I love this movie! I laughed so hard it was embarrassing.
We adopted a pair of dachshunds, and seriously considered naming them Lattis and Kro-Bar.
A Good Man in Africa (1994)—
A mediocre movie based on a pretty good novel by William Boyd, with an all-star cast—Colin Friels, Sean Connery, John Lithgow, Diana Rigg, Louis Gossett Jr., Joanne Whalley (pre-Kilmer), Maynard Eziashi.
Looking back on it, it’s somewhat racist, but at the time, I loved the performances. Everyone was really good in it, and it preserved some of the sense of hijinks and futility from the novel.
PCU (1994)—
A really stupid movie making stupid non-points about political correctness starring Jeremy Piven decades before being outed as a predator and an asshole. But the performances are great and the stupid fun is just stupid fun. I liked this movie much more than Animal House because the characters were way nicer and benign.
This was not a stupid movie at all, but I have to mention it—
Mister Johnson (1990)
—Pierce Brosnan, back when he was a character actor, plays a colonial officer in British-ruled Africa, but the real star of the movie is his African clerk, played by Maynard Eziashi, who goes by the name “Mister Johnson.” It’s a tragedy in form, but it is very observant of the colonial experience, the affection that could grow between ruler and ruled, but at the end revealing the brutality of the system. Edward Woodward is also in it.
I seem to be the only person who liked this movie but. I found The Shadow to be a very entertaining movie that embraced the pulp roots of the character. Alec Baldwin seems to be constantly in on the joke, never taking it too seriously, and John Lone and Tim Curry chew so much scenery I’m surprised there was anything left. The effects budget was definitely on the thin side but the practical, Evil Dead-grade effects really fit the pulp nature of the story, and the one aspect that is really lacking is the editing where there are some scene jumps that clearly left something on the cutting room floor. Unfortunately, the movie did relatively poorly at the box office with poor promotion and an until then rising star Baldwin taking a deep career slide for the better part of a decade led to no sequel potential, but the movie is good fun with a just-right balance of campy action and slightly over-the-top dramatic flair that felt like a radio serial production projected to film. This goes on the same shelf as Big Trouble in Little China, The Rocketeer, and Captain America: The First Avenger. If only someone would actually make a decent Doc Savage movie…
Stranger
I love The Shadow!
I also like The Arrival, starring Charlie Sheen.
And If Looks Could Kill, starring Richard Grieco.
And Thunderheart.
Would Conan the Barbarian, Predator or Die Hard count if you extended the time period to the '80s or would you consider them different from what you have in mind?
I wouldn’t say I “loved” any of the following, but all are worth checking out, imo:
Frankenhooker (1990)
Low-budget bad taste comedy.
The Borrower (1991)
Alien “borrows” human heads.
Innocent Blood (1992)
John Landis directed vampire on the loose tale mixes in gangsters. Silly, funny, gory and Don Rickles explodes.
Legend of Liquid Sword (1993)
Indescribable Hong Kong martial arts flick with mind-blowing action and multiple cast members exploding thanks to bad guy “Batman.”
Matinee (1993)
Cheesy filmmaker promoting Mant! (“Half man! Half ant! All Terror!”) in 1962 FL finds real-life atomic threats eclipsing his cinematic ones.
Mars Attacks (1996)
The only movie ever made from a series of gum cards. Should have been much better.
Anaconda (1997)
Jon Voight gets regurgitated by a giant CG-snake. What’s not to love?
Razor Blade Smile (1998)
Very low budget vampires among humans tale features one of the worst performances ever given by a male lead, but still entertains.
Lake Placid (1999)
Crocs menace humans. Lots of humor helps.
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Not as bad as most would have it, but awfully derivative. I kinda liked it, but would probably never watch twice.
Legend of Zu (2001)
Almost constant VFX and/or mind-blowing action, along with awesome martial arts choreography and state-of-the-art wirework in this nearly incomprehensible CG-saturated fantasy.
Kamikaze Girls (2004)
The unlikely friendship between a tough biker chick and a would-be fashion designer obsessed by the Rococo period makes for a predictably silly and unexpectedly entertaining tale.
For sure under an 80’s category. Along with Red Dawn.
Other 90’s would be: Under Siege, In the Line of Fire*,
*Which is just “Hannibal Lecter vs. Clint Eastwood” turned up to 11.
I like The Shadow. I have it on the shelf next to The Phantom, The Rocketeer, Dick Tracy, and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow as a sort of suite of reviving 1930s-style sci-fi heroes.
They’re all very ridiculous but somewhat fun.
Clifford, 1994, starring Martin Short and Charles Grodin. A movie that seems to be almost universally despised, savaged by critics, and performed horribly at the box office. Yet every single thing about it cracks me right the fuck up every time I watch it (yes, I’ve watched it multiple times.)
Two of my favourites!
My contribution: Blast from the Past.
Brendan Fraser plays Adam, born in a bomb shelter, where his family has sequestered itself since a bomb scare during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. He, and his parents, haven’t been on the surface since then, and while they were stocked well with supplies in 1962 (enough for 35 years, actually), they’re running out. Adam is sent to the surface to get supplies.
He meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone), who agrees to help him find what he needs. This movie could be dismissed as a nice forgettable rom-com if that’s all there was to it, but there’s more–it’s Adam’s reactions to the world of 1997 that really make this movie. He learns, sometimes the hard way, that the world has greatly changed since 1962, which is when his parents took shelter, and which is all they know, and which they have taught him about. Adam cannot dance, unless it’s swing music or Perry Como; he thinks that “gay” still means “happy”; he has never driven a car, but he tries to learn (Eve has to do most of the driving); and he’s amazed by colour television. As you can tell, it’s a movie I’ve enjoyed rewatching many times.
Speaking of movies where the protagonists get sucked into a TV, I’d like to nominate 1992’s Stay Tuned. It’s not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its parodies of '80s and '90s films and TV shows—including the self-referential zinger where lead John Ritter gets transported into Three’s Company—were well worth the price of admission.
I saw this in the theater, and it scared the crap out of me. I was dating the guy I eventually married, but he didn’t stay over the night we saw it together (actually, we saw it in the AFTERNOON), because I had to get up crazy early the next day. I went to bed when it was still a little light out, and was so creeped out, I ended up getting up and checking all the locks and windows, and closets, twice. I picked up the phone to call the guy and ask him to come over, but didn’t. I ended up taking something to fall asleep.
I don’t love it enough to have seen it more than once, but I did enjoy it a lot when I saw it. It’s one of those movies where the script isn’t particularly startling, but the people in it seem to be having such a good time making it, that you get caught up in their joy. Susan Sontag said “camp” was when something was terrible, but the people doing it were having a great time-- like kids at camp. This is when more like when something is 2 & 1/2 stars, but the people are really enjoying themselves.
A movie I liked which hasn’t been mentioned unfathomably gets ONE star when it’s on, but I think it’s a great movie is Where the Heart Is, with Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman. I can’t figure out why it’s so disliked. It’s not Citizen Kane, but I think it’s a pretty solid middling-good movie. Good performances, good production values, and a script that balances unpredictability with believability. I can’t help thinking that it’s a women like it/men hate it movie that ISN’T a romance, and in fact, is a film where the men don’t come off so well, and maybe that has something to do with critical reaction. Interestingly, I saw this with two friends who were a gay man, and a trans woman. They both loved it too, and the gay man, when it was over, said “Yeah, men suck.”
Good times! :eek: https://www.blairwitch.com/
Then there was Curse of the Blair Witch-I enjoyed, similar vein.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0202493/
And Blair Witch 2-Not as good, but ok.
From that the gimmick Secret of Esrever, which I never figured out.
https://blairwitch.proboards.com/thread/2357/secret-esreverFun memory about this movie-- I used to be afraid to fly. Like, every minute in the air was almost unbearable anxiety. I eventually got better by making myself fly down to Florida from Michigan to visit my sister every year. Sort of my own desensitization training. Touching down on the ground was always an enormous relief. When I got home I liked to rent & watch air action/disaster movies, and “Passenger 57” was one memorable one. Why? Not sure… maybe akin to someone who’s afraid to watch horror movies late at night but enjoys them during daylight. I liked experiencing the simulated terror at a remove, with my feet firmly on the ground. “Executive Decision” was another.
Also its sequel, The Lost Skeleton Returns Again
I love reading true crime, especially stuff about serial killers, and especially especially Jack the Ripper stuff-- as long as it is light out. If I read it at night, I’m in for a v…e…r…y l…o…n…g night. Especially if DH is coming home late, or out of town altogether. And before I was married, or back when he was in the military, forget it.
That was a pretty good movie that was released about a month before Independence Day, so it was overshadowed.
As I recall, one of the characters was a wild partier played by Mark Paul Gosselaar, who until that point was only known as Zack from Saved by the Bell. It was quite funny seeing somebody who was always depicted as such a squeaky clean high schooler essentially morph into a raging college kid.
…
My contribution: Road Trip.
It was a movie which included Tom Green (remember him? The really weird, really obnoxious gross-out/awkward moment comedian) so I was wary. But he only had a bit part, and the movie (about a group of college kids who travel across the country to retrieve a video tape one accidentally mailed to his girlfriend) was really funny, but also surprisingly poignant (e.g. the dorky kid comes of age; there’s a surprisingly thoughtful take on weed and anxiety, the characters are sympathetic and decent) and not at all cliched (e.g. they try to drive their car over a ravine by building a ramp and jumping it; total movie nonsense, right? Except the car is totaled once it lands). Meanwhile, Tom Green basically spends the movie waiting for a snake to eat a mouse.
Highly recommend.
I don’t remember him in PCU. David Spade was in it, as was a younger Jon Favreau. It’s a pretty funny movie, and supposedly based on Wesleyan University.
Go-- sure it was a Tarentino/Pulp Fiction rip off, but I still enjoyed the heck out of it.
Good Burger-- I only saw it because my children were tweens when it came out but, dang, that stupid movie made me laugh.
Long Kiss Goodnight-- I like action movies and this is one of my very favorites.
Along with the already mentioned Lake Placid (Betty White rules!), I’d like to add Volcano to the list of stupid little disaster movies from the 90s that I love.