1990

The Day of Reckoning (1990)

Starring Assumpta Serna, Cris Campion, Philippe Léotard, Samantha Fuller, Manuel Pereiro, Christa Lang

Directed by Samuel Fuller

Expectations: Low.

According to Sam Fuller’s book, A Third Face, The Day of Reckoning was the final directorial work of Sam Fuller (though not the last released). It’s not a feature film, it’s actually a 50-minute episode of the anthology program Chillers, hosted by Anthony Perkins. But this doesn’t diminish the fact that it is a Sam Fuller film at its heart, so when I realized that the storyline was going hard into an animal rights stance, I could only smile. Sam Fuller had confronted social injustice against humans throughout his filmmaking career. With White Dog he explored similar themes, but the dog was still just another method of humanity’s social injustices. With The Day of Reckoning, Fuller goes one step further and takes on factory farming and the injustices done to chickens in the name of the almighty dollar.

Stephen reviews: A Wind Named Amnesia (1990)

A Wind Named Amnesia [風の名はアムネジア Kaze no Na wa Amunejia] (1990)

Starring Kazuki Yao, Keiko Toda, Masaharu Satou, Kappei Yamaguchi, Daisuke Gori, Yuko Mita, Noriko Hidaka, Osamu Saka

Directed by Kazuo Yamazaki

Today I’m reviewing the only remaining Hideyuki Kikuchi novel adaptation, at least that I am aware of. Like Darkside Blues, it is not a horror film. And also like Darkside Blues, it is quite a bit more bland than the other adaptations of his works. I can’t claim Kikuchi as a better horror writer than a sci-fi writer since I haven’t read the novels, but his horror stories have definitely gotten the better film versions.

A Wind Named Amnesia has a more philosophical nature than Darkside. Not that Darkside didn’t have philosophical themes; it’s just that it mostly ignored them. Amnesia, though, aims straight for its principle themes, and as such is a more coherent work. While this does makes it a better film, the moments of fun action are weaker, which cranks the boredom factor up a bit, too. So which film you would prefer will probably have a lot to do with what you are hoping for.

Mo’ Better Blues (1990)

Starring Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Robin Harris, Joie Lee, Bill Nunn, John Turturro, Dick Anthony Williams, Cynda Williams, Nicholas Turturro

Directed by Spike Lee

Expectations: Moderate. I like jazz, I like Spike Lee.

Hot off of Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee delivered Mo’ Better Blues, a film about a jazz musician trying to juggle his artistic pursuits and his relationships. It’s not nearly as succinct and riveting as the previous film, but as a huge jazz fan, it held my attention fully throughout. I generally shy away from music biopics, and while this isn’t really a biopic, it’s enough of a story about a young musician to be potentially troubled waters for me. Thank God Spike Lee isn’t one for clichés and conventions, though, as Mo’ Better Blues takes a much different route to its conclusion than the plot might initially suggest.

The film opens in a New York neighborhood as the tortured sounds of a kid practicing trumpet scales can be heard coming from an upstairs window. A group of kids yell up to the window for their friend, but Bleek’s mother refuses to allow him to go play with his “hoodlum friends.” Instead, Bleek is to practice his scales and only after his lesson will he be allowed to go outside. Even the soft-spoken words of his father are not enough to sway his strong-willed mother. When Bleek resigns himself to this fact, the film cuts ahead 20 years and we rejoin Bleek (now played by Denzel Washington) playing with his quintet in a jazz club drenched in deep red light.

Young Guns II (1990)

Starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater, William Petersen, Alan Ruck, R.D. Call, James Coburn, Balthazar Getty, Jack Kehoe, Robert Knepper, Tom Kurlander, Viggo Mortensen

Directed by Geoff Murphy

Expectations: Low. I’ve seen this one before and did not enjoy it. Same as the first.

I love a good western. I don’t watch nearly as many of them as I used to, but my love for them has not diminished one bit. Young Guns did nothing to scratch my western itch, and while its sequel gets a lot closer, it’s just shy of providing anything of real value or entertainment to me. I think the key here is that the target audience for the Young Guns franchise is female, and when my girlfriend remarked after one of my many sighs, “You don’t like all the drama,” I knew that she was onto something solid.

By casting all the young heartthrobs of the day, you’ve already got the female audience’s interest piqued, but Young Guns goes the extra mile and makes the focus of the movie the drama that transpires between the members of the group. There’s no real heroics or impressive vigilante action to be found in this series (things that a male audience would generally respond to), and I think this is a major reason why I just can’t connect with the Young Guns films. In this way, Young Guns isn’t so much a western as it is a teen movie using a western backdrop, kind of like Inglourious Basterds is a spaghetti western that uses WWII iconography instead of the traditional guns and horses.

