35 From 94: My Favorite Films From 1994

To be quite honest, I'm not as big a fan of Anne Rice's depiction of vampires as most people are. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with her writing, just on whar her concept is of those classic freatures of folklore who maintain their "dead" immortality thru the sustenance of human blood.
Since it would take several paragraphs to explain the specifics of those elements that I take issue with, I won't go into it here. But, whatever those specifics are, it is not to say that I think her ideas do not translate into pretty decent films.
Interview With a Vampire definitely isn't one of my top movies about long-lived bloodsuckers, but with it's depiction of the emotions and mindsets of those who are forever trapped within the dark, supernatural, and according to Rice, decadent lifestyles of vampirism, it does contain an interesting and entertaining view into a lore of horror that most other films tend to get kinda lazy and/or subjectively sloppy about.

A modern day Bonnie and Clyde, Mallory and Mickey are a young couple madly in love with each other and who both share a driving passion for high octane adventure. So they hit the road on an interstate search for crime and killery (I know, I know, that's not even a word....) and experience a maniacal journey filled with media obsessed popularity and effed up serial killing shenanigans.
Two lovers on the lam whose hunger for each is outmatched only by their thirst for blood.

A porn flick that has to be seen to be believed. This is one of those rare cases where the term "legend" is not used loosely. And neither is the word "fist".



Oh wait....
I think I might be getting this mixed up with another movie......

Listen, while I've got my fair share of a dark side within me, my life will never be the subject matter of a movie like Natural Born Killers. To be honest, the only thing I've ever killed alot of is time, coming up with all these lists on this site.
So my experiences with snuffing out the life-force of countless of other individuals human beings is about as close to nil as possible.
Still, even with my severe lack of bodycounts, even I know that a shallow grave will always lead to one getting caught.
So remember all you young budding sociopaths out there, when it comes to hiding bodies effectively,
ya gotta dig deep, kids.

On an Italian island so small that there are no automobiles, a local and dissatisfied fisherman looks for other, more "exciting" forms of employment. So he becomes the island's sole postman. With only one customer: a famous poet from Chile exiled to the island for political reasons. A friendship soon develops between the two, and the postman soon finds out the power that poetry has to change one's life.
A small piece of cinema about quiet people in remote circumstances who yearn for more expansion, not so much in their physical surroundings, but in their hearts, minds and souls.

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 Two separate stories about two different police officers, each trying to deal with their situations of heartbreak.
Even though Chungking Express deals with matters of the heart, it's not really a romance movie. It's a film about dealing with the concept of love.
The usual formula of love isn't followed in the premise, and instead, it is left almost ambiguous on what the people involved are feeling towards each other. These are couples that are definitely looking for love, but in the midst of the dense crowds of Hong Kong, they are lonely rangers whose definition on how to couple are as jumbled and stagnant as the jungled buildings of the city in which they reside.
Express is a film that uses the visual imagery of background colors and the kinetic energy of a hand held camera to help charge this story of emotional yearning through the subtle yet tangled search for a "partner in crime".

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 Back during my college days, the whole time that I was enrolled, I probably consumed enough beer so as to qualify me as some sort of a drunken master.
 But through my lack of training and discipline, I was never enough of a master to be able to fight in any kind of a kung fu battle whilst in this alleviated state of inebriation. Particularly in any manner that allowed me to use every piece of furniture, silverware and/or knick-knacks that was in my immediate disposal in a cool offensive style like Jackie Chan does in this movie.
 But, I was always drunk enough to at least think I could.

For any of you gals out there reading this, if you've ever wondered just how you should behave in order to get any man to do your bidding, no matter how sinister, and get away with it while setting it up so that the guy entirely takes the fall, this is the movie to see.
The Last Seduction isn't just a movie about a manipulative bitch, it's a movie about being the ultimate manipulative bitch.
Linda plays the aforementioned manipulative bitch to such an extent, that I truly hated her in this role. And I mean that in a good way. I love her for for being able to take this role and using it to manipulate my masculine feelings to the point that makes me her hate at to such a high level that I did.
Rarely does any actor, male or female, make being a bad person look this good.

