Movies from 1991: A Sampling of 46 Films

This endeavor started when I realized that Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead will be 30 years old this summer. And later that day I realized that another one of my defining feelings of capital-S Summer was also turning 30 this year, Point Break. So I went to look for other movies that came out in 1991. 

The following list of movies is not exhaustive, obviously, as I chose films that meant things to me either at the time or since. 

Anyway, when I found the list of box office smashers for the year, I gawked that I'd ever forgotten. Here are the top three grossing films from 1991, to the tune of over 1.3 billion dollars:

Yeah, I remember those movies pretty well. Also on the top 10 list of money makers from 1991 were some of my favorite comedies from that year:

I think that I like the Addams Family sequel more, but I definitely saw both of these in the theater. City Slickers definitely, and this one is better than the sequel.

Also coming out in 1991 from each coast were commentaries on race relations:

Boyz N the Hood was an obvious landmark as I remember it, but I'm not sure when I first saw it; on a rental for sure late in 1991. New Jack City I first saw when we lived in Brooklyn, and the opening helicopter shot captured two buildings that I worked in in my time in NYC. An essay in the DVD insert shed light on the realities of growing up oppressed and how that would shade civic pride.

Next up were two sequels to movies I grew up loving and a third phenomena that I missed out on:

My dad took me to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the theater, and I wrote once about how that movie came out in 1989, but seems WAY more like a '90s film. And we watched the Police Squad television show when I was a kid, and the Naked Gun movies were just too good.

I wasn't a ninja turtle kid...I was a Murder She Wrote and Golden Girls weirdo. But I included it here because while I may not have seen it, you can't really explain the era at the cinema for kids without it.

The next two are the "Oliver Stone Category:"

I ordered them like this because The Doors came out in March and JFK came out in December, and nevertheless was on the top ten moneymakers for the year.

Doesn't this remind you, if you're the right age, of that special time when Kevin Costner was the biggest Hollywood star? Winning Oscars for acting and directing for Dances with Wolves, then starring in two of the biggest movies in '91 (Prince of Thieves and JFK)...Tin Cup is good...Waterworld less, and The Postman and Wyatt Earp, less still...But also Oliver Stone was an important and controversial filmmaker?

Anyway...next we have the Jewish Gangster genre:

Bugsy was the only one I saw on rental during this period, but these two felt connected in my head. It wasn't as exciting as Goodfellas, but that's not fair, since what gangster movie is? King of New York? Is that the only movie in contention? (Answers: None; and Yes)

Now we get to the good stuff: movies my brother and I watched all the time on HBO and remember very fondly:

While we may have seen Don't Tell Mom... and Point Break more often, we certainly watched these movies plenty from 1991 until 1996, and the same goes for the next three:

Those six movies are some of my favorite movies from any era, which is...unreasonable. I think I'll write a special post about each of these two trifecta. 

Now for the category of "This happened in 1991 also:"

I watched Slacker when we'd finally decided to move to Austin. I had already had on a regular rotation Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, which I love like crazy, and I had high hopes for Slacker. They were dashed. Slacker isn't bad, but it's more of a bunch of shit getting filmed that it is a movie.

Now here are three movies that I couldn't escape at different points in my life but that I've never seen:

I think I tried to watch Backdraft while living at Oceanaire, but might have been too inebriated to make it through, or maybe it was a combo of that and being in the post-fire PTSD time, when me and fire didn't get too well. Grand Canyon I was late to...and still haven't seen, but it seemed to me like Parenthood---big cast of actors I like. Someday I'll get to it. I'm still embarrassingly ignorant to what Prince of Tides is about, and I kinda like it like that. I am a fan Pat Conroy, so eventually I'll check it out.

Now comes a weird combo:

Even when it was released, Iremember Hudson Hawk being called "the worst movie of all time." That's what I remember, and I haven't watched it to make my own judgement (I'm willing to guess there are plenty worse films out there).

Barton Fink, on the other hand, I was late to. When I saw it on the list for 1991, I thought it was an interesting fact. I count myself as a fan of the Cohen Brothers, and I was secretly embarrassed that I hadn't seen it when I read through a list of the top CB movies. Having seen it in the last three years I came to a strange conclusion: I'm not sure I liked it as much as its part, like, the sum of the parts wasn't as grand as maybe I thought, or was expecting. Maybe I didn't like John Turturro's Barton, because the premise and circumstances are things that speak to me. Maybe I did like John Goodman's sociopath, but not how it fit into the story. My favorite part was Hal Holbrooke's Faulker-esque presence, and if your favorite part of a movie about a New Yorker trying not to suck and fail in early Hollywood is a sendup of an American writing legend...maybe that says more about me than the movie.

Next up are two iconic remakes, before remakes or reboots were filmmaking du jour:

I'm not sure I've seen either version of Cape Fear all the way through, but...eh, big year for Nick Nolte? Two things that I associate with this movie are the Simpsons Sideshow Bob/Cape Fear episode and the story that Spielberg was developing it, thought it was too violent, and traded the project to Scorsese for Schindler's List, something Marty have shelved.

