12 (mostly) Loyal Pets

This isn't a Lassie or Willard situation. There'll be no Yearlings or friends named Flicka. These creatures didn't crave the spotlight and their relevance in the dynamics to the story ranged from fleeting to peripheral. But then they had their moment they made it all about them, and so today we show our respect to these supporting players of the Animal Kingdom. 

- Paul

Max

How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Like the Whos, Max was always on the side of good, and he was the only one to witness The Grinch's transformation. Like everything else in the 1966 animated special, the marriage of Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones was a union forged in the starts, but the best of both worlds was most prominent in Max: he was pure Looney Tunes but without the cynicism. 

Artie

Saved by the Bell

Artie is Slater's pet chameleon. Screech and Zack babysit Artie while Slater's away for the weekend. Zack predictably kills Artie due to negligence. Because Slater had spent most of his life moving around and changing schools, Artie was the only friend he could hang onto. Perhaps his death was existentially necessary to illustrate that his Bayside friends will ultimately be his "Friends Forever". That's tough love but there was a lotta that on this show. 

Basil

A Clockwork Orange

For a young, sadistic sociopath, Alex sure had a soft spot for that snake (who clearly died under mysterious circumstances). Funny story that you've probably already heard: supposedly Kubrick got the idea to include a pet snake (which wasn't mentioned in the book) when he learned of Malcolm McDowell's phobia of them. 

Precious

The Silence of the Lambs

Real name Darla, also famously worked with John Landis, Joe Dante, and Tim Burton. But her biggest and arguably her most integral part to a plot played out here - she was used as a negotiating tactic which ultimately went nowhere, but her fate most likely involves apartment life with Catherine and her cat. 

Wildfire

Song by Michael Murphy

Here's some mellow and manipulative Adult Contemporary for you; this chart-topper from 1975 tells the story of a young lady who dies in a blizzard when she was separated from her horse, Wildfire (the horse also presumed dead). A notorious tearjerker to all the prepubescent horse girls of the mid 1970s, but as a middle-aged man in the mid 2020s I can tell you that when that chorus hits it still hits hard. 

Elvis

Miami Vice

You'd think having an alligator as a cast member would guarantee some eventual carnage, but no. Elvis knew how to act threatening but was really nothing more than a slob who was only ever one step away from sporting sunglasses and a tropical shirt. He definitely brought some lightheartedness to the vibe and was a necessary ingredient in making it the most 1980s TV that there ever was. 

Gil

What About Bob? 

I'm not sure what the symbolism was but it wasn't subtle; a "fish outta water" story maybe? At any rate a lotta emphasis is put on Gil, up to and including being a prominent part of the opening title sequence, ultimately making him the sorta mascot of the movie. 

Khartoum

The Godfather

Some symbolism is less subtle - this message was loud and clear. It's tough to determine if Jack Woltz actually cared for this horse as a pet or just as a financial asset, but I guess it doesn't matter - in either case Khartoum was doomed to pay the ultimate price. Not personal, strictly business. 

Big Al

Beverly Hills Cop II

How do you make a turtle interesting without martial arts training or pizza? Saturate it in the cool neon ambience of a Tony Scott movie. Big Al's only real function was to provide vicarious character development, so all we really learn about him is that he definitely has a sweet life surrounded by ample plant life, and that he definitely knows where his own dick is located. 

Dart

Stranger Things

The "secret pet" is such a nostalgic trope (that's obviously the point) but the twist here is that the pet does not repress its animalistic instincts to bite people's heads off. And thank god for that - the last thing this series needed was a CG slug wrestling with morality like a STAR WARS villain. 

Dicky

The Beyond

Maybe the only instance I can think of when a dog successfully chases away zombies to protect its owner. Unfortunately we're in Fulci Land so naturally Dicky decides to turn on said owner and graphically devour her. 

Tina

Napoleon Dynamite

Really I just like llamas. Like, a lot. But equally, Tina is one of the few characters in the story who isn't a complete jerk; they suggest that she's grumpy or impatient but clearly they're just projecting. 

STATIC SHOTS

1980: Give the past the slip

"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know."

- Harry S. Truman

The main reason I started exploring these anniversary milestones was as an excuse to reminisce about the major pop culture events that I was there for; a means to keep a journal for the stuff I should've journaled the first time. Lately I've been moving away from my own timeline into years I have no emotional connection to - either because I was too young to remember or I just hadn't yet been born. As a result it's forced me to get more philosophical and abstract (and probably pretentious) about trying to conure up some objective sense of nostalgia for all of us to share, but really it's just my lust for history gussied up into some Kumbaya singalong we can all participate in. It sucks showing up to the party only to find out you missed its peak -- and so I'm here to learn about the past, and I'm condemning myself to repeat it. 

 

Same as the start of any decade (in the 20th century at least), the fashions and feels of the previous era bleed into the next one in nebulous ways. TV shows like Little on the Prairie and Alice were still cracking the Top 10 in ratings, Barbra Streisand and Bob Seger were topping the charts in record sales, and popular songs like "Upside Down" by Diana Ross and "Funkytown" by Lipps Inc. felt very much like a culture we were about to leave behind. But while some things remained as jarring reminders of the 1970s, there were plenty of totally tubular debuts that became synonymous with The Reagan Era. Pac-Man and The Rubik's Cube were released globally. U2, Iron Maiden, and The Sugarhill Gang released their debut albums. Magnum P. I. and Bosom Buddies premiered. John Lennon was killed. Mount St. Helens erupted. The Iraq-Iran War began. And, Ronald Regan was elected President of the U.S. The aftertaste of bell-bottoms and Disco was certainly still swishing around the zeitgeist, but the decade of brash greed and big hair was breakin' its way into history one power move at a time. 

