Hardware (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Richard Stanley
	Actors: Dylan McDermott (In the Line of Fire, Olympus has Fallen), Stacey Travis, John Lynch
	Country: USA, GB
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 03.06.2017, Cinemateca Capitólio Petrobras, FANTASPOA2017
Synopsis: In an ultra-polluted future, Mo (McDermott) roams the desert searching for mechanical parts to sell. He returns to the city with a robotic skull that he offers to his girlfriend (Travis).
Review: This is the kind of movie of which I have always seen the cover in old video-clubs but never rented it even during the Horror days of my youth. I was expecting a cheap Terminator rip-off but it is nothing like that. First it doesn't look cheap, in fact almost less cheap that The Terminator. And then it is not a story of war between men and machines, but an anticipation of the future of our world in which food will be scarce and pollution omnipresent to the point that people stay locked at home and the government implements sterility programs to avoid the most irradiated ones to have children. We do spend more than half the movie following people and what they do in their daily life in this horrible world: scavenger like Mo, artist like Jill or tech expert. This peculiar character that is Richard Stanley (see picture below taken at Fantaspoa) wrote the story as a teenager, and it took some years for the Studios to see something in it and desperately look for the writer who was at that time fighting Russians in Afghanistan! He thus came back to the USA to direct his first film. The story is quite visionary: insecurity in the cities, deserted rural lands, video calls a-la-Skype, connected homes, and pollution everywhere to the point of affecting the continuation of our species. He imagined this pollution as radiations which were the big scare in the 80's because he couldn't imagine the chemical and biological waste now polluting our food and water, but he was close enough. Putting aside the dialogs and actors that I found rather poor, remains a Monster movie (I haven't talked about the robot yet but it is well done) in an enclosed space, quite slow to my taste but that concludes with 15 minutes of more colorful dreamy sequences (2001 influence?) that send the movie in another dimension. An interesting experience but better watched in good conditions like I did in order to stand the lengths. A poor copy with screeching sound would make you give up easily.
Rating: 4 /10 The one and only Richard Stanley.

Tremors (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Ron Underwood (Mighty Joe)
	Actors:  Kevin Bacon (Stir of Echoes, Super, Hollow Man), Fred Ward, Finn Carter
	Country: USA
	Genre: Horror, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.02.2016, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Earl and Valentine (Bacon & Ward) are done with degrading handwork in a small isolated town. On their way out of it they witness several strange deaths and end up stuck in town fighting underground monsters.
Review: Believe it or not, this is one of the classic 80-90's horror movies that I had never seen and I am glad I corrected that like I recently did with Wes Craven's The People under the Stairs. I was surprised to find Tremors on Netflix under the category Comedy but in fact it deserves it: the characters are all charicatural to the extreme and are not to be taken seriously, so we don't get very scared when the Monsters' attack occur. But this doesn't mean that the movie is ridiculous, but I would rather say that the special mix of Horror and Comedy brings a kind of unmistakable 90's touch I am quite found of. Only now do I realize how much influence this movie in particular had on the future directors of Eight Legged Freaks, Evolution or the Piranha remake. And Tremors is not badly done at all. The characters may be exaggerated but they are played by decent actors including a young energetic Kevin Bacon post-Friday 13th. The story is not completely predictable and lets itself easily follow, and the crew delighted us (or me at least) with daring crane shots like I had never seen done before or since. And the Monsters' design is original and well rendered. An unmissable part of Genre History. I am not sure the same can be said from its many sequels.
Rating: 6 /10

Home Alone (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Chris Columbus (Harry Potter 1&2, Bicentennial Man)
	Actors: Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone 2), Joe Pesci (Casino, Goodfellas), Daniel Stern
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 05.12.2015, SD VOD, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: When his extended family rushes their departure to France for the Christmas holiday, Kevin (Culkin) is forgotten at home. He will not only have to face being alone, but also elude the plans of two burglars (Pesci & Stern).
Review: That is a Christmas movie I loved watching every year when I was a kid and that I hadn't seen in a while. Now being that time of year again I wanted to see how it has aged. In fact I didn't appreciate it as much as when I was a kid because everything is far-fetched in this movie, from the comedy to the burglars and Kevin'd tricks. But I was nevertheless pleased to see those old gags again and giggled at the stupidity of the wet burglars ("Les casseurs flotteurs" in French). And the movie is filled with a harmless Christmas Spirit (especially in the relationship between Kevin and the hobo) which is anyway a good reason to watch again this movie in the first place. Not a masterpiece but an integral part of anyone's childhood, or at least of mine.
Rating: 5 /10

