1993

Best Movies of 1993
The Usual Choices
Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg)
Naked (Mike Leigh)
The Piano (Jane Campion)
Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg)
Short Cuts (Robert Altman)

But how about...
Falling Down (Joel Schumacher)
A good example of a film which seems to grow in quality and impact with each viewing. Tackling societal concerns such as guns, domestic violence, racism, homophobia, the Right & the Far Right, unemployment & the dependence upon welfare, mental illness, excessive consumerism, infrastructure decay and traffic congestion, this film tells the story of a seemingly ordinary guy who reaches his breaking point. Sweltering in the concrete-reflected heat, he makes his way home on foot, facing head-on all conflicts, obstacles and annoyances along the way. People get hurt and people get killed...but he will not allow his principles to be brushed aside. Very funny at times and always familiar, you are not manipulated into seeing this guy as some sort of vigilante hero. He is the bad guy...he just doesn't know it. Favourite line: "We are not the same because I am an American and you are a sick asshole."

...and what about...
Searching for Bobby Fischer (Steven Zaillian)
I watched this film for the first time on the heels of a thoroughly fascinating book called King's Gambit by Paul Hoffman. More a history of chess play rather than chess itself, the book explains why so many serious players are troubled, emotionally-endangered people. SfBF is about a child prodigy (like Fischer) who nearly has his childhood taken away by people who claim to want the best for him (just like sport coaches, football dads and stage mothers). Based on a real life, the film admittedly overdoes the warm fuzzies (especially with the is-it-ever-gonna-stop musical soundtrack...schmaltz-o-rama), it manages to successfully demonstrate the enormous personal cost being gifted really can entail. Kids just wanna have fun...and if they don't...there's something wrong with 'em.

...not to mention...
Dave (Ivan Reitman)
A load of fantasyland crap...yes...well...maybe...but I'd prefer to call it a political fairy tale. As comforting as Mum's pea & ham soup and that pair of fluffy socks, this film is a simpleminded delight. Corrupt rightwing President of the USA (no comment) has a debilitating stroke and is secretly replaced by a good-guy lookalike who has a leftwing agenda. Quicker than you can shout "Jiminy Cricket!", the country is suddenly being run more efficiently and more humanely. Nice people abound and eventually triumph; the baddies are terminally stupid and destined to get their comeuppance. Hey, in this era of Desperately Seeking Leadership, a story like this is as warming as Mr Smith Goes to Washington. Don't scoff...instead, embrace the concept of decency + optimism actually being possible in politics. 

...and one personal unmentionable...
A Perfect World (Clint Eastwood)
A well-regarded film in the Clint Canon by many insightful critics but I just can't for the life of me figure out why. It's yet another dunk into American Gun Culture, this time with a little boy front and centre with a handgun (always ethically-suspect, surely). A double-murderer kidnaps a kid, becomes a father figure to him, a hero, dashing and fun, then comes close to shooting an entire family and is finally set up as a tragic figure...with his childhood of neglect and abuse used to inject an "If Only" justification. The boy-hostage steals, points a gun at someone's head, shoots someone in the gut and frets about the size of his dick...and is an 8 year old Jehovah's Witness! Way overlong, the film muffs two potentially-riveting scenes by needless dawdling and talking too much, wringing pathos out with the blood. If you must have a killer-who-befriends-a-lonely-boy movie, watch Sling Blade instead.

My Top 10 Films of 1993
"Do you think it's real or is it just socks?"
#01  A   Groundhog Day (Ramis)
#02  A   The Remains of the Day (Ivory)
#03  A-  Carlito's Way (De Palma)
#04  A-  Shadowlands (Attenborough)
#05  A-  Dave (Reitman)
#06  A-  Manhattan Murder Mystery (Allen)
#07  A-  Falling Down (Schumacher)
#08  A-  Schindler's List (Spielberg)
#09  A-  Short Cuts (Altman)
#10  A-  The Age of Innocence (Scorcese)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11  A-  The Ballad of Little Jo (Greenwald)
#12  B+ Searching for Bobby Fischer (Zaillian)
#13  B+ Jurassic Park (Spielberg)
#14  B+ King of the Hill (Soderbergh)
#15  B+ In the Line of Fire (Petersen)
#16  B+ What's Eating Gilbert Grape (Hallstrom)
#17  B+ Mrs Doubtfire (Columbus)
#18  B+ The Fugitive (Davis)
#19  B+ The Man Without a Face (Gibson)
#20  B+ Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (Haines)
#21  B+ A Dangerous Woman (Gyllenhaal)

Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
>  B   Sleepless in Seattle [some charm, but more a warm nothing]
>    Fearless [not bad, but I thank Jeebers that Terrence Malick wasn't the director] 
>  B   Gettysburg [shoulda stayed an epic mini-series rather than a straining-for-4-hours-to-be-a-classic movie]
>  B   Malice [admirably-clever suspense film with many twists but is more unpleasant than thrilling]
>  B   Clean, Shaven [aka Understand and Pity a Schizophrenic: The How-To Guide]
>  B   Lost in Yonkers [so-so Neil Simon Bronx-memoir movie]
>  B   Bad Boy Bubby [a film student's major assignment, for which s/he was probably given an A-]
>  B   Philadelphia [the lead gay guy is so good and so nice as to be inhuman]
>  B   Dazed and Confused [Happy Days, circa 1976, but with far more beer, dope and dickheads]
>  B-  Matinee [starts promisingly but goes off in a dumb-ish direction]
>  B-  Free Willy [aka Flipper Gets Upsized]
>  B-  Addams Family Values [I wasn't much of a fan of the TV series either but little Christina is wonderful]
>  B-  Ethan Frome [a tragic tale told so slowly it gets bogged in the snow]
>  B-  The Pelican Brief [a corrupt-men-in-politics conspiracy thriller with absolutely nothing new to offer]
>  C   A Perfect World [A Personal Unmentionable]
>  C   Naked [succeeds in making a truly vile bastard interesting...but still truly vile]
>  D   The Baby of Macon [comes across as a gabby and unwatchable episode of the first Blackadder series]
>  D   The Piano [a load of kinky codswallop and Harvey should never ever take his clothes off again]
>  E   The Good Son [aka The Godawful Seed]

"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1993 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Alive (Marshall); Arizona Dream (Kusturica); Body Snatchers (Ferrara); A Bronx Tale (De Niro); Demolition Man (Brambilla); Equinox (Rudolph); A Far Off Place (Salomon); Gadael Lenin / Leaving Lenin (Emlyn); The Hour of the Pig (Megahey); In the Name of the Father (Sheridan); Indian Summer (Binder); Kalifornia (Sena); Killing Zoe (Avary); Man in a Uniform (Wellington); Map of the Human Heart (Ward); Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh); Rising Sun (Kaufman); Ruby in Paradise (Nunez); The Secret Garden (Holland); Six Degrees of Separation (Schepisi); Sniper (Llosa); This Boy’s Life (Caton-Jones); True Romance (Scott); What’s Love Got To Do With It (Gibson); Wittgenstein (Jarman)


Best Performances of 1993
Oft-Mentioned Choices
Daniel Day-Lewis in In the Name of the Father
Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List
Tom Hanks in Philadelphia
Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day
Holly Hunter in The Piano
Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive
Anna Paquin in The Piano
David Thewlis in Naked

But how about...
Diane Keaton in Manhattan Murder Mystery
One of Woody Allen's lesser-regarded movies, I think that MMM is a highly entertaining take on Hitchcock's Rear Window...made comedic. And while Woody is in fine nerve-wracked and bumbling form, it is Diane's picture. Middle-aged and maritally bored, she leaps on a tiny inconsistency in the sudden death of a neighbour ("she never mentioned to me that she had a heart condition"), spinning it into a complicated murder plot. And she loves it...the risk, the puzzle, the sordidness. Jabbering away at Woody, explaining her theories and observations, she cranks herself up into feeling excited about life again. She becomes our Sherlock and entices Woody to become her rather frantic Watson. Great fun.

...and what about...
Jeff Daniels in Gettysburg
While the movie suffers from self-consciousness (We. Are. Making. An. Epic.), Jeff emerges as a real person rather than an historic figure lifted from the pages. The relation of the performance to the actual Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is irrelevant: Jeff has created a man who is intelligent, determined, compassionate, duty-bound (but not at the expense of his humanity) and above all else, gentle-by-preference...but still not weak. The Battle of Little Round Top set-piece, depicting a true horror of war-slaughter, goes on and on, but Jeff as the man in charge is at his absolute best for the duration, a leader we can all admire; a common man who gains respect through example. Jeff even handles the inevitable flag-waving, heartfelt, ra-ra speeches to the troops with convincing aplomb.

...not to mention...
Al Pacino in Carlito's Way
An unusual gangster movie (reflective; sadly resigned right from the beginning; almost pastoral in a way), Carlito's Way is one of Al's more unsung showcases. Straight after his awarded (and greatly overrated) turn in Scent of a Woman, Al plays a longtime street-crim who just wants to go straight...the simple life of wife, child, friends you can trust and a job where Occ Health & Safety doesn't rely on a gun. Al makes you feel how much the man wants this, and how much the man knows that it is a wispy pipe dream..."just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in", as Michael Corleone would say. The film balances the primal grasp at redemption with exciting set-pieces and a fatalistic view of life in the mean streets. A wonderful performance in a terrific film...

