Horror in the 90s Popcorn

Popcorn (1991) 

Directed by Mark Herrier 

Written by Tod Hackett 

Starring Jill Schoelen, Tom Villard, Dee Wallace Stone, Ray Walston, Derek Rydall 

Release Date February 1st, 1991 

Box Office $4.205 million 

Popcorn is a minor miracle of a horror movie. The film should have been a complete disaster. The film ran through three directors, two lead actresses, and a screenplay credit fight that ended with the credited screenwriter being a fake name. There is no good reason that Popcorn turned out as well as it did. And yet, the film has developed a minor cult following. Despite having been passed on by Black Christmas director Bob Clark and then taken away from director Alan Orsmby, who directed a significant portion of the film, and switching lead actors after the film had begun production, Popcorn is a wildly fun and exciting horror flick. 

Popcorn follows the denizens of a college film class as they seek funding for their short films by throwing a horror film festival at a rundown local movie theater. Having somehow secured three cult horror movies from the 1960s, the plan is to use the wild, over the top marketing gimmicks of these movies to sell out the place and use the money to make short films. The plan comes together when one of the students manages to legendary movie props from the dramatic and iconic Dr. Mnesyne (Ray Walston). With his tools, the students can recreate the weird wonderful time when the movies in their festival were briefly the most innovative and popular of genre fare. 

The story of Popcorn however, truly centers on one of the students, Maggie (Jill Schoelen). Plagued by nightmares, Maggie hopes to take her wild dreams and turn them into her own short horror movie. What she doesn't know yet is that her dreams are based around a real childhood drama. When Jill was very young, her film director father murdered her mother on stage after the showing of his own short film for which the ending was unshot. The ending was instead acted out live on stage with the murder of Jill's mother. Jill was also meant to die but she was rescued at the last moment. 

Jill knows none of this so when a ragged looking can of film is found among the movie props they've borrowed for the festival, she's unaware that it is her father's legendary lost short film. She does however, recognize some of it as she and her fellow film students watch it out of curiosity. The short film happens to look a lot like the scenes from Maggie's nightmares. The question that will eventually emerge as Popcorn goes along, is Maggie's father actually dead? We may find out as her fellow students consider showing this creepy short as part of the festival. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Classic Movie Review Demolition Man Take 2

Demolition Man (1993) 

Directed by Marco Brambilla 

Written by Daniel Waters 

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Nigel Hawthorne, Benjamin Bratt, Denis Leary

Release Date October 9th 1993

Published October 11th, 2023 

Demolition Man is a desperate, sad, and pathetic attempt by Sylvester Stallone to cast himself as the 'cool guy.' There was this character archetype of the 80s and 90s, one pioneered by Eddie Murphy, for the most part. It's a character who is the smartest, funniest, coolest guy in any room that he's in. I call these characters Bugs Bunny types. Bugs Bunny was always one step ahead of whoever he was on screen with. Bugs was never the subject of the joke, he was the one delivering the punchline. No one got over on Bugs Bunny, he always came out on top by being funnier, smarter, and more dynamic than anyone else on screen. 

Whether Eddie Murphy was aware of it or not, his Beverly Hills Cop persona is an R-Rated version of a Bugs Bunny archetype. Axel Foley is Bugs Bunny. He's always three steps ahead of everyone in a scene. Axel is the funniest, smartest, and wittiest person in every moment. No one can keep up with Axel or Bugs Bunny and no one is allowed to get one over on Axel or Bugs Bunny. There is an element of the archetypal Simpson's character Poochie in Axel Foley as in the few moments that Axel is off screen, everyone has to be talking about Axel and wondering what he's doing at that moment. 

I don't mean this to demean Eddie Murphy or his performance as Axel Foley, it's merely an observation. Being like Bugs Bunny is a solid compliment. There is also the matter of coming timing and instinct that make Eddie Murphy such a comic icon. His bravado, that swagger, it's unlike anyone we've seen in this kind of role. Why am I lingering on Beverly Hills Cop, Bugs Bunny, and Eddie Murphy in a review of Demolition Man? Because Sylvester Stallone wants so badly to be as cool as Eddie Murphy. 

It's very clear that the lead role in Demolition Man was written with someone of Murphy's comic timing and instinct in mind. It's clear that the movie would benefit from having a fleet footed comic voice at the heart of the story. It's also clear that having Sylvester Stallone and his sad, desperate, egotism at the heart of the movie, drags the whole thing down. Stallone is not an actor with strong comic instincts. He's lumbering, he speaks slowly, and he's not cool, no matter how much he might want you to believer it. He's simply not believable as the smartest, funniest, most dynamic guy in any room that he's in. 

Thus, what should be a fast paced action comedy, becomes a flat, lumbering, lumbering, clumsy, testosterone heavy, bloated explosion-fest. In order to frame Stallone as the coolest guy in any room, the rest of the cast is forced to dial back their performances to match Stallone's slow, witless cadence. So, we have a character played by a young and lovable Sandra Bullock who is rendered almost unwatchable as she bravely battles her way through some of the worst dialogue in any movie ever. And you have a remaining supporting cast that is not allowed to have either screen time or presence that might compete with Stallone or make him look any less dynamic than he already appears. 

