Category: 1993
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In the Line of Fire is about bad use of taxpayer funds. President Jim Curley is on the campaign trail, trying to shore up support in ten states in nine days or something, and his chief of staff, Fred Thompson, doesn’t want to listen to any nonsense from the Secret Service about a viable threat.…
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Not counting the ill-advised, if still not wholly unwelcome epilogue, What’s Love Got to Do with It ends about ten years before the film came out. Love’s a biopic of Tina Turner (played by Angela Bassett except for the adorable then rending prologue), almost entirely focusing on her time with Ike Turner (Laurence Fishburne). Just…
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Suppose one makes it to the third act of Weekend at Bernie’s II, which is not a suggestion or recommendation to undertake such a burden. In that case, one will see some bewilderingly competent underwater photography. Including what appears to be Terry Kiser doing takes without any oxygen nearby. Maybe it’s Kiser, maybe it’s not.…
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Much Ado About Nothing has a machismo problem. It’s not writer, director, and star Branagh’s fault; it’s just the historical patriarchy. Though Branagh does try to do some initial counterbalancing, opening the film with a quote about the sexual dynamics. Still, that moment only carries through the first scene, setting up Emma Thompson’s character… And…
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A Rage in Arkham is the first Hitman collection, but it’s not all the first Hitman stories. There’s his first appearance, during the Bloodlines crossover—which I can’t forget to address, in a Garth Ennis and John McCrea Demon annual, then a Contagion tie-in with Hitman and Batman, then the first three issues of the ongoing,…
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It’s a Christmas episode and a good one. Just the right amount of humor and heartwarming, with Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) ending up alone on Christmas and in need of some good fellowship as it turns out. Everything seems to be going swimmingly for Grammer’s first Christmas with Mahoney in Seattle, with his son coming in…
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I’ve got to stop being so surprised when Kelsey Grammer basically gets an episode to himself. It’s his show, it just happens to have a phenomenal supporting cast. I was going to say scene-stealing but they aren’t. No one crowds anyone out in “Frasier,” it’s exceptionally balanced. This episode is all about Grammer getting neurotic…
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It’s another strong episode. “Frasier”’s combination for success is the scripts—in this case, from writers Denise Moss and Sy Dukane—the supporting cast, and then the bigger name guest stars. Because whether you know his name or not, John Glover is a name guest star. He’s in this episode as Kelsey Grammer’s boss. The episode starts…
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Selling Out is a Kelsey Grammer episode overall—Frasier gets into the lucrative world of on air endorsing and finds himself tempted further and further way from his professional ethics as a psychiatrist—but it’s Harriet Sansom Harris who makes it so special. The Grammer stuff would be funny no matter what, as his behavior gets more…
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In some ways, this episode of “Frasier” is the best one so far. If the show is supposed to be about Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) and Martin (John Mahoney) actually connecting as son and father, respectively, Leslie Eberhard’s script does it. It does it so much you’re left wondering what the repercussions if or when Niles…
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It’s a Kelsey Grammar-centric episode—it’s about Frasier’s first girlfriend since the divorce, though they’re never too specific about it (just Frasier still thinks women don’t have to pay on dates). Only he manages to screw it all up, even when he finds out the girlfriend (Amanda Donohue with such a good American accent I didn’t…
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This episode brings Peri Gilpin to Kelsey Grammer’s apartment for the first time. It’s not because of what happens with Gilpin there but what doesn’t. During the course of the episode, she meets Grammer’s dad, John Mahoney, but not onscreen. She comes up in conversation later when Mahoney suggests to Grammer he should ask her…
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It’s a very good episode overall—script courtesy Brad Hall, with able direction from Andy Ackerman—and an even better one for Jane Leeves. She’s gotten to do a lot of comedy to this point, but when it comes time for the heart part of the episode, it’s all her. This episode also feels like the show’s…
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This episode has two celebrity guest callers—Judith Ivey is the patient and Joe Mantegna as part of the plot. Mantegna is a Seattle Times newspaper columnist who can’t stand lead Kelsey Grammer’s show. Grammer has a couple great monologues where he reads from the articles and rants about them. Mantenga calls up during the second…
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This episode features Niles (David Hyde Pierce) meeting Daphne (Jane Leeves) for the first time and it’s amazing. Also amazing is how Kelsey Grammer is on it from the start, initially bewildered at Hyde Pierce’s behavior. Grammer really gets across how predictable Frasier finds his brother. It’s so good. Also, I think this episode has…
