by 1995 marks the beginning of the second half of my review of my favorite movies from the Nineties. Picking a top ten from each year is an interesting (to me) challenge — I do not look forward to trying to distill a top ten list for the decade. But onward!
As usual there are a bunch of decent to probably great movies from 1995 that I haven’t seen yet including: GoldenEye; Se7en; Clueless; Casino; Dead Presidents; Dead Man Walking; Rob Roy; Friday; To Die For; Clockers; Mighty Aphrodite; Before Sunrise; Tank Girl; Mallrats; Living in Oblivion; Dead Man; Kicking and Screaming; Empire Records; Strange Days; Nixon; and Ghost in the Shell.
My favorites of the movies I’ve seen are:
- Smoke
- 12 Monkeys
- The Usual Suspects
- Leaving Las Vegas
- Apollo 13
- Toy Story
- Get Shorty
- Heat
- Braveheart
- Tommy Boy
Weird year. Smoke is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. Based on Paul Auster’s story (I think he wrote the screenplay too) and starring Harvey Keitel; for many years if you asked me what my favorite movie was I often said this. Not a deeply thought out answer but this definitely is in a sweet spot of quirk, substance and intensity for me. I think it’s still my favorite from this year although I like Twelve Monkeys a lot too. Terry Gilliam is definitely one of my favorite directors and this creepy time travel story really stuck with me.
Of the other movies I saw this year — Kids, I remember it being pretty shocking, in your face, but I can’t remember much of it. I kind of remember Screamers as a low budget but pretty effective sci/fi horror movie.
I’d like to see Crimson Tide again — all I remember about it was the hype that Quentin Tarantino had punched up some of the screenplay. Robert Rodriguez’ Desperado was okay but essentially a big budget redo of Mariachi Man.
Both The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain and The Brothers McMullen were pretty good, similar sort of comedic dramas. Not too far afield was The American President which I remember now more for being a precursor to The West Wing than for itself.
UPDATES
12/6/12 Saw Friday on Amazon Prime. Parts were funny, but people definitely had built it up for me too much. Chris Tucker and Ice Cube should have done more movies together though – not a bad comedy team.
