Cinematic Throwbacks: August 1991/2001/2011

2001:

Ghost World was and is one of my favorite movies of 2001. It's also actually one of the best comic book movies of the pre-MCU era, cause yes it was based on a graphic novel. 

Like a lot of indies in that era, it threw a bunch of quirky,.oddball characters into a somewhat plotless story. But few of them ever had such a consistently funny result. 

Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson are best friends who have just graduated high school and are starting to grow apart, even though they share the same deeply sardonic approach to the world around them. 

At the time Birch was better known than Johansson, and it really is her movie. She is just awesome in this. I have no explanation for how she went from a successful child career to American Beauty to this, and then it was just over. Johansson is very unlikable in this, although it's on purpose.  I still wouldn't call it one of her better performances. 

Steve Buscemi is fantastic as the weird older guy Birch becomes curiously.enamored with. Their repartee is the highlight of the movie. I also always loved how ridiculous the art teacher played by Illeana Douglas is. 

It's a really funny movie and incredibly well written (the screenplay got an Oscar nod), but also fits in some seriousness and a memorably melancholy ending.

The first Rush Hour was a deserving smash, featuring one of the all time homerun buddy movie pairings. I thought it was absurd when they tried to do a TV series of it, as if the plot was the draw. No, it was all Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

Rush Hour 2 wisely didn't try to reinvent the wheel on this. Just plop those two into another disposable plot and let their chemistry and the action carry the day. And it worked. I would say this was a tick inferior to the first one, although both are far better than the threequel that came 6 years later.

The budget was a little higher, so some of the action was able to be a little more elaborate. And they brought in the then scorching hot Zhang Ziyi to play one of the main villains.

An even better sequel, and an even more unlikely one. 

American Pie remains one of my favorite comedies, and one of my favorite high school movies. But certainly nothing about it screamed for a sequel. Then they went and made 3 sequels, all of which were good. (I don't count those DTV spinoffs)

But American Pie 2 is the best, and is at least somewhere on the list of best comedy sequels of all time. I really think it is that good. It again, like Rush Hour 2, can't quite match its predecessor, but it gets the laughs, it gets the sweetness, and it expands the roles of just the right people.

The big comedic setpieces in this are really good. The superglued dick bit still kills. But the movie also has a genuine Jason Biggs-Alyson Hannigan romance in there that's genuinely charming. The latter 2 sequels were not quite as able to balance this stuff.

The whole ensemble returned in this. We get a lot more of Hannigan and Seann William Scott. That's good. We get a whole lot less of Mena Suvari, who must have had schedule conflicts cause she is sent off on a European trip for no reason. We get any Tara Reid, who is awful and whose character is just a horrible person, and a complete idiot ("the rule of what?").

It's got a great time capsule soundtrack, placing me right back into the late summer of 2001 before a lot of bad shit happened. 

Speaking of time capsule movies of 2001, here comes the champ. 

I loved that this movie existed. Kevin Smith, an idol of mine throughout the 90s, organizing this grand send-off to the View Askewniverse. Purely a movie for the fanbase that made him, loaded with references to his movies. Now, what we and he did not know at the time was that this would not be the end of these movies, that Jersey Girl would become a ridiculed flop (unfairly) and kind of scare Smith back into making Clerks 2 and a bunch of other attempts at these flicks.

I honestly cannot fathom somebody trying to watch this movie for the first time now. Beyond the View Askew stuff, it is such a product of its particular space in time. It's so indebted to late 90s/early 2000s pop culture.

This was Jason Mewes finest hour for sure. It's a shame that drugs kept fucking him up, cause he is hilarious in this  (He is hard to watch in the reboot). And the cast is a dizzying barrage of funny parts and extended cameos. Smith nabbed Will Ferrell before he got really big. Ben Affleck (who was the bomb in Phantoms) and Matt Damon's whole Good Will Hunting 2 scene kills. Mark Hamill shows up for some Jedi shenanigans. 

