10 Times the Convenience Store Got Messed Up

con·ven·ience store - a store with extended opening hours and in a convenient location, stocking a limited range of household goods and groceries.

You know the setup: if we find ourselves in a convenience store (usually in a movie of the Action genre) you know there's a good chance the Cheetos and Charmin are about to hit the fan. If nothing else, the mortality rate of whoever's working the register is unfairly high; no one is more expendable than the men, women, and children(!) who stand behind the counter awaiting their fate. There's been all kindsa chaos in these mini-establishments but these are the notable moments when we couldn't help but wonder, "Who's gonna clean this up?"

- Paul

Robocop

Just an all around famous film scene, it demonstrates all the hallmarks of this scenario in only 90 seconds (though it's noticeably lite on the violence for such a hard-R flick). The shop owners live (as does the assailant) but casualties include lotsa booze, popcorn, and a good portion of the dairy section. 

Falling Down

In a raging spree of anticapitalist sentiment, the products on the shelves are not bystanders - they are the target of this spontaneous assault. The victims are donuts, aspirin, batteries, and little American flags for ironic effect. 

I Come in Peace

Dolph Lundgren has to ditch his stakeout to address a holdup in progress. The punks shoot out the lights, and in a store full of glass bottles of liquor and aluminum cans of Pepsi, we only end up losing a fridge door and some generic milk. 

Return of the Living Dead III

This is the common situation where the shopkeep pulls a gun on the robbers but ends up getting killed anyway. On a completely unrelated note, freshly zombified Mindy Clarke is devouring the entire Hostess endcap in an attempt to satiate her new and inexplicable hunger. 

From Dusk Till Dawn

Not too much is salvaged from what literally becomes Benny's World of Blood. Ironically the hostages and the perpetrators walk away in one piece (minus a hole in the hand) but Michael Parks and John Hawkes fall victim to bullets, fire, and a questionable explosion which may or may not have been the direct result of popcorn. 

Short Time

Believing himself to be terminally ill, Dabney Coleman fearlessly diffuses a hostage situation without any backup (or clothes). The bomber breaks down and surrenders with every person and Pop Tart left unscathed - until the realization that the ticking bomb was left inside the store proves to be too late. 

Hard to Kill

This is all about body impact. The store owner is shot and falls into a wall of liquor, then Steven Seagal proceeds to hurl the bad guys into wine bottles and potato chips. A mostly tidy job - disregarding the likely pool of blood left from the clerk who took one to the chest. 

Magnolia

Most convenience store mishaps hold little weight throughout the rest of their respective story; even when blood is spilled it's usually forgotten by the plot. Donnie Smith's public indiscretion here ends up looking not so good on his job review which is a major contributor in this tragic character's downfall. 

National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon 1

A parody of most of the scenes on this list plus all the others that came before -- it involves shotguns, Tommy guns, a flamethrower, and a bazooka, and it isn't over until every shelf is cleared by artillery fire. 

Ghost World

What happens when Steve Buscemi has it out for Brad Renfro? A full-blown blaze of fury, which results in a knocked-over chip rack and not much else. 

'95 With A Vengeance

Well it's 1995... again(?). That's right, I'm revisiting the revisit, rollin' with the homies, to infinity and beyond, etc. etc. Five years ago I explored Hollywood's bleak apocalyptic premonitions of what the future would be and how that outlook dominated 1995; no kidding, more than a dozen mainstream movies predicted disease, war, crime, totalitarianism, artificial intelligence, and the resurrection of a murderous cult leader. 25 years later - as in 2020 - it all seemed painfully pertinent. And now we find ourselves in the Fifth Anniversary of that tumultuously pivotal year and suddenly the concept of chronology appears less relative and more urgent; I began 2025 in the throes of Covid-19 as The United States approaches the threshold of an overproduced reboot. Time is a flat circle. 

Last time I took a look at '95 I proclaimed that there weren't enough good movies that year to compile a list. I didn't actually research that thoroughly, that's just a general reflection of that year that I always carry with me; the truth is that 1995, for me, was mired in shortcomings and disappointments, and some of that was rooted in the movies. There were a lotta good films, great films even, but for some reason the extra serving of clunky schlock persistently stands out to me. For the otherwise edgy 1990s it felt like there was a lotta safe, overblown camp that seemed more in line with the worst shades of the 1980s; adding to my aforementioned list of Science Fiction Films, stuff like Congo, Species, Bad Boys, and Showgirls really provide a general sense of '95 Cinema. But more than anything, the movie that mostly threw off my equilibrium was Batman Forever. 

At 12 years old, a more cynical and less intelligent person would suggest that I was simply too old for Batman, that I'd outgrown it, but what actually happened was that the franchise had regressed, severely; Joel Schumacher's goofy Action Comedy was a grave disappointment in my Tim Burton brain, and it's quite possible that this early bruise is when I began to lose touch with the "Blockbuster". I've seen it since, old as I am now, and it comes with a strong fragrance of nostalgia for sure, but after 30 years of many more movies in my mind, many more Batmen on the roster, and much more personal wisdom, it still remains laughably inept in my eyes. Though I still maintain the opinion that Jim did as much for The Riddler as Jack did for The Joker - and appropriately so, Jim Carrey seemed to be the most powerful person in the universe at that exact moment, but in hindsight I find him to be the only reason to ever revisit this particular movie. 

