Some Other Movies From 1995 (2)

For further background on the year in film, please refer to the Some Other Movies From 1995 entry.

The following things happened in 1995:

• The World Trade Organization was established.  Excuse me for getting political, but FUCK those guys.
• Mexico borrowed $20 billion from the U.S. after their "peso crisis."
• Bosnian Serb commanders were charged with crimes against humanity after the Wars in the Balkans concluded.
• A religious cult attacked commuters with sarin gas inside the Tokyo subway system.
• The Oklahoma City bombing occurred, killing 168 people.
• Microsoft released Windows 95.
• Sony released the first PlayStation.
• The Indian government changed "Bombay" back to "Mumbai."

Excellent

1. La Haine (Hate)

Three young men from a Parisian slum go looking for trouble.  In this era of Black Lives Matter this movie is even more timely, and the ending packs quite a punch.  I'll watch Vincent Cassel in anything, but his costars in this film are equally good.

Fun Fact: This was Cassel's third movie.  He appeared in his first the year before.

2. Braveheart

Dances With Wolves or Braveheart?  The stars of both movies also directed their respective films, and both films won Best Picture, Best Director and many other awards at the Oscars.  I'd pick Dances With Wolves, but there's not doubt that Braveheart is still a powerful film.

What's more, it hasn't aged a day.  The battle scenes are still great, the story's still involving, and you can't help but agree with the praise it received at the time.  It's a gripping tale of a Scottish uprising in the 13th century.

Fun Fact 1: Historically inaccurate?  Braveheart is almost completely so.

Fun Fact 2: A sequel to this movie, Robert the Bruce, was released this year.

Some Good Ones

1. Memories

Animated trilogy concerning three dystopian futures.  The first short is about the discovery of an opera singer's tomb.  The second short is about a man unintentionally transformed into a living weapon.  The third short is about a warlike society in which a young boy dreams of glory.  Overall the trilogy is good, but I think I would have found more depth in it as a younger person.

Fun Fact: If you enjoyed Akira you'll want to check this one out.  Katsuhiro Otomo served as executive producer, all three shorts were based on his manga stories, and he directed the last of the three shorts.

2. Outbreak

Gotta love that scene where Dustin Hoffman is sitting in a hut full of dead, infected bodies, some random guy walks in and says "It's not airborne," and Dustin Hoffman just believes him.

And remember when we thought all the killer viruses came from tropical Africa?  Those were the days.  In 2020 certain parts of this movie ring false... as anyone wearing a face mask can tell you.

Oh, and that government conspiracy?  If you can't see that coming within the first ten minutes you just haven't seen enough pandemic movies.  Fucking OF COURSE it's a government conspiracy.  How could it not be?

In Outbreak Dustin Hoffman stars as a virologist trying to stop a virus from killing Americans and/or eroding American freedoms.  Rene Russo costars as his wife and fellow virologist, with Cuba Gooding Jr. as an army man new to the world of superflus.  Director Wolfgang Peterson amps up the suspense thoughout, and I'd have to say this is one of his better movies.

Fun Fact: Marlon Wayans' character in 1998's Senseless references this movie when he says: "I'll be your little Outbreak monkey."

3. A Little Princess

An imaginative young girl struggles with a domineering headmistress after her father's death.  There's a whole lot of coincidence at work in this movie, compounded by a heaping helping of implausibility.  Even so it was well done.

Fun Fact 1: Eleanor Bron, the actress who played the headmistress in this film, has a LONG history in movies.  She appeared in The Beatles' Help in 1965, and her name was inspiration for the song "Eleanor Rigby."

4. Fallen Angels

I love the way this movie was filmed, if not the actual story that was filmed.  The characters in it are so deliberately eccentric that they alienated me from the story they were trying to tell.  Karen Mok gives a brief but memorable performance here, but I think in this instance director Wong Kar-wai's vision of Hong Kong's seedy underbelly could be seen as overreaching itself.  I liked it a lot more than Chungking Express, but it wasn't blowing me away.

Michelle Reis, the Portuguese-Chinese actress who plays the hitman's girlfriend, is insanely hot though.

Some Bad Ones

1. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh

A sequel that adds almost nothing to the original, aside from a yawn-inducing subplot about Candyman having a daughter.  I will say that it's better than I thought it would be, but that's not saying much.

Like the Hellraiser franchise - another Clive Barker property - the Candyman mythos as presented in this movie could have been thought through in more detail.  He could be a good metaphor for white fear of black men, and also of guilt over historical wrongs.  All of this could be potent fuel for a much more powerful horror film that isn't afraid to expose some uncomfortable truths.  Unfortunately Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh isn't that film.

