July 5, 2024
I’m sure I am not alone in that I can retain the most useless information in my brain but routinely forget day-to-day events in my life. Rarely does that useless information come in handy, unless I am engaged in a discussion about a piece of trivia. One of my useless talents is remembering the year certain movies or albums came out, especially if it was in the 1980s or 1990s. Coupling this useless talent with being a numbers person means when a movie or album pops into my head, I calculate how many years it’s been since it was released. No big deal, until you reach a certain age and that math becomes quite depressing. Oh, there’s a new book out about Born in the U.S.A.? Cool. Oh, it’s the 40th anniversary. Ugh. I need to sit down.
During this little blog experiment of mine, I’ve routinely gone back in time to look at an older year in movies. With this year being the 30th anniversary of 1994, an iconic year in film, I just had to devote a post to it. Well, once I started making a list of movies to cover and watching (or re-watching) a number of them, it quickly became obvious that this would have to be two parts. In fact, I was actually surprised that I haven’t covered many films from 1994 in the last five years – I just didn’t have a topic (like a director or actor profile) that lined up with that year. But that means we have a treasure trove of films to cover here.
1994 was the year that I graduated from college and started my first job. It was also the year I totaled my car and ended up in the hospital, which led to me re-connecting with my (now) wife, with whom I have enjoyed almost thirty years of happiness together. But that’s a story for another time. Needless to say, I don’t think I saw many movies in the theater that year. Most of these were probably enjoyed over the years on home video or cable (remember those days?)
Hollywood in the mid-90s was a booming time for movies. Every genre seemed to be working – drama, comedy, action, thriller, and especially animation. This was the heyday of Disney’s domination at the box-office, with The Lion King the year’s box-office champion. In terms of breakout stars, it was the year of Jim Carrey, who had three monster hits released in 1994: Ace Ventura, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. Alas, I won’t be covering those movies here – they’re not really my tempo. I much prefer the style of Carrey in The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
1994 was also a year of sequels that signaled the presumed death of two franchises: The Next Karate Kid, starring future two-time Oscar winner Hillary Swank, and Beverly Hills Cop III, a film I just recently watched for the first time and was stunned how awful it was. Of course, this wasn’t the permanent death of these franchises. The Karate Kid saw a resurgence with the success of Cobra Kai and we just saw the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film released this week on Netflix. I’ll share my thoughts on that one later this month.
Let’s dive in to cover some of my highlights from the year, starting with what could be called a pair of “Dad Movies”, but hey, I’m a Dad in his early 50s, so these work for me.
From Bestseller to the Big Screen – The Client and Clear and Present Danger
As a child of the 80s, it’s safe to assume that I was devouring the legal thrillers from John Grisham and international spy capers from Tom Clancy as quickly as they were released. In fact, I am still reading Grisham’s work as he continues to crank out a novel every year or two. He still has it. The 1990s also saw a nice run of film adaptations of Grisham and Clancy novels, including these two in 1994.
First up is The Client, the third Grisham adaptation after the excellent first two installments – The Firm and The Pelican Brief. How hot was the Grisham movie market in the early 90s? Tom Cruise (and a deep cast of supporting actors) starred in The Firm and The Pelican Brief was led by Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, at the height of their popularity. For The Client, director Joel Schumacher recruited Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones as the two attorneys squaring off with a pre-teen boy caught in the middle. While Mark (Brad Renfro) and his little brother are out playing in the woods, they come upon an attorney who reveals the location of a dead body before committing suicide. It turns out he worked for the mob and they are very concerned about the authorities finding the body and getting pinched for the murder. So, Mark looks for legal assistance and finds Reggie Love, played by Sarandon. Jones leads the U.S. Attorney team trying to force Mark to testify to catch the mobsters who, in turn, are trying to silence Mark.
The Client is a great example of a classic legal thriller that we rarely see anymore – at least in film. Most stories like these are now limited series on a streaming service. Jones is great as always, coming off of his Oscar-winning turn the previous year in The Fugitive. Most of the supporting actors are pretty good. It’s a deep bench of character actors you will recognize, but you may do a few double takes when you hear them utter a line in a confounding Southern accent (looking at you William H. Macy.) Renfro is decent as Mark, especially considering this was his first role. The highlight (like most movies she appears in) is Sarandon, playing a character who has to outmaneuver the mob and the U.S. government, all while trying to be a mother figure to her terrified client. Her performance resulted in her fourth Oscar nomination. She would finally take home the gold the following year for Dead Man Walking. The Grisham films are all very good popcorn movies – in addition to The Client, The Firm, and The Pelican Brief, one of my favorites is Runaway Jury, featuring a fantastic performance by the legend Gene Hackman.
