Director Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) is a contemporary urban drama with all the traits of a western. Hill adapted the screenplay from the novel written by Sol Yurick in 1965. The film follows a group of nine gang members from Coney Island who trek up to the Bronx where thousands of other rival gang members have gathered for a summit held by a man known as Cyrus, the head of the most powerful gang in the city who plans to unite all the New York City gangs together as a crime syndicate.

The opening of the film is a series of montages that follow the Warriors as they take numerous subways from Coney Island to the Bronx. Other gangs are also shown as they too make their way to the meeting. Once the Warriors arrive at Van Cortlandt Park, the Warriors make their way to the front where Cyrus delivers a speech where he plans to unite all the gangs in an attempt to control New York. Cyrus demands that all the gangs put aside their differences and secure each city borough, and then create a collective organization that can battle not only the police, but the mafia as well.

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Samuel Fuller’s The Steel Helmet (1951) is one of the most honest, unflinching, in your face war films ever made. Set during the opening stages of the Korean War, the film follows a small squad of Americans who face off against an unseen enemy. Gene Evans makes his big screen debut as Sergeant Zack, a World War II veteran who finds himself in a new kind of war.

The film opens with a tight close-up shot of a steel helmet that has been punctured by a bullet. It’s shortly revealed to be Sgt. Zack who is the lone survivor of an enemy attack that has massacred his outfit. With his hands bound behind his back, Zack tries to free himself. A young South Korean boy (William Chun) comes to Zack’s aid and frees him. The boy is nicknamed “Short Round” by Zack who allows the kid to tag along with him until he can find another American outfit to join up with.

As Zack and Short Round are making their way through a wooded area Zack hears a noise and tells Short Round to “Eat rice”. They’ve come across another American, a medic who is also a survivor from an enemy attack. Corporal Thompson (James Edwards) joins up with Zack and Short Round. It is also revealed that Thompson is a World War II vet and his experiences during the last war mirror that of Fuller’s own combat diaries with the First Infantry Division.

Shortly after, Zack and the others encounter an American patrol led by the green, inexperienced Lt. Driscoll (Steve Brodie) who commands the quintessential, stereotypical squad from most war films. Fuller handpicked most of the actors that represented the different types of service men who were serving in Korea.

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In salute of this weekend’s debut of Marvel Comic’s The Avengers, it’s time to rediscover another Marvel character who’s had three different film versions and hopefully one of these days, they’ll get it right. Dolph Lundgren stars in the first adaptation of The Punisher (1989).

The Punisher was always my favorite Marvel character because he didn’t have superhuman strength, he couldn’t shoot webs out of his wrists, or defeat evildoers with a metal alloy suit; he was nothing more than a badass vigilante who went out and wasted criminal scumbags left and right. He was one of the darkest characters that ever came out of the Marvel universe. So with this first film version, the writers decided to take some extra crappy liberties and change the story around.

In the comics, Captain Frank Castle was a decorated U.S. Marine whose family was killed by gangsters. Broken, disillusioned by the corrupt justice system, Castle decided to take the law into his own hands and became the Punisher who over the years forged some uneasy alliances with other Marvel heroes like Spiderman, Daredevil, and many others.

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Albeit a Sci-Fi classic, The War of the Worlds (1953) is a multi genre film. Based on H.G. Well’s classic novel about a Martian invasion of Earth, the film represents America’s fear of Bolshevik communism in the 1950s. The film opens with a narration sequence which tells the audience why the Martians began looking across the vast sea of space looking for a new world in order to colonize. Of all the planets that were examined by the Martians, Earth was the only suitable planet for their needs.

Screenwriter Barre Lyndon substitutes Well’s England for southern California where the opening stages of the invasion begin. Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) is a scientist who is called in to examine a meteorite that has made an unusual landing in the hills outside a small town. At the crash site, he meets a young woman who is familiar with his work. Sylvia Van Buren (Ann Robinson) and her pastor uncle invite Dr. Forester to stay with them for the time being while the meteorite cools off and can be examined.

Keeping an eye on the meteorite and insuring that it doesn’t start any more fires, three men discover that the meteorite is in fact a Martian ship that emerges from the crash site. The three men are quickly vaporized from the heat ray of the Martian war machine.

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962) is one of the greatest films ever made and a tie for my number one favorite film alongside Dr. Strangelove (1964). It is one of director David Lean’s most lasting legacies in Hollywood and a truly epic one-of-a-kind film. It was a film that was the inspiration to future filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas.

I first saw the film at the age of twelve when my father took me to the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City in 1989 for the film’s restored re-release. My father told me that it was his most favorite film and that I was very privileged to see it on the big screen. I will never forget when the lights dimmed and Maurice Jarre’s score played before the opening credits of the film. It was the first film that I can remember where my eyes were completely fixed to the screen in fear that if I turned away for a spilt second that I might miss a pivotal moment.

As I began rummaging through the popcorn bag, I looked over to my father who smiled and gave me a wink. My experience seeing the film on the big screen was like for so many others, a film, which made me want to become a director and it solidified my love of cinema from that moment forward.

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High above the East River in a cable tram, an international terrorist has taken several U.N. delegates hostage and has declared war on New York City. Only one cop stands in the way of this madman’s insidious plot. This is the premise behind the action thriller Nighthawks (1981), which stars Sylvester Stallone, Billy Dee Williams, and in his American film debut Rutger Hauer as Wulfgar.