 

In today's culture, "The 1980s" has practically become a brandname as recognizable and marketable as Nike and Nintendo. The phrase itself conjures up a lotta stylized imagery and audio that, while they may be clichés, are all rooted in very real aesthetics/institutions/scenarios; you could've walked out of a matinee of Friday the 13th as you cranked Gary Numan on your Sony Walkman on your way to 7-Eleven for some Jell-O Pudding Pops, all before the end of Year Zero. But unless you were entirely hip and persistently progressive, you were still riding the vibes of the 70s; with Carter still in office and The Doobies still on the dial it was hard to tell which way was forward. Surprisingly, one avenue that seemed to be largely directionless was the movies. 

 

Mainstream American Cinema is like chips & dip to me - particularly when I was younger. That's actually true for most of the planet, and it was especially true in the big splashy era that was The 80s. But from my own point of view, the razzle-dazzle was not yet present at the beginning of the decade, and frankly the hard-hitting originality of The 70s had also faded away - at least as far as Hollywood was concerned. I will point out that three monumental, iconic American Comedies were released that year, and I suppose that's a pretty impressive legacy. But for me, 1980 was most notable for European Horror: an intermingled parade of cannibals, zombies, witches, and ghosts that found their way to The States - in fictional and literal terms. There were a few significant shocks from the U.S. but many of them were incredibly tame and immensely boring - especially when held up against the splatter that would inspire the eventual subgenre that became "80s Horror" and turned me and everyone else in my generation into confirmed ghost story and horror film addicts. 

- Paul

1. The Fog

In a time when "spookiness" began to fall out of favor, a master of the medium was gaining momentum, and his grasp of mood may've peaked right here; when a writer/director also composes their own music score, you're entirely at the mercy of their world. It's so fitting that it's an honest-to-god campfire tale because I grew up with this movie and so its urban legend angle still works on me with those same childhood chills. 

2. STAR WARS: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

The original movie brought fun and optimism to the gritty 1970s cinematic landscape. Ironically, its sequel brought forboding bitter pills to kick off the safe decade of happily-ever-afters. But this was most exciting because this world was still brand new; unlike Superman or James Bond, we couldn't be sure how menacing it could get, and they wielded that power like a Master Jedi. 

3. City of the Living Dead

It's my favorite zombie movie - if you can even call them that; they seem to have a variety of super powers that allows them to move through walls and eviscerate victims telepathically. (And you thought running zombies were trouble.) There's so much grotesque creativity in this movie and it's executed with such excess that it's nearly a Comedy. It goes hard, in a way mainstream Film no longer does. 

4. The Shining

There's barely a single frame in the whole picture that isn't recognizable and/or renowned -- even the dissolves and title cards are championed. I call attention to that because that's exactly how is should be; you could say Kubrick quite possibly had an eye for detail, but I'd be quick to nominate this movie as his most meticulous in terms of poise and precision. Like a spine-tingling symphony. 

5. The Blues Brothers

You'd undoubtedly find this in the Comedy section, but I'll be damned if it isn't one of the best Action Movies of the year and maybe all time. Even the music (which is aces) takes a backseat to the car carnage that honestly gets overlooked on all the Car Chase Movie lists. 

6. Airplane!

Like Strangelove before it, this parody has proven to have more longevity than the material it's spoofing. The funniest part is that I didn't know any of the Airport movies when I was little so I actually got caught up in the drama of the food poisoning, war flashbacks, and glue sniffing. 

7. Caddyshack

Save for its tedious youth subplot it's like a greatest hits album of 1980 comedians - or at least one of those cereal variety packs. Even as a kid I thought the gopher puppet was lame, and as an adult I've finally reached the point where I think Ted Knight gives the funniest performance. 

8. Zombie Holocaust

Zombies vs. Cannibals: everyone loses, the audience wins! Not to be confused with Dr. Butcher M.D. which is a shorter cut of this film and does not feature Nico Fidenco's music - which is notable to me as it's in my Top 5 movie scores of all time. 

9. Times Square

If I didn't know any better I'd swear this movie was made just as an excuse to showcase Robin Johnson's virtuoso acting abilities; I'm never entirely convinced this isn't some documentary about this vibrant troubled teen and they just built a story around her (accompanied by one of my Top 5 soundtracks of all time). 

10. The Elephant Man

Regardless of costumes and context, most Period Films can never fully disguise their actual year of production. Watching this movie I'm only ever convinced I'm looking at Victorian England -- at the very least there's nothing here that indicates "Another One Bites the Dust" was on the radio while it played in theaters. 

11. Canibal Apocalypse

A truly bombastic title for a movie that is actually pretty intimate and illuminating. Really it's a Vietnam Movie in the vein of Rolling Thunder and Deer Hunter - for all I know the cannibalism plot is just a metaphor for postwar trauma. 

12. Inferno

I've seen this movie several times and I still don't know what's going on - yet it always has me on the edge of my seat. Elaborate set pieces, profound cinematography, genuine surprises, and disgusting brutality is truly more than enough to make compelling Cinema. 

13. Nightmare City

Diabolical zombies that punch and kick and stab and shoot guns, all in addition to their normal flesh eating habits - it's just as unpredictable to the movie's victims as it is to the audience. 

