1995 was a rebuilding year. It was a year in which I was trying to find myself again after suffering a devastating loss of security and trust in myself. This was a year in which I got out of the cult and threw myself into exploration to figure out who I was and what I believed. I got serious about college and refined my career goals, which was now singularly focused on getting into the FBI. I started karate at Kosho Karate San, a dojo I would train at for five years. I eventually became the office manager and taught classes but that was later. This is when I first started and was first trying to rebuild my self-esteem.
Near the end of this year I left my tour guide job at Colossal Cave and started working at Blockbuster Video. I had always wanted to work in a video store since I spent most of my free time in one waiting for movies to come in and hanging out with the employees. It felt weird to go work for a big corporate store that was killing the smaller shops like my beloved and by this time defunct Best Video, but it was pretty much the only viable game in town outside of Hollywood Video and some smaller chains. Plus my friend’s sister worked there and helped hook me up with the job.
Blockbuster was one of my favorite jobs I have ever had and led to an exponential growth in the number of movies I was watching and games I was playing. I was still going to the movies but now renting movies was free and I would rent catalog titles several times a week to improv my knowledge base. I also went through reading cover boxes and the movie guide we had on site to make sure I was familiar with what we had even if I hadn’t seen it before.
Talking movies with people at work became one of my favorite things in the world and I enjoyed talking to customers about movies just as much as my fellow employees. I made friends there that I still have today, including my best friend, Jeff. This was the beginning of a halcyon time for me and I interacted with movies a lot.
It is interesting to look back on this year as I was a shattered and broken person at the beginning of it and I was starting to heal at the end of it. I was rebuilding the pieces of myself like a Kintsugi pot with all of my cracks and jagged pieces on full display. This may sound overly dramatic but it is hard to overstate the pain and damage I felt at the beginning of this year and how much work I did to try to repair it. Movies contributed to this a lot both as emotional solace and as further definition of who I was and who I wasn’t. My favorites from this year reflect this. Some of them are the comfort food and some are visions of who I wanted to be creatively and as a person.
The runners up list is long and there are a lot of movies on there that are painful to leave off this list but, as ever, this is about reflecting on what these movies meant to me at the time and how. Angus and Tommy Boy are two that are particularly painful to omit as I love them very deeply but it was a stacked year for me. So it goes with a crazy project like this.
Runners up in roughly release order: Tales from the Crypt Demon Knight, the Quick and the Dead, Shallow Grave, the Brady Bunch Movie, Tank Girl, Tommy Boy, Bad Boys, Don Juan DeMarco, Swimming with Sharks, French Kiss, Forget Paris, Johnny Mnemonic, Apollo 13, Clueless, Virtuosity, Brothers McMullen, Mortal Kombat, Desperado, the Prophecy, Angus, the Usual Suspects, Empire Records, Strange Days, Copy Cat, Goldeneye, Casino, Toy Story, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, Sense and Sensibility, Jumanji, Four Rooms, and 12 Monkeys.
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 1995 and why as well. It is also worth mentioning that there will be spoilers here for what are now 31-year-old movies. Let’s dig in!
1.Mallrats-Kevin Smith
The follow up to Clerks, Mallrats follows two new characters Brodie Bruce (Jason Lee) and TS Quint (Jeremy London) who are both dumped by their girlfriends, Rene Mosier (Shannen Doherty) and Brandi Svenning (Claire Forlani) respectively, and go to the mall to cope with their ‘simultaneous double loss.’ TS is much more upset about this as they were about to go to Florida where he was going to propose to her on the Universal Tour when Jaws pops out of the water and she canceled the trip to take part in her father’s (Michael Rooker) game show, Truth or Date, because TS inadvertently caused his original contestant to die while doing laps. In Brodie’s case the breakup was because he is an emotionally unavailable man-child who is more interested in comics and Sega (I am not sure if this is why I identified with him most when I first saw this but I never really had a Sega until Dreamcast so…).
