Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Director James Foley's black comedy-drama was adapted from scripter David Mamet's real estate stage play about desperate and cutthroat salesmen, noted for many rapid-fire, cleverly convoluted, foul-mouthed lines of dialogue and verbal abuse.

The main characters in this intense character study set mostly in a grungy Chicago office (Premiere Properties) were real estate agents: profanity-spewing, vulgar hotshot salesman Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) (with his raunchy dialogue about a female customer's crumbcake during a tough sale in a woman's kitchen: - "You're eating her crumb cake." - "Oh yeah, I'm eating her crumb cake." - "How was it?" - "From the store." - "F--k her."), iron-fisted, inept salesman manager/boss John Williamson (Kevin Spacey), and tired, desperate old-timer Shelley 'the Machine' Levene (Jack Lemmon).

In the famed opening scene, they were warned about increasing their monthly sales figures with a threatening ultimatum delivered by rousing, motivational, foul-mouthed, in-your-face super-salesman Blake (Alec Baldwin) - he promised that only the top two salesmen wouldn't be fired within one week.

"...we're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You laughing now?"

"A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing! Always be closing! A-I-D-A. Attention, interest, decision, action. Attention: do I have your attention? Interest: are you interested? I know you are 'cause it's f--k or walk. You close or you hit the bricks! Decision: have you made your decision for Christ?! And action. A-I-D-A. Get out there!"

Hard-Boiled (1992, HK)

John Woo's great tough-guy, star-making action flick (his last film made in his native China before coming to Hollywood) was an intense cop thriller about warring factions of Hong Kong mafia.

The very violent film starred Chow Yun-Fat as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen (with a toothpick in his mouth) and Tony Leung as undercover detective Tony - both fighting crime in the Hong Kong police force.

From start to finish, the film was filled with explosions, gunplay, and dead bodies for a high body-count, as the duo infiltrated mobster Johnny Wong's (Anthony Wong) secret hideaway inside a hospital's basement level.

The film was notable for its highly-choreographed, stylish scenes of gunfire - it was the quintessential HK action film.

"There's no room for failure now. The innocent must die!"

"Give a guy a gun, he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God."

The opening shootout in a Chinese tea house (with gilded bird cages) between sinister arms smugglers and cops, when Tequila slid down a banister with his two guns blazing, one in each hand.

The 30-minute action sequence shootout (appearing almost like a live-action, shoot-em-up video game) in the corridors of a burning, under-siege hospital (including a nursery with infants).

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Emerging maverick writer/director Quentin Tarantino, a self-promoting videostore clerk who demonstrated his exciting, self-taught, original filmmaking genius (with generous helpings of violence, sex, profanity (almost 300 instances of the F-word), witty dialogue and pop-cultural references), released his debut film - a dark, noirish cult hit that broke many of the rules of conventional crime films.

The film contained numerous jump-cuts, elliptical story-telling, and flashbacks, and was set almost entirely in an abandoned coffin warehouse after a failed robbery.

During the opening title credits, the jewel robbery gang (composed of eight total strangers) walked toward the camera in slow-motion (as they were identified) to the tune of "Little Green Bag."

The male-oriented, testosterone-fueled tale was about a group of cigarette-smoking, shades-wearing, code-color-named Los Angeles criminals (including director Tarantino as ill-fated Mr. Brown, and others such as Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Blue (Edward Bunker), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), a concept borrowed from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)) whose jewelry heist went awry.

The gang of tough guys began to mistrust each other and suspected a rat when the robbery plan was foiled.

In the film's violent ending, Mr. Orange - the actual cop snitch, painfully bled to death from a bullet in the stomach (he was finished off by Mr. White - off-screen - in the film's conclusion).

"Yeah, but Mr. Brown? That's a little too close to Mr. Shit."

"All you can do is pray for a quick death, which you aren't going to get."

"I don't give a good f--k what you know, or don't know, but I'm gonna torture you anyway, regardless."

"F--K YOU! F--K YOU! I'M F--KIN' DYING HERE! I'M F--KIN' DYING!"

The scene at the breakfast table - with Mr. Brown's explanation of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" song and Mr. Pink's discussion about tipping waitresses ("I Don't Tip").

The infamous, violent, shocking and menacing ear-slicing torture scene following the robbery in which suspicious, psychotic gang member Mr. Blonde/Vic Vega - while dancing to the radio music of Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealer's Wheel - excised (off-screen) the right ear of chair-bound, duct-taped cop-hostage Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz), and then threatened to douse him with gasoline.

Under Siege (1992)

Also Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)

Steven Seagal starred in this Die Hard-like action film (set on a ship at sea) as Casey Ryback, an ex-SEAL, martial arts expert and naval hero onboard the USS Missouri battleship - serving as a lowly cook.

The one-man, invincible army was called into duty to combat terrorists who hi-jacked the ship during a surprise birthday party for its doomed Capt. Adams (Patrick O'Neal).

The insane, bigger-than-life bad guys were led by ex-CIA operative William Stranix (Tommy Lee Jones) and disillusioned, traitorous executive officer Cmdr. Krill (Gary Busey), scheming to steal the ship's nuclear missile warheads.

