“I’m your huckleberry.” – Tombstone
I have no idea who half the people in the picture are, but, hey, the logo rocks.
1993 continues the descent from the 1980s and Peak Movie, but as comedy fell, action movies continued to produce fun films. What did become more pronounced was the dismal “woke” viewpoint as shown in Falling Down.
As usual, there are no sequels on the list, though in 1993 there were 13 major releases that were sequels. In 2013, there were 33. In 1973, there were just five.
Let’s start with a movie that you can sink your teeth into:
I guess rugby players really will eat anything, but why didn’t they eat all those darn cats before carving up Carlo?
Alive – Not the best movie to take a date to if you’re planning on having dinner afterwards, this straight-forward tale of the rugby team stuck in the Andes when their plane crashes nevertheless nourish the soul with the feeling that people of taste will always be tender friends. When I left the theater, I felt so full . . . of life. In reality, most of the survivors were outrageously successful, since life had already thrown the biggest hurdle that it could at them and they came away satisfied. Note: although they were from pretty rich families, but, hey, they turned out to be salty guys in a savory story.
If this movie were about lawncare, that poster would be perfect.
Hexed – I first saw this on a video I rented from Blockbuster™. It didn’t have a big budget, and it lived up to it. In a sense, this is a throwback to an 80s comedy with a bit of Fatal Attraction thrown in for good measure. Is it a good movie that I would recommend? No. Is it a footnote of a fading genre? Yes. Bonus points: Claudia Christian’s body double is naked.
I told Grok® to have Tom Berenger eating crayons, but Grok™ told me he played a Marine, so that would be redundant.
Sniper – Sniper inspired 10, yes 10 sequels. It is an action film where Tom Berenger and Billy Zane play snipers wandering around South America shooting people. It’s decent action, and, obviously cheap enough to make that all of the sequels were profitable.
Now hear me out, every character except Murray is a groundhog.
Groundhog Day – This movie is about the invasion of giant, sentient, robotic groundhogs that just want to burrow and take over humanity, but are instead frightened when they see their shadow . . . from an atomic explosion. Just kidding. You know this one, the best romcom of all time (with the exception of Sniper Six, The Unsnipable). ‘nuff said.
Okay, Antonio Banderas wasn’t in the movie, but Grok® made the poster like this, and I loved it.
El Mariachi – Shot on a $7,000 budget in 14 days (from money raised by being a lab rat for experimental drug testing) El Mariachi is pretty good, and I was really surprised by it when I saw it on VHS back in the day. A tale of violent Mexican crime, you can now save your theater dollars and just watch the news from Los Angeles.
This would probably have been a more positive movie.
Falling Down – Where to start on this one? First, it’s probably the most prophetic movie on the list. Micheal Douglas plays a disgruntled, unemployed engineer whose wife got bored and divorced him. In short, he’s a person that society has passed by and from his perspective, the world is dystopian, so why not blow it all up? The parallel character in the film is the cop chasing the engineer, played by Robert Duvall. In one scene we see that the cop is retiring, and that he is being (not so subtly) replaced by a Hispanic. And, I think that (less than secretly) the director, Joel Schumacher (a gay GloboLeftist) was enjoying the torture of the Douglas character as he watched the world he grew up in implode. I wrote the preceding before I found this quote from the author: “The main character represents the old power structure of the of the U.S. that has now become archaic, and hopelessly lost.” So, yeah, nailed it.
Turns out the Roadrunner™ was trying to knock over the Fed®.
Cliffhanger – Whew, that last one was dark. This one, not so much. While the 1990s may have killed the comedy, the action film was still going strong. The move stars Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, some other people, and a mountain. Guns? Yes. Climbing? Yes. Tension? Well, we know the good guy is going to win, so, not so much. A fun ride.
Is Jurassic Pork the bacon I’ve left in the fridge that scientists brought back to life because they could, but never asked if they should?
Jurassic Park – This was Spielberg at, perhaps, his best. It was the number one hit of the year, and ended up on every lunchbox, video game, comic book, t-shirt, and tattoo in 1993. It was also the highest-grossing film of all time until Titanic ruined James Cameron for us. Everything came together in this one – the music, the cast, the story, the special effects, all perfect for the time and place. Sadly, they never made a sequel.
Back, and to the left. And then the PEZ™ comes out!
In the Line of Fire – Again, action movies were pretty strong in 1993, and Clint Eastwood taking on an evil genius assassin played John Malkovich is a pretty good story. Dylan McDermott Mulrooney is also in it. Okay, I know that Dylan McDermott and McDermott Mulrooney are supposed to be two different people, but, really, have you ever seen them together?
I was wondering how to get this joke into the post, and Grok™ did it for me.
So I Married an Axe Murderer – Before Michael Myers was shagging spies, there was this lighthearted movie about a woman whose romantic interests keep being murdered. Hint to everyone: this does not indicate the basis for a stable relationship, since that’s a 10 on the hot/crazy matrix, she’d have to be a 10.
So, it looks like the acid made them all Salvador Dali.
Dazed and Confused – Nostalgia for the relatively free-range days of the 1970s had already hit the people having kids in 1993, or so the producers hoped. This movie was made for late-stage Boomer/early-stage Gen X kids who didn’t go to see it, since it was a box office bomb that has sent become a cult favorite after the careers of so many actors that were in it took off. Watch this right after Falling Down as a palate cleanser. Or, that might make it worse, seeing what we’ve lost.
I tried to make Grok® do Sandra Bullock in a swimsuit, but that was a massive failure.
Demolition Man – I love stupid action movies. This is set in the distant future of 2032 where woke culture has taken over and no one has sex anymore. Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes were frozen during this time so that the plot can happen, as two barbarians from the 1990s make fun of woke culture.
No one is doubting that fire.
Mrs. Doubtfire – Is it predictive programming to try to shove strong, independent women plus crossdressing in the same movie? I did not like this movie even though I’ve found several of Robin Williams’ movies to be okay, but the divorce theme soured the whole plot for me. Apparently, I was alone, since this was the second-highest grossing movie of 1993.
Okay, at this point, Grok© would only draw Mrs. Doubtfire. So? I went with it.
Tombstone – Tombstone was on the list even before I had heard Val Kilmer had died, and he really had the best performance in this popular movie. I still rank this as my third-favorite Kilmer role, behind his roles in Top Secret! And Willow. Tombstone, though was a solid Hollywood western.
As we move along, comedy is obviously dying out though one of the greatest is on this list with Groundhog Day, but action movies are doing okay, even if they’re becoming a bit more comic book and less Dirty Harry each year.
But I’ll always remember the wisdom I learned from Alive: the more you eat, the lonelier you get.
What did I miss?