Vintage '95
Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 7:00PM The Supporting Actress Smackdown 1995 Edition arrives on Sunday so let's talk context since we haven't revisited as much of 1995 as we'd hoped to! We've only hit the Jane Austen trend, Nicole Kidman's breakout year, a Bonus Podcast on Actresses and Films to Revisit, and Dolores Claiborne. Damn, we had planned much more. But many of you will already have your own personal context for the year, which isn't true of many years of "Smackdown" events so it's fine.
In many ways, though, 1995 was a completely different world. The internet was still in its list-serve infancy. The idea of computer generated movies was a joyful novelty. And aside from Batman, superheroes were still mostly relegated to "light" TV shows. Remember Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark ?
EW photoshoot from June 1995
Great Big Box Office Hits: 1) Toy Story... the first wholly computer generated feature film 2) Batman Forever 3) Apollo 13 4) Pocahontas 4) Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls 6) GoldenEye 7) Jumanji 8) Casper 9) Se7en 10) Die Hard: With a Vengeance
Michelle & Coolio. They had a hit film, smash video, and the year's #1 single. But zero oscar nodsOscar's Best Pictures: Braveheart (10 noms / 5 wins), Apollo 13 (9 noms / 2 wins), Babe (7 noms / 1 win), Sense & Sensibility (7 noms / 1 win), and Il Postino (5 noms / 1 win).
My theories as to what was just outside the shortlist plus more '95 goodies follow...
Just outside the shortlist and probably eating into each others base given their dour but sensationally acted appeal were the Best Actor/Best Actress pairings of Leaving Las Vegas (4 noms | 1 win) and Dead Man Walking (4 noms | 1 win). Maybe Toy Story which had 3 nominations and a special Oscar to boot was also in the mix or settled for 8th place. The Globe favorite American President on the other hand all but tanked with Oscar only winning a score nomination and arguably only accomplishing that because Oscar was in the middle of their excessively weird and thankfully short-lived Golden Globe-like experiment with divvying up scores into Comedy vs. Drama.
Random List of Happenings: The OJ Simpson trial; Drew Barrymore flashes David Letterman on air; the DVD is announced... and will quickly make VHS obsolete; a gay man is murdered by his friend after admitting a crush on him on "The Jenny Jones Show,"; The Oklahoma City bombing kills 168 people; The Bosnian war finally ends after tumultuous years of violence following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia; Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford divorce after four years of marriage despite taking out a full page ad in the London Times just months earlier to proclaim their heterosexuality after persistent gay rumors (!!! I cannot find a photo of this ad on the web but I remember the story. It's not an urban legend. Anyone?); "The Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld airs and is an instant sensation
Magazine Covers for Context
Mix Tape (Huge-Ass Hits of '95): "Gansta's Paradise," Coolio; "Waterfalls" and "Creep," TLC; "Kiss From a Rose," Seal; "On Bended Knee," Boyz II Men; "Take a Bow," Madonna; "This is How We Do It," Montell Jordan; "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?," Bryan Adams; "Hold My Hand," Hootie and the Blowfish; "You Gotta Be," Des'ree; "You Are Not Alone," Michael Jackson
Music: Alanis Morrissette's "Jagged Little Pill" is released on Madonna's fledgling Maverick Records label becomes the #1 best selling album of the decade and wins the Grammy for "Album of the Year"; The Smashing Pumpkins swung for the fences with a double album "Melancholy & the Infinite Sadness" which became a huge success; Selena, one of the most popular Latin music artists of all time, is fatally shot. (Later that year Salma Hayek is offered the role of Selena in a biopic and turns it down because "too early". Eventually Jennifer Lopez gets the part)
Other Arts: The gay drama "Love! Valour! Compassion!" wins Best Play at the Tonys and becomes a movie shortly thereafter. Cherry Jones & Ralph Fiennes also win Tonys in revivals of "The Heiress" and "Hamlet" respectively; "Frasier" begins its Best Comedy Series run at the Emmys with the first of five consecutive wins; Carol Shields "The Stone Diaries," wins the Pulitzer for literature and Horton Foote's "The Young Man From Atlanta" wins the Pulitzer for Drama (opening on Broadway two years later); TV series debuts include "Aeon Flux," "Xena: Warrior Princess," "Caroline in the City," and "The Drew Carey Show"; The career of the incredible comic book artist Jhonen Vasquez begins with "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac"
Daniel Day Lewis (then) and Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis (now)
Spawn of Celebrity
Daniel Day Lewis and Isabelle Adjani's kid Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis is pursuing a musical career and looks quite a lot like his dad circa My Beautiful Laundrette with current blonde dye-job. Connor Cruise, Tom & Nicole's son is grown up now, too.
