As a means of introduction and as bit of a writing exercise, I have decided to begin counting down my top ten films of each year. I’m starting with 1994 as this is the first year of my life where I started to think about things like who made the films I was watching, what made them good, what made them bad, and how they ranked when compared to one another. In many ways, these are the films that created the change in the way I think and first shaped my critical eye. Of course these lists are ever changing as I both see more films and hone my opinion making process. I’m sure the lists will grow more sophisticated as the years go on. For now though, here are the ten best films I’ve seen that were released in 1994...
Alex Proyas’ gothic/zombie/kung fu actioner was a precursor to the slick, dark visuals of his 1998 film Dark City and even later the pleather covered martial arts displays of The Matrix. At its heart it’s a simple revenge film. The main character and his wife are killed by a group of street thugs and after a bit of voodoo resurrection he is able to come back as an unstoppable ass-kicking monster and take them out one at a time. At the time of its release I was 13 years old and The Crow was just about the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. It is movies like this that make kids roll around town wearing wallet chains and all black, looking like little miscreants; but I guess we can’t hold the follies of youth against the filmmakers. As an adult, how does it hold up? Pretty good, really. Sure, it seems a lot less edgy and hip, but the action is all very well done and there’s something cathartic about the simple set up/pay off structure of a good old fashioned revenge film.
9-PCU ***
The early 90s had a dearth of shallow, juvenile college party movies like Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds from the decades previous. Luckily for everyone, PCU burst onto the scene to fill that all too important void. Not only did it have everything that a college movie needs to offer, the party animal protagonists, the crusty old Dean of students, the preppy asshole fraternity guys; but it was also delightfully of it’s time inserting grunge rockers and the ridiculous, politically correct zeitgeist of the 90s into the already familiar party movie tropes. Plus, it had an awesome cast rounded out by a still fat Jon Favreau and a still bald Jeremy Piven. You know, the way they should be. Bottom line, you know you’ve stumbled across a movie worth watching when naked guy shows up in it. Naked guy, excellent butt.
8-Forrest Gump ****
Forrest Gump hit the film world with the force of that meteor that killed off the dinosaurs. From 8 year-old to old lady, everyone was laughing and crying along with Gump’s semi-retarded antics. From it’s oft quoted “Life is like a box of chocolates…” tagline to it’s overstuffed to bursting classic rock soundtrack Gump offered up a truckload of stuff that people just loved. It has taken on a bit of a reputation as being substance free fluff in recent years, but the fact remains that everyone saw this movie, everyone loved it, and there is a whole host of lines that I quote from it to this day. Tom Hanks was completely masterful here, taking a cartoony, over the top role and playing it with such heart and such a straight face that you couldn’t help but become emotionally involved in his exploits. Before
7-The Shawshank Redemption ****
If you could take a poll of everyone in the world I think that there’s probably a good chance more people name The Shawshank Redemption as their favorite film than any other. Much like Forrest Gump, Shawshank is a film that was just loved by everybody. Over the years and through constant cable replays Shawshank has become part of the tapestry of modern culture that everyone shares. What’s most surprising about it is that a movie so universally embraced by the unwashed masses can also be really good. From the cinematography, to the performances, to the script, everything that Shawshank gives us is just top notch. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman carved out iconic characters for themselves and probably earned about 100 jobs each based on their roles here. It’s not one that I can revisit very often due to its massive overplaying back in its prime, but I also can’t help but recognize everything it did well.
6-The Hudsucker Proxy ****
Hudsucker is one of the few truly maligned films in the Coen Brother’s catalogue and for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Here Robbins pulls a complete 180 from his calm, collected role in The Shawshank Redemption by playing a gangly, bumbling buffoon with true physical comedy flair. A weird throwback to classic cinema, Hudsucker has everything you would want from a film that exists in a strange 1940s parallel universe; fast talking His Girl Friday dames, cigar chomping newspaper writers, magical old black men, weasely elevator operators; you name it! Take strong leading performances by Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, sprinkle in fun turns by genre staples like John Mahoney, Bruce Campbell, and Bill Cobbs, and then top it all of with a scenery chewing delight of a villainous turn by the God-King of awesome Paul Newman; wrap it all up with the Coen’s wit and absurdity, and then present it with stunning visuals and you have a damn strong effort in my book. What’s the problem with this one, people?
