90's Movie Review Day 4/5

I skipped a day so I'm doubling up. 6 categories: Best Movie About Lawyers, Best Documentary, Best War Movie, Best Animated Film, Best Parody of the Decade, Best Cult Hit of the Decade.

Best Movie About Lawyers (CRITERIA: Movie about lawyers, features court room drama, rampantly ignores due process):
NOMINEES:
A Civil Action
A Few Good Men
Liar, Liar
My Cousin Vinnie
Philadelphia
WINNER: Liar, Liar. First of all, I haven't seen A Time to Kill so I still don't know what might have become of Matthew McConaughey's shirt-wearing career. I think all of these movies are to a varying degree good. I go with Liar, Liar, despite its weakness as a court room drama, because it spends a healthy amount of time in court room nonetheless. A Few Good Men, the worst of the movies, should be credited for this being a genre. In fact, one of Liar, Liar's great services was to destroy the disturbing Clarence Darrow notion that lawyers are nothing but crusading do-gooders. Which is what ultimately puts the 'huh?' choice (A Civil Action) on this list - our hero is actually something of scumbag, but he's a scumbag in behaving like a crusading do-gooder,

Best Documentary:
NOMINEES:
Hoop Dreams
WINNER: Hoop Dreams. Sorry, I'm not taking any other applicants. Best documentary ever. Back before Michael Moore created the drive-by crusader self-promotion vehicle, people actually made gritty documentaries about things like urban dreamers. The documentary was about the subject matter, not the film maker. It was painstaking work, it was desperately honest, and it made no money. In perhaps the most ridiculous outcome of Academy Award history, this film was not nominated in the Best Documentary category because it was considered 'too good' for a documentary, but didn't make the final cut for best picture. Which it could rightfully have won.

Best War Movie:
NOMINEES:
Braveheart
Courage Under Fire
Last of the Mohicans
Saving Private Ryan
Starship Troopers
WINNER: Last of the Mohicans. Having safely covered the Vietnam topic backwards and forwards, Hollywood had a strange decade of war films. Most of them are historical in nature, so that we can attribute heroism in war to some lost era, like a costume ball or travel by sail. So we have William Wallace and the unnecessarily ahistorical rendering of blue faced scots. I must say that with most of Mel Gibson's post-lethal weapon films, I find myself wondering, "Why was this made?" even if they're pretty good. Saving Private Ryan began the 'we weren't so much heroes as just scared witless' trend which builds on a lot of social history but is sort of like making a western where people just herd cows. Courage Under Fire decided at least women could be combat heroes. Starship Troopers decided to mock the whole business with a quasi-facist, stylized send-up that featured the much under-used Dina Meyer and brought Doogie back from the dead. But all this was child's play to the classic Last of the Mohicans, a movie about one of the most obscure wars in American history which somehow eschews modern politics entirely to get the historical era right without seeming to lecture. Make sure to avoid the director's cut, which adds some preachy sections, and stick to the original theatrical version.

Best Animated Film of the Decade:
NOMINEES:
Aladdin
Beauty & The Beast
The Lion King
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Toy Story
WINNER: Beauty & the Beast. Look, all of these are good movies. I'm routinely shocked at how good kids' movies are given that they're so excited to be at the theater that you could show them anything a step up from a baby giggling in the sun and they'd watch it. What's that? Tele-who-now? Huh. Anyway, special points for the inexplicable Nightmare Before Christmas for having the smallest target audience of a decent movie in cinema history - the 13 year old experimenting-with-Goth. With respect to the best, these and several more were all worthwhile animation films, but Beauty & the Beast is the only one that touches a nerve of nostalgia, even in this hard heart. Also, it has the best bad guy. So, yes, welcome Pixar, you'll have your millenium yet, but Beauty & the Beast wins this one for Disney...before they bought Pixar.

Best Parody of the Decade:
NOMINEES
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
The Freshman
Hotshots!
Robin Hood: Men in Tights
Scream
WINNER: Scream. You probably looked at this category and thought 'those movies stink.' Yes, Adventure Movie stinks. But look at that list...those are a lot of good movies. Ultimately, The Freshman isn't enough of a parody, and Austin Powers just misses out for stealing the idea from Dana Carvey. Robin Hood is probably my favorite of the traditional-style parody films. But Scream, to me, distances itself by taking the parody idea and turning it into an homage to its genre, and a classic of its genre, all at the same time. Neat trick that.

Best Cult Hit of the Decade (Criteria: Came Out of Nowhere, Bizarre Loyalty and Re-Enactment Ritual, Not Popular on Initial Release, More Enjoyable with Each Re-Watching, Not Originally Marketed as a Cult Movie):
NOMINEES:
The Big Lebowski
The Blair Witch Project
Bottle Rocket
The Full Monty
Office Space
WINNER: The Big Lebowski. The Blair Witch Project was marketed as a cult movie, and it's extremely tedious on repeated watching. The Full Monty isn't so much a cult movie as much as it was just independent and British. And it's disappeared with-a-quickness. I have to acknowledge that, although i hear tell of other people liking Bottle Rocket, I notice more-and-more that almost no one else seems to like it besides me. Which leaves us with Office Space. It hits all the categories out of the park, but hasn't really drawn that Rocky Horror type following to it. It needs more printer smashing parties and Oh face contests before it can compete withe The Big Lebowski. I will always regret how few scenes we got with the oh-face guy. As for the champ, there's just no avoiding it. It resurrected the White Russian, it has an annual fest with arcane rituals, if you're in the know, you'll see plenty of achiever paraphernalia out-and-about. The last time I went, the movie started, and people on both sides of me just started talking, line-by-line, with the movie. I looked to my left and my right, and everyone just had a big smile on their face. This movie's just got it.