Outbreak Was a Hit in 1995. Now Were Living the Sequel. – The New York Times

Domestic Box Office, March 24-26, 1995

1. Outbreak

2. Major Payne

3. Dolores Claiborne

4. The Madness of King George

5. The Secret of Roan Inish

6. Man of the House

7. Tall Tale

8. Just Cause

9. Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh

10. Bye Bye Love

By then, Outbreak, directed by Wolfgang Petersen (the hitmaker, just off In the Line of Fire and on his way to Air Force One), had grossed around $70 million in todays money and arrived in the middle of an ebola epidemic that never took hold here. Feeling voyeuristic and, perhaps, complacent, we lined up for this Ebola: The Ride.

The 1990s had a house style, and Outbreak epitomizes it: mess. Like lots of hits from this era, its brazen, chaotic, noisy, ludicrous, confused, overlit, has J.T. Walsh going nuclear and is simultaneously underwritten and over-plotted. Not only does Hoffman have to catch that monkey, hes got to stop the military from bombing an infected California town (the mission is Operation Clean Sweep!), save his failed marriage to Dr. Rene Russo and keep Donald Sutherland, Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman from outacting him.

Outbreak held off three new movies: Tall Tale, Major Payne, and Dolores Claiborne, not one of which would get made now and all of which Ill get to shortly. Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump were still hits, lurking outside the Top 10 on this Academy Awards weekend; and vaulting to fourth place was four-time-nominee The Madness of King George. That movie is the perfect example of another bygone style: the alt-costume drama, exemplified by Amadeus, and the films of Sally Potter and Derek Jarman. The standards of literary adaptation and historical integrity, of decorum, were still being set by Merchant Ivory and Masterpiece Theater. Nicholas Hytner, the stage director who made King George, went a different direction, one where the cameras actually moved.

The rest is here:
Outbreak Was a Hit in 1995. Now Were Living the Sequel. - The New York Times

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero