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Howard the Duck
»rank: 1252
: :lf you concentrate on the fact that Howard the Duck was a notorious box office dud (still brought up today) and considered one of the worst films of the '80s, it's entirely possible to enjoy this special effects piffle. Howard, played by a special effect puppet, lives on a planet where ducks evolved instead of apes, but one day he's sucked into a vortex and deposited on Earth. There he befriends Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson), lead singer for the Cherry Bombs, ...
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Back to the Future
»rank: 6422
: :Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, 'future boy,' who is president in the United States in 1985? Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan. Dr. Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?! Who's vice president? Jerry Lewis? Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with this joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of ...
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Wild Life, The
»rank: 6491
: :Dr. Emmett Brown: Then tell me, 'future boy,' who is president in the United States in 1985? Marty McFly: Ronald Reagan. Dr. Brown: Ronald Reagan? The actor?! Who's vice president? Jerry Lewis? Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with this joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of ...
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Back to Future 2
»rank: 6080
: essential video:Critics and audiences didn't seem too happy with this inventive, perhaps too clever sequel to the popular 1985 comedy about a high school kid (Michael J. Fox) who travels into the past and has to bring his parents together (or lose his own existence). Director Robert Zemeckis and cast bent over backwards to add layers of time-travel complication to this follow-up, and while it surely exercises the brain it isn't necessarily funny in the same way that its predecessor ...
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Dennis the Menace (Clam)
»rank: 3131
: :The Hank Ketcham comic strip about a mischievous boy named Dennis Mitchell (Mason Gamble) becomes a film directed by Nick Castle (The Last Starfighter) based on a weak script by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club). Gamble is fine and Walter Matthau is persuasive as the grouchy neighbor Mr. Wilson, but Hughes spoils everything by throwing in a formulaic subplot about a criminal (Christopher Lloyd) who doesn't know what he's getting into by abducting Dennis. Been there, done that. --Tom Keogh
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Back to the Future Part III
»rank: 3722
: essential video:Shot back-to-back with Back to the Future ll, this final chapter in the series is less hectic than that film and has the same sweet spirit of the first, albeit in a whole new setting. This time, Michael J. Fox's character ends up in the 0ld West of 1885, trying to prevent the death of mad scientist Christopher Lloyd at the hands of a gunman. Director Robert Zemeckis successfully blends exciting special effects with the traditions of a Western, ...
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Some Kind of Wonderful
»rank: 10973
: essential video:After dominating the teen-movie genre for the bulk of the 1980s, writer-producer (and sometimes director) John Hughes proved that he had at least one good movie left in him before squandering his talent on lame comedies throughout the 1990s. Like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful treated its teenaged characters like real people with real feelings, hopes, fears, and desire. Mary Stuart Masterson gives a great performance as a tomboy drummer named Watts who's ...
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Space Camp
»rank: 14366
:Amazom.com:SpaceCamp shares a striking similarity to Ron Howard's Apollo 13--it's about NASA trying to bring some people down from outer space, except in this case 13 represents the median age of those in danger. Kate Capshaw plays Andie, who throws off the curve by being on the high end of that age scale. She's always a bridesmaid, but never a bride in the shuttle program, an astronaut doomed to play wet nurse to a gaggle of kids enrolled in NASA's summer program. ...
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All the Right Moves
»rank: 13423
: :Most films about high school football players usually fall into one of two categories: glossy jock romance or locker-room sex farce. This one defies the odds and scores both as decent character study and decidedly unsentimental sports melodrama. lt's not only a helluva coming-of-age yarn, but also, like Paul Newman's Slapshot, it's a bracing look at the hopes and dreams of blue-collar survivors. Tom Cruise plays a mill-town football star determined to escape the same traps that ensnared his parents. Craig ...
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Back to the Future - The Complete Trilogy
»rank: 7722
: essential video:Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis topped his breakaway hit Romancing the Stone with Back to the Future, a joyous comedy with a dazzling hook: what would it be like to meet your parents in their youth? Billed as a special-effects comedy, the imaginative film (the top box-office smash of 1985) has staying power because of the heart behind Zemeckis and Bob Gale's script. High schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, during the height of his TV success) is catapulted back to ...
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