BENNETT INVENTORY : That Moment

Philadelphia -- I am love

All art should strive to move and change its audience in profound ways. Cinema is no exception. Some of its greatest works have united people throughout the past century. Filmmakers have a unique ability to illustrate feelings and help their viewings navigate them in a safe way. 

   Any cine-buff knows the story of why Jonathon Demme made Philadelphia. While Silence of the Lambs was met with enormous critical success, it was slammed by the LGBTQIA+ community, for painting transexuals in a negative way, and being too mean. This backlash was directed at Demme himself, and it deeply depressed him, because it was quite inaccurate to his personal beliefs and tolerance of sexuality. This inner conflict resulted in his followup feature; a movie that holds its viewers hands, and immerses you in its heart. And if you have any love or empathy in you, you will be a different person when the credits are through rolling.

   It's largely very hard to watch, because it hurts so much. There's this one part where the film's two central figures are stripped naked of their walls and preconceived notions of each other. We're yanked from this otherwise traditional courtroom drama and confronted with artsy camera angles, harsh red lighting, and moving opera music, that are all intrigal to the plot of this moment.

  

   I love this scene, but honestly trying to put my feelings about it into words is hard. Really hard. Because for me, it's very emotional. Andrew Beckett is visibly worn down from his affliction, but this does not stop him from baring his soul to Joe Miller, a stern homophobe. 

   It makes me cry. This is the epitome of heartbreak. We see a person maneuver through their mindset beginning with hate and misunderstanding and completing with love and acceptance; all in approximately 5 minutes, where he says very little, and we're simply reading his eyes: an open and more enlightened man at the end of his life chooses to make change in the world and also in one man, before making the great exit. And a person that is making the final transition knows our biggest secret: We're all in this together, so let's all take care of each other. Love erases everything else.

- Babes

10 Weird Weapons from 1993

Who are you trying to get crazy with, ése? If you weren't raised in the streets of '93 you at least claimed you were. Fact or fib you better had made damn sure you didn't find yourself in the jungle with just your dick in your hand. Fortunately there was enough ferocious firepower at your fingertips to fend off these fools who didn't know what was up. Here are 10 implements of destruction that were sure to keep you safe from that gangsta lean.

- Paul

The Voorhees Dagger

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Who knew Friday the 13th was rooted in Fantasy Adventure? Like any mystical artifact with magic powers, there are rules:

1. Be Jason's niece.

2. Stab him.

It has the power to piss off fans of an already goofy ass film series and kill a franchise (for approximately 8 years). 

Nerf Arrowstorm Gatling

Tonka/Hasbro

Nerf was all about the balls forever. But when it could no longer be ignored that kids were just beating the shit out of each other with the bats the next logical phase was soft yet imposing weaponry. I played Deliverance many a time with this bad boy. 

Bob-omb

Super Mario Bros.

Actual professional critics now incorporate "fan service" as a legitimate term of critique into their "reviews." Fuck them and the state of everything. Nevertheless, this was a heavy moment in the '93 Mario movie because we all, for a couple seconds, were able to understand what the hell was going on. 

O'Bannion's paddle

Dazed and Confused

You ever get the sense that this is exactly what Ben Affleck was like in High School and that's why he's so great in this? Not to put my own brand of damper on whatever acting ability he has but the spectrum of his range is between this and then everything else he's done. 

Vega's claw

Street Fighter II Turbo

The simplicity of Street Fighter is that it's all hands and fists - save for the occasional Hadoken or Shoryuken here and there. Enter Vega: the Spanish kickboxing crossbreed of Freddy and Jason who isn't hesitant about climbing a chainlink fence to utilize the force of gravity to stab his opponents in the head. He was a favorite.

Plastic gun

In The Line of Fire

I didn't have any real strong political leanings of my own when I was 10, but man I wanted so badly to assassinate somebody with this cunning little pistol. Even cooler that the bullets had to be hidden in a rabbit's foot keychain so I'd have to covertly load it during some black tie event. Someday *fingers crossed*.

Lightsabers

Hot Shots! Part Deux 

Any year that has lightsabers is gonna find its way onto any hypothetical weapons list I make. Although this choice heightened my awareness to the fact that the Naked Gun and Hot Shots! movies are largely comprised of turning silly and ordinary things into ammunition. This narrowly beat out the chicken arrow.