From lawyers to spies. Clear and Present Danger was the third installment of the Jack Ryan films, based on the CIA analyst turned secret agent Tom Clancy created in the mid-80s. This was the second movie to feature Harrison Ford in the lead role after 1992’s very good Patriot Games. He took over for Alec Baldwin who got the train rolling with 1984’s The Hunt for Red October, a phenomenal film in which Baldwin co-starred with Sean Connery. After Clear and Present Danger, the Clancy / Ryan movies kind of went off the rails with failed attempts by Ben Affleck and Chris Pine in the lead role. Thankfully, we got a very good series on Amazon Prime, starring John Krasinski as Ryan beginning in 2018.
With Clear and Present Danger, Ryan is working for the CIA, hunting down drug lords who have assassinated a close friend of the President. Remember, this novel came out in the “War on Drugs” decade of the 1980s, so that theme was still relevant in the early 90s. As Ryan starts to peel apart the conspiracy and find the bad guys, he realizes that there may be some nefarious activity going on close to the Oval Office. Ford is very good as Ryan, as is Willem Dafoe as CIA operative John Clark on the ground in Colombia, and the story is pretty good, even if it does have that early 90s dated storyline. It features some nice Washington D.C. political twists and turns and exciting action sequences in Colombia. While it’s not as good as Red October, Clear and Present Danger was a good addition to the Clancy film series.
Underappreciated Thriller – The River Wild
An action thriller with Meryl Streep? Absolutely. I remember The River Wild, but had somehow never seen it over the years. This blog seemed like the perfect opportunity to cross it off the list. Streep and the underrated David Strathairn play a couple whose marriage is on the rocks – she feels underappreciated and ignored, mostly because he spends too much time working. They decide to travel to Idaho with their son for a whitewater rafting trip. She was a river guide when she was younger, an important plot point for this movie. They soon come upon two men claiming to be tourists, but we soon learn they are on the run after robbing a bank. When their tour guide disappears, the criminals force the family to help them down the river.
I was very impressed with The River Wild, particularly for the rafting sequences and dynamic among the characters. Director Curtis Hanson (who would make the masterpiece L.A. Confidential three years later) not only combined tension-filled action sequences with a quality family story, he did a brilliant job casting the lead characters. Streep was already a legend in the early 90s, with nine of her eventual 21 Oscar nominations under her belt, but she was mostly known for prestige dramas, with a few comedies sprinkled in. She had never starred in a movie like The River Wild and she was squaring off against Kevin Bacon as the lead criminal. He was also playing against type, as he was primarily cast as “the nice guy” in his early roles. So, not only do you get an exciting thriller, you get to see two acting greats in nontraditional roles. While some movies from this era (especially in this genre) can feel outdated many years later, I was pleased with The River Wild as a quality action thriller that still holds up.
What a Legend – Nobody’s Fool
Next up is another movie that I knew about, but had never gotten around to seeing, also featuring an acting legend. Still going strong in his late 60s, Paul Newman stars as lovable, but cranky Sully in Nobody’s Fool, from Oscar-winning director Robert Benton. Sully works construction, usually for shady contractor Carl, played by Bruce Willis, who took the minimum salary to be in the film. That’s how much actors wanted to be in a movie with Newman at the time. Life is not perfect for Sully. He is having a hard time working construction as he gets older and is estranged from his adult son. But Sully manages to have fun with his friends in town at the local bar having a drink or playing cards and enjoys flirting with Carl’s wife (Melanie Griffith, in a charming role.) Nobody’s Fool is a slice-of-small-town-life tale that works primarily because of Newman. Nothing groundbreaking happens in this story of Sully and the townspeople we see onscreen, but that’s ok. Sometimes it’s nice to spend two hours watching Newman work his magic.
As I have been making my way through some of the great films of years gone by, usually working through a director’s filmography or my idiotic journey to see every movie that’s been nominated for Best Picture, I frequently come across one of Newman’s movies. I haven’t come close to seeing them all (and probably never will – he appeared in dozens of films), but his career was amazing. If you are a fan of his work, I highly recommend The Last Movie Stars, a six-part documentary series directed by Ethan Hawke you can find on HBO Max. It’s a look at the life and career of Newman and his wife (and frequent co-star) Joanne Woodward. Hawke uses interviews from Newman’s abandoned autobiography (read by George Clooney as Newman), historical archive footage and contemporary interviews to deliver a fascinating look at the couple’s work and relationship. One downside is that the contemporary interviews are largely through Zoom (a product of our COVID times), and are therefore less effective. But the overall series is great and features a treasure trove of Newman’s performances on screen, including the wonderful Nobody’s Fool.