Fun Fact: The 1999 sequel to this movie, Candyman 3: Day of the Dead, was set in the year 2020.

2. Billy Madison

The one where Adam Sandler has to go back and repeat grades 1-12.  When you think about it, the plot of this movie is in some ways very similar to Tommy Boy, which came out the same year, and Chris Farley appears in both movies.  Billy Madison was Sandler's second starring role after 1989's Going Overboard.

3. Major Payne

I get that this movie was made for kids (even more so than Billy Madison above), but even compared to similar fare like Kicking and Screaming it's just not very good.  I thought the bits where Damon Wayans shares anecdotes about combat fatalities were genuinely funny, but he's never convincing in the role and gags involving laxatives just weren't cutting it.

One can't help but wonder how Damon Wayans feels about Jim Carrey.  Both were arguably the stars of TV's surprise hit In Living Color, though Wayans left his big brother's show earlier than Carrey.  Both scored hits in Hollywood early on (Wayans with The Last Boy Scout, Carrey with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective), but decades later only Carrey has sustained the same level of fame.  Racial politics at work, or just different career choices?

Fun Fact: Damon Wayons almost played The Riddler in Batman Forever.  He lost out to - you guessed it - Jim Carrey.

4. Land and Freedom

A young woman learns about her father's time spent fighting the fascists in Spain.  None of the characters in this movie are interesting.  None of them are introduced properly.  It was a real struggle to get through.

5. Aeon Flux: The Complete Series

The third and final season of Aeon Flux was aired on MTV in 1995.  I can remember being mildly intrigued by it during high school, but its mixture of adolescent sexuality and unscientific science fiction hasn't aged well.

6. Now and Then

Four childhood friends reunite in small town U.S.A. years after an eventful summer.  And no, Pennywise isn't in it.

The script for this movie could have used some work.  It's never sure what story it's trying to tell.  Is this a movie about an unsolved murder?  The value of friendship?  About finding an individual identity?  It tries (and fails) to tell all three stories at the expense of coherence.  At times it feels like a girl-centric Stand by Me, but it's not nearly that good.

The chronology also seems a bit off.  Sure, it's rural Indiana, but "All Right Now" on the radio while everyone's dressing like the British Invasion just happened?  Love Story playing at the local drive-in while the Vietnam War seems to have just erupted?  Really not sure if they were going for early 60s, late 60s or early 70s.  One of the characters says 1970, but the historical details don't seem to add up.

7. Total Eclipse

Leonardo DiCaprio in that weird place between What's Eating Gilbert Grape and Titanic.  In Total Eclipse he stars as the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, with David Thewlis as his conflicted lover and fellow poet Paul Verlaine.  There is ZERO chemistry between the two leads, and we're never given much reason to care about either of them.

8. Assassins

Better than I remembered, but still not great.  Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas star as two hitmen trying to kill each other, with Julianne Moore as a tech-savvy Seattleite with little regard for her own personal safety.  I was surprised to learn that Richard Donner directed this, and also that the script was written by the Wachowskis.  As it is you can see glimpses of a much better movie in this one, but it's a dud nevertheless.

Fun Fact: Both of the Wachowski brothers are sisters now.  Assassins and The Matrix were the first of their scripts purchased by a studio, though Assassins was almost completely rewritten by another writer after purchase.

Not Just Bad.  REALLY Bad.

1. Tank Girl

NOW I know why I hadn't seen this movie.  Lori Petty stars as the titular Tank Girl, with Malcolm McDowell playing a villain who reminded me a lot of Shredder.  Tank Girl makes you feel sorry for Lori Petty, who is consistently upstaged by animated sequences that are better than the actual movie.  It also makes you feel sorry for Ice-T and whoever else is buried under all those prosthetics.

Fun (?) Fact: This movie has a dedicated cult following.  I have no idea why.  Are we in such need of onscreen examples of "feminism" that we need resort to Tank Girl?

So Bad It's Good

1. Species

This movie asks you to believe two impossible things: 1) that Natasha Henstridge would have trouble getting laid in L.A. and 2) that Ben Kingsley's elite team of alien hunters are halfway competent.  Oh, and the CGI in this movie looks even more terrible in 2020.

In this movie's defense, Henstridge looked great naked and the Giger-designed dream sequences still look creepy.

2. Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter?  The first Street Fighter arcade game came out a lot earlier, and I maintained a certain loyalty to that series.  This, and even in high school the violence in Mortal Kombat seemed gratuitous to me.

The movies?  I think Jean-Claude Van Damme's Street Fighter was more genuinely bad than Mortal Kombat, but this might not be to Mortal Kombat's credit.  I can watch Street Fighter today and truly enjoy its badness, while Mortal Kombat's relative goodness makes it harder for me to get into.

