1993 - SHADOWLANDS, a love story

This film is a love story between celebrated Christian author C.S Lewis and an American poet Joy Davidman a Jewish woman who had converted to Christianity,  She had been corresponding by mail with Lewis for some time and finally traveled to England to meet him.  Much to his surprise he found himself falling into a relationship with her.

The leads were played by Debra Winger and Anthony Hopkins and they were played very well.  In fact the entire cast performed at a very high level.  Even the young boy playing Winger's son from a first marriage doesn't have any of those annoying overacting tendencies that a lot of these child performers seem to pick up.

 

This film was produced and directed by Richard Attenborough and it's probably the best film he made as a director.  Attenborough had a long career acting with some of the best British directors.  But as a director himself a lot of his pictures were very stodgy and ponderous.  It seemed that Attenborough was only interested in making "important" pictures," so audiences sat throught long dull films like Gandhi, Cry Freedom and Chaplin.  They may have been intended to be of great cinematic significance but they sure were boring. 

 

In Shadowlands he had a good script, good actors and an excellent cinematographer in Roger Pratt.  The end result is a very touching love story which was filmed in the classic film style and worked very well.

The film was well written by William Nicholson, the running time is 131 minutes. 

1993 - THE RETURN OF IRONSIDE, closing the loop.

The previous post looked at the TV pilot for Raymond Burr's Ironside series.  The chief selling point of The Return of Ironside was as a reunion show which had Burr back with the original cast from his old TV series.  The movie was filmed on location in Denver, Colorado at Burr's insistence.  Burr had a great fondness for the city.

In the 1970's these television reunion shows were all the rage.  The baby boomer crowd got to relive the hours they spent in from of their television sets watching stuff like, The Return of the Mod Squad, Rescue From Gilligan's Island, The Munster's Revenge,  etc.  Believe me the list is endless. 

The plot of this film is almost incidental.  The original cast was Don Galloway as Ed Brown, Barbara Anderson as Eve Whitfield, Don Mitchell as Mark Sanger and Anderson's replacement Elizabeth Baur as Fran Belding who took over the sexy female cop role after Anderson left the series.  The story of this rather contrived movie involves Anderson's daughter played by Perrey Reeves being framed for a murder she didn't commit by some corrupt cops, yes that old narrative chestnut.

 

Burr was back in the wheelchair but this time he needed it in real life as he was now dying from cancer.  In fact The Return of Ironside was aired after Burr's death.  Burr at age 76, was still the old performing trooper and although visibly ill he's the main reason to watch this plodding crime thriller.  The movie spends way to much time on the Perrey Reeves character's boring love life at the expense of Burr's interaction with his old cast mates.

 

You can spend a few minutes on the Wikipedia entry for Raymond Burr, it's fascinating reading.  He was a closeted actor his entire life and had a long career working in film, theater, radio and finally TV.  The Return of Ironside is a real nostalgia wallow.

The film was written by Collier Young, Rob Hedden and William Woodfield, the running time is 89 minutes.     

1993 - ROBOCOP 3, the "B" movie alive and well.

The third in the Robocop film series and also the last one until the remake in 2014. This movie was completely clobbered by the critics and the public stayed away when it was released.  But it seemed the critics completely missed the point.  This was a "B" science fiction/action film in the great tradition of Death Race 2000, Robot Jox and Ninja III: The Domination to point out a few of the many. 

Robocop 3 the movie has it all.  Scary street gangs, robot samurai warriors, a jet pack, a flamethrower arm, lots of explosions and much over the top violence.  Robocop 3 was directed by an expert in the genre, Fred Dekker.  Dekker was responsible for Night Of The Creeps, and The Monster Squad so he certainly knew how to mix violent nonsense with some goofy humor.  

 

I can't say it's a good film, but it is certainly an entertaining one.  Any movie that has a tech savvy orphan, a beautiful scientist and a monotone robot man can't be all bad.

 

The film was written by Fred Dekker and comic book writer Frank Miller, the running time is 104 minutes.