Callan McAuliffe and Brandon Soo Ho
Key players (for now... a very young vintage)
Callan McAuliffe has quite a few key credits now including The Stanford Prison Experiment, Flipped and the young version of Leo in The Great Gatsby; Cody Christian, currently shamelessly flaunting his physique (seriously that last episode's workout scene was ridiculous) as a no-good traitorous werewolf on Teen Wolf; Troye Sivan, actor, singer, and YouTube personality; Nicola Peltz of Transformers and Bates Motel; Julia Montes, Filipino actress of TV & film frequently recently fending off rumors that she's involved with star actor Coco Martin (you'll know Coco if you've seen more than a couple of auteur Brillante Mendoza's pictures); Noah Gray-Cabey the little boy from television's Heroes is now a 19 year old young man for Heroes Reborn; Ross Lynch & Laura Marano as the Disney channel's Austin & Ally; Robbie Kay who played Peter Pan on that Once Upon a Time TV show and is also in Heroes Reborn and a Pirates of the Caribbean movie; Brandon Soo Hoo with several features under his belt (GI Joe, Tropic Thunder, Ender's Game) and a series regular role on the new Robert Rodriguez show "From Dusk Till Dawn"... yes, it's based on the 90s movie; Jelle Florizoone, the Belgian actor who memorably came of age in North Sea Texas (2011) was also born in 1995.
This will make you feel super old...
Little Nikki (Ambrosia Kelley) who saw The Bride kill her mother in Kill Bill Vol. 1 (she's likely sore about it), those lonely deadly Swedish kids from Let the Right One In Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson, that naughty boy forced to wear Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (Leonard Proxauf), and the wee star of Son of Rambow Bill Milner, are all turning 20 or have already turned 20 this year.
Normally in 'Vintage' posts we list favorites in front of and behind the camera born in that year but this year is not properly aged ...
Anyone born in 1995 is only 20 at most right now and very few people make a well known showbiz mark by that age. They're still in college or hitting auditions or maybe working wage slave jobs wondering what they want to do with their lives.
More Magazine Covers For Context
Because it's fun to look at them... how will future people know what was popular when they look back at 2015?
Showtune to Go: Here's Glenn Close in her Tony winning role as silent film star Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard," which won the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1995 (in an extremely dire musical year on broadway -- in fact, neither musical category had enough eligibilty for a full shortlist!). Despite persistent movie rumors, Sunset Boulevard was never filmed and Glenn Close is still waiting on that Oscar role. In the meantime she can comfort herself with her three Tonys, three Emmys, two Golden Globes and random other solitary trinkets (People's Choice, SAG, NBR)
Reader Comments (26)
Well that was exhausting! So many memories, though....
Damn that 95 mixtape is EVERYTHING.
And in all honesty, of all the movies in 1995 - Babe should've won hands down. George Miller should've won direction.
1995 is all about 'Safe' for me.
Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis is striking, but I wish Isabelle Adjani had had a daughter at some point so her breathtaking beauty could be passed on to another generation.
Love that 1995 interview cover with Chloe Sevigny.
Living for those magazine covers. I forgot how massive Uma Thurman was in 1995
Pocahontas was my first movie theater experience at age 3. Which means that we've had these weird collectible Pocahontas cups (probably from McDonald's or some such place) that we still use for 20 years. Um, geez. Also, I can't recall if I saw Toy Story in theaters as well, but we certainly had a VHS copy that was on heavy rotation for the rest of the 90s.
This exhaustive summary makes 1995 seem like a long time ago and simultaneously like it was just YESTERDAY!
Rahul - except George Miller didn't direct BABE, Chris Noonan did. Miller co-wrote and co-produced it. Miller *did* direct the sequel, BABE: PIG IN THE CITY.
I was a huge Uma fan in 1995, when I was 15/16. I cut out the part of the VF cover so it was just Uma and Nicole and the word "WOOD" and pinned it to my wall. This was to throw my parents off the gay trail while I memorized the articles in the issue instead.
Not sure how many baseball fans there are here, but 1995 was the year where I really got hooked onto baseball. It marked the return of the sport after the devastating player's strike of 1994, and had numerous classic moments, from Cal Ripken breaking the consecutive games record to Randy Johnson leading the Mariners to the AL West title. I was drawn in by the miracle 1995 Indians and their majestic lineup featuring Kenny Lofton, Manny Ramirez, Eddie Murray, Jim Thome, and Albert Belle (he of the 50 home runs). I got fully on their bandwagon and watched as they beat Mo Vaughn and the Red Sox then Randy, then Griffey and Randy and the Mariners to claim their first pennant since 1954. Then sadly, they ran into the Braves' big three of Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz.
As far as films go, I will say that 1995 was the first year where I saw all of the Best Picture nominees (albeit a few years after 1995). The only films I remember seeing in theater was Apollo 13. Yeah...
@Steve G - oh wow good catch. I don't know why I always thought it was Miller. Either way, definitely deserving of Best Picture/Director.
this article made me realize that when i think about the 90s, i'm almost always actually thinking of 1995. i knew it was an important year for me, but man, it *really* left an impression.
I HATE MUSICAL and yet Glenn Close made it good.
I will say what you can not say: Glenn should have 3 Oscars (The Big Chill, Fatal Attraction & DANGEROUS LIAISONS (The last one REALLY Jody Foster in emmy performance come on...))
I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that I was madly in love with Teri Hatcher at the time (I was 9!). She was so refreshing and had great chemistry with Dean Cain. I tried to rewatch "L&C" a few years ago and just couldn't go through a whole episode.
