30 From 92: My Favorite Films From 1992

    Demon possesed zombies might be kinda easy to kill, but what they lack in resilience, they make up for in numbers. And when their existence is a result of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, those numbers can go far back as far as medivel times. Therefore, mankind's only hope is a time-traveling ncompetant who's only talent is weilding a buzzzaw as an appendage and kicking Deadite Ash.



  Okay, so I get it, why these Evil Dead movies are so beloved by horror nerds who love watching blood and gore in amounts so copious, they’d fill up a whole cabin-ful of buckets.

  However, as someone who prides himself as a hardcore horror fan, the truth is, when I refer to “hardcore”, what I mean is that I’m a stalwart to both ends of the genre, including every subgenre in between. So, in order for a globby gore fest to earn my love, it’s gotta have the kind of script and premise that has not been sacrificed for the sake of making room for the mountains of guts and inards that will be featured within.

  Placing Sam Raimi at the helm is a pretty sure bet that this kind of quality will be there. So, even though it’s not enough to make me a die-hard disciple of this particular brand of sangre subgenre, it is enough to mark each film of the franchise onto a spot of my faves lists of each respective year that they were released.

 After throwing her cheating boyfriend out, software designer Allie Jones puts up an ad looking for a new roommate. One applicant after another comes off as pretty koo-koo, until finally, a single white female shows up and meets all the qualifications of a halfway decent, logical and sane individual. 

  Before he donned the armor of one of the Marvel Universe’s most mainstream mainstays, Iron Man, and became the current avenging darling of Hollywood,
Robert Downey Jr. donned the mustache, cane and over-sized shoes of the universally beloved silent film legend known as Charlie Chaplin.
 A biopic that results from the bloated traits of the early 90’s, Chaplin comes off as a bit over-produced, a bit over-dramatic, but then at the same time, a bit under-written.
 Which really is too bad considering that RDJ was such a perfect fit for this role of one of the earliest megastars of the celluloid medium. With his Oscar-worthy performance (which, IMO, he deserved more that Pacino's overblown "booyah" role that took the prize that year) combined with the right intention that was at the heart of the project, along with the fact that this was a time when biographical films were ruling Hollywood, all the ingredients to making Chaplin a critical and commercial success were there. 
But alas, twas not to be. 
  The end result wasn't a complete failture since the movie is still considered as being "okay", but it does sadden me a bit that to failed to live up to the potential that solidly there. 
 I still return to it occassionally (which is why it's included on this list) mostly just to watch Charlie come alive through Downey's excellent portrayal. And that is the primamry reason I would recommend this movie to anyone, despite it's obvious flaws.

Actually, after placing this movie on this list, I noticed that 1992 saw the release of three psychological thrillers themed around the idea of a fearsome femme fatale (Basic Instinct, SWF and this one). Each one of them a story about women so wacked out, that a hot flash of murderous rage was all it took to make 'em pick up a sharp object and wield it in a manner that makes their male counterparts all look like a buncha bitchez.



I guess for 1992, that "time of the month" was one that lasted all year long.

Okay, I know he got razzed alot for this performance, but I liked it alot. When I look at footage of Jimmy Hoffa, Jack looks and sounds in this film very much like the infamously corrupted union leader.
But since I'm not only in the minority with this opinion, I'll just end my thoughts on this now so that the attention of anyone who reads this will disappear as as silently and quickly as Hoffa's body.

In order for Hollywood to cash in on the subject of infidelity, they almost always romanticize the affair in a manner where the cheaters are revealed to be made for each other and those people who were being cheated on were either jerks or just not the right fit for the relationship.
Here's a movie that takes a high level tryst, depicts it with the kind of unabandoned passion that fuels our guilty pleasured desires to watch it as a piece of cinema, then unsparingly presents a no holds barred look at the devastating results then tend to unfold afterwards.
Damage is the name of the movie, and after watching it, it's real easy to see why.

On the streets, the only way to survive,
is if you got the power & the respect.
In other words, you gotta have da juice.
Once you got da juice, den you gotta get the crew to back you up.
No juice,
no crew,
no chance.
A'ight?

  What we have here is a movie adaptation about the godfather of all vampires by the man responsible for giving us the godfather of all movies, The Godfather. While he does manage to include a short sement that displays the primary character's life before he developed a taste for blood and a quick origin story, Francis Ford Coppola attempts to translate Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, onto the big screen in the most literal adaptation that the film industry has done so far. 



