Our film favorites this year? Well, let's just say they reflect how often the skew staff manages to get out. We had one vote for Seven, because it was the best of the three movies the voter had seen this year; two votes for Pulp Fiction, which was last year; one for Heaven's Gate, which was from 1980; two for GoldenEye; and one for Before Sunrise. Comments:
"Bond, James Bond... sigh. It had been so long since I've seen a good Bond flick -- it just sort of ruled... ya know? I mean sure, there were a lot of really stupid things in the movie... but it was Bond."
"You haven't lived until you've seen James Bond zipping down the streets of St. Petersburg in a Panzer, trying to look inconspicuous."
"Before Sunrise -- a film for those of us who are still hopeless romantics but who can't abide the schmaltz of, say, Sleepless in Seattle. Julie Delpy is the Audrey Hepburn of the last decade of the millennium, competing only with Winona Ryder for the heart of at least *this* lovelorn moviegoer."
Have movies gotten better or worse in the first half of the '90s?
"Over-budget, less-technically-accurate-than-most-fairy-tales, hop-on-the-bandwagon-and-exploit-what's-cool-for-as-much-money-as-possible, probably-lame flick that I'll pass on until it hits the dollar theatre or video, whichever comes last and is less out of my way.
"There are always a lot of really crappy movies. There are no fewer crappy movies now than there ever were, but there are no more crappy movies, either. I think there's a tendency to think, "Boy, 40 years ago, they didn't make crappy movies." But they did. They just don't show 'em any more. In 40 years, they won't show Ace Ventura any more either."
"Worse. Bring back Star Wars!"
"Well, let's look at it this way. You go to the movies with a date, and it costs you $7 each just to get in the door. Then you split a bucket of popcorn ($3.50, if you're not very hungry) and you both get a soda (because she wants a Diet Coke and he'd rather eat glass than drink the stuff, meaning you spend another $2.50 apiece). That comes out to $22.50 ($24.50 if you want to get lucky at the end of the evening, and therefore decide to splurge on a box of Milk Duds to really impress your date)... and people are still going. That has to mean something. I'm not sure precisely what it means, but it means something."
