I know I saw Rob Roy in theaters and was mesmerized by Tim Roth’s very fey, very dangerous villain. That’s the good stuff.
VIRTUOSITY (1995)
Incredible how Denzel seems incapable of bringing anything other than his A-game; even for some of the pulpier / trashier stuff on his resume, you get nothing less than total commitment and what would otherwise be unmitigated junk is elevated as a result. RICOCHET is the gold standard for this type of thing, but don’t sleep on VIRTUOSITY either, where Washington’s pure movie star charisma collides with the unhinged manic energy of whatever Russell Crowe is doing. This thing really flies too, which is good because when Washington and Crowe aren’t on screen, you start to remember that oh shit, this is the director of THE LAWNMOWER MAN.
Kinda wild that 1995 was the year everybody decided to take a crack at cyberpunk. Obviously STRANGE DAYS towers over everything else, a legitimate masterpiece, but VIRTUOSITY and JOHNNY MNEMONIC are not without merit. Even HACKERS is kind of fun, flirting with the cyberpunk aesthetic without ever really being science fiction (probably closer to fantasy; computers are just magic).
Heat, Crimson Tide, Seven, Dead Presidents, To Die For, Lord of Illusions, Devil in the Blue Dress, Quick and the Dead, Get Shorty, and yes, Rob Roy.
Good year!
HEAT is practically a religion for me, still to this day.
CASINO, LEAVING LAS VEGAS, GET SHORTY, DEAD MAN, Hal Hartley’s FLIRT.
The NYC excellence of CLOCKERS, THE ADDICTION, SMOKE and BLUE IN THE FACE.
The transgressions of KIDS and THE DOOM GENERATION.
The movie-movies SEARCH AND DESTROY and LIVING IN OBLIVION.
The action stylings of DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, DESPERADO, MONEY TRAIN, GOLDENEYE, WATERWORLD and even JADE.
Let’s have a Good Friday at the movies on April 21st, 1995!
The arthouse corner includes the Romani musical travelogue Latcho Drom (available on the Internet Archive) and Antonia “Ravenous” Bird’s Priest (Ebert review).
For romantics, Nick Nolte’s Thomas Jefferson falls in love with Thandiwe Newton’s Sally Hemings in Merchant Ivory’s Jefferson In Paris (Ebert review) and Sandra Bullock’s Chicago transit worker falls in love with Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping (Ebert review). Rated PG!!
The Cure features Joseph “Jurassic Park” Mazzello contracting AIDS and running away for an adventure with Brad “The Client” Renfro. Includes Nicky Katt (R.I.P.) Ebert review.
Finally, let’s boost some cars in the tri-state area for a double feature:
New Jersey Drive (trailer) features disaffected youth combating boredom with joyrides in stolen cars. This mid-budget movie looks great, thanks to director Nick Gomez and producer Spike Lee. Ebert review.
And, of course the Caruso/Cage collision in Kiss of Death. Ebert review. I was not aware that this was a remake of the 1947 noir movie. Walter Winchell narrates the original trailer!
In Kiss Of Death, Cage is (no surprise) unhinged in his role as a juicing weight-lifter gangster who does push-ups with strippers on his back and he gags when there’s metal in his mouth. That’s about all I remember, save for Caruso angrily honking a car horn.
I remember really looking forward to Kiss of Death for some strange reason and being highly disappointed with it when I finally saw it. I mean…it’s A’IGHT..
It had a stacked cast and came out in the '90s golden age of modern crime pictures. There were good reasons to look forward to it.
But yeah, disappointing. Nowhere near as good as the original. Richard Widmark tears it up in that movie.
Barbet Schroeder coming off of SINGLE WHITE FEMALE? We were all ready for something special.
Daaaamnn!! Remember when some movies would open on Wednesdays?
On Wednesday April 26th, 1995, Ice Cube and Chris Tucker sure did!
FRIDAY opened on a Wednesday!?!?
Most know this, but movies targeting African-Americans audiences used to open on Wednesdays.
In order to not scare away white audiences on a Friday. I wish I was making that up.
I did not know this. Welp, off to drink…
My brief research uncovered the following 1995 Wednesday films that I missed or misdated so far:
Wednesday, January 11th - John Singleton’s Higher Learning (wait, wait – lesbian college student Jennifer Connelly?!)
Wednesday, April 12th - Rob Roy, Jury Duty and Stuart Saves His Family
Wednesday, April 19th - Antonia Bird’s Priest and New Jersey Drive
There are several more Wednesday films in 1995; so far only two of these could be labeled “urban movies,” as described in this 1997 Salon article.
I’ll keep posting Wednesday movies as they are released.
Ha, Caruso’s thing in his heyday was that he always seemed angry. He’d eat a bowl of Fruit Loops angrily.
It’s been fairly accepted gossip that Caruso was a complete asshole on this shoot, with diva-like demands all the time. NYPD Blue was a big hit at the time, but in no way at all was Caruso proven as a lead actor or star in movies. Very dumb behavior.
For a very long time I thought KISS OF DEATH and VAMPIRE’S KISS were the same movie. I was even confused by the fact that Cage doesn’t have a beard in VAMPIRE’S KISS.
Long story short VAMPIRE’S KISS is very good. Everyone watch that instead.
Vampire’s Kiss is excellent.
“Ike, do your impression of David Caruso’s career!”
I think about that early South Park joke every time he comes up.
He had a good run of smaller roles in good movies over the 80s/early 90s. He was never going to be a feature leading man-- TV was about his speed.
I will say this, though, I really liked Caruso in film. KING OF NEW YORK, MAD DOG AND GLORY, KISS OF DEATH, JADE, SESSION 9…
I maybe saw two episodes of NYPD BLUE at one CSI at the most, but I watched all of the above films many times over.