The Best and Worst Movies of 1992

Another week, and another blog post spotlighting a year at the movies, this time 1992.  As with the last two weeks (1990 and 1991), I start out with my favorites, the best of the rest, the stinkers, and compare them to the biggest hits at the Box Office and the Oscars.

My Top Ten Favorites of 1992:

Aladdin
After a rather lackluster product in the 70's and 80's, Disney came roaring back in the late 80's with Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Little Mermaid, and there was no stopping this Juggernaut as they continued the lucky streak with Beauty and the Beast and then this film about Aladdin and his magic lamp.  Another instant classic!

Batman Returns
Christopher Nolan's deadly seriousness injected some gritty realism into the Batman legend, and this is exactly what it needed after the travesty that was Batman & Robin in 1997.  However, this second Burton outing was, in my humble opinion, the best mix of the darker elements of Batman with it's fantasy roots.  Not as gritty or real as Nolan's films, but not as silly and ridiculous as the Schumacher ones.  I actually prefered the plot of this one over the Tim Burton original, as well as Keaton's Batman here, and Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito, and Christopher Walken appear to have a blast with the material.  Others may prefer Nolan's Darker Knight, but this is my favorite Batman movie.

Bram Stokers Dracula
Very faithful to Stoker's original novel, Gary Oldman is quite memorable as the evil Count, and manages to take a classic literary character that had become a cartoon (Love at First Bite, Count Chocula, Seseme Street's The Count) and breath life into the legend once again.  It even manages to work the inspiration for Stoker's creature of the night, Vlad the Impaler, into the plot.  The direction, set decoration, costumes, music, makeup, effects, and editing are deliciously lavish.  At times romantic and chilling, sometimes both at the same time, it is entertaining from beginning to end.  The only detriment is Keanu Reeves, who tries his best, but just doesn't fit this period piece.

Chaplin
Robert Downey Jr. is superb as Charlie Chaplin in this well written and shot biopic about the silent film legend.  He captured the essence of Chaplin's Little Tramp character, and with this one performance, Downey Jr. managed to dispel all the damage he had done to his own career with his excessive drinking and drug use.

Death Becomes Her
Critics and Meryl Streep can hate this rather cartoonish movie if they want, but if you just go with it, you'll find yourself having a lot of fun.  I've always maintained that my favorite zombie movies are not "real" zombie movies, but comedies, and I've often cited this one alongside Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland as my favorite zombie movies (and now I may have to add Warm Bodies to the that list as well).  The three leads are great in this, as are the effects, and Zemekis just seems to be having a heyday.  Fans of Tales From the Crypt should find this irresistible   Maybe that's the main reason Streep has never really endorsed it.

A Few Good Men
Long before Tom Cruise lost his acting charisma with one too many Mission: Impossible sequels and his bizarre Scientology behavior, he made this great Rob Reiner military picture with Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, and, of course, Jack Nicholson.

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
Critics seemed to prefer Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct (at least before the horrid sequel came out), but the best thriller of the year was this little chiller about a psychotic baby-sitter played by Rebecca DeMornay.  It may not have been as "smart" as Basic Instinct, but I thought DeMornay was actually scarier than Stone's manipulative writer, and Hand didn't have all the immoral lesbian overtones.

Of Mice and Men
I actually saw the 1939 original with Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr., but I never really thought Chaney Jr. could really act, and I much preferred this version starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.  In fact, it was only one of two movies that Sinise ever directed (the first being Miles From Home in 1988), and I thought he did a wonderful job in both departments.  Then again, I thought the same thing about Bill Paxton with his movie Frailty, and my family hates that one, so what the hell do I know?

Scent of a Woman
"Hoo-aa!"  Chris O'Donnell is fine here in one of his earlier roles, and the same goes for Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a slimy fellow student, but this movie is Pacino's all the way.  Playing a gruff, blind former lieutenant colonel Frank Slade, whose family pays O'Donnell's prep student character Charlie Simms to "babysit" him, the two eventually bond and Slade stands up for Charlie as a contrived University hearing.  There are a lot of great surprises and some wonderful acting in this classic, unforgettable drama.

