Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Wednesday, May 19th, 2021
THE PAPER TIGERS is a warm-hearted indie underdog comedy set in the martial arts world. It’s about three former American gung fu (that’s the spelling and pronunciation they use) prodigies now living unremarkable middle aged lives, who reunite after their master is killed. It has a smattering of jokes that are too broad for me, but it takes its characters and its martial arts very seriously, and it’s so full of heart it’s hard not to love. So why fight it?
The goofy thing is I only rented this on VOD because Vyce Victus and Adkins Unleashed’s Michael Scott were separately raving about it on Twitter. Then in the cold open I saw what sure looked like the Smith Tower, and the credits were set to a song by Kid Sensation (beatboxing padawan of Sir Mix-a-Lot), and holy shit, this movie is entirely filmed in Seattle (and nearby Shoreline), how did I not know about it already? I’ll go into some Seattle stuff later, but please accept the praise of the above mentioned as evidence that I’m not just rooting for the local product. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alain Uy, Andy Le, Brian Le, filmed in Seattle, Gui DaSilva-Greene, Jae Suh Park, Ken Quitugua, Kid Sensation, Matthew Page, Mykel Shannon Jenkins, Peter Adrian Sudarso, Phillip Dang, Raymond Ma, Roger Yuan, Ron Yuan, Yoshi Sudarso
Posted in Action, Comedy/Laffs, Martial Arts, Reviews | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2021
May 17, 1991
If we agree with director Bill Duke that A RAGE IN HARLEM is “no god damn comedy,” then we have now come to Summer 1991’s first actually funny comedy. WHAT ABOUT BOB? is also the first ’91 release we’ve come to that seems arguably too problematicTM to be made now, at least quite like this.
You see, Bill Murray (following SCROOGED, GHOSTBUSTERS II and QUICK CHANGE) plays a person with multiple debilitating psychological disorders who follows his psychiatrist to his vacation home and, as they say, drives him crazy. Of course this is uncomfortable because we know so many horror stories of stalkers – troubled people crossing boundaries with results that are less hilarious and more tragic. But what really feels of-a-different-time is just how much poor Bob Wiley’s struggles are played for laughs. As he squirms and winces while struggling just to step outside of his apartment or touch a doorknob or get on an elevator, the score by Miles Goodman (TEEN WOLF, K-9) makes sure we know that it’s cute and funny. That seems kind of mean, or just off base when I think about how much Bob reminds me of a much less lovable Bob I dealt with for years at my day job. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anne V. Coates, Bill Murray, Charlie Korsmo, Frank Oz, Julie Hagerty, Kathryne Erbe, Michael Ballhaus, Richard Dreyfuss, Roger Bowen, Summer of 1991, Tom Aldredge, Tom Schulman
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 17 Comments »
Monday, May 17th, 2021
May 17, 1991
On this day, Craig R. Baxley’s STONE COLD starring Brian Bosworth opened. It’s genuinely one of my favorite movies, which is why I reviewed it in 2005 and then again in 2007 when it first came to DVD and then again in 2015 when One Perfect Shot published my piece Strictly Bozness: The Fiery Majesty of ‘Stone Cold’. And I admit it would’ve been pretty fuckin cool for me to somehow squeeze yet another piece out of it for this series, but I did not. Instead, please read Strictly Bozness and then we’ll move on to another May 17th, 1991 release that is seriously lacking in motorcycle-on-helicopter violence, among many other failings.
I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but it is a fact that the sequel to MANNEQUIN – part two #2 of Summer 1991 – is called MANNEQUIN: ON THE MOVE. There is no number in the title. The video covers have it as MANNEQUIN 2: ON THE MOVE and the theatrical poster says MANNEQUIN TWO: ON THE MOVE (important for “on the move” to be underlined) and I’m a fan of sequels that spell out their numbering, but I try to stick to on screen titles only. So really the MANNEQUIN franchise saga of properties understood it was the ‘90s and that pretty soon it would be in vogue to drop the numbers and just use subtitles (HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE, ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS, THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK, etc.)
It’s not like a road trip or chase movie or anything, it’s more of a rehash but, do you get it though? It’s ON THE MOVE because mannequins normally don’t move but this one moves so it’s on the move. That’s why it’s a good title.
Note: I did watch the first MANNEQUIN (1987) in preparation for this, did not feel I had a full review’s worth of thoughts on it, and had almost completely forgotten it a week later when I watched this. So forgive me if I mix up any of the Mannequinverse mythos.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Kristy Swanson, Meschach Taylor, Stewart Raffill, Summer of 1991, Terry Kiser, William Ragsdale
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs | 9 Comments »
Thursday, May 13th, 2021
THE EMPTY MAN is an interesting horror movie that’s on VOD right now. Turns out it’s based on a comic book from Boom! Studios, but I was not aware of that when I saw it. I just knew it was getting some word-of-mouth as a good horror movie that had not gotten its due upon its release in October. After further research I learned that after it got dumped by the studio (with a misleading trailer dropping one week before release) and completely flopped it got bad reviews and a D+ Cinemascore. Luckily I was listening to the right people.
