90s – Page 13 – Yesterday's Movies

Fathers’ Day

August 22, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I grew up on Aladdin, Flubber , Jumanji, and Bicentennial Man all came out when I was the right age for them. I rediscovered Hook at a well-developed age between childhood and adulthood. Mork and Mindy may have been the first grown-up TV show I discovered on my own, but even if it wasn’t, it struck a chord with me the other possibilities didn’t. Robin Williams was the first person I did a search for in the library system and I pulled several movies from that search, a strategy I only applied so earnestly to two other actors. Having a blog focused on catching up with movies I haven’t seen led me to check off more of his filmography. So when news of his death came, I had some trouble finding a movie to review in his honor. It’s not so much that there are no movies left that I haven’t seen, but most of them are bleak dramas or too recent.

In the outpouring of love for the man I saw online in the last few weeks, Dead Poets’ Society seems to be very highly regarded, perhaps his most inspirational film. I indeed have not seen it and will certainly be getting to it soon, but I wanted to remember him with a proper comedy of the sort that there’s hardly anything left.

So here’s Father’s Day, a nearly forgotten movie about two men who have both been led to believe they’re the father of an ex-girlfriend’s runaway son, for the purpose of getting both of them to track him down. Sounds like a road movie with two giants of comedy at odds with each other. Let’s have some fun.

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Runaway Bride

August 1, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Once in a writing class, we were told to look at a collection of pictures from the art department and write some vignettes inspired by those images. I saw a picture of a woman stepping out of a pair of fancy shoes, and I think I connected that with this movie’s poster to write a scene at a wedding reception, but the implied plot was in an entirely different direction.

So apparently most of what I have to say about this movie before seeing it is nearly unrelated to it. I’m expecting a generic romantic comedy with one obvious unusual twist. And Gere and Roberts have had success before with Pretty Woman and I think a few others, so they should do well here.

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Paulie

July 4, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I think I heard this was terrible. But then I might have conflated it too much with Pauly Shore. I had in mind that the bird was voiced by Pauly Shore in the “falling out of favor” part of his career. So I have no idea what to expect besides “talking animal road movie”. It has Tony Shaloub, so it can’t be too bad.

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McHale’s Navy

June 20, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie: This looks way too similar to Down Periscope. Though that’s probably just because of the closeness of subject matter. And tropes of 90s poster design. Some months ago, when I learned of the existence of this movie and queued it, I knew I wouldn’t be able to appraise it well without a better appreciation of the TV show, so I recorded and watched a handful of episodes. I’m sure the rest of the boat was distinctly characterized if one paid attention over the course of the series, but really only four characters stood out to me. So I’m already not too bothered with the fact that they clearly seem to have changed that lineup to move with the times. However, that would just leave a shell of legacy over a story that would otherwise be its own thing. Continue reading →

Coneheads

June 6, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Have I seen this before? There’s something special in my memory about Coneheads, but I can’t quite place it. I’m fairly sure that I had a friend in Kindergarten or first grade who talked about it fondly, but the only concrete recollection I have is that there were a few clips of it in a Paramount promotional montage on a couple of tapes I liked to watch a lot. And more recently, I’ve seen some of the original sketches. Since my memories are so hazy, and there are a few alternative options, I’m going to conclude for now that I haven’t seen it before, and if I did, it was so long ago that nothing really stuck and my view will still be fresh. However, in the interest of transparency, I’m making this decision public.

While not as widely talked about as other Saturday Night Live spinoffs, this seems to have a pretty positive reputation. The concept certainly offers room for a full-fledged plot and lends itself to a higher budget. In fact, it may be so much more of a movie concept than a sketch concept that it becomes hard to remember it got its start on SNL, like Blues Brothers.

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You’ve Got Mail

May 16, 2014temporalparadox5 Comments

Before watching the movie: The late 90s, a time when the internet was just beginning to be a thing normal people used, when it was beginning to be treated like the post office or telephone and nobody had a business interest in controlling access to it.

PSA aside, a time when the internet was new but probably safe enough, not something fearful. A time when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan could be Hollywood’s most bankably romantic couple yet again by somehow meeting online without knowing each other’s real identity, and this is a good thing. Yay technology. Continue reading →

Patriot Games

April 24, 2014April 25, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

Terror plot, Harrison Ford, action, that sort of thing. I expect it to be exciting. I’m looking forward to it, but not in ways that seem to be able to fill a page.

I should probably be comparing this to The Hunt for Red October, but I didn’t even remember that Jack Ryan in that film was Alec Baldwin (I was remembering Martin Sheen for some reason).

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Multiplicity

February 28, 2014March 27, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

I had some other options for this week that rose to the top due to impending expiration. Then Harold Ramis died, and the internet was covered in Ghostbusters. But he wasn’t just Egon Spengler, and as the week went on, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t seeing anybody that seemed to remember even that he was one of the leads in Stripes, and I only saw an indirect mention of SCTV. None of the classic and cult movies he wrote or directed were at all mentioned, which is perhaps understandable, since writers and directors are less visible.

However, Ramis was a guiding hand behind the camera for many more beloved movies than he acted in, and so many of them are so prominent that there are hardly any left I haven’t seen. So here we have Multiplicity, a Ramis-directed film about a man who clones himself to keep up with all his commitments. Perhaps appropriate to honor a man wore so many hats to make movies people loved.

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The Hard Way

February 20, 2014February 21, 2014temporalparadoxLeave a comment

Before watching the movie:

One more Michael J. Fox movie from the set I found years ago, which I believe completes it. I previously covered For Love Or Money and Greedy, and now, finally, this one. Possibly the one I was most interested in, if I recall correctly.

Here we have a slick Hollywood actor shadowing a tough cop to research a role, much to the annoyance of said cop, who is played by James Woods. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything Woods has done in live action, but I’m quite fond of some of his voice performances, and I’m looking forward to getting to know him on camera.
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Small Soldiers

February 14, 2014temporalparadox2 Comments

Before watching the movie:

So. Toys come to life. War toys are violent. This sounds familiar. But it has a cult following, it’s been praised for its writing, it has some familiar names I like, and I’m in the mood for a violent comedy right now.

The marketing is entirely focused on the living toys, so I actually have no idea what the overall aesthetic of the movie is. I really want it to be stop-motion style toys in a live-action environment, but I expect I will be disappointed. For one thing, I want them to be in 12 frames per second, but that would clash with the live action as stupidly as the ED-209 did in RoboCop.

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