- Part 1 (Cartoons)
- Part 1.5 (Cartoons revisited)
- Part 2 (Movies part 1)
- Part 3 (Movies part 2)
- Part 4 (Regular-ass TV)
- Part 5 (Cable TV)
- Part 5.5 (Cable TV leftovers)
- Part 6 (Novels)
- Part 7 (Magazines/Comics)
- Part 8 (Music/Games/Internet)
- Part 9 (Trips/Treasures/Treats)
As I said at the very end of this one...
Someday, I might do an update on the honorable mentions.
So, I've finally come back around to do that.
Here we go....
1990
(Year of the Florida trip!!)
Quick Change
Bill Murray robs a bank, Geena Davis and Randy Quaid are his accomplices, and every stroke of bad luck possible prevents them from escaping town.
Hi-jinks...well, it's all hi-jinks.
Fun little flick.
High tomato rating despite Ebert giving it a"meh".
Among Murray's best.
Check it out.
Spirit Of '76
Time travelers try to go back to the founding of America to figure out where they went wrong, but screw up, and go to the bicentennial in 1976.
Hi-jinks and 70's star cameos ensue.
Stupid as Hell, and made on a Monkees episode budget.
I'll spoil it, because the plot isn't the point anyway, the time travelers refuel their time machine with the active ingredient in Visine which 70's pot heads have in abundance.
Why was this on my list?
Damned if I know.
I think it's because the end credits song burnt into my head forever.
Showtime playing the Hell out of it didn't help.
And Youtube won't cough it up, so I can't share the joy.
Truly, Madly, Deeply
I tracked this down after Alan Rickman died.
Needed to see something from him I hadn't seen.
Lovely little film.
Really sweet and tear-jerky.
More so after his passing.
The poster compares it to "Ghost", and yeah, this blows that away.
No special effects, no bad guys, no wacky side-character hi-jinks.
They don't even hold your hand, and explicitly tell you it's actually supernatural or not.
It's all about human feeling.
Good stuff.
I don't get to recommend a lot of these.
1991
Hook
I could have SWORN I did this one in "Fantasy flicks", but nope.
Millennials love this one more than I ever did, because it's their childhood nostalgia now, and I can see that. If I can love friggin "Popeye", then I can totally get that.
Alas, dear Robin Williams.
His whole filmography glimmers with nostalgia now, doesn't it?
Critics hated it, but it's beloved by a strong fandom.
I dig it all right.
Is it perfect? Oh, Hell no.
But compared to a lot of the failed swill that's come out under the banner of the Peter Pan property (even recently), this stands among the better ones.
The Disney animated movie, the Fox animated series, and this.
And "Finding Neverland".
The rest is poopy.
Blood & Concrete: A Love Story
I remember this having surf music for the opening theme song long before "Pulp Fiction", ever did.
Tarantino ripped off absolutely everything.
Cinemax played the shit out of this.
All I can remember anymore is that there was a bad guy that wanted to anally rape Billy Zane, and it was played for jolly laughs.
No wonder Hollywood is fucked up about sexual assault.
Yeesh.
Bernard and the Genie
Oh, no way! Alan Cumming was Bernard?
He wasn't famous yet, so it never clicked!
A&E played this back when they were still classy.
Another cute little film.
Let's just say it's the better genie film (by far!!) than "Kazaam".
Poison
An anthology of three terrible short films.
One about a little boy that kills his abusive dad, and then flies away.
One about a 50's mad scientist that drinks testicle squeezings, and becomes a monster (mocking 50's conservative sexual puritanism, I guess).
One about a guy in prison who gets raped.
Yep, another anal rape special brought to my eyeballs by Cinemax.
At least "Blood & Concrete", wasn't obnoxiously pretentious about it the way this was.
Cinemax would sneak this into the softcore porn to ruin my nights.
Bastids.
In hindsight, I probably should have been dating instead.
Too bad I had no self-esteem.
When you have no confidence, you're stuck at home being brain-molested by sadistic cable programmers.
Learn from me, children, learn from me.
Anyway, I don't recommend this at all, but I sure remember it.
Naked Gun 2 1/2
The "Empire Strikes Back", of the Naked Gun trilogy.
One was good, this was better, three was ass.
I have no plot description, because the plot is just a weak contrivance to justify wacky shit happening for 90 minutes.
That's what these movies are for.
To see crazy zany goofy shit.
To antidote your brain from real life.
And movies like "Poison".
The Guyver
Based on an anime.
About a guy that finds an alien gizmo that turns him into a biological Iron Man.
The background mythology to this is, aliens have been tinkering with human DNA for centuries, and werewolf mythology comes from the hybrid monsters the aliens made.
The Guyver is the ultimate evolution of this tech, and it essentially turns you into a were-robot.