Once Brodie and TS get to the mall they are faced with a number of side-quests: the proprietor of Fashionable Male Shannon Hamilton (Ben Affleck) who has a beef with Brodie and who has his eyes set on Rene, their friend Willem (Ethan Suplee) who is trying to see the sailboat in a Magic Eye picture, Tricia Jones (Renee Humphrey) who is writing a book on male sexual prowess who warns about Hamilton’s vendetta against Brodie which he mentioned during a ‘research session,’ and a long line at the comic book store because Stann Lee is there. The bigger issue is that Truth or Date is filming at that mall and Mr. Svenning has set his security team after TS and Brodie. That is not before they enlist Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) to destroy the set to keep the game show from happening. That sounds way more complicated than it really is.
Mallrats was the bigger budget follow up that took Kevin Smith from self-financing a little movie about convenience store clerks to a Universal backed comedy with studio money. That brought a lot of studio notes and a lot more voices into the process and the result was an absolute dismal box office failure. On the Mallrats commentary, Smith describes the call with the studio after the first night about the numbers in which he said “well they can get better over the weekend right?” and they said “No, it is dead.” This was a pretty big defeat for the director who had taken Sundance by storm and had been heralded as a major voice in indy film. But here is the thing about Mallrats: It fucking rocks.
I didn’t see Clerks when it first came out and I didn’t rent it when it came out on video. I remember being at a movie and the trailer for Mallrats came on and a friend I was with said “Hey it is the guys from Clerks” while pointing at Jay and Silent Bob. I thought it looked dumb so I didn’t think much more of it. Cut to months later when I was flipping channels on cable and I came across a brightly colored movie with some kind of dating game show on it in which one really funny guy was killing it with jokes. I laughed my ass off and looked to the guide to see what it was. It was Mallrats. I went to the video store and rented it. I fucking loved it. I went back and got Clerks and loved that even more.
One of the things I really latched onto with the two movies is that the two movies were connected, not just with Jay and Silent Bob in both but in referencing Julie Dwyer who died while doing laps in her pool. Dante and Randall go to her funeral in Clerks and she was who was originally supposed to be on Truth or Date and was doing the laps because TS told her that TV makes people look fatter. Then there was Willem Black who was played by Scott Mosier in Clerks and is distinctly different in both movies. Kevin Smith explains this as the Willem of Two Worlds. Smith didn’t have to do this, to make these connections, but he did and it made me think of comics continuity and I was 100% there for it. It added this extra depth that captured my imagination.
As it turns out, that continuity largely would not have existed if the movie had proceeded as originally written and filmed. The original cut, which you can see on special features, kept the characters away from the mall for an hour and had entirely different sets of circumstances for why Brandi’s dad didn’t like TS and why she was doing the show. I don’t normally like to side with studios, especially when they wanted to re-cast Jay with a name actor, but they really did the movie a solid here.
Mallrats has become a comfort movie for me over the years and is probably most responsible for my falling in love with Kevin Smith’s whole thing. I think Clerks is a better movie and I have watched it at least as many times, but the commentary and special features for this movie really endeared it to me and got me really into Kevin Smith.
Mallrats is also a gift that keeps on giving. Whenever I want to have something on in the background while I am drawing or doing some kind of art project, I throw the Mallrats commentary on. I have seen it so many times I really don’t need to watch to know what they are talking about. Then there is the TV edit. Holy shit.
The TV edit is a thing of horrifying beauty. It is a weird Frankenstein’s monster of parts of the theatrical release and the original cut, with scenes added back in to make it long enough for broadcast with commercials, and huge chunks of Jay’s dialogue dubbed over by someone who sounds nothing like him saying ridiculous things instead of profanity. It is absolutely nuts and is almost funnier unintentionally than the theatrical release is intentionally.
On top of all that is Jason Lee. He is amazing as Brodie. He was a professional skateboarder who had been in Mi Vida Loca prior to Mallrats and he is absolutely fantastic. His comedic timing and delivery is incredible and I signed up for Jason Lee season tickets right away. I met him earlier this year on the Jay an Silent Bob Cruise Askew and he was very cool and nice. I have followed his career ever since Mallrats and I genuinely enjoy all of his performances.