14. Raging Bull

I embraced this movie in a big way, back in my film school days but I eventually lost touch with the melodramatic side of it. But still, all the sequences in the ring truly are some of the greatest spectacles Marty's ever pulled off. 

15. Alligator

Not since Jaws has a Creature Feature managed to be so effortlessly engrossing with minimal use of a creature. Robert Forster headlines a cast of character actors in what is largely a satisfying police procedural. It's just a bonus that the rarely-seen alligator does, indeed, kick ass. 

16. Christmas Evil

With the Slasher boom already beginning to take "shape", this grim allegory went off in a different, better direction that focused less on mindless casualties and more on the sad degeneration of its lead "monster". It's also an aggressively Christmassy Christmas Movie. 

17. Dressed to Kill

Whenever I review any Brian DePalma movie, I declare it to be "his most Brian Depalma movie" -- but I really mean it this time. More than any of the others, this film dares you to not take it seriously. And whether you do or don't, you're gonna enjoy it either way. 

18. Humanoids From the Deep

Whenever I hear "low budget 80s Monster Movie" it's always cooler in my head than what they put on the screen. Humanoids actually fulfills my expectations in most areas - particularly the monsters themselves (designed and created by Fog maestro Rob Bottin). 

19. The Godsend

Evil kid situations usually get dragged down in a lotta exposition and plot. This is a refreshing take (for any genre) that maintains its eerie mystery while managing to unfold at an alarming pace. Also the kids in these kindsa movies can sometimes come off as annoying, but this little girl is super sinister. 

20. Cannibal Holocaust

I adored it for its cinematography and music score - and I still very much do. I'll always hesitate revisiting it without shielding my eyes with my hands - so I'm forced to make a compromise, because the movie does not. 

1975, will you ever win?

I've been watching a lotta Double Dare reruns lately - early episodes from 1986/1987 mostly. If you're not familiar with it (or just plain forgot) the show was famous for making kids do stupid tricks that usually involved getting messy with stuff like whipped cream and raw eggs, but the bulk of the show was actually long stretches of trivia questions in all different areas of knowledge. Frankly I found the series kinda tedious when I was a kid and mostly ever only experienced it as background noise, but as an adult I find it a bit more engrossing - especially the Q&A parts. In the area of Pop Culture there are obviously a lotta questions about Duran Duran and Family Ties and Gremlins, but equally there are just as many questions about The Beatles and Gilligan's Island and The Three Stooges. And these 10-year-old contestants usually nailed it -- because of course they would, I would've too. The point I'm making here is that, as kids, the environment we absorb doesn't consist solely of the latest trends, but also the sorta-recent stuff - because of our parents or older siblings, because of TV and radio, because of the fads and fashions of everything from your haircut to your couch that's predicated upon everything that was so 5 minutes ago. 1975 unfolded eight years before I was born, yet somehow I still manage to carry enough nostalgia for it to commemorate its 50th anniversary with some authority. (And I ain't jive talkin'.)

 

I'm not sure by what means the generations before and after my own kept in touch with the past, but for me it was a steady diet of Nick at Nite and TIME LIFE Music Infomercials. It's one thing to rent old movies or walk barefoot across your grandmother's shag carpeting, but for me a decade of the 20th Century is best and most easily experienced through its music and its television. When I was 10 years old my favorite shows were All in the Family and M*A*S*H and nothing felt particularly antiquated about them; sure the film stock and videotape looked different from modern sitcoms but even that always carried a comforting familiarity for me - like some kinda past-life experience intruding on present time. But all Shining powers aside, I grew up in an era when the dial was drowning in syndicated TV, so while shows like Roseanne and Seinfeld were on once a week, Bob Newhart and Mary Tyler Moore were there every day (sometimes more). Stuff like politics and economics were far less important to me as a kid than what was on the tube, and the tube told me that these happy days are yours and mine. 

The first band I truly became a fan of was Queen, and by "fan" I mean albums/posters/t-shirts kinda fan, so that definitely put me in a place before my time. But in the years leading up to that, my environment was saturated in the sounds of Barry Manilow and Barbra Streisand and B. J. Thomas (amongst others) and certainly nothing ever seemed dated to the point of alien or exotic - I'm sure a lot of it wasn't exactly "hip" but that was all well before an age when that really would've mattered to me. So by the time I was a teenager lying in bed in the middle of the night watching commercials for music collections, I had legitimate nostalgia for the songs they were selling. This was before I had a credit card or checkbook in my name, so in lieu of any 1 a.m. impulse purchases I finally wore my mother down enough to place an order for TIME LIFE's AM Gold: year-by-year compilation albums that cover the entirety of the 1960s and 1970s. As requested, I received 1974, 1975, and 1976 on cassette tape and I familiarized myself with those mellow Top 40 hits to the point that I can't hear "Sister Golden Hair" or "I'm Not in Love" now without feeling like a teenager again. 

 

Rest assured I don't plan on celebrating 1975 by telling you what growing up in the 1990s was like, but instead just reinforcing the idea that you too can play this game at home. We don't need stuff like reboots and remakes to put us in the mind of the past; all the artifacts are there at our fingertips: entire channels that play nothing but The Jeffersons, streaming radio stations and playlists dedicated to ridiculously specific eras featuring hits by the original artists, and with enough grit and gumption you could probably track down some of the movies too -- and you should, because as you probably already know, '75 was a stone cold groove. 

