"Four Friends" by Robyn Carr (2024)

"'I'm not taking advantage of him.  I'm sure he's keeping very careful records.  Believe me, when we get to the official splitting of the sheets, all my expenses will be carefully deducted from my side of the chart.  And there will be plenty left." She grinned, 'California law.  No fault.  Community property.'"

Those who've been reading this blog a while are probably questioning my gender, my sexuality, or both.  Let me take this moment to reaffirm the fact that I'm still a heterosexual male who enjoys sports, nunchucks, and vehicles that go fast.  I read books like Four Friends because my wife (who is also heterosexual, if not male) passes them on to me.  I'll read almost anything if given the opportunity.

The author of Four Friends, Robyn Carr, has written dozens of books, none of which have their own Wikipedia entries, and some of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List - for whatever that's worth.  She's been writing books since the mid-70s.

Four Friends follows the personal dramas of - you guessed it - four friends living outside of San Francisco.  There's Gerri, the CPS worker who's recently discovered her husband's infidelity, Andy, a teacher who's separated from an unreliable spouse, Sonja, a personal wellness coach abandoned by her husband, and BJ, a secretive new arrival who is - again, you guessed it - recently single.  What do these four women have in common?  Hm, let me think it over...

Four Friends, it should be said, is an extremely white kind of book for whiter, more affluent kinds of people.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It shows that the author knows her audience.  It's unsurprising as Women's Fiction goes, and you can be sure that by the end of this novel the friendships between the four women are reaffirmed, and that these friendships will last forever.

I'd just like to ask BJ: when you say that's how "they" stay so thin while eating the exotic food known as "sushi," what do you mean by "they," exactly?

Related entries:

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein (2008)

"The Marriage Lie" by Kimberly Belle (2017)

"The Secret" by Lee and Andrew Child (2023)

"The fourth guy was already at the bottom of the stairs.  He turned to face Roberta.  He raised his gun but stayed well out of her reach.  He said, 'I've got to thank you, miss.  These fellas are never going to live this down.  Getting their asses handed to them by a girl?  The fun I'm going to have?  Priceless.  But today's fun is over.  You're a skinny little thing but no one could miss you from this range.'"

This is the second Jack Reacher book to be reviewed here.  I couldn't remember the title of the first one I read (or its plot) without consulting the sidebar, so I couldn't tell you which one of the two books is better.

In The Secret two sisters are out for revenge, killing a group of scientists who worked on a chemical weapons project in the late 60s.  From there enter military policeman Jack Reacher, a no-nonsense taker of names and kicker of asses.  By the time he captures and/or mutilates those who stand between himself and the two sisters the pillars of government are soundly shaken, justice is resoundingly served, and the world is once again safe for democracy.

The publication date is 2023, but The Secret must have been written during the 90s.  Modern conveniences like cell phones, the internet and even laptops are entirely absent from the narrative, leaving our hero equipped with only a phone and a fax machine.  Can you imagine trying to track down people off the grid since 1969 with only a land line and a fax machine?  A quick Google search would have resolved some of the plot points in this book within minutes.

As Jack Reacher books go The Secret is merely more of the same.  Our hero is called into service, he handles shit in the most egregiously violent manner possible, and of course he saves the day.  It's all little more than another heterosexual male fantasy, and I can't fault it for being what it is.

Will I be reading any further Jack Reacher books?  Eh, maybe.  Hopefully I'll find better things to read, but in a pinch Jack Reacher will do.

Related Entries:

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"The Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo (2000)

"The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)

"The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein (2008)

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

I'll be adding to this as I go along.

1999 was the year I moved to Taiwan.  I'm still here, almost 26 years later.

1. Eye of God (1997)

Those who enjoy Cormac McCarthy's novels will probably also enjoy this movie.  Kevin Anderson stars as a religious man in small town Oklahoma looking to make a new start after prison, with Martha Plimpton as his trusting if damaged wife.