Director Paul Anderson built quite a career on this movie.  Event Horizon, Resident Evil, and several other movies were all made possible by the success of this film.  Is it good?  Definitely not, but it is representative of the time period.

Fun Fact 1: Cameron Diaz was originally cast as Sonya Blade in this movie, but had to drop out due to a wrist injury.

Fun Fact 2: Jean-Claude Van Damme turned down the role of Johnny Cage to play Guile in Street Fighter.

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Some Other Movies From 1995

I thought it over, and I'm pretty sure that in 1995 I was working at Home Depot and living near Green Lake.  It was a good year for me.  I suppose that was the year I learned how to be an adult.

The top 5 movies of 1995 were Toy Story, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Apollo 13, GoldenEye, and Pocahontas.  GoldenEye remains one of the best Bond movies, and it should be noted that it was also directed by Martin Campbell, who later directed Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.  A lot of people think Judi Dench was introduced as Q in the Daniel Craig movies, but her first appearance as the character was in GoldenEye.

Oh, and Se7en came out that year too.  I'd be hard-pressed to say which was better, GoldenEye or Se7en, but they're both indisputably great.  As a huge Bond fan I'm inclined to say GoldenEye, but yeah, Se7en...

Other good movies from 1995 were Braveheart, Leaving Las Vegas, Murder in the First, Apollo 13, The Usual Suspects (big year for Kevin Spacey), 12 Monkeys, Trainspotting, In the Mouth of Madness, The Quick and the Dead, Rob Roy, The Basketball Diaries, Crimson Tide, Kids, Desperado, Showgirls (a very misunderstood movie), Dead Presidents, Casino, Wild Bill and Heat.  It's hard to believe Casino and Heat came out the same year, but then again the early 90s were a good time for gangster movies.

Worst movie?  I'd nominate Batman Forever.  I grew up reading Batman comics, and even I had a hard time focusing on this movie.  Something about it just seemed so all over the place, as if it didn't know what it wanted to be, or why.

Some Good Ones

1. Die Hard with a Vengeance

Surprisingly, I'd never seen this before.  In this one Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson team up to stop Jeremy Irons.  Director John McTiernan uses New York in the way he used the skyscraper in the first movie.  I liked it more than the first one, but then again I've never understood the popularity of the first one.

In a way it's too bad Jeremy Irons is so much older now.  He would have been the perfect choice to play David Bowie whenever that biopic is inevitably made.

2. Ghost in the Shell

Don't bother with the more recent live-action version.  It's boring.  It's like a mountain made out of a molehill, or at best an excuse for Scarlett Johansson to walk around almost-nude.  The original anime is far better, even if the animation looks a bit dated now.  Just get settled in with a nice cup of coffee, because it gets kind of deep.

3. Whisper of the Heart

The complete opposite of Ghost in the Shell in almost every respect.  Where Ghost in the Shell is intellectual, this one's romantic.  Where Ghost in the Shell is action and intrigue, this one's about daily life.  Instead of the cyborgs and AI in Ghost in the Shell, Whisper of the Heart is about junior high school students confronting adulthood.  But both movies are good.  This one's also really sweet, and if you have the patience to make it to the end it will leave you with a very hopeful feeling.

Fun Fact: This anime was produced by Studio Ghibli, the same studio that produced the celebrated Spirited Away.  It was directed by a different person however, and didn't enjoy the same level of success.  A sequel, The Cat Returns, was released in 2002.

4. Tales from the Hood

Inner-city, episodic horror film in the tradition of Creepshow and Tales from the Crypt (below).  I was prepared to hate it, but as it turns out it's really good.  The fourth of the four parts, reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange, is somewhat preachy and obvious, but the first three parts were well done.  I particularly liked the second part, featuring a standout performance by David Alan Grier.

Fun Fact #1: David Alan Grier also appeared in Jumanji (below).  I always felt like that guy should have been more famous.

Fun Fact #2: The sequel, Tales from the Hood 2, was released as recently as 2018.

5. The Cure

Heartwarming and all, but going out into the woods and boiling whatever plants you find will probably kill you at some point.  In The Cure two boys become friends while one of them contends with AIDS.  It's well-acted and suitably understated.

6. Choke

Documentary centered around Rickson Gracie's participation in the Vale Tudo tournament.  It was 1995, so ultimate fighting wasn't really a thing yet, and the sport is referred to as "no-holds-barred fighting," "street fighting," and "freestyle fighting" at different points in the documentary.  I'm still not a huge fan of this sport but the documentary was interesting.

Two That Are Just Alright

1. Dead Man

Predictably arty film by Jim Jarmusch.  Johnny Depp stars as an accountant in a Western frontier town.  Interesting cast, but it moves very slowly and I didn't like it as much as some of Jarmusch's other films.  Reviewers have compared it to Cormac McCarthy's book Blood Meridian but it's not nearly that good.

