Vintage '94: Vampires, Gumps, and Serial Moms
Saturday, June 9, 2018 at 9:32AM The Supporting Actress Smackdown 1994 Edition arrives in just two weeks (Sunday June 24th) so as we approach and you vote (hint hint), let's talk context in movies and entertainment.
Great Big Box Office Hits: 1. Forrest Gump 2. The Lion King 3. True Lies 4. The Santa Clause 5. The Flintstones 6. Dumb & Dumber 7. Clear and Present Danger 8. Speed 9. The Mask and 10. Pulp Fiction just barely beating out Interview with the Vampire to complete the top ten.
Oscar's Best Picture Nominees: Forrest Gump (13 noms / 6 wins), Pulp Fiction (7 noms / 1 win), The Shawshank Redemption (7 nominations), Quiz Show (4 noms), and the surprise Four Weddings and a Funeral (only 2 nominations in the 'only 5' Best Picture era!).
After the jump more vintage '94 and our best guess as to what would have made the list in the current voting era of 5-10 nominees...
I'm going to say there would have been six or seven nominees only with Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (7 noms / 1 win) a definite and the foreign film Three Colors: Red (3 noms in major categories) a possibility if the new voting system for Best Picture were retroactively applied. Other films Oscar kinda liked in a year where the love was mostly unemphatic and spread fairly wide: The Madness of King George (4 noms / 1 win), The Lion King (4 noms / 2 wins all in below the line categories), Speed (3 noms / 2 wins all in below the line categories), Little Women (3 nominations), Legends of the Fall (3 noms in below the line categories), Tom & Viv and Nobody's Fool (2 noms in major categories).
Serial Mom has only become more popular over the years.
Films That Endured in Some Way That Were Not Nominated for Any Oscars and Weren't Box Office Smashes Either: Léon: The Professional, The Crow, Natural Born Killers, Shallow Grave, The Last Seduction (ruled ineligible for Oscars), The River Wild, Serial Mom, Chungking Express, and Exotica. (Two arthouse darlings that people now think of as 1994 films -- due to IMDb dating -- are Priest and Muriel's Wedding but they were squarely 1995 films for almost everyone with only festival debuts in 94 but for an Australian release for the latter in late 1994.)
Nathaniel's Top Ten of 1994
Heavenly Creatures introduced the world to Kate Winslet & Melanie Lynskey. The world is not grateful enough.
- Heavenly Creatures
- Pulp Fiction (though I worry how it's aging. about to watch again)
- Queen Margot
- Bullets Over Broadway
- Three Colors: Red
- Ed Wood
- Reality Bites (no movie screams "94!" more to me. I saw it 4 times in the theater and my friends and I quoted it endlessly)
- Four Weddings and a Funeral
- Nell (sorry not sorry. Loved it in '94)
- Chungking Express
Magazine Covers for Context:
It was the year of the OJ Simpson's arrest, Kurt Cobain's suicide, The Rwandan genocide, Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa, the Harding/Kerrigan Olympic scandal, Forrest Gump and Lion King making behemoth bank to become two of the most popular films ever, and Pulp Fiction making a surprise cultural impact. Popular cover girls were Cindy Crawford and Brad Pitt among many more. Here are some magazines from the time.
Mix Tape (Huge-Ass Hits of '94): According to Billboard the year's biggest hits were "The Sign" by Ace of Base, "I Swear" by All-4-One, "I'll Make Love To You," by Boyz II Men, "The Power of Love" by Céline Dion, "Hero," by Maraiah Carey, "Stay" by Lisa Loeb, and "Breathe Again" by Toni Braxton.
THE GREATEST PERFORMANCE IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC VIDEOS: Juliette Lewis in "Come to My Window"
Songs I was, um, let's just say obsessed with, that year were the aforementioned "Stay" plus "Come to My Window" by Melissa Etheridge, "The Last Goodbye" by Jeff Buckley, "Linger" by the Cranberries, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, "Take a Bow" by Madonna, 'Gentlemen Who Fell" by Milla Jovovich (yes that Milla Jovovich) and every single thing about these three albums: Hole "Live Through This," Tori Amos "Under the Pink," and Salt-n-Pepa "Very Necessary".