1993 - CLIFFHANGER, ridiculous action film but entertaining

A 1990's action film that doesn't really hold up despite it being a commercial success.  Cliffhanger is all about Sylvester Stallone in another action film which has lots of call backs to Die Hard and First Blood.

Stallone is a mountain climber rescue guy who scurries around the Rocky Mountains in shorts and a tank top in the dead of winter.  Stallone and his mountain climber buddies happen to get involved with a gang of thieves who have just done a midair heist of three suitcases full of money that ends up falling out of their airplane.  The gang forces Stallone and his mountain climbing friends to help them find the money which is lost somewhere in the mountains.

The main really evil bad guy is played by John Lithgow in yet another evil bad guy role who is such a psychotic nutcase it's a wonder he is even able to recruit guys to work in his gang. When they piss him off he shoots them, this includes his girlfriend. 

 

Unfortunately for Lithgow, Stallone escapes and now is in hot pursuit of this bunch.  Apparently there was no thought given of going to the police for help.  Then again it wouldn't be a Stallone action movie if the police just showed up and arrested everybody.  We would miss Stallone throwing guys over mountain cliffs, impaling them on stalactites or leaping between mountains like he is Superman.

Lots of the mountain climbing scenes were the real thing and the scenery of the Italian Alps which for some reason were used instead of the Rocky Mountains is impressive. The rest of the cast is a combination of character and TV actors who don't leave much of an impression.  Overall a very dumb story but with some decent action and climbing scenes.

The film was written by Stallone and Michael France, the running time is 113 minutes.

1995 - FRENCH KISS, a very lame romantic comedy

I suppose it's kind of a tribute to Meg Ryan that she was asked to repeat her annoying Sally character from When Harry Meet Sally.  Ryan is so full of weird personality ticks in this movie it's unsurprising that her boyfriend dumps her by phone while he is on a trip to Paris.  After many scenes of Ryan being afraid to fly, she takes a plane to Paris to win her boyfriend back from a French woman he has fallen in love with.

 

 

While on the plane, Ryan meets French guy Kevin Kline who just happens to be a jewel thief and a would be wine maker.  Naturally they will get together, Meg Ryan the spunky goofy American and Kline the smooth talking French master thief who must have chemistry  together per the screenwriter.  After what seems like hours of "cute" adventures,  true love wins out and the two of them get together.

 

The director is Lawrence Kasdan for a while could do not wrong in Hollywood.  He wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, The Big Chill and The Bodyguard.  His hot streak finally ended with films like Silverado, Wyatt Earp, Mumford, Dreamcatcher and Darling Companion, a film about a dog and his best friend Diane Keaton.  The mighty had indeed fallen.

 

Anyway, this dreary film completely fails as a romantic comedy.  The usually good Kevin Kline can't save this show.  I've seem better romances on the Hallmark Channel and that's not exactly a high bar for this genre.  However French Kiss did make money although the reviews weren't the greatest.

The film was written by Adam Brooks, the running time is 111 unending minutes.

1993 - GRUMPY OLD MEN, a couple of old comedians show how to steal the movie

If anyone should get the credit for this film is should be the casting director, Sharon Howard-Field.  Obviously Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were the stars of this film but Sharon Howard-Field surrounded them with a strong supporting cast played by Ann Margaret, Buck Henry, Ossie Davis, Kevin Pollak, Darryl Hannah and Burgess Meredith.  All of these actors are in the service of making Lemmon and Matthau funny.

The film tracks the 30 year rivalry between Lemmon and Matthau as they attempt to romance free spirit Ann Margaret (and what could she possibly see in either one of these two old fuddy duddies) and a contest to see who can catch enough fish during a chilly winter on a frozen lake in Wabasha, Minnesota, a town by the Mississippi river.

 

Truth be told this isn't that hilarious a film but Lemmon and Matthau are such professionals they know how to milk every line for humor.  They also acted together in enough films which made their comedy timing with each other impeccable.

Probably the most interesting part of the film are the scenes set in Wabasha, Minnesota during the winter.  People are out shoveling, the snowplows are plowing and the proliferation of fishing huts on the lake is very funny.  Thirty years later climate change in Minnesota has taken it's toll.  There's hardly any snow during the winter and whatever accumulates melts because of unseasonably warm temperatures in January and February usually the coldest months of the winter in this state.

