Singles (1992)
synopsis:
A group of twenty-somethings search for love in the big city in this cameron crowe written and directed romantic comedy (spoiler alert: it's neither romantic nor comedic).
review in a nutshell:
Awful. Truly awful. Its irritability factor is off the chart; they should have called it Shingles- at least that way viewers would know what they were in for.
Watching this movie is like taking a telephone call from a.v.e. (which is basically him reading a blog post to you while you try to think of an excuse to hang up); it's listening to a bunch of people you don't really care for tell you about things you don't really care about, while all the while they're convinced they're telling you the most interesting/important thing ever.
brief commentary on the "twenty-somethings":
While there aren't quite twenty of them, the main characters certainly are something (major prickfaces). Think back to a pretentious coworker (but just your run-of-the-mill boring pretentious, not the oddly fascinating pretentious where the person isn't aware of it). Watching this movie is like being trapped with that person in the break room for 95 minutes.
Barton Fink (1991)
synopsis:
Barton Fink is a semi-successful serious New York playwright hired to write a B movie script for 1940s Hollywood. I guess I should say that the film takes place in 1941; this isn't a time-traveling movie (although adding a flux capacitor and hoverboards wouldn't have hurt).
Fink is supposed to be writing the story while he's staying in a shady hotel, but instead develops a serious case of shingles. Sorry, I meant writer's block. He's torn because he wants to write "art for the common man", yet he's supposed to be writing a schlock wrestling movie.
review in a nutshell:
Watching a movie about writer's block is just as boring as it sounds. There's some stupid symbolism (which is both a cheap substitute for actual plot and a poor trade for the entertainment no longer in the picture) that I choose not to go into because it's too boring, and some strange, but ultimately disappointing, plot devices (yawn).
even writing about this movie is uninteresting:
It's long, it's bland, it's a letdown (insert your own joke here). Anyone who says they like this movie is only saying that because they think they're supposed to. Or they're stupid.
Jungle Fever (1991)
synopsis:
Professional black guy (black guy who's an architect, not a guy who's job is being black) and his Itialian secretary have an affair (re: he bones her on his silly architect desk in what has to be the most awkward at-work porking session I've seen since Moronica sent me a link to "Trainyard Skanks 4" (trains don't need to be steered; you won't believe how the engineers occupy their time on the rails).
The story follows what happens with each of their lives once their tryst becomes public knowledge.
Other issues this movie attempts (but laughably fails) to tackle:
-The architect's wife's issues with being a light-skinned black woman
-The architect's relationship with his religious and racist father
-The architect's relationship with his crackhead Brother
-The Brother's relationship with their father
-The architect's relationship with his best friend (who leaked the affair)
-The architect's workplace relationship with his white bosses
-The Italian girl's relationship with her racist father and brothers
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with his own father
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with her brothers who hate him
-The Italian girl's relationship with her best friends (who also leaked the affair)
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship a black girl he wants to date
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with his racist friends
-The architect's relationship with his daughter
review in a nutshell:
A real snoozer filled with unlikable characters being assholes to each other.
one more thing:
So bad it doesn't even deserve me writing a third section about it.
In sum: based on these films, the early 90s sucked. And if people actually acted like the characters in these movies... Thank god I was too busy playing Super Mario 3 to notice.
12 comments:
oliver,
Netflicks is now at the house. The number of shitty movies you can watch while avoiding school just increased by a shit load.
omg. you might want to upgrade your blogging skillz, at first glance i thought this was some sort of a.v.e. guest blog.
it was that bad?
Ouch. First, I would know better than to review the post success slumps of otherwise (decent) directors. While you're at it, why don't you give us album reviews of The Fragile, Smells Like Children, and Adore.
Second, Myrtle is a whore.
Finally, wasn't one of your favorite movies made in the early 90's?
(I didn't say all-time favorite, because War Games came out in 1983.)
Apparently War Games is being shown in theaters ONE NIGHT ONLY--TOMORROW NIGHT (the 24th) for some sort of special 25th Anniversary thing.
I too thought it might be an Avenue guest-blog special.
Then I noticed the conspicuous lack of pretense and that the whole thing is boring but not in a sports coat over t-shirt kind of way.
Slogan, help Babbles by showing him the pop that only a creative writing degree can bring.
If a Creative Writing degree brings the pop, that's surely the first and only thing it ever brought me.
If you can't capitalize on the degree, at least you can capitalize it, eh?
I should have posted that homonymously.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I like that it took you two minutes to put that pun together.
you people disgust me.
for no particular reason.
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