This version of Father of the Bride was one of my favorite movies from the era, for some reason, but I think it's because Steve Martin's portrayal reminded me of my own father. My dad was more fun and easy going, but something about Steve Martin (in most roles, actually) generally makes me see my dad. Is that weird?

Here's another trio of zany (shitty?) comedies: 

Along with some Mel Brooks movie and the Naked Gun sequel, Hot Shots shows maybe the height of the spoof. My brother and I loved this movie, and I'm sure I haven't seen it for 25 years at least. King Ralph was another John Goodman vehicle, and one that my brother and I saw at the dollar theater. We instantly loved it, and that's due to John Goodman's charisma. And, who knows how it holds up. During a photoshoot a freak accident kills the entire royal family, and a long lost cousin Ralph, from Chicago, becomes the new sovereign. That may have been the only time we actually saw it. The Super was in the "Joe Pesci a-hole collection," and not one of the fun ones, like from Goodfellas or My Cousin Vinny. It's forgettable, but Dan and I watched it whenever it came on, or we ridiculed it mercilessly---I can't remember.

Two serious heavyweights:

And I mean "serious" as in subject matter, maybe. I saw Fried Green Tomatoes, but I don't remember anything really about it, besides Whistle Stop Cafe, maybe and two timelines...was cancer a part of the story? I don't think I've seen My Own Private Idaho, but I heard lots about it in 1991 and again recently as part of a Keanu-related Renaissance talk.

These next two my brother and I loved:

I think Dan turned me on to Ricochet, where John Lithgow is the badguy who fakes his own death and proceeds to methodically ruins Denzel's life. It was awesome for us as kids, and probably deserves a re-viewing soon.

The People Under the Stairs I think we watched a as rental from the general store/resort in Mill Creek at the Cabin. We rented it at a time when we most certainly did not regularly watch scary movies. Of course, apparently as I reminisce and write this, Dan and I loved it. It wasn't too scary for us.

Were we just kids liking everything that was remotely entertaining? Like most kids? That seems to make the most sense. King Ralph and Boyz N the Hood aren't really in the same ballpark, and we loved them both.

Anyway, the next six felt like icons to me as I compiled the list, and the first pair were what I seemed to lump into the sad/serious box:

My Girl seemed like an American Classic, when I saw it originally, and I hope it holds up. Regarding Henry was a serious movie that I loved like a comedy, and I'm not really sure why. My favorite movies at this time were either comedies or action movies, but I had a soft spot for certain (as I called them) serious movies (like Dead Poets Society and Regarding Henry).

And, here are two action/comedy types:

Hook, to me, having been released at Christmas, seemed like an event more than a regular movie. This was at the beginning of my family's connection to Disney, which strengthened the event feeling. And Rocketeer? Holy cow, Dan and I loved it. From Timothy Dalton's turn as a Nazi-sympathizing Brit actor, to the Feds and mobsters teaming up to kill Nazis, to the blimp explosion finale, we loved it. How did the guy, the main dude, the Rocketeer, not become a super star?

Next are two of the more important movies of the decade, coming out in 1991:

I think, like two trio-pictures of comedies earlier, that I'll need a separate piece about these two.

And we're almost done. When I started this I was shocked, and maybe if we pick any year we can find nearly fifty movies that we have a deep connection to, or fond memories of, or some piece of memorial ephemera that I can't dislodge from the consciousness. But this is where I am: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead will turn 30 this summer, and something in my brain clicked. What other movies were stuck in a specific place in my understanding of the entertainment world?

And this is where I arrived.

These last two I had to end with:

The first one here, if you can't tell, is Star Trek VI, the one where the Klingon planet is nearly destroyed and the Klingons are facing possible extinction, or something. We as a family went to the cinema on Christmas Day to see it (for some reason)(maybe Hook was sold out) and I remember my cousin Liz, who must have been only 3 years old, being fully bored out of her skull, finally perking up at the very last second, when Kirk quotes Peter Pan: "Second star on the right, and straight on 'til morning."

Ernest Scared Stupid is the best of the Ernest movies (Ernest Goes to Jail may be funnier) and is way better than it needed to be. It's funny, it's scary, it has legitimately shocking moments, it has slow-burn jokes (Bulgarian miak?), and it was mostly safe for the kid set it was made for.

These two movies represent all of the good qualities we find in films, or at least the social connection we find while viewing movies. They were viewed with family, sharing time and laughing and enjoying the adventure. They have other similarities: they're both entries in larger oeuvres, and may be the best entries full-stop in each. I was never a Trekkie, but I enjoyed this movie like crazy, and it was my favorite Star Trek movie until...maybe still? I like Zack Quinto and Zoe Saldana, so that's cool...

Jim Varney was a treasure who wasn't ever fully appreciated.

Why is 1991 the year for me? Does it even matter? Had circumstances been different, would I have had a weird epiphany about some other year? Has this ever happened to you? I think I'll go look around at other years...maybe I'm just a cinephile who makes connections to dreck...

No, that's not it exactly: I was an impressionable kid who made impressionable kid connections to dreck. Some of these movies are great, though.

The power of art, baby!