I really bought into Shannon Elizabeth after this movie. She plays Mewes jewel thief love interest and is so cute and legit funny that I thought stardom beckoned. She even kind of overshadowed Eliza Dushku, pure sexiness as another jewel thief. There's a lot of other big actors from that era in there like Seann William Scott and Ali Larter. It also marked the first time Smith insisted in casting his wife who can't act at all in a major role.

Most of the movie is a road movie, with Jay and Bob having wacky encounters with George Carlin, Carrie Fisher, and a monkey. But it's when they get to Hollywood that the movie really kicks it up into a flurry of references and in-jokes and cameos. And Smith still had his fastball then, so it all kills. Good Will Hunting 2, Wes Craven gleefully talking about how people love monkeys, Jason Biggs dubbing himself the "pie fucker", James Van Der Beek making Dawson's Creek jokes, and the lightsaber fight. Plus a bunch of past Askewniverse characters popping up at a movie premiere. The only part that never really worked was Chris Rock as a militant filmmaker. 

Again, I don't know how someone could walk in cold to this movie in 2021 or what they would make of it. But to me it was catnip then and still is a movie full of callback references. Too many to list. 

O should have been a 1999 movie. But after Columbine the studio got scared of releasing a movie in which high school students hatch a murder plot. It got shelved, changed studios, and ended up being just dumped into theaters at the end of summer. It deserved better, cause it is a really good film.

It's based off Othello, like a lot of high school set movies then were based off Shakespeare. But they all went for comedy. O is serious. O is dark. O goes there. I remember people gasping in the theater. They wasn't ready. 

O also has career best level performances by almost everybody. Julia Stiles and Mekhi Phifer, there are arguments. But man, Josh Hartnett is great in this, really acing what is of course the meatiest part. Hartnett was underrated this whole era, I think.

The movie also picks other popular teen movie actors of the time like Andrew Keegan and Elden Henson, then gets unexpectedly memorable performances from them. It was directed by an actor, Tim Blake Nelson, who clearly must have known what he was doing. 

2011:

Nobody saw this working. When this Planet of the Apes prequel was coming out, most had it pegged as a bomb. Most of the old Apes sequels were pretty bad. The Tim Burton remake was terrible. 

And then this turned out to be one of the best contained trilogies maybe ever, started with Rise, which was one of the best movies of 2011. 

They really nailed the story and character of Caesar from the get go. I don't think Andy Serkis is much of a live action actor, but nobody is better at motion capture and this character is his peak for sure. It's a tremendously captivating character. They could have really had even less of the other human characters, although James Franco is actually pretty good, and this is one of the few movies to ever bother giving Freida Pinto anything to do.

The big ape revolt of the third act was a real triumph, and you're not really that sure what you are rooting for. There's a few clear cut human bad guys, but the human race in general isn't a villain here. I'm kind of baffled how director Rupert Wyatt managed to handle all this with little experience, and then also how his career went nowhere. They didn't bring him back for the sequels and he's only had a couple minor credits since. 

This was on my ten best list for the year at the time. Not sure if it would still make the cut, but it's a very good, spooky, old fashioned horror movie. Certainly one of the better horror movies of the decade.

Father (Guy Pearce), stepmom (Katie Holmes) and child (Bailee Madison) move into one of those spooky old houses that only seem to exist in horror movies. Soon the kid discovers some icky creatures live in the basement. They get loose, create havoc, but nobody believes her that the creatures even exist.

It's a legitimately creepy movie, and really carried by Madison, who is tremendously sympathetic in one of the best child performances I've seen, certainly within this genre. Holmes is great too, and I was always amused that she was cast as Madison's stepmom when they could so easily pass as biological relatives. 

The Help was a big deal at the time. A big star-studded cast adapting a popular book. It did very well, and even scored a few awards nods (including an Oscar for Octavia.Spencer), but it's kind of been ripped to shreds in the years since, as any movie that tackles any sort of race issue in a non-confrontational way seems to.

It was Emma Stone's first big foray into drama, and she is just delightful. I think her being kind of the lead in this was a problem for many, but come on. It's not like she totally dominates the movie. 

Viola Davis and Spencer have the most vivid parts here. Both are great. I guess Davis kind of disowned the film, which is strange to me. Jessica Chastain was also nominated, and she is just a goofy ray of sunshine. 