Fun Fact: This was Robert Mitchum's very last movie.

2. Catwalk

Documentary on the state of fashion in 1995, featuring Christy Turlington.  Being a heterosexual man, I could only enjoy this one so much, but it passes by quickly enough.  Not very much depth to it, however.

Some Bad Ones

1. Friday

Five things about this movie:

     a. Chris Tucker totally carries the whole thing.  I guess Ice Cube could claim he was playing the straight man, but naw - it's Chris Tucker front to back.

     b. It needs more of a plot.  There are some funny bits in it, but in between the funny bits not much happens.

     c. The soundtrack needed work.  Whoever did it needed to think about how a good soundtrack anticipates and builds on the mood of each scene.  As it is, songs come on occasionally and it's always a relief when they do.  There's too much talking over silence.

     d. This movie wasn't, in my opinion, a success in terms of quality.  Yeah it made money, but it's just not very good.  This said, its heart was in the right place, and director F. Gary Gray went on to make much better movies.  At least some of what Ice Cube learned in the making of Friday contributed to the far superior Straight Outta Compton.

     e. This movie's cross-cultural appeal is not to be underestimated.  I watched it with my Taiwanese wife, and she thought it was hilarious.  At first glance it seems very "black," very inner-city, but a lot of what people like about Friday crosses cultural barriers.  My wife grew up in a small farming village not far from the Taiwan Strait, and yet this movie still reminded her of people, places and things from her hometown.

2. Jumanji

It's not so much that the cgi looks so dated, but that the rules of the board-game-turned-real are so arbitrary.  It's hard to stay invested in the plot when from moment to moment literally anything could happen.  As such movies go I think 2005's Zathura was much better, and even the more recent Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is head and shoulders above the original.

I'm just wondering though, which timeline is Jumaji: Welcome to the Jungle set in, exactly?  The one where Robin Williams' parents die or the one where they don't?

3. Hackers

Movie about hackers written by people who didn't know much about hackers, or computers, or law enforcement.  There's a group of good New York fashion victim hackers, and they have to outwit an evil New York fashion victim hacker.  Angelina Jolie is the most famous of the hackers, but in this movie she mostly just walks around and sulks.

Fun Fact: After filming, Jolie and male lead Johnny Lee Miller got married.  They were divorced 18 months later.

4. Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight

Gore with a side of big 'ol titties.  It has the same campy tone as the cable TV show, but as it turns out it's a lot harder to sustain that tone over the course of a 1.5 hour movie.  Billy Zane (!) and William Sadler star.  The plot?  Some nonsense about preventing hell on Earth.

Fun Fact #1: The sheriff's deputy in this movie is played by Johnny Depp's Indian friend in Dead Man.

Fun Fact #2: This movie was supposed to be the second part of a trilogy.  Various production difficulties led to it appearing first, before the proposed first part.  A sequel of sorts, Bordello of Blood, was released a year later.  I have no doubt that Bordello of Blood features even more big 'ol titties, and also a healthy dose of gore.

5. The Scarlet Letter

Demi Moore and Gary Oldman lead this "free adaptation" of the famed Nathaniel Hawthorne story.  It was only three years after Gary Oldman appeared in Bram Stoker's Dracula, so he still had that "erotic" thing going on.  The trouble is that this movie is tedious in the extreme, and it misunderstands the appeal of Hawthorne's (much better) story.

6. Family of Cops

Damn Charles Bronson was a bad actor.  In this one he stars as the head of - you guessed it - a family of cops.  The extremely formulaic script keeps it from spilling over into so-bad-it's-good territory, but it's definitely not great.  

Bronson, by the way, was 74 years old when this movie was filmed.  His last movie was Family of Cops 3 in 1999.  He passed away in 2003.

WTF? (But in a Good Way)

1. Top Dog

Master thespian Chuck Norris and an unbelievably irritating dog team up to solve crimes.  It's only 1.5 hours long and yet manages to make almost no sense at all.  Uh... drugs?  Uh... Neo-Nazis?  Uh... what?

Fun Fact: This film was directed by Chuck Norris' little brother, Aaron Norris.

Straight Horror Cheese

1. The Mangler

Tobe "Texas Chainsaw" Hooper directed this movie about a industrial washing machine that kills people.  The most famous person in the cast is Robert Englund.  Apparently they didn't have enough money in the budget for an actual police uniform for the lead character, and the acting is predictably bad throughout.

I got about halfway through and had to quit.  Between the first death and the foregone conclusion that is the machine's destruction, this movie goes nowhere.

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