1990s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[swo17]

Summer and Winter are my favourite of Rohmer's cycle - everybody should check the whole sequence out for this installment of the lists project

Should these be watched in chronological order, or does it not matter?

[roujin]

Some essential 90s films, part one
Isao Takahata's Omohide poro poro / Only Yesterday (1991) -- not only my favorite animated feature film of the 1990s -- but one of my favorite films of the decade.

This will be getting a spot on my list (along with a couple of more Ghibli films).

As for me, I can't imagine my list not being topped by All About My Mother but I'd imagine Leos Carax's Les Amants Du Pont-Neuf, Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day and any of WKW's films will give it a run for its money. Of course, I still need to see a hell of a lot more.

Let's see. As of right now, this is my top 10.

All About My Mother (Almodovar, 1999)
Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997)
Whisper of the Heart (Kondo, 1995)
Hoop Dreams (James, 1994)
Three Colors: Red (Kieslowski, 1994)
A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991)
Fallen Angels (Wong, 1995)
Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (Carax, 1991)
Rosetta (Dardennes, 1999)
Trust (Hartley, 1990)

[Ishmael]

Summer and Winter are my favourite of Rohmer's cycle - everybody should check the whole sequence out for this installment of the lists project

Should these be watched in chronological order, or does it not matter?

Doesn't matter. You don't have to watch any of Rohmer's series in chronological order.

[Michael Kerpan]

Summer and Winter are my favourite of Rohmer's cycle - everybody should check the whole sequence out for this installment of the lists project

Should these be watched in chronological order, or does it not matter?

These are my two favorites of the cycle also. I watched these in a semi-random order -- and I don't think it made much difference. These would have been on part 2 of my list -- if I got around to doing it. If I had to choose one, it would probably be Winter -- but I like both of these about as much as my previous Rohmer favorite, The Green Ray.

[colinr0380]

I've actually had To The Starry Island on a video tape recorded from television for about eight or nine years now and have not yet sat down to watch it. (L'eau froide about six years and The Boys about five! Let's just say if my DVD player broke down I wouldn't run out of new things to watch for a while...!)

The earlier comments about A World Without Pity (and I agree about not really needing to watch that film - the only thing I really remember about it is the scene of the lead character trying to impress a girl by timing a flick of his fingers with the turning off of the Eiffel Tower. If that doesn't make a character punchably smug, I don't know what does!) reminded me that I saw it in a double bill with another film starring Hippolyte Giradot, Hors la vie, a much better film about a photographer held hostage in Beirut, told almost entirely from his perspective. (I suppose though there is always the possibility that I could have looked more favourably on this film because I'd spent much of the previous one wishing the main character was bound, gagged and beaten. )

And that reminds me of an even better film, Captive of the Desert, with Sandrine Bonnaire!

[Michael Kerpan]

I've actually had To The Starry Island on a video tape recorded from television for about eight or nine years now and have not yet sat down to watch it. (L'eau froide about six years and The Boys about five! Let's just say if my DVD player broke down I wouldn't run out of new things to watch for a while...!)

Drat -- I thought this might have become available on DVD. As between the PARK Kwang-su films I HAVE seen, I think I probably prefer A Single Spark over Black Republic (at least by a little bit).

I assume you haven't run across either JANG Sun-woo's A Petal or IM Sang-soo's Girls Night Out.

[colinr0380]

Afraid not. The only JANG Sun-Woo film I've got a copy of or yet seen is the documentary done for the BFI's Century of Cinema season, Cinema On The Road.

And the only IM Sang-Soo film I have seen so far is The President's Last Bang on the US Kino DVD, but I would really like to see more of both of their works from this small taster I've had.

I'll add The Story Of Qui Ju to my list too based on your recommendation! Can I ask what you thought of Shanghai Triad? I know it does not have the same high reputation as Ju Dou or Raise The Red Lantern but I found it quite a compelling film in its own way! I find it interesting to approach the film with the idea that the director is putting himself into the shoes of the boy obsessed with the gorgeous but deadly gangsters moll - it adds an extra frisson to the whole film!