Sylvester Stallone stars as Detective Sergeant Deke DaSilva, a tough NY street cop who is about to be pitted against one of the world’s most deadly terrorists. The film opens up in NYC on New Years Eve as both DaSilva and his partner Sgt. Matt Fox (Williams), members of a street crime unit that targets scumbags and pickpockets, ring in the New Year after they arrest three men in a sting operation. DaSilva chases one of the muggers onto the platform of the 174^th street station in the Bronx, where he apprehends the man after he resists arrest.

On the very same day across the Atlantic Ocean in London, England, Heymar Wulfgar (Hauer) targets a department store in another terrorist bombing which is a statement against British Imperialism. He warns the press that he will strike again and that there is nothing anyone can do to stop him. Being so well known in Europe, and after the killing of a terrorist contact, Wulgar undergoes plastic surgery in order to clandestinely sneak across international borders and to continue his terrorist plots.

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This week’s pick is The Andromeda Strain (1971) that was adapted from Michael Crichton’s best selling novel. Director Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still) brings this sci-fi thriller to the big screen.

A small group of scientists are brought together at the request of the U.S. government to investigate a crashed satellite that has killed the inhabitants of a small New Mexico town. It’s unclear as to the cause of death, but it is quickly discovered that the satellite, which returned to earth, managed to pick up an organism from space, which has proven fatal for the small town’s inhabitants.

The team of scientists is headed by doctor Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) who is the first to be called in by members of the U.S. Air Force and The White House. Stone understands the severity of the situation and wastes no time gathering the other three members of the team who will help to identify, isolate, and cure this new disease from space.

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Repo Man (1984), not to be confused with the movie about two guys who go around repossessing people’s internal organs when they miss a payment, is a Punk Rock classic starring Emilio Estevez as a clean cut kid in the dirty business of repossessing cars in the seedy underworld of Los Angeles.

Otto Maddox (Estevez) has just been fired from his job as a supermarket stock boy due to his lack of respect for authority. Later that night at a Punk Rock house party, he also finds out that his girlfriend Debbie is cheating on him with his best friend Duke. To make matters worse, Otto also finds out that his hippie parents gave away money that was promised to Otto for finishing college to a sleazy televangelist. What’s a broke, depressed punker supposed to do now?

After a long night of drinking and wandering the streets, Otto runs into Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) who pleads with Otto to help get his pregnant wife’s car out of a bad area and deliver it to the hospital where she’s going into labor. Otto initially refuses to take the job for less than $20 and finds out that he has been suckered into stealing a car.

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If you love old B-movies, you can’t miss Shout Factory’s line of “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” DVD collections. Horror, fantasy, science fiction, grindhouse- all are represented in these neat 3- and 4-film multi-packs.

The Vampires, Mummies, and Monsters collection is kind of a B-movie potluck. The four films on two discs created over a span of 17 years have incredibly different looks, tones, and yes, monsters.

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Enemy Mine (1985) is one of those great, lost treasures of sci-fi from the mid 1980s. The film stars Dennis Quaid as a fighter jock who becomes marooned on a distant planet with an alien being known as a Drac, a humanoid, reptilian creature who perceive humans as a threat since humans have begun colonizing the far reaches of space.

Quaid’s narration opens up the film and explains that by the late twenty first century, humans put aside their differences and worked together to begin colonizing outer space in search of worlds and resources. The Drac race had colonized the universe a thousand years prior to man’s arrival and went to war to preserve their claim in the galaxy. During a surprise attack launched by the Dracs, pilot Will Davidge (Quaid) and his shipmate crash-land on the planet Fyrine IV, a hunk of rock in outer space that has a breathable atmosphere.

Davidge’s partner Joey (Lance Kerwin) dies due to internal injuries and Davidge is left all alone. After Davidge buries his friend, he looks off into the distance and sees smoke from the crashed Drac ship that was responsible for him being marooned. Davidge sets off to find the ship and to kill its pilot if it isn’t already dead.

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Not to be confused with the upcoming remake, this week’s pick is Paul Verhoeven’s classic sci-fi action film Total Recall (1990). It is based on Phillip K. Dick’s novel We Can Remember it for You Wholesale and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man trying to piece together who he really is on Mars in the year 2084. Noted for his unique blend of violence, extreme sexual situations, and gore, Verhoeven pulls no stops with Total Recall.

In the film Schwarzenegger stars as Doug Quaid, an everyday guy who has nightmare visions concerning the planet Mars that for some time has been colonized by humans. Disenfranchised with his work and everyday grind, Doug decides to visit a company called Rekall that sells memory implantations that makes you feel as if you have really taken a vacation without actually going anywhere.

While at Rekall, Doug is persuaded by the manager to purchase what is referred to as an “ego trip” where you assume the role of a particular individual. Quaid is intrigued and selects the persona of a secret agent who is on a mission to save Mars.

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This week’s Monday Pick is the 1987 Sci-fi action film Robocop, directed by master filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Starship Troopers, Flesh & Blood, Soldier of Orange, The Black Book). Peter Weller stars as slain police officer Alex Murphy who is brought back to life by corporate scientists to become the ultimate law enforcement weapon in the crime-ridden Detroit of the near future.

Robocop is not only a well made solid blend of sci-fi and action, Verhoeven and writers Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner splendidly poke fun at many institutions in American culture like the media, corporate greed, privatization, capitalism, and even masculinity.

OCP (Omni Consumer Products) is a vast corporation that specializes in space exploration, civilian and Military technology, and government intervention. OCP enters into an agreement to run and finance the Detroit police force in order to serve its needs, one being that OCP plans to turn Detroit into the city of tomorrow known as Delta City due to rampant crime and that the city is on the verge of financial collapse.

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