40 for 40: 1991
A year with plenty to offer.
Good morning.
We’re back with the next installment of the 40 for 40 series. This is the series where, because I am turning 40 later this year, I pick one movie from every year I’ve been alive if I could only have one movie from that year to watch for the rest of my life.
If you’re keeping score at home the results so far have been
1985: Back to the Future
1986: The Color of Money
1987: Empire of the Sun
1988: Midnight Run
1989: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
1990: Goodfellas
Today, we do 1991. This year, for me, has a little more to dig into. There are some stone cold classics, some hidden gems, and some iconic pieces of pop culture.
Let’s get to it.
A strong case can be made that, culturally, the 1990s began in 1991. This is the year when Nevermind by Nirvana was released (November) and when Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1991 NBA Finals (June), which was the first of their six championships in the decade.
I don’t know about all that. But there are definitely some very nineties movies on this year’s list.
Here is what I was able to whittle things down to.
All I Want for Christmas
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey
City Slickers
Defending Your Life
Doc Hollywood
Father of the Bride
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze
Point Break
Silence of the Lambs
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
What About Bob?
We’ll start with a little Christmas in July. All I Want for Christmas is not necessarily a good movie, but this was the kind of movie that got a major studio release, featured two great child actors (Ethan Embry and Thora Birch as believable siblings) and had freaking Lauren Bacall in it. Now, this would be a crapped out movie on Netflix or some other app panel. This movie is a Parent Trap riff where two kids try to get their divorced parents back together on Christmas. Genius stuff. Their father’s New York City diner plays a prominent role and Ethan Embry’s love interest (Amy Oberer) was one of those child actresses in the 1990s who, if you were a certain age back then, seemed like exactly the kind of girl you wished you could meet because she was the daughter of your mom’s childhood friend. This movie holds a special place in my heart, but it can’t be the pick for 1991.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. This was a giant movie for me. The soundtrack was always on in our car or in my room. Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” was, to me at six or seven years old, probably the coolest song ever made. Like Ghostbusters 2, this movie turned to ooze/slime as a substance to build its plot around. This movie also introduced us all to Super Shredder. This is an icon of anyone who had an early nineties childhood. But it can’t be the only movie you’d pick from this year.
Let’s switch over to a pure comedy. What About Bob? This was a huge movie for my family. And, if I recall correctly, one of our neighbors when we lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania had a poster for this move framed on their wall. That image remains stuck in my head. I think this movie is great. Bill Murray is on top of his game and Richard Dreyfuss’s brand of stifled and simmering rage is probably one of the best varieties out there. But this movie kind of belonged more to my dad and my sister than it ever did to me. It’s not my pick.
Have you ever seen Defending Your Life? If not, you really should. This is a great, kind of forgotten Albert Brooks comedy. For a lot of people my age, you kind of grew up with Albert Brooks movies like Mother (1996) or The Muse (1999) on cable all the time. Or maybe you knew him from The Scout (1994). He always seemed to be playing the same guy. But once you got older, you realized that he was actually a genius comedian and filmmaker. Defending Your Life is a great “afterlife” movie that fits into a neat romantic comedy structure. It’s high concept for sure, but hits all the right beats. Plus Rip Torn is absolutely fantastic in this movie. I love it, but it wouldn’t be my pick for this year.
Everybody loves Point Break. But do you want to know a dirty secret? I have never cared, nor will I ever care, about this movie. Not my pick.
Silence of the Lambs. I mean, this is iconic stuff. An amazing and terrifying movie no matter when you watch it. Tense and unsettling, this movie introduced the weird world of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter to pop culture and I couldn’t be more thankful. No matter how great this movie is, I’d be lying if I said I rewatched it all the time. You can only bear so much of the tension and dread in this movie. It ain’t the pick.
We already talked about Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and how much I love that movie. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the sequel, is better, more surreal, and funnier than the original. There are meta jokes everywhere in this movie and everyone knew how to heighten the characters and concepts of the original in just the right ways. The ending montage of this movie, set to “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” might be my favorite montage in any movie ever. But this is a strong year for crowd-pleasing flicks and this one isn’t my pick.
OK, here’s what remains.
City Slickers
Doc Hollywood
Father of the Bride
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Terminator 2: Judgement Day is one of the most iconic movies of all time. When I was growing up, you could not avoid a reference to this movie in life or in other forms of pop culture. It represented what an “adult” movie was. If you were allowed to watch Terminator 2, you were officially entering into some club that took you from being a kid into…something else. But do you want to know another dirty secret? I’ve never really loved this movie. Of course it's sick and entertaining and amazing, but it's never been one of my movies. I’m not picking it for 1991.
I mentioned Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel when discussing Parenthood (1989) a few weeks ago. Those two screenwriting sickos were back at it again with another masterpiece of the midlife crisis. I don’t know about you all, but for me this was another odd, totemic film from a childhood in the early nineties. Adults always seemed to be talking about or quoting City Slickers. And then, you got to a certain age and you could watch it for yourself and you were like, “You know what, I like Billy Crystal, I like Daniel Stern, I like Bruno Kirby, and I like these guys are all friends. I might not really understand the concept of a midlife crisis or hating your life, but this is sure one fun movie about friends going cattle ranching to ‘find their smile again’—whatever that means.” I really love this movie. It’s absurd in so many ways and Billy Crystal as a major leading man feels like such a foreign concept in 2025. But he was and this movie rocks. It’s just not my pick for this year.
Here we go. Father of the Bride. Who doesn’t love this movie? I mean, this movie probably formed most people’s idea or fantasy of what having a wedding at your house can look like. (My sister got married at my parents house, so if you want to understand the actual realities of it, let me know and we can connect.) It probably also formed most people’s idea of what a dream house looks like. George Banks, you know your real estate! What can I say about Father of the Bride? Steven Martin is great and this kind of cemented the “begrudging crank” gear to his on-screen persona that defines a lot of his latter-day work. Diane Keaton is there being bubbly and lovely, though she doesn’t get much to do other than call out Steve Martin for being cranky. Kimberly Williams-Paisely set the bar very high for nineties movie daughters to come in the rest of the decade. And, of course, this movie gave us the strange Martin Short creation of Franck Eggelhoffer. This is a classic. But it’s not my pick.
No, that would have to go to Doc Hollywood. This might be the part where you think I’m getting a little too cute with my selections. Well, just wait and see for some upcoming years. But in all honesty, out of all of these movies, Doc Hollywood is the one I’ve watched the most and would be most likely to watch the most for years to come. This is the timeless story of a doctor who is on his way to L.A. to become a hot shot plastic surgeon but crashes his car and gets stuck in a small town in South Carolina, falls in love, and has to decide if his heart belongs to the big city or the woman he lives in a small, rural town. This movie has Michael J. Fox at the very end of his peak as a box office draw. It has the underrated Julie Warner as an absolutely charming love interest. It has young Woody Harrelson and young Bridget Fonda in great supporting roles. And it has David Ogden Stiers channeling the divine spirits of comedy as Mayor Nick Nicholson. It is an all-time performance. Watch this movie and I dare you not to walk around saying. “Hello, Doctah Ben Stone,” the way Stiers does in this movie. If you think any other movie could’ve been the pick from this year, you’re dreaming. This is a perfect bit of early 1990s cinema.
The pick: Doc Hollywood