2020年9月28日 星期一

Some Other Movies From 1991 (2)

 For further background on the year in film please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1991 entry.

The following things happened in 1991:

  • The Cold War came to an end.
  • Japan's economy came to a thundering halt.
  • The U.N. condemned Israel for its treatment of Palestinians.
  • The Gulf War began as U.S.-led forces expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
  • Exxon agreed to pay $1 billion to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
  • Apartheid ended in South Africa and economic sanctions on that country were lifted.
  • The World Wide Web Project was announced.
  • Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in London.

Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.

Excellent

1. Other People's Money

Danny DeVito stars as a corporate raider with Penelope Ann Miller as the lawyer hired to thwart him.  Norman Jewison directed Other People's Money two years after In Country and four years after Moonstruck.  Critics at the time didn't like the ending, but it worked for me.

In 2020 we're more concerned with the workings of government and corporations rigging the system, but toward the late 80s/early 90s figures like DeVito's character were a constant worry.  Michael Milken is referenced at one point in the film, alongside a mention of "Trump waiting tables" after a recent fiasco.  If they had only known...

Fun Fact: This movie represents Gregory Peck's last big film role.  He did a few things later on, but after Other People's Money he retired from active film-making.

Not-So-Fun Fact: DeVito's stature is the result of Fairbank's Disease, a genetic disorder which affects bone growth.

2. Our Twisted Hero

Korean film about a boy battling the school bully.  It says a lot about Korea in the late 60s/early 70s, and also speaks to the relationship between political power and an adherence to personal principles.  Our Twisted Hero didn't make much of an impression outside South Korea, but the novel it was adapted from was translated into English in 2001.

Some Good Ones

1. The Double Life of Veronique

French-Polish-Norwegian production written and directed by Krzystof Kieslowski.  In it a young woman discovers she has a double.  I liked it, and star Irene Jacob is very beautiful, but I can't say the ending came together in the way I hoped it would.

2. The Last Boy Scout

If this movie feels Lethal Weapon-y it's because Shane Black wrote both movies.  Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, The Nice Guys... I often feel like he's been trying to write the same script for the past few decades.

In The Last Boy Scout Bruce Willis stars as a detective who uncovers a conspiracy, with Damon Wayans as the ex-football player he teams up with.  Tony Scott directed, and I'd have to say that Black's script played to Scott's strengths.  One of the best 90s action movies?  I think so.

Fun Fact 1: The running back (?) at the beginning of the movie is played by Billy Blanks.  In case you're unfamiliar with Billy Blanks, he was the inventor of the fitness regimen Tae Bo.  After The Last Boy Scout he'd go on to appear in several memorably bad movies.

Fun Fact 2: Actress Chelsea Field, who plays Willis' wife in this movie, also appeared as Teela in 1987's Masters of the Universe.  She began her career as a Solid Gold Dancer.

Fun Fact 3: The original title of the script for this film was Die Hard.  Producer Joel Silver, working on another script, asked writer Shane Black if he could use Die Hard for the other script instead.  Thus Nothing Lasts Forever became Die Hard, and Die Hard became The Last Boy Scout.

3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day

It's hard to explain to younger folks what a big deal this movie was in 1991.  The Terminator came out in 1984, and wasn't the smash success people sometimes it imagine it to be.  Instead it was more of a cult film, helped along by the expanding VHS market.  By 1991 there was a huge audience for a sequel, and James Cameron was more than ready to give them one.  I saw this movie in the theater the day it opened, and yes, the place was packed.

Terminator 2 is still a rock solid action movie, and still the best in the series, even though some of the special effects haven't aged that well.  It's a very suspenseful movie, and the ending makes sense on several levels.  Sure, some of Linda Hamilton's voice-overs feel shoehorned in, but she was great in this movie and I'm only sorry we had to wait until Dark Fate to see her a second time.

Looking back, T2 was in a weird place in terms of "movie magic."  Practical effects were on the wane, and were being replaced by early-stage cgi.  Watching many of the 90s action blockbusters makes this trend very obvious.

