Smackdown 1995. Meet the Panelists
Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 11:00AM IMPORTANT UPDATE: The Next Supporting Actress Smackdown has been pushed back one week to Sunday August 2nd. That leaves us just under two weeks for any 1995 madness we want to get off our chest. That's leaves you just under two weeks to finish revisiting the Supporting Actresses at home and get your votes in by Thursday July 30th. Please only vote on the performances you've seen...
- Joan Allen, Nixon [Amazon Rental | iTunes Rental]
- Kathleen Quinlan, Apollo 13 [Amazon Rental | iTunes Rental]
- Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite [only available on disc]
- Mare Winningham, Georgia [Netflix Instant Watch]
- Kate Winslet, Sense & Sensibility [Free With Amazon Prime | iTunes Rental]
Just outside the shortlist that year? Who knows but maybe it was Globe nominees Kyra Sedgwick (Something to Talk About) and Anjelica Huston (The Crossing Guard), or SAG nominee Stockard Channing (Smoke) or future nominee Rachel Griffiths (Muriel's Wedding). Or maybe it was Magda Szubanski (Babe) on account of the Best Pictureness of it all. In our fantasies it was definitely Gina Gershon (Showgirls).
MEET THE PANELISTS
Here's a little bit about our panel to prep you for our conversation as they finish up their screenings...
First Time Smackdowners
KEVIN O'KEEFE
Kevin O'Keeffe occasionally stops talking about "Smash" long enough to think about film. He even writes about it sometimes at Mic, where he's the arts staff writer in residence, but he's also written for The Atlantic, The Advocate, LA Weekly and more. Let him be your star by following him on Twitter.
What does 1995 mean to you?
I'm ashamed to admit I was a child in that year, so my big motion picture experience was Babe. (I'm surprised Babe didn't get a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, to be frank.) I hadn't seen many of these movies – the early 90s are a bit of a void for me, since I'm usually revisiting older movies or keeping up with newer ones. That's what drew me to the year for the Smackdown: It was the year I was alive, and yet I knew the least about it of any.
LYNN LEE
Lynn is a government lawyer who spends most of her time outside work obsessing over arts and pop culture. Her current fascination is with "The Americans" on FX. Her first love, though, will always be movies, thanks to parents who raised her on an eclectic diet of Ingmar Bergman, talky French films, 1960s musicals, Star Wars, and Spielberg blockbusters. You can find her occasional musings on movies and TV on her blog and as a new contributor to TFE.
My life as a movie lover can be divided into two periods: Before 1995 and After 1995. Before 1995, I watched movies with my parents and friends, but didn't really seek out movies that I wanted to see for myself alone. All that changed starting the summer of '95, when I graduated from high school and for once had nothing to do but watch movies, and that fall, when I headed off to college in an actual CITY and discovered a whole moviegoing universe I'd only been dimly aware of before. I discovered there was such a thing as theaters reserved exclusively for "arthouse" and "independent" films. (First movie seen in such a theater: "The Brothers McMullen," or maybe it was "Chasing Amy.") I discovered Kate Winslet in "Sense & Sensibility." I discovered that movies could become the college equivalent of water cooler conversation ("The Usual Suspects"). Above all else, I discovered that movies were something you could discuss with communities of fellow movie lovers - and I've never looked back since then.".
CONRADO FALCO
Conrado "Coco" Falco can be described as a student currently earning his undergraduate degree at Hunter College, as an aspiring theater director currently working on a play about the life and death of Taylor Swift, or as a film blogger currently writing for his personal blog Coco Hits New York. First and foremost, however, he is a film lover. [Follow Coco on Twitter.]
What does 1995 mean to you?
One of my earliest (and most traumatic) memories comes from Christmas Eve 1995. I was three at the time. My grandma told me she had wrapped my gift in the "Snoopy" wrapping paper, so I went straight to it before anyone read the tag. To my surprise, the gift was a Pocahontas Barbie doll. I was mocked by all my cousins in what was one of the most embarrassing moments of my childhood. I don't have many specific '95 memories otherwise, except for the fact that "Babe" and "Toy Story" were big staples of my childhood. I'm currently revisiting '95 movies in my personal blog, and discovering that it might be one of the most underrated years in American cinema.
Returning Panelists
Nick gets a big photo because he worked 1995 into his bio photo. Look at all those movies!
NICK DAVIS
Nick Davis writes the reviews and features at the website Nick's Flick Picks. The site's unpredictable cycles of frenzied activity and long dormancy have to do with his also being an Associate Professor of English and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Northwestern, where his research and teaching mostly concern narrative film in different eras, genres, and countries. [Follow Nick on Twitter]
What does 1995 mean to you?
