The Laserman
The Laserman Directed by Peter Wang, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Peter Wang, Marc Hayashi, Joan Copeland. Wang, the director of A Great Wall, directs and stars in this comic thriller made in 1988. He plays a detective investigating the death of a scientist’s assistant which leads him straight into the inner recesses…
Billy Bathgate
Billy Bathgate 1991, R, 106 min. Directed by Robert Benton, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Dustin Hoffman, Nicole Kidman, Loren Dean. Gangster films have always been an integral part of the American cinematic landscape. From White Heat to De Palma’s remake of the classic Scarface to (natch!) the epic Godfather trilogy, perhaps only…
Don Juan, My Love
Don Juan, My Love 1990, NR, 100 min. Directed by Antonio Mercero, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Juan Luis Galiardo, Maria Barranco, Loles Leon, Rossy De Palma, Veronica Forque, Jose Sazatornil. This Spanish comedy is an unexpected charmer, a frothy mixture of ribaldry, slapstick and mistaken identities. You know you’re in for something…
Highlander II: The Quickening
Highlander II: The Quickening 1991, R, 88 min. Directed by Russell Mulcahy, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Christopher Lambert, Virginia Madsen, Michael Ironside, Sean Connery. The original Highlander (1986) is one of those films that has haunted my late night, addictive channel flipping over the years. I thought I had seen most of…
Liebestraum
Liebestraum 1991, R, 112 min. Directed by Mike Figgis, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Kevin Anderson, Pamela Gidley, Bill Pullman, Kim Novak. Moody and lovely, the films of Mike Figgis probably seem like plum roles for the actors involved but damn, they all take themselves so seriously. His last film, Internal Affairs gave…
Little Man Tate
Little Man Tate 1991, PG, 99 min. Directed by Jodie Foster, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Jodie Foster, Dianne Wiest, Adam Hann-Byrd, Harry Connick Jr., David Hyde Pierce. There are two auspicious debuts in Little Man Tate, a little but affecting movie about a gifted seven-year-old child caught between the emotional needs of…
The People Under the Stairs
Wes Craven mixes social injustice into urban horror
Twenty-One
Twenty-One 1991, R, 92 min. Directed by Don Boyd, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Patsy Kensit, Jack Shepherd, Patrick Ryecart. Twenty-One gets tangled in that eternal creative knot: how to tell a story about callow, young searchers without, in turn, erecting a structure that echoes all the same problems as your initial subjects.…
Whore
Whore 1991, R, 85 min. Directed by Ken Russell, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Theresa Russell, Benjamin Mouton, Antonio Fargas. It’s hard to come up with a director as rigorously bizarre as Ken Russell. It seems as though this particular auteur has made it his sacred mission to subvert the accepted filmmaking stylebooks…
Year of the Gun
Year of the Gun 1991, R, 111 min. Directed by John Frankenheimer, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Andrew Mccarthy, Valeria Golino, Sharon Stone, John Pankow. It didn’t take a genius of casting to come up with McCarthy as a lightweight journalist hiding out from commitment and hard work in Rome in the 1970s.…
All I Want for Christmas
All I Want for Christmas 1991, G, 92 min. Directed by Robert Lieberman, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Harley Jane Kozak, Jamey Sheridan, Ethan Randall, Kevin Nealon, Thora Birch, Leslie Nielsen, Lauren Bacall. Call this one Miracle on 12th Street. No it’s not precisely the same story as the 34th Street model (or…
