Starring

Johnny Depp

James Russo

Christian Bale

Stephen Dorff

Marion Cotillard

Click to view trailer

Tron is a 1982 American science fiction film by Walt Disney Pictures the film is now 27 years old.   Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a gifted software engineer who used to work for the software corporation ENCOM, until he was swindled out of several video games he had created for the company by his former colleague Ed Dillinger (David Warner) who stole Flynn’s work and presented it as his own.  In doing so Dillinger earns himself a series of executive promotions, while Flynn is relegated to working at a video game arcade featuring the games that he had created.  Flynn is sure that if he can get inside the ENCOM mainframe he can find evidence of Dillinger’s wrongdoing but his program, Clu is caught and defeated by the Master Control Program (MCP).  The MCP with Dillinger’s authorization shuts down access to the security group Flynn is using,inadvertently locking out another ENCOM employee Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner).  Alan speaks to Dillinger about his access and reveals that he´s working on a security program called Tron which would monitor communications between the MCP and the outside world.  Alan is denied access for now and leaves after which the MCP confronts Dillinger about this, stating that it cannot afford to have programs monitoring it. Meanwhile Alan and his girlfriend Dr Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) go to Flynn´s arcade and warn Flynn that he’s been noticed but instead of listening he convinces them to sneak him into ENCOM’s laser laboratory, where he can forge access to a different security group. Lora who has been developing a method of digitizing real objects into the computer sets Flynn down at her terminal in the laser lab, where a laser is pointed directly at the terminal.  As Flynn pokes around the company computer system he is confronted by the MCP, who takes control of the laser and suddenly digitizes Flynn into the ENCOM mainframe.  Flynn wakes up dazed and confused realizing hes in the digital world, where Programs resemble their human creators The Users. Flynn is taken first to a holding pit where he meets the Program Ram and then he is taken with a number of other Programs to meet Sark, a control program that resembles Dillinger who is tasked with eliminating Flynn.  more…

Black Rain is a 1989 American action thriller film directed by Ridley Scott the film is now 20 years old.   The film begins showing Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) a NYPD detective who is a skilled motorcyclist racing under the Manhattan bridge for money he wins the race and leaves to go to his ex wife’s house to see his kids.  He then rides his motorcycle to one of the local precincts  and as he approaches his partner and fellow detective Charlie (Andy Garcia) steps out from the pavement and holds out his coat out like a Spanish matador Nick stops and wheel spins his back Tyre creating smoke and then shots forward aiming for Charlies coat and then stopping.   At Nicks precinct he is facing possible criminal charges from Internal Affairs who believes Nick might have been involved with his former partner who was caught in a corruption scandal. Nick is divorced from his wife who has custody of their two children, Nick also has financial difficulties due to alimony and child support as well as other concerns.  While having a drink at a local Italian restaurant, Nick and Charlie observe two Japanese men having what appears to be a friendly lunch with some Italian gangsters.   Then another Japanese man enters the restaurant Sato (Yusaku Matsuda) with several armed henchmen and takes a small package from the leader of the Japanese group.  As Sato turns to leave, one of the Japanese men at the table says in Japanese The Oyabun (Godfather) will not stand for this.  Sato finds these remarks insulting and he slashes the man’s throat and stabs another in the chest and then leaves the restaurant.  Nick and Charlie follow immediately shots are exchanged and after a short chase Sato is arrested after he nearly kills Nick.  At the police station Nick finds out that the suspect is a Yakuza gangster by the name of Sato. The situation is further complicated when Nick’s superior Captain Oliver (John Spencer) tells him that Sato is to be extradited to Osaka and given to the authorities there. Nick is furious that Sato will not be tried for murder in the United States but follows orders, Nick and Charlie board a plane with Sato and fly to Osaka Japan.  When they arrive in Osaka Nick and Charlie wait on board the plane while the passengers disembark, they are then met by men identifying themselves as Japanese police and take Sato into their custody and leave the plane by the rear exit.   As Nick and Charlie are about to leave the plane themselves another group of police enter from the front and identify themselves in English, indicating that the first group were impostors.  Nick and Charlie are taken to Police headquarters in Osaka and questioned there they are blamed for Sato’s escape.  After much debate Nick and Charlie are allowed to stay in Osaka and observe the hunt for Sato.  However the senior police officer in Osaka emphasizes that they have no authority in Japan and are forbidden to carry their guns because they are outsiders they are assigned to Matsumoto a mild mannered and experienced officer who will be their guide.  more…