Tim Blake Nelson is a good director, and I'm sure the script he wrote was impressive by anyone's standards.  Eye of God won several indie awards upon its initial festival run, and in my opinion these awards were all richly deserved.

2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Fear and Loathing or Where the Buffalo Roam?  For me it's no contest: Fear and Loathing is far better.  Terry Gilliam's interpretation of the book is far closer in spirit to the source material, and both Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro are excellent in the lead roles.

Watching this from the vantage point of 2026, it definitely seems a lot less weird than it did when it first hit theaters.  The surreal parts are still effective, but in more recent years we've seen far stranger cinematic takes on drugs and those who love them.  I think Fear and Loathing losing some of its "shine" in this regard is a good thing, in that it allows the more serious/political overtones of Hunter S. Thompson's journey their proper place in the story.

Fun Fact: That maid they accost in their hotel room?  That's Jenette Goldstein, who played "Vasquez" in Aliens.

3. Snake Eyes (1998)

Nicolas Cage stars in this Brian De Palma-directed bit of film noir.  The characters in this film (including Cage's) are hard to sympathize with, but I think its virtues far outweigh its faults.  It's an inventive film and a bold attempt at storytelling.

Fun Fact 1: Snake Eyes originally had a completely different ending.  This ending was cut at the last minute and replaced with the standoff between Cage's and Sinise's characters.

Sobering (?) Fact: The assassination which takes place near the beginning of this movie bears several similarities to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

4. Cube (1997)

I'd seen it before, but it had been a while.

In my opinion this is one of the more inventive horror movies, though I'm deducting points for the "drama class scenes" placed throughout the film.  Maybe they'd be confronting each other in that manner after hours and hours of walking through a giant puzzle box, but those moments needed to be earned.  As it is they feel like exchanges ripped from any number of disaster movies.

Fun Fact: There was a Japanese remake of this film in 2021.  The original was a huge hit in that country.

5. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Anyone remember The Bare Wench Project?  The porn version?  I never actually saw that movie, but I remember seeing it displayed somewhere not long after The Blair Witch Project's theatrical run.

I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater, by the way.  I remember thinking that it wasn't very good, but having watched it again from the vantage point of 2026 I'd now say that it's aged very well.  It's certainly better than Paranormal Activity, another film that helped establish the found footage genre.

In Blair Witch a group of young people set out into the woods to document a local legend.  You can probably guess the rest - let's just say it doesn't end well for them.  The Blair Witch Project remains one of the most successful independent movies of all time ($250 million worldwide against a budget of several hundred thousand) and has spawned many imitations.

6. But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

A comedic take on conversion therapy.  I can get how this film went over a lot of people's heads at the time, but it's very funny and deserves to be seen.  I also appreciated the presence of Mink Stole, whom some may remember from several John Waters' films.

7. Who Am I (1998)

Medium-grade Jackie Chan.  In this one he falls out of a helicopter and loses his memory.  By 1998 Chan was far from his Hong Kong glory days and the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong was imminent.  These days he's more of a CCP apologist and someone whose newer films I avoid.

8. Oxygen (1999)

Adrien Brody pulls a Hannibal Lecter whilst Maura Tierney sorts through both her own conflicting feelings and Brody's conflicting accounts of where he may or may not have buried someone alive.  It's definitely not the most original movie ever made, but the two leads do a lot with what they're given.

9. Random Hearts (1999)

It was probably a much better, more cohesive novel.  As it is director Sydney Pollack's adaptation leaves a lot to be desired.  It's not bad up until Kristen Scott Thomas and Harrison Ford start fondling each other in the airport parking lot, but after that point their respective actions don't make a lot of sense.

10. Deceiver (1997)

Tarantino-adjacent noir picture featuring Tim Roth as an epileptic man accused of murder.  The first 3/4 is pretty good, but the last 1/4 gets a little silly.