 

I can definitely say that, within the brackets of my own personal favorites, this is one of the most eclectic years in Cinema. And I don't just mean that each movie on my list is different from one another, but that most of them are unique to all movies ever - particularly up to that point in time. Of course there are some that are entirely indicative of 1975 and those are just as valuable, but we were blessed with a lotta groundbreakers and hellraisers that either inspired generations of stories and ideas and changes to the craft, of they continue to stand alone as singular masterpieces that can't ever be duplicated. Sure, that reads dramatically on paper, but if this year is famous for nothing else (Watergate? Vietnam? eh) it produced the most impressive lineup for the eventual Best Picture category at the 48th Academy Awards - the five films nominated are, in fact, my five favorite movies of that year, and never before or since has that been the case. Like any other year there were hidden gems and sleeper hits and cult favorites, but this was clearly a brief moment when movie makers and movie goers and movie critics all seemed to be mostly in sync - probably because much of it was simply and inarguably good. Now imagine the entirety of The Film Community and how it is today: imagine not only having just one culture-changing movie in theaters (or streaming or wherever) but one that we all agree is a legitimate triumph to the art form. Is it at all possible that better movies bring us together while bad and mediocre movies create division? 1975 wasn't exactly peace time on the planet but we all sure hated that shark for eating the Kintner boy. Point being, yeah it'd be nice and fun and entertaining to have really good new movies again, but for the good of society (and maybe even our souls) we may just need them. 

- Paul

1. Dog Day Afternoon

You know I like to leave objectivity out of art, but I've only ever been able to describe this movie as flawless. It's a minimalist "plot" with a million speaking parts in a single location, and yet it's endlessly unfolding at a rapid pace. Obviously if I put it on I'm gonna watch it, but whenever I come across it by accident, everything else I'm doing in that moment has to wait - it's a tired line, but it grabs you and doesn't let go. It's my favorite Pacino movie, my favorite Lumet movie, and my favorite movie of the 1970s. 

2. Nashville

We're all familiar with the concept of the "hangout movie" and this certainly is one, but more than that it creates an entire world - just a whole setting and scenario and dynamic that I love being a part of (from a safe distance). It's fortuitous that it's largely a musical because I can take the soundtrack with me anywhere and it sends me there every time. 

3. Jaws

The first half with the town bumpkins and the insufferable mayor is still clumsy and tiring to me, but that will always be overshadowed by the endlessly engrossing second half; the dynamic between the three guys practically encapsulates the concept of "entertainment", but it's also proof of Spielberg's boundless talents to create Epic Cinema - even with just a rubber shark and a not-quite-big-enough boat. 

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

In a decade built on a foundation of antiauthoritarianism, this movie is The Anthem. There are even several films on this list that deal with the same themes, but it's only this one that stirs up real Rocky-esque support for its protagonists to the point that you wanna jump into the movie and help them defeat the villain. 

5. Barry Lyndon

Kubrick said he had no intentions of ever publishing this shooting script to be sold in stores because it had no literary value. More than The Shining or even 2001 this is perhaps his moodiest movie, thereby making it the most Kubrickian; truly the best (and maybe the only) example of painting, photography, settings, and music all combined to create a unique genre of motion picture. 

6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

So few TV shows can gracefully transition to Film - especially sketch comedy. But because this group took every costume and location so seriously, it created an environment grounded in reality where everyone and everything can be its silliest. 

7. The Man Who Would Be King

The joy of watching a Connery/Caine collaboration could've easily been enough, but even without monumental acting talent, this Action Adventure fable pans out into so many surprise directions that even if you kinda know what it's about it's still gonna surprise you. 

8. Love and Death

While it may be a parody of bleak Russian literature, it tackles all the existential crises that have obviously plagued Woody to this day; clearly they're sensitive subjects because the setups and punchlines are more relentless than in any of his other movies. 

9. Deep Red

He'd already directed several movies, but this feels like the first true and uncompromised Argento film. And even though he's clearly still honing his skills here, the movie has a greater sense of style and suspense than most other films in this or any genre. 

10. Three Days of the Condor

I hated this movie when I was little because I couldn't understand anything that was going on. As an adult it's worked its way into my Christmas Movie rotation -- I still don't know what's going on, but it sure is exciting; everyone's acting their hearts out and that Dave Grusin score swings. 

11. Supervixens

Here was a director who was very much at the top of his game; there've been extremely few other filmmakers who've had as much of a unique understanding of composition and editing as Russ Meyer did and this movie is as good an example as just about most of his others. Special acknowledgement to Charles Napier for being absolutely bonkers in this.

12. Strip Nude For Your Killer

Gialli can be pretty repetitive and stale when they don't know how to fill out the plot. Fortunately in this one the plot is mostly nude models in groovy Italian digs. They understood the assignment - it's what every Giallo should be. It's what every movie should be, really. 

13. Race With the Devil

Cult situations scare me - especially when they cast a wide enough net that you don't know who to trust. Mix that with some car chase stuff and you've got one genre-bending thrill ride that stresses the lesson that so many movies have taught us: don't ever witness a crime. 

14. Black Moon

A feature length metaphor for... something. It's a dystopia, it's a paradise, it's a nightmare, it's a fantasy. Plenty of scholars have tried to decipher it but even director Louis Malle admitted it's all rooted in abstraction, and I'm most comfortable at that speed. 

