Category: 1990s

Fired from her job as a dance instructor, Dolly Parton drops her useless boyfriend Michael Madsen and heads to the big city of Chicago in pursuit of something better. Finally hired as a receptionist at a radio station, she stumbles into a studio and successfully takes over for their new talk therapist. The rest of the plot centers on hiding her lack of qualifications (something she doesn’t want to do) with more men treating her badly, including James Woods in one of the strangest romantic pairings in existence. Luckily Dolly is so utter charming because she’s the absolute only reason to watch, but she does indeed make it watchable.

Eccentric amusement park mogul Geoffrey Rush invites six random people to a former psychiatric institution to celebrate his wife Famke Janssen’s birthday. As an enticement, each guest is offered one million dollars if they manage to spend the entire night in the allegedly haunted building. A remake of the 1959 same titled film, Rush does his best to fill in for the unparalleled Vincent Price. His snarky interactions with Janssen are the best part of the film. This version accentuates the supernatural aspects of the story to its detriment. The CGI at the time does not hold up to what is being attempted and it builds to more and more silliness. The cast is filled with a bunch of beautiful, but forgettable, interchangeable characters, especially in the case of similar looking Ali Larter and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras who I spent more time than I should have trying to figure out which one was which.     

Against the warnings of his superiors, doctor Hugh Grant attempts to figure out the circumstances that brought a mysterious homeless patient to his ER. He soon finds his personal and professional life threatened on all levels as he gets closer to the truth. It’s a fairly middling medical thriller that is silly when it strays from the expected. For better or worse, it stays nearer the expected where I couldn’t be certain I haven’t seen it before. With Gene Hackman as the prime baddie backed up by David Morse in yet another law enforcement role, it does have an appealing cast and it’s nice seeing Sarah Jessica Parker in a more intelligent and more serious role than her usual.  

While under observation of company inspector Keith David, garbagemen Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen find the body of a city councilmen stuffed in a garbage can. The trio try to cover up their discovery while avoiding the killers and an inept pair of bicycle cops. Occasionally funny, the film starts off as a different take on the buddy comedy, but quickly devolves into inanity with David being forced into a Hollywoodized stereotype of an unhinged war vet, an unnecessary romance, and a ridiculous, over the top ending. I like seeing the Estevez brothers working together, but even while their shared screen time is long, it’s not their best pairing.  

Clues left behind by the murderers of his boss lead Detroit cop Eddie Murphy back to Los Angeles to investigate potential corruption at an amusement park. This part of the Beverly Hills Cop series misses any of the appeal of even the second installment . The plot is dumb, the dialogue is stilted, and Murphy’s character is too serious leaving a huge chasm where humor would have previously been. The only plus in the entire film is the location, which is used to at least decent effect.   

Christian Slater falls in love with Patricia Arquette, the prostitute his boss hired for his birthday, so he goes to pimp Gary Oldman and tries to get her released from his control. This simple act results in the vast violence and destruction that propels the rest of the film. I had always assumed this was another 1990s ultra-violent Bonnie and Clyde on the road clone, similar to Natural Born Killers, and while this film does share many of the same attributes, the majority of the action stays in Los Angeles and the Slater-Arquette coupling are less the perpetrators of the violence and rather just the impetus. It surprisingly has quite a varied cast with Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, and even Bronson Pinchot in a relatively meaty role all making appearances. 

Obsessed with her high school sweetheart Ken Wahl, married Harley Jane Kozak sends her single best friend Elizabeth McGovern to seduce him and then tell her what it was like. The plan of course backfires on everyone involved. It makes no sense that either of these women would be interested in a mulleted Wahl when their other choices were Bill Pullman and Brad Pitt. I had hoped that there would be some twist involving the big hookup but everything in the entire film is played straight and as boringly expected.

Vampire Eddie Murphy travels to Brooklyn in search of a dhampir whose ancestry originates from his native land. Directed by horror pioneer Wes Craven, it’s like a combination of Coming to America and Blackula but nowhere near as funny nor entertaining as either of those films. Angela Bassett as the dhampir/NYPD cop puts a lot of effort into her role, but she seems as unclear as to the tone of the film as the audience is sure to be. 

For his ninth birthday, Hal Scardino receives a cabinet and a Native American figurine which comes alive when it is placed inside. The special effects in this are impressively good. Along with the personification of the various figurines played by Litefoot, David Keith, and Steve Coogan, it’s what makes the film entertaining. Unfortunately the child actors and the writing for them is not top quality and there are a LOT of extreme closeups of those actors’ faces. I haven’t read the books, but I like how it recognizes personhood of those who are different.