Lifetime Movies: 1993

Winner: Army of Darkness


Groundhog Day was a great film and a great choice by Vin, but I know he's not an Evil Dead fan. His loss. The Internet is stained with geekgasms about this movie, so I won't add to the mess other than to say it is just pure fun to watch. I don't know if Sam Raimi could have made this at another time. It was a perfect creative window for his sensibilities: he had built up enough genre clout to get his vision financed, but free from the corporate web of a billion dollar franchise. Basically, he was given money to intentionally make a cult classic. And he did. AoD is a campy, catchphrase free-for-all. The best film of the year? Of course not. But one I'll keep watching again and again (but not again because that would be a bit much).

Films of Note:

Vin hit on a lot of the high notes including the very underrated So I Married an Axe Murderer and the ground-breaking Judgement Night soundtrack. Overall, though, this was a surprisingly down year considering how the rest of pop culture was blowing up. But it appears the decade was just catching its breath. 1994 has some big films and then we hit what I think is the best 5-year stretch of this whole countdown.

A Bronx Tale: The directorial debut of Robert DeNiro. I'm surprised Vin didn't mention this and that's not just because he is a pillar of the Italian-American community. This is a great father-son story thanks in large part to one of my favorite DeNiro performances as the honest, hard-working dad losing his son to the "glamour" of the neighborhood wiseguy. SMC TRIVIA: we had scouts at our high school during the casting process. Vin turned down the lead to focus on his studies. It's true because it's on the Internet!

The Nightmare Before Christmas: I liked this long before it became Hot Topic chic. It's a dark, anti-Disney Disney musical. And it's a scary Christmas movie. Or is it a happy Halloween movie? Tim Burton at his Gothic peek, when he was still making movies instead of just cashing paychecks. Looking at his upcoming schedule, originality is going to fade even further into the past.

The Sandlot: A family movie that plays the nostalgia card, but doesn't go sappy. Plus, it turns into one of the last good baseball movies.

Lifetime Movies: 1993

Now that the cat is out of the bag...and we had seen Res Dogs (as some online bloggers like to call it)...we now, and by "WE" I mean the real Generation Xers...we are looking for THE Independent hit...we want to be a part of telling all our friends to see this real cool movie that only we know about...of course, that film was Clerks and came out in 1994 and, of course, I was not hip to it till after Mallrats was already on video...for me I had to wait till 1996 to jump on the "COOL" bandwagon first for an Independent film...more on that later.

This was a tough year...the films I have highlighted all are good, however after 17 years I rarely come back to any of them and maybe have seen 1 more then 2 times...so I gotta go with gut here and pick the one that lasts the longest and the one I would recommend first to a Martian from another planet who wanted to know what great 1993 cinema had to offer. The Nominees are:

Schindler's List, Dazed and Confused, Groundhog Day, Carlito's Way, and True Romance

WINNER: GROUNDHOG DAY

Literally, I could watch this in an eternal loop just like the film, it's funny and new and fresh and Bill Murray at his best...when he is the star and he is great the film just flies by...not to mention great roles by Chris Elliot and Steven Tobolowsky. This film is great as a straight comedy, great as a love story, a slapstick comedy at times, and a way to teach karma and reincarnation and nirvana and Buddhism. No other film in this year does all this and is entertaining years later.

Other films and thoughts:

Schindler's List: great film...but not very funny...I don't mean to be cruel, it's just that it's a downer and rightfully so.

Carlito's Way: Sean Penn's greatest role easily and one of the last great Al Pacino roles

Dazed and Confused: maybe in hindsight this film is not as good as I remember...what really has this guy (Director Linklater) done?...not much for me...oh wait there's that film with Ethan Hawke that he has filmed for 12 years...can't wait till that one done.

Judgement Night: great great soundtrack...the film is terrible but the infusion of great rock and rap was genius.

Rudy: almost made it to the number one spot for me..its just that they set Rudy up as retarded...maybe a trip to the showers would be in store for Rudy at Amon Goeth's little work camp

So I Married an Axe Murderer: very underrated film...this I wish would have been bigger then Wayne's World and those godawful Spy Movies by Mike Myers...real funny film and has a heart to match.

True Romance: another one I could have made number one pretty easily...great script by Tarantino, great acting and the first on screen Gandolfini moment of my life.

There it goes...we all looked for that Indie hit, in 1994 the Tarantino Train keeps rolling...I want to hate him but he keeps making great films...too bad he hasn't written any more scripts like he did for 1993 and 1994...all his movies I think with the exception of One will make this list.