15. Night Moves

The 1970s was the last decade for cool detectives, and few are cooler than Hackman (which is also a general statement). And like a lotta detective stories the journey is more rich than the destination - which says a lot considering the grandeur of the climax. 

16. White Line Fever

One genre that nearly stands alone in this decade is the Trucker Movie, and in this moment I'm inclined to say that this is the best one; heavy antiestablishment/anti corporate America storyline that angers up the blood and an ending that nearly brings me to tears. The whole movie also really makes me want a beer. 

17. Mirror

Some films are hailed as being "ahead of its time", though I still don't think we've reached that moment in time where this movie would be considered passé. Gloomy, jumbled, measured; it never pretends to be much more than the meandering poem that it is and gets away with it by presenting some of the most haunting images ever filmed. 

18. The Prisoner of Second Avenue

Simon & Lemmon was a formula for magic -- and clearly Anne Bancroft knew how to sing the song just as well. There's very much an old fashioned innocence in everything about it but that also guarantees one of the least obscure depictions of raging against the machine; there's no metaphor for an unjust system, it's literally their environment. 

19. Sheba, Baby

As an Action Star, Pam Grier played a lotta characters that seemed indestructible (which could often thwart any suspense). Sheba is a much more vulnerable heroine which allowed Pam a wider range of humanity decades before Jackie Brown. 

20. Hard Times

The Depression Era was as far away from the 1970s as the 1980s are from us today, so I suppose that's why there were so many movies about it. Anyways, Walter Hill, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, bare-knuckled boxing. It speaks for itself. 

'95 With A Vengeance

Well it's 1995... again(?). That's right, I'm revisiting the revisit, rollin' with the homies, to infinity and beyond, etc. etc. Five years ago I explored Hollywood's bleak apocalyptic premonitions of what the future would be and how that outlook dominated 1995; no kidding, more than a dozen mainstream movies predicted disease, war, crime, totalitarianism, artificial intelligence, and the resurrection of a murderous cult leader. 25 years later - as in 2020 - it all seemed painfully pertinent. And now we find ourselves in the Fifth Anniversary of that tumultuously pivotal year and suddenly the concept of chronology appears less relative and more urgent; I began 2025 in the throes of Covid-19 as The United States approaches the threshold of an overproduced reboot. Time is a flat circle. 

Last time I took a look at '95 I proclaimed that there weren't enough good movies that year to compile a list. I didn't actually research that thoroughly, that's just a general reflection of that year that I always carry with me; the truth is that 1995, for me, was mired in shortcomings and disappointments, and some of that was rooted in the movies. There were a lotta good films, great films even, but for some reason the extra serving of clunky schlock persistently stands out to me. For the otherwise edgy 1990s it felt like there was a lotta safe, overblown camp that seemed more in line with the worst shades of the 1980s; adding to my aforementioned list of Science Fiction Films, stuff like Congo, Species, Bad Boys, and Showgirls really provide a general sense of '95 Cinema. But more than anything, the movie that mostly threw off my equilibrium was Batman Forever. 

At 12 years old, a more cynical and less intelligent person would suggest that I was simply too old for Batman, that I'd outgrown it, but what actually happened was that the franchise had regressed, severely; Joel Schumacher's goofy Action Comedy was a grave disappointment in my Tim Burton brain, and it's quite possible that this early bruise is when I began to lose touch with the "Blockbuster". I've seen it since, old as I am now, and it comes with a strong fragrance of nostalgia for sure, but after 30 years of many more movies in my mind, many more Batmen on the roster, and much more personal wisdom, it still remains laughably inept in my eyes. Though I still maintain the opinion that Jim did as much for The Riddler as Jack did for The Joker - and appropriately so, Jim Carrey seemed to be the most powerful person in the universe at that exact moment, but in hindsight I find him to be the only reason to ever revisit this particular movie. 

There was a lotta Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the air too. And suddenly Antonio Banderas was in like a million things. Jane Austen had replaced John Grisham as bankable source material. NBC dominated the dial with Friends, ER, Seinfeld, Caroline in the City, and Frasier. Meanwhile most of my TV time went to Absolutely Fabulous, Mystery Science Theater, and Flying Circus reruns on Comedy Central. Top 40 radio was aggressively soulful, with all the biggest hits coming from All-4-One, Vanessa Williams, Simply Red, and, of course, Seal. Even bands like Soul Asylum and Smashing Pumpkins got noticeably softer for a second. I've professed in the past that I find the 1990s to be my least favorite decade of pop music, and it all sorta circles around the scummy drain of this midpoint of the decade. But like I said the last time I roamed these dark halls, I was a depressed, overweight 12-year-old and my only friend was a dog that I had to put to sleep that April; this wasn't the year for me to go out chasing waterfalls, and I feel like a stronger lineup at the box office would've been therapeutic. But by the end of the year I had a new dog. I'd discovered The Beatles and Quentin Tarantino. If I were to be sentenced into an awkward, lonesome puberty then I was going to fashion it into a tolerable (or maybe even enjoyable) experience. A band from the 1960s and a movie from 1994 ended up defining my best experiences of 1995, because in all honesty that's the reward for being alive during any specific period of time: I'm not fully defined by whatever the headlines or Nielsen Ratings or weekend grosses of some calendar year turn out to be - if anything I use popular culture to better orient my own memories to determine when and where and how I was. There are entire social media accounts built exclusively on the attitude of "only 90s kids know" and then show a picture of a Power Ranger; we can read about what the public was into, but to have lived it, breathed it, smelled it, is an open invitation - an assignment - for all living witnesses to tell us what it was like. 

