Swingers (1996)

Doug Liman's original comic drama, a very popular independent film, followed the bar lounge-hopping and pick-up efforts of five party-animal, show business wannabes in the hip singles scene - both in LA and Vegas - who mostly wanted to get laid. The film was a guys point-of-view 'romantic comedy.'

Much of the low-budget film, made in only 22 days, was improvised. In one scene, the swaggering swingers discussed their most favorite moments in guy movies like GoodFellas and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. The film included in-jokes about how "Everybody steals from everybody, that's Hollywood."

One of the twenty-something males was smooth-operating, fast-talking ladies-man Trent Walker (Vince Vaughn) who offered advice on how to pick up women: ("All I do is stare at their mouths and wrinkle my nose, and I turn out to be a sweetheart").

Catchphrases from the film included "money" that was equated to being "cool" and "babies" were "women."

"You're so money and you don't even know it."

The use of the Jaws theme music to identify the predatory 'sharks' at a bar picking up on women.

The sequence of Trent's and Mike's trip to Las Vegas to find some action.

The scene of aspiring NY comedian Mike Peter's (Jon Favreau) repeatedly desperate phone calls to the answering machine of new LA acquaintance Nikki (Brooke Langton) ("This is Nikki. Leave a message") whom he had just met in a bar, when it cut him off as he left his phone number, and how he excused himself for his repeated phone calls and messages by stating: "I don't want you to think I was weird or desperate..." - and her live retort to his calls: "Don't ever call me again."

American History X (1998)

Edward Norton starred in director Tony Kaye's visceral, ultra-realistic R-rated feature film debut as the violent, prejudiced, racist, Neo-Nazi L.A. skinhead Derek Vinyard, who followed the advice of older white supremacist mentor Cameron Alexander (Stacey Keach) in order to bring hate and evil terror to non-whites and other minorities in his beach neighborhood of Venice, California.

Although the film opened with Derek getting out of jail (after serving a three-year jail term for killing two car thieves) with changed ways of thinking and distasteful of his past, his skinhead teenaged brother Danny (Edward Furlong), a young skinhead, idolized him and was becoming a neo-Nazi himself.

The film's flashbacks (in gritty monochromatic black and white) showed Derek's corruption as he became a skinhead leader (with a shaved head, tattoos, and a goatee) who legitimized hate-filled violence.

"...You come here and shoot at my family? I'm gonna teach you a real lesson now, motherf--ker. Put your f--kin' mouth on the curb."

"I believe in death, destruction, chaos, filth, and greed."

The infamous brutal and painful-to-watch curb-stomping scene in which Vinyard forced wounded black car thief Lawrence (Antonio David Lyons) to bite down on the sidewalk curb and then stomped on the man's head to snap his neck in half, to teach him a "real lesson."

Also, the scene of a raid on a Korean-owned grocery store.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

This obscenity-filled, anarchic independent cult comedy from the Coen Brothers was notable for its main male character -- unemployed, bearded and stoned out LA slacker, Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges). He spent most of his time drinking White Russians, smoking pot and bowling.

The film's disparate elements included:

• the opening scene of the Dude's mistaken identity when two thugs assaulted him in his Venice bungalow to collect a debt, and one of them peed on his rug
• the meeting of the Dude with rich, wheelchair-bound Pasadena businessman "Big" Lebowski (David Huddleston), and the alleged kidnapping of his promiscuous trophy wife Bunny (Tara Reid), a porn actress
• a violent scene of bowling with the Dude's angry, gun-crazed best friend - former Vietnam vet Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and the moronic Donny (Steve Buscemi), when Walter became hotheaded and drew his gun to protest that older pacifist bowler Smokey fouled by stepping over the line
• the taunting challenges offered by rival purple jump-suited bowler Jesus Quintana (John Turturro)
• a trio of German nihilists
• the "Big" Lebowski's strange, feminist avant-garde artist daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore) who painted on a canvas from a trapeze apparatus
• and a pornographer named Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara)

"That rug really tied the room together."

"The Dude abides."