...and one personal unmentionable...
Penelope Ann Miller in Carlito's Way
...which is nearly derailed by this questionable co-performance. Like a glass of skim milk at a scotch tasting, Penelope makes an appearance that belongs somewhere less spirited...she just doesn't fit. At no point can you figure out what Al sees in her, and why he is prepared to risk all to spend the rest of his paradisiacal dream-life with her. Threatening to slip into a Jan-Sterling-in-Ace-in-the-Hole impersonation (but chickening out), the nasally slant Penelope gives to the name "Charlie" demands that she chew gum and stamp around in red high-heels ...but she just knits her brow instead. And, let's be completely blunt here...she is no dancer. The camera does its best to blur what it is exactly that Penelope does when she is trying to shake it baby, but cannot camouflage her lack of grace or groove. A classic case of poor casting.

My 10 Favourite Performances of 1993
What's Eating Gilbert Grape:
The ensemble cast.
#01  Leonardo DiCaprio in What's Eating Gilbert Grape
#02  Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day
#03  Jeff Daniels in Gettysburg
#04  Rosie Perez in Fearless
#05  Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
#06  Debra Winger in A Dangerous Woman
#07  Christina Ricci in Addams Family Values
#08  Al Pacino in Carlito's Way
#09  Peter Vaughan in The Remains of the Day
#10  Diane Keaton in Manhattan Murder Mystery
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11  Nicholas Hope in Bad Boy Bubby
#12  Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape
#13  Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List
#14  Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire
#15  Shirley MacLaine in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
#16  Wiley Wiggins in Dazed and Confused
#17  Anthony Hopkins in Shadowlands
#18  The ensemble cast of Short Cuts
#19  John Malkovich in In the Line of Fire
#20  Kevin Kline in Dave

Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
>  Tom Hanks in Philadelphia [isn't Tom a member of George Clooney's Just-a-Nice-Guy-&-That's-All Club?]
>  Holly Hunter in The Piano [I can still hear her Southern drawl in my head every time she pouts]
>  Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive [so many other of his roles were more worthy of recognition]
>  David Thewlis in Naked [more admirable than memorable; more craftsmanship than inspiration]
>  Liam Neeson in Schindler's List [I don't see the complexity of the man]
>  Emma Thompson in The Remains of the Day [just seems to follow Anthony's example]
>  Winona Ryder in The Age of Innocence [I fail to see the schemer in her]
>  Jesse Bradford in King of the Hill [serviceable and a little bland]
>  Anna Paquin in The Piano [she won it because she was cute, not because she was good]

And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1993 are:

FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis)
SILVER: The Remains of the Day (James Ivory)
BRONZE: Carlito's Way (Brian De Palma)

LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Anthony Hopkins (The Remains of the Day)
SILVER: Jeff Daniels (Gettysburg)
BRONZE: Bill Murray (Groundhog Day)

LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Debra Winger (A Dangerous Woman)
SILVER: Diane Keaton (Manhattan Murder Mystery)
BRONZE: Suzi Amis (The Ballad of Little Jo)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape)
SILVER: Peter Vaughan (The Remains of the Day)
BRONZE: Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Rosie Perez (Fearless)
SILVER: Shirley MacLaine (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway)
BRONZE: Miriam Margoyles (The Age of Innocence)

ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Andie MacDowell & Bruce Davison & Julianne Moore & Matthew Modine & Anne Archer & Fred Ward & Jennifer Jason Leigh & Chris Penn & Lili Taylor & Robert Downey Jr & Madeleine Stowe & Tim Robbins & Lili Tomlin & Tom Waits & Frances McDormand & Peter Gallagher & Annie Ross & Lori Singer & Jack Lemmon & Lyle Lovett & Buck Henry & Huey Lewis & Charles Rocket & Michael Beach (Short Cuts)
SILVER: Daniel Day-Lewis & Michelle Pfeiffer (The Age of Innocence)
BRONZE: Robert Duvall & Richard Harris (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway)

JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Christina Ricci (Addams Family Values)
SILVER: Wiley Wiggins (Dazed and Confused)
BRONZE: Nick Stahl (The Man Without a Face)

The Alternate Razzies for 1993 are:

CRAP FILM of the YEAR
The Piano (Jane Campion)

CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Macaulay Culkin (The Good Son)

CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Penelope Ann Miller (Carlito's Way)