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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