4. Black Robe

Many of those who read Joseph Boyden's 2013 novel The Orenda will have been reminded of the 1991 film Black Robe.  In both The Orenda and Black Robe a Jesuit priest encounters First Nations people in the vicinity of Quebec, and both The Orenda and Black Robe highlight the moral ambiguity inherent in the Catholic mission at that time.  Yet where The Orenda offers a very bleak perspective on this topic, Black Robe is a much more conventional affair.  The music is a bit overdone and the low budget is apparent at times (especially in the scene where the party is captured), but it's still a very well executed movie featuring a standout performance by star Lothaire Bluteau.

Fun Fact: Actress Tantoo Cardinal, who appeared in this movie, also appeared in Dances With Wolves the year before.

5. The Perfect Weapon 

"I'll take on all three of you... full contact, no protection."

And if that doesn't sound like a setup for a gay four-way, I don't know what does. 

As far as your late 80s / early 90s action heroes go, you've got your A-listers: Schwarzenegger and Stallone, your.B-listers: Van Damme and Seagal, and then you've got your C-listers: dudes like Jeff Speakman and Mark Dacascos.  Were there D-listers?  Sure, plenty, but I'd be at pains to remember their names.

In The Perfect Weapon Speakman battles the Korean mafia and tries to reconcile with his estranged father. It's got some good fight scenes, and as these movies go it was surprisingly well written.

Some Bad Ones

1. Career Opportunities

Frank Whaley stars as an ambitious young man trapped in a Target overnight with Jennifer Connelly.  John Hughes wrote the screenplay, though later distanced himself from the film.

My biggest problem with this movie is that its characters are hard to like and even harder to sympathize with.  Whaley's behavior on the first day of a new job is inexplicable, and Connelly's character isn't developed enough to care about one way or another.  Another problem is this movie's ending, which comes out of nowhere.  I could easily pick apart other plot elements, but as it is the plot's just barely there.

The above said, f you want to know what people were buying, wearing and listening to in 1991 look no farther than the shelves Whaley skates alongside.  You can even see the cassette tapes in those "security sleeves" they used before everyone was buying CDs.

Fun Fact: At age 16 Jennifer Connelly had a hit song in Japan.  You can listen to it here.

2. Mississippi Masala

A young Indian woman finds romance in America after her family is forced to leave Uganda.  The two leads in this movie, unlike the two leads in Career Opportunities, are very likable, but the plot is just as thin.  Bringing the father's struggle to regain his land to the forefront might have fixed that.  I also feel like there are British movies that have covered similar themes much better.  

Fun Fact: Movies like this were familiar territory for British-Indian actor Roshan Seth.  Before Mississippi Masala, he appeared in Gandhi, A Passage to India, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and My Beautiful Laundrette.  After Mississippi Masala he would appear as Dhalsim in Street Fighter.  Oh, how the mighty sometimes fall!

3. Lower Level

In some ways not a bad movie, but it just creeps along.  A hot architect finds herself trapped in an apartment building of her own design!  Oh, the irony!

Fun Fact: Elizabeth Gracen, former Miss America and star of this film, had an affair with Bill Clinton.

So Bad It's Good

1. Hudson Hawk

One of the cringiest action movies ever.  Bruce Willis stars as a cat burglar with a fondness for coffee, with Danny Aiello as his partner in crime.  The dialogue is bad - so bad - and Richard E. Grant has all the worst lines.  The director of this movie started his career with Heathers, but hasn't done much since Hudson Hawk.

2. Stone Cold

Ex-Seahawk Brian Bosworth infiltrates Lance Henriksen's biker gang.  At a certain point you have to ask yourself: is Bosworth's character helping the situation, or needlessly escalating things?  All I know is a lot less people would have died if he hadn't shown up at the state capital.

Fun Fact: In the beginning of this movie you can see boxes of the Batman (89) breakfast cereal on the supermarket shelves.  Stone Cold started filming just after that movie hit theaters.

Deep Thoughts: Brian Bosworth, like Eric Roberts, had one of the great mullets of the early 90s.