Back to the future Part III (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Robert Zemeckis
	Actors: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas Wilson, Mary Steenburgen
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.10.2015, Schauburg, English version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly (Fox) receives written word from his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown (Lloyd), as to where can be found the DeLorean time machine. However, an unfortunate discovery prompts Marty to go to his friend's aid. Using the time machine, Marty travels to the old west where his friend has run afoul of a gang of thugs led by Buford Mad Dog Tannen (Wilson), and has fallen in love with a local schoolteacher, Clara Clayton (Steenburgen).
Review: The third episode builds his story like a western. A stranger (Clint Eastwood) arrives in town where the bad guy Tannen have the say. All the characters of the first movie have a role in this one as well and the parallel are really funny. Moreover the story gives more volume to Dr. Emmet Brown and his sudden love story and vision of life. This part of the movie was a kind of avant-garde when we see now the success of The Big Bang Theory and other series and movies where nerds or scientists are the hero falling in love with the nice girl from town.  The originality here is the anachronisms, the Moon Walk, many things being modern in the 80s and completely strange or suspicious in the 1880s. When Marty selects his name to be Clint Eastwood and we see the scene where Clint is shot several times in the heart, it is clear but delightful that a similar scene is arriving!  The music is also quite improved since the second episode and this brings a lot of quality to the movie, and the scene with the ZZ Top is written in stone.
Rating: 8 /10

The Hunt for Red October (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard 1-3, The 13th Warrior)
	Actors: Sean Connery (Highlander, Red Sun Rising), Alec Baldwin (Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), Scott Glenn (Absolute Power, Sucker Punch), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, In the Mouth of Madness), James Earl Jones (Conan the Barbarian)
	Country: USA
	Genre: War, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 22.09.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: In the middle of the Cold War, former CIA agent and analyst in UK Jack Ryan (Baldwin) travels to the USA in emergency to discuss his discovery of a new type of Russian nuclear submarine. Meanwhile the commander of that submarine (Connery) refutes his orders and heads for the US East Coast.
Review: After watching all cinema adaptations of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels (see a quick summary in the review of Clear and Present Danger), I can confirm that The Hunt for Red October is the best one, and I have always loved the movie for as far as I can remember. It is also for me the best in the sub-genre of submarine movies (only shorty in front of Das Boot and Crimson Tide, and I haven't seen U-571). Alec Baldwin plays a good Jack Ryan and Sean Connery a memorable Russian commander and is able to convey for his character a heavy background like few others can. The rest of the cast (Glenn, Neil, Jones and many many others) is also pleasant to watch. For The Hunt for Red October John McTiernan was visually very ambitious and I was impressed by the many scenes involving not only mock-ups but also real submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets, helicopters, ... They help making the movie more believable. What many remember from the movie is the cat & mouse game played between the Red October, Jack Ryan, the US military and the Russian fleet, and those countries' respective diplomats. It is masterfully put in images and an extreme tension is present every minute. During this Nth visioning I even noticed that some deductions/conclusions/decisions are quite far-fetched in order to keep the pace fast and the tension high. An extended cut with 20 minutes of added exposition scenes may have been a interesting idea (my two cents worth). But apart from this minor detail The Hunt for Red October remains an excellent movie.
Rating: 9 /10

Ripoux contre Ripoux (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Claude Zidi (La totale!, Astérix et Obélix contre César)
	Actors: Philippe Noiret (Le vieux Fusil, Topaz), Thierry Lhermitte (Les Bronzés 1-3), Guy Marchand
	Country: F
	Genre: Polar, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.12.2014, DVD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: As Francois (Lhermitte) wishes to become commissioner, René (Noiret) keeps on living from his small-time corruption deals.
Review: Christmas holidays in France means watching old French movies. I got this one in a paper-box DVD some years ago at a flee market. I mistook it for the original movie Les Ripoux while it is actually the sequel. The best part in this movie is the location of most of the police action in the beautiful Montmartre area of Paris. The story is otherwise classic for a sequel: change threatens the relationship built during the first movie, and after some trial period everything ends for the best. The actors are good enough, especially Noiret whom I loved in Le vieux Fusil. It was pleasant to watch Ripoux contre Ripoux, but I would rather have watched the first movie, although both are anyway not the best that French polars can propose.
Rating: 5 /10

