I'm currently of the opinion that the section of 1990s movies - I'd have to say up to around 1997 or thereabouts, when I started seeing real actual films that didn't just star former members of Saturday Night Live or In Living Color - were simply and utterly dreadful. 1990-1997. Now, obviously there are going to be exceptions; I mean, I'm a huge fan of Oliver Stone's output in that period, and Tombstone is a favorite, and you can't really go wrong with most of Schwarzenegger and Stallone's bigger budget work. But those films, those Oscar-worthy fare, it just seems to me that most of it is completely overrated compared to film from the 70s and early 80s, and even film thereafter. Granted, there was a slim number of outstanding, remarkable achievements (your Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction); but what am I supposed to do with the likes of Dances With Wolves, Ghost, The Prince of Tides, The Crying Game, A Few Good Men, Scent of a Woman, Howards End, The Piano, and Forrest fucking Gump? This is supposed to be the cream of the first half of the decade? Half of them I haven't seen (because, really, when everyone talks about the woman-looking character having a penis in The Crying Game, what's the point of sitting through the damned thing?), and the other half arouse absolutely zero desire.
And yet, people - especially at the time - make this HUGE deal about these movies, but is the deal so huge because that's ALL they had available to them? And they just, like, had to make a huge deal about SOMETHING, so movies like The English Patient and Jerry Maguire get more credit than they deserve? Will the next decade's Steven A. Taylor wonder in his LiveJournal why these douches of today were sucking the cocks of movies like Babel and Brokeback Mountain and Seabiscuit?
Wait. Don't answer that last one.
I'm just thinking aloud in print because I've been up all night watching werewolf movies and I'm trying to make it another five or so hours before I crash for 12-16. Anyway, yesterday (I think) I watched the movie Interview With A Vampire - again, an early 90s movie everyone went GAGA over - and I came away most underwhelmed. First, because between that and Bram Stoker's Dracula, I managed to find the artsiest, fartsiest vampire movies ever made that between them had negative scares (yes, the movies were afraid of ME, that's how bad it was). But mostly because these movies I'm deriding, they took themselves WAAAAAY too seriously with their self-importance and whatnot. Like the directors set out with a mindframe of making a Classic Film that would be appreciated for generations to come. Like The Godfather, like Apocalypse Now, like the first Friday The 13th.
Only, who's talking about Interview With A Vampire today? When do you ever see The Piano on TNT? And who would even think of Scent of a Woman except for the screw job the Academy gave to Denzel when he lost for his role in Malcom X to ... Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman?
You know what movies from the 90s made a lasting impact? Goodfellas (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Schindler's List (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and that's about it. And really, The Silence of the Lambs has been diluted by all the sequels and prequels, and nobody in their right mind watches Schindler's List unless they want to be super depressed or they feel the need to remember a really horrific time in the world's existence. That's, like, three movies in 7 years that'll ever be remembered and watched more than the obligatory time by film buffs like myself who are compelled to see every so-called good thing at least once in their lives. If you're NOT an obsessive nutcase like myself and you're born after the year 1985, you're most likely never going to see the bulk of the movies that came out between 1990 and 1997 and really, you won't be missing much.
Thank You.