Jumanji (1995)

I disliked “Jumanji” when I saw it in theaters. I cannot recall why: Too much newbie CGI, or just an irritation with Robin Williams running loony? But with this second viewing, I like its goofy innocence. 

The story: Orphans Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) arrive in a New England town with their aunt (Bebe Neuwirth), a woman who can renovate an entire derelict mansion in one day. Sorry. That is not the plot. 

This is: The children find a centuries-old bored game called “Jumanji” in the attic, begin to play it, and out comes jungle beasts and bugs, and a bushy man (Robin Williams) who once was a boy in that same house, trapped in the game for decades. The rest of Joe Johnston’s film follows the trio -– Dunst, Pierce, and Williams -– keeping the board game’s animals, vines, and raging waters in control. 

It’s a playful film, not afraid to break the fourth wall, and let kids in on the joke of goofy fun. I cringed again at David Allan Grier’s policeman, all big eyes. It rubs wrong. I may have been wrong in 1995. B+

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

The Usual Suspects (1995)

“The Usual Suspects” torched my film-freak brain 15 years ago. The smoke lingers. Haven’t seen it? Stop reading. I can’t talk about “Suspects” without spilling the end to this crooked crook’s tale. See, Bryan Singer is director and Christopher McQuarrie is writer, but Kevin Spacey is God here. The other characters and we in the audience are his chess pawns. We open on a cargo ship on fire with bodies everywhere before jumping to one survivor in an ER and another in police custody, getting grilled. Rhetorically. Not literally. We only think Spacey’s sickly conman Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint is spilling to the cops. But Kint is really Keyzer Söze, the devil himself. His whole confession is a mixture of truth and sly lies that can never be unraveled, and I gladly fall for the ruse every time. The ending is obvious now. It’s Kevin fhk’n Spacey. But in 1995, we still lived in a ‘Who is this guy?’ world, and Netscape didn’t help. Having an actor play chess master has never felt so damn good. A

City of Lost Children (1995)

“City of Lost Children” is an amazing-looking, mind-screw of a film. A dark, wet, sewer-level nightmare of and about children intended only for adults from French directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In this alternate past, a grim-looking megalomaniac (Daniel Emilfork) kidnaps children from a local city and brings them to his water-bound tower of doom. Krank is a crank. He is dreamless, therefore he is sleepless. He steals the dreams of children as compensation, seemingly commanded by a talking brain in a fish tank that could be HAL’s grandpop. Among Krank’s victims is a boy (Joseph Lucien) with a much older brother who can pop chains and lift huge weights. That’s French-speaking Ron Pearlman, he of future “Hellboy.” Pearlman's character befriends a local girl named Miette (Judith Vittet), and here’s where the film gets creepy. They snuggle on burlap sacks in a back alley, and he gives her a deep, long foot massage. Nothing untoward happens, really, but the hints, the insinuations … linger. They make the film squirmy. Me squirmy. There’s not much otherwise depth or feeling to compensate. Those French. B

1995: Best and Worst

The Best
1. Toy Story
2. Dead Man Walking
3. The Usual Suspects
4. Heat
5. Apollo 13
6. Se7en
7. Twelve Monkeys
8. Nixon
9. Sense & Sensibility
10. A Little Princess

The Worst
5. (Tie) First Knight and Cutthroat Island
4. French Kiss
3. Congo
2. The Scarlet Letter
1. Up Close and Personal