“Never interrupt me when I’m talking to myself.” – Timecop
All Hanks, All the TIme
We turn in our review of movies to 1994. I’m not sure that I’ll keep going backward in time unless there’s a clamor for it, but we’ll keep going forward in time, at least for a bit.
1994 continued the trend of comedies being less funny and more . . . stupid? Offensive? Cringeworthy? Whatever the term, the downgrade picked up steam in 1994.
As usual, no sequels are on the list.
Yes, two retards in a movie.
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective – 1994 was the year of Jim Carrey, and this was his harbinger film. I’m not going to include Dumb and Dumber or The Mask on this list, since all three of those movies are essentially the same thing: Jim Carrey being Jim Carrey. The only problem is I find Jim Carrey untalented and irritating, sort of like a syrup of ipecac flavored soda with a side of cold gravy. Honestly, I’d rather drink the gravy and ipecac than watch a Carrey movie.
I must be dreaming! Who is that in the background?
The Ref – The first half of The Ref is hilarious, and probably the funniest movie set-up in forever. Denis Leary plays a caustic burglar perfectly. Great, right? It is up until it becomes a slow and boring family drama. If whoever had written the first half of the movie had written the second half, it would have been better. Or maybe it was all written by George R.R. Martin? Not recommended.
With textbooks on loan from God . . .
PCU – It’s supposed to be a movie sold as a reaction against the growing forces of political correctness. And it does have some pretty funny lines, but in the end it uses political correctness to make the villain look like the bad guy. Still, worth a watch.
Looks like his chickens have come home to roost.
The Crow – I remember seeing this one in the theater – it was a good watch, and a fun movie that was done well in a bittersweet way. Some of the scenes are over the top, and the motivation of the bad guys is still unclear, but those are only minor quibbles . Regardless, it’s a beautiful film that is based on real-life tragedy and ended in real-life tragedy.
If infinity Kiefers could hold infinity smaller Kiefers.
The Cowboy Way – The Cowboy Way is probably the second-best comedy on this list. If it was a TV show, it would have been called Beverly Hillbillies Vice. Yes, the fish out of water movie, but this time with smart cowboys making the city slickers look bad. City slickers don’t like that. It stars Woody Harrelson, who is listed at 5’10” (6 meters) in height, which means he’s really like 5’5” max. This created some special effects problems since his co-star Kiefer Sutherland is only 14” (0.00045 meters) tall.
Driving around a bus at night covered in flour, I guess.
Speed – Ted “Theodore” Logan plays a cop on a bus that will explode if it goes below 50 miles per hour because Dennis Hopper doesn’t like public transit and is against Sandra Bullock adopting a football player. That might be off a bit, since I haven’t seen this movie since 1994. It was okay, but made $350 million at the box office.
Forrest Gimp or Forrest Gump?
Forrest Gump – The movie on which the sage advice “never go full retard” is based. 1994 loved this movie in a way that only people who love Jim Carrey can love a movie, rewarding it with $680 million bucks at the box office. Tom Hanks plays the titular character. Titular is a way less sexy word than what I thought it would be when I was in fifth grade and looked it up in the dictionary. I feel the same way about this movie in retrospect – it was fun when I first watched it, but looking back on it, it I certainly don’t recall why – perhaps it was the looming hollowness of the 1990s? But that’s all I have to say about that.
True Lies – In 1994, James Cameron could have filmed a trip to the supermarket and people would have paid $380 million in box office bucks to watch it. Throw in a near-peak Arnie and a Jamie Lee Curtis that was 10 years past her prime (her prime was in Trading Places, fight me) and even I went to go watch it. This movie while enjoyable to watch and having Bill Paxton at his funniest, could have been titled Generic Action Flick. Not that it’s bad, it’s just the same movie that Arnie would stamp out like Pepsi™ makes plastic bottles for a few more years in the 1990s.
Now with electric neon ukeleles.
Airheads – Steve Buscemi, Adam Sandler, and Brendan Fraser as a metal band that kidnaps a radio station. Yes, it’s a comedy. Yes, it’s silly. Third best comedy on this list. Also, another box office bomb.
“In my dreams he’s always there . . . “
In the Army Now – Proving my statement of cringe being the new comedy, here is plaintiff’s exhibit A – Pauly Shore. Also in this movie is plaintiff’s exhibit B – Andy Dick. Both in the same film, creating a sort-of black hole of smug-cringe. This, my friends, is what will end the Universe.
A lighthearted musical animation about war and cannibalism, brought to you by Disney®.
Rapa-Nui – It is certain that a huge civilizational collapse happened on Easter Island. It was started by white colonizers who cleverly set it in motion 100 years before they arrived. Wait, that doesn’t sound right, did the Europeans have time travel? No, I just channeled a GloboLeftist. In reality, population on Easter Island overshot and they had a famine-induced war. This movie is about that. A popcorn movie to watch with the toddlers? Probably not, unless their favorite book is “Baby’s First Cannibal”. I thought this one was pretty good, but I was distracted because I was watching it with my toddlers.