There was a lotta Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the air too. And suddenly Antonio Banderas was in like a million things. Jane Austen had replaced John Grisham as bankable source material. NBC dominated the dial with Friends, ER, Seinfeld, Caroline in the City, and Frasier. Meanwhile most of my TV time went to Absolutely Fabulous, Mystery Science Theater, and Flying Circus reruns on Comedy Central. Top 40 radio was aggressively soulful, with all the biggest hits coming from All-4-One, Vanessa Williams, Simply Red, and, of course, Seal. Even bands like Soul Asylum and Smashing Pumpkins got noticeably softer for a second. I've professed in the past that I find the 1990s to be my least favorite decade of pop music, and it all sorta circles around the scummy drain of this midpoint of the decade. But like I said the last time I roamed these dark halls, I was a depressed, overweight 12-year-old and my only friend was a dog that I had to put to sleep that April; this wasn't the year for me to go out chasing waterfalls, and I feel like a stronger lineup at the box office would've been therapeutic. But by the end of the year I had a new dog. I'd discovered The Beatles and Quentin Tarantino. If I were to be sentenced into an awkward, lonesome puberty then I was going to fashion it into a tolerable (or maybe even enjoyable) experience. A band from the 1960s and a movie from 1994 ended up defining my best experiences of 1995, because in all honesty that's the reward for being alive during any specific period of time: I'm not fully defined by whatever the headlines or Nielsen Ratings or weekend grosses of some calendar year turn out to be - if anything I use popular culture to better orient my own memories to determine when and where and how I was. There are entire social media accounts built exclusively on the attitude of "only 90s kids know" and then show a picture of a Power Ranger; we can read about what the public was into, but to have lived it, breathed it, smelled it, is an open invitation - an assignment - for all living witnesses to tell us what it was like. 

Having said that, I probably spent most of it watching TV.

So yeah, there were actually a lotta good movies in 1995 - and truth be told I probably saw many of them on Home Video in 1996, which is another good excuse as to why this year felt so dry. But quality aside, there was one heckuva quantity - as in, I personally saw a lot of what they were putting out, at least in the mainstream, so at the end of the day, I have some pretty positive things to say about a shit ton of movies -- like, enough to celebrate the 30th Anniversary properly with a complete Top 30. It almost feels unfair to my many omissions from stronger years, but diving this deep into a cursed year may just be a cathartic experience for me. And for you hopefully it'll stir some nostalgia that's less polluted than my own. Too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams. 

- Paul

1. Se7en

Or Seven as it was called then. I (probably like a lotta viewers) was surprised by its skillfulness; Cop and Killer Movies felt pretty dry and derivative by this time and so to be gifted something with such patience and panache (and savagery) felt particularly exciting. But now we know it was no fluke - it spawned a million imitators (and a title sequence that's still the standard 30 years later) but clearly this film (and its filmmakers) remains in a class on its own. I was already in full Kevin Spacey mode when I first saw it, so his appearance at the start of the final act was a bigger surprise to me then anything they'd written into the movie. 

2. Casino

I went into it in the headspace of "Diet Goodfellas". After a couple viewings it was easy to shake that mistake and digest it as the violent Rock Opera that it is. I still find this era to be Scorsese's peak as a visual artist, and so this epic of cards and dice and slot machines and neon lights and blueberry muffins and beatings proved to be fertile ground for gorgeous photography, transcendent editing, and a tremendous soundtrack.

3. Toy Story

This wasn't much of a surprise; it was the first Disney (or Disney adjacent) feature that I didn't see by accident - though my expectations of a pioneering, candy-colored kids' adventure ended up being surpassed by its pace, originality, and humor. I've loved the entire series but this one still remains my favorite.

4. Heat

A shortage of the glitzy energy found in other Michael Mann movies always prevented this from climbing too high for me, but the mood that prevails in even the more stagnant moments is constantly working on levels we're not even aware of. But clearly my standards are still high - currently the Crime genre (or any kinda movie) doesn't approach this caliber anymore (not even from Mann). 

5. Die Hard With A Vengeance

It was different for a Die Hard movie, it was different for an Action movie; apart from its traditional "realtime" structure, its nonstop pace in a sunny daytime city is an elaborate and expensive standard set by Speed the year before. And by that standard it outdoes the first two installments (in some ways, let's not get crazy).

6. Tommy Boy

This was a casual Saturday matinee for me but I incidentally witnessed a certified classic (as was the 1990s). Though one of the more troubling subcategories that gained momentum this decade was the SNL adaptation - so it usually felt fresh when cast members could pull off a picture that wasn't chained to some 7-minute live sketch; following the John Hughes footprints this movie pulls it off wonderfully. 