 The film was written by Mark Steven Johnson, the running time is 104 minutes.

1993 - GREEN SNAKE, a visually stunning film from Tsui Hark

The producer/director and writer Tsui Hark takes an ancient Chinese legend and applies his dynamic style to it for another incredible film.  This fantasy involves two giant snakes, a white one and a green one who can assume the form of  beautiful women.  The white snake falls in love with a human while the green snake attempts to understand the human emotion of love.  But this is just the jumping off point for some amazing visuals as only a director like Tsui Hark can stage them.

The snake women are played by Maggie Cheung and Joey Wong and Hark really cranks up the eroticism that these two women give off.  No wonder the human played by Wu Hsing-kuo is unable to resist them.

 

Hark and his production team also integrate some excellent special effects which for a change serve the story instead of being allowed to overwhelm the film.  Something that has been a major problem with American special effects films for some time.

  

 Green Snake also combines sensual photography and impressive set design which adds to it's  unique mood.

A fascinating Chinese fantasy film from one of Hong Kong's most creative directors.

The running time is 99 minutes.

1993 - THE PELICAN BRIEF, an okay political thriller

Take a couple of charismatic actors at the height of their attractiveness, in this case Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, Stick them in a film based on a best selling book by then hot thriller writer John Grisham.  Add the director, Alan J. Pakula who was kind of an old style filmmaker in the best sense of the term. You end up with a watchable film that's not exactly exciting.

The plot has Julia Roberts as a second year law student who writes a legal brief which attempts to make sense of the murders of two Supreme Court justices.  Improbably Julia's brief manages to figure out the motive for the killings and she has to go on the run from the killers.  The only help she gets is from investigative reporter Denzel who is also trying to solve the murders of the Supreme Court justices.  

The director Alan J. Pakula also wrote the screenplay and for the most part manages to keep the plot clear enough so we figure out who is doing what to whom.  The Pelican Brief is a political thriller, it's set in Washington and involves members of the government covering up the crime.  Pakula directs the film with a few Hitchcock like attempts at suspense but there are a lot of awfully contrived scenes and coincidences, the holes in the plot really show through after a while.

If you like watching good looking people for a couple of hours this is the film for you.  Otherwise you're better off viewing something like Seven Days In May or The Manchurian Candidate.  Or you can watch Pakula's better and real life thriller, All The President's Men. 

The screenplay was by Alan Pakula, the running time is 141 minutes.

1993 - THE SECRET GARDEN, a good children's film.

The Secret Garden is a good children's film or family film or whatever.  This type of genre film isn't really made or appreciated today. This production had a number or very good filmmakers involved, particularly the director Agnieszka Holland.  

The Secret Garden has been made a couple of times and the story is a rather simple one.  A young girl orphaned by her parent's deaths in an earthquake in India ends up living in a creepy castle back in England with her uncle.  The castle is right out of Jane Eyre with mysterious voices at night and a mean housekeeper played by Maggie Smith who could probably be a relative of Mrs Danvers from Hitchcock's Rebecca.

The young girl played by an actor named Kate Maberly is a mean selfish girl who gradually begins to become a better person after she discovers a "secret garden" which she nurses back to health after years of neglect.  That's basically the story.

 

However the director Agnieszka Holland is a very skilled filmmaker and her story telling skill makes the film really pop.  The interesting Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner wrote the score.  The cinematographer was Roger Deakins.  Francis Ford Coppola was the executive producer .  This is a very top level group of filmmakers.

 

The film is highly recommended as a useful corrective to the ADD school of Marvel and Star Wars movies and TV shows.

Caroline Thompson wrote the screenplay, the running time is 101 minutes.

1992 - WIND, well made but lacks appeal

Carroll Ballard, a first class filmmaker tells the story of competitive sailing in this case the battle for the America's Cup between the United States and Australia.  That Ballard could make such a good film out of this material is a tribute to his skill as a director.

The big problem with the film is the lack of interesting leads.  No offense to Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey, but they are hardly a hot romantic couple which I think kind of hurts the personal story of the film.