  In my list of favorite films of all time, I have The Godfather in my number one spot. I absolutely love that flick and have watched it literaly at least a hundred times. However, despite that it was expertly directed by Coppola, the truth is that I wasn’t all that "stoked" about seeing this movie. Because even though the first half of his career during the 70's was filled with one masterpiece after another (the first two Godfathers, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now, etc.) by the time that the 80s arrived, the quality of FFC's films  were incrementally going down. As the 90's began, he pretty much had garnered a reputation as a genius director who had focused so much of his high level creative energy into his earlier works that his pool of talent had become pretty much drained dry.

  So on the weekend that his version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out, I really expected it to be a critical and commercial bomb.

   Needless to say, that’s not the way it turned out. Financially, the movie did well, but as the kind of artistic cinema that put his name on the map, it didn't do anything to untarnish what his career had become. in trying to adapt the project as close to the book as close as possible failed to contribute in any way to the Count's adaptability to the big screen, negatively or positively. All it succeeded in doing was to demonstrate how bland the material is outside of its book form. There were two primary things that saved this movie for me, and thus has allotted this spot in my list.... the cast, and even more importantly, the art direction. 
  With names like Gary Oldman, Winona Rider, Anthony Hopkins, and Tom Waits, even though the script didn’t really allow them to exercise their chops to the level that they usually do, they were a group of talented actors, who had fun with there rolls,and as a result, brought an energy that was able to overcome such a nondescript script. (The exception to all of these guys was obviously Keanu Reeves. But, in the same way that FFC miscast his own daughter in the third Godfather movie, he did the same to Reeves here in this one.) That charismatic energy is doubled by the look of the whole production. The the background sets and the costumes are so beautifully designed, detailed, and vibrant, that this movie exudes a Gothic atmosphere that shimmers and jumps off the screen. This version of the Dracula tale had the potential to be by far the greatest adaptation of Bram Stoker’s most infamous corpuscle consuming character. But while it failed to achieve such a high level that many people, including myself, expected it to be, in the end, it’s still quite an intriguing look into the fictional lore of that one bloodsucker that all other vampires will be eternally compared to.

Yeah, I know that Mr. Pacino won an Academy Award for this role. But, to be honest, I thought that his performance as a blind, curmudgeony war vet was a tad over the top, not to mention, a bit overrated.
And yeah, while I agree that Al was in high octane form, still, I felt that the Oscar was awarded more because of an accumulation of years of developing his "loud screen persona", something which, IMO at least, has reached the level of consistently being "too much". Besides, I much more enjoy watching an actor, especially a seasoned one like A-Pac, bring a fresher approach to a role than the same-ol' same-ol' of which has become their standard signature.
All that said, Scent Of A Woman is still an enjoyable journey of eye-opening inner-discovery and burgeoning friendship between two people of different chemistry.

Tita and Pedro are a young couple deeply in love with each other. However, as the youngest daughter of a traditional Mexican family, Tita's clandestined obligations prevent her from ever entering the institution of marriage. It is a frustration which reveals itself as a preternatural ability for cooking food that, when consumed, results in not your normal post gastronomical behavior. Thus begins a complex, passionate, forbidden affair that flows like "water for chocolate". And what does that mean exactly?
To be honest, I don't know. But it sounds good. Particularly for a mystic tale of unrequited love from down below the border.

Do you like movies that feature bullets, babies, lots of all-out, gun-toting action that don't come sunny-side up?
Then this is the film for you.

Many of the younger members of this site might not know this, but there was a time back in the early 90's where Whoopi Goldberg was the biggest female box office draw for the movies. She had begun garnering an up-slope of attention with films like The Color Purple and the romantic thriller Ghost. But it was flying solo with her Sister Act (Whoop, there it is) that finally proved that the browless comedienne had the ability to get people to purchase theater tickets. In it, the visually offbeat Mz. Goldberg acts as a sista who acts like a sister in order to hide from the mob and to help a group of nuns find their soul.

To be totally honest,
even though she did appear in a couple of films in which her thespian skillz are evident (Casino, The Muse),
the truth is, I was never really all that impressed with Sharon Stone's acting ability.
In this film however, I think that the character of Catherine Tramell provides the ultimate role of sexy-over-substance that is the essence of Stone's style early in her career. She seems to be able to effortlessly portray a woman who knows that the only way to grab onto the balls of a man's world is not so much to be a lady,
but to be an in-yo-face femme fatale who has enough cajonas to casually display even her most basic instinct.