3. Street Soldiers*

Advertisement for a local swap meet?  Advertisement for some guy's dojo?  Or both?

Whatever it is, this less-than-gripping take on gang warfare, starring I Don't Know Who and directed by Never Heard of Him, has some seriously funny moments.  There's the fake cobra in the box.  Most of the dialog.  The acting.  But best (worst) of all is the bad guy, who insists on doing a Batman voice all the way through the movie.

4. Ring of Fire

D-list action heroes?  Oh yeah, Don "The Dragon" Wilson!

In this Romeo and Juliet (or is it West Side Story?) adaptation, Wilson falls in love with a woman who looks like she jumped straight out of a Warrant video - but oh no! - complications arise when she gets mixed up with a rival gang.  The love scenes in this movie are hilarious.

Fun Fact 1: There was another movie titled Ring of Fire the same year.  The other Ring of Fire was an Imax film about volcanism.

Fun Fact 2: Don Wilson had a small role in Batman Forever as the leader of the neon gang.

5. Edge of Honor

Part Red Dawn, part Predator, part I don't know what.

Edge of Honor features DON Swayze, brother of Patrick - as some kind of arms smuggler living on the Olympic Peninsula.  Corey Feldman (!) costars as - I kid you not - a boy scout who happens upon his stash.  The rest of the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense - I mean, where are they smuggling the arms to?  Where from? - but if you've had about four beers it can be a pleasant hour and a half.

In this movie the guy you really sympathize with in this movie is the "British assassin."  Either he was a Northwest theater guy who almost had his "big break" with this movie, or he was an actual Brit - some guy who'd been kicking around Hollywood for far too long.  Either way Edge of Honor was NOT the movie that made his career.

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*Wikipedia lists this movie as belonging to 1990, not 1991.  YouTube says 1991.

2020年9月17日 星期四

Some Other Movies From 1990 (2)

 
For further background on the year in film please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1990 entry.

The following things happened in 1990:

  • The reunification of Germany took place.
  • The Human Genome Project began.
  • Yugoslavia collapsed.
  • The first web search engine and the first web page were created.
  • Things in Haiti went from bad to worse.
  • The first McDonald's and Pizza Hut opened in China.
  • The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of diseases.

Linked entries can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube.

Excellent

1. Dances With Wolves

Kevin Costner's best movie?  Undoubtedly.  When I think of most of the movies he's done recently it makes me very sad.

One thing I always find a bit curious is how much more attention Mel Gibson got for directing and starring in Braveheart when Costner had already done the same thing five years before - or three years before, if you're talking about the less commercially successful The Man Without a Face.  Both Dances With Wolves and Braveheart are equally impressive achievements.  Dances With Wolves, the story of an ex soldier who abandons military life for the Sioux Tribe, won Costner Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars - awards which Gibson also won for Braveheart - but for whatever reason Braveheart seems to be a better remembered.

Recommendations: If you liked this movie, I recommend the movies Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Black Robe (1991).  Joseph Boyden's 2013 novel The Orenda is also excellent.

Reflection: No matter how sensitive (or insensitive) your filmed portrayal of Native American or First Nations cultures is, someone will complain that you're being unfair to one tribe or another.

2. Jacob's Ladder

Definitely one of the best movies of 1990.  It also anticipates the psychological/existential kind of horror that later directors would (unfortunately) make tedious.  Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder is still WAY better than the original, and still one of the most original horror films ever.  Lyne directed this after the excellent Fatal Attraction and before the disappointing Indecent Proposal, while star Tim Robbins appeared in this film after Erik the Viking.

Some Good Ones

1. Edward Scissorhands

Edward Scissorhands vs. Freddy Krueger: who would win?  And is it a coincidence that Johnny Depp was in both Edward Scissorhands and A Nightmare on Elm Street?  I think not!

With respect to other Tim Burton films, this one ranks fairly low for me.  I'd place it somewhere below Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, below Big Eyes, below Beetlejuice and below Batman.  I like it of course - who doesn't like Edward Scissorhands?  But for me it seems a little too on the nose.  It's as if the director was putting forth a stand-in for himself, or providing an inadequate explanation of his own eccentricity.  Again, I'm not saying it's not good.  I just always felt that it was a little obvious.

