Pumpkin Spiced cinema
It's month number ten in our '90s Movie of the Month Club. This month we focus on the best '90s movies released in the month of October... a handful of which might be considered among the greatest films of all time.
This is October. Fall is officially here, which means the air is crisp and butternut squash is in season. Let's watch some movies.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
A botched robbery indicates a police informant, and the pressure mounts in the aftermath at a warehouse. Crime begets violence as the survivors – veteran Mr. White, newcomer Mr. Orange, psychopathic parolee Mr. Blonde, bickering weasel Mr. Pink and Nice Guy Eddie – unravel.
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen
Naked (1993)
Johnny flees Manchester for London, to avoid a beating from the family of a girl he has raped. There he finds an old girlfriend, and spends some time homeless, spending much of his time ranting at strangers, and meeting characters in plights very much like his own.
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: David Thewlis
Clerks (1994)
Convenience and video store clerks Dante and Randal are sharp-witted, potty-mouthed and bored out of their minds. So in between needling customers, the counter jockeys play hockey on the roof, visit a funeral home and deal with their love lives.
Director: Kevin Smith
Ed Wood (1994)
The mostly true story of the legendary “worst director of all time”, who, with the help of his strange friends, filmed countless B-movies without ever becoming famous or successful.
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker
Quiz Show (1994)
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film which tells the true story of the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s.
Director: Robert Redford
Cast: John Turturro, Ralph Fiennes
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Framed in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates – including an older prisoner named Red – for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
Director: Frank Darabont
Writer: Frank Darabont
Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Director: Mike Figgis
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue
Swingers (1996)
This is a story about Mike, a guy who left his girl in New York when he came to LA to be a star. It’s been six months since his girlfriend left him and he’s not doing so good. So, his pal and some other friends try and get him back in the social scene and forget about his 6 year relationship.
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Jon Favreau, Vince Vaughn, Ron Livingston
Gattaca (1997)
Science fiction drama about a future society in the era of indefinite eugenics where humans are set on a life course depending on their DNA. The young Vincent Freeman is born with a condition that would prevent him from space travel, yet he is determined to infiltrate the GATTACA space program.
Director: Andrew Niccol
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, Uma Thurman
Boogie Nights (1997)
The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore
American History X (1998)
A former neo-nazi skinhead tries to prevent his younger brother from going down the same wrong path that he did.
Director: Tony Kaye
Cast: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo
Being John Malkovich (1999)
Spike Jonze’s debut feature film is a love story mix of comedy and fantasy. The story is about an unsuccessful puppeteer named Craig, who one day at work finds a portal into the head of actor John Malkovich. The portal soon becomes a passion for anybody who enters it’s mad and controlling world of overtaking another human body.
Director: Spike Jonze
Cast: John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, John Malkovich
Fight Club (1999)
A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground “fight clubs” forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter
The Straight Story (1999)
An old man makes a long journey by lawnmower to mend his relationship with an ill brother.
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek
Three Kings (1999)
A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that’s destined to change everything.
Director: David O. Russell
Cast: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube
Trouble deciding which movie to watch tonight? Spin the wheel. Let fate decide.
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