Classic Movie Review Fatal Instinct

Fatal Instinct (1993) 

Directed by Carl Reiner 

Written by David O'Malley 

Starring Armand Assante, Sherilyn Fenn, Kate Nelligan, Christopher McDonald, Sean Young 

Release Date October 29th, 1993 

Published October 31st, 2023 

Why is there no legacy for the movie Fatal Instinct? This brilliant parody of Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and several other sex thrillers is absolutely hysterical from beginning to end. Legendary comic icon Carl Reiner is spot on in his timing, his direction is superb, and the jokes are nearly non-stop from start to finish. I can't understand it, why have most people have forgotten about Fatal Instinct? While Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and Hot Shots Part Deux are deservedly remembered for their 1993 releases, Fatal Instinct languishes in obscurity, and it makes no sense. All three of these movies, and Loaded Weapon, should all be fondly recalled as some of the best spoof comedies of all time. 

Armand Assante stars in Fatal Instinct and while he's not a natural comic actor, he's remarkably game for the nonsense being thrown at him in Fatal Instinct. Assante is Detective Ned Ravine, a good cop by night and a defense attorney by day. Thus, when we see Ravine bust a criminal during a stakeout at an amusement park, we also see Ravine become the man's defense attorney the following day in a series of very funny visual gags that I won't try to detail here. The visual jokes keep coming throughout the movie and you may have to watch Fatal Instinct a couple times in order to catch all the hilarious gags in Fatal Instinct. 

My favorite early gag is one I will try to lay out as it gives you a good sense of the sensibilities of Fatal Instinct. In the opening credits, if you're a huge music fan, you may make note of a credit for Clarence 'Big Man' Clemons. Indeed, Clarence is in the movie and he's used in a terrific running gag in which Sean Young, playing a noir femme fatale named Lola Cain is followed everywhere she goes by her very own sultry sax solo played by Clarence Clemons. It's a very simple but very effective joke that pays off later in another famous musician cameo that gets a big laugh. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Classic Movie Review Quiz Show

Quiz Show (1994)

Directed by Robert Redford 

Written by Paul Attanasio 

Starring Ralph Fiennes, John Turturro, Rob Morrow, Paul Scofield, Christopher McDonald, David Paymer, Hank Azaria, Martin Scorsese 

Release Date September 14th, 1994 

Published November 7th, 2023 

The erosion of public trust was not simply something that happened as a result of Watergate. The erosion of public trust can be traced to several different historic flashpoints that include such events as the assassination of President Kennedy, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, the McCarthy hearings, and, less historically well known but of a similar importance in tracking the erosion of trust between the public and the media, the public and government, and the public and the intelligentsia, is the Quiz Show scandal of the 1950s. 

Director Robert Redford lays out a strong case that the growth of cynicism toward public institutions began not just with the rebellion of the 1960s. It began with a simple Quiz Show called 21. The game was rigged. Though the venerable NBC network and uber-rich sponsor company Geritol, presented the show as a legitimate competition between everyday folks who happened to be remarkably well versed at memorizing facts, the shows were, in fact, scripted so that certain people would win. When ratings started to fall, that person would lose and be replaced by someone who might raise the ratings once more. 

It's a deeply cynical approach but, one that enthralled an America that was very early into the honeymoon phase when it came to television. It was an innocent time when people wanted to believe they could trust the people whose faces were beamed into their home everyday. People like Jack Berry (Christopher McDonald), the well dressed and affable host of 21 carried a public trust, not unlike a newsman. His integrity and that of the show mattered to the public. The show even played that integrity as a marketing gimmick. 

In the opening moments of Quiz Show we open on a bank where a safe deposit box is being opened. Armed guards remove a package. One guard passes the package to another who climbs inside of an armored car. That armored car then receives a police escort to 30 Rockefeller Center, the television home of NBC and the Quiz Show 21. Inside the package being carried, again, by armed guards, are the vaunted questions, a guarded secret even from host Jack Berry. 21 traded on the supposed integrity of the game. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media