Okay, so now we are at my Junior year in high school and more firsts are coming along, like my first job (outside of working for my parents), which was Taco Bell, my first car, which was a Plymouth Caravelle, my driver’s license, and my first real heartbreak as I eventually broke up with with my first girlfriend. I started acting for the first time as I joined drama and was in my first play. I joined a medieval recreation group, the Empire of Chivalry and Steel, in order to learn sword fighting and started stage combat. I took a Mythology and Exploratory Literature class that absolutely changed my life for the better thanks to my teacher Mrs Hiner. A lot of things were happening this year and there were a fuck ton of movies that I loved.
Because I was more mobile now, I went to movies with my friends a lot more. I was still renting movies every weekend and seeing things with my parents. This was a very movie heavy year. As with many other years, there are some crazy films that didn’t make the top five and at least one that I am sure people will think I am crazy for including but as ever, make your own list if you don’t like mine.
The top five this year are all very personal to me and are all movies that I still watch and reference all the time. I think I have seen all of them within the last year. 1993 is not as iconic as other years, not like 1991 was or 1994 will be, certainly not as much of a heavy hitter as 1999 but there are a ton of great movies this year. The top five are deeply important to me for different reasons but they could all change orders depending on how I feel at any given time. As a matter of fact, I changed the order this morning when I sat down to write. I love all of them.
Runners up by roughly release order: National Lampoons Loaded Weapon 1, Groundhog Day, El Mariachi, Falling Down, The Sandlot, Who’s the Man?, Dave, Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story, Much Ado About Nothing, Hot Shots! Part Deux, Cliffhanger, Last Action Hero, In the Line of Fire, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Rising Sun, the Fugitive, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Hard Target, Kalifornia, True Romance, Dazed and Confused, Freaked, Demolition Man, Judgement Night, The Three Musketeers, Addam’s Family Values, Wayne’s World 2, and Batman Mask of the Phantasm.
If you have not read the introduction to this exercise, I recommend you do so for context regarding what this all is. In short, be nice, these are my favorites based on how I encountered them in my life and what they mean for mean to me. This is not a list of objective best movies in their respective years and if a movie that you love or is considered great does not appear, it does not mean that I think it is shit or that I don’t love it. These are just my favorites for particular personal reasons. Feel free to let everyone know your favorite five for 1993 and why as well. It is also worth mentioning that there will be spoilers here for what are now 33-year-old movies. Let’s dig in!
1.Jurassic Park-Steven Spielberg
Based on the novel by Michael Chricton, Jurassic Park is one of Steven Speilberg’s blockbuster pillars. Telling the store of a rich eccentric whose company resurrects dinosaurs through DNA frozen in amber and subsequently builds an amusement park that goes terribly wrong on a promotional weekend meant to impress scientists. A tale of ambition gone wrong, corporate espionage, unbridled wonder, philosophical debate, and abject terror, Jurassic Park has a bit of everything and remains an absolute wonder of a movie with effects that continue to hold up to this day and make other effects efforts from the time look like clown shoes.
The cast of this movie is top notch and everyone delivers knock out performances that continue to impress. Sam Neil is an absolutely perfect Alan Grant, a paleontologist who is at once swept up in the wonder and majesty of the dinosaurs but also horrified at the implications of breeding the carnivores. Laura Dern is an equally perfect Ellie Sadler, a paleobotanist and Grant’s partner who represents a much more measured perspective of the risks. Jeff Goldblum turns in a near-career best performance as Dr Ian Malcolm, a chaotician who thinks the entire thing is madness. Richard Attenborough gives John Hammond the perfect amount of childlike wonder to keep the audience from hating him for his hubris (this is a change from the novel where Hammond is a real fucking asshole and is eaten by Compies by the end of the book). Sameul L Jackson is awesome as Mr. Arnold, Hammond’s right hand man who leaves his left one behind when he is eventually eaten by a velociraptor. Arianna Richards and Joseph Mazello are great child actors as Hammond’s grandkids Lex and Tim.
Even smaller parts are filled with great actors including BD Wong, Miguel Sandoval, Bob Peck, and Martin Ferrero. And of course Wayne Knight is fantastic as Dennis Nedry, the IT guy who fucks everyone by stealing embryos in a Barbasol can. I continue to use Barbasol to this day off the strength of its appearance in this movie.
Jurassic Park is one of the rare book adaptations that doesn’t necessarily surpass the novel but manages to offer a different version of it that stands on its own and is just as good. If the novel is a meditation on the recklessness of scientific discovery for profit and corporate espionage mixed with a survival horror narrative, the movie is a theme park ride based off that material. The majority of the book’s elements are here but tweaked to be more family friendly and exciting. Normally that kind of dumbing down or blunting of source material would hurt the finished product but here it distills down what Jurassic Park means and delivers it as a concentrated injection of excitement and fun.
