1001 Movies I Did See Before I Died #41-#50

All the films I've seen from the age of 15

41) The Flintstones
Popeye meets Jurassic Park

42) True Lies
La Totale! meets The Terminator

43) Pulp Fiction
A Bout De Souffle meets True Romance

44) Demolition Man
Rambo meets Buck Rogers

45) Airheads
Spinal Tap meets California Man

46) So I Married An Axe Murderer
Wayne's World meets A Shadow Of A Doubt

47) Addams Family Values
Addams Family meets Kind Hearts and Coronets

48) Dead Calm
The Deep meets L'Enfer

49) Hard Target
The Most Dangerous Game meets Kickboxer

50) Outbreak
The Andromeda Strain meets Earthquake

1001 Movies I Did See Before I Died #31-#40

All the films I've seen since from the age of 15

31) The Firm: 65%
Tom runs.

32) Speed: 70%
Keanu runs. To catch a bus.

33) Tommy: 90%
One of the best British movies ever.

34) The Crow: 80%
Superb comic adaptation.

35) Dave: 68%
Fun high-concept comedy.

36) Repo Man: 84%
Cool cult classic

37) Hocus Pocus: 40%
Not my thing.

38) Red Rock West: 72%
Superb neo-noir from the director of The Last Seduction

39) Benny and Joon: 61%
Depp does kooky. Again.

40) Rising Son: 35%
Dodgy Michael Crichton adaptation.

1001 Films I Did See Before I Died #21 - #30

All the films I've seen from the age of 15

21. Arachnaphobia ***
My five year old brother screamed his head off watching this movie and he isn't afraid of spiders.

22. Super Mario Bros. *
The day-glo, primary-coloured world of Super Mario becomes a cross between Blade Runner and Gotham City. WTF?

23. Natural Born Killers *****
Oliver Stone's State of the Union address circa 1994.

24. Mad Max *****
Not quite Hollywood indeed.

25. Dumb and Dumber ****
One of three times I have actually fallen off my cinema seat laughing.

26. Drop Dead Fred **
Good concept, so-so execution.

27. Sleepless in Seattle *
A movie that actually points out to you while you are watching that you could be enjoying a much better film.

28. The Man Without A Face ***
The Man Scarred On One Side Of His Face, while more accurate, doesn't have quite the same ring.


29. What's Love Got To Do With It ***
Tina Turner: The Ike Years

30. Dennis *
Why did John Hughes remake the same film over and over again in the Nineties?

1001 Films I Did See Before I Died #11-#20

Every film I have seen from the age of fifteen

11. Serial Mom: 9/10
John Waters can do no wrong in my eyes.

12. True Romance: 8/10
An excellent Tarantino script becomes a very good Tony Scott movie.

13. Cool Runnings: 6/10
Disneyfied telling of the Jamaican bobsled team at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

14. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 10/10
"Ni" etc

15. Sliver: 1/10
Utter shite.

16. Innocent Blood: 4/10
AKA A French Vampire in America.

17. Made in America: 3/10
Sperm banks will never cease to be a source of amusement for Hollywood executives.

18. The Fugitive: 6/10
Academy Award nominee for Best Picture

19. John Carpenter's The Thing: 10/10
Not to be confused with John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars etc