Muriel is overweight, socially awkward and a pathological day dreamer. One day, after meeting a fellow outcast, she begins taking steps to improve her situation. Using her pathological day dreams as a blue print, she starts by moving outta her small town into the big city and then changing her name from Muriel to Mariel. And it's all uphill from there. That is, from Muriel's/Mariel's point of view it is. To the rest of the world, it's a downhill spiral full of delusion, deception, and lots 'n' lots of ABBA music.



Actually, to be truthfully honest, the only reason this is on my list is cuz ...well...I really like ABBA's music.
And sayin' that does just not make my pimp-ass any less hairier.
So, you know....
shut up.

An eccentric cartoonist who takes the idea of artistic integrity to it's most purest/extremist definition, the aptly named Robert Crumb paved his own unique way through the underground side of comicbooks (or "comix", as that part of the medium likes to refer to itself). Watching this guy talk about how he practically discovered his sexuality by riding his aunt's leg as a child, one can easily come to the conclusion of just how "weird" Crumb is. And yet, once you "meet" the rest of his family, it becomes painfully obvious that it is he who comes off as the most normal one of the bunch.

The machinations behind the printing press and the kinds of coming and going-ons that take place in and out of the offices in order to make sure that the latest news makes it to the earliest editions.
A forgotten Ron Howard production with a quality squad of performances by names such as Robert Duvall, Marissa Tomei, Michael Keaton and Glenn Close.

Up in the capital city of Canada, there is a strip club aptly called Exotica. While many customers pay their way in just to receive a small thong full of titillation from the dancers, there are a few that go there because they hunger for a different kind of attention. Attention with repercussions that can weave it's way throughout the club, beyond the dancers, customers and employees, and out into the lives outside the walls meant to contain these private personal yearnings. Thus revealing a connection that extends far beyond the boundaries of what is normally considered exotica.

After a certain "job" goes downhill, a hitman for the New York mob finds himself back in the old neighborhood of his youth. Utilizing the character traits of his acting abilities, Tim Roth is at his zenith as the connected assassin who realizes that with the type of occupational hazards of his livelihood, "you can never go home again" is a saying that truly hits home for him. And that there is always some kind of collected baggage in the family closet, even for a stone cold killer. Baggage which can easily result for some serious payback in his line of work.

With the AIDS virus coursing through his body, Andrew Beckett is a man who's conditions demonstrates the homophobic attitude courses through the legal system. And to represent his case, ends up hiring the only person willing to to take up the challenger; a small time lawyer with the same anti-gay attitude that started up the trouble to begin with.



After building up a career as a comedic actor with movies like Bachelor Party, Splash and Big (not to mention his stint as a bosomy buddy on TV), Tom Hanks sets out to prove that he can take on serious roles too. And then proves it by winning two Academy Awards in a row.

Hoop Dreams is a quality documentary that follows the detailed ups & downs that can come from trying to move up in the world of basketball. Here, the process is captured by following the real lives of two promising high school players as they try to reach for the promise that their favorite sport can potentially offer.

A roundtable of british actors make another almost typical romantic comedy, but one who's formula is easily disguised by it's fun script, it's group chemistry of friendship and it's smart depiction of each character's shared common longing for romance.
Plus, it's a got a kissing in the rainfall scene.
Which, as any guy knows, makes Four Weddings And A Funeral the type of chick-flick that, on a first date, will always help to increase your chances of getting laid, no matter what side of the pond you're on.

I was a fan of the Mask back when hardly anyone knew anything about the comic book.
So for me, it was kind of surprising when I heard that a movie about this character was going to be released.



Now, since superhero movies were just starting to finally prove to be able to generate attendance from the general public, I knew that there was no way they were going to be able to translate the dark humor and the violent tone of the comic for the silver screen, so I just assumed that out of necessity, Hollywood was just to completely re-invent the character, and Hollywood being Hollywood, would just completely eff it up.
However, they somehow were able to make this reinvention work for the medium of a live action movie. Not perfectly, mind you, but with the bizarre ingredients that were required for the basis of this weird, reality-altering anti-hero, it came off pretty well and pretty consistent. While the Mask doesn't hold the weight of any of its comic book colleagues of this genre, it held it's own enough to be successful at the box office and not spawn the ire of nerds like me who, especially at the time, just wanted to see these kinds of films earn a little more respect.