7. Forget Paris

My RomCom experience is mostly confined to a narrow period of time - mostly 80s and 90s - but like any genre from any era there are some that rise above the rest. Labeling aside this is a tremendous Comedy with a great cast and a unique narrative structure that makes it more compelling than it needs to be. 

8. Tales From the Hood

90s Horror still keepin' it weird with this entry that probably belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of that very specific brand -- certainly Top 4 Anthology Horror Movies. Around this age I found that "scary movies" always ended up being sillier or duller than I had been led to believe; this movie was advertised as being a bit of a lark, and ended up being darker and better crafted than most other movies that year - obviously, it made the Top 10. 

9. The Usual Suspects

For a lotta folks this movie is: a surprise ending, and not much else. Not for me, I taped it off of Pay-Per-View and watched it every day for months. Throughout the 90s there were a ton of these pulpy Crime Thrillers, and for as many as I consumed this one ranks pretty high. Also makes a good case as to why the roles of Editor and Music Composer should be filled by the same person.

10. 12 Monkeys

Of all the dystopian downers from this year (or actually any year) this one towers above them as the saddest, the scariest, the best-made, and the most original. When Gilliam actually took something seriously, that's when the absurdity played best. At the credit roll I'm still left with the same dazed feeling I had when I left the theater the first time. 

11. Crimson Tide

The last great Tony Scott flick - where the style and the substance reached crazy heights without hitting the ceiling; a supposed rewrite by Quentin, kaleidoscopic cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, and two of the greatest actors of all time (leading an equally dynamic supporting cast) make this my favorite in the submarine subgenre. 

12. Home For the Holidays

Speaking of stellar ensemble casts... More nuanced and less structured than the advertising had us believe (though the final act limps along) it's a casual character study that's never too heavy but never obnoxiously lite - which is an accurate depiction of the Holiday Season. 

13. Apollo 13

I went into it with The Right Stuff as the standard (which is probably unfair - to any movie) but at the end of the day (or three decades) it's too fun and bubbly and exciting to place it in any kinda low regard. (Though this is one of the first times I truly felt a disgust for computer animation.) 

14. Nixon

Biopics gonna Biopic - but an Oliver Stone Biopic has the potential to be batshit crazy, and it is (just like its subject matter) but its brilliance is in how well it balances its paranoid schizophrenia with the button-down formalities (again, like the subject matter).

15. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

I'm what you would call a Steven Seagal connoisseur (at least from his Warner Bros. days) and so while many of his vehicles may appear indiscernible to a less refined palette, I can assure those philistines that this is an absolutely worthy sequel in tone and structure and is nearly on par with the original. 

16. Castle Freak

Director Stuart Gordon was mostly knows for Horror Comedy -- that is very much not the vibe of this Full Moon Feature that pretty much plays it straight. So when it inevitably veers into terror and gore it's no laughing matter. One of the few movies that makes my skin crawl a bit. 

17. Lord of Illusions

For the entirety of its troubled production schedule, Fangoria was there reporting and I followed that story for over a year. Honestly that's what I remember most about it and what I think about when I watch it now. On its own it's gothic Clive Barker goodness, but it also very much has that personal edge for me. 

18. Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight

Billy Zane has attracted most of the attention this movie has earned over the years but I wanna use this space to call attention to the crazy ensemble cast of character actors who're clearly having equally as much fun with the material. 

19. Clueless

How did someone go about making such an accurate Period Piece about the current period? Usually hindsight is the most advantageous tool in recreating an era on film but it was as if Amy Heckerling & co. merely held up a mirror. 

20. Braveheart

14th Century Euro history as a Popcorn Movie; it feels reminiscent of the 1950s in that sense, but you update it for the 90s with some action violence and suddenly we have a new standard for the "Epic".

21. Casper

Like The Flintstones, a $50 million budget that has the aesthetics of a grade school diorama. Unlike The Flintstones, genuine laughs and heart and characters we care about. (Sorry, Flintstones.) 

22. Get Shorty

The new John Travolta Crime Comedy was a big deal to me and just about everyone else at that moment. Unfortunately it was no Pulp but it did have its own mood, as well as scintillating performances from Gene Hackman and Dennis Farina. 

23. Four Rooms

With the space I'm given here I'll say: the first sequence (or "room") is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, the second room is passable slapstick with a few laughs, and while the fourth room is still Quentin's best work as a director to me, the third room is the best thing that Robert Rodriguez has ever done. So, it's uneven to say the least. 

24. Waterworld

I knew going in that there was controversy surrounding its production, but I found the finished product to be captivating. My generation didn't receive a ton of nautical adventures but this one certainly worked for me - particularly Dennis Hopper's usual mix of comedy and menace. 

25. The Crossing Guard

For its black & white simplicity, Melodrama is tricky business. The movie smothers us in a world of grief and guilt and never lets us up for air (not even at the end) but there is a definite joy in watching the most talented actors in the world convey that misery. 

26. The Mangler

It gets the edge over Dolores Claiborne as my favorite King adaptation of that year because of its archaic storyline and shameless depravity; an evil laundry machine that eats people up is gonna be one of the more exciting things in any year in film. 

