1990s – Page 24 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Kindergarten Cop

Kindergarten Cop (1990)
Written by Murray Salem, Herschel Weingrod, and Timothy Harris
Directed by Ivan Reitman

I am an elementary school teacher. Recently, I began thinking about the way my particular pocket of education is portrayed in film. You can find lots of movies about high schools and teenagers, but what does Hollywood say about the younger kids and their teachers. So, while we are trapped inside avoiding the vile corona, I will be watching about half a dozen movies that touch on elementary school, reviewing them as films and then analyzing them as a teacher. To kick things off, we have the oft memed Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Kindergarten Cop.

Twin Peaks: The 30th Anniversary

It was thirty years ago tonight that the world was introduced to the small town of Twin Peaks. I was only eight years old going on nine when I sat in my living room in Smyrna, Tennessee, and watched this scary, funny, strange thing unfold before me. I couldn’t quite understand it all at the time, but I knew there was something powerful in what I was seeing. This was like watching a fairy tale, the world was somewhat familiar but also another strange place. For the next thirty years, I would find myself obsessed with the show.

My Favorite Screwball Comedies

The Palm Beach Story (1942, directed by Preston Sturges)

From my review: This is the ur-text of screwball comedies, every core element boiled down to its purest essence. There are pratfalls galore, windows getting smashed, and people confusing each other for others. It exists as both an ode to the comedies of mixed-up identities from Shakespeare and commentary on the late stages of the Great Depression. This film will inspire future pictures like Some Like It Hot and Intolerable Cruelty, but it doesn’t put on airs of being profound or world-changing. This is a pure character-centered comedy that understands how important it is to have a diverse variety of roles.

TV Review – Best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

The Way of the Warrior (original airdate: October 2, 1995)
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe
Directed by James L. Conway

The original plan for season 3’s finale and season 4’s premiere was to do a two-parter about Changelings infiltrating Earth. Paramount execs didn’t want a cliffhanger, so that story got pushed to later into season 4. Ratings had been falling for Deep Space Nine in season 3, so something needed to be done to shake up the status quo and inject some new story seeds into the show. The first idea was to have the Vulcans leave the Federation over ideological conflicts, but then it shifted to the Klingons. Ira Steven Behr came up with a Klingon arc for multiple seasons that would bring the adversarial species into the conflict between the Federation and the Dominion.

TV Review – Best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Part 3

Past Tense Part 1 (original airdate: January 8, 1995)
Past Tense Part 2 (original airdate: January 15, 1995)
Written by Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and René Echevarria
Directed by Reza Badiyi and Jonathan Frakes

Star Trek has always lightly touched upon economics, but it never really got serious about it. In The Next Generation, Picard greets Samuel Clemens, who has been transported through time and explains how in the 24th century, there is no longer currency, and people work for the pleasure of exploring their interests. All the basic needs of food and housing have been met. It’s an idyllic future and not one that is impossible if humanity would just get their act together. It’s also something explored in this very relevant two-parter from season three of Deep Space Nine.

Movie Review – Lorenzo's Oil

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)
Written by George Miller & Nick Enright
Directed by George Miller

In the 1980s, young Lorenzo Odone suddenly began having strange fits and seemed to be gradually losing his faculties. His parents Michaela & Augusto, were baffled and went to numerous medical experts. Eventually, they discovered Lorenzo suffered from adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a condition where a build-up of fatty acids damages the myelin sheath on the nerves and results in seizures & hyperactivity. There were no cures, treatments, or effective therapeutics, and the Odones were offered only hospice to ease Lorenzo’s death. They didn’t settle for this and began teaching themselves everything there is to know about the condition and the brain. Eventually, they discovered that extracts isolated from olive and rapeseed oils would stop the deterioration.

TV Review – Best of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Necessary Evil (original airdate: November 15, 1993)
Written by Pete Allan Fields
Directed by James L. Conway

In the early seasons of Deep Space Nine, writers got a lot out of the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict, and this episode is no exception. Tonally, Necessary Evil presents itself as a noir centered around Odo as the gumshoe. A woman whose husband used to run a business on Deep Space Nine pays Quark to retrieve a lockbox hidden inside the walls. A stranger shoots Quark during his job and leaves the Ferengi comatose. Odo is on the scene and starts interviewing people who were on the station back during the Cardassian occupation to discover what was in the box and how it ties into his own past under Cardassian rule.

Movie Review – Defending Your Life

Defending Your Life (1991)
Written & Directed by Albert Brooks

It makes sense that writer-director Albert Brooks would reimagine the afterlife as a comfortable professional-managerial class utopia. It allows him to continue making satire about the social class he knows the most about. Judgment City is everything a privileged person could want. You get to stay in a nice hotel room, the food is the best you’ve ever tasted, you can’t gain weight, and you’re chauffered where ever you want to go. The only catch is that after a week, you’ll be assigned to Paradise or reincarnation.

Single Location Movies

Right now, many of us are stuck inside our homes for the foreseeable future, and it can seem like an incredibly dull place. Movies have repeatedly shown us how even one tiny room can hold great stories within. Here are some movies that use small spaces to tell tense and exciting stories.

Movie Review – Postcards From the Edge

Postcards From the Edge (1990)
Written by Carrie Fisher
Directed by Mike Nichols

Before her passing, actress Carrie Fisher had become well-known for her blunt, take no shit demeanor. After decades of growing up and living in Hollywood, Fisher was numb to the nonsense of her profession. She has a rare experience that not many actors have, to be a part of a film franchise that becomes so iconic it reshapes the planet. Add in her rough childhood, and you can see why Fisher ended being a substance abuser. The movie industry is the only thing Fisher knew, and it can take a toll on someone who can’t always be “on.”