20. When Harry Met Sally: 6/10
Responsible for hundreds of mediocre rom-coms.

1001 Films I Did See Before I Died #1-#10

Every film I have seen from the age of 15

1. The Doors: C
Shoulda been called 'The Lizard King'

2. The Hunt for Red October: B
The third film in John McTiernan's Good Film Trilogy

3. Groundhog Day: B+
The third best Bill Murray film of the Nineties

4. The Lion King: B-
The point where me and Disney parted ways.

5. The Assassin: D
Nikita without the style

6. Rocky III: C-
We're gonna have a montage!

7. Passenger 57: D
Die Hard on a plane, for a bit.

8. Army of Darkness: A-
AKA Evil Dead 3 AKA The Medieval Dead AKA The one with the Harryhausen homage

9. The Nightmare Before Christmas: A
The film that launched a thousand goth accessories.

10. Robin Hood: Men in Tights: C
Not as funny as the film it spoofs.

Back Issue #1

Magazine: Empire

Issue: No 73 July 1995

Initial Observations

This issue of Empire came out in June and features their ultimate summer preview. Back then day and date releases were uncommon and, barring a few exceptions, the summer season followed the school holidays in the UK. Hence the summer preview appears in what today would be the half-way point of the summer season. Empire was also less about previewing forthcoming movies back in the nineties. The cover would normally feature a movie that was actually released in the month covered by that issue. The feature pages would discuss movies released that month, and the movies covered were generally reviewed in that issue. How times have changed.

What's Inside?

Apart from the usual bits and bobs we have features on: The Brady Bunch Movie; Quentin Tarantino acting in Destiny Turns On The Radio; cricket in Hollywood; Jaws 20th anniversary retrospective, Greta Scacchi profile; Bill Forsyth's Being Human and DTV releases; Tank Girl; and the ultimate summer preview.

Old News

The big news story concerns the rising budgets of Hollywood tent-pole pictures. This is the summer of Waterworld which was at the time the most expensive movie ever (unadjusted for inflation). The article mentions that the average cost of a flagship movie had risen to $50.4m the previous year. The budgets of Hollywood movies don't seem to get the same sort of press anymore, except in the case of films like John Carter that fail spectacularly. 

Also in the news, the launch of The  National Lottery is partly blamed for poor cinema attendance due to people being 'glued to their tellies on a Saturday night'. The novelty of that rubbed off pretty quickly didn't it?

Re-reviews

Tank Girl gets a three star review and shares the main review page with the Brady Bunch which gets four stars, both fair in my eyes. Elsewhere its Nicholas Cage month with Kiss of Death and Guarding Tess both released (plus he is the star How Much Is A Pint of Milk?), Michael Bay makes his debut with Bad Boys and Will Smith also features in Six Degrees of Separation. A rather fallow month for good movies with only the superb Crumb standing out.

Commercial Break

The biggest difference between then and now is the appearance of adverts for cigarettes. It comes as a shock to come across these things. 

An advert for Cinemania 95 promises an interactive movie guide with over 20,000 film reviews, 900 movie stills and theme songs from 100 movies. This is what we had before IMDB. 

The Goldstar 3DO System promises that 'you can be sure that nothing will come out in a couple of years time to render your investment obsolete'. The PlayStation is only a couple of months away from release.

Ooh Spooky! 

A feature on possible contenders too sing the theme song to GoldenEye proposes Madonna and notes that she would probably want to be in it. Which is exactly what happens with Die Another Day.

Cindy Crawford speaking about her movie debut Fair Game: "But what's the worst thing that could happen to me? That the movie could be a big flop and I could be terrible?" 

Discussing the prospects for The Usual Suspects: "word-of-mouth should generate enough interest to land it in the file marked 'cult'..."

A feature on the future of home entertainment talks about high definition TVs, video on demand, recordable CDs, HDCDs (i.e DVDs) and on-screen video guides. The future is now.

Promoballs

Producer Beau Marks on Jusge Dredd: "Blade Runner took itself very very seriously and what we have is a film that is a whole of a lot neater and more fun and doesn't take itself so dead-on serious".

Joel Schumacher on Batman Forever: "As Batman, Val is heroic and sexy, he has a tremendous amount of depth, sensitivity and mystery...all qualities tailor-made for the role." He certainly changed his tune on the Val Kilmer front two years later.

Home Re-review

The home reviews are split between films to buy and rent and also include films on tv through the month. The big film to rent is Reservoir Dogs, finally given a home video release three years on from its cinema release. A favourite cult film of mine, Freaked, is also given a prominent review: "any film prepared to sink Brooke Shields in a vat of chemical waste is definitely worth an evening's attendance". 

Quote of the month

"Booga had a ten-inch prosthetic cock. A $5,000 cock. It looked brilliant and the whole scene was very romantic. But MGM took it out. Too bestial. We were going, 'It's innocent, like seeing your mum and dad in bed together...'" - Jamie Hewlett on Tank Girl