1994 in movies: Disney is box office king; Gump runs away with the Oscar

 

I was never personally that big into The Lion King (in fact, I didn't see it until it got to a point where I figured my kids probably should), but that wasn't because of my age or having something against that era of Disney films; I liked Mermaid and Aladdin, and loved Beauty and the Beast. The Lion King  just didn't draw me in; sometimes it happens.

So, watching it now, as the top money-maker of '94, do I feel like I missed out on the phenomenon? Not really. It's fine. I don't quite get why it's so revered in comparison to the other movies I mentioned, but it's got about everything you'd want from 1994 Disney; the animation is great and a little edgy in terms of technology; the jokes for the grown-ups are there; the songs are fine.

Maybe this is the point: I don't feel that The Lion King is spectacularly better than any of the other movies from that run, but it does touch on all things maybe more completely than the rest. So, an impressively average achievement?

Meanwhile, I remember lots of people thinking that Pulp Fiction was robbed of Best Picture from 1994's slate of movies. Actually, The Shawshank Redemption was, but whaddaya gonna do?

I noticed two things about my first viewing of Gump in about five years: firstly; it's funnier than I remember. The scene that made me sit up and take notice of that had that drill sergeant who was so impressed by Gump's knack for all things military.  

Secondly: the further you get from the 60s the more obvious it becomes that the movie is less interested in the 70s and not at all in the 80s. That dates it, much moreso than the effects, which, as I've written about before concerning this time of burgeoning CGI, hold up pretty well because they don't try to do too much with them. Where they fall apart is, amazingly, where they still fall apart, and that's when they try to figure out how to animate a human mouth moving. They didn't get it with Lennon and they didn't get it with Leia however many years later in Rogue One. 

In the end, I've got no problem giving this a Best Picture. It's a pretty epic comedy.