Trish,

The movies of this decade are distinct for both their out-of-the-mainstream qualities and the ironic humor that pervades them. This was the era of the slacker, and Gen X, of MAs working at McDonalds, and very well educated people working lousy jobs and being told they were idiots because the register counted the change for them. There was a strong appetite for verbal comedy and rapid wit, soaked in a lighter-or-darker nihilism; a sensibility best summed up as sardonic. There was also a strong appetite for violence, but an ironic violence: one that knew the scenarios were unreal, and did not wish them to be real, but entered into them wholeheartedly with all the enthusiasm of making it to the top level of a Playstation game. And while movie homages are hardly new to this decade, there was a greater sense of playing with the audience's awareness of its pop culture past than had been seen since the French New Wave.

In short, the 90's are as distinct in tone and perspective as any period in the history of film. You could not watch a movie from that time and fail to recognize it as such.

God, yes, the decade was definable.

Sofia Coppola can't be blamed for what the film wasn't, it never quite matched its ambition, but her performance was so bad that on more than one occassion it yanked me right out of the film. I understand that Winona Ryder was originally lined up to play the part, but I can't remember why she did not go ahead with it. It hardly seems like the type of role, you'd pass on to make Alien IV or Mermaids.

Julia Roberts was Coppola's first choice but she was unavailable.. Madonna wanted, tested, and was seriously considered for the role. Ultimately, however, they felt that her age was too much of a problem. There was a list of ten women up for the role, including Roberts, Laura San Giacomo and Trini Alvarado. Eventually it went to Ryder.

A month into shooting, Ryder, who had just arrived, pleaded exhaustion. She had just finished three movies back-to-back, most recently Mermaids for Orion, and was reportedly under pressure from her boyfriend, Johnny Depp, to leave Rome and return to the United States. She was examined by a doctor who, according to sources, concluded that she was having a nervous breakdown and advised that she be sent home. Ryder returned to the United States.

Roberts was still unavailable. San Giacomo and Annabella Sciorra were available and under consideration; but Coppola chose his daughter. The studio as well as some of the cast were skeptical. The role was rewritten to accommodate Sofia, making Mary younger, more innocent, less sexual. Said Eli Wallach, "It had to alter Andy Garcia's work in the movie. As Winona was a sex thing, Sofia was innocent. It just changed a note in the tune."

12 Monkeys had the core logic problem of all time travel films, which is that chaos theory (and really, basic causality) shows clearly how small changes in antecedent conditions can wreak big changes years in the future. A time traveler's mere presence in the past displaces air and insects and plants and dust particles and so on, changes the use of water and food, causes pedestrians to subtly shift their paths and arrive somewhere at slightly different moments and, in the case of a male, have a different one of billions of sperm cells happen to be "in the lead" at a moment of fertilization. Bruce Willis could spend five minutes in the past, and he would never return to the future from whence he came. In fact, his mere presence would insure that he would wink out of existence and be somewhere else with different memories.

So, given that, I usually check my brain at the door of the theater and just enjoy the ride.

There is a book called "The Godfather Companion" by Peter Biskind. It addresses that issue. Take it for whatever it's worth:



Perhaps, jeremy, that was much more info than you needed or wanted, but there it is. My belief is that any of the other actresses mentioned would have been better in the part than Sofia.