1993: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by jim on Fri, 06/11/2004 - 04:29
Tags:
Loved
Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers
The Fugitive
... While I still resent Tommy Lee Jones beating out Ralph's Fiennes for the best supporting actor Oscar, he was terrific here. And I think this is Harrison Ford's last great movie. Nothing he's done since has measured up.Groundhog Day
... One of my favorites. Bill Murray does such a great job of being a cad that you can't help liking, even at his caddiest. So it's just so easy to warm up to him when he starts to come 'round, because you're already halfway there anyway. I'm gonna go out on a limb and nominate this for best comedy of the 90s.Schindler's List
Searching for Bobby Fischer
... The king of all not-a-sport sports movies. Just rewatched this (in 2007), and it holds up beautifully.Really Liked
Army of Darkness
... Bruce Campbell hefts this movie onto his mighty chin--I mean shoulders--and carries it gloriously through the first hysterical and ridiculous two-thirds. It bogs down in the final third, but I was already sold by then.Blue
Fearless
In the Line of Fire
Jurassic Park
The Scent of Green Papaya
... The movie would be breathtakingly dull if it weren't so breathtakingly beautiful. A young servant girl reports to her new family. We watch her learn and perform her duties, and we get to know her employing family better. The triumphs and tragedies are those of real life. Then we flash forward 10 years. What can I say? You'll either be smitten, or bored to tears. I actually fell somewhere in between, but much closer to smitten.Sonatine
... If you asked me during this movie what I thought of it I would've told you I was toying with turning it off. At the end I thought it was okay, but by the next day I found myself with it still in my craw. And there it stayed for days. Heck, it's still there more than anything else I've seen in the past couple weeks! On the surface this is a gangster movie, and tells what happens when a gang faction is sent to negotiate a peace between two other gangs. But the deeper interest and beauty lies in that faction being forced into hiding in a serene beach setting, and watching these hardened nihilistic killers (see the crane torture scene for justification of this characterization) revert to an almost childlike sense of innocence and play. Its sweetness is tempered by what we remember from the setup, and knowing that eventually real life will catch up with them. It's slow (hence my initial boredom) and Takeshi Kitano's dead-eyed performance doesn't exactly invite involvement in his character, but in the end you find you're full without realizing you were eating. It's not for everybody. I'm not even sure it was for me. But I have to give special notice to any movie that I find so compelling after the fact.Tombstone
... This movie begins and ends with Val Kilmer's portrayal of Doc Holliday. He single-handedly elevates this movie from a forgettable also-ran western to something memorable. It helps that everybody else ranged from competent to good, but he really carried the day. He was so strong here that it's taken me a long time to believe that in general I don't care for his performances.Glad I Saw
The Bride with White Hair
... Think of it as opera: highly melodramatic, stylized, and quite bizarre to the uninitiated. I consider myself semi-initiated, in that I dig many kinds of kung fu movies, but I've never really acquired the taste for magical fantasy kung fu. Still, see if this sounds tasty to you: stick Romeo & Juliet and Ninja Scroll in a blender and drink the result. If that makes you thirsty, then by all means, bottoms up. Interesting that the sequel was made in the same year. I wonder if they were shot together and then they realized they had two movies worth of stuff, like the 70s Musketeers movies or Kill Bill? The sequel is supposed to be pretty bad though, and I can't bring myself to check it out, even if I do want to see how the "romance" is resolved. Can anybody fill me in?A Bronx Tale
Cronos
... Probably the most distinctive take on the vampire myth I've seen, treating it as both an addiction and a degenerative disease. The bathroom scene is brilliant, and we feel much the same revulsion and/or pathos one might feel if stumbling upon some wasted away junkie shooting up. It's not particularly scary for a "horror" movie, but it's compelling nonetheless, even if our hero and villain's henchman (Ron Perlman) motives and actions are at times nonsensical (or at least unclear, unless you write them off as simple byproducts of addiction and cruelty, respectively).Dave
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
... I love it when you can make a good movie about the life of a good movie maker. A great story, with some great action scenes to boot.Falling Down
... I enjoy rooting for the bad guy. But I think it's relatively easy to make a charismatic bad guy that we admire. We forgive him his trespasses 'cause he's so darn charming. It's much harder to make a bad guy that is truly villianous, but that we sympathize (but not admire) with nonetheless. This movie pulls it off.Farewell My Concubine
Grumpy Old Men
Iron Monkey
... Kung-fu fans will enjoy this one quite a bit. I'm personally not too big a fan of extensive wire-fu, so the opening action sequence in this movie was a bit of a turn-off, but the subsequent action scenes (of which there are a ton) range from good to excellent. I've only recently become aware of the significance of the Huang Fei Hong character, and this movie is neat in that he's a child. Even though he's not the main character, he plays a significant part, making the movie a prequel of sorts.Mad Dog and Glory