I suppose we should also consider this the decade of Leslie Cheung. What did you think of Farewell, My Concubine, Michael?

[zedz]

My first 'normal' post in this thread (i.e. recording impressions of films I watched for the purposes of this exercise).

Obsessive Becoming

This medium length experimental video work has haunted me since I first saw it in the mid-nineties, but my memory of it was intense but vague (eerily morphing snapshots, weird glimpses of In the Land of the War Canoes, the desolate sound of the narration, a pervasive sense of dread). This was enough to get it a strong placing on my last list, however.

So I took the opportunity to revisit it recently, and all of those memorable qualities are indeed there, but the vagueness is too. It was much more diffuse than I’d hoped, but still eerie and moving.

It’s an autobiographical memory piece by Daniel Reeves, circling around his abusive father (or one of them) Milton and obsessively working over fragments of childhood – snapshots that morph and fold into one another, home movie footage bleached out and looped (in particular a startling shot in which the father brutally and without warning smashes Daniel’s brother to the ground then helps him up, only, in Reeves’ revisioning, to knock him back down, again and again), random recollections from surviving relatives.

The family history is murky – “the secrets in our family were immense” intones the mournful, resigned narrator – and threatening. On-screen titles periodically announce, but never explain, mysterious disappearances (“Jackie Derman, half-sister, missing since 1957”). The first time around, this is unnerving, and it becomes even more so once a pattern emerges.

It remains a very interesting film, deploying what now seem like rather primitive digital video effects in a powerful, expressive manner, well matched with the brutal, slippery content. The lack of resolution fights against the urgency of the subject matter and the density of the content, creating an urge to return to the film to mine it further for meaning, though I’m not sure you can ever get all the fragments to add up to one big picture.

I'm glad I made the effort to track this down again, and even though its mysteries may not sustain so high a placing this time, I suspect they'll continue to haunt me.

Death for Five Voices

The concise 'Herzog on Music' set from Australia, recently picked up for $10, plugs a few of the remaining gaps in the viewing of his extensive output. This is a fine, mid-level effort: great music, some appealingly eccentric Herzogisms (a stray madwoman, for instance) and a completely insane Herzog hero/genius in the form of Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, but it's nothing that's going to blow away Lessons of Darkness.

Potential buyers should be aware that this disc includes a valuable and unacknowledged (on any of the packaging, at any rate) extra in the form of Herzog's Tavener short Pilgrimage, a kind of long-form classical music video using footage from other Herzog projects (e.g. Bells of the Deep)

[Michael Kerpan]

Can I ask what you thought of Shanghai Triad? I know it does not have the same high reputation as Ju Dou or Raise The Red Lantern but I found it quite a compelling film in its own way! I find it interesting to approach the film with the idea that the director is putting himself into the shoes of the boy obsessed with the gorgeous but deadly gangsters moll - it adds an extra frisson to the whole film!

I suppose we should also consider this the decade of Leslie Cheung. What did you think of Farewell, My Concubine, Michael?

I agree that Shanghai Triad is a lot better than its reputation -- and I think the last half (once the characters reach the island) is truly excellent.

I have yet to see Concubine (I want to see Yellow Earth first -- and haven't managed this yet).

[colinr0380]

I should have added to the previous that the frisson is added due to Shanghai Triad being the final pairing of Zhang Yimou with Gong Li and I was left wondering whether the combination of criticism, adoration and admiration of the pragmatism of the character she played in the film, combined with the rather bitter ending for both of our protagonists, was meant to be more widely applicable.

I found Farewell, My Concubine very interesting in the way it tackled issues of 'nature or nuture?' in a delicate manner - both in performance (asking whether brutally rigorous training from childhood could mould anyone into a Chinese Opera player simply due to skills being developed to such a high level, or whether there still needs to be some artistic spark beyond just impressive but unemotional competence - a connection to and understanding of the ideas and emotions behind the story you are acting?) and sexuality (the film follows the story of two boys, one of whom is forced into playing hyper-masculine roles and the other into passive feminine ones, and toys with the question of whether their relationship is based purely on these created circumstances reinforced by conditioning, whether one or both of them are in love with each other in a sexual sense, or simply have an intense friendship, and in the end whether it is a really important distinction to make when they each need the other to be fully happy).

