{"id":618951,"date":"2026-06-03T13:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618951\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T13:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T13:37:21","slug":"10-lines-from-1996-movies-that-should-be-erased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618951\/","title":{"rendered":"10 lines from 1996 movies that should be erased"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Craft\u2019 (Andrew Fleming, 1996)\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way you know how to treat women is by treating them like whores, when you\u2019re the whore!\u201d<\/p>\n

Horror<\/a> was having a pretty great run in the \u201890s<\/a> thanks to the success of prestige films directed by signature auteurs, such as Jonathan Demme\u2019s The Silence of the Lambs, David Fincher\u2019s Se7en, Adrian Lyne\u2019s Jacob\u2019s Ladder, and John Carpenter\u2019s In the Mouth of Madness, but around \u201896 the genre began transforming in order to appeal directly to teenagers, resulting in films that catered to young viewers with their attempts to be socially conscious.<\/p>\n

The Craft is the epitome of where horror went wrong; it took a genuinely interesting idea about witchhunting and used it to tell an exhausting story about teenage cliques and bullies, complete with the type of regressive insult-throwing that was common within high school films during the decade. The Craft might claim to be female empowerment, but it\u2019s still written and directed by men.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Jingle All The Way\u2019 (Brian Levant, 1996)\"Howard<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe I should wrap some chains around you\u201d.<\/p>\n

Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/a> had taken a turn in the \u201890s where he was making more comedies, and initially it worked in his favour; Twins allowed him to make fun of himself as an eccentric character from a different country, and action-comedies like Kindergarten Cop and Last Action Hero gave him an opportunity to be self-referential. Unfortunately, he became so obsessed with comedy that he began taking roles he wasn\u2019t qualified for, as he even turned down The Rock<\/a> to do the family holiday film Jingle All The Way.<\/p>\n

Schwarzenegger was simply never going to be believable as an average, down-on-his-luck dad, which makes it all the more unusual and uncomfortable when his character, Howard Langston, makes threatening comments to his obnoxious neighbour Ted Maltin, played by the late great Phil Hartman, in one of the final roles before his tragic death.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Don\u2019t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood\u2019 (Paris Barclay, 1996)\"Vivica<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, baby, you know there ain\u2019t no positive Black females in these movies\u201d.<\/p>\n

While the classic parody films of Mel Brooks and the Zucker brothers were made with affection for the genres that they were satirising, Marlon Wayans<\/a> and his brother Shawn were responsible for ruining the spoof genre <\/a>by running it into the ground with lazy references, dated jokes, and tearing down other artists.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood is a satire of Black-led dramas that began to peak in the \u201890s following the success of Boyz n the Hood, and ended up stereotyping an entire wave of films by reducing them to clich\u00e9s. While the film attempts to satirise the lack of Black women in these films, it becomes a hypocritical point because there are no strong female characters in it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Space Jam\u2019 (Joe Pytka, 1996)\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as such, exclusive property and trademark of Warner Bros. Inc!\u201d <\/p>\n

The Looney Tunes<\/a> characters hadn\u2019t been brought to the big screen before Space Jam introduced them to an entirely new audience with the help of Michael Jordan. The film is mostly harmless fun, but it did introduce a fourth-wall-breaking concept that would become a significant issue within the 21st century, because the film makes the audience aware of what properties that Warner Bros has at its disposal, allowing it to shamelessly cater to nostalgic viewers.<\/p>\n

This would result in a surge of supposedly \u2018meta films\u2019 that were nothing more than corporate commercials, and came full circle when Warner Bros released the sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy in the summer of 2021 on HBO Max. Ironically, the production house became so obsessed with its own library that it has almost completely disregarded the Looney Tunes characters<\/a> by selling their films to other studios.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018A Time To Kill\u2019 (Joel Schumacher, 1996)\"Jake<\/p>\n

\u201cThere ain\u2019t nothin\u2019 more dangerous in this world than a fool with a cause\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Joel Schumacher<\/a> was unquestionably a talented director when it came to lavish musicals, bizarre horror thrillers, and camp spectacles, but he wasn\u2019t the right choice for a grounded legal drama that deals with serious topical issues. Although the role was originally sought after by Woody Harrelson,<\/a> the heroic lawyer Jake Brigance was portrayed by Matthew McConaughey in what would become his breakout performance.<\/p>\n

The intentions of A Time to Kill might be pure, but the film isn\u2019t equipped to tell a serious story about racism because Schumacher can\u2019t help himself from making it a melodrama. McConaughey\u2019s lines are often framed as the sagely advice of a seemingly brilliant character, in what is one of the more classic examples of a white saviour character in cinema, hence attempting to give him one-liners only made Schumacher\u2019s approach to the material feel clumsier.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Independence Day\u2019 (Roland Emmerich, 1996)\"Bill<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the vault, or as some of us like to call it, \u2018The Freak Show\u2019\u201d. <\/p>\n