Fun Fact: The studio's first choice for Edward was none other than Tom Cruise.  Can you imagine?

2. Back to the Future Part III

Thinking Too Much 1: If one were to travel forward or backward in time, assuming that the Earth, the solar system, the galaxy and the universe itself is in constant motion, how would one ensure that one traveled forward or backward in time and arrived at the same location?  It would be a herculean task, and presumes a level of cosmological knowledge that only future generations would possess.  But again, I'm thinking too much.

Thinking Too Much 2: From the moment anyone creates a time machine - regardless of what point in the past or future they do so, temporality as we know it ceases to exist.   This means that temoporality - provided such as thing as time travel is possible - has already ceased to exist.  Instead or temporality we would exist in a kind of supertemporality, which has effectively erased the previous universe/worldline/timeline in which temporality as we knew it existed.  Time travelers, are you reading this?  Are you aware of my existence?  If so, feel free to leave a comment below.  Then again, you probably already have.

Thinking Too Much 3: The resemblance of Marty McFly's parents to his own grandparents (and great-grandparents) would imply some level of incest beyond what was intimated in the first Back to the Future.  That family has some explaining to do.

As said elsewhere, I've never been a huge fan of the Back to the Future trilogy, but even so III is my favorite.  It's more of a straight-ahead adventure story, and it doesn't bother to explain things as much.  What's more, by that point its self-awareness was obvious, and you can tell that Bob Gale, the man who wrote the script, was having a lot of fun with the material.  The Back to the Future trilogy wasn't the best movie trilogy ever, but it might have been the most pop culturally astute.  They knew people were going to be discussing this trilogy decades into the future.

Fun Fact: This movie was shot back-to-back with Part II.  It made for a grueling process, but the results speak for themselves.  I can remember seeing Part II in the theater, then seeing the preview for Part III, and thinking: "What, that's coming out so soon?"

Self-justification: You might THINK I'm thinking too much, but have you seen Christopher Nolan's Tenet?  I'm still mulling that one over.

3. Darkman

Comic book-y for sure, but still a good movie.  Liam Neeson stars as a kind of-almost-superhero who is kind of-almost-either Batman or The Shadow.  Director Sam Raimi did this long before Spider-Man, and it's nice to see him halfway between the Evil Dead franchise and more heavily promoted offerings.  Is it predictable?  Oh, hell yes.  Is it good despite being predictable?  Definitely.

Fun Fact 1: Frances McDormand was in this.  I'd totally forgotten about that.

Fun Fact 2: Nicholas Worth, who appears in this movie as one of Durant's henchmen, also appeared as one of Anton Arcane's henchmen in 1982's Swamp Thing.

Fun Fact 3: Sam Raimi's set to direct the Doctor Strange sequel due in 2022.

4. Tie Me Up!  Tie Me Down!

Antonio Banderas stars as a man who's recently escaped from a mental institution.  Victoria Abril costars as an actress he kidnaps.  It's definitely one of director Pedro Almodovar's best movies, though I didn't like it nearly as much as High Heels.  This was also one of the movies that brought about the NC-17 rating in the 90s, given that many arthouse films were unfairly labeled as "pornographic" in the States due to strong sexual content.

5. Rocky V

The most depressing Rocky!  In this one Rocky gets dain bramage after being hit in the head too many times, and after losing all his money he finds opportunity again in a young fighter by the name of Tommy Gunn.  Talia Shire has all the worst lines, and Tommy Gunn isn't built up enough as a character.  Making his "switch" more credible would have made him a more interesting "villain," but as it is they have a brawl on the street and then the movie just kind of ends.

A movie about Tommy Gunn's life now might be interesting.  No boxing, just a guy who had a boxing career and threw it away because of pride.  But f you made that movie you'd have to find another actor, because the guy who played Tommy Gunn is dead now.

