[9]

A terrific script and loveable characters send Toy Story soaring. At the heart of the simple storyline are two toys with character arcs as compelling as any of their live-action counterparts. Woody (Tom Hanks) is a pull-string cowboy who’s afraid of being replaced as his owner’s favorite, and Buzz (Tim Allen) is the new, gadget-enhanced astronaut who doesn’t accept the fact that he’s a toy. The Oscar-nominated screenplay (co-written by Joss Whedon) deftly blends character, humor, and action. The climax, where Woody and Buzz chase after a moving truck to rejoin their fellow toys, is a particularly thrilling scene. The voice cast is also a triumph, including Wallace Shawn as a neurotic dinosaur, Don Rickles as a bitter Mr. Potato Head, and Jim Varney as a trusty Slinky Dog. Randy Newman’s score makes the plight of plastic playthings nothing less than epic, and his cozy songwriting fits the nature of the film to a tee. “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” is the film’s charming anthem, but it’s Newman’s performance of “I Will Go Sailing No More,” played over Buzz’s realization of his limitations, that works most powerfully.

Clueless (1995)

July 12, 1995

[9] Director Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) serves up a winning Valley Girl spin on Jane Austen's Emma, reinforced with a terrific cast, a uniformly solid collection of songs, and a plethora of catchy one-liners that are now…

Ed Wood (1994)

November 15, 1994

[10] I doubt Tim Burton will ever make a finer film. Armed with a powerhouse screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs Larry Flynt), Burton turns the biography of Hollywood's most infamously bad director into a poignant…

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

September 13, 1994

[9] The story covers a lot of ground and time, but its the characters that I find most intriguing in Neil Jordan's adaptation of Anne Rice's novel. Lestat, Luis, and young Claudia are vampires, but take away their fangs and…

Pulp Fiction (1994)

August 25, 1994

[10] A breath of cinematic fresh air that magically dignifies exploitation and elevates dialgoue to an art form. Writer/director Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill) assembles a stellar cast highlighted by the return of John Travolta, previously languishing in talking…

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

July 24, 1994

[9]

According to IMDb, this is the most well-liked movie of all time. And true enough, I’ve never met a person who did not like it. A film about two convicts passing the time behind prison walls could have been an insufferable downer, but there’s a mystery behind Tim Robbins’ main character, Andy, that keeps you deeply engrossed in Stephen King’s story. Andy selflessly inspires the other inmates at increasingly greater risk to himself, eventually becoming almost a folkloric hero by the end. Along the way, he endears himself to a fine cast of supporting players headed by Morgan Freeman as Redd, who narrates the film more beautifully than a film has ever been narrated before.