1994: A 30 Year Anniversary Film Review Series – January

Introduction

Alongside art, comedy, and music, cinema is one of the most subjective forms of media. However, since you have joined us here on this particular site, let’s say it is the most subjective. And that is why it remains the most entertaining and inspiring!

Everyone will happily discuss their favorite film, actor, genre, etc. But this is barely scratching the surface of what moving pictures mean to many. Debates rage about Disney-era Star Wars. Were the early funny Woody Allen films his best? Which is the most faithful Stephen King adaptation? Do audiences have franchise fatigue? How do you pronounce Basinger? To name but a few. One such debate that enthuses more warmth than most – due to its more celebratory nature – is What Was The Best Year for Cinema?

1994

As we are celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of one of the forerunners, 1994, Cinema Scholars will be taking a monthly retrospective of a pick of films that were released in this truly golden trip around the sun.

A year when each genre received an instant classic. When studios embraced the changes that were happening in the cinematic landscape. When audience members became film fanatics. And when filmmakers were creating their best work that would influence the rest of their careers and inspire a generation of new creatives. We had fully emerged out of 80s muscle-bound action and practical effects, and into an era of ILM and the written word.

The written word shines in the two standouts of January 1994. In general, January is to many the Box Office Graveyard. It’s where film oddities are ushered out by ignorant studios to die a quiet death. But it was certainly not the case for Clerks or Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Clerks 

Premiered in January 1994 at the Sundance Film Festival

Smith also used the success of Clerks to launch into other media. He also often capitalized on maintaining the creative rights to characters Jay and Silent Bob. This included being a pioneer podcaster back in 2007, continuing with several shows to this day. He also wrote comic book runs for both Marvel and DC as well as guest directing TV shows (The Flash). He was the showrunner for several animated shows and owns a chain of comic book stores and a movie theatre. To this day Smith is a regular at global comic cons. He’s a pop culture icon.

Making the Case

Clerks is a worthy exhibit for 1994’s case of being the best year for film. It showed the emergence of what would become known as Geek Culture. It also put forth the idea that those who grew up reading ‘classic’ comics, watching Star Trek and Star Wars, 1960s Batman, Doctor Who, etc. were now coming of age and making films that were influenced heavily by the media that shaped their youth.

One of the most famous conversations (itself inspired by the dialogue in Reservoir Dogs) in Clerks is of course how many innocent independent contractors died aboard the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi. These filmmakers now had a voice and an inspiration that they could do it too. Today, filmmakers are inspired to write the best script they can, usually about ‘stuff they know’ and start filming on their smartphones with their buddies.

Although new CGI was the talk of Hollywood following the seismic activity of Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993), a film that had no effects, an unknown cast, or a Hollywood budget could succeed if it had something funny to say and an audience was willing to listen. The same could be said of our second choice for this January highlight.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Premiered in January 1994 at the Sundance Film Festival

What springs to mind when the above title is mentioned are ‘That British Rom-Com’ and ‘Hugh Grant.’ These are fair comments. However, the film and its legacy are highly underrated. Yes, it did make Hugh Grant a superstar. Further, his bumbling nice guy schtick would continue to dominate his career until he came full circle in another landmark British Rom-Com. One where he played the not-so-nice guy, Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) – much to his personal and professional relief. But Four Weddings and a Funeral did so much more.

Writer, Richard Curtis was held in high regard in the UK for his television work. This includes the BAFTA-winning classic sitcom Blackadder (1983–1989). He also was one of the original architects of the TV fundraising behemoth Comic Relief. Curtis was inspired to write the script following his own experiences as a wedding attendee, having worked out he had attended sixty-five weddings in eleven years. He included scenarios, speeches, and shortcomings in the script and was able to include a fantastic ensemble of eccentric, essentially English characters (John Hannah is an honorable mention as a Scot).

A Rewatchable

The strength of the film is in its ensemble. This is upon retrospection and following the findings of a 2020 poll that showed Four Weddings and a Funeral had been voted the No. 1 Rewatchable Film of All Time in the BFI’s Top 50 list. We have two very strong leads in Hugh Grant, who carries the film admirably (and who the producers made wear glasses as he was deemed too handsome), and Andie MacDowell (in a role that Curtis admits is underwritten). MacDowell just happened to be in town promoting Groundhog Day (1993).

But the laughs and true warmth of the film come from the supporting cast, played by some of Britain’s finest: the aforementioned Hannah, whose reading of W.H. Auden’s Stop the Clocks is a dramatic highlight of the film, Simon Callow (who along with Hannah’s character are in a gay relationship that is not commented upon nor the butt of any jokes), Kristen Scott-Thomas, Rowan Atkinson, plus a host of faces that have been floating on big and small screens for years.

It is also important to note that this was also the year that a little American sitcom hit small screens called Friends. Therefore, this was the beginning of friendship, support networks, community, the workplace ensemble, and social media being a big part of comedy. Friends took the lead from such shows as Cheers then took it to another level that would go on to spawn the likes of How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) and The Big Bang Theory, also, a show that arguably would not exist without Clerks.

A Winning Formula

The makers of Four Weddings and a Funeral would also go on to use its formula of having a warm, charismatic lead (not always Hugh Grant!) overcoming obstacles to find true love, with the help/hindrance of a quirky group of friends and family. See also Notting Hill (1999), the Bridget Jones’ Diary trilogy (2001–2016), About Time (2013) and of course, Love Actually (2003) which also has a legacy of its own, therefore, we can argue that without Four Weddings and a Funeral we would not have the ensemble holiday rom-com subgenre!

The film was able to put British filmmaking on the map, and although the likes of Pinewood Studios were well known for the superlative and professional workforce, British writing, acting, and directing were put in the spotlight. Four Weddings and a Funeral went on to be the biggest British box office hit for many years, until The Full Monty came along in 1997, and also was able to showcase that Brits were not just great at playing villains (Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber still holds that crown).

Legacy

So can we also argue that without Four Weddings and a Funeral, there would have been no Harry Potter film franchise as we know it?! It’s no coincidence that Mike Newell directed both Four Weddings and a Funeral and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Before Chris Columbus came aboard to direct the first two Potter films, Spielberg was being touted to launch the franchise…an animated franchise with Haley Joel Osment in the lead and voicing Harry Potter. Perish the thought.