Friday Flix: July 1992

We have hit the dog days of summer. Growing up there was no air conditioning in our house. In the hot, humid Iowa summers it was miserable. After playing outside for hours, I’d cool off by sitting in front of a box fan. The only cool place in the house was the basement and thankfully our TV was also in the basement.

My best friend lived a few houses away and his family had AC. I’d go over to his house a lot in the summer just to cool off. The other place that was always cool was the movie theater.

In July 1992 I was no longer in Iowa but the movie theater was still a place to cool off. Thankfully Colorado doesn’t have humidity. (People here complain when the humidity reaches 10%…wimps)

Let’s look at the movies playing in the theater in July 1992.

Movies from July 1992

A League of Their Own

One thing that goes with the dog days of summer are the boys of summer. Or in the case of this movie the girls of summer.

A couple of years ago I wrote an article about baseball movies to watch during Spring Training. A League of Their Own made the list.

It’s a great movie based on the real women’s baseball league, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) which started during World War II. The AAGPBL was founded by Philip Wrigley, the gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs.

The casting is great, featuring Tom Hanks, Geena Davis and Lori Petty. Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell and Jon Lovitz are perfect in their supporting roles.

Get out there and watch this movie. Just remember, There’s no crying in baseball!!

You can watch A League of Their Own on Fubo TV.

Universal Soldier

Van Damme and Lundgren in the same movie! Next you’ll be telling me it also stars Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris and Jet Li and Jason Statham and Bruce Willis and Scott Adkins. Man, The Expendables was a dream come true!

Back to Universal Soldier…

Van Damme plays Luc Deveraux a soldier killed in the Vietnam War. Only he wasn’t buried, his body was used in a super secret government program called Universal Soldier (UniSol). The UniSol program reanimates deceased soldiers and turns them in to an elite counter-terrorism unit. The best part (for the government), the soldiers have no memory of their past lives.

Lundgren plays Andrew Scott, Deveraux’s sergeant in Vietnam, who was also killed. Scott is part of the UniSol program and is determined to kill Deveraux and take over as the leader of the group.

As you might expect the movie is action packed! I saw this in the theater a couple times in July 1992. I enjoyed it then and I still enjoy it.

Universal Solider was the first American movie directed by Roland Emmerich. He would go on to direct some of the biggest action movies in the 90s and 2000s including Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, Stargate and 2012.

Most critics dismissed it as a bad Terminator 2 clone, which isn’t true. It’s a Robocop clone. Critics are dumb.

Universal Soldier is a good action movie. Add it to your Action Movie Watch List.

You can watch Universal Soldier on Max GO.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Ugh, someone should have blown up the script.

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is a sequel to 1989’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The first movie was (mostly) original and entertaining. Honey, I Blew Up the Kid is neither. It’s a pure money grab going off the popularity of the first movie.

There was a lawsuit filed against Disney claiming it wasn’t an original screenplay. Director Paul Alter claimed it was his idea and Disney stole it. The jury came back in favor of Alter and Disney paid him $300,000 in damages.

I’m not a fan of this movie. It’s like a bad Godzilla movie. I’d rather watch Godzilla rip through a city than a toddler. I thought it couldn’t get any worse until they made Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves in 1997. What a disaster that was.

You can watch Honey, I Blew Up the Kid on Disney+.

https://youtu.be/k3TYpGyH4JU

Mo’ Money

The Wayans brothers were riding high in 1992 and arguably the most popular was Damon Wayans. Wayans wrote and produced Mo’ Money. There’s nothing wrong with the movie but there’s nothing that stands out either.

Mo’ Money is a generic action comedy movie. Wayans plays Johnny who falls for a girl named Amber. Johnny starts working at the same company, a credit card company, in hopes of impressing her. He works in the mail room and starts using credit cards from deceased customers to get money to impress Amber.

He soon finds out that one of the company executives is also running an illegal credit card operation and wants Johnny to join him. The plot is uninspired and it shows throughout the movie.

Prior to Mo’ Money Wayans was in Beverly Hills Cop, Roxanne and The Last Boy Scout. All of which are better than this movie. Wayans would go on to star in Major Payne which is an excellent comedy.

Mo’ Money reminds me of the many failed Saturday Night Live movies. Five minute skits don’t always work as a 90-minute movie. While Mo’ Money isn’t based on an In Living Color skit, it feels like it.

If you watch this movie you’ll be entertained for 90-minutes. There’s no memorable quotes or scenes in the movie. Once it’s over there’s nothing that will stick with you.

You can watch Mo’ Money on Fubo TV.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I’m a sucker for vampire movies and this was one I went to see in the theater. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great movie starring Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens and Rutger Hauer. It’s also the film debut of two-time Oscar winner Hillary Swank.

Swanson plays Buffy, a Valley girl cheerleader who learns she is ‘The Slayer’ destined to become a vampire hunter. She is trained by Merrick (Sutherland) an ancient watcher chosen to mentor Slayers. Buffy must defeat the vampire king Lothos (Hauer) and his apprentice Amilyn (Reubens).

In her journey to become a slayer she is joined by Pike (Perry) who helps her battle the vampires.

Hauer plays a good vampire king but the star of the vampire world is Paul Reubens. You can tell Pee-Wee Herman wants to come out during the movie. I kept waiting for his iconic laugh to emerge but it never did.

As good as the movie is, writer Joss Whedon wasn’t happy with the final outcome. He intended a dark movie, not the final campy movie. Whedon would go on to creator Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series as well taking it in a much darker direction. Which is what he envisioned for the movie.

Both the movie and TV series are great. If you haven’t seen them give them a try this year.

The movie isn’t streaming for free but you can find the TV series on Amazon Prime.

Police Story 3: Supercop

This one is an honorable mention. It was released in July 1992 but not in the United States, only in China. I saw a bootleg copy in late 1992, it was all in Chinese with no subtitles. It’s a Jackie Chan movie, words aren’t necessary.

In Supercop Jackie Chan must go undercover to infiltrate a drug lord’s organization. Chan teams up with another cop, Michelle Yeoh who is also a martial arts expert. Together they hit, kick and flip their way to capturing the drug lord.

Supercop is a typical 90s Jackie Chan movie, lots of action, amazing stunts and more action.

Police Story 3: Supercop is one of the best movies in the 8-movie Police Story series.

Other movies released in June 1992

Here are the other movies released in July 1992. There are quite a few of them. I talked about Revenge of the Nerds in the last installment. Nerds II was bad, I had no desire to watch Nerds III.

I remember all the hype and marketing around Cool World. It looked like a bad Roger Rabbit clone and I didn’t see it. Eddie Murphy is always good for a laugh but I passed on Boomerang and haven’t given it a try after all these years.

If I missed something good let me know in the comments below. Otherwise these will stay on my ‘haven’t seen’ list.

That ends our look at July 1992. There were some good movies this month. My favorite domestic movie was Universal Soldier with A League of Their Own a close second. Oddly, over the years I’ve re-watch A League of Their Own more than Universal Soldier.

Supercop is easily my favorite foreign film of the month. Jackie Chan movies were solid gold until the mid 2000s.

What are your favorites from June 1992?

Let us know in the comments below. Or tag us on Twitter. The main channel is @TRNSocial and I’m @MileHighSamurai

Don’t forget to check out Box Office 30! They are currently covering 1992 and some of the movies mentioned above.

Next week we’ll look at July 1997.

Until then the balcony is closed.