The Thing is a 1982 science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter.  The Thing is now 27 years old the film begins with an alien spaceship entering Earth’s atmosphere at the southern pole and crashing.  In Antarctica a 12 man American research crew is getting ready for the upcoming winter when they are alerted by gunfire and explosions, a Alaskan sled dog makes its way towards the camp while being pursued by a Norwegian helicopter whose occupants are trying to kill the dog with rifles and thermal charges.   The dog enters the camp while the helicopter from the Norwegian research base circles the perimeter and lands.  One of its occupants exits the helicopter and pursues the dog on foot he frantically screams at the U.S personnel as the dog approaches them, telling them that it isn’t a dog but a Thing imitating a dog.  The Americans can’t understand him and through careless use of a thermal charge the helicopter is blown up and its pilot is killed. The surviving Norwegian fires at the dog but instead hits Bennings (Peter Maloney) grazing him in the leg, another member of the American research Team Garry (Donald Moffat) smashes a window and kills the Norwegian with his side arm.  The dog is taken in as a stray, wondering why the Norwegians were trying to kill the dog MacReady (Kurt Russell) the team’s helicopter pilot and Dr Copper (Richard Dysart) risk a flight to the Norwegian camp.  Once there they find the Norwegian camp completely destroyed and its personnel missing or dead, they find evidence that the Norwegians had dug something out of the ice and took it back to their base for study.  Along with the human bodies Mac and Doc find the remnants of a frozen corpse of a twisted creature not man but not beast and take it back to their own base for an autopsy.  An autopsy by Blair (Wilford Brimley) finds what appears to be a normal set of human organs but the Thing’s external appearance is anything but a bloody jumble of limbs, torsos and faces melded together as one.   Later that night Clark (Richard Masur) kennels the stray dog with the rest of the station’s sled dogs, they react with fear to the new addition growling and snarling at it. Noises from the kennel causes Clark to return where he finds almost the entire sled team in the process of being assimilated by the stray dog, which has transformed into a monster.  The alarm is pulled and the others arrive, firing multiple shots at the monster which have no effect until Childs (Keith David) arrives with a flame thrower and incinerates it.   Blair does an autopsy on the smoldering remains that reveals that the Thing is an alien organism that imitates other life forms by attacking and dissolving them and reshaping it’s image to appear in the animal or person it kills.   Bennings and Windows (Thomas G Waites) take all the dead remains and put them in the camp storage room but moments after leaving Windows returns to discover Bennings in the process of being replicated.  more…