The R-rated violence included stabbings, eye gouging, a bare-handed throat extraction, a microwave explosion, a saw slicing, and a helicopter explosion.

"Let this be a learning experience, gentleman. If you resist, we will kill you and the man next to you."

"You and I, we're puppets in the same sick play. We serve the same master and he's a lunatic and he's ungrateful, and there's nothin' we can do about it. You and I, we're the same."

The gratuitous nude scene in which busty stripper Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak formerly of TV's Baywatch in the late 80s before Pamela Anderson, and Playboy's July 1989 centerfold Playmate) burst out wearing a black thong and naval jacket, and then opened her top to display her impressive breasts.

Krill, dressed as a drag queen.

The kung-fu knife fight in the battleship's control room between psycho terrorist Stranix and Ryback, and the terrorist's death by a knife driven down into his skull's brain, followed by electrocution when thrown into a radar computer monitor ("Keep the faith, Stranix").

Unforgiven (1992)

Producer/director/star Clint Eastwood's revisionist western was his own tribute to his legendary legacy in Sergio Leone's low-budget 'spaghetti' westerns, and a return to his most successful film genre.

In this modern-day classic western shot on location, Eastwood reprised his film origins - as a gritty and weathered Western character (e.g., The Man With No Name) and as his urbanized 'Dirty Harry' vigilante in Don Siegel's films.

This serious, dark, film-noirish, violent tale of retribution radically redefined and realistically debunked and demythologized the grandeur and romanticism of the Western genre.

Eastwood played the role of William Munny, a weakened, once-violent but reformed gunfighter - and an aging pig farmer - who reluctantly took on one last bounty-hunting job in 1880's Big Whiskey, Wyoming, with the help of his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and a cocky braggart named the "Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett).

They journeyed to the town to confront the corrupt, sadistic and autocratic Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett (Gene Hackman), who had denied justice to the women of the town's brothel, one of whom had been brutally slashed by vicious cowboys.

"It's a hell of a thing killin' a man. You take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."

The concluding bloody gun battle between Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett and Munny.

Universal Soldier (1992)

The sequel: Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)

Heavy-accented, muscle-bound, B-list 80s stars: Belgian martial-arts expert and kickboxer Jean-Claude Van Damme (as Pvt. Luc Deveraux / GR44) faced off against Sweden's Dolph Lundgren (Sargent Andrew Scott / GR13) in this mindless Roland Emmerich action/sci-fi thriller filled with visceral action.

The cartoonish film followed on the heels of other dumb-fun macho-films such as The Road Warrior (1982), The Terminator (1984), and RoboCop (1987).

The duo were portrayed as futuristic robots, semi-android UniSols (or "universal soldiers"), or elite bionic anti-terrorists -- both re-animated 25 years after killing each other during combat in Vietnam by the military (in a top-secret project) to serve in a high-tech, Super-SWAT army of previously-dead soldiers wearing Desert Storm fatigues.

The memories of the GI-Joe-like, zombie combat robots were supposedly wiped clean but they suffered flashbacks. They were also mostly pain-free, emotionless, and extraordinarily strong, involved in vehicular chases, shootouts, and martial-arts fights.

"Look for something unusual --something hard."

- "Where is he?"
- "Around" (after Scott has been impaled and fed into a wheat-thresher or shredding machine, as Deveraux told him: "You're discharged, Sarge.")

The scene of a hungry Deveraux brawling in a restaurant after ordering plates of food - and happily finishing up with a bowl of popcorn.

The infamous slow-motion view of the bare ass of naked Deveraux before he was packed in ice in a bathtub.

The climactic fight to the death scene, in rain and mud, between the two UniSols at Deveraux's parents' farm.

Wayne's World (1992)

Sequel: Wayne's World 2 (1993)

Penelope Spheeris directed this wacky comedy, inspired by Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), that starred Mike Myers and Dana Carvey providing spin-off characters from TV's Saturday Night Live:

• self-mocking Wayne Campbell
• black-spectacled, long-haired Garth Algar

They were two stoned, high-school public access cable-TV show hosts who broadcast "Wayne's World" from their wood-paneled basement in Aurora, Illinois.

The film was noted mostly for their dialogue, sight gags, and catchphrases: "Excellent!", "Party On!", "She's magically babelicious", "Schwing!", "If you're gonna spew, spew into this", "Hurl", "We're Not Worthy" (spoken to rocker Alice Cooper), and "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?", among others.

The film appealed to adolescent-minded teens, who enjoyed Wayne's hopeful romance with aspiring rock singer Cassandra (Tia Carrere) (to the tune of "Dream Weaver"), and Garth's hip-thrusting toward his fantasy dream girl (while lip-synching to the tune of Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady").

"All I have to say about that is 'asphinctersayswhat'."

"You know, Cassandra, from this height... you could really hock a loogie on someone."

"I once thought I had mono for an entire year, It turned out I was just really bored."

The energetic Bohemian Rhapsody (originally a song written by Freddie Mercury and recorded by his rock group Queen) - performed as a sing-a-long with Wayne, Garth, and three friends inside a car ("Thunderbolts and Lightning, Very Very Frightening").