TV: "Frasier" and "Picket Fences" won the top Emmy Awards for the 93/94 season. I was 1000% about "My So Called Life" that year --even ditching "Friends" to watch it as no one else was doing (hence the cancellation). Other famous programs that debuted that year were "Ellen," "Inside the Actors Studio" "Chicago Hope" "ER" and "Party of Five". Turner Classic Movies channel also makes its debut -- Gone With the Wind (1939) is the first movie they show.
Other Arts: Tony Kushner's Angels in America: Perestroika won Best Play and Stephen Sondheim's Passion best musical at the Tony Awards. Edward Albee's Three Tall Women (currently on Broadway in a wildly acclaimed revival) wins the Pulitzer for Drama while "The Shipping News," by Annie Proux wins the Pulitzer for Fiction. Edvard Munch's masterpiece "The Scream" is famously stolen in Oslo in early 94 and recovered months later in the year.
Saiorse Ronan was the first 1994 baby to win an oscar nomination. And still the only.
Born in '94
Oscar Nominees: Saoirse Ronan only!; Actors: Dakota Fanning, Miles Heizer, Ansel Elgort, Dakota Blue Richards, Taissa Farmiga, Booboo Stewart, Israel Broussard, Eller Coltrane, Zoey Deutch, Dacre Montgomery, Nat Woolf, Kofi Siriboe, Ivana Baquero, and Alice Englert (Jane Campion's actress daughter); Singers: Justin Beiber, and Harry Styles
Showtune to Go: Tony-winning genius Donna Murphy singing Sondheim's sublime "Loving You" from Passion.
Reader Comments (22)
94 memories
JLC in True Lies,were was the Oscar nom and as bad mum in Mother's Boys.
Jennifer Tilly and her Horse Derves
Rosemary Harris's line delivery of "Mrs Haigh Wood"
That awful 94 BA line up i'd keep Foster though,Nell needs reavaluation
Sigourney Weaver,Crissy Rock and Meg Ryan left off Best Actress
Pulp Fiction dance off
The arrival of Kirsten Dunst,were was the Oscar nom
Anything that comes out of KST's mouth in 4 weddings
Pfeiffer's eyes in Wolf
Branagh's chest in Frankenstein
Madonna's Bedtime Stories esp Inside of Me and Sanctuary
Kylie's first serious album.
Brad's flowing locks and Keanu Reeves buzz cut.
Sandra Bullock Movie Star in Speed
Julia and Nick hating eating each other in I love Trouble
Nigel Hawthorne's "What What"
Tom Hanks emerging fom the shower in Forrest Gump
Those magazine covers make me long for 1994. What a fun year.
This is one of my favorite pop culture years as well. When I first started buying my own music..
Stone temple pilots - purple
Pearl Jam - vs & vitalogy
Soundgarden - superunknown
Counting crows - August and everything after
Hole - live through this
Nirvana unplugged
My so-called life
The x files
Melrose place & 90210
“These friends of mine” & friends
Seinfeld
Pulp fiction (with my mom who didn’t know what it was)
Bullets over broadway
Quiz show
Shawshank (in theater)
The crow (on opening night)
Dumb and dumber & ace Ventura
The professsional
IT MARIAH, NOT MARAIAH, BITCH!
This is the year I fell in love with Brad Pitt.
I'm missing big gaps in 1994 viewing. I've never seen Forrest Gump or The Lion King, for example.
Some of the major movies of 1994 I've seen and liked: Four Weddings and a Funeral; Bullets Over Broadway; Speed; Stargate; Pulp Fiction; Leon: The Professional; The Mask. I liked Three Colors:Red better than Three Colors: White, but Three Colors: Blue is my favourite.
Some of the less money making ones I've enjoyed:
Black Beauty: I wept buckets, so tragic
The Secret of Roan Inish: dir. John Sayles
Double Happiness: Sandra Oh
Vanya on 42nd Street: Julianne Moore
Widow's Peak
Dance Me Outside
Corinna, Corinna
Little Buddha: Keanu Reeves
Nobody's Fool: Paul Newman
Il Postino
Only You: Marisa Tomei
That was a great year despite Kurt's death. I was starting to get into alternative music and there was so much good stuff that year. Then there was Woodstock '94 where I saw NIN on scrambled PPV but the way it sounded and the intensity of it made me a fan 4 life. Plus, it's good to know that Trent Reznor is still kicking ass, making great music, and will have a fanbase that is extremely fucking loyal. Take that Ed Sheeran you no-talent ginger.