27. Desperado

In an era of violent gunplay this didn't completely stand out to me - I responded to the humor and the clever set pieces but it got lost in the shuffle a bit. In retrospect it's so obviously Robert Rodriguez and his distinctive style (which has all but dissolved these days). 

28. Tank Girl

I initially found it obnoxious, probably because (as I said) I wanted my comic book stuff to be Burtonesque -- it turns out that I just wanted Batman stuff to be more serious. Nowadays I'd be overjoyed if Comic Book Movies were presented as being this ridiculous. 

29. Assassins

Sly and his particular brand of Action may've been on the downslope a bit, but thankfully we have the man of the hour, El Mariachi himself, to add some tension as a colorful bad guy. That & Julianne Moore as an Action Star is always unironically entertaining to me. 

30. Cruel Jaws

a.k.a Jaws 5 (though I wouldn't go spreadin' that around) this Italian Monster Movie is a Frankenstein unto itself, pulling together pieces of other movies and music scores to create one nearly-cohesive collage of terror in the water. I'd say it's two whole letter grades better than Jaws 3-D. 

1988: It was just too late to know

Childhood ends at different times in different ways for different people: tragedy, responsibility, sexuality, whatever shatters the safety and innocence of which we're rightly entitled during those first years. For me, it was the invasive yet subtle introduction of school - namely Kindergarten. It slipped in like a virus, asymptomatic at first but soon the effects began to take hold. Not that there was anything particularly bad or upsetting in chocolate milk and finger painting, but the realization slowly started to set in: I'm missing all my shows!

In a larger more fatalistic scope, I'd just entered into a steel cage of doom that would detain me until retirement or, more likely, death; daytime television had become a symbol of illness, Summer, or unemployment, and no one alerted me to this new reality prior to my blind compliance. Before September of '88 my schedule was largely dictated by Cable and it was a more engaging and informative classroom than I would ever encounter. The afternoon block of programming titled Nick Jr. debuted at the beginning of the year, mostly comprised of Asian and European cartoons like David the Gnome, Adventures of Little Koala, and Mysterious Cities of Gold. Added to their regularly scheduled lineup of stuff like Count Duckula and Mr. Wizard and it was a fully educational day covering all the major subjects. There were children's shows all over the dial like Jem and Zoobilee Zoo that I'd watch casually, but the bulk of them were of an already bygone era: Flintstones, Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Looney Tunes - even then these things were 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, and as I sit here now they're still around and popular and considered all part of a gold standard. 

Same thing with grownup shows; I spent some time with syndicated Scrabble and Win, Lose or Draw as well as Soap Operas like All My Children and One Life to Live. But again, this was the midday dumping ground for "Classic TV" like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, Hazel, and every other pre-1970 Primetime program that limped its way into local broadcasting - not to die, mind you, but to become immortalized through me which strengthened me. Kindergarten extinguished this flame without mercy, and I became both stronger and dumber for it. I still had years ahead of me filled with baseball, bike riding, and Batman, but leisure time was now a luxury to be worked into my structured schedule. 

God bless the advent of Nick at Nite to keep me caught up in the continuing adventures of Ozzie, Harriet, et al. Though 1988 wasn't just about old TV for me. I'd received a bounty of ghost bustin' gadgets at the end of '87 so I'm sure I spent some amount of time neutronizing Sumerian gods while trying not to look directly into the trap. A life of adventure -- so much so that I began the year by cracking my skull open on the corner of an industrial dumpster in a sledding accident (a threat they didn't warn me of in the Juicy Fruit commercials). But that's part of the bigger idea: I played. I galavanted and cavorted. I shot lasers and slew vampires and stuck stickers and ate fluffernutters; my time of freedom leading up to my life sentence was not wasted, and was dedicated mainly (but not exclusively) to Dick Van Dyke, California Raisins, and severe head trauma. That's time well spent. 

I attended one theater visit, Roger Rabbit, the only real new movie I saw that year. But looking back now at what was in theaters back then, yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers! A few Box Office Blockbusters, but an otherwise bonafide bonanza of Cult cuisine and 80s pinnacles, all amounting to a cavalcade of choices so overwhelming that I had to scale back to present a nice round list number. The twit in me would describe the output as "colorful and inventive" but really the word for this year is "wacky."

Something like 20 sequels came out, and aside from a few clunkers (Caddyshack II, Arthur 2) they were mostly great (and mostly horror). Other than that, big splashy originals and fresh genre efforts are what 1988 was about, and ultimately became a lot of the defining pictures of not just my life, but also of Film History and Popular Culture as a whole. 

My son starts Kindergarten in September of this year but he's already been doing the Preschool thing for a while. Recently my sister asked him what he thought of it, and his response was "School is nonsense. I wanna be home with my family." Who's to blame for this defiant attitude that's clearly expanding and intensifying with each new generation? The declining quality of the classroom environment? A rigid framework forced into fragile developmental stages too early on? Or is it Dobie Gillis? Time will tell. 