The movie's biggest flaw is the Bryce Dallas Howard character, who is written and performed like Tomi Lahren on steroids, as such a cartoon villain that it stands out amidst a lot of really sharply drawn and believable characters.

I think this movie gets lumped in with the "white savior" movies, which in this case I think is pretty unfair. That's a whole other topic though. Just as a film I think The Help is pretty strong. 

How has it been ten years since they made a Final Destination movie? 

Granted, this is probably the weakest entry in the series, but it still has all the trademarks. This time the opening disaster is a bridge collapse, and it's one of the series best set pieces. And we got more creative, elaborate deaths. Best this time was a particularly unpleasant trip to the eye doctor.

This one notably finishes by tying in to the original movie, making it a prequel. 

Columbiana is memorable for two things. One is that it gave Zoe Saldana her first big lead role. And two is that this movie could have been The Professional 2.

I'm not sure when I learned officially that this movie was originally written to be the sequel to my favorite film, but while watching it (and knowing the involvement of Luc Besson) it's hard to miss the skeleton of what was originally called Mathilda.

Now, it's just a skeleton that is there. A ton of this story could only work as its own thing. What it becomes though is one of the better of the Besson-involved movies of the last 20 years.

Zoe is an assassin out for revenge. It's nothing new. But the action is pretty good. There are some good supporting turns. And Zoe is jaw droppingly hot in this. How have there been FOUR Transporter movies but we only got one of these? 

Our Idiot Brother is a comedy that I had almost completely forgotten ever existed until I checked the August anniversaries and realized I owned the movie.

It came and went quietly in theaters, but it's a really enjoyable movie. Paul Rudd is in peak Paul Rudd form as an endlessly nice stoner who has three sisters whose lives he inadvertently caused trouble for. 

The sisters are Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer and Zooey Deschanel. The cast also has Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, and TJ Miller when he was still funny. That's a lot of comedic bonafides. The movie isn't a laugh riot or anything, but Rudd is so in the zone here that he makes it a lot of fun. 

Other non-deep dive flicks:

1991:

-Doc Hollywood: A decent small town romcom with Michael J. Fox. 

-Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man: I remember watching this Mickey Rourke-Don Johnson action flick a lot on cable. 

-Return to the Blue Lagoon: Watched this on cable a lot too, cause wow was young Milla Jovovich cute. 

-Barton Fink: A great early Coens movie that I didn't see until many years later. 

-Delirious: A terrible John Candy comedy. 

-Pure Luck: A terrible Martin Short comedy.

2001:

-Original Sin: This was the Angelina Jolie fucking movie. I never actually saw the whole thing, cause the movie shut off after like half an hour in the theater and they couldn't get it going again. I never bothered to go back. 

-Osmosis Jones: The Farrelly Brothers were involved with this half animated, half live action movie about a blood cell fighting a virus inside the body of Bill Murray. This movie was seriously weird, absolutely disgusting, and not that funny. 

-Ghosts Of Mars: A pretty lousy John Carpenter action movie. Weird cast, with Ice Cube, Jason Statham and Pam Grier. 

-The Curse of the Jade Scorpion: Probably one of the better Woody Allen movies of the 2000s. 

-Captain Corelli's Mandolin: A big sweeping romantic war epic starring...Nicolas Cage? Yeah even then it didn't fit. 

-An American Rhapsody: Another early era Scarlett Johansson movie. I think I actually saw this right after 9/11. 

-Summer Catch: A baseball movie that managed to kind of suck even though it had both Brittany Murphy and Jessica Biel. 

-Jeepers Creepers: A hit horror movie that I recall thinking wasn't that bad. 

2011:

-Attack The Block: A cool little cult film about a London street gang fighting an alien invasion. It's most notable for launching John Boyega. 

-The Change Up:

-Spy Kids 4: The last and very least of this series. 

Coming next month: 

Well, September is pretty thin. The highly underrated Don't Say A Word turns 20. Moneyball, 50/50, Drive, and the all too relevant Contagion turn 10.