Runyon, Jennifer

Ghostbusters

Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the script, but Bill Murray gets all the best lines and moments in this 1984 comedy directed by Ivan Reitman (Meatballs). The three comics, plus Ernie Hudson, play the New York City-based team that provides supernatural pest control, and Sigourney Weaver is the love interest possessed by an ancient demon. Reitman and company are full of original ideas about hobgoblins--who knew they could "slime" people with green plasma goo?--but hovering above the plot is Murray's patented ironic view of all the action. Still a lot of fun, and an obvious model for sci-fi comedies such as Men in Black. --Tom Keogh

18 Again!

Dreams of Gold

Ghostbusters

Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the script, but Bill Murray gets all the best lines and moments in this 1984 comedy directed by Ivan Reitman (Meatballs). The three comics, plus Ernie Hudson, play the New York City-based team that provides supernatural pest control, and Sigourney Weaver is the love interest possessed by an ancient demon. Reitman and company are full of original ideas about hobgoblins--who knew they could "slime" people with green plasma goo?--but hovering above the plot is Murray's patented ironic view of all the action. Still a lot of fun, and an obvious model for sci-fi comedies such as Men in Black. --Tom Keogh

Carnosaur

Call it Jurassic Apocalypse. King of B movies Roger Corman beat Steven Spielberg's dinosaur monster mash to the theater by weeks with this nasty preemptive knock-off. Diane Ladd (yes, the mother of the star of Jurassic Park) plays a chilly genetics scientist who gives up a career in biological warfare to build a better chicken and emerges with a giant meat-eating lizard bred from ancient DNA and poultry embryos. Think of her as a misanthropic Earth mother, spreading her genetic virus across the country through supermarket chicken eggs, and hatching her scaly brood in unsuspecting women (the birth scenes echo the earlier Corman sleaze classic Humanoids from the Deep). Director Adam Simon, who adapts John Brosnan's novel, bounces between self-consciously serious scenes of scientists and government officials huddled in impossibly dark control rooms and hilariously phony foam-rubber monsters hunting the high desert for food on the hoof. The highlight is a veritable meat market of human flesh featuring protesting hippie environmentalists chained to construction equipment ("Greetings, green brother." Chomp!). Behind the buckets of blood and gore is a sinister, cynical "end of the world" thriller with sharp references to Dr. Strangelove and Night of the Living Dead. It's far more subversive and sinister than your average rampaging dinosaur movie, and, in its own perverse way, more fun than Spielberg's infinitely more polished classic. --Sean Axmaker

Quantum Leap - The Pilot Episode

The only flaw with the release of Quantum Leap's original pilot (a.k.a. "Genesis") is that the end leaves you wanting another episode... at least. (The intelligent, funny, and often touching series aired five seasons between 1989 and 1993, and was later syndicated on the Sci-Fi Channel.) The pilot is a reminder of how entertaining television can be when the writing is smart and the right actors possess the charisma to carry a show from week to week. As Sam Beckett (get it?), a brilliant scientist who's caught in a time machine nightmare--he spent five seasons bouncing from body to body, righting many of history's mistakes and trying to get, er, back to the future--Scott Bakula blends just the right mixture of confusion, frustration, and heroic self-parody. Dean Stockwell, as Al, Sam's oversexed colleague who now appears as a hologram image and Sam's guiding spirit, is always fun to watch, especially when he lands such a juicy role as this. In this pilot, Sam first steps into the time machine in 1995 and suddenly awakes in 1956 as Tom Stratton, a married Air Force test pilot who's getting ready to break the Mach 3 barrier. As Sam tries to piece his memory back together, Al informs him that Tom originally perished during the experiment, and that to get back, he must make sure he breaks the barrier safely. The only catch is that Sam has never flown a plane before. Quantum Leap's climax is both surprising and moving--a testament, perhaps, to how the series managed to survive for so long without becoming stale. For those who've never seen the show, this is a perfect introduction. --Dave McCoy

See how it all began in this exciting, premiere episode that launched the "Quantum Leap" series as Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), a brilliant scientist from the future, takes part in a mysterious experiment--an attempt to defy the very laws of time and space.

Carnosaur

Call it Jurassic Apocalypse. King of B movies Roger Corman beat Steven Spielberg's dinosaur monster mash to the theater by weeks with this nasty preemptive knock-off. Diane Ladd (yes, the mother of the star of Jurassic Park) plays a chilly genetics scientist who gives up a career in biological warfare to build a better chicken and emerges with a giant meat-eating lizard bred from ancient DNA and poultry embryos. Think of her as a misanthropic Earth mother, spreading her genetic virus across the country through supermarket chicken eggs, and hatching her scaly brood in unsuspecting women (the birth scenes echo the earlier Corman sleaze classic Humanoids from the Deep). Director Adam Simon, who adapts John Brosnan's novel, bounces between self-consciously serious scenes of scientists and government officials huddled in impossibly dark control rooms and hilariously phony foam-rubber monsters hunting the high desert for food on the hoof. The highlight is a veritable meat market of human flesh featuring protesting hippie environmentalists chained to construction equipment ("Greetings, green brother." Chomp!). Behind the buckets of blood and gore is a sinister, cynical "end of the world" thriller with sharp references to Dr. Strangelove and Night of the Living Dead. It's far more subversive and sinister than your average rampaging dinosaur movie, and, in its own perverse way, more fun than Spielberg's infinitely more polished classic. --Sean Axmaker

Carnosaur/Carnosaur 2