- Paul

1. Midnight Run

I feel like I publish praise for this flick every few months. And why the fuck not? There may be a little nostalgia mixed into my adoration for this, the greatest Action Comedy of all time, but that doesn't minimize its greatness of all timeness. Everything about it feels so simple, yet it continuously unfolds and surprises in its story, its humor, its excitement, and even its drama.

2. Beetlejuice

Also not much left to be said about this extremely popular movie. I remember seeing the TV spots and thinking "this is definitely for me," but ironically could never remember the title. It wasn't until it made its way to Cinemax and I thought "this is it! This is that movie!" I was turned on by how bizarre it looked, and it's one of the few times I can remember a film surpassing the abstractions of its trailer; it was even more absurd than what they sold. 

3. Vibes

A small budget Romantic Comedy Adventure somewhere between Raiders and Romancing the Stone seems to be the perfect speed for me. But I'm intellectualizing - Jeff, Cyndi, and Peter Falk are like three of the most likable and watchable screen actors anyways so I defy anyone to not be entirely enchanted by this. 

4. Die Hard

It took me years to recognize that it didn't reinvent the Action Movie, but satirized it in such a bombastic way that it works as both a Comedy and a straightforward thrill ride. And a Christmas movie. 

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

If it had to have humor, if it had to have action, if it had to be rushed into production to meet the demand of this rapidly growing pop icon, then this truly was the best we could possibly get. Again, even more than Freddy's Dead, this is the parody of the fun and the dumbness of Elm Street and should be championed as such. 

6. A Fish Called Wanda

Leave it to a couple of Pythons to make the British Crime genre so silly. Though at the same time, it's refreshingly buttoned-down and accessible - both in its plot and its humor. Added to that, Jamie Lee and Kevin Kline are notable dramatic actors, and they carry the movie as the comic relief. 

7. Crocodile Dundee II

The first was a neatly packaged first act, and the only reason it required a sequel was because we wanted more. This installment is all about Mick's macho charisma and magic tricks that were the highlights of Part One, stretched out into the poignant 80s premise of taking down some Columbian drug lords. We didn't know we needed it until we got it. 

8. Flesheater

One of my most sacred "Halloween Season Mandatory Viewing" movies, primarily because of its weather accuracy. Seasonal setting aside, the cast has more depth than nearly any other 80s Slasher movie, and the culmination of score, gore, and suspense is on par with the best of Fulci. 

9. The Last Temptation of Christ

I consider this the dawn of Marty's most inventive era as a visual artist. It's one of the earliest examples I can think of where the subject matter of the movie was less of a draw than its actual moving parts; a true filmmaking achievement to capture my interest almost entirely through photographic storytelling. 

10. Big

The effect this movie has is still as relevant and unique as it was then. It's a hard kids' movie with a zany premise but it doesn't shy away from the terrifying reality it creates; adulthood is scary, but a supernatural overnight transformation that alienates you from your safe childhood is some fearless fiction.

11. Ghosthouse

One of the last great Italian Horror flicks of the decade (and Umberto Lenzi's career) mixes 80s Slasher tropes with a malevolent ghost, resulting in a bonkers, directionless plot that's most concerned with surreal imagery and gruesome kills set to a creepy score. Part of a dying breed. 

12. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

There seems to be a recurring formula around this time: fantastical ideas that capture the imagination, saturated in adult themes - violence, sexuality, fear, sadness. In other words a well-rounded movie that's not confined to the boundaries of genre or a target audience. I'm grateful to have been a kid when this came out. 

13. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

To think the TV show on which this was based was cancelled for being too subtle. Admittedly I'm a fan of the subtleties of slapstick, sight gags, wordplay, fart sounds, and concrete dildos. 

14. The Blob

Glad we're all finally in agreeance that this is one of the best remakes of any film genre -- which is a backhanded way of saying it's just a great movie. Considering it's an FX heavy SciFi flick with a literal faceless blob as the villain, it's pretty remarkable how much suspense and good dialogue comes out of it. 

15. They Live

I caught it for the first time ever on Cable, right at the beginning of the fight scene, and soon thought "...is this it? Is this the whole movie?" And that forever set the tone for me - and rightly so, because it's the correct tone: a comedic satire played entirely straight. Strangelove for the 1980s? You'd better believe it, brother. 

16. Imagine: John Lennon

Extremely telling and also guarded and superficial - like the man himself. A complex life and soul in under 2 hours is gonna have some hiccups, but the depiction of his murder and the news footage sequence of grieving fans is a powerful ending to any kind of movie. 

17. License to Drive

Not a lotta Teen Comedy options this year, but this Ferris Bueller-meets-After Hours hybrid kinda transcends its subgenre, resulting in just a straightforward Comedy with shades of realism (who wouldn't risk their lives for a date with Heather Graham?).

18. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

My favorite of the franchise as it's the first time I found Jason to be cool. Ironically this is the first to feel most like an Elm Street movie which is probably also why I respond to it favorably. 