Looks like JCVD’s time machine works! Look how old he is!
Timecop – Jean-Claude VanMC2. The title is the movie plot.
Wouldn’t his name be Morgan Prisonman?
The Shawshank Redemption – I’m gonna catch flack for this one, but I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. I mean, you would have thought that after 142 minutes that the Beavis and Butthead would have scored some beer.
What if Wolverine worked for Marcellus Wallace?
Pulp Fiction – The actual best movie of 1994. Quentin Tarantino manages in his first major release to let people know he had already mastered a game that many other film makers had no idea they were playing.
And one of them has a beagle named Snoopy®?
Clerks – The actual funniest movie of 1994. Made for $10,000 – it was everything that the other comedies on the list weren’t – smart, apolitical, rough around the edges, and it had 0% Jim Carrey. The story of two clerks on a very long day where one of them wasn’t even supposed to be working. Kevin Smith was never as good again as his first outing, but that was at least partially due to the fact that his first outing is a classic.
Don’t blame me, Grok™ picked this one.
The Puppet Masters – Robert A. Heinlein’s story of insidious alien control somehow seems ripped from the headlines when I see the woke mind virus doing what aliens could only dream of. I thought it was a faithful adaptation, but it still makes me wonder how 7’3” (16 meters) Donald Sutherland managed to father the lilliputian Kiefer.
Interstellar PEZ®.
Stargate – A fast-paced documentary about Egyptian archeology that’s not to be missed. Plus? Kurt Russell.
Back then Tom sure attracted the . . . .
Interview with the Vampire – A pretty fair adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel of the same name. Cruise hasn’t aged a day since then, so maybe he picked something up when he did this film?
That’s it. There were several I had to delete due to length. Again, several good, solid movies as comedy morphed from its 1980s peak into the Jim Carrey abysmal. The innovative 1980s action films began the process of mass production as budgets kept growing larger and larger and failures became less tolerable. 21 sequels were in major release in 1994 (this was the big jump from 1993 when there were only 13). There were 9 in 1974, but in 2014 . . . ? 34.
I had to bump several films, and I could list them, but, hey, why don’t you let me know what gems should be on the list?
Not a Jim Carrey fan either but “The Mask” was good and he is at his peak crazy in that role. Plus Cameron Diaz – movie debut – I mean DAMN!
1992 was a weird time for me. My ex had taken my kids to the other side of the country and I was living a sad bachelor life in an apartment. As a result I was watching a lot of movies alone on the sixth row center of the theatre in My Personal Seat. Of course I saw a lot of the films on your list, John, and going down the Wikipedia list for the year, I remember that I also went and saw The Hudsucker Proxy, Serial Mom, Maverick, Wyatt Earp, Corrina, Corrina and Ed Wood. Sadly, none of these were particularly memorable.
I enjoyed True Lies. I REALLY enjoyed Pulp Fiction, and if I remember correctly I saw it twice. In a sea of mediocrity for 1992, Pulp Fiction stands out as a timeless masterpiece of cinema. “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”
I see that 1992 was also the year of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which for some reason I don’t believe I saw at the time. Reading the Wikipedia summary, I see it used the same Arctic opening frame structure of the original novel – something I incorrectly thought had always been ignored in modern film treatments. The reason I bring this up is that Netflix has commissioned Guillermo del Toro to do HIS vision of Frankenstein coming out this November, which looks fantastic in the just-released trailer:
Sheesh. I meant to say 1994 above, not 1992. Just-woke-up posting can be just as bad as drunk posting.
What??? No “Serial Mom”? Arguably the best black comedy ever. Kathleen Turner at her best.
And Patty Hearst learned the hard way not to wear white patent leather shoes after Labor Day.
To continue off-topic for a moment on Wednesday’s Stagflation discussion, one commenter said he was passing up on gold ownership because he was worried about selling gold at a pawn shop. IMHO, the best way to own gold for the long term is neither (a) ETF paper gold to be avoided at all costs or (b) physical gold coins under your mattress redeemed at your local pawn shop. There is a third path.
1. Set up up one or more self-directed IRA(s) – a regular one holding gold you need to cash for expenses in the next five years, and a Roth one for gold you can afford not to touch for the five year conversion period. Madison Trust is a good self-directed IRA custodian approved by the IRS.
https://www.madisontrust.com/
2. Set up an single-owner LLC in your State that will actually own your gold. There are companies that will hold your hand through this crucial step, and I used this one which did a great job:
https://www.newstandardira.com/
3. Register your LLC with Madison Trust as an asset owned by your IRA. Establish a separate business checking account for this LLC. NEVER never never mix your personal funds with the funds in your LLC checking account.