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This episode picks up right after the previous one, which you’d think have been a no-no in the syndication chasing days of sitcoms. But, no, the first scene is not at all morning person Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) getting up late and groggily confused about what Jane Leeves is doing in his apartment. She fills…
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When it comes to the multi-cam sitcom, I can’t imagine a more efficient, effective pilot than “Frasier”’s The Good Son. David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee’s script is perfectly constructed, showcasing the cast while maintaining the focus on lead Kelsey Grammer. Since it’s a spin-off of a long-running sitcom, Grammer is the audience’s linchpin.…
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Cronos opens with an English-narrated prologue about a sixteenth century alchemist making a device to prolong his life. The uncredited narrator is wanting, the music isn’t good—it doesn’t seem like the rest of Javier Álvarez’s score, but who knows (well, the distributor would); it’s a change for the U.S. theaters and a bad one. So…
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If Grumpy Old Men weren’t so scared of its ribald humor—giving almost all of it to dirty oldest man Burgess Meredith, who’s just there to make sex jokes and serves no other purpose in the film—you could probably just as well call it Horny Old Men. At least in Jack Lemmon’s case. He hasn’t gotten…
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The Quiet Room really, really, really, relies on its twist. The ending is really predictable too; like, director Soderbergh and writer Howard A. Rodman do way too well on the foreshadowing. Because Room is a slightly exaggerated noir–part of the “Fallen Angels” TV anthology–nothing really needs to be foreshadowed. There’s a twist Soderbergh and Rodman…
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It’s a packed issue. Six stories, three from each brother. While Beto’s got one wordless one, he’s also got a sixteen panels a page one. Packed. And kind of entirely unexpected, as far as Beto’s stuff. His first story catches up with Petra and Fritzi–the two half-sisters Luba doesn’t know she has in the states–as…
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I’m wondering if Love and Rockets #42 reads different knowing there are only eight more issues. Though Beto’s Farewell, My Palomar certainly hints at something coming to a close. And maybe so does Jaime’s opener, which is a Maggie and Penny story only it’s all about how Maggie’s real nick name is Perla and it…
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Love and Rockets #41 is kind of strange. Both Beto and Jaime have somewhat peculiar story subjects. Beto opens the issue with an Errata Stigmata comic, but about her parents trying to ward death away from her. It’s four disquieting pages. Beto concentrates on the mood and lets the narrative bewilder. It’s an experiment in…
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Love and Rockets #40 is a surprising issue. Beto’s Poison River finale is a surprise, lost Los Bros brother Mario contributes his first material in at least seven years, and Jaime gives Maggie her own story for the first time in a while. Not seven years but almost seven issues? Jaime opens the issue. Maggie’s…
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Black Rider is almost desperate in its lack of great. There’s a single great moment–sort of, it’s a funny twist but entirely problematic–amid a bunch of other not great moments. And the resolution to the twist is pat and a joke… only one at the expense of writer and director Danquart and the short itself.…
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When it starts, An Untitled Portrait is about Dunye’s brother. But it’s also going to be Dunye’s family in general. But it’s also going to be about Dunye herself. The short runs three minutes, Dunye’s narration set to home movies, old film clips, but also some stylized original footage of shoes. Dunye’s recollection starts with…
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The first sequence of The Potluck and the Passion, with director Dunye (also acting) sitting down and talking with girlfriend Gail Lloyd about the dinner party they’re about to throw. They go over the guest list as the opening titles run, who’s invited, why they’re invited, why Dunye and Lloyd are throwing the party (it’s…
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Puppet Master 4 is in a race with itself. Can it deliver on the animate puppet action before the cast becomes too intolerable? Can it deliver before the stupid scenes get to be too much? No, as it turns out, it can’t. Puppet Master 4 doesn’t succeed. Not even a Frankenstein making-the-monster homage with the…
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There’s nothing spectacularly wrong with Hard Target. It’s a competently executed early nineties action movie. There’s a lot of good stunt work and some amazing pyrotechnics. Lance Henriksen is great as the villain. Wilford Brimley is in it as a Cajun assault archer. Almost everything about it is absurd, but not really out of the…
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Genial and life-affirming–but never trite, which is an accomplishment–story about a bunch of broken-dreamed, WASPy thirtysomethings returning to summer camp of their youth (camp owner Alan Arkin invited all his favorites) and recapturing their mojo. Beautiful Newton Thomas Sigel photography, good performances–including a great extended slapstick cameo from Sam Raimi. Writer-director Binder just plays it…
The Stop Button 