11. The Rat Pack (1998)

I got excited when I saw Ray Liotta and Don Cheadle in the opening credits, but this film misses the point.  Nobody really wanted to see Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and the other guy in some off-center political thriller, and the leads aren't all that convincing in their respective roles anyway.  It was the good times that were interesting, and for this reason I'd recommend 1960's Ocean's 11 over this clumsily written TV movie.

This said, the dinner table scene featuring Marilyn Monroe and JFK is pretty good.

12. Desperate Measures (1998)

Michael Keaton does a good psychopath, but this movie gets real dumb real fast.  Toward the end of it I was having trouble figuring out why Andy Garcia isn't the film's villain, given the unreasonable lengths to which he goes to "save" his son.  Honestly, who endangers more people in the course of this movie, the convict or the rogue cop?

I will say, however, that the second half of this movie encroaches upon "so bad it's good status."  As we neared the end credits we were actively making fun of it, and this made for a pretty enjoyable evening.

13. Limit Risk (a.k.a. "One Tough Cop") (1998)

Stephen Baldwin, one of the lesser (if non-lethal) Baldwins, stars alongside Chris Penn, the other Penn.  As cop movies go it couldn't be more derivative if it tried, but at least Gina Gershon is very easy on the eyes.

Fun Fact: Justin Bieber is Stephen Baldwin's son-in-law.

14. Silent Predators (1999)

Featuring Harry Hamlin, star of Clash of the Titans and husband of Lisa Rinna, one of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills!  Judge me if you will, but I've seen more than a few episodes of that show.

Silent Predators?  It's basically Jaws with rattlesnakes instead of a shark.  Near the end some real estate developer has the brilliant idea of blowing up the cave where the snakes hang out with dynamite.  You can guess how that turns out.

Fun Fact: This movie was based on a script John Carpenter wrote in the 70s, and was filmed in both Los Angeles and Queensland, Australia.

15. Ravager (1997)

Yancy Butler a third time!  Triple points!

In this one she's a frustrated pilot aboard a... spaceship?  Aircraft of some kind?  I'm really not sure.  Anyway, there's a virus aboard ship and she does a terrible job of avoiding the infected.

If you bother to watch it it'll remind you a lot of Alien.  The scientific jargon employed by the characters is sometimes amusing, and the CGI is extremely primitive.

Fun Fact: Butler's costar Juliet Landau is Martin Landau's daughter.

16. Woo (1998)

Remember when Jada Pinkett Smith was known for her personal hotness and NOT her unsettling creepiness?  Those were the days.

Tommy Davidson deserved a better movie.  He spends most of this one in the grip of Smith's questionable charms, all the while mouthing dialogue he probably didn't believe in.  Woo is a lot like some of the black-oriented sitcoms of the era, with the addition of swear words and sexual innuendo.

17. Beyond Paradise (1998)

A California boy adjusts to life in Hawaii.  The lead actor couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and the story isn't interesting.  Apparently many native Hawaiians see it as a decent reflection of their way of life, but it sure wasn't doing anything for me.

18. Survivor (a.k.a. "Nightworld: Survivor") (1999)

Alien, The Thing, Predator... take your pick.  This one will remind you of any other number of other, better sci fi/horror outings, and in the end it won't matter because this TV movie is more sleep-inducing than a Russian film retrospective on tranquilizers.

Hey, what's this bluish goo seeping up from the bottom of the ocean?  Let me just rub it all over my skin and find out!

Related Entries:

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

Still More 90s Movies: 1990-1992

Still More 80s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

1. Sense and Sensibility (1995)

A sumptuous retelling of Jane Austen's novel from Taiwanese director Ang Lee.  It might sound boring but give it a chance.  I'm not a big fan of Austen's novel but this adaptation brings its characters and their struggles into sharp focus.

Fun Fact 1: Star Emma Thompson also wrote the screenplay.  It took her five years to do so.

Fun Fact 2: This was Lee's first Western movie.  His style of filmmaking was universally praised at the time, but his method of filmmaking was a frequent source of tension between himself and the mostly British cast.

