TEN YEARS AGO: Coens release cult favourite, TITANIC finally begins to sink…

Welcome to the first of a new feature here at Obsessed With Film. It’s the 10 year retrospective.

What movies were we enjoying, avoiding and just plain old getting obsessed with ten years ago this weekend. How do the movies released then compare to the movies now? I will also make mention if I see this film in the theatre, and so should you in the talkback zone!

Don’t forget also to vote in our POLL… and let us know which year wins for this weekend… 1998 or 2008.

1998: U.S. MARSHALS, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, TWILIGHT, HUSH

2008: 10,000 B.C, COLLEGE ROAD TRIP, THE BANK JOB, MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY

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U.S. MARSHALS

Directed by Stuart Baird

Written by John Pogue

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes, Robert Downey Jr, Joe Pantoliano, Daniel Roebuck, Tom Wood, Irene Jacob

Five years in the making, the Harrison Ford-less sequel to The Fugitive was much hyped ten years ago but it still didn’t manage to knock Titanic off it’s three month long perch. But it came very very close, finishing the weekend in second place less than a million behind the sinking ship epic.

Unfortunately U.S. Marshals wasn’t very good. The movie forgot that the character of Harrison Ford was the warmth and the real central part of the success of the first movie and little effort was made in making the new “innocent victim on the run” character played by Wesley Snipes, all that interesting. A change of director didn’t help, with Stuart Baird’s often frantic style of film-making not quite as assured as that of original helmsman Andrew Davies.

Tommy Lee Jones was as ever, energetic and awesome at dialogue deliverance as ever (he still is today) but there were no Oscar trophies this time for the actor. The writing wasn’t there for his character, you could have plugged any generic action hero in here. U.S. Marshals was rightly ignored and was nothing more than a lame popcorn entertainment movie.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

Directed by: The Coen Brothers

Written by: The Coen Brothers

Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddleston, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid

Ten years ago, The Coen Brothers were making the best movies around. Fast forward to today and they are still making the best movies around!

Though I would never go so far as to say that The Big Lebowski was my favourite Coen Bros. pictures.

On it’s side was a terrific performance from Jeff Bridges and a sense of something different at a time when movies weren’t taking many risks. The above mentioned U.S. Marshals was a perfect example of the type of film Hollywood was plagued with at this time. Movies with little heart or original characters but the Coen Bros. movie had both of that in great spades.

A box office flop for the Coens but these days it’s remembered fondly by most.

TWILIGHT

Directed by Robert Benton

Written by Robert Benton, Richard Russo

Starring: Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Reese Witherspoon, James Garner, Stockard Channing, Liev Schreiber

In one of the last leading performances from the legendary and now retired Paul Newman, this neo-noir movie is pretty boring but it’s littered with some fantastic performances. Gene Hackman, James Garner, Susan Sarandon co-star in what was a stellar cast - and they were all pretty top notch here.

The material of the movie is so bad though, it’s almost t.v. movie material. By this point in his career, we had seen Newman play a washed up drunk about a 82 times.

Newman’s ex-cop turns private detective when cancer-ridden wealthy actor played by Gene Hackman gets mixed up in murder when he is asked to deliver blackmail money. A 20 year old case re-opens about the disappearance of Hackman’s current wife Susan Sarandon’s ex-husband.

Opened in fourth place at the box office, the movie was another flop… with only a $15 million taking on a $28 million budget. It would only ever appeal to old timers who could see their favourite classic actors back on screen in meaty roles.

Though I’m sure some twenty somethings who stumbled into the theatre to see this would have been pleased to see a naked Reese Witherspoon!

HUSH

Directed by Jonathan Darby

Written by Jonathan Darby

Starring: Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jonathan Scheach, Nina Foch, Debiz Mazar

Never seen this one but apparently it’s got something to do with Jessica Lange as a mother who gets sexually jealous of her daugther played by Gwyneth Paltrow, who was just coming off the starring role in Great Expectations.

Surprisingly it was more popular on it’s weekend of release than The Big Lebowski, but I know which movie fans these days remember.

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