1995: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by jim on Wed, 06/16/2004 - 10:31
Tags:
Loved
Babe
... A sweetheart of a movie. While there are live-action talking-animal movies I don't hate, I never thought I'd find one I loved.Cold Comfort Farm
... On the strength of this movie alone, Kate Beckinsale should inherit the period-piece queen title from Helena Bonham-Carter (who is burning that bridge nicely with grittier roles). Every character in this ensemble cast is a delight, and they all have their moments to shine, but I think my favorite is one of the smaller parts: Harry Ditson as the movie producer Mr. Neck. His "introduction" scene cracks me up every time, when he meets three people and greets each of them differently depending on their station ("Mary" he said with respect but rogueish innuendo, "Elfin" with parental enthusiasm, and "Charles" with the heartiest of manly handshakes). A small thing, but wonderful, and this movie is full of such moments.Pride and Prejudice
... Sure, it's an almost six-hour BBC miniseries, but I think it counts as a movie. This is my wife's favorite movie, and one of these days I'm going to have to see if there's room for it in my top 20. A marvelous adaptation, perfectly realized. It was hard to get psyched for 300+ minutes of Jane Austen, but I was hooked inside of 10 minutes, and started looking forward to watching it again almost as soon as it ended. Each character is perfectly drawn and my wife and I had great fun discussing and dissecting the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ballet of manners they engaged in. Colin Firth was so good as Darcy they let him do it again in Bridget Jones's Diary. Jennifer Ehle should be a big star (why isn't she?). I'll stop gushing now that I've set your expectations too high.Toy Story
... "I really can't think of a thing I'd change about this movie. Fine characters perfectly realized by the voice actors. Excellent toy nostalgia. Good villians. Good lessons ("play nice"). Wonderful "buddy film" chemistry between Woody and Buzz. Perfect vision of not only what it must be like to be a (boy's) toy, but what it is like to be a kid that knows exactly where you left your toys, and yet can't find them. Funny ("the claw!"). Touching (Buzz learning the truth, Woody coming to terms with his jealously). Great movie. Even if it didn't amuse you, it has so much more than mere amusement to offer." (quoting myself from this discussion)Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave
Really Liked
Before Sunrise
... A simple premise: Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on a train. They hit it off, and Hawke convinces Delpy to get off the train with him in Vienna and wander the city for the night (since his flight leaves in the AM, and he can't really afford a hotel at this point in his travels). She agrees, and most of the movie is them talking to each other, with occasional brief interactions outside their twosome. Like people, movies that talk too much have the potential to bore, but they also have the potential to enchant, and this is one of the rare ones to beat the odds. The films captures the first stumbling, rushing steps of love. It's been branded a GenX/Slacker romance, but I think that sells the movie short; it will ring true for anyone who's fallen in love, regardless of their generation.Braveheart
... A pretty darn entertaining revenge picture. The real Wallace may have been more motivated by a desire for freedom, but this Wallace is an avenger. The movie tries to have it both ways, and succeeds if you turn a blind eye to the slight-of-hand. Perhaps Gibson thought revenge as a motive wasn't heroic enough. Still, great battles and a nice cut-and-dry good guys vs. bad guys story, if you dig that kind of thing in our shades-of-grey age.Casino
... An ambitious, sprawling, complex gangster epic that feels somehow flawed (but I don't know why). Marvelous performances throughout, although Sharon Stone's is particularly surprising and impressive. The movie feels extraordinarily violent, even though the violence only punctuates long stretches of non-violence (but the punctuation marks are all emphatic exclamation points). My recollection is that Goodfellas is more violent across the board, but that Casino's violence peaks much higher. I also have to say that I normally hate voice-overs, and at least half of this movie is told in voice over, but it's required to cover as much of this complex terrain as possible in three hours, and it works. I wish I could articulate why the film felt flawed to me. Perhaps just because it was so obviously an ambitious undertaking that it couldn't help but fall a bit short. I dunno.The City of Lost Children
... Visually stunning. Manages to be bizarre, creepy, and touching at the same time.Devil in a Blue Dress
Get Shorty
Goldeneye
... Once again, I'm probably suffering from my recency favortism, but I thought this was definitely a top 20-25% Bond movie. Brosnan delivers, and the action scenes here stack up with anything else the franchise has to offer. Someday I'll have to do a Bond marathon so I can once again distinguish between the movies within the Connery clump and the Moore clump. Then I'll rank 'em. Someday.Leaving Las Vegas
... I thought I was going to hate this, as I tend to be put off by movies with characters that are defined by their dysfunction, but Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue deliver such riveting performances that their characters are fully realized human beings, not just vehicles for conveying pathos. Uncompromising and tough to watch, the movie is still beautiful in its depiction of love, loneliness, inevitability, and loss. I guiltily enjoy many of Cage's throwaway roles, but it's nice to be reminded that he's capable of so much more.Richard III
Se7en
Sense and Sensibility
Twelve Monkeys