2. Donnie Brasco (1997)

Full Disclosure: I've seen Donnie Brasco many, many times.  It was on Netflix, it hit theaters in 1997, and I decided to watch it again.  When people discuss gangster movies they often forget about Donnie Brasco and I can't blame them.  It's a decidedly lower key affair, lacking the gruesome deaths and explosive performances seen in other examples of the genre.  But for all that its more subdued take on the Mafia really works for me.  It feels more real.

Al Pacino, by the way, delivers one of his more overlooked performances in Donnie Brasco.  He doesn't rage here, neither does he shout, but he does smolder.  His character is, after all, the guy passed over for every promotion, and also the guy everyone else looks to when things get bad.

Further Reading: Anne Heche, you know?  She's great in this.  If you're looking for a fascinating (if depressing) read, consult her Wikipedia entry.  Her life reads like a novel someone has yet to write.

3. The Juror (1996)

Demi Moore is great in this movie.  She plays a juror coerced into delivering a "not guilty" verdict, and the scenes between her and costar Alex Baldwin are riveting.  The ending is a little implausible, but it's solid overall.

Give it a chance?  Critics despised it, but in my opinion it's very overlooked.  The director, Brian Gibson, helmed What's Love Got to Do with It three years before.

4. Boys on the Side (1995)

Half derivative road movie, half enjoyably eccentric take on three women coming to know one another in Tucson.  Goldberg, Louise Parker and Barrymore are all excellent in their respective roles, with Goldberg being the standout given her nuanced portrayal of a woman struggling against an unrequited love.

5. Beautiful Thing (1996)

Coming out and coming of age story set in the UK.  The script was well written and the actors do an excellent job.  My favorite part is the ending, which is both heartwarming and 180 degrees removed from how Hollywood would have concluded the same story.

6. The Nature of the Beast (1995)

Predictable, yeah, but anchored by great performances from Eric Roberts and Lance Henriksen.  This one's a noir picture, and despite its unsurprising twists and turns it was nicely done.

7. The Devil's Own (1997)

Brad Pitt stars as an IRA agent sent to the States, with Harrison Ford as a New York City cop who discovers Pitt's tragic history.  The two halves of this movie don't quite make a whole, and cutting down Pitt's screen time would have made for a much better movie.

This was director Alan J. Pakula's last film.  Listed in his filmography are classics such as Klute, All The President's Men and Sophie's Choice.  He was killed in a freak accident the following year.  The Devil's Own was his second film with Harrison Ford, the first being Presumed Innocent.

8. Eddie (1996)

Say what you will, Whoopi Goldberg could carry a movie.  Eddie is an extremely forgettable vehicle for her, but she remains convincing throughout and the story, although predictable, clips along easily enough.  You'll probably forget the plot aside from "Whoopi Goldberg coaches the New York Knicks" seconds after watching it, but as sports movies go I'd give it a passing grade.

Briefly Disconcerting Fact: Donald Trump is in this for a second.  Eddie was the fifth film he appeared in.  His Atlantic City hotel and casino also appears in Empire Records (below).

9. Waiting to Exhale (1995)

Forest Whitaker shows himself an indifferent first-time director.  This movie fails to walk a line between drama and comedy, the result being a decidedly lopsided film with a couple funny moments and a couple scenes that make more dramatic impact.

I'm guessing the book was better?

To make matters worse, Angela Bassett, two years past What's Love Got to Do With It, easily outshines every other actor she shares scenes with, with the possible exception of Wesley Snipes.  Whitney Houston never manages even half of Bassett's screen presence, and we're instead left with vignettes of a very pretty woman who struggles to find love in a vaguely defined context.  Lela Rochon does a competent job, but she's not in much of the movie.

I walked away from this film feeling unsatisfied for another reason, this being the question of what the film's three (or four) protagonists really want.  Why seek a lasting, committed relationship in the arms of men who are so clearly not ready for that?  In the end you can only wonder at these three (or four) women's judgement, given that the men they so often choose to bed down with are so obviously lacking in the qualities they desire.