I started college in 1995 and also started going to movies by myself in, at last, a big city with broad offerings. You work out which development was more exciting. I bought the Entertainment Weekly Summer Preview and concluded that five movies were unmissable: "The Bridges of Madison County" (because even the terrible book made me cry), "Little Odessa" (Redgrave, I guess?), "Mad Love" (crush on Chris O'Donnell), "Nine Months" (crush on Hugh Grant), and "Species" (crush on Natasha Henstridge, plus aliens, plus ambivalence about procreating). I saw "Apollo 13" with my dad before I left for school and "Sense and Sensibility" with my mom when I came home, and "Nixon" with my dad over that same Christmas, so basically you're asking me to pick between my parents. I saw "Babe" at least four times and forced skeptics to come with me. I deduced instantly who Keyser Söze was and didn't give a flying coffee cup. I deterred silent, unwanted advances from a friend while we watched "Se7en" and wondered how this movie could possibly be arousing her. I was the only man at near-empty opening-day matinees of "Home for the Holidays" and "How to Make an American Quilt". I walked into a genuine surprise birthday party my friends in the freshman dorm had thrown for me, but I left after two minutes because, I'm sorry, I'd already bought a ticket to "To Die For". I liberally quoted Angela Bassett from "Strange Days" like I was deep. I saw "Leaving Las Vegas" with the same friend I took to "Se7en". She didn't start stroking my neck this time, and we rode home in 20 minutes of unbroken silence, because by that time, a month later, I really was deep. I didn't get "Shorty". I was the face of love. I skipped "Braveheart" till the desperate studio re-released it in February, because these are our crosses to bear, sometimes literally. I skipped "Toy Story" like a damn fool. I saw it plenty of times later. I never saw "Mad Love," so what has it all been for?
GUY LODGE
Born in Johannesburg but based in London, Guy is the chief UK film critic for Variety, and a home entertainment columnist for The Observer. His writing also appears at Time Out, Empire, The Guardian and any outlet willing to pay for long-form thinkpieces about knitwear in the movies. Follow him on Twitter at @GuyLodge.
What does 1995 mean to you?
In 1995, I was twelve years old and in my last year of primary school — on the knife-edge, then, between feeling confidently grown and authoritative, and being tossed out of my depth into adolescence. My cultural diet was in a similarly transitional state. After a hovering period, 1995 was the year I said goodbye to the children's section of the library and devoured “Jane Eyre” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”; at the movies, my parents merged my growing interests with theirs and took me to see “Three Colours: Red.” (It was both the first subtitled film I saw in the cinema, as well as the first with a no-under-16s certificate. I appreciated their trust.) Out in the larger world, my fellow South Africans were celebrating our rugby team's against-all-odds World Cup victory, joyously consolidating the national repairwork started by the previous year's election. It wouldn't last, and Clint Eastwood would later make that moment in time seem that much drabber. But the memory of temporary invincibility remains..
And your host...
NATHANIEL R
Nathaniel is the founder of The Film Experience, a reknowned Oscar pundit, and the web's actressexual ringleader. He fell in love with the movies for always at The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) but mostly blames Oscar night (in general) and the 80s filmographies of Kathleen Turner & Michelle Pfeiffer (specifically). Though he holds a BFA in Illustration, he found his true calling when he started writing about the movies. He blames Boogie Nights for the career change. [Follow him on Twitter]
What does 1995 mean to you?
'I'm getting a bit old for that whorey look.'
1995 is when I graduated from college so it was a big year but it seems to have entirely evaporated in my memory but for the birth of the late 20th century's New Trash Masterpiece "Showgirls".
If I dig a little-bit harder into the memory banks I remember heavy rotation among roommates and friends for Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill," Björk's "Post" and the "Pocahontas" soundtrack (showtunes 4ever! Don't judge). Cinematically, I was in deep deep throes of love for broken-winged Brad Pitt in "Se7en," Elisabeth Shue's booze-drenched boobs in "Leaving Las Vegas," and Angela Bassett's fierce elocution and even fiercer hair in "Strange Days." My least favorite movie-going memory was seeing "Braveheart" in the theater and hearing audiences cheering its ridiculous homophobia. My best movie-going memory from '95 is taking my three little nephews to see "Babe" which they loved and kept quoting in their adorable squeaky little kid voices which they would try to make yet squeakier to approximate the mice. One of them just announced his engagement - Eeek! How was 1995 twenty whole years ago!?!?!
What does 1995 mean to you dear readers?
Do tell in the comments.
Reader Comments (71)
Joan Allen, Mare Winningham and Kate Winslet would all make great winners in any year and the three-way average between them really elevates this roster. Despite loving all three of those performances, my vote would easily go to Winningham, with Winslet in second place and Allen in third place.