It must have been ten years since I last saw the film though, so it is another that I need to revisit.

Also while we are on the subject of Chinese cinema I should add The Blue Kite as an outstanding look at the Cultural Revolution through the eyes of a family.

In terms of Italian cinema I'd like to recommend La Scorta and The Stolen Children. While I feel the more recent Gomorrah surpassed La Scorta in terms of ambition, it is still interesting to see an earlier attempt at tackling Italian corruption.

The Stolen Children I guess could be described as a dark road movie, Central Station for grown ups!

[colinr0380]

Another quick post on an almost forgotten film: Naked Tango directed by Leonard Schrader.

Any film that starts off with Rudolph Valentino's tango from The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse over the opening credits would seem to be setting itself an impossible task to follow, yet somehow it manages to pull it off. Imagine a film that combined Carlos Saura's stylised dance sequences, Luis Bunuel perversity of plotting and Shannon Tweed erotic thriller voyeurism with mannered performance styles all mixed together in a 1930s Argentinian brothel!

Mathilda May plays a newly married young woman travelling by ship, and who has just realised she has married an utter bastard, who witnesses another desperate young woman commit suicide by throwing herself overboard. Rather than thinking "at least I don't have that girl's problems" our naive heroine decides to assume the dead girl's identity and let it seem as if she was the one who jumped from the boat. After a brief moment of freedom, she discovers that the dead girl's fate was similarly to be a virginal import, except instead of being promised to a corrupt elderly judge (Fernando Rey) she is now expected to work in a brothel frequented by gangsters, and in particular a young gentleman played by Vincent D'Onofrio!

The girl finds a renewed spark of rebellion inside her and her sadomasochistic love/hate relationship with the gangster forms the main strand of the film. I like the way that the film is told entirely from the girl's perspective, with the responses of D'Onofrio's character unknown to her - does he find the idea of a feisty, firey woman not afraid to pull a knife on him exciting, or is he toying with her because he finds her willfulness interesting, and is savouring it in anticipation of the moment he will break her spirit and force her to be a compliant wife?

Things are brought to a head when the elderly judge finds out about the deception and storms the brothel in order to reclaim his property. Let's just say that he is not very happy to find out that the tamper proof seal on his merchandise has been broken by someone else, if you know what I mean!

Probably the highlight scene of the film is the tango which takes place in a darkened abattoir between May and D'Onofrio, while a blindfolded orchestra brought in specially for the occasion plays! (I wonder how much it would cost to set up such a romantic situation in real life? )

Luckily the scene is on YouTube at the moment! If nothing else, it shows that this film has Crocodile Dundee's "You call that a knife?" moment beaten hands down!

[Murdoch]

[...] a young gentleman played by Vincent D'Onofrio!

Sold! I can't seem to find the DVD anywhere, are there any available?

[Forrest Taft]

And Kansas City, which I'll almost definitely be voting for. Hopefully I'm not the only one who found it to be one of Altman's best of the decade.

It will probably end up on my list, but Short Cuts is my pick for Altman´s best of the decade. Will definitively end up very high on my list. The number one spot is reserved for The Thin Red Line.

Mamet's the Spanish Prisoner will deservedly fare well with many on this board, but don't forget about the under-seen the Winslow Boy, or Michael Corrente's terrific adaptation of American Buffalo. However, Mamet's filmed version of his own Oleanna astonishingly wrecks the source material and should be avoided at all costs.

Agree with this, but you should also track down a copy of Homicide. The German edition is pretty good, and the film is excellent, up there with The Spanish Prisoner.

Other films that will probably make my list:
Small Soldiers (Dante), plus perhaps The Second Civil War if TV-movies are eligible.
Carlito´s Way (DePalma)
Wild Bill (Hill)
My Name is Joe (Loach)
White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood)
Bitter Moon, Death and the Maiden, The Ninth Gate - This was a terrific, underrated decade for Polanski.
Out for Justice (Flynn). Then again, maybe not. If I include this one on my list, will I be banned from this forum?