Do they all live happily ever after?  I suppose they do, but happiness in the hands of such fickle people can only ever be fleeting.

10. Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)

Jim Carrey delivers a characteristically restrained performance.  Early 90s Jim Carrey was all about subtlety.  If you've seen the first one you'll know what to expect.

11. The Last Time I Committed Suicide (1997)

Thomas Jane, that movie star that almost was, stars as the noted Beat author Neal Cassady.  The camerawork is interesting, but most of the characters are annoying and it's hard to care about the protagonist one way or the other.

Fun Fact: Keanu Reeves is in this.  It was filmed in that weird period between Speed and The Matrix.

12. Fast Money (1996)

Yancy Butler, remember her?  She went on to do the Witchblade TV show.  After that?  Years of substance abuse.

The plot of this movie is complete nonsense, but one gets a sense of why Butler got hired onto Witchblade.

13. DNA (1996)*

Mark Dacascos plays a lower rent version of Indiana Jones.  Something something serum beetle monster something.  I enjoyed watching Jurgen Prochnow ham it up as the villain.

Fun Fact: The formula on the blackboard is actually the formula for KFC's "11 herbs and spices."  So... there's beetle juice in the KFC chicken?  What happens if we order it three times?

14. Empire Records (1995)

Really wasn't feeling this one.  I get that it's a cult movie, but I have no desire to join that cult.

Empire Records follows the employees of a music (CD) store for a day, with their personal dramas playing out against the backdrop of the store's imminent closure.

Younger viewers (those not old enough to remember the 90s) will probably recognize Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger, but the rest of the cast didn't go on to anything particularly noteworthy.

For someone my age (I was 15 to 25 in the 90s) there's a certain nostalgia in this trip through the aisles of the local CD emporium, but in my opinion the script was only a step away from Friends.  It's not even close to the worst movie I've seen lately, but I had trouble focusing on it for any length of time.

15. Solo (1996)

Mario Van Peebles somehow seems absent from a movie in which he's the star.  Never before or since has an actor delivered lines so lifelessly.  Never before or since has a distinguished roster of character actors so definitively failed to elevate a subpar Robocop/Universal Soldier ripoff.

This movie cost $19 million and only made $5 million.  It currently has an 8% score on Rotten Tomatoes.  It's not good enough to be good, and it's not bad enough to be good.  The highlight of Van Peebles' career would remain New Jack City, and since Solo his filmography consists, for the most part, of movies you've never heard of.

16. Hologram Man (1995)

I'm guessing this was some kind of passion project for villain (and screenwriter) Evan Lurie?  Action hero and Christlike co-star Joe Lara certainly didn't seem to be a motivating factor.  

There are so, so many movies like this: the earnestly produced, sparsely budgeted film that someone thought would make them a star.  So many of them end up on YouTube, and so many of them find new life one that platform, serving as testaments to good intentions gone bad.

Demolition Man is the easy comparison here, but there's also The Lawnmower Man to consider.  This dialogue is wretched, the special effects aren't special, and the whole thing is often unintentionally hilarious.  Give it a go if you're in the mood.  You might be able to make more sense of it than I did.

17. The Ex (1996)

Yancy Butler again!  Double points!

The Ex could have been... OK, but it's seriously hampered by terrible editing and a lukewarm performance by the actor playing opposite Butler.  There are also some truly ridiculous death/murder scenes.  None of it makes a lot of sense, but I appreciated the shots of Vancouver B.C. in the late 90s.

18. Trial and Error (1997)

Rip Torn deserved a gold star for almost redeeming this movie.  The scene where he takes the stand almost makes up for the rest of the film.

Emphasis on "almost."  The rest of this one is agonizingly unfunny, with Jeff Daniels mugging and Michael Richards doing lame bits of physical comedy throughout.  Charlize Theron, then at peak hotness, is a momentary reprieve from this slog of a movie, but for every bit of screen time she's given there are all the far from hilarious gags to contend with.

