel crazy home video horror machine of the 1980s. There's a lot to laugh about, and a lot to make fun of, but these characters have stuck around through decades, endless sequels, remakes, and reboots — and they just won't die! We take a look at why and we pick our favorites! 

Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Wolf Man (1941), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) — while Universal Studios certainly had more monsters in its catalog back in the 1940s and 1950s, that was the core group that changed cinema and created horror cinema — with sound. These classics followed a path blazed by early silent movies like Nosfe...

Since Saving Private Ryan premiered in 1998, two actors with small parts have been causing confusion among audiences. The German soldier affectionately known as Steamboat Willie whom Capt. Miller (Tom Hanks) sets free after being capture by the squad is often though to be the same soldier who brutally stabs Mellish (Adam Goldberg) in the movie's final battle. But it just ain't so. 

Is End of Watch (2012) one of the most underrated buddy-cop movies of all time? Tom gave it a watch — a movie he admits he would probably have never watched on his own — and is back with a first-viewing reaction of this excellent flick from writer and director David Ayer starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as two LAPD street cops who get way in over their heads when Mexican cartels link up w...

Which is more of a comedy classic, Wayne's World (1992), or The Hangover (2009)? Which is more iconic, There's Something About Mary (1998), or Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)? Which holds up better, American Pie (1999) and Encino Man (1992), or Superbad (2007) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)? We dig through the funniest, gun splitting flicks of the 1990s and the 2000s and see which...

"I'm Lin. You Jackson? You look like a Jackson. That must make you Frank Ducks." "No, it's Dux." "Oh, right. Like put up your dukes."    Say 'Mite! SAAAYYY IIIIIITTTTTTTT!

The improbable success story of an underground comic about giant mutant turtles who lived in the sewers of New York City, who are also teenagers, and also ninjas just will never not be popular. Ever since they hit the big and small screens in the late 1980s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been everywhere in one incarnation after another. As the new, dark TMNT Ronin is inbound, we fondly rem...

We thought the Alien franchise had jumped the shark and crossed into Terminator territory as a franchise that should just stop having new entries, because all they did was water down the great installments in the franchise. But, it turns out there's a bit more story, and fear to wring out of the ol' double-jawed xenomorphs. And if you thought facehuggers were scary before.... WARNING: SPOILERS AHE...