... Having just seen NYC underwater in AI I'm reminded of the animals roaming free in NYC here. I remember this movie fondly as the first time I realized Brad Pitt could act, and Bruce Willis could do more than Moonlight. Not Gilliam's best, but certainly a good showing.The Usual Suspects
Glad I Saw
The American President
Apollo 13
Clueless
... I expect this movie will date rapidly, but I really enjoyed it when it came out.Dead Man
Dead Man Walking
... Given what I know of Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon's politics, I really expected a more loaded message about the death penalty. Instead, what struck me about this movie was its fairly even-handed treatment of the subject. I can't say I enjoyed the movie, but I'm certainly glad I watched it. Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon were terrific.The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
Ghost in the Shell
... Man, GREAT soundtrack! I wish I could be more enthusiastic about the rest of the movie. While quite good, I just felt it dragged, even at less than 90 minutes. Ironically, perhaps I would have liked it more had it been longer, and were able to explore the world and backstory in a bit more depth. Still, if you're a sucker for cyberpunk sensibilities (I'm a semi-sucker, myself), this'll float your boat with its themes and visuals.La Haine
... Almost certainly a great movie that didn't really grab me. Great cast, loved seeing Vincent Cassel in the role.Jumanji
... A pleasant surprise. Not great, but it held the whole family's interest. CGI's come a long way in 10 years though.Mallrats
Mr. Holland's Opus
... Been a long time - not sure about this one. I'm sure it's a cliche-fest, but I have a soft spot for feel-good teacher movies.Ninja Scroll
... If you didn't get enough high-pressure geysers of blood in Kill Bill, you can probably sate yourself here. The plot of this is convoluted, but the action basically comes down to this: a ninja-for-hire runs afoul of eight demons, and must dispatch them in hopefully spectacular fashion. I'm guessing the misguided knock against this one, like Tarantino's movies, is that the whole thing is violence for violence's sake, and it's just one long cool bit to wetwork with no redeeming underpinnings. Perhaps, but our heros always function within their own (sometimes perverse) codes of honor appropriate to the universes they inhabit, and I don't think that should be dismissed. Revenge tales are as old as the hills, and it's okay to dismember bad guys. Or perhaps I'm just trying to justify jonesing on my bread and circuses. Anyway, while I keep trying to come to terms with my enjoyment of well-choreographed action, regardless of body count or bloodshed, I can at least take some solace in not taking any pleasure in the cringe-inducing, explicit lingering rape scenes in this movie. I still have a little humanity left, I guess.Pocahontas
Rumble in the Bronx
... The bad guys are goofy, but the fight scenes in this movie are remarkably resourceful, beautifully demonstrating the "use whatever happens to be at hand in a creative fashion" fighting style.Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
... I don't think I was prepared for how dark this movie is. Certainly it was well-acted, featuring a particularly strong performance from Andy Garcia and a surprising performance from Christopher Lloyd. The script is good, and the dialog interesting. But for all the good points it left me feeling rather sad, which I imagine is the point, but I wasn't prepared. Interesting note: I read an unsubstantiated comment indicating that it's not fair to call this a Pulp Fiction knockoff since the script was already written by the time PF hit the theaters. Of course, we can't judge how much the script was revised in light of PF's success, but it's still an interesting consideration.To Die For
Virtuosity
Guilty Pleasures
Desperado
Could Have Missed
Balto
... A nice story, simply presented. Our hero is a bit bland, but the sidekicks are fun, and our villain is certainly vile enough. The grizzly/frozen lake scene was particularly good, and I was struck by the animation style of the grizzly, which looks much more like a woodcut than anything else in the movie. I think they might have been going for a more stylized look where all the wild (non-talking) animals are concerned, and it added some nice visual interest to an otherwise conventionally animated movie.Batman Forever
Dolores Claiborne
Don Juan DeMarco
The Last Supper
Mighty Aphrodite
Outbreak
Party Girl
... A partying, fairly self-centered 24-year-old tries to figure out what she's going to do with her life. The two big questions are whether or not she'll take her library clerk job more seriously, and whether or not she'll hook up with the nice falafel vendor. Kinda meandering and aimless, like our heroine, but it has its moments. This was a milestone in Parker Posey's career, and she fares pretty well in an oddly stylized role. There may be more library movies in our future, since my wife is working on getting her library science degree.Rob Roy
Waterworld
... Morbid curiousity drew me to this one. "Fishtar", "Kevin's Gate", call it what you will, it wasn't as bad as all that (that doesn't mean I'll be seeking out Battlefield Earth anytime soon). It's hard to fault the ambition of it all, and the sets score off the chart for degree-of-difficulty. The gruff misanthropy from Costner's character was surprising, and some of the action scenes worked surprisingly well (in particular the jet-ski "camoflague"). But for each action scene that worked well, there was one that didn't. For each joke that worked, there were two that fell flat. The dialog and the acting wound the movie, and the preposterous science almost finishes it off, but I still can't write this one off as the horrible movie it's reputed to be. It's not good. Heck, it's not even adequate, but it's redeemed a bit demonstrating where it *could* have been a great action epic in some alternate universe that doesn't diverge so far from our own.Welcome to the Dollhouse
