OUT OF AFRICA (1985)

East Africa, 1913. A wealthy female moves to Africa to marry a serial philanderer. They happily live together on a coffee farm and he even stops screwing other females long enough to give her syphilis. What a guy. Throughout all of this, the woman has secretly been wettin’ her panties over a local chap who is a professional elephant murderer. She hooks up with him and eventually their relationship advances to the point were they can go out and murder animals together.

OUT OF AFRICA was a big deal when it came out back in the 1980’s. As evident by the fact it won multiple Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and was #5 at the box office for 1986. Beating out everything from THE GOONIES to FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF. Revisiting it nowadays, it is entertaining and watchable, but that story is garbage. Very "unslay" as modern day kids would say.

Solid acting by the entire cast, gorgeous scenery, medium pace, rich people problems, some weird crap going on in the background at the beginning of the movie that looked super fake, unrelatable main character that I had zero sympathy for, dumb decisions left and right, onscreen bird murder, disappointing ending, average direction, cool-looking dog, zero sexual tension between the two leads, zero sex scenes, zero tits, zero dicks. Looking at the Winners and Nominees list for 58th Academy Awards, it’s difficult to see even one award that OUT OF AFRICA actually deserved. Then again, I think the overall winner for the year should have been BACK TO THE FUTURE.

As always, my uneducated opinion is totally formulated in my stressed out, little simpleton brain and holds zero weight at all.  I'm just a big dummy who likes yapping about movies.  That said, OUT OF AFRICA is an interesting time-capsule back to what was considered highbrow Cinema back in the mid-1980's.

THE RIVER WILD (1994)

I've never really thought of Meryl Streep as an action star, but here she is splashing around, leg muscles pumping while saving her family from some bad guys.

Meryl Streep loves floating around on the river, so much so she takes her twerp son, her city slicker husband and her awesome dog on a rafting trip.  Things go as expected: the son is an annoying little bastard, the husband is confused and the dog is awesome.  Then, in a plot twist that's telegraphed from the moment they get to the river, some of the other rafters are actually criminals that have just pulled off a big heist and even killed some people!  Soon, Streep and family are taken hostage by the bad guys, who want Streep to guide them past some really dangerous rapids further down the river in an attempt to out maneuver the coppers.

Zero nudity, zero gore, low violence, very little tension, zero cussing, John C. Reilly's belly, Kevin Bacon topless, beautiful scenery, Lollapalooza hat, Ministry hat, solid acting, good pace, beautiful scenery.  Maybe one day somebody will remake this with a darker storyline filled with sexual violence, wet t-shirts, no kid, ultra revenge violence, gore, a Cannibal Corpse hat and another awesome dog.

Despite some holes in the story (husband outrunning the river, John C. Reilly as threatening, etc.) I enjoyed THE RIVER WILD for what it is: a satisfying mid-90's thriller/lazy afternoon timewaster. Double-feature with SHOOT TO KILL.