The bowling alley scenes of the Dude with his buddies.

The Busby Berkeley-inspired dream sequence called Gutterballs.

Blade (1998)

Non-stop noisy action and violence, gun and swordplay, glossy production design, and special effects were the hallmarks of this trashy, gory vampire film about African-American, Marvel Comics book hero Blade (Wesley Snipes).

Blade was a superstrong half-vampire, half-man vampire (or "suckhead") hunter-killer, with sunglasses and a black leather coat and vest, who battled against his up-and-coming arch enemy, punk biker-style vampire leader Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), intent upon creating a "vampire apocalypse."

It was a combination action film, horror film, and superhero fantasy film. Martial arts-skilled Blade sought revenge against all blood-sucking vampires for the death of his vampire-bitten mother at the time of his birth.

"You better wake up. The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping! There is another world beneath it - the real world. And if you wanna survive it, you better learn to pull the trigger!"

"Some motherf--kers are always trying to ice-skate uphill."

"F--k me? No, you f--k this!"

The dance floor nightclub scene (with sprinklers that bathe everyone in blood) in which Blade killed disco-dancing vampires (who then disintegrated), accompanied by pounding techno-music.

The final bloating death scene of Deacon Frost occurred during a climactic sword battle with Blade, when Frost's seemingly invincible body was punctured and injected by blue vials of liquid that came into explosive contact with his vampire blood.

Ronin (1998)

This suspenseful post-Cold War heist thriller, similar to the James Bond or Mission: Impossible films, from director John Frankenheimer, contained two of the best white-knuckle, hair-raising, most realistic car chase sequences ever filmed, on the streets of Paris and Nice.

It also featured an assassination plot, explosions, alliances, mistrust and betrayals, a shoot-out near a Seine River bridge, and other male-oriented action.

Robert De Niro starred as Sam, a former CIA strategist and aging action hero now hired as a covert mercenary operative in France (along with buddy and hired hitman Vincent (Jean Reno) and others in an international team) to retrieve a mysterious silver metal briefcase (the film's obvious Hitchcockian 'McGuffin') by Irish IRA terrorist Deirdre (Natascha McElhone).

The film's title Ronin referred indirectly to failed and shamed Japanese samurai warriors who roamed the countryside after failing to protect their masters and honorably committed ritualistic suicide.

"You got the gun. I'm unarmed. Do something. Go ahead. Do something. Do something!"

The thrilling high-speed car chase between a blue Peugeot 406 driven by Sam chasing a black BMW M5, driven by Deirdre in a high-speed, wrong-way race through Parisian streets and a metro tunnel under the Seine River and continuing into heavy freeway traffic.

The scene of Sam instructing others during surgery to help remove a bullet from his side, claiming: "I once removed a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon", urging: "Don't take it out unless you really got it', and finally: "You think you can stitch me up on your own? If you don't mind, I'm gonna pass out.''

Wild Things (1998)

Besides the complex plot, the film was intended as a sexy, 'guilty pleasure' film-noirish thriller. This erotic crime film with a twisting and turning plot revealed three schemers:

• high school guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon)
• rich and sexy vixen student Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards)
• trashy goth trailer inhabitant Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell)

There was also a fourth character, the duplicitous police sergeant Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon), who had fabricated a rape case to extort money from Kelly's wealthy mother Sandra (Theresa Russell). By film's end, most of the main characters had double-crossed and murdered each other, leaving Suzie as the only survivor.

The sexy film featured prominent younger stars in erotic-dirty situations in a South Florida Everglades town, including a wet T-shirt car-wash sequence to the tune of Lauren Christy's "I Want What I Want" after which dripping-wet socialite Kelly seduced her guidance counselor Sam in his home. Later, Suze and Kelly had an infamous, highly-publicized menage a trois sequence with Sam, and Kelly also celebrated lesbianism with Suze in a swimming pool (extended in the uncut version).

"So, where's your hose, Mr. Lombardo?"

The liquor-drenched threesome scene, and the lesbian kiss pool scene.