Favorite movies of the year - Quiz Show, Exotica, Queen Margot, Red, Serial Mom, Death and the Maiden, and The Ref. I remember liking Nell, Shawshank, and Hudsucker Proxy a lot when I saw them, but haven’t watched them in ages. There are parts of Four Weddings I love (KST, Grant, Chancellor), and parts I very much don’t. Clear and Present Danger has one of the all-time great action sequences.
Music-wise, odd year (was very much into both Nine Inch Nails and that Tori Amos album).
1.Four Weddings and a Funeral
2.Pulp Fiction
3.Wild Reeds
4.Bullets Over Broadway
5.The Client
6. Red
7. Forrest Gump
8. Hoop Dreams
9. Quiz Show
10. Queen Margot
"Oh, Roseanne" indeed, hahaha!!!
I'll love the 90s forever. My coming of age, hunty! I felt so grown with my obsession over "Forrest Gump." Not ashamed! (Shhhh! Yeah, I am. Don't tell anyone lol.)
The pop culture richness this year is staggering. The films, television, music, and all the other big news stores of the day: Kurt Cobain, Clinton, Nancy/Tonya, and all the O.J. hysteria that were still reeling from.
What a time to be alive!
1. Little Women
2. Quiz Show
3. Hoop Dreams
4. Four Weddings and a Funeral
5. Nobody's Fool
6. Dumb and Dumber
7. Bullets Over Broadway
8. Ed Wood
9. Forrest Gump (sue me)
10. Pulp Fiction
LAST YEAR OF MY LIFE WITHOUT INTERNET
Ummm, can you do this for every 90’s year?
THE DIVINE COMEDY by Milla Jovovich is a fantastic CD
The 1994 Best Actress lineup is embarrassing. None of the nominees can touch Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom. "You can't wear white shoes after Labor Day." Love that gif!
Pulp Fiction #DontBelieveTheTripe
Shawshank is the Best Picture of 1994, not Forrest Junk.
That racist Time cover with O.J. just screams: "But we thought he was one of the good ones!"
My top 10 faves of the year:
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Speed
Legends of the Fall
The Sum of Us
Iron Will
The Client
The Madness of King George
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Bullets over Broadway
Little Women
Haha @markgordonuk we have very similar memories of 94 (Pfeiffer's eyes at the end of Wolf yasss)
I was 14 in '94, and for me it was all about Legends of the Fall, which i saw 5 times at the cinema.
The was the first oscar ceremony I stayed awake all night for - Tom Hanks & Holly Hunter.
My brother and I renting Dazed & Confused from the video store over and over and over.
Waiting impatiently for every issue of Empire magazine.
Blur Parklife, Jeff Buckley Grace, Kylie Confide in Me
In defence of the number of times I saw LotF at the cinema, my mum worked there as an usher, and I always got to watch films for free. Hence why I also got to watch 15 rated movies (like Wolf and Don Juan DeMarco) when I was underage.
Heavenly Creatures is simply of the greatest films ever. Winslet and Lynskey were robbed!
My all-time favourite film came out this year! Mainstream choice is mainstream, but THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION is what got me from a film admirer to a fully-fledged film lover, and I have never looked back!
'94 randomness:
TIME notoriously darkened their cover photo of O.J. Simpson while NEWSWEEK didn't, which was a major controversy.
"Stay (I Miss You)" was the first #1 by an artist not signed to a label and would remain the only one for decades until "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore.
"Speed" was one of the first R-rated movies I was allowed to see!
Mariah Carey wrote "Hero" for "The Player" and it was to be sung by Gloria Estefan as a spoof of the big song that plays at the end of every film (i.e. Diane Warren's canon); the song is purposely schmaltzy. When record execs heard Mariah singing it, they insisted she record it for herself instead. She resented the song for years.
For the longest time I'd heard about the weakness of the Actress lineup but now having seen all the nominees boy is everyone right. I really dont' get what happened. The actresses nominated are talented but it's just disappointing to have this lineup. I guess Jodie is best but that's not saying much for me because I thought she was let down by very weak material. I really think a list that include Julianne, Melanie, Irene, Juliette & Linda (Last Seduction) would've been inspired.
I so remember that Melrose Place/People cover! I was obsessed with that show and I still say that Laura Leighton was legit great.
Jeff Buckley...sigh. That whole album was great and I listened to it for YEARS. But now I can barely listen to it at all because his voice is just for beautifully fragile it makes me sad.