 

Still the sailing sequences are very exciting and the film is very well photographer by John Toll. It's worth a look for the sailing sequences alone.

The film was written by Mac Gudgeon and Rudy Wurlitizer.  The running time is 126 minutes.

1993 - THE LAST ACTION HERO, Arnold spoofs his films and himself.

 Columbia pictures lured Arnold Schwarzenegger with a big salary to star in a summer movie.  The choice interestingly enough was to make a film poking fun at Arnold's action star image and in a very strange way a tribute to Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.  

In this film a young boy who is an avid fan of Arnold's screen hero Detective Jack Slater is magically transported into the current Jack Slater sequel he is watching.  Here he is confronted with being a character witnessing every action movie cliche in the book. As the boy tries to persuade Slater that he is really only a character in a movie the audience is treated to a list of cameos and tributes to movies like Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal of all things.

This movie was a big critical and commercial failure.  Critics felt the film never found the right tone for the story and all the bad publicity regarding the difficulties in making the film probably kept the audience away.

The director John McTiernan worked under intense pressure to meet the studio's release date which probably affected the final form of the film.

 

Seen today the film is actually very funny, Arnold was game to make fun of himself and in a way it was almost the pinacle of Arnold's career as his projects got less and less interesting after this film.

The film's listed writers were Shane Black and David Arnott but a number of uncredited writers worked on this film including William Goldman, the running time was 131 minutes.

1993 - GERONIMO AN AMERICAN LEGEND, another farewell to the western film

Walter Hill kept trying to keep the western genre film alive after it had probably died off in the 1970's for the most part.  The film is based on the events that led to the surrender of Native American Chief Geronimo to the United States Army.

The film's emphasis is on one of the Army's  Lieutenants, Charles Gatewood  a real life character who actually persuaded Geronimo to surrender to the United States government.

 

As with all Walter Hill films, this is meticulously made and has a very good cast which includes Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Jason Patric and Matt Damon in a very early role in his career.  

 

The film has a real feel for the American Southwest.  It was written by John Milius and Larry Gross, the running time is 115 minutes.

1993 - MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, the return of Diane Keaton

 Manhattan Murder Mystery also known as "Annie Hall and Alvy Singer hit middle age," marks the return of Diane Keaton as Woody's leading lady.  They have not lost of any of their comic timing and they are chiefly the reason to watch this film.

The plot has something to do with Woody and Diane trying to decide if one of their neighbors has murdered his wife or whatever.  Woody Allen and Diane Keaton do have character names but lets face it they are playing Woody Allen and Diane Keaton.

The film has some amusing scenes and as is typical with a Woody Allen film the production looks very polished.

 

Woody Allen wrote the screenplay along with Marshal Brickman his collaborator on Annie Hall.  The film runs 107 minutes.

1993 - JOHN FORD, a film from British director Lindsay Anderson

Film makers can make for strange bedfellows and nothing is stranger than the friendship of Irish/American director John Ford and left leaning, gay British theater and film director Lindsay Anderson.  This documentary is Anderson's attempt to explain how much Ford's film have meant to him.

In many ways this is a standard tribute to Ford, there has been a lot written about Ford but Anderson attempts to explain and understand Ford and his films with whom he felt he had a spiritual connection.  Anderson actually met and developed a sort of friendship with Ford in the 1950's as Ford was winding down his career.  Surprisingly Anderson does not care for Ford's film The Searchers which he finds well made but very impersonal.

Anderson interviews some of Ford's crew and actors but noticeably missing are John Wayne, James Stewart and  Henry Fonda.  Anderson does have a very touching interview with Maureen O'Hara who had a very complicated relationship with John Ford.  Towards the end of the film Anderson speaks very movingly but without sentiment about his final meeting with the dying director.

This is an interesting film tribute from one very different filmmaker to another.

90 minutes, written by Lindsay Anderson.

1993 - TOMBSTONE, back at the OK Corral

Back in Tombstone again in 1993 with another big budget production of the Wyatt Earp saga.  This time the script aims to stick a little closer to the facts and follows up the shootout at the OK Corral with all of the bloody revenge killings that occurred afterwards.  The writer Kevin Jarre probably got as true to the actual story as any Hollywood studio would allow.