Then Quinlan and Sorvino. Or Sorvino and Quinlan. It doesn't really matter which order for those bottom two.
1995 was a transitional year for me. I was 13 going on 14. Since I wasn't allowed to see it in theaters, I first saw Pulp Fiction on VHS, at a friend's birthday party (I persuaded her mother to rent that - rather than The Lion King - for the group to watch). It's cliche at this point to say that movie CHANGED EVERYTHING, and it's not quite the case anyway, much as I love it, but it did give more urgency to my feeling that there was a LOT more to the cinema than I'd been exposed to until then (and this was growing up with a mom who encouraged and shaped my cinephilia with The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, Danny Kaye comedies, etc), and that I needed to get on that ASAP. That urgency got me into a theater to see TO DIE FOR later that year, and that was also a key experience - let's just say seeing Joaquin Phoenix writhing around naked on a bed really helped clarify certain things for me. Oh, Joaquin...
For me, 1995 was all about Clueless, Kids, Showgirls, Leaving Las Vegas, Strange Days, Welcome to the Doll House, Waiting to Exhale, and Jeffrey -- a nice eclectic group!
Clueless is still the best picture of 1995 (with Safe as a runner-up).
Joan Allen should win this one, but I am looking forward to the discussion. Great panelists!
Diane Venora in Heat gives possibly my favorite supporting actress turn of the decade. Such a stock role (basically the gf who complains that the hero isn't home more), inhabited with such emotional specificity and underpinned by a totally engaging intelligence. Great scene work with Pacino and Natalie Portman. For me, right up there with Hershey in Portrait of a Lady and Moore in Boogie Nights.
Yay! I'm soo excited!!
If the fact that I frequently yell out "Willoughby!" for no reason, then my choice would be Kate Winslet. However, if memory serves me correctly, I was on Team Mira Sorvino that year. It will be fun revisiting this year as it marks adulthood for me, graduating high school and going off to college. Has it really been 20 years?
1995 means the start of my parents divorce. My dad knew that movies were my passion, and he'd spend his limited time with me taking me to the movies. No matter what we saw, he'd engage with me about what I loved or valued from it, and that laid a lot of groundwork for how we could communicate as we started from scratch.
Less real answer: DIFFERENT PLACES!
1995 was the year I got my SAG card, David Bowie played me his new album (Outside) on an audiocassette and I met Gary Oldman and Dennis Hopper (all the above happened the same day), among other things. I intended to write "1995 was not a great year for me..." but that was clearly crazy talk.
(Kate Winslet for the win.)
I turned 11 in 1995 and remember thinking I was too old to see Pocahontas, that Batman Forever was no Batman Returns, and the Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls was hilarious.
In 1995 I would've also been obsessed with Forrest Gump, having received it on VHS at some point that year. I still have a soft spot for that movie but I didn't get it at the time. I thought Jenny was so cool, living an amazing hippie life, and I wanted to be her. I found some old bell-bottoms of my parents and tried them on, put on the soundtrack, and pretended to snort off my parents coffee table whatever I thought it was that she was snorting in the movie.
I was in third grade but even then I considered myself an Oscar buff. This may have been the first year I was allowed to stay up to watch the whole show.
I'm gonna talk about "Babe" for just a little bit.
I saw "Babe" at a one-screen theater that was seen as really dingy and would later be renovated by a gay couple (and I would work there!). At the time it was often full because it was a discount theater, but the crowds were ROWDY. Not in a bad way, but they applauded in their laughter at the scene after Babe and Ferdinand spill paint all over the house and you can see their footsteps. I had never seen that happen in a theater before, and my mother didn't seem very pleased about it. "Babe" has such a special place in my heart. I re-watched it a few years ago as an adult the night after the Boston Marathon bombing and the boy I was in love with (he didn't know it) was sleeping next to me. I started crying at the very first line! ("This is a tale about an unprejudiced heart, and how it changed our valley forever.") It's definitely one of those movies that has such unexpected weight when you re-watch it as an adult. By the time Roscoe Lee Brown delivers the line about Fly's puppies being adopted -- and they show her crestfallen face -- I was practically despondent. ("The time comes for all creatures when childhood ends and the doorway opens to life as an adult. And so it was with Fly's pups. Though that time was all too soon for Fly.") I would love to look back and find out if its Best Picture nomination was a surprise or expected. It's a perfect, lovely film.
