Lionheart (1987)

  You ever see something as a kid and it imprints on your little brain but then no one has ever heard of it and you can't find it anywhere so you start wondering if you made it up?  That's this movie for me.  I have an intensely vivid memory of watching this at home (my town didn't have a movie theater) so it must have been a rental from the corner gas station (I am extremely old, ladies and gentlemen) but I couldn't remember the name of it and no one ever seemed to know what I was talking about when I described it.  Thank God for IMDb because I was able to look up Eric Stoltz's entire filmography and find it a few years back to add to my TBW queue.  Because of course it's not streaming anywhere.  I feel like the only person who knew it existed (with the possible exception of Mr. Stoltz).  And that is a crying shame.  Because if you are between the ages of 9- and 12-years-old, this movie fucks.  Content warning:  child endangerment, blood, mild violence

Robert (Eric Stoltz) is a young nobleman desperate to join King Richard's crusade in the Holy Land.  He runs away from home and stumbles upon two circus kids, Michael (Dexter Fletcher) and Blanche (Nicola Cowper), heading to Paris.  Michael throws knives and Blanche sees the future in her dreams.  She recognizes Robert by his golden spurs and tells him his destiny is to meet King Richard the Lionheart by the sea.  There are dangers on the way, however, in the form of the Black Prince (Gabriel Byrne, looking all kinds of evil and fine), a notorious disillusioned knight who snatches children and sells them to the Moslems (I know.  It's lazy and racist.  Just grit your teeth.)  Robert must find allies and lead his charges to safety.

I cannot emphasize enough how many boxes this checked as a kid.  You had knights on white horses, kids with magic powers, kids with bonded animals (falcon), a female knight who's too badass to be tamed, played entirely straight with the kind of urgency that is super cringy in adults but seems completely natural to children.  It is basically Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with the cast of Oliver.

As I said, it's not streaming anywhere but LookMovie.to.  I found a DVD on Amazon for less than $9.  Physical media forever.

After Hours (1985)

  I'm going to consider this a corollary to Women's Horror.  Content warning:  suicide

Paul (Griffin Dunne) is a typical 80s yuppie.  He's stuck in a job that pays well but is boring with no upward mobility, and he's lonely.  During a bout of insomnia, he meets Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) at a diner and decides to try his luck.  Thus setting in motion a series of events that results in the worst night of his life.

Okay, so we previously defined Women's Horror as "what if we just showed what women's lives are like" and believe it or not, this counts.

Paul spends the majority of the night second guessing the intentions of every woman he meets, being hounded, harassed, and at one point literally imprisoned as he grows increasingly desperate for help.  Now, because he is a man, this is played for dark humor.  If he were a woman, this would be a slasher/thriller.  Which drags us back around to dark humor, actually.

This was directed by Martin Scorsese and it is probably the biggest outlier of his filmography.  He has made movies with humor before but never an out-and-out comedy.  Now whether you consider this to be successful as a comedy or not is entirely your perception.  It's streaming on Kanopy for free with a library card.

Predator (1987)

   This movie is awesome.  Content warning:  gore, blood, animal death

An elite group of soldiers goes into the South American jungle on a purported rescue mission only to find themselves hunted by an invisible alien.

I don't love the Predator series as much as I love Alien but I do still love it.  I re-watched the original recently for Movie Club and it remains hugely fun.  Everyone has huge muscles, is lightly oiled, and carries the biggest guns they possibly can while getting absolutely merc'd by an interstellar dentist on safari.  Amazing.

Popstar: Never Stop Stopping (2016)

  Your enjoyment of this film will be directly related to how tolerable you find Andy Samberg and/or Lonely Island.

Conner (Andy Samberg) split from his boy band to go solo(-ish because he kept his buddy Owen (Jorma Taccome) on backup) and had a wildly successful debut.  But now, with his sophomore album, interest is waning and Conner is willing to do almost anything to stay in the spotlight.

It's not really a parody so much as it is a paint-by-numbers music biopic comedy.  It's basically an extended SNL skit with a massive budget.  If that is your jam, you've probably already seen this, honestly.  The original songs are fine.  I didn't find them super funny or interesting but that kind of works for the character, a paper-thin man-child on the edge of being a has-been at 22.  There are a ton of cameos from actual pop musicians, again lending to the SNL-ness of it all, and a surprisingly subdued performance from Sarah Silverman that kind of stole the show for me.

Seems like a good background movie for cooking or cleaning your house.  It's streaming on Netflix.

Never on Sunday (1960)

Happy 4th of July, Americans!  This is another Jules Dassin movie where he plays a bumbling doofus who ruins everything.  The man was working through some things.  

Homer Thrace (Jules Dassin) is an American in Greece looking for the cure for all the world's ills.  Ills he has defined as a divergence from the Ancient Greek philosophical ideals.  Ilya (Melina Mercouri) is a prostitute in a small coastal town.  She chooses her own customers, makes her own hours, is beloved by the townsfolk, and believes in making your own happy endings, no matter how sad the story.  So obviously, Homer becomes obsessed with trying to "fix" her.  

A lot of older movies don't hold up all that well but this remains a banger.  Ilya is a great character and Mercouri plays her to the hilt.  The tone is light and fun with zero judgment.  Homer is a stuck-up scold but it's played for laughs.  

It's streaming on Amazon Prime.

Melvin and Howard (1980)

  This did not win Best Picture at the Oscars, in case you can't read that tiny print.  It won with the National Society of Film Critics.  Content Warning:  domestic violence

Melvin (Paul Le Mat) is an average guy with maybe more optimism than brains.  The kind of guy who would help an old man (Jason Robards) out in the desert get to Vegas, but also the kind that can't stop himself from spending every dime he has on a boat when his wife (Mary Steenburgen) wins on a game show.  Years later, Melvin sees that the old man he helped was actually Howard Hughes and a mysterious stranger (Charles Napier) leaves him a Last Will & Testament handwritten by Hughes bequeathing Melvin $156 million.  

This is based on a true story.  A handwritten will purportedly by Howard Hughes showed up at the Church of Latter-Day Saints temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, naming Melvin Dummar a beneficiary.  It was eventually ruled a forgery.

This was directed by Jonathan Demme and won Steenburgen a rightly deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.  It's not a bad film, although it really does highlight how ubiquitous domestic violence was in society.  Break out your VPN if you want to watch it, though, because it is not streaming anywhere.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

  Yeesh.  Content warning:  physical abuse, emotional abuse, child endangerment

A housewife (Gena Rowlands) slowly goes mad from neglect and boredom while her idiot husband (Peter Falk) flails ineffectually.

Shocking no one, I hated this movie.  It's long, boring, and interspersed with domestic violence that has aged like milk.  Somehow, it's considered a classic.  

Rowlands is very good but it almost feels like a wasted performance because I will never watch this movie again.  As always, your mileage may vary.  It's available on the Criterion Channel.