Independence Day<\/a> is unabashedly silly and managed to perfectly emulate what a \u2018summer popcorn\u2019 film<\/a> felt like before the term became associated with lazy corporate slop. The film has aged a lot better than some of its contemporaries, but it does veer into completely ridiculous territory when it introduces the character of Dr Brackish Okun, played by Brett Spiner, a scientist who specialises in Area 51 research.<\/p>\n

The character\u2019s introduction makes little sense, as there\u2019s no logical reason why President Thomas Whitmore, played by Bill Pullman, wasn\u2019t informed about the potential extraterrestrial threat when he was elected, and to make matters worse, Okun is depicted as a crazed, goofy outsider, implying that everyone sceptical of the existence of UFOs and aliens should be treated as the butt of a joke. Given that the aliens destroyed the White House, referring to the alien research centre as \u201cThe Freak Show\u201d is a miscalculation of tone.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Escape From LA\u2019 (John Carpenter, 1996)\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought you\u2019d be taller\u201d.<\/p>\n

John Carpenter<\/a> went through one of the biggest heartbreaks of his career when his budget and resources for Escape From LA<\/a> were repeatedly slashed, making it no surprise that the film received muted responses and became a box office calamity. It was the first time that Carpenter directed a sequel to one of his own films, having turned down Halloween II, and it was intended to be a love letter to the city he had grown up in.<\/p>\n

Instead of the same gritty, intense style of the original Escape From New York, Escape From LA felt like a farce because of the campy style, cheesy visual effects, and non-stop one-liners, including the repeated phrase \u201cI thought you\u2019d be taller\u201d. It was as if a part of Carpenter\u2019s spirit was broken in the making of the film, as he hasn\u2019t made a good project since.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Broken Arrow\u2019 (John Woo, 1996)\"Broken<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t it cool?\u201d<\/p>\n

John Woo<\/a> was a highly popular international filmmaker<\/a> when he began breaking into America with English-language films such as his early success, Broken Arrow, which starred Christian Slater as the hero Captain Riley Hale, but the scene-stealer was John Travolta in the role of the villain, Major Vic Deakins.<\/p>\n

Travolta had been on a comeback following his Oscar nomination for Pulp Fiction, but he began relying on his worst tendencies by playing every character as over the top as possible. In one memorable exchange, Hale tells Deakins that he\u2019s lost his mind, to which he replies, \u201cAin\u2019t it cool?\u201d Unfortunately, Woo seemed like the only director capable of justifying Travolta\u2019s eccentricities since they teamed up again on Face\/Off the following year, and the actor continued to chew the scenery further in disastrous films like The General\u2019s Daughter, Battlefield Earth, Domestic Disturbance, and Basic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Michael\u2019 (Nora Ephron, 1996)\"Dorothy<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not that kind of angel\u201d.<\/p>\n

The John Travolta<\/a> renaissance continued in 1996 when he starred in Michael, an unusual fantasy comedy from Nora Ephron. While her speciality has always been romantic comedies,<\/a> it\u2019s not clear what the tone of this film was supposed to be and who it was aimed at. Even though Travolta played the titular character, an angel who lives a ruffian\u2019s life on Earth, the film is mostly focused on a romance that grows between the journalists Dorothy, played by Andie MacDowell, and Frank, played by William Hurt.<\/p>\n

Even for a lighthearted film, Michael is very confusing when it comes to explaining the character\u2019s role on Earth, what his story is, and why Dorothy is supposedly an \u2018angel expert\u2019. Although Michael addresses these questions by saying \u201cI\u2019m not that kind of angel\u201d, it\u2019s a failing of the film that it is not able to provide any answers regarding its core premise.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018Happy Gilmore\u2019 (Dennis Dugan, 1996)\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cThey gave me this card: free Subway for life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adam Sandler<\/a> was decried by critics who hated nearly all of his films<\/a>, but Happy Gilmore was a legitimately good comedy that didn\u2019t show signs of the laziness that would become all too common within his subsequent work. However, it did introduce an issue that would become far more prominent later on, which is the notorious product placement.<\/p>\n

Nearly all of Sandler\u2019s films are littered with products, brands, and corporate sponsors, which might explain why all of the Happy Madison productions are far more expensive than they would reasonably cost. This trend seemingly begins with Happy Gilmore, in which Happy excitedly tells his grandmother that he has earned free Subway sandwiches for the rest of his life, and even if this was always intended to be a joke, Sandler wasn\u2019t kidding when he started inviting more companies to advertise themselves in his films.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018The Craft\u2019 (Andrew Fleming, 1996) \u201cThe only way you know how to treat women is by treating them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[206451,9456,96,29971,24565,107918,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-206451","tag-adam-sandler","tag-entertainment","tag-independence-day","tag-john-travolta","tag-john-woo","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}