10 years of Flick Filosopher: I see a Phoenix rising

I so called Joaquin Phoenix as a major star-to-be in my review of Return to Paradise:

Dare I even suggest we might be entering a new golden age of film? In a spring and summer of movies full of sound and fury and mostly signifying nothing, there have been a few surprisingly smart, thoughtful, grownup films, most simultaneously Hollywood-old-fashioned and setting the stage for the next century of film: Saving Private Ryan and The Truman Show, in particular. Into that category I'd also put Return to Paradise -- a film that is sure to be remembered not only on its own merits but because it saw a remarkable early confluence of talent in Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, and Joaquin Phoenix, all part of the new Hollywood vanguard.

I may have been wrong about Heche, though, and Vaughn’s still squandering his potential...

• review of Return to Paradise, posted 08.24.98