Catching Up With the 90's

During the 90's, I viewed fewer movies than the previous decade as I was usually working. Looking back, there were many movies of cultural or artistic signifigance that I skipped so I thought I would take a look at some of those movies to see what I missed. So here it is, a trifecta of films from the Clinton era.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

This Oliver Stone directed movie from a Quintan Tarantino story explores the glamorization of serial killers in the media. Stone pushes the political buttons like usual, portraying the killers as free spirits, the media as sleaze buckets and authority as corrupt in every way. Robert Downey Jr stands out as a Geraldo Rivera style reporter. But ultimately, Killers stumbles as satire because it ultimately is too far over the top in trying to get its point across. Indian Shaman, a ridiculous Tommy Lee Jones and the lack of any character to represent a moral compass leaves the film a frenzied mess by the end. I can see how the multimedia approach was influential yet this movie was skippable.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Following Fargo, the Coen brothers came up an oddball comedy of David Lynch proportions. The story of a slacker named "The Dude" and his loser bowling friends getting caught up in kidnapping, ransom and sex. A movie that finds its humor in odd moments and character interaction, Lebowski was the funniest movie I've seen in some time. And just when you think you have a fix on the plot, a surrealist dream sequence kicks in to ensure you get lost. Great stuff and John Goodman kicks ass as the comical code of honor war veteran.

Fight Club (1999)

The first rule of Fight Club is that Fight Club is overrated. Club takes its shots at society by purporting that male aggression has been neutered by a materialistic society of homogenous consumers. It's an interesting message and the story is facinating on paper, but on film it's pretentious and unrealistic. Edward Norton delivers a fine performance while director David Fincher makes everything look murky and wet like he always does. It did have some influence in that many movies seemed to pop up afterwards about characters having fragmented bits of consciousness strewn throughout a story.

Catching up with the '90's was fun but I was thinking these movies would be better than they were. Of the three, I'll probably only pick up The Big Lebowski. I'll have to see if there are any other movies I missed from the Starbucks decade, but first I think I'll catch up with summer 2007 soon.