So, The Guyver fights the animal were-monster thingies.
It's basically PG-13 rated Power Rangers.
Mark Hamill is one of the bad guys.
This was just before his career was defibrillated back to life by becoming the animated Joker.
Jimmy Walker is a villain too.
In the movie as well. ;-)
It's a fun watch.
It's not brain food, it's total junkfood, but it's tasty junkfood.
Given the reception of the live-action "Ghost In The Shell", and "Death Note", this ironically is probably the best live-action anime adaptation.
What About Bob?
Another Bill Murray classic.
This is right up there with "Ghostbusters", "Scrooged", and "Groundhog Day".
Next tier down would be "Stripes", "Meatballs", "Caddyshack", and "Quick Change".
Boyz N The Hood
The best of the late-80's & early-mid 90's gang movies, hands down.
One of those ones that needs to be homework in schools.
The Fisher King
Again, alas Robin Williams.
And alas Terry Gilliam! Where the fuck is he??!?!
He keeps punching his bloodied fists at the brick wall of that fucking Don Quixote movie decade after decade.
He's not letting that one go!!
Anyway, I agree with the critic blurb on the poster for a change.
1992
The Lawnmower Man
I left this out of the Stephen King thing, because it's so heavily adapted, it retains not a single trace of the original story whatsoever.
Well, there's literally one line, but I refuse to let that count.
That's like adding "call me Ishmael", to "Charlies Angels", and saying it's fucking "Moby Dick".
No.
We're not going down that rabbit hole of madness.
Delete it from Stephen King canon, and ignore the title, and you're good to go, because this is still a fun little remake of "Flowers For Algernon".
Or, you could look at it as a dark "Tron", sequel too.
Should have been called just "Virtual Reality".
No other true VR movie had been made, and the title was totally up for grabs.
They could have been the first.
They could have staked the claim.
But, they thought audiences were stupid, and sold them on Stephen King instead.
1993
Fear Of A Black Hat
"This Is Spinal Tap", for rap.
Showtime played the shit out of this.
It's pretty funny.
Not considered a classic by any means, but I think you should give it a spin.
Coneheads
Like I said in the original pass, sue me.
It's not one of the greatest SNL movies, and it's not among Dan Aykroyd's classics, but I thought it was cute.
But...I fucking like "Howard The Duck", so what do I know?
It faithfully adapts the skits.
You can't deny that.
There was a rarely shown animated special of Coneheads in the 80's, and this lifts the story from that lock stock and barrel, so Aykroyd is a nut for saving stuff.
As much as I am for Harry Hembock.
He will not let an idea go to waste.
Like me and Harry Hembock.
Howard Stern despises this.
This is his go to movie for comparing bad movies to other bad movies.
The thing I find weird is how this even got made.
The popularity of the skit was long past.
All I can think is, Aykroyd was to this flick, like Terry Gilliam is to Don Quixote.
But unlike Gilliam (so far) Aykroyd got his passion project made.
Never get between Dan Aykroyd, and something he wants to get done.
Unless your name is Bill Murray.
Bill Murray is the immovable object that can cancel the unstoppable force.
*Googles* holy shit, Youtube has the animated special!
And it's exactly 10 years before the live-action one!
1994
Natural Born Killers
My old review for this is only 2 sentences long.
"Ahhh, finally another good movie.
They were spaced so far apart".
Yeah, the list I was using from the "I Love The 90's", VH-1 specials was a bunch of wretched horrible shit.
Way to misrepresent the decade, fuckheads.
I've finally had to do this whole giant thing to undo the damage.
Showtime played the shit out of this, and I watched it every single fucking time.
I really loved it.
Now....eh...not as much.
I still get a kick out of the Rodney Dangerfield scenes.
That's the only part you should even watch.
That's some good dark social satire.
Everything else has aged badly as pretentious polemic bullshit.
Oliver Stone can go fuck himself.
Sideways, without lube.
Cabin Boy
Another one from 90's Showtime I adored.
Hey, if you think there's another better "Seven Voyages Of Sinbad", spoof out there, then present it.
*Crickets*
Aaaalll RIGHT then!
The first and last Chris Elliot led movie.
(See "Get a Life", for his first and best show)
Projection Booth did a whole two and a half hour episode on it, and I can't say much more than they did. Hey, I said it before, they're fucking thorough.
Quiz Show
About the crooked quiz show scandals of the 50's.
I watched this one every single time it was on Showtime.
It's really good, except for Rob Morrow's shitty Boston accent.
It takes an act of will for it not to take you right out of the movie.
Ralph Fiennes and John Turturrow are so great though, it antidotes him.
Highly recommended.
The Hudsucker Proxy
This was after "Barton Fink", but before "Fargo".
