NOTE: A slightly different version of this post first was published at FILMINQUIRY.COM, an independent film magazine.
As a person who came of age in the 1980s, I was lucky enough to witness some incredible cultural, societal and artistic developments. The fall of the Berlin Wall, for example. Chernobyl. The wedding of Charles and Diana. Feathered mullets. David Byrne‘s big suit. The “Velvet” Revolution. Cher‘s renaissance. Perestroika. “New” Coke. Pegged jeans. MTV before it sucked. The Soviet War in Afghanistan. Pac Man. The Sony Walkman. “Just Say No.” Madonna before she got old. The Cure before Robert Smith got fat.




No, I’m not about to describe some long-ago fling so get your mind out of the gutter. Rather, I’m going to wax nostalgic about the incredibly fecund 28-day period in the fall of 1994 that saw the release of three terrific films, all personal favorites of The Conflicted Film Snob and, in his humble opinion, all still as vibrant, entertaining and relevant as they were—good Lord, could it really be?—22 years ago.
Back on April 18, 1945, as the
Let’s pretend for a moment that you didn’t pass high-school English by the skin of your teeth and you actually spent some quality time with the poems of
The untimely passing of 
Mike Figgis