The Addams Family (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black 1-3)
	Actors: Anjelica Huston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future 1-3, Piranha 3D)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Black Comedy, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 17.02.2018, VOD, 32" TV screen
Synopsis: In the eccentric Addams Family, the father Gomes (Julia) still mourns the disappearance of his brother 25 years ago. Pushed by greed, his lawyer organizes a scam in which the son of a friend (Lloyd) can pass for the lost brother and claim the family fortune.
Review: First movie by the director more known for the Men in Black series, I remembered The Addams Family to have been a success, leading to a sequel not two years later. I watched it expecting the quality of a Death Becomes Her recently reviewed on this blog, or the morbid poetry of any Tim Burton movie (like Corpse Bride), but I was disappointed by the continuous series of half-funny gags the movie only has to offer... The concept of this macabre family living in the midst of an otherwise normal contemporary society is appealing: the father madly in love with the vampiresque Morticia (furiously reminding of Vampira from Plan 9 from Outer Space), the two kids playing death games, the Frankensteinesque butler, the sorceress grand-ma, the ghoulish uncle, the disembodies hand... but in fact this concept originates from cartoon strips started in the 1940's by a Charles Addams and that were pretty famous in the USA. Then came a TV-series in the 60's and this cinema adaptation lands in fact many years after all that. Which explains the succession of gags and the visual extravaganza, but doesn't excuse the fact that the story is poor and the editing not very consistent. The visuals are generous, there are a few nice moments like with cousin Itt, and my favorite character is Fester played by Christopher Lloyd more clown than ever, but I found the whole thing very predictable and quite boring to watch in fact. Maybe a mix of bad aging, less resonance outside of the USA and inherent bad qualities.
Rating: 3 /10

Point Break (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty)
	Actors: Patrick Swayze (Ghost), Keanu Reeves (The Matrix 1-3, Man of Tai Chi), Gary Busey (Lethal Weapon, Predator 2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Polar
	Conditions of visioning: 29.04.2017, VOD, 10" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Young, ambitious and arrogant FBI agent Johnny Utah (Reeves) decides to tackle the unsolved case of serial bank robbers in Los Angeles. His new partner Pappas (Busey) has a theory that the gang are surfers.
Review: A classic of my teenage years, and again something that only the 90's could have brought to light. In my memory it was the story of this FBI agent that learns to love surf while solving a bank robbery case. Seen with my more adult eyes I could find more layers to this apparently simple story. The surf and rebellion scenes are still fun to watch, but this time I was more interested by the conflict in Johnny Utah played by Keanu Reeves a bit inexpressive as usual but quite fit in this role in fact. And this conflict leads to decisions that are ambiguous: good, bad, friendship, loyalty... are values that come into play in the second act. The audience gets sad when one dies, cop or robber, or when lies are revealed because they were told under external constrains. The movie may have aged a little, it is longer than I remembered and the action scenes are not really top-notch (the surf scenes are more poetry and feeling than action) but that all helps giving its special cachet to the movie. From what I read, this is something that the 2015 remake totally failed to achieve but I had easily predicted that.
Rating: 6 /10