Goodfellas (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Martin Scorcese
	Actors: Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro, Joe Pesci
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 06.04.2014, Private sneak, DVD
Synopsis: Henry Hill is Irish and wants to become a gangster. He starts at school or instead the school. One day he takes part in a big robbery with Jimmy Conway and Tommy De Vito, two other gangsters who have set their sights a bit higher. His two partners kill off everyone else involved in the robbery, and slowly start to climb up through the hierarchy of the Italian  Mob.
Review: I would say, the classical story of the rise and fall of a gangster. This time the difference from Irish to Italian within the Mafia is clearly made, while usually the Irish guy is policeman and the Italian is gangster. The acting is very good and the camera is driving well making some long-take (plan-sequence in French) scenes memorable. But the story is not original enough to bring more points to this movie.
Rating: 6 /10

Dick Tracy (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Warren Beatty
	Actors: Warren Beatty (Bugsy), Madonna (Evita, Die Another Day), Al Pacino (Scarface, Heat), Dustin Hoffman (Rain Man)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 10.11.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Detective Dick Tracy (Beatty) is trying to put the mob head Big Boy Caprice (Pacino) behind bars.
Review: This movie was adapted from a comic book at a time when it was not the trend yet, a bit like Sam Raimi's Darkman. I had seen Dick Tracy ten years ago and just remembered how colorful it was. Watching it now in the best possible quality still gives the same feeling of watching comic strips evolve on the big screen, fifteen years before Sin City. Some shots are clearly copied from the comics, like when Tracy is standing in front of a back-lit door opening. You can almost hear the "BAM!" and "BANG!" when they is a fighting or shooting. All the actors playing bad guys are wearing prosthetic make-up to give them very cartoonesque faces. The matte painting backgrounds are numerous and very colorful and detailed. I found that Al Pacino and Madonna are playing very well. The story is quite classic and not always well directed, which makes this movie far from perfect but quite enjoyeable, in its own unique style.
Rating: 7 /10

Die Hard 2 (1990)

	Also Known As: 58 Minutes pour Vivre (French)
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Renny Harlin (Cliffhanger, Deep Blue See, The Dyatlov Pass Incident)
	Actors: Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5, Looper), William Sadler, William Atherton, Bonnie Bedelia
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action
	Conditions of visioning: 08.11.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: While awaiting his wife's landing at the Washington airport, John McClane (Willis) notices the strange behavior of some men, and will have once again to unveil a terrorist plot.
Review: This movie is known to be the weakest of the original Die Hard trilogy. After enjoying the first one (reviewed here), I was once again pleased by the second. It was shot very soon after the first to benefit from its success, and had a solid budget to show an airport, gunfights, huge explosions... everything you can expect in the adventures of John McClane. At some point he says "How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?", and once you accept that, the movie is a lot of fun. McClane always finds ways to challenge the terrorists all by himself, while the official authorities fail because of their slowness. He also has an answer to that. When asked why he is nervous he replies that he hates to fly. When asked then why he is about to jump from a helicopter onto the wing of a moving plane, he says: "Because I also hate to loose". That defines him all: the most stubborn cop that terrorist could dread fighting against. The video and sound quality of this Blu-ray edition are as good as the first movie, and once again I could notice many details that I completely overlooked when watching VHS or DVD. I am now looking forward to watching Die Hard 3.
Rating: 7 /10

Kindergarten Cop (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters 1-2, Twins)
	Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (The Terminator), Penelope Ann Miller (The Artist), Pamela Reed (Junior, Bean)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 02.03.2013, SD VOD, 32" TV, French dubbing, 4/3 image
Synopsis: A super-cop (Schwarzenegger) will become teacher of a class of 6-years old in order to make contact with the ex-wife (Miller) of a criminal he is after.
Review: A typical comedy shot in the 80's. It is funny that all Action stars go through the movie with children: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson... Maybe it is Schwarzenegger who strated the trend! I hadn't seen the movie in years but still remembered it pretty well. Humor is OK and bad guys are bad. Nothing really profound. It would be interestig to check what all the kids have become. I noticed Miko Hughes (as the gynecologist's son) who later on played in Code Mercury with Bruce Willis, and Odette Yustman (the little spanish-speaking girl) who became the star of Cloverfield.
Rating: 6 /10