19. Daffy Duck's Quackbusters

During the periods it wasn't perpetually on HBO, it was my consolation video rental; when nothing else seemed good, I'd get this. And understandably so, it's practically a Looney Tunes Greatest Hits without commercial interruption - a true content binge before it became a way of life. 

20. Pulse

To this day I don't fully trust any of the machinery in my home, and it's not because of Poltergeist or 2001 or any of those - it's because of this. That's an effective Horror movie no doubt, but even without the carnage (but especially with it) it's yet another great kids' movie to come out of this year. 

21. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

I'm always fascinated when a one-dimensional character suddenly finds themselves dealing with conflict and having emotions. (It worked for Pee-wee, didn't work for the Mario Bros.) To see her get off the couch and go on an adventure and sass the locals and dance naked in a Vegas musical is so much more than we deserved. 

22. Ernest Saves Christmas 

The fact that it features very little Ernest is solid proof that his longtime production crew knew how to craft a good movie without the bumbling hillbilly antics. Good for them, but even still, in his limited screentime Jim goes full force, busting out several of his "characters" and securing him amongst the ranks of Peter Sellers and Eddie Murphy. 

23. Critters 2: The Main Course

Also my favorite of this particular series, and I've gotten the most use out of it as an Easter movie (which also helped Last Temptation). B-side holidays aside, of all the Gremlins ripoffs over the years, this is the one that captures the excitement, humor, and inventiveness of its supposed source material. 

24. Dead Heat

Horror Comedy can be some pretty bad medicine. And to be fair, the clever and bizarre Horror outweighs the tepid and uncomfortable Comedy just enough to give it a sharp enough edge to become (wait for it) a great Action movie. 

25. Above the Law

I've seen it 40 times, I still don't know what the hell it's about. Don't care, it's still a sleek Crime Thriller from Andrew Davis (Fugitive, Under Siege) that introduced us to the whole Seagal genre (complete with the usual topnotch who's-who of supporting roles). 

26. Hellbound: Hellraiser II

As good as the first, which is my brand of highest praise here. The most honest and logical sequel since Godfather II - even with a new director; it answered questions, raised new mysteries, and actually managed to create even more grotesque sights to show us. 

27. Scrooged

I was initially bummed on it because it just wasn't funny enough. I still am a little. But it makes up for it in mood; it really does have a somber creepiness to it that is so accurately Dickensian, it works as Horror. And Bill's frantic monologue at the end is clearly Oscar worthy. 

28. Talk Radio

When Oliver Stone aims small he misses small. The fascination with the "shock jock" bled into so much Film and TV (and stage) that it just felt like a hallmark of Fiction. But this one has no chance of humor or redemption, it just spirals into darkness until it's pitch black. 

29. Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

After 4 films I finally stumbled upon one that worked for me. And why does it suddenly work? Because it's broader and bolder and dumber than all its predecessors; this is when they stopped trying to be real movies in any traditional sense and just let the mayhem ensue. 

30. Not of This Earth

When I hear words and phrases like Drive-In, Exploitation, Roger Corman, Creature Feature, I imagine a specific kind of imagery, and all of it appears in this film. It's almost as if New Concorde and Jim Wynorski were entirely self aware and knew exactly how to make a great movie. 

THAT MOMENT : Playing w/ Cupcake

On Deadly Ground (1994)

Post-holiday Winter viewing is always a struggle to reckon; grim, weather-appropriate Dramas in celebration of nothing. Sure there are plenty of fun "snow movies," but you've got to be in the mood for fun. So, when I am, despite the grayness of existence, 1994's On Deadly Ground is just about at the top of that very specific list. 

Before I became so methodical and unyielding, it was simply a "sleepover movie": a film watched ritualistically whenever you slept over someone's house when you were a kid. I think that's key because it's best enjoyed with at least one other person - if not a group - and a big reason for that is that it's mercilessly quotable from beginning to end -- but very much one scene in particular. 

Steven Seagal movies (between 1988 and 1998) typically guaranteed you one specific scene. Barring some of the bigger budget plots that pitted him against soldiers/terrorists/mercenaries, at some point in the movie he would go up against some hired goons or local hicks - always in a group, and often in a barroom setting. On Deadly Ground (also directed by Seagal) has him playing an environmentally conscious firefighter named Forrest Taft who embarks on his own brand of highly-trained street justice against an evil oil company in the Alaskan wilderness, while simultaneously preserving the rights of the Natives. If you're wondering why I bothered telling you all of that, it's because each and every one of these plot points comes into play in a scene roughly 10 minutes into the feature. In a bar. 

A gang of off-duty oil workers begin bullying one of the locals - mostly with clumsy and obvious racial slurs. Soon they become physically violent, and only then does Forrest intervene. It's this scene that appears in most of his films that is typically the best scene, but this one rises to a kinda joyous absurdity that a few of the others don't have. Firstly, this bar of brawlers and onlookers seemed to be recorded mostly with ADR; on top of the Country Music soundtrack and fight foley of breaking glass and bones cracking like uncooked spaghetti, isolated bits of dialogue dominate the audio, like "Don't hurt him, Forrest!" or when Seagal grabs an assailant by his genitals which cues a disembodied voice to exclaim, "My nuts!!" I can never help but imagine people in the sound booth recording these lines. 