Should Have Missed
Cutthroat Island
... When Renny Harlin and Geena Davis teamed up, they were, at their best, a poor man's Jerry Bruckheimer and Sigourney Weaver, respectively (sure, those two never teamed themselves, but that's the best I could do). This is not one of their best. Most of the blame falls to the dialog and its delivery, with the slightest of nods given to period grammar making it all impossibly stiff. Geena Davis can't pull it off, Frank Langella and Maury Chaykin get pulled under as well, with only Matthew Modine coming close to getting his tongue in the ballpark of his cheek.Die Hard: With a Vengeance
French Kiss
... If you like Kevin Kline (as I do), you *might* want to watch this, but probably not. Within 5 minutes of the end, I'd forgotten most of this non-movie. Ah well. I think I have to admit that I just don't like Meg Ryan.Heat
The Quick and the Dead
... The darkly comic melodrama that worked for Raimi in Darkman largely fails him here (I wonder if I'd like Darkman today as much as I did in college?). I had to exert myself slightly to see this western through to the finish, and thankfully the ending does have a modicum of emotional resonance, but the rest of the movie was just too silly for me to work up any involvement in the early duels. It's not until the semis that things get even remotely interesting, which pretty much makes this the NBA of movies.Tank Girl
... Aside from a couple good lines, and a decent villian from the ever-malevolent Malcolm McDowell, this one is too boring to recommend. But I'm the wrong guy to be watching cult movies - more often than not I don't see the appeal.Tommy Boy
... See Bad Boys below.El Sucko Grande
Bad Boys
... How coincidental that Netflix would send me this and Tommy Boy on the same day; two dubiously potential guilty pleasures from 1995 both rated 6.3 by IMDb users (at the time of this writing). In Bad Boys I was hoping for more Will Smith than Martin Lawrence with a goodly amount of action, but I was disappointed on both counts. I could only take an hour of their incessant unfunny bickering before I turned this one off. Tommy Boy fared a bit better, although it watched like an slightly less sophisticated (!) Adam Sandler movie. Fortunately (?) my sense humor can accommodate pretty low-brow stuff at times so I chuckled a fair amount (to my wife's disgust) and laughed pretty hard twice (at least my wife joined me for both of those as well).Four Rooms
Johnny Mnemonic
... "Johnny Moronic". Didn't know Dolph Lundgren was in it until the opening credits. The man has never even seen a good movie.
Cloned From:
i Agree heat wasnt all it was cracked up to be
Jim, you've got The Hudsucker Proxy on your '94 list too.
Thanks! Now it's only on the '94 list (at least I filed them on the same tier :-).
I caught Ghost in the Shell at an art theater in Austin the night it arrived. I confess, I was very disappointed, and the waves of praise it has generated leaves me rather baffled.
I didn't hate it, mind you, but I just didn't have the love most did...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Once again, we match up pretty well! I feel roughly the same way, and one of the problems with having a "disappointing" classification is that I should logically put good movies there that nonetheless let me down (Ghost in the Shell would certainly qualify). I should probably change "Disappointing" to "Poor" in keeping with the other sub-divisions, eliminating such subjective ambiguities.
There was just enough here to make me interested in the sequel though, but only because it sports such an enticing trailer.
Jim, you poor thing. Put down crap like Cutthroat Island and watch Outfoxed. :-)
Yeah, between this and Kiss of the Dragon I'm on the verge of throwing in the towel. And I have another Jet Li movie on deck, but then it's The Fog of War, so if can just hang in there one more round I should go the distance.
Glad to hear it.
But I have to wonder: what masochistic urge caused you to put those two on your 'to see' list in the first place (after all, I explained mine for Face of Gore).
The Fog of War is really good, but I think I may have liked Outfoxed even better, which really surprised me. Between Outfoxed and The Video Game Revolution (2004), I'm on quite a different 'roll' than you are, having seen two surprisingly good documentaries in a row :-)
Ah, but unless I'm mistaken, didn't Cutthroat Island make it on your queue out of morbid curiosity to see the biggest flop of all-time? I think I remember telling you about that one. So you must have known what you were getting into.
If that's true, then I just wasn't around for that comment...
AJ's right on Cutthroat Island. Kiss of the Dragon got in because I'm always on the lookout for good action movies, and I heard the occasional dissenting opinion that it was one of the better Jet Li movies. Sometimes the majority knows what it's talking about though.
So yes, I knew what I was getting into, but picture getting punched in the eye; when does it hurt more: when you know it's coming, or when you get sucker punched?
Ah, so glad you enjoyed Before Sunrise. Now, you are prepared for the even better Before Sunset!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Damn, I was hoping to beat lbangs to the punch on this one, since I was sure he would say that. If only his time zone wasn't earlier than mine! Of course, it helps that I had musical rehearsal at the time of this post...
So yeah. Before Sunset is awesome.
Thanks guys! Prob'ly my favorite Linklater movie so far, although I have high hopes for Before Sunset. I'm particularly curious about the highly touted ending, but perhaps most eager to know what happened to their plans made at the end of Before Sunrise. Heck, I'm looking forward to the whole thing as a whole.