[zedz]

Mamet's the Spanish Prisoner will deservedly fare well with many on this board, but don't forget about the under-seen the Winslow Boy

I missed this when domino said it the first time, but I absolutely second it. Mamet's take on Rattigan is a really great film. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it with middling expectations, but he doesn't put a foot wrong despite being in what you'd think was alien territory. (But there's the caveat that others who have followed my recommendation for this film have only seen a bog-standard adaptation)

[colinr0380]

Sadly there doesn't seem to be a DVD of Naked Tango out yet. Afraid I'm working from the VHS version myself.

Just going back through previous posts:

LQ - I thought The Fifth Element looked amazing and that Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm and so on were perfectly cast. I just wish they had not spent so much time with Chris Tucker's screeching Ruby Rhod! (While at the same time criminally wasting Lee Evans) Plus as spectacular as it looks I just did not feel any connection to, or fear for, any of the characters - it felt as if it wore its 'film written by a teenage boy wanting to show cool stuff happening without knowing how to explain any of it' origins too clearly. Much like that later Eragon film did, though that used dragons rather than aliens.


I would second Yojimbo's recommendation (if you have a strong enough stomach!) of Peter Jackson's Braindead if just for the attack of the mother while the theme tune to The Archers plays on the radio, the headless zombie wandering around with the garden gnome sticking out of its neck, the slapstick scene of the zombie baby rampaging around a park (who knew that stuffing a giggling baby into a burlap sack while punching it could be comedy gold?), and the classic lines "Your mother ate my dog!" and "I kick ass for the Lord!"

I'd also agree with One False Move. Starting with an incredibly brutal scene of multiple murder calculated to cast a pall over the rest of the film, the tone then changes to focus on a small town sheriff's attempts to prove himself by catching the criminals as they come to hide out in his town. I've not seen No Country For Old Men yet but I wonder if it would bear any comparison to this film?

zedz, Blue Steel is the film where Jamie Lee Curtis is a police officer who loses her gun during a convenience store robbery. The gun is picked up by one of the customers who was there at the time who goes on a crime spree with it while at the same time starting up a romance with her. While I thought that the film started strong but fell into cliched pure cop vs psycho criminal shootout stuff by the end it does make an interesting pair with the other Kathryn Bigelow film from around the same time, Point Break - both films are about a relationship in which one party has a secret agenda that will destroy their burgeoning love, just in this case the criminal has the secret, not the undercover cop!

[Yojimbo]

something for everybody in this list of faves
Autobus
Blue Steel
Braindead
Butcher Boy, The
Calendar
Conte D'Automne
Dead Man
Death In Brunswick
Hairdresser's Husband, The
Mother And Son
Notes From The Underground
One False Move
Sátántangó
Slacker
Underneath, The

In response to your question, I haven't seen Notes from the Underground (which never blipped on my radar) and The Hairdresser's Husband (as part of a concerted effort to avoid Leconte's films since I find their tastefulness stultifying) and probably not Blue Steel (but it seems eerily familiar, so maybe I have). I have the best intentions of seeing the Underneath but have yet to get around to it - this is probably a good time to do so!

Calendar, Mother and Son, Satantango and Slacker are on my short list. Despite my tremendous affection for the last of these, it probably won't squeak into my top 50, but I think it did last time. Summer and Winter are my favourite of Rohmer's cycle - everybody should check the whole sequence out for this installment of the lists project - but I don't know where or if they'll place. I loved The Butcher Boy at the time - surely this is Jordan's best film? - but I'd need to see it again before including it.

The only film on the list that I've seen and really don't like is Autobus / Aux yeux du monde, but nevertheless I prefer it to Rochant's previous film A World without Pity (a shame the ban couldn't extend to self-pity for that one).

'Notes' is a good lo-budget LA version of Dostoyevsky: not a million miles removed from 'IvansXtc', in look and tone, if nothing else.
'The Butcher Boy' is certainly Jordan's best film, although 'Angel' comes close enough.
I can't imagine he'll top it as 'Breakfast on Pluto' was an inferior retread, and 'The Good Thief' was a poor remake/reworking of 'Bob Le Flambeur'.

