Year of the Day: 1992 degrees Farenheit

Luckily today's projected high was a different degree than yesterday, otherwise you'd be getting a lot of 1993 this week. As fate would have it, the Times deemed 92 the high and I was sent again to peruse the top 50 movies of 1992. I was shocked to see that Aladdin was the highest grossing film of the year. Disney's reign has truly faltered since the early 90s. While I really don't want the temperature to remain this high, I am enjoying the trip down memory lane.

Without further ado, I give you my picks for 1992.

My Cousin Vinny
If there was a TV channel that just ran this movie on loop, I probably would never leave my house. In fact, my brother and I went on vacation when we were maybe 11 and 14 and we did at one point watch this movie, then promptly rewound and started it again. In our defense, I think it was raining out. Oh, and it's also a GREAT movie. I think this movie captures Joe Pesci at his very best. He and Marisa Tomei, while they make no sense as a couple physically, produce some of the best couple dialogues in cinematic history. My ability to remember movie quotes is better than average, but even those with the worst quote retention can say something along the lines of a "ticking biological clock."

For all the politics of the Academy Awards, Marisa Tomei's win for best supporting actress for this movie proves that Oscars can go to actors who truly deserve the trophy. To prove the point, here are two of her finest scenes from the film.

Hence one of my favorite lines: "Would you give a fuck what kind of pants the sonofabitch who shot ya was wearing?!?!?!"

And:

One of my favorite lines: "HOWEVA!!!!"

My Cousin Vinny has something for everyone. Go watch immediately.

Other lines to memorize:
- "I bet the Chinese food is terrible."
- "Dead on balls accurate."
- "Were these magic grits?? Did you get them from the same guy who sold Jack HIS BEANSTALK BEANS???"
- "Whatever that guy just said is bullshit."
- "IIIIII" (clap) "DENTICAL!!!!!!"

Okay, I must cut myself off.


A League of Their Own
I'm sure that every guy I know will try to talk me down from this argument, but I believe that this is one of the finest sports films ever made. Why you ask? Because of one basic aspect: The Georgia Peaches lose at the end. Viewers hate to see a loss at the end. Dodgeball, for example, originally had Vince Vaughn's team lose to Ben Stiller's team, but test audiences hated it so much they had to reshoot the ending. A League of Their Own not only got people to watch women play sports (I'm sure the WNBA watches this film for how they can up their audiences) but also got audiences to love the movie in spite of the loss. Let's face it, no one was happy that Kitty's team won; she's such a pain in the ass. But, this film gets under your skin. Baseball has a way of doing that, but there's something about those peaches, too. Those girls can certainly play ball.

Tom Hanks was crucial to this film. I think without his light comedic touch and signature shouting voice, it would not have been a success. It was also fun seeing Madonna prance around having fun with Rosie.

The movie's biggest triumph was getting this line in everyday sports dialect:

"There's no crying in baseball!!"

Another quotable line:
-"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."
-"Uh, Lord, hallowed be Thy name. May our feet be swift; may our bats be mighty; may our balls... be plentiful. Lord, I'd just like to thank You for that waitress in South Bend. You know who she is - she kept calling Your name. And God, these are good girls, and they work hard. Just help them see it all the way through. Okay, that's it. "


A River Runs Through It and The Last of the Mohegans
I won't dwell on either of these movies, but they are both incredible films. It took me a long time to finally sit down and watch Last of the Mohegans because my dad and brother came back from seeing it in the theaters and warned me about the scalping. In 1992, when I was 8, I imagined the scalping to be much terrifying than it actually was. So, I resisted seeing this film until I was 20. I think the soundtrack is what really stays with you after the credits roll. Daniel Day Lewis, however, is also sensational. I find that he has gotten progressively weirder with each movie he makes. (Not good weird. We're talking creepy weird.)

A River Runs Through It is often playing on TV and I inevitably get sucked into watching it. Brad Pitt's character in this film seems almost identical to his character in Legends of the Fall. I don't mind. In fact, I sort of stop paying attention to his lines when his face is on screen.




Medicine Man
This movie only makes the list because of a Fitzgerald family story that is now basically the stuff of legends. In 93 or 94, my Dad convinced my brother and me to rent this movie. Now, over a decade later, my only memory of the movie is that Sean Connery is in it and he is in the jungle. I assume he's there harvesting medicine. Or maybe he's a doctor. I have no idea. I could look up the plot on IMDB, but I don't really want to know. My dad doesn't have horrible movie instincts, in fact he has pretty good taste, but for some reason, this movie was an epic failure. I'm sure I wasn't old enough to appreciate it, and Tucker may have been old enough had he watched with a mature audience. Regardless, the two of us HATED it. Every time we rent a movie, someone inevitably makes some joke about renting Medicine Man again. For all I know it could actually be a worthwhile drama. Or it could be two hours of Sean Connery watching jungle plants grow. I don't remember and I prefer it that way.