If you’re game, I suggest doing a trust exercise here and just watching it without reading what it’s about. I liked seeing it unfold knowing nothing at all. But for those of you who can’t do that, I’ll get more specific. It opens in Bhutan in 1995, where four American friends are on a hiking trip. You know – all excited to visit a foreign land, waving at passing monks and shit. They get to the top and it’s beautiful and amazing and then Paul (Aaron Poole, THE SAMARITAN) is all, “Do you hear that?,” walks toward a ledge and slips right into a crevice. Just drops right in like it was an open manhole. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aaron Poole, David Prior, Evan Jonigkeit, horror noir, James Badge Dale, Jessica Matten, Stephen Root
Posted in Horror, Mystery, Reviews | 30 Comments »
Wednesday, May 12th, 2021
Today in S91: JUDGMENT SUMMER I’m going to time travel slightly into the future for some supplementary material. MEDUSA: DARE TO BE TRUTHFUL was not released during the summer – it first aired on Showtime on December 1st. But seeing as how it was a quick-turnaround parody of one of the important films of the summer it seemed to me worthy for the time capsule as a document of attitudes in the culture at the time.
It’s not really a movie per se, but (thankfully) a 51-minute comedy special for Julie Brown (ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN, BLOODY BIRTHDAY), transplanting her ditsy, entitled but well-meaning Valley Girl persona into a parody of Madonna. I was familiar with Brown in the ‘80s from her comedic songs “‘Cause I’m a Blonde” and especially “The Homecoming Queen’s Got a Gun,” where she juxtaposed All-American high school imagery with violence (which seemed edgy in those days), and then from her MTV show Just Say Julie. I had seen her in EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY, but didn’t realize that she wrote and produced it based on one of her songs. At this time she had a sketch comedy show on Fox called The Edge, which co-starred Jennifer Aniston, Wayne Knight and Tom Kenny. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bobcat Goldthwait, Chris Elliott, Donal Logue, John Fortenberry, Julie Brown, Kathy Griffin, Summer of 1991, Wink Martindale, Zero External Reviews on IMDb
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Music | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, May 11th, 2021
May 10, 1991
There were several movies in the summer of ’91 that were major pop culture events, widely discussed, referenced, parodied. One of them, surprisingly, was a music documentary shot mostly in 16mm black and white.
Or really more of a tour documentary than a music documentary. One thing that’s unusual about MADONNA: TRUTH OR DARE is that it’s entirely about its subject being a performer, a troupe leader, and a celebrity, and not at all about her music, or even the creation of her show.
The Blond Ambition World Tour was not a normal concert – it was more like an extravagant stage musical. On the four month, 57-show tour from Chiba, Japan to Nice, France, Madonna promoted her 1989 album Like a Prayer and 1990 DICK TRACY tie-in I’m Breathless, backed by seven dancers, two backup singers, an eight-piece band and a $2 million, 80 x 70 foot stage set that was hauled in 18 trucks and set up by over 100 crew members. Every song we see in the movie has its own backdrop, wardrobe (by the fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier – or, as we know him, the guy who did the costumes for THE FIFTH ELEMENT – who Madonna recruited in 1989 by sending him a nice letter) and complex choreography. When the movie begins they already seem like old pros at performing it. If there’s drama about something going wrong it’s not any of them messing up. It’s the sound system or the weather. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alek Keshishian, Antonio Banderas, concert films, Daniel Pearl, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Kevin Costner, Madonna, music documentaries, Propaganda Films, Sandra Bernhard, Summer of 1991, Vincent Patterson, Warren Beatty
Posted in Reviews, Documentary, Music | 31 Comments »
Monday, May 10th, 2021
FX2 – which is not subtitled THE DEADLY ART OF ILLUSION, that’s just a very memorable tagline, like DIE HARDER for DIE HARD 2 – arrived a surprising five years after the hit first film. It comes from a completely different creative team, but they’re pretty much all-stars. The director is Richard Franklin, (ROAD GAMES, PSYCHO II, LINK). The screenwriter is Bill Condon, who had so far done STRANGE BEHAVIOR, STRANGE INVADERS and SISTER, SISTER, but would be an Oscar winner before the end of the decade. And the score is by the legendary Lalo Schifrin (Mission: Impossible, DIRTY HARRY, PRIME CUT, HIT!).
It’s not any of their best work. Especially Schifrin – this is some cheesy-ass late ‘80s TV cop drama smooth jazz type shit. But in a mildly endearing way. And the movie as a whole is kind of the same.