Unfortunately for Jarre, who started out as the director of Tombstone, he was removed and replaced by George Pan Cosmatos director of such action junk as Rambo 2, Escape from Athena, and Cobra. This insured that Tombstone would have plenty of violence.

The cast of Tombstone is somewhat impressive, Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton and Val KIlmer stealing the film as Doc Holliday.  Also somewhat impressive are the mustaches these guy sport throughout the film.  At times it's impossible to tell who is who with all the facial hair everywhere.

Tombstone is a decent attempt to tell an interesting and mostly true story about the America West which ends up in the second half of the film as just a lot of people getting shot up.  It is not an especially memorial or great western.

130 minutes.

1993 - FALLING DOWN, the angry white guy movie.

Falling Down is a Paddy Chayefsky, Network or The Hospital wanna be mixed with a slick southern California style of film making

Michael Douglas is the laid off angry white guy who's "had enough" and "isn't going to take it"  from those minority groups.  He takes off on a walk across the scariest parts of LA shooting people who have done him wrong. 

On the flip side is veteran cop Robert Duvall, his last day on the job before retirement who has to stop Douglas. Obviously this is supposed to be a compare and contrast deal, about 2 white guys who have to deal with the stress of modern society. 

Falling Down is directed by Joel Schumacher a Hollywood director with a polished style.  This is a good looking but empty film with excellent acting but the bottom line is that this is still an empty film.   

You're probably best sticking with Network or The Hospital if you are looking for angry white guy rants.


113 minutes

1993 - THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR, Hong Kong fantasy film with some sick stuff

The author Liang Yusheng based this story on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  This is a sort of a version of that story with the slight difference that Romeo and Juliet have very sharp swords and like to whack off the body parts of people that get in the way of their love.

This is a Chinese fantasy film in all it's wild glory with people flying through the air, lots of over the top action and larger than life acting from a cast that includes the fascinating Brigitte Lin and Leslie Cheung two of the more interesting actors from this period in Hong Kong filmmaking.

This film is well directed by Ronnie Yu and is probably the high point in his career since he went on to direct junk like Bride of Chucky and Freddie vs Jason. 

As is typical with these kinds of films, the action and violence are fast and bloody but the love scenes are very prudish.   You have to be in the right mindset to appreciate much less enjoy this kind of film.  However this is one of the better fantasy films that came out of Hong Kong at this time.

92 minutes, written by David Wu, Jason Lam Kee-To, Bik-Yin Tang and Ronnie Yu.

1993 - FATAL INSTINCT, this parody of erotic crime thrillers is pretty silly stuff.

I'm not so sure Carl Reiner (who is a funny guy) was the right person to direct this spoof of sex/crime thrillers, a genre that was probably in need of being parodied.  Reiner was kind of an old school comedian coming out of the 1950's and 60's school of humor (Dick Van Dyke Show, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, etc).  

Still, with all of the bad jokes there is some funny stuff in this film and a lot of clever ideas that really aren't developed because of the tendency to go for the cheap Airplane type of laughs.  The whole idea of a bunch of oversexed women running around committing murder probably reached it's pinnacle with Basic Instinct and the sexed crazed killers in that film.  Thinking about it, Basic Instinct seems mighty silly today. 

The film features some pretty good looking women, who all appear to be pretty good sports about the whole thing.  However the real reason to watch Fatal Instinct, is the actor Armond Assante who usually plays a lot of these kinds of hard boiled characters.  In this film Assante really seems to be having a good time making fun of his screen image.  His goofiness reaches some sort of silly high when he prances around in bright red high heels.

Carl Reiner is a funny guy and he is well aware how silly films like, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Body Heat to name a few are. But playing the Zucker Brothers game was a mistake. Packing in as many gags and jokes as possible finally wears down the viewer and makes the film seem pretty stupid.  Reiner would have been better taking a somewhat more restrained approach.  However you can smell the influence of MGM studios who were looking for a hit and probably forced a lot of this stupid humor into the film.

91 minutes.