Leconte strayed too far into saccharine territory with such as 'The Girl On The Bridge', and even 'The Man On The Train', but 'The Hairdresser's Husband' is wonderfully quirky without being calculatedly so: a charming off-beat love story with a great soundtrack.
And, of course, Rochefort.

I've always been intending to watch 'The Underneath' as part of a double-bill with 'Criss Cross': the original is probably better, because of its cast and Siodmak, but Soderbergh certainly wouldn't disgrace himself in comparison.
And he's got Joe Don Baker, and a great ending.

'Blue Steel' is one of the finest thrillers of the 90's: directed by a woman, indeed.
And a marvellous over-the-top psycho in Ron Silver.

I don't think I've seen all of the Rohmer Four Seasons yet, but I'll probably take this opportunity to do so

[Yojimbo]

I would second Yojimbo's recommendation (if you have a strong enough stomach!) of Peter Jackson's Braindead if just for the attack of the mother while the theme tune to The Archers plays on the radio, the headless zombie wandering around with the garden gnome sticking out of its neck, the slapstick scene of the zombie baby rampaging around a park (who knew that stuffing a giggling baby into a burlap sack while punching it could be comedy gold?), and the classic lines "Your mother ate my dog!" and "I kick ass for the Lord!"

I'd also agree with One False Move. Starting with an incredibly brutal scene of mass murder calculated to cast a pall over the rest of the film, the tone then changes to focus on a small town sheriff's attempts to prove himself by catching the criminals as they come to hide out in his town. I've not seen No Country For Old Men yet but I wonder if it would bear any comparison to this film?

zedz, Blue Steel is the film where Jamie Lee Curtis is a police officer who loses her gun during a convenience store robbery. The gun is picked up by one of the customers who was there at the time who goes on a crime spree with it while at the same time starting up a romance with her. While I thought that the film started strong but fell into cliched pure cop vs psycho criminal shootout stuff by the end it does make an interesting pair with the previous Kathryn Bigelow film, Point Break - both films are about a relationship in which one party has a secret agenda that will destroy their burgeoning love, just in this case the criminal has the secret, not the undercover cop!

Colin that last 15-20 minutes of Braindead, which is certainly the best part of the film and the best 15-20 minutes of Peter Jackson for me, is marvellous stuff: its hard to keep up with everything thats going on, but theres a wealth of visual imagination on display here.
Its almost like a speeded-up, gory, bad-taste Playtime, where even if you study carefully, you'll need to playback a few times before you pick up everything.

OFM definitely resembles 'No Country' a lot: would make a great double-bill, in fact, although its probably tauter, and more realistic than the Coens film.
And, as a bonus, Carl Franklin is one of my favourite DVD commentators: he's got a very relaxed, engaging style

[brendanjc]

I'm glad to see a mention of Point Break, which would certainly chart highly for me - sometimes I struggle to watch films I haven't seen, even ones I've been looking forward to, because I know I could always just pop Point Break in again instead and have a great time. As far as Peter Jackson goes, I wasn't too impressed with Braindead - it seemed like a retread of the ground Raimi already covered much better and it wasn't nearly funny enough to make it worthwhile to me. I have no desire to revisit it. His Heavenly Creatures, however, I need to rewatch as I think it could place pretty highly for me.

I brainstormed a quick top ten and I believe Jennifer Aniston might make two appearances in it. I'll give you a hint, I'm not counting Leprochaun.

[domino harvey]

I remember catching the film late at night and I don't know if I was just in a silly mood or what, but I have never laughed more in any movie than I did during my first viewing of Dead Alive. By the time the last half hour hit, I was hyperventilating and about to pass out from laughing so hard. Oddly enough, I wouldn't really count it among my favorite comedies or anything, as it doesn't seem nearly as funny in retrospect as it does during the whole carnage, but it will still chart for me on sentiment if nothing else . If only he would stop being so damn reverential of his material, Jackson might make another film as fun as this one.

[Cronenfly]

Agree with this, but you should also track down a copy of Homicide. The German edition is pretty good, and the film is excellent, up there with The Spanish Prisoner.