19. The Stupids (1996)

This movie makes a certain kind of sense given the release of Dumb and Dumber two years earlier, but it is in most other respects a baffling creation.  A John Landis-directed comedy starring Tom Arnold?  A running joke about a homeowner chasing a garbage truck?  Hilarity ensues... or does it?

No big surprise - The Stupids bombed hard.  I will say, however, that it seems like the kind of movie that'd go over big in foreign markets.  It was too early to bank on China, but a decade or so later it might have done really well there.

Fun Fact: David Cronenberg has a cameo in this.

20. The Final Cut (1995)

Not nearly as bad as Hologram Man (above), but much poorer for it.  The Final Cut finds bomb specialist Sam Elliot contending with a serial bomber, and if you haven't anticipated the ending long before Sam Elliot does you just haven't seen enough movies.

Related Entries:

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

Still More 90s Movies: 1990-1992

Still More 80s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 70s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

*Wikipedia says 1997, not 1996.  IMDb's date agrees with YouTube.

"Lies and Weddings" by Kevin Kwan (2024)

"Bea glanced at Solene.  'Didn't you just have a big show in Miami?'

"'She sure did!'  I bought one of her paintings,' Freddy proudly declared.

"Solene looked surprised.  'Did you really?  Which one?'

"'Just Shut Up and Blow Me.'

"'That's a bit rude, Freddy!' Bea scolded.

"'No, no, that's the name of her painting,' Freddy explained.

"Solene nodded.  'Yes, it's part of my latest series.  It's my examination of toxic masculinity, based on actual words my exes would say to me.'"

Kevin Kwan's books have been discussed here several times already.  He's the author of Crazy Rich Asians and its two sequels, and also Sex and Vanity, which is the one book by him I haven't read.  He's something of a latter-day Anthony Trollope, poking fun at the rich, famous and powerful while at the same time bringing his fiction into a very modern context.

If you've read his other books you won't find Lies and Weddings that surprising, though it is one of his funnier books.  In this contemporary fairy tale a young female doctor becomes romantically entangled with a wealthy British family's only son, and even though the ending's extremely predictable both the humor and characterization are flawless.

I'm assuming I missed Sex and Vanity because of COVID.  I've never even seen it for sale in a bookstore.  If I ever come across it I'll be sure to give it a go.  Lies and Weddings was a very enjoyable read, and I'd be glad to say that I read all of Kevin Kwan's books.

Related Entries:

"The Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo (2000)

"Mecca" by Susan Straight (2022)

"Human Acts" by Han Kang (2014)

"Intermezzo" by Sally Rooney (2024)

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

A lot of these movies were direct-to-video.  It was the early- to mid- 90s after all, and Blockbuster was still king.  YouTube just isn't as reliable for this time period due to a combination of factors.  Below is what I could find, make of this selection what you will.

1993, by the way, was the year I graduated high school.

1. LA 92 (2007)

Not a 90s movie but a powerful documentary very relevant to the time period.  Rodney King's beating at the hands of L.A. police and the subsequent L.A. Riots are both pivotal events in recent history, and this still-cogent analysis of what led to those two events offers many insights which remain, for the most part, outside of public discussion.

2. Little Women (1994)

Pitch perfect adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel.  As evidenced by the movie selections in these entries I'm a dude who likes dude things, but just the same Little Women had me tearing up at certain points.  It deserved its three Oscar nominations.

3. Short Cuts (1993)

Some of the scenes are implausible and some of the characters' motivations are a mystery, but this movie's been on my mind a while now.  Robert Altman directed this after The Player, and like that earlier film it was something of a return to form for him.

It's hard to describe the plot aside from "things happening in L.A. before a momentous event," but don't let the intricacy of this film (or its length) put you off.  Despite its occasional obscurity it's still worth the effort.

My favorite scene has to be the argument between Julianne Moore and Matthew Modine near the end.  I don't want to give too much away, but the juxtaposition of her vulnerable state and the kind of conversation they're having is very arresting.

4. Gladiator (1992)

No, not that Gladiator!  The other one, from 1992!