Every Sunday evening, the grown girls of a chef's family convene at the dinner table for a feast of food, beverage and conversation of the latest news in each of the sibling's lives. Which, for the aged cook, usually translates to how the modern ways are constantly challenging the traditions of the old ways. It's enough to give and old man indigestion. Or at least gas.
The third installment to what is often loosely referred to as the "Father Knows Best" trilogy, Eat Drink Man Woman was one of the seminal films to the international rising star of director Ang Lee.

After watching this film, I was so inspired, that I decided, on a whim, to go running all the way across the country. However, by the time I reached the end of my block, I was so devastatingly winded, and I was weezing so desperately for air, that I thought for sure, my left lung must've collapsed in on itself.
So, instead, I just reminded myself that "stupid is as stupid does", then I went back into my house and ate an entire "box of chawk-letts".
Which, of course, is what life is kinda like.

One of those rare times that I like the film version of the character than the one in the comicbook.
Because in the movie, the Crow's a Goth who actually has the ability to kick your ass. Which makes the Crow the epitome of an oxymoron. Which, of course, is something that I would never say to his face.
I mean, y'know.... if I was character in the movie or somethin'.

An excellent update that effectively captures the style that gave the original series of Maverick it's distinctive feel that separated it from other western series at the time.
Mel Gibson does a capable job of modernizing the lead character,
while Jodie Foster shows that for someone who has developed a reputation as a serious award winning actress, she can also fit comfortably into a light comedy roll as a sultry Southern Belle whose ability to nick is equals in her power to allure.

Zed is a professional bank robber who gets into a caper which begins to go wrong (of course), and must turn against his fellow thieves in order to survive (as it turns out, thieves aren't as thick as the old saying would have you believe).
Can he save his own skin without killing Zoe.
"Who's Zoe?" you ask?
Zoe's a hooker who Zed slept with the night before and with whom he ends up developing feelings for...
and who, by sheer coincidence, works by day as a teller at the bank that's giving ol' Zed and his bank robbing buddies all the trouble.
Talk about a complicated relationship....!

True Lies is a true live action flick from back at a time when James Cameron's work always seemed to kick ass.
And back when Ahnold was a true action star, who worked out to get the kind of body that could kick ass.
And back when Jamie Lee Curtis was a true babe who also worked out so that her booty would kick ass.
And back when Tom Ahnold's acting never worked out with a body was just plain fat ass.
And that ain't no lie.

The d00d from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure in another most excellent adventure, but this time about a bus speeding so outta control, that not even constantly dinging the bell would be enough to make it stop.

The Three Colours Trilogy was an emotional and ambitious project for famed Polish director Krzystof Kielowski in which he aimed to create three stories based on the three political ideals in the motto of the French Republic: liberty, equality, fraternity. Which is why each film is titled on the colors of the French flag (Blue, White and Red).
Taking on the subject of equality as it's theme, White tells the tale of a man named Karol Karol, who after losing literally everything in his life, embarks on a series of acts with hopeful result of setting his life aright.



Despite some of it's darker plot elements and unlike it's movie brothers, White takes a lighter approach in it's unfolding of it's machinations (which may be due to it's color scheme). Considered as the "weakest" of the three Colours, it is nevertheless still regarded as one of the best films to come out of the year 1994.

My favorite cast of Tim Burton's films.
Of course there's Johhny Depp (surprise surprise....),
Martin Landau in his Oscar winning role,
along with Bill Murray (in his most non-Murrayesque role to date),
George "The Animal" Steele (a former wrestler with a literal taste for turnbuckles),
and that one Sex In The City chick (the one who bears a striking resemblance to the equine-like pratronus that my wand conjures up whenever I'm surrounded by Dementors).
All coming together to produce a colorful black & white film that shows that making a movie about the worst movie ever can be some pretty good stuff.

Nerd boy Kevin Smith harnesses his experiences of working in a convenience store, writes a script, then gathers up his buddies to help put it all onto film. Thus does Mr. Smith move from behind the counter to behind the camera and enters into the realm of movie-making.
And the San Diego Comic-Con will never again be the same.