Our first part 2 of the summer opens, of course, with another movie-within-a-movie fake out. This time what seems to be an ordinary New York City street erupts with crazy sci-fi violence. A convertible pulls up, and a homeless man hits on the “lady” driver with the very hairy arms, who (gasp) turns out to be a burly man with a vaguely Arnold accent (did they know this was coming out the summer of T2?) who gets into a shootout with cops, revealing robot parts beneath and spewing beautiful bright blue blood. “The Cyborg” is played by James Stacy, the star of Lancer, portrayed by Timothy Olyphant in ONCE UPON A TIME …IN HOLLYWOOD. Since he lost his left arm and leg in a 1973 motorcycle accident he must’ve even done the parts where his robot limbs get blown away. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bill Condon, Bryan Brown, James Stacy, Joanna Gleason, Jossie DeGuzman, Kevin J. O'Connor, Lalo Schifrin, Rachel Ticotin, Richard Franklin, Summer of 1991, Tom Mason
Posted in Reviews, Action, Thriller | 10 Comments »
Friday, May 7th, 2021
May 7, 1991
I don’t think I’ve ever included a TV movie in a summer movie retrospective, but this came up on a summer of ’91 list and I figured why not? After the opening weekend for A RAGE IN HARLEM and ONE GOOD COP, some people checked out a new Stephen King movie on the CBS Tuesday Movie Special. It aired against a Roseanne episode that introduced Shelly Winters as Nana Mary, the fourth episode of a short-lived sitcom called Stat, and a thirtysomething about Hope (Mel Harris) volunteering at a homeless shelter.
One could reasonably assume that a Stephen-King-based TV movie in the ‘90s would be a Mick Garris joint, but in fact it’s a different notable horror director: Tom McLoughlin of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES fame. He also did ONE DARK NIGHT and, come to think of it, co-created She-Wolf of London with Garris. This one comes from a King short story first published in Cavalier in 1974, and later included in Night Shift. It was adapted by Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal, whose all-over-the-place filmography at this point included THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN, THE JEWEL OF THE NILE, SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, and DESPERATE HOURS. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bentley Mitchum, Brooke Adams, Chris Demetral, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Matt Nolan, Nicholas Sadler, Robert Hy Gorman, Robert Rusler, Stephen King, Summer of 1991, Tasia Valenza, Tim Matheson, Tom McLoughlin, William Kuhlke, William Sanderson
Posted in Reviews, Horror | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, May 5th, 2021
TOM CLANCY is simply WITHOUT REMORSE is a new loosely-based-on-a-Tom-Clancy-book action movie starring Michael B. Jordan (RED TAILS) as John Kelly, the character who I guess is later played by Willem Dafoe in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER and Liev Schreiber in THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. It was meant to be a major theatrical release, but after, you know – all this – Amazon bought it, so you gotta watch it on Prime. But you should do that if you can. This is a good one.
I am absolutely not a Tom Clancy guy, not even in movie form. One reason this is more my shit: less military hardware. It’s a more Seagal-ian premise: Navy SEAL’s wife is murdered, he goes out to avenge those responsible whether the agency will help him or not. In the book I guess that meant he killed a bunch of drug dealers, here it’s reimagined as a conspiracy related to a mission he went on, and I think it makes a statement against nationalism and even militarism. Kelly is very matter-of-fact about the violence upon his family being an extension of the violence he committed for the government. Of course, the film’s main objective is just to work as a military thriller, but it also seems cognizant that this stuff shouldn’t be thoughtlessly glorified, and I appreciate that. (Maybe it should be called NOT WITHOUT SOME REMORSE.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: arthouse badass, Cam Gigandet, Guy Pearce, Jamie Bell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Lauren London, Michael B. Jordan, Stefano Sollima, Taylor Sheridan, Tom Clancy
Posted in Action, Reviews | 29 Comments »
Tuesday, May 4th, 2021
May 3, 1991
I’d never seen this one before, and from the title I always thought it was a thriller about police corruption. I guess I had only seen the tough guy poster on the DVD and blu-ray, and not the theatrical one that looks like SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE or something.
I think there is some subtle commentary about policing early in the movie, which I will go into, but for the most part it’s not about that. Instead this movie – which was only the fifth release from Disney’s not-for-kids label Hollywood Pictures – really is a fusion of the type of vibe of those two posters. It’s a gritty police/crime thriller about a cop whose partner gets killed, but in addition to going after the people he considers responsible, he and his wife take care of and then try to adopt the dead partner’s three adorable daughters. The amount of screen time and sincerity it puts into the second part is very unusual, so although this is in many ways not my type of movie, I respect its bold mix of genres. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Anthony LaPaglia, Benjamin Bratt, Heywood Gould, Kevin Conway, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Keaton, Rachel Ticotin, Renee Russo, Summer of 1991, Tony Plana, Vondie Curtis-Hall
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Drama | 20 Comments »
