Category: 1990s

When her close friend Julianne Moore’s young daughter has a fatal accident under her care, her town turns against her and school nurse Sigourney Weaver’s professionalism in other instances is called into question. It’s quite a bit of melodrama that doesn’t given either of these great actresses quality material to work with, especially Weaver who is expected to deliver some really strange behaviors while in prison. The MVP of the whole film is David Strathairn as Weaver’s husband, giving a strong performance as a man who has to make tough decisions while keeping his family together.

To get into a mechanics’ course, Ryan Black is forced to submit an essay. He chooses to write about the rape and murder of one of his friends by a white man and how his community dealt with the lenient sentence given for the crime. Violence perpetrated against native women is an incredibly underreported subject, but unfortunately here with the story focusing on the antics of Black and his best friend Adam Beach, it gives the feeling that the woman is a secondary character in her own story. Regardless, I appreciate the attempt to bring more native stories to film and with this, it does portray what feels like a genuine community and how its members interact.

Captain Treat Williams and his crew are hired by a group of mercenaries to aid in hijacking a luxury cruise. Unfortunately when they arrive on the ship, they find almost everyone dead, killed by a mysterious force. It’s very silly with a story that’s a bit too convoluted, but it delivers exactly what is expected from the genre, nothing less and nothing more. The CGI creatures are definitely dated, but still remain effectively scary. There’s something refreshingly capitalistic that the movie doesn’t have a single good character in the entire cast and doesn’t try too hard to sell them as as such.    

In this faux documentary set in the year 2042, a reporter interviews a mother and her college-aged daughter who are imprisoned for having sought an abortion in Sweden. While very dated and somewhat cheaply made, this film hits hard in the current United States. The reporter also interviews other individuals, including a Roman Catholic priest, feminists, and the prosecutor in the case, who provide context to how a country supposedly built on freedom and liberty slid so far into a totalitarian state. The film isn’t great as a piece of entertainment or art, but it does serve as a huge warning sign of how easily rights can be eroded on little piece at a time.

Ruby Dee entreaties Harvard professor Sean Connery to come out of retirement from the law to investigate her grandson Blair Underwood’s conviction for the rape and murder of a young white girl. Once down to Florida, Connery must contend with racist, brutal cops, his own wife’s connection to the case, and serial killer Ed Harris. I’d seen negative reviews of this that I couldn’t understand. The first half is rather compelling with Connery dealing with the aforementioned issues while also putting together the facts of the case. Then in the second half, it gets bad, really bad. Every single character suddenly acts opposite of how they’d been portrayed through the earlier parts of the film, except Ruby Dee because she’s criminally underused by that point, and what could have maybe been a compelling courtroom climax instead commits to the dumbest timeline.   

When amnesiac schoolteacher Geena Davis gets into a car accident, the concussion she receives jostles memories of her previous life as an assassin. With the help of Samuel L. Jackson, a private investigator she had hired to find clues to her identity, she works to find more of the pieces while also taking care of the fall-out from her last mission. There’s a lot that’s bad in this: the script, the directing, and the dated special effects, but there are some moments that point to what could have been a pretty great actioner. Davis is uneven and over the top in both of the personalities (the makeup for the ‘bad’ side is particularly egregious) but she’s also committed and looks like she’s having fun. Craig Bierko makes for a pretty great sleazy bad guy. My favorite is Samuel L. Jackson. He’s not playing much different than any of his other action film roles, but he’s the sensible one in the crazy pairing and thus brings a different vibe.  

Following the events of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, the turtles discover that a canister containing the same ooze that led to their formation years ago has gone missing along with a doctor who understands its power. A film of this type begs comparison to its original title and this one holds up fairly well. The story and action are silly but still entertaining. Paige Turco is a better choice for April O’Neil, but the change in Raphael’s voice actor was off-putting. Vanilla Ice being the musical guest firmly sets its time period even if what he has to offer is nowhere near memorable as Partners in Kryme’s Turtle Power. I don’t remember if it was an issue in the earlier film, but Michelangelo and Raphael’s bandanas were often not distinctive enough, especially in shadows, making for confusion whenever they weren’t on screen together. Overall, it makes for a good pairing with the original though I doubt I’ll find a need to watch the third.