Living a life with just enough to get by, "Sully" Sullivan seems okay with just that despite the years piling on. When his estranged son comes to town with his own son in tow, "Sully" starts to feel the twinges of patriarchal charge towards the grandson he never knew had. Moving through the typical "atypical" happenings of his small town, Sully finds the pieces of his life starting stitch together in a way in which he must decide to either just keep crustily cruisin' by, or, to do that one thing that has always felt alien to him.... take some responsibility.



This is simply one of those movies that I really enjoy that never really gets much mention anywhere. Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffin and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are a great cast of actors playing a great cast of characters in this, a pretty great film (at least, in my opinion it is). And each one is a piece of a puzzle that, despite their sharp edges, all still fit in perfectly.

The basic idea of Fresh is that of a kid from the hood causing a chain reaction of specific events to occur based on his extraordinary ability to play chess with the hopes that the end results would be his ticket out of the projects. Now at first glance, it's a plot device seems like would be a bit of a stretch, but this movie, it worked.
The fine acting job by the lead kid, along with the manner which the "set up" unravels according to his meticulous plan was clever enough to keep me glued to my theater chair with anticipation as to how the whole "game" would turned out.



Plus, Fresh is a film that offers a revealing look at how the street level dynamics of the illegal drug system work and just how much of a major part of the inner city economy it can become.

There was a time when TV had gameshows that actually rewarded people for actually being smart.
Nowadays, whether it be with quiz shows that an average junior high schooler could pass or through so-called reality shows, most TV programs seem to reward people for being dumb.
John Turturro turns in, IMO, his best performance as a voice for the craggy intellectual type of the time, who is smart enough to realize and yet does not want to accept that the visual medium of television has crossed over to favoring style over substance.

Oh, and I'd like to buy a vowel.

Following the formula he started with the first of his famed Three Colours Trilogy, Polish director Krzystof Kielowski concludes the series with the last of the French flag colors, Red. With a theme based on fraternity, this story follows the lives of two primary characters and their different personalities, along with a few secondary characters, and how all of these separate lives are in one way or another, connected, mostly without their awareness. Using different physical levels of the two main actors to emphasize their juxtaposition and the color red dominating the scheme of the visuals, Red masterfully rolls up into a distinctive tale with an ending that brings home the fact that this is part of a trilogy and therefore bringing it's concept of connection to an even higher and creative level of storytelling.
This final story of Colours is widely considered by critics and connoiseurs alike as the best of the bunch (luckily so since this also ended up being the final work of the director who passed away just two years later).

A professional "cleaner" unintentionally rescues a girl from a hit and even more unintentionally ends becoming her "guardian" (while she in turn becomes his protegee). Putting the assassin in the sights of a corrupted department of the DEA, led by a drug-addicted, classical music appreciating agent whose unhinged personality can make even a hit-man choke on his milk.



IMO, Léon: The Professional is a film with a great lead character in a plot line whose subject matter could have easily gotten a bit "swarmy". Yet the pacing of the story was able to maintain a sort of razor's edge balancing act between a satisfactorily sappy chemistry and a gritty tension of anticipation of what will eventually result from this awkward relationship between assassin and unexpected "student".

For me, there is no other way that I can describe this movie other than to say that it's just plain stupid, simple and funny.
Which is probably why it is not only my favorite comedy of 1994, but also one of my favorite comedies of all time.

"I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope."



When asked what crime you are guilty of, in prison yards like that of Shawshank State Penitentiary, the proper response is always a mock "I didn't do it". But in banker turned wrongly accused convict Andy Dufresne's case, it really is true. And the only way he knows how to dig himself out of the hole that the late 1940's legal system has dumped him into is through the resources of a man who knows how to get things, two decades worth of patience and a resounding belief that hope is a good thing.



Not since Brian's Song has there been a flick that truly encapsulated the feeling of amorous friendship between two straight men of different color.
In other words, I guess that one could say that The Shawshank Redemption is a tale of interracial hetero man-love at it's finest.

No matter how many times I view it, no matter what time of the day it is, I never get tired of watching this film.
Because Pulp Fiction is like pie.
And any time is a good time for pie.