In the book, the velociraptors and T-Rex lay waste to the island and there are body parts all over. In the movie, most of the personnel are evacuated due to the tropical storm. In the book Hammond is a greedy dickhead who wants to exploit the dinosaurs for every penny he can squeeze out of them. In the movie he is a deeply flawed idealist who gets caught up in the coulda and never thinks about the shoulda. He realizes his errors by the end as he sees the cost of the thing he’s done. In the book he gets eaten alive by little dinos that do show up until the second movie. Ian Malcolm dies unceremoniously on the helicopter ride home, here he survives, which is much better for the sequel. In the book’s sequel, Chrichton has to pull a ‘reports of my death were greatly exaggerated’ to bring him back. The kids have a much better skill breakdown in the movie as in the book Tim has the computer skills and the dino knowledge and Lex is just kind of useless (this speaks to some of the attitudes that Chricton had about women that started becoming more apparent throughout his career). In the movie Lex gets computer skills and Tim keeps his voluminous knowledge about dinosaurs.
Just about the only change from book to movie that I don’t agree with is that Muldoon dies in the movie and survives the book. The ‘clever girl’ scene in the movie right before he gets got by a raptor is so good, though, it is hard to argue with too hard. I just really dig Muldoon and would have liked to have seen him survive. How much cooler would it have been if Muldoon had the Owen Grady role in Jurassic World?
I saw this in the theater several times, the first with my Mom and Dad and my cousin Zack. Zack was six or seven at the time and he ended up being really terrified during the T-Rex attack scene, particularly when Lex and Tim are in the jeep and the T-Rex is trying to get at them through the roof plexiglass. This is another example, along with Terminator, of where I kind of fucked up recommending he see something way too young.
I had read the book before I saw the movie and waited in line for hours before the movie to get good seats. That was a thing we had to do back in the day and it was a thing my parents were not so keen to do by this time. So I went a head and saved them space. This is, perhaps, the origin of the particular and specialized anxiety I developed over the years of waiting for people to show up and feeling increasingly panicked the longer it takes them to get there. Assigned seats has been such a godsend for my psyche. This will not be the last time you read about this from me.
When I was a kid, as with so many other kids, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. Sharks and dinosaurs were my main obsessions and at different turns I wanted to be a paleontologist or a marine biologist. Math stymied my scientific aspirations but paleontology would have been much more reasonable for me in a landlocked desert but I think ultimately sweeping dirt with little brushes to find fossils in the oppressive heat of the desert was more of a confound for me than math. I am not, unlike Dr Grant, a digger. But I still loved dinosaurs and Jurassic Park offered all the majesty and wonder that I was looking for. For all of the terror brought on by the velociraptors, I was in awe of the dinosaurs in this movie and found it to be absolutely thrilling.
The general respect that are offered to the dinosaurs here was also always noteworthy to me. This was made by people who also loved dinosaurs. It is no mistake that I feel the way about the dinosaurs that I did for the shark in Jaws given that was also Spielberg but the plus here was that dinosaurs were already extinct when he made this movie as opposed to sharks being fished to the brink of extinction as a reaction to Jaws. I don’t know for sure that the sense of majesty for the dinosaurs here is a reaction to that, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were.
Sadly, earlier this week as I write this, Sam Neil passed away at the age of 78. He was tremendous actor who added value to every role he played. He returned to the Jurassic franchise for two more movies and I was always happy to see him as Grant. I love Ian Malcolm but Grant was always my favorite character because, while I was definitely more like Tim than anyone else, I identified with him as a lover of dinosaurs. It makes me sad that Sam Neil is no longer with us but I am glad that I can go back and spent time with him in the movies. Even when he was playing unhinged characters like in Even Horizon, seeing him was always a comfort.
I love Jurassic Park and I think it is wild to think about in terms of Spielberg’s career. To have one movie like this would be an amazing achievement but his catalog is full of them. Jurassic Park has a special place in my heart, though, because it features creatures I love and it gave me a sense of wonder that remains to this day, just like Jaws did for me with sharks. I have now swam with sharks and even though every Jurassic Park movie results in absolute brutal dino eating people chaos, I would still go if I had the chance. That sentiment really explains the magic of Jurassic Park better than anything else, even if it spectacularly misses the point of the movie and novel altogether.
2.Army of Darkness-Sam Raimi
The third part of the Evil Dead series, Army of Darkness follows final guy Ash (Bruce Campbell) as he is transported into the past to fight deadites in medieval times while trying to find the Necronomicon in order to be sent home. It is much more comedy than horror and pays homage to Ray Harrihausen and the Three Stooges to equal measure and is easily one of the most fun movies of the 90s.