I love the title of this movie (although that's not the main reason it's on this list.... it really is a good movie). It's a phrase that, for a film that is about love transcending distances, can easily be metaphorically analogous on so many levels. Even taken as a literal meaning, it works well in the context of a love story.
As a man, and I think I speak for alot of guys out there when I say this, I can honestly say that if a woman were able to take an X-ray snapshot of the map that makes up my respiratory system, she would instantly be able to recognize that the quickest route to my human heart, is through my stomach.

Okay, I grew up in Aurora, Ill..
Which is supposed to be the town where these two characters live in.
So, we Aurorans were pretty excited when we first heard that there was a movie being made featuring the most famous "native" sons from our neck of the suburbs.
As it turns out, even though the plot-line of this flick supposedly takes place in the "City Of Lights" (it's what we like to call our town), the representation of our fabled town is just that.... a fable.
Not an ounce of Aurora appears in this move because not an ounce of the movie was filmed here (heck, there's even one driving scene where you can actually see palm trees in the background).
Guess Lorne Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live and Wayne's World deemed our fair city as just too unworthy.

What do you get when you put acclaimed director and auteur Robert Altman together with a biting screenplay that sharply satires the kind of sleazy deals and backstabbing politics that lets the big time behind the scenes players of the Hollywood system get away with murder?
You get a critics' darling of a movie that features one of the longest line-up of cameo appearances ever caught on film, that's what.

The Bad Lieutenant isn't standard Keitel. This is intense Keitel ( and, as anyone who's seen this movie knows, it's also BRAVE Keitel..... yikes! ). Harvey as a raw, gritty, corrupt, perverted and redempting avenger. And those are alot adjectives to try and fill in just one role. Something that very few actors manage to pull off (and if there's any kind of pun in that statement, believe me, it was unintentional).

A town comes together for one of their own.
Well....
one of their own that came "outta the the abandoned basement of society", which we have all seem to deny exists. Until, the media comes arunnin' to shine it's light of "subjective truth" upon it.
A story that starts out macabrely weird and ends up macabrely moving.

An early leading role for Russell Crowe's then budding career as he plays the leader of a hardcore gang of skinheads who roam the streets from "down undah" and who revel in beating up "foreigners" and robbing the well-to-do's who have forsaken their blue collar hertiage.
Romper Stomper is a story that takes a look at a group of neo-Nazis and reveals the kind of mindset that have them viewing themselves as just a group of lads taking any opportunity to dish out some good ol' wholesome Aussie racial violence whenever they can....

Way before The Blair Witch Project popularized the hand-held camera genre,
there was the project known as Man Bites Dog. Or, as the French put it,
It Happened in Your Neighborhood.
Under either title, this film may not feature a witch (heck, it doesn't even feature a man-bitten dog),
but it's still pretty high on the chillingly creepy factor.
In a plot that revolves around the concept of "found footage", MBD colorfully chronicles the documented days of the "mundane" life of a colorfully charismatic serial killer.
All told in vivid black and white.

Four years before the man with the hickest name in Hollywood, Billy Bob Thornton, made a big splash with his lead role of a mentally disabled backwoods southerner in Sling Blade, he wrote and starred as the bad guy in One False Move. Featuring a cast of relatively unknowns (with the exception of Bill Paxton), this film was originally slated for the straight-to-home-video bins, but the end result was considered to be so good, that it was given a theatrical release instead. And while it didn't make that many waves at the box office, it did turn out to be one the best regarded thrillers to come out in years.

What the movie Colors did for the gangsta lifestyle on the streets, American Me did for the gangsta lifestyle in the "joint".
This one is the raw and gritty fictionalized depiction of how the penitentiary lifestyle combined with the growing numbers of the hispanic gang community within it's yards led to the beginning and then the rise of the Mexican Mafia within the California prison system.
Based on the true story of criminal organization known as La Eme.

Definitely a most underrated favorite film of mine.

My Cousin Vinny comes in as my favorite Joe Pesci of all time and as the second of two really good courtroom "dramas" of 1992. In actuality, it's obviously more of a comedy than it is a drama and it has a bit of a formula plot, bit it's a formula that works in the way that a good formula plot is supposed to work. A plot-line with an unplausable situation but with enough strikes at all the chords of the suspendibilty beliefs along with it's fair share of laughs, that it can comes off as almost believable.
Not to mention that Marissa Tomei not only steals the show, also looks as hot that she ever has have in any movie.