Having said that, I probably spent most of it watching TV.

So yeah, there were actually a lotta good movies in 1995 - and truth be told I probably saw many of them on Home Video in 1996, which is another good excuse as to why this year felt so dry. But quality aside, there was one heckuva quantity - as in, I personally saw a lot of what they were putting out, at least in the mainstream, so at the end of the day, I have some pretty positive things to say about a shit ton of movies -- like, enough to celebrate the 30th Anniversary properly with a complete Top 30. It almost feels unfair to my many omissions from stronger years, but diving this deep into a cursed year may just be a cathartic experience for me. And for you hopefully it'll stir some nostalgia that's less polluted than my own. Too much television watchin' got me chasin' dreams. 

- Paul

1. Se7en

Or Seven as it was called then. I (probably like a lotta viewers) was surprised by its skillfulness; Cop and Killer Movies felt pretty dry and derivative by this time and so to be gifted something with such patience and panache (and savagery) felt particularly exciting. But now we know it was no fluke - it spawned a million imitators (and a title sequence that's still the standard 30 years later) but clearly this film (and its filmmakers) remains in a class on its own. I was already in full Kevin Spacey mode when I first saw it, so his appearance at the start of the final act was a bigger surprise to me then anything they'd written into the movie. 

2. Casino

I went into it in the headspace of "Diet Goodfellas". After a couple viewings it was easy to shake that mistake and digest it as the violent Rock Opera that it is. I still find this era to be Scorsese's peak as a visual artist, and so this epic of cards and dice and slot machines and neon lights and blueberry muffins and beatings proved to be fertile ground for gorgeous photography, transcendent editing, and a tremendous soundtrack.

3. Toy Story

This wasn't much of a surprise; it was the first Disney (or Disney adjacent) feature that I didn't see by accident - though my expectations of a pioneering, candy-colored kids' adventure ended up being surpassed by its pace, originality, and humor. I've loved the entire series but this one still remains my favorite.

4. Heat

A shortage of the glitzy energy found in other Michael Mann movies always prevented this from climbing too high for me, but the mood that prevails in even the more stagnant moments is constantly working on levels we're not even aware of. But clearly my standards are still high - currently the Crime genre (or any kinda movie) doesn't approach this caliber anymore (not even from Mann). 

5. Die Hard With A Vengeance

It was different for a Die Hard movie, it was different for an Action movie; apart from its traditional "realtime" structure, its nonstop pace in a sunny daytime city is an elaborate and expensive standard set by Speed the year before. And by that standard it outdoes the first two installments (in some ways, let's not get crazy).

6. Tommy Boy

This was a casual Saturday matinee for me but I incidentally witnessed a certified classic (as was the 1990s). Though one of the more troubling subcategories that gained momentum this decade was the SNL adaptation - so it usually felt fresh when cast members could pull off a picture that wasn't chained to some 7-minute live sketch; following the John Hughes footprints this movie pulls it off wonderfully. 

7. Forget Paris

My RomCom experience is mostly confined to a narrow period of time - mostly 80s and 90s - but like any genre from any era there are some that rise above the rest. Labeling aside this is a tremendous Comedy with a great cast and a unique narrative structure that makes it more compelling than it needs to be. 

8. Tales From the Hood

90s Horror still keepin' it weird with this entry that probably belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of that very specific brand -- certainly Top 4 Anthology Horror Movies. Around this age I found that "scary movies" always ended up being sillier or duller than I had been led to believe; this movie was advertised as being a bit of a lark, and ended up being darker and better crafted than most other movies that year - obviously, it made the Top 10. 

9. The Usual Suspects

For a lotta folks this movie is: a surprise ending, and not much else. Not for me, I taped it off of Pay-Per-View and watched it every day for months. Throughout the 90s there were a ton of these pulpy Crime Thrillers, and for as many as I consumed this one ranks pretty high. Also makes a good case as to why the roles of Editor and Music Composer should be filled by the same person.

10. 12 Monkeys

Of all the dystopian downers from this year (or actually any year) this one towers above them as the saddest, the scariest, the best-made, and the most original. When Gilliam actually took something seriously, that's when the absurdity played best. At the credit roll I'm still left with the same dazed feeling I had when I left the theater the first time. 

11. Crimson Tide

The last great Tony Scott flick - where the style and the substance reached crazy heights without hitting the ceiling; a supposed rewrite by Quentin, kaleidoscopic cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, and two of the greatest actors of all time (leading an equally dynamic supporting cast) make this my favorite in the submarine subgenre. 

12. Home For the Holidays

Speaking of stellar ensemble casts... More nuanced and less structured than the advertising had us believe (though the final act limps along) it's a casual character study that's never too heavy but never obnoxiously lite - which is an accurate depiction of the Holiday Season. 

13. Apollo 13

I went into it with The Right Stuff as the standard (which is probably unfair - to any movie) but at the end of the day (or three decades) it's too fun and bubbly and exciting to place it in any kinda low regard. (Though this is one of the first times I truly felt a disgust for computer animation.) 

14. Nixon

Biopics gonna Biopic - but an Oliver Stone Biopic has the potential to be batshit crazy, and it is (just like its subject matter) but its brilliance is in how well it balances its paranoid schizophrenia with the button-down formalities (again, like the subject matter).

15. Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

I'm what you would call a Steven Seagal connoisseur (at least from his Warner Bros. days) and so while many of his vehicles may appear indiscernible to a less refined palette, I can assure those philistines that this is an absolutely worthy sequel in tone and structure and is nearly on par with the original. 

16. Castle Freak

Director Stuart Gordon was mostly knows for Horror Comedy -- that is very much not the vibe of this Full Moon Feature that pretty much plays it straight. So when it inevitably veers into terror and gore it's no laughing matter. One of the few movies that makes my skin crawl a bit. 

17. Lord of Illusions

For the entirety of its troubled production schedule, Fangoria was there reporting and I followed that story for over a year. Honestly that's what I remember most about it and what I think about when I watch it now. On its own it's gothic Clive Barker goodness, but it also very much has that personal edge for me. 

18. Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight

Billy Zane has attracted most of the attention this movie has earned over the years but I wanna use this space to call attention to the crazy ensemble cast of character actors who're clearly having equally as much fun with the material. 

19. Clueless

How did someone go about making such an accurate Period Piece about the current period? Usually hindsight is the most advantageous tool in recreating an era on film but it was as if Amy Heckerling & co. merely held up a mirror. 

20. Braveheart

14th Century Euro history as a Popcorn Movie; it feels reminiscent of the 1950s in that sense, but you update it for the 90s with some action violence and suddenly we have a new standard for the "Epic".

21. Casper

Like The Flintstones, a $50 million budget that has the aesthetics of a grade school diorama. Unlike The Flintstones, genuine laughs and heart and characters we care about. (Sorry, Flintstones.) 

22. Get Shorty

The new John Travolta Crime Comedy was a big deal to me and just about everyone else at that moment. Unfortunately it was no Pulp but it did have its own mood, as well as scintillating performances from Gene Hackman and Dennis Farina. 

23. Four Rooms

With the space I'm given here I'll say: the first sequence (or "room") is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, the second room is passable slapstick with a few laughs, and while the fourth room is still Quentin's best work as a director to me, the third room is the best thing that Robert Rodriguez has ever done. So, it's uneven to say the least. 

24. Waterworld

I knew going in that there was controversy surrounding its production, but I found the finished product to be captivating. My generation didn't receive a ton of nautical adventures but this one certainly worked for me - particularly Dennis Hopper's usual mix of comedy and menace. 

25. The Crossing Guard

For its black & white simplicity, Melodrama is tricky business. The movie smothers us in a world of grief and guilt and never lets us up for air (not even at the end) but there is a definite joy in watching the most talented actors in the world convey that misery. 

26. The Mangler

It gets the edge over Dolores Claiborne as my favorite King adaptation of that year because of its archaic storyline and shameless depravity; an evil laundry machine that eats people up is gonna be one of the more exciting things in any year in film. 

27. Desperado

In an era of violent gunplay this didn't completely stand out to me - I responded to the humor and the clever set pieces but it got lost in the shuffle a bit. In retrospect it's so obviously Robert Rodriguez and his distinctive style (which has all but dissolved these days). 

28. Tank Girl

I initially found it obnoxious, probably because (as I said) I wanted my comic book stuff to be Burtonesque -- it turns out that I just wanted Batman stuff to be more serious. Nowadays I'd be overjoyed if Comic Book Movies were presented as being this ridiculous. 

29. Assassins

Sly and his particular brand of Action may've been on the downslope a bit, but thankfully we have the man of the hour, El Mariachi himself, to add some tension as a colorful bad guy. That & Julianne Moore as an Action Star is always unironically entertaining to me. 

30. Cruel Jaws

a.k.a Jaws 5 (though I wouldn't go spreadin' that around) this Italian Monster Movie is a Frankenstein unto itself, pulling together pieces of other movies and music scores to create one nearly-cohesive collage of terror in the water. I'd say it's two whole letter grades better than Jaws 3-D. 

Faces of Yuck

I wanted to compile a proper list of favorite Gross Movies or Gross Scenes or whatever my typical bullshit may be but I found the idea to be annoyingly immeasurable - repulsiveness appears to be more abstract than "what's funny" or "what's scary" and probably even more personal. I thought of all the goriest moments of the most violent movies. I thought of all the puke and shit and semen of 90s Comedies. I thought back to my youth and tried to remember the images that made me uneasy. I tried to think about the traditional choices and all the movies that make the lists of "Most Shocking" and "Most Disturbing". I thought about Joe Bob's Vomit Meter. The real question was, would this be a serious inventory or just for fun; in other words, there's at least fifty shades of foul and the stuff that has me laughing and clapping shouldn't share a list with the stuff that has me gasping and puking (or crying and seething). And in trying to find appropriate programming to watch this year, navigating this spectrum has proven to be most difficult. 

Ever since God said to Abraham, "Sacrifice your son for me. But first, pull my finger", there's been Gross-out Humor. It seemed to really take the film industry by storm in the late 90s and early 00s, and even though I was a teenager at the time, the subgenre didn't really capture my imagination; I felt like a prude but I never found them funny enough - perhaps because I never found them gross enough. 1998's Happiness and most of Todd Solondz's movies hit the mark for me in terms of achieving both Gross and Comedy in a much less juvenile way than the Farrellys or the Wayanses, and with much more filmmaking prowess than John Waters. I'd go as far to say that his particular formula of irony and satire is unique to any other storyteller I've ever been aware of; his ability to make lite of dark subject matter is even that much more magnified when he presents it seriously. And it's that serious darkness that makes a difference. 