Paying off the ending of Evil Dead 2, Ash is taken prisoner by Arthur’s (Marcus Gilbert) men when they lump him in with Duke Henry the Red (Richard Grove). They even impound Ash’s Oldsmobile Delta 88 (the Classic). Only after Ash manages to kill a deadite in the pit with his chainsaw hand that the Wiseman (Ian Ambercrombie) returns to him does he manage to win the trust of the people. This trust is tenuous at best as Arthur is incredulous, but Ash fits a prophecy that a guy will show up with a chainsaw hand and rescue the people from the deadite threat so they all cut him some slack. True to form, however, Ash fucks it all up by forgetting the magic words and unleashes an army of deadites that threaten to wipe out humanity forever.
Army of Darkness is such a silly movie but it is absolutely awesome and badass. A further tonal shift from Evil Dead 2 than from that film and the first film, Army of Darkness becomes something fairly unique. It takes the horror comedy to entirely new heights while offering some of the most memorable and quotable lines put to film all tied together with Raimi’s iconic shooting style. It is a whole package and I love it so much.
Army of Darkness is necessarily a film a part from the rest of the series because of rights issues. Even Ash vs the Evil Dead can’t directly reference it because of those rights but its influence is still felt throughout the series up to and including the name ‘deadite’ for the demon possessed monsters has infected the fan vernacular such that even in the much more serious Evil Dead reboot series, fans still call them deadites.
I have covered how I saw Army of Darkness in the Evil Dead 2 entry of this list. I saw it with two people from Best Video and, through my friend Don’s tutelage, it lead me deeper down the path that Mystery Science Theater 3000 had started me on into schlocky, low budget sci-fi and horror. I was heading there already but Don really guided me to the good stuff and that largely started with Army of Darkness.
Ash remains one of my favorite characters of all time in cinema and I find him to be a fascinating character that exists in a unique space in horror. I read an essay about this once, which I wish I could find again, that was for a film class analyzing the Final Girl tradition that points out that Ash is really the only major example of a Final Guy and that he has a lot of the same attributes as a final girl up to and including his name being Ashely. By the time he gets to Army of Darkness, though, he has lost his mind to such a degree that he has started projecting a hyper masculine façade that hides his abject buffoonery and the pastiche of those two things makes him an amazing character that can be quoted endlessly while laughing at his antics and celebrating his victories.
Army of Darkness is not to be taken seriously, but that doesn’t make it a throw away movie. It is funny, exciting, weird, and scary all at the same time. It is a love letter to the past while paving the way for the future and is never not fun. You can see this movie’s influence all over modern horror and comedies and horror comedies. Ash, as a character, is such a formidable figure in fandom that the modern Evil Dead movies have smartly not even attempted to replicate him. Army of Darkness is and always will be amazing.
3.So I Married an Axe Murderer-Thomas Schalamme
Coming the same year as Wayne’s World 2 (which I absolutely adore), So I Married an Axe Murderer is Mike Myers going for a more ‘traditional’ comedy if you can call a movie about a San Francisco beat poet embroiled in a relationship with a woman who may very well be a Black Widow style husband killer ‘traditional.’
Written by Robbie Fox and directed by Thomas Schalamme (who lives rent free in my head as ‘Tommy Schalamme’), So I Married an Axe Murdered follows Charlie (Myers), a poet with commitment issues who habitually breaks up with girlfriends for paranoid and trivial reasons, like Pam whose transgression was smelling like soup. Charlie meets Harriet (Nancy Travis), a beautiful butcher who links her own sausage. They start a relationship and Charlie becomes increasingly suspicious that Harriet might be the Honeymoon Killer who kills husbands on their wedding night. His best friend, San Francisco cop Tony (Anthony Lapaglia), thinks that this is just another paranoid episode but evidence starts mounting that Charlie’s fears might be true.
So I Married and Axe Murderer succeeds due to sharp writing, fun performances, and well shaped characters. Myers does double duty as his own father, a jovial Scottish conspiracy theorist that suggests that Charlie comes by his paranoia honestly. Travis is awesome as Harriet and has led to me having a deep and abiding crush on her that continues to this day. Amanda Plumber is unhinged as Harriet’s sister Rose, and Alan Alda absolutely rules as Tony’s police captain.
The quotability of this movie is off the charts from Charlie’s wild break up poems to literally everything his dad says. The writing is sharp and fun and the way the central mystery shapes out is effective and satisfying.
I saw this with my cousin Kelly. It was sort of a make up for not being able to see Wayne’s World together and it has led to years of us quoting this movie to each other. We often speak to each other in movie quotes in general but this movie gets a lot of run with us. In terms of Myers’s movies, this one gets the short shrift pretty awesome but I think it is my second favorite of his with Wayne’s World being my favorite. I wish it would have done better financially because I would have loved to have seen Myers do more of this kind of movie. I love Austin Powers, but I think about what we lost to it and sometimes wonder if the cost was too great.