5-True Lies ****
True Lies is James Cameron at his excessive, nihilist best. In many ways all of the over the top action films of the 80s and early 90s led up to this moment with Arnold Schwarzenegger blowing things up in absurdly expensive and absurdly beautiful ways. The hard R rating is still here, the one-liners are still in tact, but it’s all presented with a wink and a nod; injecting a life and fun feel that many terrorist battles lack. If Last Action Hero hadn’t been a massive failure it would have looked like True Lies. It’s true that Cameron’s earlier work T2 is probably his best and quite possibly the crown jewel of the entire action genre, but T2 is still a hard line genre film aimed at a relatively niche audience. True Lies had the promise to appeal to a broader audience. It had humor, it had well-rounded female characters, it showed a possibility for a future of huge budgeted, R rated action movies that could pull in record box office numbers and be enjoyed by people from all walks of life. Unfortunately, that promise never developed into reality and the action genre has now been on it’s last legs for quite a while; but we’ll always have True Lies, that one last shining example of how exciting it can be to watch muscled up men cursing, blowing things up, and shooting each other in the head.
4-Ed Wood ****
Ed Wood is far and away my favorite Tim Burton film and one of the few bio-pics that I truly enjoy. This is one of the rare projects where Burton was able to point his flair for the visual in a different direction other than creating a mind bending, gothic fantasy world. His subject here was 50s era Hollywood, and what he creates is an absolute joy to behold. Wood was the first pairing of Burton with actor Johnny Depp since their iconic work on Edward Scissorhands, and sadly it would be their peak as after the magic of this one wore off, each subsequent time they worked together adhered to a law of diminishing returns. Depp is enthralling here, just coming into that phase of his career where people started calling him the best actor of his generation and clearly allowing himself to be completely absorbed by the character he was playing. I can’t explain for sure what happened to Burton as a filmmaker after this, but in my eyes he has gone from a hugely talented auteur to a one trick pony that makes films devoid of any real heart or feeling. I imagine the difference is, quite simply, that Ed Wood was the last time he was paired with a truly great script. The results are exceptional.
3-Clerks ****
The making and distribution of Clerks is one of the amazing Cinderella stories in Hollywood history. A no-name slacker from New Jersey maxes out his credit cards, films an ultra low budget film with hardly any crew and only local actors, and somehow he ends up becoming a huge name in the entertainment world and sparking a new wave of independent filmmaking that has shaped the last fifteen years or so of films in general. Distributing Clerks is one of the first moves that put Miramax and the Weinsteins on the map. It helped them build an archetype for the types of films they would make and promote over the course of the next decade earning them both critical and box office acclaim and spawning countless imitators. Clerks survived and thrived on its script alone. There were no good visuals, no real strong performances; but the voice that was inherent in Kevin Smith’s words was so strong, so fresh, that it refused to be ignored and created an unheard of buzz and appreciation for such an amateur product. Though it hasn’t aged as well as one might hope, Clerks is still an entertaining watch and an important benchmark in modern film history.
2-Léon ****
Luc Besson gained international acclaim with his 1990 film La Femme Nikita, but he really earned success in the United States with this one, a charming tale of a 12 year-old girl and her hired assassin. Léon didn’t just introduce the US to the directing talents of Besson, but also to the acting chops of Jean Reno. Reno plays the title character, a cold blooded killer who has his life plan thrown off track when he has to take a young girl under his wing and start acting like a father figure. The on screen chemistry he has with a 12 year-old Natalie Portman is astounding. So much so that studio execs deemed many of their scenes together too much for American audiences, and a sanitized version was the first released over here under the title The Professional. The Professional is Léon with its heart cut out. The film is the relationship between Reno and Portman, and the version we got is repurposed as a much more generic actioner. So it’s the international version that makes my list, a film that introduced me to the acting talents of not just Portman and Reno, but was also my first real exposure to Gary Oldman chewing scenery in superstar fashion. Léon tells a beautiful story, is beautifully shot, has moments of charm and humor, moments of thrilling action, and is overall just a damn good film.
1-Pulp Fiction *****
Probably no other film from the last two decades has had as much impact and influence on the filmmaking world as Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino showed promise as a new voice in Hollywood with his debut film Reservoir Dogs, but here he took things to a whole other level. Pulp Fiction was the other, much larger, side of the indy movement coin to Clerks. It had buzz, it won awards, it both created an entire genre of fast talking, gun toting impersonators and had everyone talking about the Scorcese and Coppola led film movement of the 70s. Pulp Fiction revived the career of John Travolta and launched the careers of countless other actors. It was visually inventive, played with story structure, created memorable characters, and was infinitely quotable. Though I liked Jackie Brown a lot, and was impressed by stretches of Inglorious Basterds, I still feel that Pulp Fiction is Tarantino’s masterpiece. More than any other film it got me into film as art, and for that I will always be indebted to it.