... My, what a weird little movie. Bill Murray as the mobster and Robert De Niro as the not-a-mobster. The whole thing is a bit of a mess. De Niro saves Murray's life so Murray gives him Uma Thurman for a week. Of course De Niro and Thurman fall in love, despite that whole plotline being woefully underwritten, leaving us to think it's all about the sex. Are we supposed to think that? I don't think so, but I can't be sure. The way lots of the dialog is cut I found myself wondering quite often (especially compared to my usual quantity of such wonderings, which is zero) if our actors even filmed the scenes together. Even so, I cared how it turned out, which is what really matters. Also, the second fiddles (David Caruso and Mike Starr (I think)) do a great job.The Man Without a Face
Mrs. Doubtfire
Much Ado About Nothing
The Nightmare Before Christmas
A Perfect World
Philadelphia
The Piano
The Wedding Banquet
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Guilty Pleasures
Demolition Man
Hard Target
Could Have Missed
Cliffhanger
Dazed and Confused
Dennis the Menace
... The girls loved it, the kids are cute, and of course Matthau is fun to watch, but it's really for the very young.In the Name of the Father
Point of No Return
Sleepless in Seattle
Should Have Missed
Rising Sun
So I Married an Axe Murderer
The Three Musketeers
Twin Warriors
... After becoming a Jet Li fan with Fist of Legend I had high hopes for this one, being directed by Woo Ping Yeun and also starring Michelle Yeoh. Some of the fights are exciting, but with one or two guys fighting off hundreds, constant mid-air momentum changes, Li pogo-sticking around on his head (head-butting prostrate opponents), way too much Hong Kong comic relief, and a horrible horrible dub did this one in for me. It was enjoyable enough that I might watch it again if they ever release a subtitled version, but it would probably have to fall into my lap. I do have to add that even with the lousy dub Michelle Yeoh adds a certain dignity to the proceedings.El Sucko Grande
Fortress
The Legend
... Perhaps some of the problem lay in the awful dub, but I have a hard time imagining this was much better in its native tongue. Most of the slapstick falls flat, with one notable exception (the dinner where Li and family are trying to keep from being recognized). The over-the-top wire fu fights were adequate but not enough to salvage this one, with one notable exception (the fight with the big bamboo pole). And who the heck was that guy that arrived in the last five minutes and saved the day out of nowhere? Must be some editor screwed up real bad. I think I've had just about enough of Jet Li's back catalog. Too bad, 'cause the guy moves so well.RoboCop 3
Cloned From:
Once again, I'm telling you, you gotta stop watching this crap. You've been in a dark tunnel so long I'm sure you're looking forward to the light, no?
Sometimes watching crap has its own rewards (like the dinner scene in this movie), and I've really only been suffering for three movies now. While my time watching this, Kiss of the Dragon, and Cutthroat Island could have been better spent, you do have to dig through the dirt to find truffles. But yeah, I'm just about ready for a good movie.
it really doesn't get much better than Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, have you Seen Grand Day Out and Close Shave also? if yes, whats your views on those ones?
Loved 'em both, although A Grand Day Out is pretty rough around the edges. Kinda like season one of The Simpsons. They didn't really hit their stride until The Wrong Trousers.
yeah you're right Grand Day Out was a little rough but still very fun. i loved the robt with the skies! and the fact that the moon was made of cheese and you could scoop it with a knife and eat it! mmmmmmm!
I like the idea of tiers for the movies of a given year; I have questions/comments on several of these. First, what I agree with you on: your comments on Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story are right on. It's not a flashy, showy movie that got a lot of attention, but it is well made and well acted, and was an enjoyable movie-watching experience. Also, Demolition Man is a guilty pleasure for me as well. Wesley Snipes seems to be channeling (or is it pointing the way for?) Dennis Rodman. And besides, certain Stallone ass-kicking movies are always guilty pleasure viewing for me (Cobra anyone?).
Two other questions: are you planning to write a review of A Perfect World anytime soon? I like it quite a bit and am curious to see what you liked about it. And finally, what did you dislike about So I Married an Axe Murderer? I thought it was quite funny, and definitely prefer that Mike Myers to the over-the-top Myers we have today.
Johnny Waco
I know a lot of purists were unhappy with Dragon given Jason Scott Lee's lack of martial arts skill, but that didn't really matter to me. In fact, I remember enjoying even those scenes where it mattered, and it's nice to find another fan of the movie.
Hey, did you know there were going to cast Stallone as the lead for Beverly Hills Cop, but he wanted major script revisions, including renaming the character to Axel Cobretti, the Motor City Cobra? He made Cobra shortly after all involved decided that wasn't going to work (or something like that).
I'm afraid I'd have to see A Perfect World again before writing it up. I only started writing reviews a couple years ago, and in general those are the ones that have writeups once I got to assembling these by-year lists. I do remember thinking it was underrated, and one of Costner's better turns. Good chemistry with the kid, which so often doesn't happen. Based on my hazy recollections, I can easily see bumping it up upon a rewatch.
As for So I Married an Axe Murderer it got its rating largely from vague impressions of not really digging the humor, but mostly because by the time I got around to creating the list for this year, I found it had completely burrowed its way free of my memory. My apologies!