Mallrats is not my favorite of Kevin Smith’s movies and I don’t even know how I would do a ranking of his movies at this point but it was my entry point and it will always be special to me. I understand why it wasn’t well received when it first came out as I didn’t receive it at all but I am glad that it is has been largely rehabilitated into a cult classic, even amongst non-Smith devotees. This remains a comfort movie for me and it always makes me feel better when I am feeling down.
2.Die Hard with a Vengeance-John McTiernan
Starting life as a movie called Simon Says, the third Die Hard entry forges a new path away from the ‘Die Hard in a ___’ genre and puts John McClane (Bruce Willis) in a deadly game against a terrorist named Simon (Jeremy Irons) who turns out to be the brother of original Die Hard villain Hans Gruber. McClane is forced into a game of Simon Says in which he has to carry out tasks assigned by Simon that eventually embroils Zeus (Samuel L Jackson), a shop owner from Harlem who has to continue to help McClane or Simon will set up a bomb at an elementary school somewhere in New York. True to form for a Die Hard movie, not all is as it seems and Simon and his crew have a whole different plan going on to rob the Federal Reserve.
Die Hard with a Vengeance is a return to form for the series by doing something fresh and going in a different direction while honoring some of the hallmarks of the series. The second Die Hard just kind of ran the first one back but with an airport whereas this one gives us a new scenario entirely while tying back to elements of the first movie in a way that felt fairly organic for this being a repurposed script.
The action here is exciting and the chemistry between Willis and Jackson is top tier. If the series had just given us more team-ups with these two, I would have been much happier than what we got instead. Jeremy Irons manages to give his Gruber a different feel than what we got with Allen Rickman in the original while still feeling like this could be that guy’s brother. The rest of the movie is made up of character actors and That Guys that really elevate all aspects of the story.
I saw this in the theater on a sweaty summer day and was blown away. I saw it with my parents and they loved it as well. We watched it many subsequent times as a family on video. They both dug Bruce Willis in general and the Die Hard movies in particular. This went a decent way toward repairing some of the damage done during high school and the cult months. We spoke to each other in the language of movies quite a bit and this violent movie about thieves, burnt out cops, and a pissed off electronics store owner was a healing language. This is my favorite Die Hard both because of this and also because it is just empirically rad. It also has a hilarious airplane/TV edit that I recommend if you can find it. I wish more of these were available on Blu-ray sets.
3.Get Shorty-Barry Sonnenfeld
An adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, Get Shorty follows Chilli Palmer (John Travolta), a loan shark from Miami who goes to Los Vegas to collect money from Leo Devoe (David Paymer), a debtor who was thought to have died in a plane crash but skipped town to Vegas. In Vegas, Chilli learns that Leo went down to LA and is asked by his contact in Vegas to check in on Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), a B-movie director who owes on money he borrowed for a movie. When Chilli gets down to Hollywood and meets Zimm, and subsequently Zimm’s ex Karen Flores (Renee Russo), he realizes that he doesn’t really want to be a mobster anymore and would rather get into movie producing. His failure to return brings Ray Bones (Dennis Farina) down to take Chilli out and recover the money and his meddling in Zimm’s affairs put him on the wrong side of local gangsters Bo (Delroy Lindo) and Ronnie (Jon Gries) to whom Zimm also owes money. It is all a complicated web of double crosses and maneuvering that shows Chilli that making movies may be even more dangerous than lone sharking.
This was my first real exposure to Elmore Leonard’s writing, and I fell deeply in love. The dialogue is exquisite and it manages to have stakes while feeling funny and breezy which is as much a credit to director Barry Sonnenfeld as it is to Leonard’s source material. Travolta’s performance as Chilli is one of my favorites of his and Hackman is, as always, incredible. Danny DiVito also shines as Martin Weir, a fickle actor they are trying to wrangle into Zimm’s project. Honestly, all the performances are fun and on point here.
I really loved this movie and so, when I went to the Arizona State Fair to see the Monkees and went to a vendor that was selling used books and saw the Get Shorty novel, I picked it up. I loved the book just as much as I had loved the movie and I started reading as many Leonard novels as I could. And there are a lot of them. There are still several that I need to read but I think I have read the majority at this point. He is absolutely one of my favorite authors and I have learned so much about dialogue, plotting, and narration from him. Get Shorty absolutely changed my life and even if it weren’t infinitely rewatchable, it would be included here.
