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The Quest of 1991: The Single Finest Film of Our Generation?

Rufio Pictures, Images and Photos

I unfortunately don't have an energizing introduction to the newest showdown in this limited-run series of posts searching for the single finest film of our generation (what constitutes "our generation" is still up for debate, so regardless of your age, you are permitted, nay, encouraged to participate in the comments section). So let's just briefly run down what went down two weeks ago and then get into the nitty gritty. Home Alone came away with the prize for 1990, the first in the series, and now here we are with the second (only seven more to go after today! oh my will I be able to keep it up?!) and decidedly less of the nominees are family films this time around. This will sure to be a point of contention amongst voters (some have already shown dismay over 1993's lack of Free Willy recognition. By the way, you can check back on the full list of contenders over here. Quick shout out to Blogulator friend and colleague Christine for bringing in a new block of voters, all of whom are welcome (as are the regulars) to let their voices be heard re: this spectacular year of sequels that may just outweigh their predecessors, Robin Williams, and the definitive birth of the 90s action film. This, my friends, is 1991.

Hook: Oh, Rufio. You got a mediocre pop-punk band named after you, you're responsible for a million youth-filled hearts breaking over the holiday season as cinemas nationwide screened your piercing death in front of innocent eyes, and your minor presence overshadowed Steven Spielberg's alleged return to the kid-friendly fantasy genre and a cast of Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, Dustin Hoffman, and Bob Hoskins. HOSKINS for crying out loud! Your teenage-Miles-from-Lost hair, your scenery chewing broodery, and your Lost Boys' motley-colored imaginary food fight were the high points of a high-concept retread of a classic. Sure, Hoffman is unrecognizable and that wig of his was gangbusters (as was Hoskins as his Smithers-esque sidekick) but even though they were the film's eponymous players, Williams hogged the screen, and you were left to be but a dying glimpse at a world where the Peter Pan story could have been updated to something grand, rather than hoodwinking the kids in favor of a "even grumpy lawyers can be kids at heart" transformation story. Plus, it totally ruined my whole "Tinkerbell is hot" mentality by casting Mrs. Horseface in the pivotal role. Hook, though I watched you dozens of times, you could have been so much more.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of The Ooze: Sequels will prove to be severely problematic throughout this quest. Take the Turtles, for instance, whose first film in 1990 was left out of consideration due to the fact that I completely missed it while scrolling through the box office successes of that year. It was right there hovering between Ghost and Dick Tracy and yet -- whoosh, completely glossed over it. Who knows why. I remember feeling that the Turtles were a group of deeply troubled teens who didn't deserve the banishment from society they partly imposed upon themselves and partly were forced into due to the fact that they were mutant turtles. Despite their wacky reactions to pizza, this was a very emotional viewing experience for me as a kid. All they had was their rat master, Splinter, who was just as broken, if not more so, than the pubescent amphibians he took upon himself to raise. And they in turn, tried to help the at-risk youth who were under manipulative powers of Shredder and his wicked awesome underground skate center/arcade. This is all irrelevant, though, because when I scrolled through the box office heavy-hitters for 1991, I saw The Secret of the Ooze and immediately thought '"Ninja Rap"!' and placed it in the running. This is how the brain of an idiot works, folks.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Continuing on this thought about the inherent power of the number or roman numeral "2"/"II" and an accompanying subtitle, until the recent Blogulator Terminator double feature, I also just assumed that the 1991 Robert Patrick (scary-as-eff mercury dude) vehicle was the nonpareil. Yes, a more sufficiently lighted villain with better special effects and a police officer's uniform played by a random D-lister turns out is infinitely more memorable than an Austrian body-builder dressed like a biker and Michael Biehn combined. Also, especially as a youngster, having bratface Edward Furlong and his diagonal haircut (not to mention Bobbdy Budnick from Salute Your Shorts as his BFF) was definitely appealing. But let's be honest people, the third act of this movie is lameness incarnate. Miles Dyson is totes awesome, especially how he's bleeding everywhere for hours before he finally blows Cyberdyne to bits with him in it, yes, but the first two thirds of T2 are just too Robert Patricky for everything to get solved by molten steel and one building exploding. Cop out to the max. Michael Biehn's modest heroism, Linda Hamilton's big hair, and Technoir trump the sequel without question.
Point Break: And here's where 1991 redeems itself. At first thought, it seemed like Swayze ruling both the 80s with Road House and the 90s with this masterpiece would be too easy. But then I thought about it in a different way: what if Swayze just appeared in Point Break to hand over the torch, so to speak, to the iconic star of the 90s, Mr. Keanu Reeves? Co-starring together as lovers/fighters, Swayze wasn't only reluctant of how he let an undercover cop into his hippy circle of surfing the bitchingest waves or robbing banks with the bitchingest president masks, he was also holding onto his title of "Finest Actor of Our Generation" just as his own generation was blending oh so seamlessly into the next. And Keanu's reluctance to choose the force over friendship shows the fierce intensity of this transition between two generations in cinema. Do we stick with the rough and tumble ethic of 80s bravado or do we head into more monotone and deadpan days of 90s seriousness, where buses have to go 55 MPH or they explode and we all accept that willingly, where a man at once travels through time in a telephone booth and later becomes the unquestioned hero of a sci-fi classic about spider robots that keep us in pods. Whether Keanu has or has yet to hand off the torch to the next generation, only time will tell, but I have nothing but faith in his and Point Break's ability to take this hypothesis at least to the Quest's final post determining his place in our generation's canon.

