Nixon Wins This is a huge failure as a movie, but an interesting one in a way. At least for someone my age who lived through the period appropriated here. Here’s the basic challenge in showing a love story: how do you cinematically show the pulls on the heart? The usual solution is to fold… Continue reading A Walk on the Moon (1999)
Tag: 1990s
Films made in the 1990s
Baby Geniuses (1999)
99 Dalmatians People hate this movie. I’m not sure I know why. Oh, it is bad, but other movies that are just as bad are not seen as so: — with the plot being the some sort of thin adventure. This is actually a bit more interesting than usual because the end is slightly untraditional.… Continue reading Baby Geniuses (1999)
Home Alone 3 (1997)
The Fighting Child Is there a more interesting case study than John Hughes? He invented a new genre and incidentally opened a new strain of cinematic techniques. But writing is like other major enterprises in life. Each hit on the pool ball does three things; it attempts to score, it completely changes the environment and… Continue reading Home Alone 3 (1997)
Aladdin (1992)
Sweet Arabian Skins This, to my mind, is a terrific concoction. It has no story to speak of. Oh, there’s some motion and noise but they are only there to give us something to look at while the three main notions unfurl, all of which are magically competent. There are the songs. Disney can do… Continue reading Aladdin (1992)
100 Years of Horror (1996- )
Horrible I only watched a third of these before giving up, so I will do a blanket comment. This is many hours of stuff stretched out possibly three times as long as it deserved. Interviews are reused in multiple weeks. There is lots of footage from the films they are talking about, but almost exclusively… Continue reading 100 Years of Horror (1996- )
Killer Condom (1996)
No Protection When I enter one of these worlds, I expect risk. Not by itself of course, but paired with clever insight, unusual metaphor or sliding perspective. But above all, risk. Their risk is my risk. Quite literally, I enter these film relationships promiscuously without protection, bare, expecting permanent change. That’s why I have higher… Continue reading Killer Condom (1996)
Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995)
Merlin’s Reds The magic of the legend is that it is presented through the prism of Merlin’s magic. It is the English thread of self-referential literature that balances the Spanish Don Quixote. In this thread, the teller is a magician and all of the “reality” we see is fabricated as the illusion, some of which… Continue reading Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Basement Steps When a film plays with the narrator’s credulity, and if it is essentially cinematic then I am predisposed to like it. This film has the additional benefit of some competent actors. Plus, we all like to dump on government lying during the Nixon era. I think this is a waste of time in… Continue reading Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Flirting (1991)
A Caning for Love Heavens be thanked for how Australians and New Zealanders have revived the acting element of film. Everything in the country seems set up to produce performing artists, even talent writers that understand acting, where Brazil produces soccer players and the US lawyers. Here you have three your actresses in essentially their… Continue reading Flirting (1991)
Henry Fool (1997)
We See The Poem Hartley is a major talent, a unique, competent voice in a bramble of sameness. The last project I saw was “No Such Thing,” which is one of those that if you don’t actively avoid it, it hits you deep in your soul and changes you. Like most Hartley projects, it was… Continue reading Henry Fool (1997)