Like any gay-in-training, I LOVED "Clueless". Has anyone read "As If? The Oral History of Clueless" yet? It's over 200 pages and I read it all in one night. Absolutely amazing, and somewhat infuriating when you find out that hardly anybody other than Paul Rudd was able to reach similar success, and that Amy Heckerling couldn't get another film quickly (and she wont' say it, but others say on her behalf that it's because she was a woman). And there's a delightful reminder that Gwyneth Paltrow was a sanctimonious and condescending suckhole even in '95.
"Toy Story" was sold out and my brother, father and I had to sit in the very front row. We had never done that before.
"Batman Forever" doesn't hold up as well as the Burton films but the soundtrack was amazing and it was a perfectly epic film if you were nine.
My dad took me to see Joan Osborne in concert because I liked the *one* song. It was too loud and I kept my head under a jacket until "One of Us" came on.
We saw "Home for the Holidays" while on vacation in Orlando and we all hated it. My dad said we should have walked out.
And the year of CrazySexyCool, the "II" album by Boyz II Men, and "Daydream" by Mariah Carey, which had "Fantasy" *and* "Always Be My Baby" and I am still a sucker for "Underneath the Stars" and "When I Saw You". WE WERE ALL SO SPOILED IN '95 AND DIDN'T APPRECIATE IT. I promise I am done commenting for at least half an hour now. I clearly can't wait for the smackdown.
For me 1995 can be summed up in one (mispronounced, misbegotten) word: Versayce. (Thank you, Nomi! Xoxo...)
I started the year with Higher Learning ('memba that?!) and ended it with Heat (that Moby song at the end sure was well chosen). In between I was alternately tickled pink (Babe, The Brady Bunch Movie, Clueless, Home for the Holidays, Mighty Aphrodite, Muriel's Wedding, and, of course, Showgirls) and quite devestated (The Bridges of Madison County, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Sense and Sensibility, and Seven). I got to review movies for my high school newspaper (yaaas!) so was treated to the rousing Mr. Holland's Opus, the compex Nixon, the charming Sabrina, the sublime Strange Days, and the brilliant To Die For. Safe and The Usual Suspects eluded me, but I happily rectified the situation later. I avoided Braveheart like the plague (hold the applause) and was plagued by the mediocrity of Outbreak, which I mistook for an adaptation of The Hot Zone, a book I genuinely loved that gripped me intensely.
All in all, a pretty dynamite year.
In 1995, I was nine years old and finally allowed to see my first PG-13 movie without my parents. The movie was Apollo 13 and my space-obsessed best friend and I-- just one year away from living a dream and going to Space Camp-- went to see it. We loved it. I don't know that I've seen it since.
For me now, 1995 is all about Clueless, Clueless, and Clueless.
P.S. Guy, Nick, and Nathaniel all on the same Smackdown! ::swoon::
erratum; obviously I forgot all about To Die For in my previous comment, which I, obviously, saw in theatres, and, obviously, have vivid memories of having my brain vaporized by Nicole Kidman, my stirring awakened by Joaquin Phoenix and Matt Dillon, my heart broken by Alison Folland and my gut punched by Ileana Douglas.
I mean, obviously.
I was born in 1995, so YAY for celebrating my birth year.
In a banner year for cinema and for actressing, 95 stands out. I remember seeing both Babe and Toy Story in theaters (being only 8), but The American President quickly became another movie I was allowed to see on VHS and is now one of my all-time favorites. When I do think of
95, i think of a film year better than the much heralded 1994. I think of the first Viennese waltz of Jesse and Celine. The stark directness of Nic in To Die For.
I remember my mother sobbing to Bridges and that final door handle swoon. I remember the fire of Angela's eyes and in the car in Waiting to Exhale.
I've seen three of the five of these nominees still needing to see Nixon and Mighty Aphrodite.
I'd add Alison Folland from to die for, Celia Weston from dead man walking, and Loretta Devine from exhale as well.
I remember 1995 as a year I won the office oscar pool (I think I won like $21); and as a year when the acting categories were very strong across the board, but the BP nominees were really weak, resulting in the crappy Braveheart winning the top honor. So many better movies should have been nominated.
I was 8 years old in 1995, so that year makes me think of Toy Story, Babe, Pocahontas, A Little Princess, The Babysitters Club, Now And Then (still love this movie, and am still a fan of Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, and Gaby Hoffman), and The Cure (wish it had gotten more recognition when it came out. I was really impressed by Brad Renfro and Joseph Mazzello's performances. I would consider Brad Renfro's performance in The Cure to be his second greatest, after his performance in Bully). For movies from 1995 I saw later on, Before Sunrise, Boys On The Side, Kids, and Dead Man Walking are my favorite. Watched Kids last week after not seeing it for awhile, and was even more impressed by Chloe Sevigny's performance, as well as the movie itself.
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