The Last Boy Scout: Every year deserves its WTF nomination. Two weeks ago, it was Arachnophobia. "Seriously, the spider movie?" you all whispered to yourselves as you read it. Well for 1991, you can start whispering, "Seriously, that Bruce Willis movie no one cares about?"...go ahead, I gave you permission. Just know that before we dismiss this movie as it so rightly deserves, that director Tony Scott is the king of the trashy action film. Seven years after the film whose only defining moment is that eraseable memory of a pro footballer doing PCP, then bringing a gun onto the field and shooting three players of the opposing team before blowing his own brains out (in the opening scene no less), and whose only redeeming quality is the Aaron Sorkin-on-heroin witty dialogue (written by the success-that-never-was Shane Black) interplay between Willis and Wayans, Scott would make his other film considered for this Quest: Enemy of the State. And like that Will Smith conspiracy theory thriller, the entertainingly convoluted and drenched in excess The Last Boy Scout is monumentally underrated. Its no-holds-barred nudity-riddled ADD-pace would be the gold standard for years to come and also acts a strong transitional piece, as it had less heart and more testosterone than even Point Break, between my enjoyment of family films and foray into R-rated movies where people kill each other for minimal reasons. This "foray" may have waned, but is the ultimate reason I will watch most anything that's rated R and has an explosion in the trailer.

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  1. Blogger P. Arty | 8:33 AM |  

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of The Ooze

    Nothing else on this list even compares!

  2. Blogger Unspar! | 8:54 AM |  

    You know my vote's for Point Break, and there really shouldn't be anything to stand in its way.

    The competition:
    -Hook almost got my vote because it's genuinely magical (I don't care about your cynicism about lawyer-to-nice-person transformations). But it doesn't have Point Break's depth.

    -TMNT 2 is forgettable at best, though "Ninja Rap!" is solid gold. Seriously, though, that's the only thing any of us remember about that movie.

    -Terminator 2 is too well-respected both in cinema history (namely for groundbreaking special effects) and among several of my friends.

    -I never saw The Last Boy Scout.

    Seriously, though, if Point Break doesn't win this round, I won't be able to take this quest seriously anymore. Maybe if we get a chant going...POINT BREAK! POINT BREAK! POINT BREAK!

  3. Blogger Jerksica | 11:49 AM |  

    That's right- I'm commenting bitches!

    Unspar- In my professional opinion as a someday-lawyer, lawyers can never be nice people.

    The only movie here I saw prior to 2008 was Hook but I cannot vote for that. Hook came out the year I played Tinkerbell in a traveling Wisconsin production and the injustice of Julia Roberts as Tink (SPEAKING, no less) was something I never got over. I didn't see TMNT or Terminator (any of them) until 2008/2009. The Last Boy Scout sounds horrifying. So, even though I didn't see it until recently, I absolutely vote for Point Break. Surfing bank robbers + rubber President masks that are less dumb than the actual faces of the actors + bromance = Spectacular.

  4. Blogger Unknown | 11:51 AM |  

    Although I have somehow yet to see Point Break, it gets my vote, at least for the fact that the other four are pretty m'eh in my book (although I do remember TMNT2 rocking my brain harder than TMNT...come on, it's OOZE!!) Actually, now that I think of it, I change my vote to TMNT2 based on Chris' voting specifications -- I have fond memories of cannisters of ooze. Also, weren't they fighting in a mall or something? That was cool. TMNT2.

  5. Blogger Unknown | 11:52 AM |  

    BTW -- I hated Hook!

  6. Blogger christine | 1:13 PM |  

    I vote Hook. Nothing here even comes close to this movie in nostalgic and even-still-now enjoyment factor.