It's a fairly derivative boxing movie in which a white boy battles his way through the hood, but the performances are solid and the screenplay was watertight.  The only puzzling thing about it is the montage near the end, which consists of a series of scenes which feel like they should have been the most important parts of the movie.

Fun Fact: Star James Marshall would appear in A Few Good Men the same year.

5. Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

I'd seen this movie, but as I was scrolling through Netflix one day I realized that I couldn't remember a single thing about it.

In case there's somehow someone on this Earth that doesn't know already, Sleepless in Seattle is a romantic comedy set in - you guessed it - Seattle.  I watched it for views of my hometown in the early 90s, but taken on its own merits it still holds up.

6. Boiling Point (1993)

Surprisingly... not a bad movie.  Or at least the screenplay was good, with indifferent direction and bad editing.  The only question is whether Wesley Snipes is really the lead in this movie, given that Dennis Hopper has as much, if not more screen time as Snipes does.

It was fun seeing Valerie Perrine and Viggo Mortenson in Boiling Point, and Lolita Davidovich brought back a lot of memories.  In the hands of a better director this movie could have been amazing, but as it is I'd only give it a passing grade.  Wesley Snipes would appear in both Rising Sun and Demolition Man the same year, so this one quite naturally fell by the wayside.

7. Excessive Force (1993)

On par with Boiling Point above, though I'd give a slight edge to Boiling Point on account of Dennis Hopper.

In Excessive Force Thomas Ian Griffith front kicks, side kicks, spin kicks and jump kicks his way through a host of bad guys, while Burt Young, Tony Todd, James Earl Jones and Lance Henriksen handle most of the acting.  If someone had given the lead role to a more polished, less kick-happy actor this movie would have been something else altogether, but as it is Excessive Force is very comfortable within its chosen genre.

I like to imagine a trilogy of Excessive Force films, each worse than the one before it.  Excessive Force would spawn Unreasonable Force, and by the time they got around to Ridonkulous Force they'd be filming in some formerly communist country, where people drink far too much soup and smoke cigarettes with unpronounceable brand names.

Fun Fact: Griffith's first movie role was "Terry Silver" in The Karate Kid Part III.  He later revisited this role in the Cobra Kai TV show.

8. Ordinary Magic (1993)

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds!  This was his first movie ever.

Ordinary Magic is about a Canadian boy raised in India returning to his home country.  Once established in the Great White North this boy discovers that an evil land developer (played by Paul Anka!) has designs on his family estate.  What's our yoga-practicing hero to do?

I kind of enjoyed this one.  Reynold's accent is not awesome, and the recreations of India look very staged, but Paul Anka hams it up nicely and the ending, despite a failure to demonstrate why the townspeople are so affected by Reynold's character, does manage to make an impression.

9. Ladybugs (1992)

Rodney Dangerfield coaches a girls' soccer team.

1992 was probably the height of both Dangerfield and costar Jonathan Brandis' careers.  After Ladybugs (and in Brandis' case, Sidekicks) followed a series of movies that few remember.

Director Sidney J. Furie also helmed classics such as The Ipcress File and The Boys in Company C in the 70s, as well as The Entity and Iron Eagle in the 80s, but by 1992 he was just glad to have another movie.

I'd put Ladybugs very far down in Dangerfield's filmography.  By 1992 movies like Back to School and Easy Money were distant memories, and he'd spend most of Ladybugs "doing standup at people" rather than acting.

Fun Fact: Jonathan Brandis won his role over Leonardo DiCaprio, whom the producers passed on because he was too convincing as a girl.

10. Monolith (1993)

Not so much a movie as a cry for help, but hey, at least it's not as boring as some of the movies below.

Whatever happened with this movie, mistakes were clearly made, and one can only feel sorry for Bill Paxton, Louis Gossett Jr. and John Hurt, three actors who probably regretted their involvement in this film later on.