Total Recall (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Starship Troopers)
	Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator, Predator), Sharon Stone (Basic Instinct), Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers, The Machinist), Rachel Ticotin (Man on Fire, Con Air)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 21.10.2012, Blu-ray (edition supervised by the director), Home cinema
Synopsis: Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) has a peaceful life and a nice wife (Stone) but he dreams of going to Mars, so he uses the services of the Rekall company to get memories implanted, but are those really memories or is he really a spy with the goal to save the red planet?
Review: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven at their best! The score by Jerry Goldsmith is not bad either. I have seen this movie many times in my youth, I already possess it on DVD (filled with bonuses) in a round metal case with the shape of Mars, and in a previous Blu-ray edition. But this time I could fully appreciate a HD transfer supervised by the director. Interested about the story of the movie, I have recently read the novel that inspired it: We can remember for you wholesale by Philip. K. Dick to whom we also owe A scanner darkly, Do Androids dream of electric sheep? (that inspired Blade Runner), and many others. Only then I realized the work of adaptation that had to be done on this 20-page novel that contains no mention of Mars and none of the uncertainty of knowing if the hero is dreaming or not. On the same topic, I learned by watching an interview with Paul Vorhoeven on the Blu-ray that the third act of the movie (i.e. saving the red planet but also the hesitation between dream and reality) was not written until the movie making was well advanced. Verhoeven also mentions that his favorite scene is the one in which a so-called doctor tries to convince Quaid that he is indeed dreaming and has to take a pill to avoid being lobotomized. By comparison the same scene copied in the remake Total Recall (2012) looks out of place. All this to say that I appreciate the story in Total Recall and the work of adaptation, unlike in movies like 300 or Watchmen which are copies of the original material. The acting is OK, nothing more than can be expected from such a movie. A special mention to one of my favorite actors Michael Ironside, excellent as usual in the supporting role of the bad guy's henchman. The special effects are pretty good for this period that didn't know CGIs yet. It was all prosthetics for the faces, matte paintings and optical tricks for the set. The martian landcapes (shot in Mexico) look good, except that they are far too red. The reflection of the Martian surface deep red on the faces of the actors indoors is also exagerated, and uneven between the different shots within the same scene, which is the biggest visual default I find to this movie. It seems not to be due to the HD transfer but to have been intended so at the time of theatrical release. Except from that, the quality of the images is very good as you can can notice by looking at the grain on the skin of the actors' faces. An impressive scene is also the one when Quaid rides a train from the spaceport to the main city, the camera zooming out from his face to a full panorama of the landscape in a nicely well done combination of optical shots. Also the spaceship landing reveals nicely the architecture of the constructions on the red planet. You can see a snapshot of this scene in HD by clicking on the thumbnail below or go to this page, in this interesting website that compares DVD and Blu-ray images. To conclude, I will mention a connection that I noticed between this movie and Avatar by James Cameron. The comparison hit me especially when watching the landing scene I have just mentionned. In it, you see the hero arriving to this foreign planet on which the leaders are given a huge power and use the military to keep the local population under control, while those only want freedom (the mutants in one movie, the Na'vis in the other). When watching the arrival scene in Blu-ray, I noticed for the first time that the trains goes through a mining region, in the middle of which you can see a giant digging machine, just like in Avatar. I realized that all this power is given to the local leaders because they mine a precious mineral (Turbinium in one movie, Unobtanium in the other) from which Earth has become dependant. Finally, in both movies the main character has to choose between his former real life and another, fantastic one, in which he saves a planet. In my interpretation they both chose to follow the dream.
Rating: 8 /10

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1990
	Director: Adrian Lyne
	Actors: Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Human Nature, War of the Worlds), Elizabeth Peña
	Country: USA
	Genre: Drama, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 04.08.2012, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The life of a veteran from Vietnam is perturbed by visions, hallucinations and flashbacks. But how to know which are which?
Review: I have been hearing about this movie for a long time, and thought it was a horror one, which it is not. Some of the visions are pretty scary or disturbing, and I found that their apparition is well timed and makes you feel the gradual descent of the main character (Robbins, impeccable) towards madness. We are also less and less sure of what is real or not, and what is flashback or present, although the structure of the movie is still coherent and doesn't lose you. This is not always the case with the kind of movies.
Rating: 6 /10