1996 was a nostalgic year for me. I had a lot of fun times with my extended
family that summer. The 1996 Olympics in
Atlanta captured my imagination like no Olympics have since (although this
probably had more to do with my age and the proximity to it than anything
else). It was like the climax of my
youth; after that it was just a downward slope toward cynical adulthood. Still, Clinton got reelected and GM
discontinued the B-Bodies so it could make more SUVS, so it may not have been a
good year after all.
20. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
D: Farhad Mann
**********
Lawnmower Man
according to the guys who gave us Max
Headroom. It’s the king of the bad 90’s cyberpunk
movies, and it is just awful from to beginning to end. I’ve never seen a sequel that so blatantly
ignored the ending of the first movie.
Jeff Fahey is replaced by Matt Frewer, who’s like a store brand Jim
Carrey…not as expensive, but arguably just as good. Also, the movie insists on reminding us over
and over again that the secondary corporate villain is a Republican. We get it, movie.
19. Escape from L.A.
D: John Carpenter
**********
Lacks the subtlety and consistently good visuals of the
original. Remember the ingenuity of the
practically simulated computer graphic in New
York? This movie actually has real
CGI…real bad CGI. So bad it almost makes the plane crash from Air Force One look good. The movie starts off with establishing a
ham-fisted satire of the Religious Right with a fundamentalist president who’s
supposed to be a straw man even though he
correctly predicted a natural disaster.
In the end our hero knowingly activates an EMP device that puts the
world back into the Stone Age. Most of
the movie is fun camp, so it’s too bad that it’s sandwiched with crap.
18. Space Jam
D: Korey Coleman
**********
I didn’t watch this until recently, but it even as a kid
I thought it looked stupid. I thought it
would be more painful, though. It was
bland, but mercifully short.
14. 101 Dalmatians
13. Jack
12. The Island of Dr. Moreau
17. Romeo + Juliet
D: Baz Luhrmann
**********
I don’t how many times I was made to sit through this
tacky adaptation at my high school just because of its slavish faithfulness to
the text. That doesn’t even make sense
because we already read the play in class, so why not just show a more
competent adaptation with a few cut lines?
At least John Leguizamo has fun playing Tybalt.
16. Broken Arrow
D: John Woo
**********
An utterly cheesy and underwhelming movie that set the
tone for action legend John Woo’s unimpressive career in Hollywood.
15. Bottle Rocket
D: Wes Anderson
**********
I like Anderson for his visual style and dry wit, but
this comedy has none of his distinctive visuals and it’s so dry that apparently
he forgot to put jokes in it. It’s an utterly generic “art” movie that
critics go apes—t over. Luke Wilson’s
character gets into a sex-based “relationship” with a girl even though they can’t
understand each other’s languages, and I’m supposed to be invested in
that? That’s insulting. Also, the bumbling thieves trope has been a
million times better a million times before.
I guess I shouldn’t begrudge this movie’s success because I like Anderson’s
filmography. Part of me thinks he hacked
this out just to get into the position to make the movies he actually wanted to
make.14. 101 Dalmatians
D: Stephen Herek
**********
Hey, here’s a great idea!
Let’s remake this Disney classic in live action! The dogs won’t be anthropomorphic, so that
way they’ll no longer be actual characters that the audience can identify with! I remember seeing commercials for this as a
kid, and thinking that the only appealing thing about it would be watching
Cruella’s magnificent car wrecking get recreated in live action (Spoiler: it
doesn’t happen). I didn’t watch it until
earlier this year and it was quite an underwhelming film. The low point was how the efficient first
meeting of the couples was turned into an interminable and overwrought slapstick sequence in a live-action adaptation. The only good part was the well-cast Glenn
Close as Cruella De Vil and the art style of her office. There was also a refreshing lack of CGI manipulation
of the dogs’ faces until a brief moment at the end.
13. Jack
D: Francis Ford Coppola
**********
Contrary to popular criticism, the movie does acknowledge
the tragedy of the situation. Francis
Ford Coppola’s sappy attempt at a family movie has its moments, but suffers due
to cloying 90’s whimsy. Some people turn
up their noses at sentimentality, but it seems that some masters of cinema can’t
pull it off (see also: Stanley Kubrick’s A.I.). Also, why
the hell does Miss Jennifer Lopez insist on making her class write an essay on
what they want to do when they grow up when she knows that one of the students
has a terminal condition?!!!!!!!
12. The Island of Dr. Moreau
D: John Frankenheimer
**********
A plodding film with disappointing creature design.
11. Star Trek: First Contact
D: Jonathon Frakes
**********
I really don’t care for the TNG movies, and this is the
only one I find presentable.
10. Scream
D: Wes Craven
**********
A clever deconstruction of the Slasher film with a good
twist, but I’m not really a fan of slashers anyway.
9. Down Periscope
D: David S. Ward
**********
It’s a little funnier if you have experience with the
Navy. Kelsey Grammer’s performance
helps, too.
D: Roland Emmerich
**********
Ah, remember back in summer of 1996, this was the movie
to see. It gets a lot of flak, but it’s
still an effective action movie. The
practical effects are amazing and make me wonder why we use nothing but CGI
nowadays. One of the many reasons I did not find Bayformers very impressive. Because the few things that movie did right Independence Day did better 11 years prior.
7. The Rock
D: Michael Bay
**********
The only decent movie Michael Bay has ever made. Has a good score, too.
6. Muppet Treasure Island
D: Brian Henson
**********
A fun and visually pleasing take on Treasure Island. Has a pretty good intro song, too.
D: The Wachowskis
**********
Atmospheric and thrilling. The cinematography is excellent, and it looks more like The Matrix than the the Matrix sequels do. They seemed to have let clever camerawork give way to CGI. Still, I don't think the romance is well-developed enough and there's too much gunfire inside an apartment for no one to get caught.
4. The Cable Guy
D: Ben Stiller
**********
A very underrated comedy.
Like The Simpsons totally had a right to talk in its 10th
Season, anyway.
3. Mission: Impossible
D: Brian De Palma
**********
A great, complex spy movie with tons of twists and
thrills. Had to watch it a few times to
figure out what the hell was going on, though.
2. The Nutty Professor
D: Tom Shadyac
**********
A rare comedy that has as much heart as it does humor.
D: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
**********
I missed out on this movie when it came out. At the time it was dismissed as unfaithful to
the source material. Even though it is
Disnified, it still had a lot of dark themes (like sexual tension and religious
scrupulosity) that most Disney movies don’t have. Has one of the best musical soundtracks of any Disney film. Those gargoyles where annoying, though.
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