4.My Boyfriend’s Back-Bob Balaban
Originally titled Johnny Zombie, My Boyfriend’s Back follows Johnny Dingle (Andrew Lowery), a high school student with a crush on Missy (Traci Lind) who has just broken up with jock boyfriend Buck (Matthew Fox), and wants to ask her to prom but is killed before he has the chance to ask her…so he comes back as a zombie to win her heart.
My Boyfriend’s back is a weird movie. It is very silly and heightened but I find the matter of fact and often self-aware dialogue to be absolutely hilarious. The story turns the typical teenage romance movie on its head while hitting all the usual tropes with unusual spins.
The performances in this movie are largely dry and no one particularly winks at the camera, playing things much closer to the ‘Naked Gun’ parody style of acting than as a wacky farce. This isn’t to say that the performances are all subtle as there is some camp thrown in and Phillip Seymour Hoffman turns in an absolutely nuts performance as Buck’s toady, Little Chuck.
The dialogue is what really shines for me here and it is largely predicated on how everyone basically no-sells that Johnny is back from the dead. The exchange with his parents when he shows back up after leaving the graveyard (which he is warned not to do lest he start to decompose), really illustrates this perfectly:
Mr. Dingle: You know son… your mother and I, and the ambulance driver, and the coroner, and the embalmer, were all pretty much convinced that you were dead.
Johnny: I got better.
Mr Dingle: Huh. Well, welcome home, son.
Johnny: Thanks.
So, if that strikes you as funny, then congratulations, you will likely be on board for this movie. If not, you can join the millions of people who failed to see this movie in the theater. It was a massive financial failure and is critically reviled. But I really dug it a lot. It hit me right in my sweet spot and I have evangelized for it for years. I genuinely understand it not being everyone’s cup of tea, and I have been told all about it over the years of rejection after showing it to people, but I love it.
5.Tombstone-George P Cosmatos
As I talked about last week, I have not always been into westerns, but I was on board with Tombstone from the jump. It is a highly fictionalized account of the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral and Wyatt Earp’s subsequent vengeance ride against the Cowboys and living an hour and some change away from Tombstone and going there since I was a little kid primed me for this movie for my whole life. It helps that the movie absolutely rules as well.
With an all-star cast featuring Kurt Russell as Wyatt, Sam Elliot as Virgil Earp, Bill Paxton as Morgan Earp, Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday, Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo, Powers Booth as Curly Bill Brocious, Dana Delany as Josephine Marcus, Stephen Lang as Ike Clanton, Thomas Haden Church as Billy Clanton, Jason Priestly as Billy Breckinridge, and Charlton fucking Heston as Henry Hooker this movie is completely stacked. There are a ton more name actors in this movie that I didn’t name just because it was getting ridiculous. Hell, Billy Bob Thornton appears as a crooked Farro dealer that Wyatt throws out on his ass after telling him ‘Skin that smoke wagon’ and ‘Throw down boy.’ Out of context those lines may sound silly but in the movie, they rule.
The late Val Kilmer is the clear stand out here amongst the cavalcade of fantastic performances. I don’t give a shit how accurate his portrayal was or wasn’t, but he will always embody Doc Holiday to me, and I don’t think I am alone there. He is fantastic in this movie and it is probably my favorite of his performances, which is really saying something as I sit here in a Real Genius t-shirt.
I saw this movie with friends from Taco Bell in an absolutely packed theater. We filed in to the second row in the middle because there wasn’t much available. I was blown away. My parents and I saw it together after that and it became a favorite for both of them. My mom had a Doc Holiday ‘I’ll be your huckleberry’ mouse pad that she used at her computer until she died. They watched it over and over again. It was a pretty big deal.
It isn’t often that I see a movie and it is about a place I have gone to on a regular basis. It is rarer still for it to be a place I have interacted with so much over the years. I have done paranormal investigations in the saloon that the Clantons and McLaurys stayed in the night before the gunfight. I have seen the pool table Morgan Earp died on after being shot through the window. I have taken countless friends and family members from out of town to see it, most recently my partner’s parents. We had dinner at Pinnacle Peak steakhouse and they were going to see a Tombstone play at the local Gaslight Theater and I asked ‘hey would you like to go to Tombstone tomorrow?’ So, we did. It is a strange thing to be able to do and it is made more so by the visibility of this movie.
Tombstone is not super historically accurate and it handwaves a ton of things about the Earps that were not so great but it is a fantastic movie. It is fun, thrilling, and well written, acted, and directed. The story goes that Kurt Russell ghost directed it and that George P Cosmatos was just a figurehead. That may or may not be true but whichever one of them did it made a fantastic movie.