The 90s gave us a lot of wonderful things, but for those of us growing up in it, it still feels a little like a mass acid trip. What else can explain Moon Shoes, the mysterious ‘S’ symbol from our notebooks, or the contagious pre-Internet rumors that spread through playgrounds worldwide?
The movies of the decade don’t help, and for every Oscar-winner and Disney Renaissance classic, there’s a bizarre Baz Luhrmann or an adaptation of something that probably never should have seen wide release. Here’s my five favorite films released in 1995 and 1996, and they run the gamut from ‘sweet, heartwarming childhood classic’ to ‘whatever they were smoking, I want some’.
5. JUMANJI
“WHAT YEAR IS IT?” It’s 2017, and Jumanji has officially been out for 22 years. Jumanji, for those of you strange people who haven’t caught parts of it on TV, is about the board game from hell. Robin Williams’s character is trapped in it for years and only freed when the game is found by two kids moving into his old house.
What makes it a favorite? For me, it’s the sheer chemistry between all four main cast members as they take on various CGI threats. It’s not a movie filled with Oscar-winning performances, but the actors bounce off of each other with a lot of skill.
Jumanji is definitely weird, but by far not the strangest thing to come out of the 90s. A solid 2/5 on the ‘90s Acid Trip’ scale.