Predator 2 (1990)

Starring Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Rubén Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Bill Paxton, Robert Davi, Adam Baldwin, Kent McCord, Morton Downey Jr., Calvin Lockhart, Kevin Peter Hall

Directed by Stephen Hopkins

Expectations: Low. I re-watched this a few years ago (right before starting SE and hated it).

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

What a difference a couple of years makes. Many times I’ve mentioned how my love of B-Movies has allowed me to sit back and enjoy many films that I would’ve never been able to before. Predator 2 is a great example as I loved it when it was new, but re-watching it just a few years ago proved trying on my patience. I bitched about how it wasn’t doing what I thought a Predator movie should do, and that they probably should have never made a sequel. But in the interest of reviewing the Predator series leading up to my eventual reviews of the two AVP films (Oh God, am I actually watching those movies?), I reluctantly put the disc in and threw all expectations out the window. C’mon, Predator 2! I’m here! Do it! Kill me now! Give me your best.

Predator 2 responded with such force and vigilance that I was shaken to my core. How could I have possibly disliked this film just a few, short years ago? It’s all thanks to starting Silver Emulsion and really exploring my love of film in its many forms that I’m now able to recapture that childhood glee of watching Danny Glover take on the baddest motherfucker this side of Jupiter. I take back every bad thing I ever said about Predator 2 in the last couple of years, because Predator 2 is pure fun.

Men at Work (1990)

Starring Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Leslie Hope, Keith David, Dean Cameron, John Getz, Hawk Wolinski, John Lavachielli, Geoffrey Blake, Cameron Dye

Directed by Emilio Estevez

Expectations: Super low.

While watching Weekend at Bernie’s, my girlfriend commented that the film made her think of Men at Work, and that she would like to see it again. I had never seen it, so I quickly acquired it for review. Now having seen it, I can clearly see why Weekend at Bernie’s brought it to mind. For a good portion of the film, Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Keith David are carrying around a dead man. And in one scene, they even pretend he’s alive and move his limbs for him to fool someone! As the two films came out in close proximity to each other (about a year separated them), I have to imagine Men at Work was in production long before Bernie’s dropped, but I can imagine Estevez’s despair at the success of the “other movie that features a couple of schlubs carting around a dead man.” I’m sure he thought he had the corner on that darkly comic market when he was crafting this script.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Men at Work is about two garbage men who get unknowingly mixed up in a web of illegal dumping and must “take out the trash,” where the trash is a greedy business owner dumping chemicals into the ocean. When said asshole kills the one man with evidence against him, instead of entrusting the disposal of the body to two fantastic assassins, he gives the job to a couple of ’80s nincompoops that bungle the job accordingly. That’s not our heroes, though, they’re the guys that find the body in the morning while collecting the trash. Thing is, due to some strange circumstances they know who the guy is, and don’t wish to reveal his death to the police.

Meridian (1990)

Meridian (1990)
AKA Meridian: Kiss of the Beast, Phantoms

Starring Sherilyn Fenn, Malcolm Jamieson, Charlie Spradling, Hilary Mason, Phil Fondacaro, Vernon Dobtcheff, Alex Daniels, Vito Passeri, Angelo de Bianchi, Salem Badr

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Low. This one looks kinda cheesy.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

I rarely know much about these films before watching them, in an effort to remain open-minded and free from pesky expectations. In the case of Meridian, I had only seen the poster. It gives off something of an erotic, Gothic vibe and surprisingly, that’s exactly what Meridian is. And it’s good! Imagine that. Meridian is something completely different for Charles Band and I for one welcomed the change readily. Too many times I’ve sat down to a Full Moon film devoid of plot, FX and entertainment for the sake of reviewing all of their films, but Meridian was actually quite enjoyable to watch.

Without giving too much away, Meridian is about a girl, a castle and a centuries-old mystery that surrounds them both. It’s more of a Gothic romance than a real horror film, but I think horror fans looking to branch out from the everyday slasher film might still enjoy it… I did. The story plays with conventions and expectations just enough to keep you guessing (to a degree), and it continued to surprise me up until the end. It definitely has its missteps and some of the characters/plot points are underused/unfulfilled, but for what it is Meridian was quite impressive. It’s an interesting Full Moon film that stands alone in terms of story and focus, and for that, it’s worth checking out.