4. Set up a gold bullion coin storage account with an approved IRS depository for your LLC. Brinks is a good choice for reasons explained below. Other IRS approved possibilities are the Texas Bullion Repository (owned by the state of Texas) or Strategic Wealth Preservation (SWP) in the Grand Caymans if you want to hold your gold outside of the US. FYI, these both have storage and maintenance fees considerably higher than Brinks.
https://www.focusontheuser.org/precious-metal-depositories/brinks-global-services-usa-inc/
5. Set up a gold bullion coin purchase account for your LLC. Monex is a good choice. A major advantage is that they store their own gold in the Brinks vaults located near JFK Airport in NYC, so purchasing (and later reselling) gold with Monex becomes a quick and easy paper title transfer exercise at Brinks with no expensive physical shipment or other administrative fees.
https://www.monex.com/liveprices/
6. Roll over your retirement asset dollars into your Madison Trust IRA account(s), then disburse them to your LLC checking account.
7. Buy physical gold from Monex using your LLC cash, preferably from their selection of types already sitting in their Brinks vault. This all needs to be completed during your rollover time window.
8. Sell physical gold back to Monex as desired for living expenses, hopefully after a healthy price appreciation. This process begins with a service request to Brinks asking for an internal title transfer of gold assets from your Brinks LLC account to Monex, which books them as physical gold assets credited to your Monex LLC account until you close the sale with them for dollars.
9. Route money through the IRS-approved pipeline for tax accounting purposes: Brinks to Monex to LLC checking account to Madison Trust to personal checking account, using either (slow, cheap) mailed paper checks or (fast, more expensive) wire transfers.
10. Pay your Brinks vault fees, LLC State taxes, and Federal disbursement taxes as necessary. Live happily ever after.
Yeah, this is a lot of work. Yeah, there are so called third party “gold self-directed IRAs” that will (supposedly?) do all of this for a hefty middleman fee without troubling you about the nitty-gritty details under the hood.
But do you trust middlemen with your life savings? I don’t.
Someone find the damn fuse box…
Ricky – good thing I read your second post. I was wondering if Frankenstein (del Toro edition) was to be released in 2025, or is going to be released in 2023, or was previously released in 2027.
The scene in Stargate that I liked best was James Spader translating Egyptian hieroglyphs to a gal on the new planet. She then proceeds to correct his pronunciation. Since Egyptian is related to the Semitic languages, there were no vowels in the words; yet modern-day linguists add some random vowels based on the ones spit out from their favorite PEZ-vowel dispensers, and claim that was how the Egyptians sounded when speaking. This one scene shot that random-vowel theory down, using 00-PEZ-shot.
The original Egyptian language (not Arabic) is barely surviving as the religious Ge’ez dialect. Longest lived language on earth.
What was the chant of the Egyptian Marines on the Stargate planet? “ooo-RA; ooo-RA
Ricky- at 12:57 pm.
Latest news in the Russo-Uke war. Russia sends missile that strikes NYC. Large nuke. 20-mi dia crater, 600-ft deep, wipes out all of NYC, even the Brinks vaults located near JFK Airport. TS.
Yeah, I worry about that distinct possibility, it’s why I looked at Texas and Grand Caymans as well as Brinks. But if a 20 mi dimeter crater replaces NYC, I thinking my tax-compliant retirement cash-out days are probably nearing an end, too.
“Pulp Fiction” is easily one of the most overrated films ever.
“Timecop” is probably Van Damme’s most accomplished film because it has an actual plot and a very good supporting cast in Sara, Silver and McGill.
“Ace Ventura” has a cameo by Cannibal Corpse. What’s not to like?
This is the first of these movie posts where I have seen less than half of the films listed. And of those, there are only two that I watched a second time. A lot of “okay” films but not much that was memorable. Of course, if you were the parent of young kids in the 1990s, you will remember the top grossing film of 1994: The Lion King. And while it didn’t make your list, I enjoyed The Shadow.
TD-
Missed “The Shadow” on the ’94 films database. Natch, I would’ve chastised JW not to include it. Although “I’m” invisible, a mock up of Orson Welles & Endora (yes, Agnes Morehead was the 1st Margo Lane) would work.
Shawshank was good , one time through. Now if it’s on I start at about 45 minutes left. It’s about when they discover when Andy escaped then onto when the Warden caps himself.
If you want a better send-up of P.C. academia, check out Hallow Mass by J.P. Mac. Open-minded leftists in a university unwittingly help out cultists of an evil eldritch god to summon him to earth and destroy humanity.
https://a.co/d/6brAHgl
I did the TVTropes page. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/HallowMass#
ED WOOD was likely my favorite movie of 1994. I’ve rewatched it a few times since. Depp does a great job. One of the best movies about making movies. Also a choice role for Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi.
QUIZ SHOW: I remember thinking this one was really well done at the time, but I haven’t revisited it in over 25 years. Might not have aged well.
ON DEADLY GROUND: a favorite bad movie rewatchable. Steven Seagal directs Steven Seagal. And tries to deliver an environmental message. As big a vanity project as any Billy Jack sequel and might well be funnier.
And yes, it’s a sequel, and a rock bottom cheapie, but DEATH WISH V is your last chance to see Bronson being Bronson. He only had a couple of TV movies left after this. Michael Parks chews the scenery in a good way.