Wayne's World
Long before Mike Meyers lost some of his comedy clout with films like The Cat in the Hat, The Love Guru, and one too many Shrek and Austin Powers sequels (and yes, there's a new Austin Powers in the works), he started his career by expanding his Saturday Night Live character of Wayne Campbell into a feature length movie.  The only other time that was really done successfully was with The Blues Brothers.  Wayne's World was just a bit of fluffy fun, and the sequel the following year was more the same, with Dana Carvey adding a lot of goofy charm as Wayne's nerdy sidekick Garth.

The Best of the Rest

Basic Instinct
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Honeymoon in Vegas
A Midnight Clear
Reservoir Dogs
School Ties
Single White Female
Trespass
Unlawful Entry
Where the Day Takes You

Sharon Stone in a very short skirt and an ice pick in hand, Macaulay Culkin in his second go-round as Kevin McCallister, Nicholas Cage and a bunch of "flying Elvises", a classic Tarantino heist flick, Brendan Fraser hiding his Jewish religion from some racist boys at a 1950's elite prep school, Jennifer Jason Leigh as a psycho roommate from hell, Ray Liotta as a psycho cop from hell, and a couple of treasure seekers trapped in the middle of a gangland war are some of the things you'll find in this list of great films from 1992.  Meanwhile, Keith Gordon (the nerdy kid from Christine and Back to School) stepped behind the camera to direct this story of a squadron of isolated American and German soldiers sharing Christmas together during the final days of World War II, and Marc Rocco's Where the Day Takes You is an unflinching look at the plight of teenage runaways, trying to survive lives full of drugs, prostitution, and violence on the streets of Los Angeles. Grab a box of tissues for both these films!

The Worst

Bad Lieutenant
Dead-Alive
Freejack
Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Love Potion No. 9
Peter's Friends
Pet Sematary Two
Romper Stomper
Sleepwalkers
Waxwork II: Lost in Time

Three wretched horror movie sequels tops this list of the worst films of the year, and add to that Peter Jackson's horrible zombie free-for-all and a silly Stephen King-penned film about some weird cat-people, and that means half the list is, again, horror movies.  What does that tell you?  But all genres are pretty much covered here:  Drama (Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel), Science Fiction (Freejack with Emilio Estevez and Mick Jagger - that's right, Mick Jagger!), Romance (Love Potion No. 9 with Sandra Bullock), Comedy/Drama (the dreary Peter's Friends with Kenneth Branagh) and independent Australian punk (Romper Stomper with Russell Crowe).

Just for comparison, here are the biggest hits at the Oscars, nominated for Best Picture or winning an award in one of the other categories, and the biggest Box Office smashes.  I didn't much care for Eastwood's Unforgiven, which won for Best Picture.  I thought Open Range from 2003 with Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner actually handled the same kind of theme much better.  My Cousin Vinny, A River Runs Through It, and begrudgingly, even Sister Act, were just fine, but Lethal Weapon 3 was getting just a bit tiresome and predictable, and I found Howard's End and The Last of the Mohicans to be a little slow moving.  And all these years later, I've still never seen The Bodyguard or The Crying Game.  Of course, knowing the "secret twist" of The Crying Game, I probably never will.

Notable Oscar Films                                         Biggest Box Office Hits

Unforgiven                                                          Aladdin

A Few Good Men                                                The Bodyguard

Howards End                                                       Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Scent of a Woman                                               Basic Instinct

The Crying Game                                               Lethal Weapon 3

My Cousin Vinny                                                Batman Returns

Aladdin                                                               A Few Good Men

Bram Stoker’s Dracula                                      Sister Act

The Last of the Mohicans                                  Bram Stoker’s Dracula

A River Runs Through It                                    Wayne’s World