movies

"classic movie" "80s to 2000s"

MFW

Pity party dispensed with, I'll take a shot in the dark and make a few recommendations.

If you want to keep rolling on the Chan train, you should check out some of his Hong Kong work. Police Story is, I think, when Jackie really started to exert primary creative control over his movies, and contains a couple of my favorite stunts (both with and without Jackie). If you are curious to see something slightly earlier, Wheels on Meals is a collab between Chan and his Peking Opera School buddies Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao. It features a real cracker jack fight between Chan and Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez, who was among the best martial artists in the world at the time. Chan cites that fight as one of the best in his career. Police Story 3 (aka Supercop), earns a mention as well, because it becomes a two-hander with Jackie and pre-Hollywood Michelle Yeoh kicking an incredible amount of ass.

Outside the realm of HK martial arts movies though:

Tremors (1990) - Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward have to fight prehistoric subterranean carnivorous worms in order to move on from their dead end jobs in a dead end town. It's a perfect movie.

Tommy Boy (1995) - Chris Farley and David Spade are salesman for a car part manufacturer which is anchoring their Rust Belt town. Under threat of a hostile takeover and subsequent plant closure, they have to go on the road to sell enough parts to keep the doors open. Hijinks ensue. I assume this is a movie which everyone has seen, but I guess it's theoretically possible this is new to you. Light recommend for the spiritual followup Black Sheep from the following year. Not as good, but if you like Farley and Spade's dynamic, it gives you more of that.

Leon: The Professional (1994) - Crook bloke alert for Luc Besson notwithstanding, this is still a really good action-thiller. Jean Reno is a hitman who seems somewhat simple-minded. He does his work, drinks milk, and takes care of his plant. Unfortunately, when tragedy befalls the family of a pre-teen girl (Natalie Portman) in the form of a visit from the unhinged DEA Agent Stansfield (Gary Oldman), he winds up becoming responsible for her.

Pitch Black (2000): Before he was Family (tm), Vin Diesel was Richard B. Riddick: a sociopathic anti-hero with surgically altered eyes and a penchant for knives. The ship he's being transported on crashlands on a seemingly deserted planet with three suns, creating perpetual daylight. However, while searching for a way off, the survivors of the shipwreck discover a lasting darkness is coming, and there might be something worse than an escaped murderer stalking them in the dark. Radha Mitchell, Cole Houser, and Keith David co-star. Very good shit, but I'm a mark, because I even liked the Chronicles of Riddick sequel and the video games they made. So, grain of salt and all, but I think it's a good sci fi creature feature.

Way of the Gun (2000) - this is one of those "you'll love it or you'll despise it" sorta movies. As I understand it, it was intentionally written as a reaction to the wave of Tarantino-imitators that crawled out of the woodwork during the 90s. Stop me if you've heard this one before: two amoral (yet inexplicably philosophical) criminal drifters get hired to do a job which turns out to be far more complicated than they bargained on, and they have to think on their feet if they want to live to see their payday, frequently pontificating at length about what they should do next and why. Now, strip out any effort to make these pompous fuck ups likable. Remind the audience at every turn that these are bad guys who are, at best, half as smart as they think they are. Oh well, at least you'll get some cool, John Woo-inspired gunfights, right? No! You'll get realistic, non-cinematic gunplay, complete with meticulously tracked round counts and extended sequences of seeking cover! (Actually, given the John Wickification of action movies, this might not have impact anymore, but it was a radical departure at the time.) Stars Ryan Phillippe, Benicio Del Toro, Juliette Lewis, Taye Diggs, and James Caan. Special appearance by Sarah Silverman for a memorable scene.

Edit to Add Something Completely Different:

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) - its a really solid little romantic comedy which became a titan of the box office. I think it's still among the most profitable movies of all time. At the time of its release, I was not much for rom coms, but when I went back to it years later, I found it to be a perfectly comfy bit of pleasant fluff.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999) - Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, but 1999 Seattle. Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles star. Easily the best of the late-90s "reimaginations" of Shakespeare, imo, including the ones that won Oscars. Absolutely carried by the stars' charisma, but the script is packed with clever jokes and there's a killer soundtrack.

And what a design it is. Obviously it's guys or gals in suits and stilts, but it's a cut above what you might expect for an early 2000s indie creature feature.

I'm surprised it didn't make your rewatch list. It is, to me, the Platonic form of this type of creature feature, in the same way that Tremors is the Platonic form of the "creatures come to a small town" version. Nobody's winning awards for innovation necessarily, but there's merit to simply executing familiar tropes at a high level. Not an annual rewatch, but I dust it off every few years.