Timing is Everything – Wyatt Earp
To be honest, the story behind the making of Wyatt Earp is actually more interesting than the movie itself. In the early 90s, coming off of his Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner set out to make a movie about Wyatt Earp. He was attached to the film that would become Tombstone, but dropped out due to creative differences, deciding to make his own movie about the legendary lawman, recruiting his longtime collaborator Lawrence Kasdan to direct. Costner was convinced that Tombstone would fall apart without him, but Kurt Russell (who starred as Earp) dragged the film across the finish line, even ghost-directing it (or so he claims) after the original director was fired. Russell was excellent in the movie, as was Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday. Tombstone was very successful, and more importantly (for Costner) was released in 1993, so by the time Wyatt Earp was released a year later, the general public decided they didn’t want another look at this character.
Now, Wyatt Earp is not necessarily “bad.” It just pales in comparison to the superior Tombstone, which everyone had already seen. Wyatt Earp is a fuller story of the main character’s life, while Tombstone is focused on a shorter period of time. As a result, Costner’s film feels bloated with its three hour and ten minute runtime. This is a pattern with Costner and Westerns. Dances with Wolves was three hours long, Open Range (which I actually like a lot) was two hours and forty minutes and his new movie, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is three hours long. Stay tuned for my post later this month for my thoughts on that one. Putting aside the length (as long movies can still be good) Wyatt Earp features some good acting from Costner and the deep cast he recruited, and the production design is excellent. I would just suggest if you want the definitive Wyatt Earp film, check out Tombstone instead.
My, How Things Have Changed – Blue Chips
I was fortunate to attend my college during its short heyday of success in college basketball. The program is nowhere near those heights now, but I live close to the home of the sport’s back-to-back national champions, who I root for. And how can you not love the excitement of the tournament every March? It’s phenomenal to watch kids in their late teens rise above the pressure to win a title.
One of the big controversies around college basketball, especially in the 1990s, was the practice of student-athletes getting paid by boosters. These were supporters of the college who would give the kids cash or other gifts to convince them to attend the school. It was a widely known dirty secret, but seldom discussed publicly until a scandal broke out and the NCAA penalized the school. My alma mater had its 1996 Final Four appearance vacated because the star athlete accepted gifts while he was a student there.
This corrupt model of college basketball is depicted in Blue Chips, starring Nick Nolte as a coach who is past his prime, but trying to hang on to his job. While recruiting, he tries to stay true to his beliefs and not succumb to the “pay for play” methods of other schools. Inevitably, he bows to the pressure, bringing in three blue chip players, led by Shaquille O’Neal, who recently began his NBA career at the time of filming. Blue Chips is a very good sports movie, with great basketball scenes, and decent (enough) acting by the real players and coaches, some of whom make cameos. Nolte is excellent throughout the film as he wrestles with the moral dilemma he faces, kidding himself and those around him, until he has to come clean.
The film was directed by William Friedkin, in a radical departure from the man who directed The Exorcist, The French Connection and Sorcerer, but he shows he has the talent to be successful in a new genre for him. What’s particularly interesting about Blue Chips through today’s lens is that college athletes can now make money for their name, image or likeness due to recent rule changes. In other words, they can get paid to advertise for a business or represent a clothing or shoe company. While the idea of paying players being a scandal has aged kind of poorly since 1994, the practice of paying college athletes was such a problem for so long, Blue Chips is still a compelling story, helped by a strong cast, realistic basketball scenes, and Friedkin at the helm.
Preposterous All Around – Disclosure
Speaking of what’s aged poorly. One of my favorite podcasts is The Rewatchables, where they go through a film from the past and cover aspects of the movie through different categories – best scene, the overacting award, what’s aged the best, what’s aged the worst, etc. You get the idea. Now, most times when you are watching a film from the 1990s, you can find a lot of “what’s aged the worst.” Start with plots that could unravel if people had cell phones. But that’s easy and understandable. Sometimes though, you watch a movie and say to yourself, “Oh my God. How as this even considered good thirty years ago?”
