1990s – Page 4 – PopCult Reviews

Movie Review – Ernest Goes to School

Ernest Goes to School (1994)
Written by Coke Sams and Bruce Arntson
Directed by Coke Sams

Amidst a sea of mediocrity (and trust me, it gets so bad with the last two films), Ernest Goes to School emerged as a decent watch. Part of this is likely because it’s the only Ernest film that was not directed or written by John Cherry. Instead, Cherry’s longtime writing collaborator, Coke Sams, was promoted to the lead position. The result is a film that resembles the previous films but adds some new ideas that Sams must have had rattling around for a while. The problem, though, is that Goes to School is two scripts that have unsuccessfully mashed together. There’s a script about Ernest playing football and one about him returning to high school.

Movie Review – Ernest Rides Again

Ernest Rides Again (1993)
Written by John Cherry and William M. Akers
Directed by John Cherry

This was the end of an era. The Ernest films lost their Touchstone financing post-Scared Stupid. It was the largest budget with the second-highest box office returns, which wasn’t too bad. Ernest Rides Again would be the last nationally theatrically released entry in the series, and the decline in budget is evident on screen. The previous film had been given a $9.6 million budget, while Rides Again clocked in at $3 million. As a result, this movie resembles John Cherry’s first theatrical venture, Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom Beam. What we get is a movie that is trying to be something of theatrical quality but ends up being the first of many slogs we have to get through.

Movie Review – Ernest Scared Stupid

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
Written by John Cherry, Charlie Gale, and Coke Sams
Directed by John Cherry

Of all the Ernest films, this is the closest we got to perfect synergy between a big Hollywood production and the particular sense of humor John Cherry & his collaborators shared. Every Ernest film had made more money than the last, which led to this being the highest budget Touchstone had ever given the production team, $9.6 million. Ernest Scared Stupid made less than Goes to Jail – $14 million compared to $25 million. This was also the final film handled by Disney, fulfilling the original four-film deal that started with Ernest Goes to Camp. Scared Stupid would mark the end of an era for Jim Varney and lead to a very different type of Ernest movie for the rest of the 1990s.

TV Review – The End of Evangelion

The End of Evangelion (1997)
Written by Hideaki Anno
Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and Hideaki Anno

Apparently, a large enough contingent of viewers were dissatisfied with the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and creator Hideaki Anno produced this follow-up feature that exists parallel to that conclusion. From what I read, it sounded like Anno went back and forth between his original concept and some altered ideas. It is a very jarring experience for the central narrative to suddenly collapse into an internal dialogue between Shinji and mental projections of the important people in life. There’s also a meta-commentary on anime cliches that pops up and a weirdly upbeat ending. Several questions were left unanswered, so it was decided to go back and add more to the finale.

Patron Pick – Ernest Goes to Jail

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)
Written by Charlie Cohen
Directed by John Cherry

Mocking the Ernest films would be easy because they never aspire to be anything more than silly, stupid fun. So, I’m not going to do that. I grew up watching the Ernest movies. I lived in Middle Tennessee, where many of these movies were filmed. The Ernest character had been a commercial mascot for our local Purity Dairy, one of many advertising gigs the classically trained actor picked up early in his career. That’s something I always loved about Jim Varney; he was a working-class actor in the truest sense, not the bullshit contemporary right-wing sense. Varney lived just a few miles from my childhood home, and we saw him once at our local Kroger supermarket. By the time Ernest Goes to Jail came along, Varney was quite established.

TV Review – X-Men ’97

X-Men ‘97 Season One (2024)
Written by Beau DeMayo, Charley Feldman, JB Ballard, and Anthony Sellitti
Directed by Jake Castorena, Chase Conley, and Emi-Emmett Yonemura

I was a big fan of the X-Men animated series on Fox in the 1990s. It just so happened that it aired at the same time as my sister’s beloved Saved By the Bell. Thank goodness for VCRs. I ended up with quite a few episodes on tape to rewatch them, which I did many times over. I can’t say I kept up with the show well after the first three seasons. I definitely never would have guessed we’d see a revival of the series and one that doesn’t just try and recreate the original. Instead, this is a slight maturation of the format and the quality of storytelling. It still reads like Saturday morning cartoons, albeit with a more modern serialized structure.

Movie Review – Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing (1989)
Written and directed by Spike Lee

Every ten years since 1952, the British film magazine Sight & Sound has conducted a poll among invited critics and directors to determine an ever-shifting list of the 250 greatest films of all time. The most recent list of poll results was released last year, with Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (dir. Chantal Akerman) topping the list. I decided to pick a few films near the top that I have not seen or have only seen pieces of to further my cinematic education.

TV Review – Neon Genesis Evangelion Episodes 19 thru 26

Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episodes 19 through 26
Written by Hideaki Anno, Akio Satsukawa, and Hiroshi Yamaguchi
Directed by Masayuki, Masahiko Ōtsuka, Hiroyuki Ishidō, Akira Takamura, Shōichi Masuo, and Kazuya Tsurumaki

When I first started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion at the start of the year, I read that some fans hated the ending of the anime series. I wanted to know why that could be. Now that I have finished the show, I completely understand why some of the audience would not like this. I, however, am a big weirdo, and I loved it, yet I get that it goes in a wildly different direction and doesn’t provide the direct sort of conclusion you might expect from a show about giant “robots” fighting monsters from space. Of course, I will be watching and reviewing the two feature films that serve as a complementary ending next month, but for now, I just want to focus on the series.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Two

Northern Exposure Season Two (1991)
Written by Robin Green, Henry Bromell, Andrew Schneider, Diane Frolov, Ellen Herman, and David Assael
Directed by Stuart Margolin, Sandy Smolan, Nick Marck, Steve Robman, Rob Thompson, Bill D’Elia, and David Carson

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a deftly handled realignment on a show as I have with Season Two of Northern Exposure. While Season One wasn’t terrible, it was pretty one-note until the end. For the most part, the show was a fish-out-of-water story about Joel Fleishman (Rob Morrow), an NYC doctor transplanted to the remote environs of Alaska. There’s only so much you can do with that premise, and by season two, the showrunners understood this and pivoted away from making every episode center on that concept. What we get instead is a wonderfully written & performed ensemble piece that is clearly influenced by the flights of fancy found in shows like Moonlighting.

TV Review – Neon Genesis Evangelion Episodes 13 thru 18

Neon Genesis Evangelion – Episodes 13 thru 18
Written by Hideaki Anno, Mitsuo Iso, Akio Satsukawa, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Shinji Higuchi
Directed by Tensai Okamura, Masahiko Ōtsuka, Ken Andō, Naoyasu Habu, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Minoru Ōhara

Neon Genesis Evangelion is finally unfolding its mystery with this batch of episodes. Of everything I have watched so far, these were the ones that grabbed me the most. I won’t say I understand every detail of what is going on, but the ideas presented here are both about how the Angels are evolving and what NERV’s true end goal is with the development of Evas. Some very anime-trope-y things are still going on, but they feel toned down in this section of the series. I think that was the right idea because now we’re starting to see who the real villain of this story is, and I don’t think it’s the Angels.