Once he takes down a dozen or so of these underlings, he's left with the lead antagonist of this scene, played by the marvelous Mike Starr - best known for Uncle Buck, Ed Wood, and Dumb & Dumber (which are the first three that come to mind - I could've easily said The Natural, GoodFellas, and Miller's Crossing and it still would've sold his talents). Forrest challenges him to "the hand slap game" which was (is?) an aggressively violent middle school game that involves, predictably, the slapping of hands. Forrest's version of the game allows him to beat Mr. Big Balls to a bloody mess with a few swift blows to the face & abdomen. And once the bully is broken and beaten, Forrest calmly asks, "What does it take? ...What does it take to change the essence of a man?" And then Mike Starr, as the character and as an actor, humbles himself before this beastly blowhard and tearfully laments, "I need time...to change..." Pure Cinematic Magic.

- Paul

EROTIQUE :: PLAYBOY Magazine, July 1989 - Volume 36, No. 7

Once upon a time, in my lifetime, one had to seek out art and popular culture: we had to go to stores (sometimes many, because there were many to go to) and search for that video/album/comic book/trading card/poster/t-shirt/whatever, otherwise we went without it and it lived only in our fantasies, and we were poorer for it.

Today, everything's available - especially if you have even mildly broad tastes - and, you know, there's nothing logistically bad about this; it can become hard to see the forest for the trees sometimes and not fully appreciate that I can view any episode of Banacek at any time of any day. And that's just older stuff: we're in the age when new pop culture finds us and tunes us in without ever having to leave the comfort of our open-mouth gaze.
What a time to be vaguely alive!

But this is a story from long before trending tweets and viral memes and streaming binges, and how a cultural cornerstone and major centerpiece of my life dive-bombed onto my radar through the organic algorithms of momentum, smut, and God.

If you're at all close to my age (or younger), there's probably a good chance that you too spotted the July '89 issue of Playboy for the first time in Home Alone. In the movie, Kevin is startled & disgusted by the content of the magazine (because he's too young, you see), and by that metric, Buzz is, on all counts, not.
Even at the age of 7 I found Kevin's reaction to be manipulative and unlikely. In Buzz's bedroom of generic pubescent male treasures, the Playboy was, high & firm, the brass ring, and Kevin (who's playing a year older than myself at the time) would've recognized that fact in a less family-friendly fable. (He chooses a gun instead, go figure.) Now, Home Alone's never been my go-to guide for Cinema Verite, but when Kevin dismissed the magazine as "sickening" whilst tossing it into the ruins of the bedroom, my internal monologue asked, "What the fuck're you doing, that's the best thing you've found!" In summation, the movie made me feel as though there were something wrong with me, or the movie simply wasn't realistic.
In my ongoing narcissism, I settled on the latter.

Cut to 1993, and I rent Under Siege as a New Release video. And lo and behold, there it is again: Buzz McCallister's sickening nudie mag, very very prominently used as a prop (and an almost-plot point). At this point in time, I'd honestly figured that this "Playboy" I kept seeing in Hollywood movies was, in fact, a 'prop' - an issue of Playboy that never existed and was designed and created for the purposes of appearing in film & television: with its busy, nondescript cover that looks unlike all other Playboy covers, and its contents that are always conspicuously hidden from us.

In the movie, the lead female character is Jordan Tate, aka "Miss July," the issue's Playmate of the Month, depicted in a centerfold that's never shown to us. When I learned Jordan was simply played by an actress of a different name, that more or less solidified my assumption that this movie-Playboy was, indeed, fake.
Still, though, she was very convincing in her role, and the title "Miss July" stayed with me for some time.

The following year - '94 - a kid on the bus ride home from school makes me an offer: five dollars for a Playboy magazine. I can't imagine what the hell kinda conversation we were having that landed there (or, he just suggested it outta the clear blue), but the proposition was put forth, and I immediately devised a plan: I'd hoard my milk money for a week, so by Friday, I'd be stanky rich and the transaction could be made.
Everything about this scenario, at the time, was almost too exciting to grasp: I was involved in a secret plan without the council or moderation of any adult, the subject matter of the premise was decidedly provocative and dangerous, and at the end there was the promise of a potentially outstanding reward. In the even larger scheme of life, I learned how to save money with the skills of frugality and deprivation, i.e. I was budgeting and making sacrifices in order to reach a specific goal. But more than any of this was that I had to confront the idea of "lying" to my mother, who believed this money that I was allotted was going towards some form of nutrition. But through a bit of denial and self-talk, moral ambiguity convinced me  that this was a stance of independence and a right of pending puberty that was owed to me.
I might've actually been right: a minuscule carton of MALK was no competition for potentially formative material goods.

Friday came, and we decided to wait until my stop approached to do business. And as the bus brakes screeched, I handed over my five crinkled singles, and from out of his open backpack and into mine, there it was: a glimpse of immediate recognition, Playboy, July 1989, the magazine from movies, very quickly became mine in the smoothest smut deal that ever went down.