The grossest stuff is usually the psychological stuff; the sprays and projectiles and overall dampness is good for a giggle and a gasp but it's the stuff that stays with me and ultimately depresses me that I find most disgusting. But they don't call that "disgusting" they call it "disturbing" because, clearly, the grossness comes in columns. This is the stuff that's the least fun to watch, and particularly rewatch; sexual assault, animal stuff, kid stuff, nonfiction horrors - they all leave a completely different taste than something like Re-Animator or Scanners. For my own fancy, if you can make it as fun or exciting or interesting as one of those Horror or Science Fiction extravaganzas then I'm more likely to hold it in higher regard and come back again. Last House on the Left sucks so I'm not worried about it. I Spit On Your Grave is clumsily confrontational even for a revenge flick. Irreversible is too grim. Man Bites Dog is too dumb. The quantifier is "fun" I think, and fun is just as relatable as "gross". Clockwork Orange is fun. Devil's Rejects, Deliverance, Cape Fear, all fun and interesting and exciting to me. I've still completely kept my distance from Come and See but my impartial observation has me curious as to whether or not I'd watch it as often and as casually as Schindler's List -- though that just may be the magic (or misjudgment) of Spielberg. 

Violence is the big one I think - more than slime or barf or fantastical body horror; "gore" is typically what most people think of when they think of gross. But with violence it's a lot easier (and more socially acceptable) to differentiate between "fun" and "serious". The earliest (and most extreme) example of my own is watching The Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I was like 3 years old and even then being initially shocked at how blatantly vulgar it was and then sort of being helped along to realize the comedy of it. Like I said that's an extreme example because that's a legit straightforward Comedy, but it's the movies that rest on Violence and find ways to be cute with it that are, for every single intent and purpose, the "fun" ones (critics could not grasp this during the Slasher boom). Only until recently it seemed like Quentin's entire career was just a series of him "answering for" whatever new plague he'd unleashed on social mores - and that's only because he was making Crime movies as opposed to those ridiculous Horror flicks. Though I've always said that Casino is the most violent movie I've seen, because while it's not Dead Alive or Hellraiser it stabs that much deeper since it's presented (and rooted) in reality. Even all the torture porn stuff barely slides by because, no matter how realistic it comes across, they can't escape that stigma of camp; the literal tagline for The Human Centipede is: "100% Medically Accurate", as if to say "please, this would be so much more effective if you ignore how ridiculous it is". But that's the irony: the New French Extremity movement and the J-Horror stuff take themselves so seriously that they left out the goddamn fun. But are they gross?

Actually, I'd argue that real grossness maintains an air of burlesque and that maybe nothing can be truly serious when you got heads rollin' around. When I was little the throw up in The Exorcist was one of its most traumatizing tricks - when I look at it now it feels a bit like the punchline in an otherwise humorless atmosphere. But it's definitely gross. All puking is gross, and it was particularly startling as a child because of how traumatic it was whenever it happened to me in real life; I was too terrified to get through Stand By Me because of the barf-o-rama sequence - I was phobic of vomit stuff. My mother thought the grossest part of The Exorcist was the electroencephalography scene where they stab Regan in the neck and take pictures of her brain. Apart from the weird food and heart extractions I can't stand Temple of Doom in part because of the room full of bugs. My father doesn't like Raiders because of the snakes. There are literally still folks who won't watch Brokeback Mountain. Point is, people's phobias, however irrational, can determine their level of loathsomeness in fiction - not because they're scary, but because "ew". 

There are a hundred other avenues for means and moods of repulsion and I've certainly overthought them all - a lotta Comic Book movies make me woozy, but even the most nuanced list should maintain some comprehensive motif; leaving out bad CGI, misguided politics, weak humor, and all the other stuff that makes us sick, and focusing entirely on the intentionally gross entertainment. We like gross, but how far can you take it and still have a good time? Confronting this idea as I am right now, it helped me to realize that I've always found that perfect balance in the Italian Horror Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s. 

One could argue that's a genre all unto itself and one I love for many reasons, and one of the reasons is their confrontational violence. Therein lies the argument that was being made during that specific era of Horror: while these were never played as straight Comedy, the gore was so aggressively graphic that it would've been foolish to take it seriously. And it's the stability of that mix that fills me with the giddiness that's sought after when we purposefully subject ourselves to the ick. So following that formula and sidestepping the phony yardstick of "Most Disgusting" I can say that my favorite Gross-out Flick is 1980's City of the Living Dead. 

"Shock Value" is only a dirty phrase when it's accompanied by laziness. Of the many reasons Lucio Fulci's inaugural entry in his "Gates of Hell" Trilogy (followed by The Beyond and House by the Cemetery, both in 1981) is one of my favorite movies of all time, one that's high on the list is its inventiveness in its filth. The movie is an unbroken parade of set pieces and while much of it is a showcase of ungodly violence, there's also a lotta muck and bugs and generalized goo - proving that you can maintain an old-fashioned spooky atmosphere in the face of blood & guts. Another thing about these older splatter movies is the practical effects wizardry and how its excellence (and sometimes incompetence) is just enough of a distraction to save the subject matter from becoming legitimately distressing - as if to remind you "it's only a movie..." It truly takes some kinda talent to find a way to repel while simultaneously attract; I find most attempts to be either too weak or too heavy-handed for me to revisit. The blend in City of the Living Dead is just the right amount of goofy and grotesque for me to wince just as much during the 100th viewing as I did the first. 

- Paul