Entertainment Weekly did a short piece highlighting their picks of “5 movies that changed Hollywood.” Here they are:
5 Movies that Changed Hollywood
“Our picks for the flicks of the past 20 years that infused filmmaking with a new spirit.”
By Owen Gleiberman and Lisa Schwarzbaum
Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – HU DVD 1792
Steven Soderbergh wasn’t the first fluky wunderkind director to cross over to the corporate Hollywood of the blockbuster era (that would be Tim Burton, with 1989’s Batman). But in this exhilarating, star-packed shell game of a heist comedy, he was the first to prove that you could be a popcorn entertainer by making more than a comic book. –OG
Pulp Fiction (1994) – HU DVD 1244
In his famous tale of talk-happy hoodlums, Quentin Tarantino flipped time and wove the hippest pop references of the century into his filmmaking DNA. What it all added up to is that he reinvented the primal pleasures of screen narrative. -OG
Toy Story (1995) – HU DVD 7768
Pixar’s first feature length movie demonstrated the potential magic of CGI with such brilliance that the light is still being reflected back to us today. And in that explosion of enrgy, we glimpsed a timeless trtuth: Technology is great, but story is even greater. –LS
Hoop Dreams (1994) – HU DVD 1890
Two high school basketball players come to embody a giant complex portrait of American society in this magnificent documentary. Today’s audience for nonfiction films can thank it for profoundly changing the game. -LS
The Blair Witch Project (1999) – HU DVD 24
A horror film that seemed almost real. For a decade it was an anomaly, but the influence of Blair Witch is just starting to be fully felt, as the faux-documentary drama becomes a touchstone of the reality age. -OS