JFK (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Oliver Stone (Platoon, Natural Born Killers)
	Actors: Kevin Costner (Whyatt Earp, Dance with the Wolves, Waterworld), Gary Oldman (The 5th Element), Jack Lemmon, Joe Pesci (Casino), Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy), Tommy Lee Jones (MiB 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Polar, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 01.03.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen.
Synopsis: Three years after the assassination of JFK, the District Attorney of New Orleans Jim Garrison (Costner) learns more and more elements that make him suspicious of the official version, and he becomes obsessed by finding the truth.
Review: Soon after completing the good TV-series 11.22.63 produced by Stephen King, I couldn't resist watching this classic Thriller by Oliver Stone. I didn't remember it was lasting three and a half hour (from my youth I mostly remembered the trial scenes from the end) but watched it anyway. The movie is an adaptation from two research books on the assassination, and Stone described this account as a "counter-myth" to the Warren Commission's "fictional myth" (the official version), meaning that he did not intend for it to unearth the truth but provide an alternative version at least as probable as the official one, and evidently much more. The movie can be decomposed in some four different atmospheres: first the "real-time" story in 1963, then the secret search for clues by Garrison's team, the search made public with increasing pressure and finally the trial of Clay Shaw, one single man accused of conspiracy but who is the pretense to present Harrison's theory on the whole thing. In terms of conspiracy, the story goes pretty far and the ramifications are deep, as we learn in particular during the 10-minute quasi-monologue by a Mr. X played by Donald Sutherland. The proposed explanation for the assassination (and other power plays) is still incredibly actual and resonates with the speech of Eisenhower at the very beginning of the movie warning us against the military-industrial complex. Everything revolves around the evidence that peace is bad for business, and I have indeed recently heard a theory that to get out of the "financial crisis" it is perpetually in now, the World needs a war. Yeah right. I liked Kevin Costner in the role, and was impressed by how calm he remains through all the hard times. He acts as a lighthouse in the storm even when his family and team are at the worst. He is also supported by many other known actors like Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci and Michael Rooker that were pleasant to see. We also have a glimpse of a young Vincent d'Onofrio (magnificent in the Daredevil TV-series). Note that at the end of the trial Garrison states that his children will have to wait 2039 to see released classified information about the investigation, which is something that has always ignited the passions of conspiracy theoreticians. The end credits tell us that the date is in fact 2028, and I have then learned that the release of JFK mobilized a large crowd to push for an earlier release, and the date is now October 26th 2017, not so far in the future anymore. We already know that those documents will not tell the whole truth on which groups of people did it and why, but the light will be shed on the links between some persons and the CIA activities.
Rating: 7 /10

The People under the Stairs (1991)

	Also Known As: Le sous-sol de la peur (French)
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Wes Craven (Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last House on the Left)
	Actors:  Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 28.01.2016, Cinema Paradiso, GIFFF2016
Synopsis: The kid nicknamed Fool (Adams) follows Leroy (Rhames) into robbing their landlord in order to get money to avoid eviction and treat his mother's disease. The house they rob is full of surprises.
Review: It was the only one of the Wes Craven movies presented during the tribute at the Gérardmer Film Festival that I had never seen, the other two being his masterpieces of the genre Scream and a Nightmare on Elm Street. And it was nice to watch amongst recent productions this classic of the Horror from the 80-90's, which follows codes that wouldn't work anymore today. It also shows scenes that I wonder how they passed censorship, like when the kid witnesses the terrible fate of Leroy (played by a funny young Ving Rhames). It is not an extremely scary movie because the latex make-up effects are dated, and the humour is over-the-top, but there is a quality to this movie difficult to describe, also probably mixed with a dose of nostalgia for the cinema of that period. There is in this movie an incredible creative energy that would be used to fill a full Horror trilogy nowadays (or even more in the case of Paranormal Activity). People are non-stop running around, chasing each other, escaping, getting caught or crawling behind walls in a house which is a character in itself. I now see how much the recent Kiwi Housebound was inspired from it. The landlords family is also depicted in a totally exaggerated way (yet delicious to watch): the father obsessed with money and dressing SM when shooting shotgun through the walls (!), the maniac mother and the way she educated the daughter with adages like "Children should be seen, not heard" posted in her bedroom, or a statue reading "Speak/See/Hear no evil". Well done Wes Craven.
Rating: 7 /10