Critics and film snobs loved the Coens, but they were just about to explode into the mainstream with their masterpiece.
This is not that.
It's good though.
Weird.
But then Sam Raimi was the third writer on this.
When you know that going in, you can see his touches all over it.
Stargate
The original with Ego and Ultron as good guys.
See here for the show.
Who knew this would explode into a franchise?
Actually, Sci-Fi Universe did.
Although, they thought the movies would at least be a trilogy, and that the first one was gonna go over as big as Star Wars.
Didn't exactly pan out that way, but it is well remembered, and generated a lot of content.
"Independence Day", was actually supposed to be a "Stargate", sequel at one point.
Whatever happened to Jaye Davidson?
"The Crying Game", this, and then poof.
And, that's 20 flicks, and I'm done!
Next time, the other 20!!
See you then!
7 comments:
"Quick Change" - Predicting the "evil clown" theme of 2016-17 by a good 26 years!!!
"Spirit Of '76" - I gotta love that the movie is from 1990 and says "a close up look at the most embarrassing decade in history!" This was when people still hated the 70s--the revival wouldn't be for two-three years yet (Tarantino, "Dazed & Confused," etc.)
"Truly, Madly, Deeply" - Never saw this but it was directed by Anthony Minghella who got to be the big Oscars darling 5 years later. I sure HOPE it's better than "Ghost" - I've always kind of hated that movie!!!
"Hook" - Hahah, you're a defender. Remember, Spielberg had to do "Jurassic Park" and "Schindler's List" in the same year to wash the stink of this off...I saw it in theaters and liked it as a kid, but in retrospect scenes like "RUN HOME JACK" and Williams telling Hoffman to "just go away" really are as bad as people say they are IMO...also, good lord, RUFIO. Okay, I'd have to rewatch it to really be sure but didn't Hoffman and Williams hate each other? I read Spielberg didn't have such a good time making it either and it was his "Gangs Of New York," festering-for-25-years dream project too. (Spielberg doing Peter Pan, duhhh.)
"Poison" - Todd Haynes?!!? "I'm Not There," "Far From Heaven" Todd Haynes? Uh, wow. If he directed this, it's probably the only thing he did that ever ended up being shown on *Cinemax*...
"Naked Gun" - I remember liking all three of them...couldn't discern a difference in quality. The best joke in this one was making fun of the "Ghost" sex sequence, the best joke in the whole trilogy, since I'm a moron, was in the third one when Anna Nicole Smith took her clothes off revealing in shadow form that she had a huge penis shaped like Gonzo the Muppet's nose. Followed by Leslie Nielsen puking and a huge crashing orchestra chord. I guess sensitivity to trannie people means that joke wouldn't fly today!!
"The Guyver" - Wasn't Hammill doing shit like "Wing Commander" Sega CD cut scenes by this time? Maybe it wasn't even Sega CD. Blowing his head off in "Village Of The Damned," too.
"What About Bob?" - This is sufficiently well remembered for scumbag right wing Trump worshipping cartoonish Ben Garrison (look him up, you'll be sorry) to have parodied it with "What About Barack?" with the same font and all.
As a little kid, the shadow of Dreyfuss strangling the shadow of Murray scared the hell out of me for some reason.
"Boyz N The Hood" - John Singleton was like TWENTY THREE YEARS OLD when he directed this, did you know that? Kind of amazing. Note that people inappropriately laugh at what happens to Morris Chestnut in this movie, these days (I saw it with a group of people)
"The Fisher King" - Terry Gilliam did okay with "Dr. Parnassus" (in spite of what happened to Ledger) and "The Zero Theorem" which played like "Brazil" from the POV of a sad burnt out old man. He can still make an okay movie. He'd better either end with that, though, or the Don Quixote thing since it's his dream project because either would be an inapproriate movie for him. He probably had to do TFK to avoid being strung up by his balls by Hollywood over the "Baron Munchausen" financial disaster BTW (TBM was at one point the biggest money loser in film history.)
"Lawnmower Man" - Jeff Fahey was really good in this. BTW this is from the same year as "Snow Crash," it's occurring to me now, and would make for an interesting compare/contrast re: early 90s VR fads.
"Fear Of A Black Hat" - Last I heard of Rusty Cundieff (main creative force behind this movie) was his work on "Chappelle's Show," but we all know that was awhile ago.
"Coneheads" - The cone girl on the left was in "Dazed & Confused," and then this, and then nothing. Passable, I'd say. It was harmless at least. The scenes with Chris Farley are surprisingly funny. Some AV Club article pointed out that Dan Aykroyd's career starting with "Dragnet" was pretty much just all nostalgia or retreads, I think....
https://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/263-before-tv-remakes-became-common-dan-aykroyd-revive/
Hey wait a minute - You ask why the film was made as late as 1993...hey, it's 70s nostalgia! THAT'S why! It was at the beginning of "bring stuff back from the 70s!"