  7. Blogger chris | 1:53 PM |  

    I cannot express how happy this Quest and all yallz' participation makes me feel. Here's the tally thus far:

    Point Break - 3
    TMNTII - 2
    Hook - 1

    Qualler's mention of the fight-scene in the mall (featuring Ernie Reyes Jr. of another 90s classic, Surf Ninjas) though almost changed my vote. But then I remembered Keanu in a wetsuit and came to my senses.

    Also curious why you have such hatred for Hook, Qualler!

  8. Blogger Unknown | 1:57 PM |  

    I think it's the combination of Robin Williams acting like a little boy not in the context of Francis Ford Coppola's "Jack", Dustin Hoffman's creepy and offputting Capt. Hook mustache, and the fact that I remember the movie being really long in the theaters, even as an 8 year old. Mainly Dustin Hoffman's stache, I think.

  9. Blogger DoktorPeace | 1:58 PM |  

    Even in my youth, Turtles II failed to overtake the awesomeness of the first. Maybe this was because of a blooming, discerning palette, but more likely it's because we didn't have the second movie on VHS to watch over and over again.

    Hook I have fond memories of, but Chris is totally right. I saw it on TV a couple months ago, saw that Julia Roberts was Tink, and turned it off. Same reason I stopped watching The Mexican 10 minutes in.

    I still haven't seen any Terminator all the way through, so I suck.

    And I just watched Point Break for the first time this year, with my enjoyment of it inevitably overplayed by its role in Hot Fuzz.

    Whatever. Vaya con Dios. Point Break.

  10. Blogger Brigitte | 3:17 PM |  

    HOOK! HOOK! HOOK! HOOK!

    i loved that movie so much that i bought my dad the novelization for his birthday. i remember going to see it in the theaters, and for some reason it was kind of a big deal because it was longer than most movies i'd seen in theaters up to that point...

  11. Blogger Unknown | 3:20 PM |  

    144 minutes, people! 144 minutes!!! That's too long for 8 year old Qualler to sit in a movie theater and be subjected to Captain Hook's horrific mustache!

  12. Anonymous jessduff | 4:12 PM |  

    Toatsies Hook! (Mostly because I haven't seen any of those other movies, including the Terminator). RUFIO! RUFIO! RUFIO!

  13. Blogger danvogues | 11:27 PM |  

    Terminator II gets my vote. I remember first seeing that movie and being blown away for some reason or another by the special effects. The whole melting/molding/morphing/becoming-a-robot-humanish-life-form-again was way beyond my imagine and took me months afterward to wrap my head around that CGI. Who else doesn't wish they could turn their arm into a single blade of metal only to impale someone's head while he's drinking a carton of milk?

    Hook would come in #2 for me. The only reason being Hook's mustache ticking to the alligator's clock bothered the hell out of me.

  14. Blogger Lady Amy | 11:44 PM |  

    I'm gonna go with Hook. I used to rent that all the time from the video store but could never commit to buying it for some reason.

  15. Blogger chris | 11:55 PM |  

    HOLY CRAP HOOK TAKES THE LEAD IN THE CLUTCH.

    Congratulations, Spielberg, you're going to have two films in the final running, you sick bastard.

    Unspar, please stay with us. I apologize profusely.

  16. Blogger Sean | 11:57 PM |  

    point break a thousand times yes. would we have the fast and the furious without it? not a chance.

    via con dios (sp?)

  17. Blogger DoktorPeace | 3:30 AM |  

    Tough luck on the spelling there, Sean. If only you'd looked at my comment a few posts earlier.

  18. Blogger chris | 8:03 AM |  

    Oh and Sean saves it! Now a tie b/w Point Break and Hook, my tie breaking power gives the edge to...

    POINT BREAK!!!!!!!!

  19. Blogger golublog | 4:31 PM |  

    I had such a crush on rufio.

  20. Blogger Papa Thor | 6:48 AM |  

    Brigitte, I think I still have that book, whenever we have a garage sale I hide it. And Rufio had the ultimate name, even pre-K kids with lisps could pronounce it with passion. But although Robin Williams et al taught us adults a valuable lesson™ I think Terminator 2 sticks with me more. That was the scariest villain until the No Country For Old Men guy turned me off free money forever.

  21. Blogger Unspar! | 4:14 PM |  

    Chris, you're my hero. Thank you for saving Point Break and everything I've stood for in my years of Keanu fandom.

    So the chant continues...
    POINT BREAK! POINT BREAK! POINT BREAK!

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