As far as music is concerned I was (and kinda still am) obsessed with Mariah Carey's "Daydream", which is still one of her five best and most consistent albums. I'm glad iPods didn't exist at the time because it would have been hard not to listen to "Fantasy" 400 times in a row.
I'm so glad you put that "Studio" cover of Binoche (who wasn't an Oscar winner yet!) and then-lover Olivier Martinez. As a young French cinephile that magazine was just wonderful.
I also remember that Queen Adjani didn't show up to pick up her 4th César Award that year because she was pregnant with Day Lewis's son. It took her six years to get another leading role in a terrible movie that no one saw. I never really understood how such a talented actress keeps starring in mediocre films (she's done quite a few lately), unlike Huppert who knows how to alternate collaborations with brilliant directors (Chabrol when he was alive, Claire Denis, Haneke...) and box office hits.
Big year for me as a Kidman worshipper. I was a HUGE fan of "Batman Returns" (it still is one of the best flicks of '92 plus I was fascinated by Michelle Pfeiffer's turn as Selina Kyle) and I remember counting the days to the release of "Batman Forever". I think I enjoyed the movie at the time, but when Kidman made her entrance with her insanely blond hair I swear I didn't pay the slightest attention to the rest of the film (though I liked Drew's cameo).
That's when I saw her on the big screen for the first time. It would take me six years, when "Moulin Rouge!" came out, to become a true devotee.
Is Jennifer Jason Leigh the first girl on the left on the VF cover? She's so incredible. What happened to her? We should talk more about that wonderful movie she did with Kidman, "Margot at the Wedding". It was never released in France and I remember finding it in a $5.99 bin at Walmart and being sooo excited. The movie is quite unsettling but it has great moments, and I still think it's one of Nicole's best performances (that meltdown in the bookstore, WOW!), and Jason Leigh was great in it as well.
I was 16 in 1995 and had a huge crush on Winona Ryder! The 90s music is still the best though. And Richard Gere/ Cindy Crawford was The celeb couple before they divorced
I had to confess my love for Teri Hatcher, too. I was ten.
I will always Remember Demi Moore being the box office queen of her day always headline grabbing,is there 5 oscar winners on that v/fair cover.
Lois and Clark solidified my love for Hatcher and made Dean Cain an object of my teenage lust for the following years of the show's run.
Angela Bassett was on magazine covers 20 years ago [sheds tear for the career that could have been].
Coincidentally, both Batman Forever and To Die For recently have aired on network TV within the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the latter began too late in the evening for me to give it a second viewing (I first saw it on VHS upon its initial release for home viewing), but 30 minutes into the former made me realize that it's a bigger POS than I remembered -- and Kidman's role was totally disposable.
I own that VF issue (I own all the VF Hollywood issues). It always cracks me up that Paltrow is the only one who is fully clothed, like she refused to wear lingerie for the shoot.
I have never seen Braveheart and doubt I ever will.
French Toast, I believe Adjani moved to Switzerland in the mid-90s to raise her son, which may explain why she was less active (combined with getting older and being very selective about projects). When you don't work regularly, you risk being forgotten by the great directors/producers. It's a shame because she really is monumentally gifted.
BTW, it sounds like Daniel Day Lewis was a complete ass to her.
Wasn't there some news the other day of Glenn doing Sunset Boulevard again on the West End. Maybe it'll translate into a movie later.
I still remember the classic line from the pilot. Clark says to his mom: "Don't I need a mask? People will recognize me."
His mom says: "Honey, with these shorts, nobody's going to be looking at your face."
"Mom!"
I love that Drew Barrymore is in "Batman Forever". It's so ... random. And the novelization has a brief scene of Sugar and Spice swimming to safety after the lair goes kablooie, but I have no idea if that was in the screenplay or even filmed.
And yesss to "Daydream" and "Crazysexycool" and "Jagged Little Pill". The latter two I had on cassette and my mother wasn't pleased with the content.
I just turned 29 so 1995 is always a weird cut-off year when I'm flirting with men/boys. Like, I can't make out with you if you were born the same year that "Always Be My Baby" came out.
Did people actually think Braveheart was awesome in 1995?
BD -- sadly, they did. Many still do. But it's awful.
Ah, 1995. When my high school journalism course actually let and *paid* for me to see and review gems like Seven, Showgirls, and Strange Daysfor the student newspaper. (Bitch, what?) I honestly don't recall that seeming odd to me at the time, but it sure is now! (Not that I'm complaining 'cause those three aforementioned films are awesome.)
Does anyone else miss *this* Drew Barrymore? So free-spirited and such a loose cannon. (I feel the same longing for the Angelina Jolie of yore.) People grow up, of course, but Drew definitely seemed to snap out of it the very next with the release (and the massive success) of Scream.
Anyway, Nicole Kidman forever! (And let us have a moment of silence for the stupendousness of Elisabeth Shue that year -- by FAR the best performance by anyone in '95.)
Braveheart is truly horrifying. How the hell did it to the Oscars? If directed by anyone else it would have been trashed. And a Best Director win for Gibson while Ang Lee is not invited to the party? WTF.