THE FIRM (1993)

Law student Tom Cruise is a big ol’ dummy.  He might be smart enough to graduate from Harvard Law School, but he must have just got off last night’s bus from Stupidsville when he decided to take a job at an evil law firm populated by “all white, all male, all married” nerds who look like they just stepped out of THE STEPFORD WIVES.  Things go peachy for a few days, but then before you can say “I wish a hyped-up black church choir would cover Boston’s ‘Let Me Take You Home Tonight’.” ol’ Tommy Cruise is running super fast all over the joint, sweatin’ up a storm, with none other than a long-haired, albino Jigsaw economically jogging behind him with a surprisingly smooth gait.

I’m by no means an expert (on anything) on legal thrillers from the 1990’s, but THE FIRM seemed fine to me.  The 154-minute runtime passed by quickly enough and I was entertained from beginning to end.  Also, the cast was very impressive!  If I had to make some complaints, it would be that the evil law firm wasn’t evil enough.  Also, the Memphis setting was dull and unattractive to look at.  And that piano-heavy soundtrack!  Oh my god, I love the piano, but that was too goddamn much!

Overall, THE FIRM is too safe for its own good, but still watchable thanks to an outstanding cast.

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.