Blast from the Past (1999)

Director: Hugh Wilson

Cast: Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek

Have I Seen it Before: I remember liking the film a great deal, and I can oddly enough point precisely to when I saw it. One of the last days of Spring Break, 1999. And just about the only thing that could distract one’s mind from the reality that there really was another stretch of eighth grade yet to complete was an impromptu movie. It was between this and something else, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what that other movie would have been. Back then, I was thoroughly amused by the movie.

But a movie can’t possibly hold up for that long, right?

Did I Like It: Mostly, yes. I remember laughing more frequently somehow then, but then again I suppose if you asked me honestly, I probably remember laughing a lot more in general in the late 90s.

If there were a couple of comedy stars more charming than Fraser and Silverstone in their 90s prime*, then they’d likely be just a little too precious for their own good. Here, they are exactly as delightful as they need to be. The concept is just clever enough to hold interest throughout. Only the smallest percentage of jokes age like hot milk, and most of those have to do with an absolutely slumming Dave Foley prancing through a caricature that wouldn’t pass the smell test on a Kids in the Hall sketch.

That’s not a bad batting average. If only we could find the movie that turned back the clock twenty-five years or so.

*Sort of wild to think not so much about how much Silverstone needed a hit after Batman & Robin (1997) forced us all to forget how much we all liked her in Clueless (1995), and that Fraser would just maybe (so far) peak a few months later with The Mummy (1999).

Clueless (1995)

Director: Amy Heckerling

Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. I have a very strong memory of watching it for the first time on HBO. I’m allowing for the possibility as I spent the 90s growing up with a younger sister that I *may* have watched all of it in bits and pieces as it wound its way through a VCR in multiple viewings over the year. It’s only fair, I’m sure my sister saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) in much the same way.

Did I Like It: I recently wrote in my review of Natural Born Killers (1994) that it may not be fair to judge satire by the effectiveness with which it annihilated its target through wit. It’s even less fair here, as the wealthy continued to grow vapider as we’ve leapt into the twenty-first century. Indeed, many probably viewed the Cher Horowitz of this film’s first and second act as the hero of their times and ignored any of the changes she went through at the end of the movie.

But this movie strikes me as way funnier, or at the very least more deliberate in its attempts at humor. The jokes land with mor accuracy when the movie is not trying to buzz its way past my perception.

It’s also worth marveling at the fact that this one of the few teen comedies that does not feel the need to predicate its third act on some kind of dance or prom. I’ve been racking my brain for other examples as I type this, and all I can come up with is Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and The Breakfast Club (1985) and the specific settings and timeframe of both of those films are the only thing protecting them from defaulting to the trope. Clueless gets bonus points for not tracking in the same tired old beats.