Love On The Run: 3 US films of the 90's

 I have no particular reason for wanting to write this post, but it does concern three of my favourite films that I find are often overlooked and underrated, not that I think they are great films, in fact they could all be classified "guilty pleasures".
This will hardly be one of my most eloquent posts, so don't expect much, I just felt like writing about a few films I enjoy, nothing very complex...

These films don't really share much in common except the basic theme of a young American couple on the run from their enemies, be it the police, gangsters or family. I just happen to lump these three together when thinking of this style of film, a bit like when thinking of Vietnam films one thinks of Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.
All of them are from the 90's and are just great fun to watch, they are colourful, violent and romantic, all slightly disturbing, but hardly very challenging to watch.

J'Accuse - 1919

If you have read my previous review of Abel Gance's Napoleon - 1927, then you will know that I hold Abel Gance is the highest possible esteem, he was one of the first great visionaries of Cinema and a genius director who gets far too little recognition these days.
J'Accuse is one of three films which are widely considered to be Abel Gances finest, the others are Napoleon and La Roue, I'll be viewing La Roue soon and will maybe write a piece about it.

This was not Gances first film, in fact he had directed more than 20 before this one, but this was his breakthrough film and the first film to be made about the First World War. It earned him an international reputation as one of the most important directors in Europe, he was acclaimed by audiences in France and England alike and upon releasing his film in the US was congratulated by D.W. Griffith ,who was greatly impressed.
Out of the films budget of 500,000 Francs, he made more than 3 million, it was a great success, critically and commercially. Yet now it has been almost forgotten and is very hard to find, it's audience is almost entirely composed of film students, in particular those studying French cinema, yet it deserves so much more, it deserves to be recognised as one of highlights of the silent era, alongside such films as Metropolis, The Birth of A Nation and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari.

But despite the films later successes it hadn't had an easy start, funding was hard to find so soon after the war, especially for an Anti-war film so powerful and full of righteous anger against those responsible for the horrific war, as this one is.
In fact the only reason Gance managed to secure funds for his project was because he claimed it was a patriotic film, when in fact it strongly condemned and even denounced patriotism and it's follies, the politicians, the whole government as the cause of this pointless war, and above all the insanity of war.