Pop Culture                                                                                              April 24 -May 7, 1995

Bad Boys

Columbia Pictures

Plot took a backseat to leather vests, bullet-riddled prositutes, and typical witty action-film banter in Will Smith and Martin Lawrence's tag team cage match with an infamous foreign drug cartel. With little imagination on the writers' parts (see Running Scared, Lethal Weapon, or any other cop flick), Lawrence plays the married, level-headed partner to Smith's rich kid playboy antics as the two illustrate their renegade images by way of tear-jerking explosions and bullets, bullets, bullets. Although at times Bad Boys appears sassier then a suburban adolescent, it's nothing more than a feature film length Miami Vice episode with the usual formula of fast cars, fast women, and fast comebacks.

Amazing Movie Chain: Will Smith--Six Degrees of Separation--Donald Sutherland--JFK--Tommy Lee Jones--The Fugitive--Harrison Ford--STAR WARS--Obi Wan Kenobi

Don Juan Demarco

New Line Cinema

Proving again that Hollywood knows no shame, tinseltown wheeled out Marlon Brando's obese carcass for this film about a freak (Johnny Depp) who's in counseling because he thinks he's Don Juan Demarco, the great Spanish mac-daddy. Brando presents his best performance to date, delivering an impersonation of Jabba the Hutt that even 80's mega star Rich Little would envy. With silly putty skin dripping off his once-stoney jawbone, a horrific blonde dye job, and black eye make-up to give the illusion of sunken sultry eyes, Brando looks more like a drag queen than a film legend. Although Dunaway glimmers and Depp is lip smackin' delicious, the audience is left dizzied by 2 hours of fat-concealing camera acrobatics and pompous Brando grandeur.

Amazing Movie Chain: Marlon Brando--Apocalypse Now--Harrison Ford--STAR WARS--Obi Wan Kenobi

Rob Roy

Rob Roy attempts to entice the audience with images of store-bought hero Liam Neeson leading his kilt-clad entourage of beefcakes against corruption in 18th century Scotland. Neeson uses his sensitive integrity and drumstick calves to win the blind devotion of his clan, his country, and the woman he loves. Record volumes of blood puking, a pictography of rotting British orthodontistry, and a successfully irritating fop performance by Tim Roth, tally the few assets of Rob Roy. Such greats as Neeson and Jessica Lange are insulted by this film's stunted plot, which portrays the populist motif of a little guy successfully taking on big government, and its archetypal rendering of a manly man honoring his womanly wife. In the end, the film's nothing more than a flowery muscle movie that oozes more sap than a bottle of Log Cabin.

Amazing Movie Chain: Jessica Lange--Tootsie--Dustin Hoffman--Little Big Man--Faye Dunaway--Ordeal by Innocence--Donald Sutherland--2--Tommy Lee Jones--The Fugative--Harrison Ford--STAR WARS--Obi Won Kenobi

Tommy Boy

Paramount

Look at that Farley! He hit his head! Again! What a nut! If you can envision yourself shouting this over the heads of fellow onlookers at the theater, then your mentality fits snugly within Tommy Boy's marketing demographic. Otherwise, avoid it like you'd avoid a blind man's walking stick. To his credit, Farley almost makes slipping in cow muck and breaking car doors funny every time, but even his Keystone Cops antics aren't zany enough to resuscitate this wormy corpse of a movie. And who, might we ask, wants to see a seventy-year-old Bo Derek in a bikini? This movie is as funny as a salty catheter.

Amazing Movie Chain: Dan Ackroyd--The Blues Brothers--Carrie Fisher--STAR WARS--Obi Wan Kenobi


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