The Raggedy Rawney (1988)

Bob Hoskins’ retirement due to severe illness put me in a slump, so I’m on a kick to watch his films. His big-screen directorial debut “Raggedy Rawney” is an anti-war drama about a band of European gypsies (led by Hoskins) circa maybe World War II -- the exact country and conflict is left unknown to us -- who come across a shell-shocked AWOL soldier (Dexter Fletcher) who has disguised himself as a mute woman, smeared crazily with makeup to appear as a mix of witch/raccoon/Ziggy Stardust. Hoskins’ Darky accepts the waif as a rawney, a mad woman with mystical powers. The boy plays along, falls for Darky’s teenage daughter (Zoe Nathenson), and avoids the army he deserted. It’s an intriguing film, co-written by Hoskins, of a culture alien to most Americans. Characters, even incidental ones, are given great quick shades. But some plotting is heavy-handed, and I still can’t see how the clan continue to not see through the sexual ruse. Hoskins naturally rules the film, playing rage, joy, heartbreak, and distress like no other actor. The inevitable final scenes hit hard. B

Caddyshack (1980) and Caddyshack II (1988)

“Caddyshack” well may have been the first “R”-rated movie I ever saw, back in the early 1980s on HBO, then the only way a child got to see forbidden movies. I didn’t get 90 percent of the jokes, but I laughed hysterically at the gopher and Bill Murray’s grungy assistant groundskeeper. I’m older now, but I still adore that puppet and Murray’s stoner wiseass, and that random Baby Ruth incident. Heck, the entire film is random, packed with adlibs from Murray, Chevy Chase, Ted Knight, Brian Doyle-Murray and Rodney Dangerfield, plus a gaggle of horny youth. Its bare-bones plot tracks a series of characters in and around a snobby golf course and country club, focusing on balls of both the greens and sheets, and drugs and booze. Some scenes soar, others fail. I’ve known many rich, white, golf clubbing, country club bigots who love this fully and openly un-PC film, but have no idea they are the butt of every gag. B+

In “Caddyshack” everyone thought a Baby Ruth candy bar in a pool was a piece of shit. They bolted. No mistake about “Caddyshack II,” though. It is shit. Anyone with brains from the first film got out of the pool after reading the script to this laugh-free snoozer. Not Chase. He stayed. Idiot. Dan Aykroyd replaces Murray, while Jackie Mason tries to be Dangerfield. Both give performances too awful to discuss. A fiasco with a capital F.

Die Hard (1988)

There’s nothing I can say about “Die Hard” that hasn’t been said before. It’s not only the action classic that set in motion an entire subgenre (remember when every 1990s action film was “Die Hard” on a …), it’s my favorite Christmas flick not involving a child’s air rifle. Or Jesus. Scratch that, it is my favorite Christmas flick. period. Don’t like that? Yippee-ki-yah ... You know the rest. I need not go into plot, if you don’t know how wonderfully Bruce Willis kicks ass in a L.A. skyscraper against a rogue group of terrorists-as-thieves, than you’re under age. Or ignorant. Alan Rickman, in his big screen debut, is hands down the coolest villain ever. His voice. The suit. The glint in his eye. Even as I root (every time) for Willis’ bleeding barefoot all-too-human scared-shitless cop John McClane, there’s never been a viewing where I don’t think, “If I were bad, I’d be Rickman’s Hans Gruber.” The dickering around to paint cops/feds as dicks is a unneeded crock, was in 1988, and still is the case. But the Everyman Hero, that elevator shaft, the helicopters, the C4, the way Michael Kamen turns Christmas tunes pitch dark, and the final confrontation and “Yippee-ki-yah” – drool. Best. Action. Film. Ever. A+