my favorite movies of 1991:

(1) Defending Your Life

(2) Terminator 2: Judgment Day

(3) Dogfight

favorite of 1991:

Defending Your Life

(Albert Brooks, Meryl Streep, Rip Torn, Lee Grant. Directed by Brooks.)

In this romantic dramedy about the afterlife, purgatory has a humorously commercialized environment and a legal system that puts the life you’ve just lived on trial.

Here’s a Siskel & Ebert video that includes clips from Defending Your Life. They disagree about the ending: Siskel was disappointed by it, but I agree with Ebert that the ending is powerful and meaningful.

(I set up that video to start at 8:30, and the Defending Your Life review goes until 12:30.)

Stream Defending Your Life on Max (leaving after December 2023) or these sites.

2nd favorite of 1991:

Terminator 2

Judgment Day

(Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Edward Furlong. Directed by James Cameron.)

The sequel to The Terminator (one of my favorite movies of 1984) significantly drops the “The” from the title — now there’s more than just one of them. Almost everything in this movie is different from what it seems on the surface: the time-traveling cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was so terrifying in the first movie, has been “re-programmed” and can learn from humans; another cyborg (Robert Patrick) poses as a mild-mannered police officer and can turn into anyone; an affable computer engineer with a wife and kid (Joe Morton) is laying the groundwork for a nuclear apocalypse; a woman confined in the high-security section of a mental institution (Linda Hamilton) has a more clear-eyed view of the world than anyone else; her son, a bratty juvenile delinquent (Edward Furlong), could be the best hope to save humanity …

We’re not gonna make it, are we? People, I mean.

It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.

Yeah, major drag, huh?

Stream Terminator 2 on these sites.

3rd favorite of 1991:

Dogfight

(River Phoenix, Lili Taylor. Directed by Nancy Savoca.)

In this coming-of-age dramedy (more drama than comedy) set in the ’60s, a group of Marines are in San Francisco the night before they ship out to Vietnam, and they’re having a sick competition over who can bring the “ugliest” date to a dance. One of the Marines, Eddie (played by River Phoenix just two years before his tragic death), starts to regret choosing Rose (Lili Taylor), a sweet girl who’s an aspiring folk singer. Of course, we’ll find out who’s truly ugly and beautiful, but more important than the plot is this movie’s well-earned charm in exploring the world of young people who haven’t figured out what they want yet.

Click here for two people talking about Dogfight in depth (transcribed only, no video or audio).

This is a rare indie ’90s movie to be directed by a woman (Nancy Savoca), and you might sense her perspective coming through in the movie’s focus on Rose. She has less screen time than Eddie, but it’s Rose’s movie; we follow her feelings.

Oh, and watch for one scene with Brendan Fraser, in his movie debut.

Stream Dogfight on these sites.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.