Category: 1990s

Another film I wasn’t sure if I had watched until it started. If I was certain, I wouldn’t have watched because it’s silly trash and so similar to other trashy films that are more entertaining. James Spader is a wuss who lives a bland, but relatively successful life. Rob Lowe is the devil who gets his amusement from turning Spader’s life upside down whether James wants it or not. Lowe is one dimensional and hammy in his role with little menace. Spader would have done it better, but Lowe wouldn’t have been any better in reversed roles. Christian Clemenson is James’s brother, a thankless role where he brings more skill than this film deserves. The ending is too neat and unsatisfying.

As a sequel to the original The Odd Couple, this one doesn’t really serve any purpose. The story as much as there is of one doesn’t offer any explanation as to what happened in the relationship of Felix and Oscar in the last almost-twenty years. As a chance to see one last pairing of Lemmon and Matthau, it’s pretty good. When it doesn’t get bogged down with the pretext of having a story, it’s an often funny romp of a road trip flick.

Nora Ephron’s directorial debut is rather light and cute, fitting well in the rest of her filmography. Julie Kavner is a single mom and aspiring comedian who cashes in a small inheritance to move to Manhattan, eventually finding a bit of success in her desired career to the chagrin of her teenage daughter. Samantha Mathis and Gaby Hoffman elevate fairly stereotypical child roles. Dan Aykroyd and Carrie Fisher add funny bits to the production as comedy agents. It’s good for the film that there isn’t too much time on Kavner’s stand-up act because the bits that are shown aren’t particularly funny.

A little slow to start (I watched in two sittings and the second was definitely more engaging than the first), The Rocketeer picks up once stunt pilot Billy Campbell straps the rocket pack onto his back to become the Rocketeer. Trying to avoid the FBI, the Mob, and Nazis, he needs to keep the pack just long enough to save his girl played by Jennifer Connelly. It’s a decent family adventure with lots of 1930s Art Deco details. Extra camp provided by Timothy Dalton as an Errol Flynn-inspired Golden-Age Hollywood star.

I had hopes at the beginning of this film, a semi-light action mixed with a bit of a natural disaster flick. For that, I can suspend quite a bit of disbelief, but this one requires too much suspension while not delivering enough of what I was hoping for. The good is Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater are as good as they can be. Ed Asner and Betty White are solid in their small roles. On the other hand, Minnie Driver doesn’t make sense in her role and is given very little to do with it. I’m fairly certain that Huntingburg, Indiana has never seen that much rain ever, let alone in a 24 hour period. Even in 1998, I’m not sure $3 million split amongst a few people was worth all the effort they put into this film. For the good guys, it’s dark and there’s a deluge of rain, I’m pretty sure you can hide away from the bad guys for a good long time in those circumstances. All this nonsense culminated with Jars of Clay’s Flood playing over the credits for some Lucifer knows why reason. 

This whole movie seems like it was made about 10 years earlier, as if it was trying to take advantage of Blade Runner and Terminator’s popularity. A dystopian future where the super rich steal bodies from the past in order to achieve immortality is certainly a story that could be compelling even in modern times, particularly with the caveat that the ordinary people’s bodies are too derelict to be useful for the task. But that dystopian future wasn’t going to be happening in 2009 even from a 1992 perspective. Emilio Estevez performs capably as the freejacked body, but most of the cast is underutilized. Rene Russo plays her generic love-interest role. Anthony Hopkins makes occasional appearances, but doesn’t bring any spark. The only real spark to the whole production is Mick Jagger looking cooler than I ever thought he was capable of.

The only thing I knew about Selena going into this movie is that she was singer who was murdered at a relatively young age. I appreciate that her father as producer was willing to portray himself in not the most positive of light, but other than that, this is a pretty by-the-book music biopic. I also think it was a good decision to focus much more on her life instead of her death, with very little time spent on Selena’s relationship with her murderer. I don’t have many opinions on Jennifer Lopez’s acting in general, but there were times in this movie where she completely transformed into Selena.