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, Avatar)
	Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Predator, Conan the Barbarian), Linda Hamilton (Dante's Peak), Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick (Sons of Anarchy TV-series, Spy Kids)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 18.08.2015, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A decade after she escaped the attack by a Terminator sent from the future to eliminate her unborn son John, Sarah Connor (Hamilton) has now trained him (Furlong) well but she is locked in a psychiatric hospital. That is until the same Terminator (Schwarzenegger) appears again.
Review: This is one of the very few movies (with Jurassic Park) that I saw when it went out in a cinema before the age of 17, because then the closest theater was 30 kilometers away. And it did a very strong impression on me, probably influencing my taste in movies for years to come. Such special effects had never been seen before (I had forgotten T2 in my review of Jurassic Park) and the movie was more than satisfying the fans of the original The Terminator, making T2 rise to the top 3 of the greatest movie sequels. I love The Terminator for the originality of its story and the dead-seriousness with which it is told, but the sequel brought Action movie-making to another level, especially during those early 90's which turned out to mark the end of the era of pure Action movies. Having seen the movie many times, I am not anymore surprised by the turn of events (not really a spoiler: Schwarzenegger is the good guy in this one) but at the time it was an awesome surprise. The movie is filled with other brilliant ideas by Cameron: transforming the waitress Sarah Connor into a one-woman commando, changing the future with Miles Dyson, Robert Patrick as the T000, the addition of a touch of humour and the rigid character of the Terminator... And of course all of this is perfectly filmed and edited. Terminator 2 is definitely a Masterpiece in its genre. I have watched the Collector Edition approved by Cameron, which adds a few interesting scenes that slow down the rhythm a bit and change the movie with respect to the memory I had from its theatrical release. Some humorous scenes around the rigidity of the Terminator are also new and a bit out of tone. I found the sound mixing not so well done on this Blu-ray edition, I constantly had to play with the volume in order not to be deafened by the action scenes while being able to hear the dialogs in the others.
Rating: 9 /10

La Totale! (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Claude Zidi (Astérix et Obélix contre César)
	Actors: Thierry Lhermitte (Les Bronzés), Miou-Miou (Les Valseuses), Eddy Mitchell (Le bonheur est dans le pré), Michel Boujenah
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 18.08.2014, DVD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: François (Lhermitte) is a secret agent but his wife (Miou-Miou) and everybody else thinks he is a telecom engineer, until he starts to spy on his own family.
Review: I hadn't seen this classic 90's French comedy in years and I had forgotten a lot of it, but it is pleasant to view such movie once in a while. It is slow to begin and I was starting to get bored but then it takes unexpected turns, and keeps the story alive by not lingering too much on any scene but constantly changing the stakes. I can see what attracted James Cameron to remake it into the Action Comedy True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. The classic story of spy hiding his identity and/or using it to learn more on the people he knows has also echoes in other movies like This Means War.  Although playing with the usual French theatrical style that disturbs me, the actors are good, in particular I am always amazed at how Eddy Mitchell reconverted from a Rock'n'Roll singer into an actor.
Rating: 5 /10

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan)
	Actors: William Shatner (Loaded Weapon 1, Airplane 2), Leonard Nimoy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon), DeForest Kelley, Kim Cattrall (Big Trouble in Little China), Christopher Plummer (The Sound of Music)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 14.08.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The planet of the Klingons is dying, so the Federation send Kirk (Shatner) and the Enterprise to escort a Klingon Embassador coming to Earth for negociating Universal peace. But it is not what everybody wants, starting from Kirk.
Review: This movie was the last featuring the original Star Trek cast, and you can feel it. The actors are getting old, and it is also their last mission in the movie. The seemingly end of the Klingons as enemies is a nice starting point, especially when put in parallel with Kirk's hatred for this people. The movie turns out to be more an investigation on an incident that could cause Kirk's death, but in background we keep on learning on the relationship between the main characters. The main topic is also interesting and can be transposed to Earth politics: how do you make peace with a people that you have spent decades fighting? I found that the movie was better than the two previous ones and concludes well the series of movie with the original cast. Next, I have to watch the four movies with Picard (Patrick Stewart) as new Captain of the Enterprise.
Rating: 6 /10