Only Wesley Snipes is allowed to shine opposite Stallone and thus why Snipes disappears for so much time in Demolition Man. Though Snipes' Simon Phoenix is the big bad of Demolition Man, his colorful villain is kept off screen for lengthy periods of time while the screenwriters desperately try to craft scenes to make Stallone look cool. The world building in Demolition Man might appear, on the surface, to be similar to any other sci-fi movie set in the future. But, look closer, if you do, you can see a series of innovations that are clearly inventions intended to make Stallone appear more relatable and especially cooler than anyone else in the movie. 

One example that stands out as the kind of gag that is written for an Eddie Murphy type comic actor that falls flat as delivered by Stallone, involves bathroom habits of the future. I'd rather not linger on the famed 'three seashells' of Demolition Man, but the gag is one that Murphy would have thrived in riffing on. There would undoubtedly be a fast paced, curse word laden rant that Murphy would riff off the top of his head about the 'three seashells.' In the hands of Murphy, it's a masterpiece of raunchy humor. In the hands of Sylvester Stallone, the bit dies an unmourned death that raises far too many needless questions that distract from the story being told. 

For those that aren't familiar with Demolition Man, the story goes that Sylvester Stallone is John Spartan, a cop in 1996 Los Angeles. Spartan is a good cop who plays his own rules, a classic cliche of 80s and 90s action movies. John Spartan has been given the awkward moniker, Demolition Man, because his style of being a cop involves a remarkable level of property damage and death. In pursuing the violent criminal gang leader, Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), Spartan is accused of getting a group of hostages killed and Spartan himself is convicted and placed in a cryo-prison. 

Frozen inside a giant ice cube, John Spartan is sleeping his life away until 2036 when his old nemesis, Simon Phoenix escapes from the same cryo-prison under strange circumstances. In 2036, there is no crime, no music, no salt, no sugar, and society is a pristine, plasticized bore. The Police still exist but they don't have much to do. Thus, when Simon Phoenix commits the first murders in more than 30 years, no one in the Police Department is prepared to deal with his level of violence. A young cop named Lenina Huxley offers an unusual solution, thaw out legendary cop John Spartan, reinstate him to the Police and have him track down Simon Phoenix. 

That's the plot of Demolition Man and there are the building blocks of a good idea in there. It's a classic fish out of water scenario in which a man from a different time suffers comical culture shock in a future he doesn't understand. It's a premise rife with easy culture clash gags that might be elevated by a comic mind like Eddie Murphy. Sadly, with Sylvester Stallone in the lead, the jokes basically devolve to dimwitted observations about how boring the future is without cool stuff we had in the past. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Documentary Review Mr. Organ

Mister Organ (2023) 

Directed by David Farrier 

Written by David Farrier 

Starring David Farrier, Michael Organ 

Release Date October 6th, 2023 

Published October 6th, 2023 

And then it hits you, he can talk and even confess to these people living in this place because he knows, and we know in many ways, no one will believe them. 

That was the thought that punched me in the gut as I finished watching David Farrier's incredible new documentary, Mister Organ. Once again, the director and creator of the brilliantly funny, brutal, and insightful documentary, Tickled, has found himself tangled in the most unlikely of webs. As a journalist in New Zealand, David became curious about a series of complaints that were filed by people who claimed to have been scammed by what David refers to as a 'Clamper.' 

A clamper is someone who literally uses a wheel clamp on cars. In this case, the clamper was clamping the wheels of cars parked near an antiques store in Ponsonby, Aukland, New Zealand. The pattern went that someone would unknowingly park near the store, unaware that they were parking on private property. The minute they were away from their vehicle, the clamper would strike and place clamps on the wheels that would prevent the car from leaving. When these unsuspecting people returned to their vehicle, they would be accosted by this clamping man and forced to pay an excessive amount of money in order to get the clamps removed. 

Technically, the clamper is correct that these people were parked 'illegally' but the way he held people up for more and more money led to police complaints and eventually David doing a story on the antiques store and the antics of this clamper in trying to force people to pay more and more money in this obvious scam. After David's story comes out the antiques store soon closes. David remains interested in the clamping man and the store owner, Jillian Bashford who seems to employ the clamping man but also claims in public not to know the man. Ah, but she most assuredly does know him and indeed, David may know of him as well. 

In the past, a man known as Michael Organ had claimed to have been of royal lineage. He'd claimed to be a lawyer and he had spent time in jail after he had stolen a yacht. So, records of Michael Organ do exist but there is so much more to this story. For the legend of Michael Organ, or is it Prince Michael Organ Shirinsky? What is his name? Is it even Michael Organ? You won't know what to believe, even after the documentary has ended. 

"If Michael went to hell, the Devil would be banging on the door of heaven asking God to get him away from Michael." That is by far the most cogent and thoughtful summation anyone could give of the character of Michael Organ based on what you see of the man in this remarkable documentary. Who says this line is a brilliant bit of magic that I won't reveal, you must see it for yourself. This is devastating stuff to watch unfold. Farrier meticulously and relentlessly unfolds a terrifying story that is all too familiar to people who've been in abusive relationships. 

Find my full length review at Psyche.Media