The weirdest thing about Monolith aside from its somewhat nonsensical sci-fi premise is the scenes wherein a minor character is clearly carrying on a conversation with no one at all.  I'm guessing that by that point the principal actors had all fled to safety, and that these connecting scenes were only added to make the film slightly more coherent.

11. A.P.E.X. (1994)

Watchably awful Terminator ripoff involving no one who went on to fame and fortune afterward.  It features some truly primitive CGI and a killer robot that wasn't fooling anyone.  If you can make sense of the ending you were paying much, much more attention than I was.

12. Zero Tolerance (1994)

FBI agent Robert Patrick (minus his liquid metal shapeshifting ability) escorts a friendly cartel member back to the loving arms of the U.S. of A.  The somersault count in this movie is off the charts, it makes almost no sense, and whatever reason Miles "Tarzan" O'Keefe is in it.

I was very drunk off rum when I watched this.  Its sheer ridiculousness was very welcome.

13. Airborne (1993)

A laid back California surfer dude brings the exotic sport of "rollerblading" to the Midwest.  Or something.  I wasn't paying that much attention.  Seth Green was an industry veteran by this point, but Airborne was Jack Black's second movie following a brief appearance in Bob Roberts the year before.

14. T-Force (1994)

The only actors I recognized in this were "Bennett" (!) from Commando, "Malibu" from the American Gladiators TV show and Erin Gray from the Buck Rogers film and TV show.  The plot is buddy cop movie meets Universal Soldier and the budget was LOW.

15. Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)

A smokin' hot demon fresh from hell dispenses justice on the streets of... Romania?  It's about as "direct-to-video" as you can get.

The theology employed by this movie is somewhat interesting.  Would demons pray?  And what would that even mean?  This movie is a far cry from Paradise Lost, but it does offer a couple interesting ideas of the relations between heaven and hell.

I just can't help but wonder whether the humor is intentional or otherwise.  They had to have known what the protagonist's fake wings would look like on camera, but then again there's an earnestness to some of the performances that seems to belie that fact.  Fearless Vampire Killers it's definitely isn't, but it did have me thinking.

16. Martial Outlaw (1993)

Don't ask me what the title means.  I guess they thought the words "martial" and "outlaw" sounded cool together.

I have nothing positive to say about this movie aside from the fact that it's not nearly as excruciating as Peter's Friends below.  Two brothers in law enforcement part ways over Russian mobsters operating in Los Angeles.

17. The Stand (1994)

Life imitates art.  Art imitates life.  Around and around we go.

Stephen King's book wasn't the first novel centered around a virus, but it was the first novel to put both the virus and its aftermath into a more epic context, something more akin to J.R.R. Tolkein that Robin Cook or Michael Crichton.

And while I'm a big fan of some of Stephen King's books, I can't say that I'm a big fan of The Stand, a book I read in high school.  In my opinion the 1000+ page tome doesn't have enough of a plot to justify its length, and its ending has to be one of the most frustrating things ever.

All of the problems present in the novel are also present in this 6-hour long TV miniseries, and on top of that there's both its relatively low budget and its soap opera-level dialogue to consider.  I can remember people liking it at the time, but it didn't do much for me.

18. Lightning Jack (1994)

Cuba Gooding Jr. learns how to be an outlaw from Australian Paul Hogan.  The ending of this movie is a complete nonevent, with the two protagonists sneaking out of town without ever really encountering the men chasing them.  I'll give it a few points for Beverly D'Angelo, but for the most part it's painfully unfunny.

19. Only You (1994)

One of the more nauseating rom-coms I've seen lately.  Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. were dating at the time, having met on the set of Chaplin a couple years earlier.

The ending of this movie is completely and utterly unconvincing, even by rom-com standards.

Fun Fact: Marisa Tomei's first movie was 1984's The Toxic Avenger.

20. Peter's Friends (1992)

Insufferable British people (plus one American) gather at a manor to celebrate New Year's Eve.  This film only further confirmed my strong dislike for Kenneth Branagh.  Yes, he's been in a few good movies, but I am, overall, not a fan.

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