My first Playboy...
Boy, there's a lotta articles, huh? I was taken aback by how much combing is required to catch a glimpse of a bare T or A. But in this - this "movie star" issue of Playboy - you will see/read about:

• PLAYBOY INTERVIEW: BARRY DILLER - candid conversation
• THE RETURN OF THE DESIGNING WOMAN - article
• SHELLY JAMISON: TV NEWS KNOCKOUT - pictorial
• A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING - fiction
• THE ROAD FROM AFGHANISTAN - article
• PICTURE PERFECT - modern living
• BURNING DESIRES: SEX IN AMERICA - article
• B-MOVIE BIMBOS - pictorial
• 20 QUESTIONS: WILLIAM SHATNER

Some fun stuff. Some not so much. But when I was 11, none of it mattered. In fact, there was very little else in the world that mattered more than Jordan Tate, aka Miss July, aka Erika Eleniak:

BUST: 34
WAIST: 24
HIPS: 32
HEIGHT: 5'5''
WEIGHT: 108
BIRTH DATE: 9-29-69
BIRTHPLACE: Glendale, Cal.
AMBITIONS: To be a successful, happy person. One day I'd like a house in the country and happy babies.
TURN-ONS: water, cool, sunny days, sunsets, the beach, happy people, holidays & chocolate-covered strawberries.
TURN-OFFS: smog, complainers, narrow-minded people, drugs, arguing and traffic!
FAVORITE MUSICIANS: Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks, The Grateful Dead, Elvis, Aerosmith, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice-T & Rappin' Dr. Geek
FAVORITE MOVIES: The Godfather Saga, 9 1/2 Weeks, The Color Purple, La Bamba, Sophie's Choice, Fatal Attraction & Mask.
I'LL KNOW I'VE MADE IT WHEN: I am completely satisfied with who I am and where I am, inside and out.
IDEAL WEEKEND: Going to the Colorado River with my Honey - We'd have lots of fun in the sun, wild nights and when we were together, endless laughter.

Clearly, we were meant to be together.
How fucking weird was it that this issue of Playboy that I was most aware of was the one handed-down to me by a fellow pervert?
I had no interest in Baywatch at the time, I'd yet to see The Blob remake, and I didn't really grow up with E.T. To me, this mag was a sacred tome depicting the star of Under Siege in various stages of undress in nautical settings.

And, of course, what did I do with this holy collection of contemporary adult art and literature? (No, not that.) I cut it up, because I was 11 and I was an idiot and whenever I got my hands on a book or magazine that contained striking images, I'd extract them from their bound, concealed crypt and assign them a more readily-visible location - usually my walls. Though this material was slightly more provocative than my usual bedroom decor, and I wasn't too naive to take some precautionary measures, like, "From now on, no one go in my room." This ominous, transparent plea really didn't have a lotta distance, and before too long my father calmly asserted that perhaps full-frontal centerfolds were too confrontational "in the house." A fair observation from a grownup not on the cusp of puberty, and so these scraps of glossy nudity would lay dormant in the retired Trapper Keepers of bygone grades, thus cancelling out the emancipation of these images that I'd initially proclaimed.
And so that was the tragic end, more or less, of my first Playboy: crude trapezoids of magazine paper stuffed into last year's Social Studies folder.

After that, who knows...? Filed away for well over a decade, I'm sure, until the integrity of the paper (as well as any discernible function beyond nostalgia) had simply withered and died. By then the contents of this and all media were on full display in the World Wide Web, which, admittedly, led to a sort of laziness/acceptance in not acquiring the physical media that was once so sought after. And the very inkling of this attitude that I had for a short time has radically changed in the past ten years or so -- tangible art keeps me rooted, and I get the shit whenever I can get it.

I'd told this story - the Playboy story - to Jess probably too many times over the years, and she too fully understands (only too well) the emotional weight of childhood equity, the strength of ephemera, and the various Rosebuds and security blankets that are often necessary to nurture into adulthood to maintain an unmolested timeline. I have a small but solid percentage of these trophies - some since birth (god bless my Mother), while Jess has next to nothing, and her grief is real and valid. Because of this, she's able to empathize with my own loss(es). So, like a true soulmate, on Christmas morning of 2018 she gifted me an original, pristine copy of the July 1989 issue of Playboy Magazine.
Because of her, a piece of the puzzle that never should've been absent had been reconnected into my definition.

Truly a great Christmas present - I drifted off to sleep, pranging ducks on the wing and getting off spectacular hip shots.

As an adult-- er, the grownup version of myself, rather, I've gained the full maturity to leave all books and magazines in tact (obviously). Not the most heroic accomplishment for any person - but still, there'll always be that lust to decorate, to display, to adorn with the delights of aesthetic bliss. And let's face it: the best & most interesting art lives in books and museums, and I'll no longer be an art thief in either capacity.
But, the chain of command goes: if I can't express my interests in my living quarters, then it goes on a t-shirt, and if that fails (sometimes catastrophically), then it goes on me.

The End.

- Paul