Favourite Forgotten Nostalgic Movies
This is a list of movies I don't see discussed much anymore online or featured in YouTube videos but were a part of my childhood and deserve to be remembered.
The Sandlot (1993). I remember as a kid I had a penpal who came to visit me in the Summer of '94 and this was, I believe, his favourite movie. It soon became one of mine. I've always appreciated kids movies that understand "Kid Logic" without patronizing or talking down to their characters. The writers of American Pie clearly hated their characters and it showed in the writing. I still found it funny, but I saw it for what it was. Exploitation rather than appreciation.
2. My Girl (1991). This is the movie that reintroduced me to Macauley Culkin after Home Alone. Anna Chlumsky's debut was a smashing success. While I think it's Culkin's best performance, Chlumsky needed to be believable in a movie with a script that, like the previous entry, really understood kid logic, and without her, I don't think the movie is anywhere near as good. It's a shame she left acting so young.
3. As Good As It Gets. In a year where Titanic was too popular to lose and Good Will Hunting was also nominated, this movie was destined to be the forgotten movie of 1997. But it might be the best of the bunch, looking through 2023 eyes. At this point, the miserable miser who has a change of heart has been played to death since this movie came out, with such things as El Torino and A Man Called Otto, but back then, it really worked. James L. Brooks for a time was quite the prolific script writer, focusing on quirky but relatable human stories and this is probably his magnum opus.
4. Mr Holland's Opus (1995). Speaking of magnum opuses, this was another Oscar Nominated film that seems to have fallen through the cracks over the years. Again, I don't think anyone was beating out Braveheart for Best Picture that year.
5. The Majestic (2001). The more serious Jim Carrey performance that doesn't get talked about as much. It's a period piece, so maybe that accounts for some of it. The Frank Darabount-directed picture that comes off like a Frank Capra film from the 1940s actually really works. Carrey gives a very Jimmy Stewart-like performance as an up and coming filmmaker who loses his memory in a car accident and is mistaken for a presumed deceased World War II enlistee.