I've been looking for some time now for a watchable (i.e. not P&S like the UK DVD) release of Homicide, with no luck-is the German edition anamorphic widescreen/an okay transfer otherwise, and does anyone know of any other decent editions of the film around?

[domino harvey]

Criterion confirmed their working on another Mamet title and Homicide is the only one that would seem to have its rights available, so you might want to sit it out-- or buy it so that Criterion will announce it for the rest of us!

And speaking of Homicide, it's a shame we can't name TV shows!

[Cronenfly]

You're right domino, but it's certainly been a long time since that email confirmation of more Mamet came, and I'm an impatient fellow.

This French disc looks promising (and is cheap enough I'd buy it in hopes of hurrying along a CC announcement)-can anyone vouch as to whether it's actually widescreen or not?

[Forrest Taft]

You're right domino, but it's certainly been a long time since that email confirmation of more Mamet came, and I'm an impatient fellow.

This French disc looks promising (and is cheap enough I'd buy it in hopes of hurrying along a CC announcement)-can anyone vouch as to whether it's actually widescreen or not?

As I never found out whether or not the French disc was widescreen, I bought the German one. Anamorphic widescreen, English audio, and removable German subs. EUR 7,99, so it´s not exactly expensive. The transfer is allright, nothing exceptional. I´ll double dip when Crtiterion releases it. If every Mamet fan on the board imports the German disc, Criterion will probably announce their release next month.

[colinr0380]

The sustained end sequence of Braindead/Dead Alive is jawdropping! It has the same anarchic spirit as Evil Dead II (which I placed in my 80s list), but with more of an emphasis on creating engaging characters than that film which was more of a collection of set piece moments (in the good sense of having covered the material from a character orientated point of view in the first Evil Dead, letting them have fun with it the second time without worrying about plot development, rather than the bad Spider-Man 3 sense of seeming to not care about further character development!)

I guess the reason why it does not feel so comedic by the end is that the slapstick comedy moments are balanced by some more disturbing scenes. The laughter at the excessiveness is mixed with some gagging at just how nasty some of the scenes are - and then there's the icky Freudian subtext with the mother that becomes supergiantmonstertext at the end!

But then there's always a scene with some bowels preening themselves in front of a bathroom mirror or the baby vs blender moment to inspire a chuckle!

I'll forgive Jackson for the over reverence to the Lord of the Rings and King Kong adaptations (Lord of the Rings will likely not place highly from me in the next poll but I'm glad it was finally adapted for the screen properly. It was strange to have all the filmic copies and rip offs without there being an official adaptation of the ur-material for fantasy films. And I thought it was quite sweet that he parlayed his fame from those films into doing another dream project, even though any remake is never going to replace the original in people's estimations) Heavenly Creatures will probably place highly for me though - it was a fascinating story and clearly emphasised the focus in his films on the, albeit extreme, responses of the characters to the situation they find themselves in, something that was always present in Braindead but could have been missed under all the gore! (They're both films about the difficult relationships children have with their parents!)

I keep meaning to track down Meet The Feebles but have not yet seen that one!

[Cronenfly]

You're right domino, but it's certainly been a long time since that email confirmation of more Mamet came, and I'm an impatient fellow.

This French disc looks promising (and is cheap enough I'd buy it in hopes of hurrying along a CC announcement)-can anyone vouch as to whether it's actually widescreen or not?

As I never found out whether or not the French disc was widescreen, I bought the German one. Anamorphic widescreen, English audio, and removable German subs. EUR 7,99, so it´s not exactly expensive. The transfer is allright, nothing exceptional. I´ll double dip when Crtiterion releases it. If every Mamet fan on the board imports the German disc, Criterion will probably announce their release next month.

I rolled the dice on the French edition (as the specs indicate it is Anamorphic 1.85:1 on all available listings; looking at the original language details, ebay's autotranslator substituted Full Screen for 16:9 [ever so helpful]), as it was only $15 CAD all in; I'll report back on the quality, even though it's probably going to end up being CC's May Mamet. It's been on my must-see list for so long, however, that I don't mind.