Homemade crossbow

The Good Son 

Actually just some kinda bolt gun which I thought was rad; Macaulay was so close to being the friend I'd always wanted, minus the constant sororicide and animal executions. But I did want a gun that wasn't an actual gun but actually did some damage so this woulda worked out splendidly. 

Hydro-Sat 3000 Z

Boy Meets World

Really it was just a Super Soaker because not even Mariah Carey was as popular as Super Soakers in '93. And I find it kinda wholesome that the most popular toy of the time was a candy colored water gun, free of any realistic implication of violence. Still though, TGIF didn't have the dinero to use the "Super Soaker" name. 

Toilet tank cover

True Romance

Everyone talks about how badass Patricia Arquette is in this scene, but Gandolfini took 10 pounds of porcelain to the skull and got back up just to eat some flames. Quentin likes to point out how thrilled he was that the cover didn't break on impact, making it the most brutal and realistic act of violence in this whimsical bloodbath of a movie. 

STATIC SHOTS

Summer vacation 2023

Green Apple

MY FAVORITE EPISODES part seven

Was television better 30 years ago? Short answer: "yes" with an "if." Long answer: "no" with a "but." I saw some of the worst TV of my lifetime come out of 1993: Power Rangers, The Sinbad Show, Problem Child, The Chevy Chase Show, and a whole buncha wrestling programs all premiered that year, not to mention the crap that was already into later seasons. But really isn't this the case for every year before & since? So let's not get into any "Make TV Great Again" guff and focus our attention on the good and the beautiful. Here are 5 great episodes of television that debuted in 1993. 

- Paul

Roseanne

"Crime and Punishment" (season 5)

This series was pretty competent in balancing comedy and drama (until the scales tipped in the later seasons and it sank into sorrow). This episode exemplified their strength in pace changes: when it's discovered that Jackie's boyfriend has been physically abusing her, Dan quietly takes matters into his own hands in some off-camera retribution. It's needlessly heavy for a sitcom, but also becomes incidentally thrilling and inspiring for a sitcom. The tag is played for laughs when DJ's teacher spots Dan in the back of a cop car, but the real takeaway is another example (again, minus the last two seasons) of Dan Connor as the greatest TV Dad Of All Time. 

Animaniacs

"Yakko's World/Cookies For Einstein/Win Big" (season 1)

Only two episodes into the series and I already couldn't believe how much more clever and funny it was than nearly all other cartoons up to that point. As far as I know this included the first ever Pinky and The Brain segment which was an exhilarating hint as to how many original characters and ideas they packed into this series. But the real showstopper remains to be "Yakko's World" - a rhyming song that names every country in the world to the tune of the "Mexican Hat Dance." Even at 10 years old I was able to recognize the educational value of this while also being of the mind that "holy shit, this is fucking wild!" DuckTales never brought me to that place. 

The Adventures of Pete & Pete

"King of the Road" (season 1)

Their very first long-form episode and they already had mastered their tone. The Wrigleys embark on a road trip to The Hoover Dam, and en route they encounter a better, more "perfect" family that ignites a competition as to who can reach their destination in the fastest and most wholesome manner. Sounds silly on paper, but as usual it's played with an intensity and surrealism that lifts it out of straightforward sitcom (or children's programming) and into shameless absurdism. Y'know, for kids. 

Saturday Night Live

Alec Baldwin/Paul McCartney (season 18)

I was watching it pretty regularly by this point; it felt more like an event when I was a kid, but that was true of this one especially. I was not yet a Beatlemaniac but I felt the weight of Paul's presence here, especially as he popped up in several sketches and you could feel the excitement of the cast and audience. And then of course leave it to Farley to disarm the shock & awe of being in the presence of a "living legend" as he asks Macca the tough questions. 

Beakman's World

"Microscopes, Beakmania, & Healing" (season 1)

It seems silly to pick a favorite from a series that was so consistently consistent: each episode featured the same cast and the same setup, and each time I walked away with more knowledge about how the world works and I've hung onto it throughout this lengthy lifetime. But it was always presented with an extra sharp wit that still hits me from just the right angle; there's a segment here about healing wounds, and Beakman rhetorically states that when our skin breaks, something "really neat starts to happen..." at which point cohost Josie (her voice dubbed with a sinister male voice for this singular line) replies "You bleed." I'm sorry but that gag gets me every time - I'm a sucker for funny voices. 

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