Day 3 of the 90's Review: Most Over-Rated Movie of the Decade, Most Important/Influential Movie of the Decade, and the 10 Best Inadvertent Porn Titles

Most Over-Rated Movie of the Decade (Criteria - Won awards it didn't deserve, doesn't stand up to repeated viewings, generally liked, considered artistic but is actually a lame mainstream Hollywood idea of what artistic should be, purports to be revolutionary but is actually quite derivative):
NOMINEES:
American Beauty
Saving Private Ryan
Schindler’s List
Titanic
The Truman Show
WINNER: American Beauty. Spielberg is involved with 3 of these movies. That comes from his capacity to lend his name to something and have it taken more seriously than it deserves. All 3 of those first 3 films are above average movies which have come to be regarded as classics because of a) subject matter and b) attachment to Spielberg. American Beauty I have written on at length but suffice to say that it is Spielberg's (or Spielberg produced) movie on materialism and gayness. Two well-covered topics, getting the mainstream Hollywood treatment. Saving Private Ryan was 15 minutes of revolutionary war footage followed by 2 hours of tripe based on undergraduate social history classes and borrowed scenes from better war movies. Schindler's List was about the Holocaust. Apparently, it's impossible to make a bad Holocaust movie. By comparison, Titanic was panned by many reviewers, but the sheer weight of the directorial effort plus the huge popularity of the film mean it qualifies for this category. The Truman Show...all I can say is that we should have just given Jim Carrey the Oscar so that he could feel 'taken seriously' and go back to making us laugh. I blame his sub-par otts on this ultimately somewhat tedious 'high concept' movie being fawned over.

Most Important/Influential Movie of the Decade (Criteria - truly insightful, changed the way people think/behave, introduced new film techniques, created new genres):
NOMINEES:
Fight Club
Jurassic Park
Pulp Fiction
Scream
Toy Story
WINNER: Fight Club. Let's get the ones that weren't close out of the way first. Toy Story and Jurassic Park had a huge impact on film technique and the business of film. But they didn't have much to say, so they can't compete across the board. Scream created/revolutionized the horror genre but again, it was not socially important in any way. That leaves Pulp Fiction, which is a strong contender. Half of Hollywood wanted to be Tarantino almost overnight. He had a Nirvana-esque impact on the way scripts were written. He also has a true appreciation for the craft of film technique and many have mimicked his camera angles, etc as well. And in a sense, the elevation of style over substance, of homage over meaning, is itself socially important and relevant to a decade of irony and cynical detachment in love with self-reference. But ultimately, I think Fight Club is more important. Fight Club has had fewer copy cats...it's too unique to re-do. And it has also influenced film technique in the way it was shot and spliced. But the real key is that it hits a nerve with a broad segment. The funny thing is that reviewers don't have that nerve; they're not the audience. But to 18-to-25 year-old men of the 90's, this movie was on the tip of our tongues, this movie just gave it a name. It's American Beauty sans gay and plus balls. The fact that fight clubs sprung up all over the country is just icing on the cake. Also, this movie is just a better movie than Pulp Fiction.

Best Inadvertant Porn Title of the 90's:
I CANNOT PICK A CHAMP. YOU DECIDE:
The Bone Collector
Double Impact
Get Shorty
Free Willy
Mad Dog & Glory
Much Ado About Nothing
The Nutty Professor
Quigley Down Under
Sister Act
While You Were Sleeping
COMMENT: I have to say, I'm partial to Mad Dog & Glory, Much Ado About Nothing, and While You Were Sleeping.