The Kingdom I (1994)

The Kingdom was created by Lars von Trier who co-directed this 8 -part miniseries with fellow Danish director, Morten Arnfred. Von Trier's style and influence is easy to pick out - from the grainy, sepia toned visuals to the constant tension and despair felt by all the main characters. Like a dramatic soap opera - especially in the title theme - it has constant plot turns and you can never predict how anything will go.

Set in a hospital, named The Kingdom, that was build overtop an ancient bleaching bond where fog and spirits haunted the air. You get to know a variety of characters who inhabit The Kingdom and they all have their own side-plots going on. However, the main story that we follow in this first part is spiritualist Sigrid Drusse's (Kirsten Rolffes) struggles to learn the story of Mary Jensen (Annevig Schelde Ebbe), a little girl who was murdered in The Kingdom and now her spirit haunts the hospital until she can find peace. Although it is Mrs. Drusse attempts to bring peace to Mary that is the main struggle, acclaimed Danish actor Ernst-Hugo Jaregard's performance as conflicted and devilishly deceptive neurosurgeon, Stig Helmer, steals every episode. His desperate and corrupted attempts to hide his past mistakes add a real evil feeling to the already supernaturally eery setting.

The way this half of The Kingdom ends is abrupt, but not in the annoying way that a lot of shows/miniseries' tend to end their seasons. Every episode runs by a well-paced and plotted narrative until the last 10-20 minutes where everything begins to come to a head and reveal its inner destructiveness - similar to von Trier's films. And there is no difference with the last episode of this first part: right when you think everything is going to conclude fine and in a satisfactory way, the evil that von Trier talks so much about in his end credit monologues finally begins to really show itself and we are left wondering what in the hell the next part of this fascinating vision will have in store. 

Funny Games (1997)

A wealthy German family arrives at their lake house for a little vacation. Their lake house is surrounded by large houses inhabited by families whose toughest struggles were no more extreme than choosing the location for their next vacation. The husband, Georg (Ulrich Muhe), and son, Georgie (Stefan Clapczynski), leave to work on the family's boat, and the wife, Anna (Suzanne Lothar), stays to prepare a nice dinner. When quiet, well-dressed Peter (Frank Giering) knocks on the door and asks for some eggs Anna doesn't suspect anything, but when he "accidentally" smashes the eggs and knocks the phone into the sink Anna begins to get flustered. But it is when Peter's friend Paul (Arno Frisch) arrives that the young men's intentions are revealed. They continue to toy with Anna, when Georg arrives and tries to make them leave Peter breaks his leg with one of Georg's golf clubs - thus revealing their intentions.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990)

Rating: 3.5/4

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a overwhelming film that keeps a constant sick feeling in your stomach; that is what we are suppose to feel when watching someone get murdered. Very, very, loosely based on the absurd confessional by Henry Lee Lucas -- admittedly falsified by Lucas himself; Lucas claims to have murdered 600 people, nearly one a week, from 1975-1983. It doesn't glamorize its title character's exploits or personality. We are not meant to hate Henry (Michael Rooker); the right emotions are fear with brief hints of sympathy. This here is a perfect film to spend a shoe-string budget on -- its budget was $110,000 -- it does not require any flashy stylization and A-list stars would take attention away from its powerful intentions. As the unwilling audience we are forced to see a side to the world and human nature that is usually ignored, and, or shied away from. This film is not "entertaining" and if you are a Slasher fan, well, you can just pass up on this because you are likely not going to appreciate something that doesn't use violence to exploit.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Rating: 3/4

Starship Troopers is Paul Verhoeven's attempt at a sci-fi epic. A entire new world is created with a presentation similar to Star Wars, but lacking the visionary expertise; Verhoeven creates a world of war that is visually stunning but inhabited by idiots who have a passionate love for mass violence. I would criticize the script's dialogue -- written by Edward Neumeier who surprisingly did the much more impressive script for RoboCop (1987) --  if it didn't fit well with the plot make specifically for simpletons, but it does and I found its cheesy-ness to be bitterly entertaining. Compared to Verhoeven's brilliant, humanistic sci-fi classic, RoboCop , Starship Troopers falls short in all categories, but its entertainment value is sky high.

Clerks (1994)

Rating: 3/4

Kevin Smith's debut film is one the great examples of how wonderfully original films from the American Indie Film Movement of the 90s could be. Shot in black-and-white -- not for artistic reasons, but for the sole purpose of lowering the film's cost. Clerks follows Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran), a convenient store manager, and his friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson), who works in the video-store. Both men have no drive or direction, all-in-all there is nothing interesting about them, at all. By somehow making us care for these two characters who bring so little to the table says a lot about Kevin Smith's talent at creating characters who get our affection through relating to us in such simple ways.

Naked Lunch (1991)

Rating: 2/4

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was one of the most important writers of the Beat Generation, his novel Naked Lunch is one of the most well known books of that time, creating equal amounts of shock and awe. Like Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Burroughs faced an obscenity trial that helped his book gain even more popularity. His work was effected by his excessive drug use which made his writing pace very inconsistent and his books very drug based. For many years he was a heroin addict, sporadically using those experiences in his work was something he would do his entire career.  On August 2, 1997 Burroughs suffered a heart attack, he was 83-years-old.

Naked Lunch loosely incorporates parts of William S. Burroughs' classic novel of the same name, two of his other novels Junkie, Exterminator! and Queer, with just much of it being inspired by his actual life. Just like the novel that inspired it, this film is not the least bit coherent with the feel of a continuous drugged out haze. For a long time Naked Lunch was considered "un-filmable", in many respects it still is, David Cronenberg goes crazy with Burroughs' ideas, qualities, and ways of life without attempting to bring them together in any sensible way. A sporadically random collection of images and characters.

Chasing Amy (1997)

Rating: 3.5/4

Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy has sets and conversations/discussions/rants that resemble a rauncy sit-com with the emotional understanding of a gripping character-drama. Studying the varying forms of love and friendship in a brilliantly understanding way we can all relate to. Smith jumped onto the scene with his film Clerks (1994) which follows two store clerks through their day-to-day exploits which mostly consists of banter about sex, drugs, and normal social issues which Smith has mastered simply by living life and observing. Mallrats (1995), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), and Clerks II (2006) are all films that were very hit-and-miss. His witty humor that incorporates everything from sex and fart jokes to brutally-honest social commentary never fails, though his overall stories are known for being more immature.

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

Rating: 3/4

In a flashback we see Kong (Pawalit Mongkolpisit), a deaf-mute hitman, as boy. He is taunted and, horrifyingly, rocked by other children. That short, but powerful, flashback is the first glimpse we get at the tortured isolation that Bangkok Dangerous' lead character has faced his entire life. Through a series of black and white flashbacks we see Kong as a janitor for a target range where he discovers a talent for shooting by visualizing his childhood tormentors. At this same target range, he meets Joe (Pisek Intrakanchit) and Aom (Patharawarin Timkul). Joe is a hitman who sees Kong's talents and takes him under his wing. With the mentoring of Joe, Kong becomes a fearless and, unintentionally, a remorseless killer. His isolation from the world has kept him from having any relationships outside Joe and Aom. That is, until he meets Fon (Premsinee Ratanasopha), a pretty woman who works at a drugstore. Through Fon's compassion, Kong sees a chance for a relationship and his fearless nature will not let him fail.