What's Been On My Skybox Lately

Robocop 3: You know the series has completely hit bottom when a character calls Lewis a "dumb broad", and then it takes a pickaxe and continues digging. Torchwood-like resistance, annoying child hacker, xenophobia, sexism, this film has it all. The Japanese robot is sort of cool, though.

The Invention of Lying: Satire about a world in which no one can lie, except Ricky Gervais. Starts to get really good around about the point where it flat out says religion is a lie, but then realises where it's going and cranks the plot around to turn it into a fairly conventional romcom (complete with the usual annoying woman-as-prize trope)

American Werewolf in London: Groundbreaking, and uncompromising, horror-comedy, and quite probably the only film about Americans in the UK which manages to patronise neither Americans nor Brits. Watch for an uncredited appearance by Rik Mayall.

Little Voice: A story about how sometimes it takes a world-shattering tragedy to break free of your constraints and start really living your life.

From Here to Eternity: Drama about an infantry base in Hawaii on the eve of WWII; brilliantly characterised, even if I did wind up hating one of the nominal protagonists (he was well-drawn and believable, but a completely selfish jerk). It only has one real problem, namely, that it's implied that once the incompetent chief officer is removed from the base, it will stop being a hotbed of bullying and corruption and instead run smoothly; other military dramas have taken that ball and run with it down a rather more pessimistic direction.

Movie Count for 2014: 16