ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times DATE: Saturday, December 30, 1995 TAG: 9601020015 SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO TYPE: COMMENTARY SOURCE: JANET MASLIN NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
In 1995, Hollywood asked audiences to believe that Hugh Grant was too shy to be propositioned by a woman in a car (``Nine Months''), that our chief executive had no idea what to do on a first date (``The American President'') and that Clint Eastwood didn't know whether it was all right to pick flowers for a lady (``The Bridges of Madison County'').
It also asked them to believe that Jane Austen was the way coolest writer in town, which proved by far the most sensible of these ideas.
Despite some unqualified, uncomplicated successes like ``Apollo 13'' at the top of the heap, it was a strange and lackluster year. Audiences remained Balkanized, with tastes sharply divided between Austen and Jim Carrey and not enough occupying a middle ground.
Into the breach came such nasty, irresponsibly super-violent, sleaze-filled exploitation films (here's the moment to mention Joe Eszterhas) that Bob Dole had no trouble making a campaign issue out of movies he hadn't seen.
Hollywood's faltering ability to make films that pleased a wide spectrum of viewers meant bad business: only foreign box office and home video showed significant financial growth. And both are realms in which the lowest common denominator prevails. (A ``Judge Dredd'' or ``Assassins'' or ``Waterworld'' doesn't lose much in translation.)
As a glut of middling films fought for space at the multiplex, there was alarming evidence that people were losing their moviegoing habit. Fortunately, the outer limits of the film world showed vibrant signs of life.
Notwithstanding Jane Austen adaptations or the exploits of some terrific animated toys, many of the year's most interesting movies explored life's darker side, sometimes so agonizingly that audiences simply stayed away. (Larry Clark's tough, disturbing ``Kids'' never became a cause celebre, or even much of a conversation piece.)
But Las Vegas (``Leaving Las Vegas,'' ``Casino'') and the world of show business (``Georgia,'' ``To Die For'') were favorite splashy settings for tales of wrenching or murderous decline.
Thanks to these mordant tales and to the combined literary efforts of Austen and Robert James Waller, 1995 turned out to be an exceptionally good year for women's roles.
Meryl Streep breathed amazing life into a character who could otherwise have been laughed off the screen, while Nicole Kidman's lethal Barbie doll made a treat out of ``To Die For.'' (Ditto for Illeana Douglas as her suspicious sister-in-law.)
Kathy Bates made the most of Stephen King's ``Dolores Claiborne,'' and Gong Li and Jennifer Jason Leigh did extraordinarily sad and moving work (in ``Shanghai Triad'' and ``Georgia,'' respectively). This year also brought the delightful emergence of two new leading ladies, Sandra Bullock (``While You Were Sleeping'') and Alicia Silverstone (``Clueless''), whose sheer adorableness fueled their hit comedies.
Of course, this was also the year that Demi Moore played Hester Prynne.
Independent cinema made major inroads, with the Sundance Film Festival an increasingly valuable launching pad for new or not yet fully heralded talent. The romantic comedy ``Brothers McMullen,'' the quietly insidious ``Safe,'' the fashion documentary ``Unzipped,'' the droll movie-making comedy ``Living in Oblivion'' and the meticulous crime film ``Usual Suspects'' were among this year's discoveries, along with such oddities as ``Funny Bones,'' a small, original, bracingly eccentric British film that was easily overlooked.
Home video should offer new life not only to tiny marvels like these but to bigger, unwarranted flops like Spike Lee's ``Clockers,'' Walter Hill's ``Wild Bill'' and Carl Franklin's ``Devil in a Blue Dress.'' In those films, Harvey Keitel, Jeff Bridges and Denzel Washington gave terrific performances without attracting the audiences they deserved.
At least children got lucky. They had ``A Little Princess,'' ``Babe'' and the marvelous ``Toy Story'' to beat those ``Casper'' and ``Batman'' blues. (If children helped enshrine Ace Ventura as a national treasure, they had the opportunity to see original and entertaining movies too.)
Foreign imports, on the other hand, remained in steep artistic decline, with only a few films of notable skill or stature. Two from Italy, the neo-neo-realist ``Lamerica'' and the light, charming film ``Il Postino,'' deserve special notice.
The year's greatest irony, however, could be found on the domestic film front: an unholy alliance between Oliver Stone and Richard Nixon that wound up bolstering the reputation of both.
And Stone's empathetic view of his biographical subject - as a grandiose, self-destructive man battling childhood demons and sinking into substance abuse and paranoia - was well suited to the movies' current fascination with dysfunction.
Strange times, indeed, when Richard Nixon is Hollywood's man of the year.
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: "Apollo 13," starring (from left) Bill Paxton, Tom Hanksby CNBand Kevin Bacon, was among the best Hollywood had to offer in 1995.
color. KEYWORDS: YEAR 1995