Well, I guess one wouldn't know from watching it...
NBK - Like I said earlier, it's the MTV stylizations that sink the movie for me. I'll admit that the prison rioting stuff has some force to it though. What did I say the first time - "this makes 1994 seem like it was 70 years ago?"
"Quiz Show" - Geez, where IS Rob Morrow nowadays...hah, this was up against "Pulp Fiction," "Forrest Gump," AND "Shawshank Redemption" for Best Picture BTW...
"Hudsucker Proxy" - Towards the bottom of the Coens barrel I'd say. I talked to a guy named "Norville Barnes" on another board for awhile.
"StarGate" - Heh, speaking of transgender people, you'd think Jaye Davidson would make some huge comeback because of that. Note: the dude getting his head teleported off is the funniest death in cinema history, I'll never stop laughing every time I see it.
Hook- Oh, yeah, those warts are there, all right.
But I'll take a hundred "Ruf-ee-ohh!!"s over pirates singing "smells like teen spirit".
Naked Gun 3- Ehhh, I dunno, even a bad comedy can have a couple good jokes, I guess.
I just think it seemed like they weren't trying as hard.
Plus, the whole OJ thing cast a pall over it.
I saw that one at the theater, and I don't know why....
Guyver- Yep. He kissed Ginger Lynn in that one, and she said on "The Projection Booth", that he wanted her to get AIDS tested first, and she was really pissed.
Yeah...kinda not cool, Mark.
I'm sure it was more a germ-aphobe thing than a morals thing, but Hollywood's a bad place for that.
Everyone's got a past as icky as a pornstar's, they just don't film it.
Giving a pornstar shit is just hypocrisy.
Gilliam- "Baron Munchausen", and "Time Bandits", were both collossal flops, and they're my favorites! It hasn't gotten easier for weird artsy flicks, because look at what just happened to "Bladerunner 2049".
Lawnmower Man/Snowcrash comparison- Dooo eeet!
Dan Aykroyd- I dug "Dragnet". It goofed on the Satanic panic. If The Satanic Panic were a thing during the old show, they would have fallen for that hook, line, and sinker. It was perfect.
Coneheads as 70's nostalgia...I never thought of that.
You're right!
NBK- Oh, yeah, the prison riot was good and dark too. There's a deleted scene where Mickey rapes a kidnapped girl while Mallory is getting eaten out by the gas station kid.
Harrelson hated that scene, and was glad it was cut, then was noticably pissed that Stone put it back into the special edition.
Rob Morrow- Let's find out...*Googles*OH GOD!!! He wa sin "Atlas Shrugged Part 3!"!!!!
Oh, shit, Rob, no!
Better you gay porn than that shit!!
Somebody do a telethon to save Rob Morrow!!!
Jaye Davidson- Well, look at the Wachowskis, he should have gotten into directing.
Hey, isn't it funny, that there's a movement of anti-feminist Nazis that call themselves "the red pill movement", or just "red pill", and that comes from "The Matrix", a movie directed by two trans-women?
Fuck, Nazis are stupid. Everything they think and do sucks.
Why, it's kinda why everyone hates them.
I mean, Hamill kissed Ginger Lynn in "Wing Commander 3".
Naked Gun 3 - Oh shit, that *was* the same year as OJ getting busted.
Gilliam/BR2049 - If it's any consolation, "Geostorm" is going to lose like $100 million at the box office. Gee, who would have guessed the public isn't interested anymore in seeing CGI tidal waves knock over cities, that special effect hasn't been useful since 1998.
Lawnmower Man/Snow Crash - I'd only be doing it in my mind, that is..."Snow Crash"'s VR-era novum is a computer virus that infects people. "Lawnmower Man," well we all know that one wasn't really aiming for much depth.
Rob Morrow - I actually made it through the first two "Atlas Shrugged" movies. They're as bad as you've been told.
Wachowskis - They're BOTH trans? I thought it was just Larry who changed himself into a hideous pink haired chick. As for concepts borrowed from "The Matrix"...we're all probably guilty of that one. LOL, I remember the very first opinion I read of that movie was $Legion$ trashing it on the J-World board. He hated it.
Wachowskis- Yep, they're Lilly and Lana now.
They don't want to be called "The Wachowski Sisters", but just "The Wachowskis".
I could see if they were twins, cuz twins are clones, but they were born two years apart.
Gotta be rare.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis
Oliver Stone revisited.
https://dickynoo.blogspot.com/2019/07/oliver-stone-can-go-fuck-himself.html
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