And dead how?  That's the million dollar question.  His mother "revealed" to the press that he was dying of AIDS at one point, yet according to his widow he tested negative for the virus during his autopsy.  He tested positive AND negative several times during his career.

6. RoboCop 2

Not as good as the original, and the stop motion animation looks very dated, but it's not a bad movie as sequels go.  The most interesting thing about it is comics legend Frank Miller, who not only co-wrote the screenplay but also appears in it halfway through.

7. Paris is Burning

Documentary on New York's gay ball scene.  And no, I'm not talking about those kind of balls.  It's a well put-together look at this community, but it lacks the depth of the recently seen Tongues Untied.

8. Akira Kurosawa's Dreams

I will always love High and Low, but I had trouble getting into this one.  It was one of Kurosawa's last films, and was financed with the help of Steven Spielberg after Kurosawa was unable to secure funding in Japan.

Some Bad Ones

1. Days of Thunder

Vehicles.  So many vehicles.  This movie's like a five year old's fantasy come to life.  Except for the sex, of course.  In Days of Thunder director Tony Scott and Tom Cruise teamed up again, hoping to do for stock car racing what they did for F-16s in Top Gun.  Do they succeed?  No, not really.

Fun Fact: John C. Reilly is in this.  Yep, years before Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Reilly was playing a similar role more seriously in Days of Thunder.

2. Gremlins 2: The New Batch

The plot of this movie?  Gremlins.  A more thorough explanation of the plot of this movie?  Gremlins in a high-rise.  In Gremlins 2 director Joe Dante was swinging for the cheap seats, the plot is a mess and one gets the feeling that the studio cut it down considerably.  I've noticed a recent reexamination of this movie, something along the lines of it being a critique of 80s excess and/or capitalism in general, but it wasn't well-written enough to merit that level of analysis.

3. The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter

The movie franchise for which this blog is named!  In this one the Germans continue their fantastical German weirdness, while the American actors do their best to keep up.  It retcons the original to some extent in that Sebastian actually travels into the story, rather than experiencing it through Atreyu.  And hey, there's John Wesley Shipp!  He'd appear in The Flash TV show the same year.

Not-So-Fun Fact: Jonathan Brandis, who plays Sebastian in this movie, only lived to the age of 27.  Depressed over his waning career and battling substance abuse issues, he hung himself in 2003.

4. The Witches

Adapted from a Roald Dahl story, The Witches follows a young boy as he comes across a coven in an English hotel.  Critics at the time loved it - so what do I know.  Just the same, it to me it seemed both way too talky and way too scary for its intended audience.  And in my own defense, Roald Dahl himself disliked what director Nicolas Roeg did with the story.

So Bad It's Good

1. Hard to Kill

Whatever happened to Steven Seagal?  Answer: You don't want to know.  To be sure, the 80s and early 90s come to an inevitable end for all of us, but some of us meet that end more gracefully than others.

In Hard to Kill Seagal plays a supercop whose family has been murdered.  Or have they?  Whichever the case, he awakens from his coma ready to kick some ass.  

The end of this movie is so oddly satisfying.  I can't explain why.  At times unintentionally hilarious, at times a time capsule of where the world was in 1990 (or 1989), Hard to Kill offers a good window into George Bush Sr.'s best decade, and is also a glimpse at Seagal in his prime.  Sure, the guy is/was an asshole, but he did have screen presence.

Fun Fact 1: The director of this movie directed at least part of Nighthawks... until he was fired.

Fun Fact 2: I told you you didn't want to know.  Accusations of sexual assault, a BitCoin fiasco which piqued the interest of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the ire of several stuntmen are among Seagal's recent travails.  On top of this he has referred to Vladimir Putin as "the greatest living world leader" and has been appointed Russia's special envoy to the U.S.  You could write a novel about the guy, and few would believe that it all really happened.

Maybe not even Steven Seagal.

Fun Fact 3: For a while Seagal was marketing an aftershave called "Scent of Action."

Idle Speculation: Just how hard was it for Michael Caine to share a set with Steven Seagal for On Deadly Ground?  If nothing else, Caine should have won the Oscar for Most Hardworking Actor that year.

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