With the "Big One" raging over a major part of the world, and most of "our boys" overseas doing their bit, its up to the gals to hold down the fort and help keep the home front moving forward, despite it's lack of manpower. Even when it comes to the game of baseball, the diamond field is no exception. It's time for the ladies to jock up and step behind the plate and make sure that America's favorite pastime keeps on swinging.



In a game that's mostly associated with male players, it's ironic that a film which focuses on the women's first professional entry into the sport, would be the one that, for me, truly captures the feeling which best reflects of why this sport is truly an American past-time: And that is that the purpose of a game is, no matter how political events on a global scale may be turbulently transpiring, we can all just escape for a little while by catching a ballgame. And then, when it's over, we can hopefully return into the real world with our spirits a little bit higher and our perspectives a little bit clearer. Because, as we all know by now,
there is no crying in baseball.

Because of the severe financial restraints of this picture, the story of the the guitar-strumming, gun-toting wanderer known as El Mariarchi is forced to be told thru the creativity of all-out action in it's purest, most unadulterated form. I think that there should be a law requiring that all big budget action films be shot and directed with as much energy and fun as in this sparsely financed dynamo, before even one cent of the million dollars of special effects is spent.
Cool, violent and high-octane action-adventure in all it's bared-boned glory.

I tell ya....
friggin Jack Nicholson in this movie,
in a role that plays perfectly to his strengths. A mean ol' sunuvabitch with a focused confidence, a black heart and a wry look that you know he wears whether he's describing a blowjob from a female officer or warding off bullets from Cuban snipers in defense of this great country and, more importantly, of his military career. Nicholson does this to such a successful degree, that even though he doesn't really have all that much screen time in this film, the face of Col. Jessup in the witness chair is usually the 1st. image that comes up when this movie is mentioned. And as always, the mark of a great performance is to be able to deliver a line that ends up becoming a part of the culture. And if you don't agree with that, there can only be one reason why:
because "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!"

A mexican stand-off. Pop culture laden discussions. Casual cursing with machine gun rapidity. A mixed bag collection of songs that could only be found on a cassette that was taped by some nerd boy who collects comic=books, works in an indie video or record store and thinks that guns are bad-ass.
All the elements that would qualify a film as being described as "Tarantinoesque".
And this is where it all started.

"That watch costs more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy, I don't give a shit. Good father, fuck you! Go home and play with your kids! You wanna work here, close! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get on a sit?"

"A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing."



A great ensemble cast of actors that seem to all have their acting knobs turned on high.
Kevin Spacey as a sharky character that is his strong suit, the ever reliable Ed Harris and Alan Arkin, the honorable Mr. Jack Lemmon, and in the midst of a cache of strong thespian contributions, is Al Pacino, who seems to really shine as a ruthless real estate salesman that spews pitches with an almost Shakespearian venom.
And only a really good performance can cause a simpleton like me to spew forth a sentence like that.

In my opinion, this is the role that should've won Mr. Washington the Oscar, even more so than Training Day. In this movie, Denzel is Malcolm X. This is one of those rare instances where an actor actually becomes the person whom he is portraying. Denzel Washington transforms himself into the man who went from being a small time crook named "Little", into the larger than life civil rights leader named "X".
A great biopic that intrinsically depicts the spiritual journey and it various transitions that led a singular letter in the alphabet to become a part of American history books.
Definitely my favorite Spike Lee Joint.

"That's right. I'm Will Munny and I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill......"




He was once a real tough hombre who was good with a gun and wasn't afraid to use it.
But now, after so many years of trying to build a "normal life" away from that of the wild, wild west, Will Munny comes to realize that when times get hard, old habits, even in old cowboys, die hard.
Push all the right buttons, and the habits of a killer are just like riding a bike (or in this case, riding a horse)...... he never forgets.

The manner in which Clint Eastwood portrays the icon of the ol' western gunslinger here, as a man with a mysterious past which he would preferred to be completely forgotten, yet ultimately, as always, it's a past that comes to haunt him. A tortured soul who has become "broken" by domesticity, his demons are bought back to life one more time when he comes to rely on them for the survival of the redemptive life he has built.
Is it any wonder how this film could've easily been been titled "The Final Chapter Of The Man With No Name.... But Now He Given Him A Name."