The Running Man is a 1987 film based on the Stephen King novel The Running Man.  The Running Man is now 22 years old the film is set in the year 2017 the world economy has collapsed the freedoms of the United States are no longer the once great nation has sealed off its borders and become a militarized police state, censoring all film, art, literature and communications.  The government attempts to quell the nation’s yearning for freedom by broadcasting a number of game shows on which convicted criminals fight for their lives. The most popular and sadistic of these programs is The Running Man hosted by Damon Killian (Richard Dawson).    The Running Man takes place in a section of Los Angeles ravaged by an earthquake in 1997, convicted criminals attempt to survive while being chased by stalkers with ornate weaponry.  Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a helicopter gunship pilot patrolling Bakersfield California, when a peaceful protest of starving citizens gathers in Bakersfield Richards is ordered to fire on the crowd.  He refuses saying that the crowd is unarmed, ordered to over power Richards the rest of the crew assume command and kill a number of civilians.  To cover the incident up Richards is framed for murder and sent to prison he is dubbed The Butcher Of Bakersfield.   Eighteen months later Richards is shown in a prison labor camp where he plots his escape with two other prisoners William Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Harold Weiss (Marvin J McIntyre).  Following a daring jail break the three escape to a shanty town hideout on the outskirts of Los Angeles.  The leader of a resistance group Mic (Mick Fleetwood) of which Laughlin and Weiss are members asks Richards to join their efforts but he declines choosing to visit his brother’s apartment in the city instead.  He enters his brothers apartment only to find that the apartment is now occupied by Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso) who works for ICS the network that broadcasts Running Man.  Richards holds Amber against her will after she tells him that his brother was taken away for re education.  He forces Amber to help him escape the country, While at the airport she manages to alert security forces at the airport and Richards is captured.  Again altered footage of the event appears on national television, which shows that Richards shot and killed two civilians.  Amber is shocked at the staged event as she saw Richards merely trying to escape to freedom unarmed.  Richards is taken to the ICS studios in downtown Los Angeles , where he meets the host of The Running Man show Killian who forces him to compete in The Running Man with the threat that if he declines, Laughlin and Weiss who were captured separately will be put in the show instead.  Richards agrees and as the show begins Killian reveals that he lied, Laughlin and Weiss have been enrolled as runners anyway.  The three contestants first encounter Subzero an Asian stalker who uses a bladed hockey stick and exploding pucks.  Richards stuns the show’s viewers by strangling Subzero with barbed wire and killing him on national TV.  The three escape to the next zone where Weiss deduces that ICS up link facilities are within the game zone and that they could find the access codes to the satellites that broadcast ICS programming.  While at work Amber pursues the story Richards told her of his innocence and gets caught looking through the video files.  Her punishment for this is participation in The Running Man and she is sent into the game zone where she meets Richards, Laughlin and Weiss just as two stalkers Buzzsaw and Dynamo ambush them.  more…

Krull is a 1983 fantasy film directed by Peter Yates the film is now 26 years old.  The world of Krull is invaded by an evil alien only known as The Beast and his army of Slayers who travel the galaxy in the mountain like spaceship known as the Black Fortress.  Two rival kingdoms have formed an alliance against The Beast and The Slayers, Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshal) the son of King Turlord and Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony) daughter of King Eirig decide to marry to unite the two kingdoms in hope that together their combined forces will be strong enough to defeat the Beast and his armies.  It was foretold that Lyssa who has an ancient name would bear a child destined to rule the galaxy.  The Beast intent on ensuring that this came true has his Slayers attack on the wedding day.  During the wedding ceremony the Slayers attack the castle and kill everyone in it only to capture Princess Lyssa and take her back to the Black Fortress.  Prince Colwyn is the only survivor of the attack and is nursed back to health by Ynyr the Old One (Freddie Jones).  Told by Ynyr that Princess Lyssa is alive and well but held captive in the Black Fortress, Prince Colwyn sets out to find the Glaive an ancient and magical star shaped weapon that he must retrieve from a lava cave high in the mountain peaks.  Now he has the Glaive he must learn the location of the Black Fortress, which teleports to a new location on the planet at sunrise every day. On his journey he is joined by a cowardly shape shifting magician Ergo the Magnificent (David Battley) the cyclops Rell (Bernard Bresslaw) and Torquil (Alun Armstrong) is the leader of a band of escaped convicts Colwyn encounters along the way which includes Kegan (Liam Neeson), Rhun (Robbie Coltrane) and Oswyn (Todd Carty).  Colwyn enlists the convicts in return for there freedom and removal of their shackles.  Colwyn and the others are taken to see the Emerald Seer by Ynyr an old friend of the Emerald Seer, he is a blind prophet the Emerald Seer (John Welsh) who might be able to tell him of the next location of the Black Fortress but during his attempt to see the Black Fortress The Beast opposes his vision destroying his Emerald crystal. more…