The big storyline when Disclosure was released in 1994 was – Sexual Harassment, but it’s the woman who does the harassing! Oh my goodness! Get it? The role reversal – isn’t it wild? And when you put Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in the starring roles, you’re going to get some heat. Remember, Douglas was not too far removed from Fatal Attraction and starred in Basic Instinct the previous year. Moore was coming off of Indecent Proposal. So, naturally this movie had to work, right? Well, it did at the box-office, but this “thriller” led to many unintentionally funny moments for this viewer.
Douglas plays a technology executive at a company about to be purchased. In comes Moore as a rising star who may get his position following the merger, leaving him out of a job. Oh, and it seems they had a brief relationship years ago. Donald Sutherland plays the CEO of the firm who seems oblivious to what’s going on inside his own company. The big scene early on is where Moore pressures Douglas into a sexual encounter, threatening his job. When he refuses, we are asked, “What if this happened to a man?” as Douglas fights potential termination. Putting aside the problematic gender reversal roles, which looks horrendous now following the MeToo movement of the last decade, both of these characters are unlikeable assholes.
As for the business subplot? Laughable, at best. First, it’s based on this proprietary technology with virtual reality, which does not look futuristic at all – it looks like a mid-90’s video game. And throughout the entire movie, everyone is worried about finalizing the details before the merger is signed and announced. But everyone in the entire company (and it seems, the entire world) knows about the pending merger, which is preposterous. In this kind of deal, only a few people would be in the know. OK, maybe I spent too many years in Corporate America and I’m picking nits, but I couldn’t get over this plot point. Most of my blog is trying to recommend movies that are good – this one is not good, but it is funny. Unfortunately, it’s not meant to be. Disclosure is decidedly an artifact of its time. Let’s move on to a movie that has not aged one bit in thirty years.
Pop Quiz, Hotshot – Speed
Let’s just get this out of the way – this movie STILL freaking rules. There is a recurring bit in Robert Altman’s 1992 masterpiece The Player, a film about the intricacies of Hollywood. Writers pitch ideas to studio executives and always try to connect it to previous movies, so you hear about a ridiculous sequel to The Graduate, or a film with Goldie Hawn going to Africa and meeting a tribe of small people (it’s like Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman) and a political thriller with a heart (it’s like Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate.) It’s hysterical because it’s true. Don’t believe me? In a recent interview, M. Night Shyamalan told the story of his pitch for his next movie, when meeting with the studio. He said it was like if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert. That film is Trap, by the way, coming to theaters on August 2nd and looks fantastic. Why am I bringing this up? Because I can only imagine what happened when someone looked at a studio executive and said, “Ok, there’s a bomb on a bus and the bus can’t slow down below 50 miles per hour or the bomb will explode. It’s like Die Hard on a bus” Sold.
As I mentioned earlier, I saw very few of these films in theaters, but I do remember seeing Speed in the summer of 1994 and being blown away (no pun intended.). This was so much damn fun to see with a crowd, not knowing how our heroes were going to escape the actions of a madman. At the center of the movie is Keanu Reeves playing police officer Jack, who saves a group of people from a bomb on an elevator in the opening sequence thanks to some quick thinking and help from his partner Harry, played by Jeff Daniels. They think their suspect (Dennis Hopper, chewing every scene he is in) died in the incident, but Jack soon learns that he’s back for another test for our hero. We all know his plan, because the premise sets up the selling point of the movie.
Jack makes his way onto the bus, and tries to calm down the passengers while figuring out how to defuse the bomb and get them off the bus. Of course, Speed was the breakout role for Sandra Bullock, who plays a passenger who ends up behind the wheel of the bus. The chemistry between Reeves and Bullock is outstanding (sidebar – in a recent interview Reeves said he would love to act with her again in a movie. Sign me up.) mostly because they are so damn charming. They both have some wonderful dry humor lines (“Sure, it’s just like driving a really big Pinto”), and as their predicament gets worse, they grow more attached to each other. You can give me any of your other “Die Hard on a [blank]” movie imitations we’ve seen over the last thirty years. With two movie stars at the top, and brilliant action sequences (when else are you going to see a bus jump over a giant gap in the highway?), and some great laughs, give me Speed every time.
That’s all for this week. I just had to break this into two parts as I have a lot to say about the five Best Picture nominees of 1994, which include some all-timers: The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Quiz Show, and of course, Pulp Fiction. I’ll be back in two weeks to share my thoughts on those films. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe below.
Steve,
You made me laugh a few times with this blog. There were some great movies you talked about too!
Thanks for reading MB! Glad you liked it!