4.Heat-Michael Mann
An epic crime story that puts Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on screen together for the first time, Heat is the gold standard for bank robbery movies that imitators have been chasing ever since. The story isn’t very complex: A crew of master bank robbers are pitted against squad of detectives trying to find them when things go south during a robbery due to a loose cannon replacement on the crew. But as simple of a story as this is, the way it unfolds is complex and compelling to equal measure.
The cast of this movie is insane. Pacino and De Niro would be enough but here we also get Val Kilmer, John Voight, Tom Sizemore, Amy Brenamen, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi, Dennis Haysbert, Ted Levine, William Fickner, Natalie Portman, Hank Azaria, Henry Rollins, Tom Noonan, Xander Berkley, and Jeremy Piven. Holy shit!
This is another one I saw with my parents in the theater and while it is insanely long, it doesn’t feel that way at all. This movie has everything. It has great character drama delivered with great performances, it has the best heist and shootout ever put to film, it has quotable lines for days, intrigue, and one of the most unhinged Pacino performance ever. My former roommate Oliver coined the term ‘Pacino Transition’ in which Pacino goes from being a normal human to being a yelling lunatic and back again for no apparent reason. This originated here and he does it several times throughout the movie. The actual reason is that there was a subplot that his character was a cocaine addict but that was removed from the movie so we are left with him calmly interrogating Hank Azaria before yelling ‘because she’s got a GREAT ASS! AND YOU HAVE YOUR HEAD ALL THE WAY UP IT!” And honestly it is better that way because it is magical as it is.
Even with the long run time, Heat is a movie I can watch over and over. In fact I have, many many times. I have yet to watch LA Takedown, the TV movie that Michael Mann made in 1989 that is basically Heat with less money and lesser actors, but I really want to and I find it fascinating that he did this. It is kind of like Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, when he got the money to do it right, he did and knocked it out of the park.
There is a Heat 2 in the pipeline based on the novel Mann wrote which I have not yet read and I really hope that it pans out well. It would be a bummer if it gets fucked up after all this time. Even if it does, Heat will remain a masterpiece in crime filmmaking.
5.Seven-David Fincher
A grimy, filthy serial killer movie in which two detectives track down a serial killer patterning his murders after the seven deadly sins, Seven is as repulsive as it is rewatchable with an ending that will forever be burned in my brain.
Morgan Freeman stars as Detective Sommerset, a veteran homicide detective on the verge of retiring who is tasked with training his replacement, Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) who has just transferred to the city. The murders are gristly and disturbing and the deeper they get into the case, the farther away Mills gets from his wife (Gwenyth Paltrow) who has not yet told him that she is pregnant. The closer they get to the killer, the closer the killer gets to them with devastating consequences and when he finally reveals himself, John Doe (Kevin Spacy) proves to be one of the most memorable movie serial killers since Hannibal Lecter.
I saw Seven with my cousin Kelly who also wanted to join the FBI to profile serial killers. We were pretty excited to see it and when the credits rolled it was the quietest I have ever heard a theater empty. No one really said anything or made eye contact as we shuffled out of the theater and it was quite some time before Kelly or I said anything at all. Seven has become kind of quaint now as it has been memed and quoted to death, but at the time ‘What’s in the box?’ was one of the most chilling things I had ever heard.
Seven really solidified David Fincher as one of my favorite directors, even before Fight Club. The look and feel of the movie was unique at the time and just dripped with malevolence and decay. The overreaching theme of societal decline was on display in every frame without any of the characters having to say anything about it at all. It was hard not to feel off after watching it for the first time.
But, for all of that, it is enormously rewatchable with performances that pop off the screen and a propulsive story that has so much depth and texture that it is hard to look away no matter how much you might want to. Seven is one of those movies that will forever be burned into my brain and I return to it with startling regularity. It made other serial killer movies look like clown shoes by comparison and that is one of the things I like about it so much. There was no glamor here and it wasn’t a ‘serial killers are so cool and hip’ sort of vibe. It was ‘these guys are horrible monsters and not folk heroes.’ I like that a lot. Seven is just so good.