The 1997 Mini-List

[knives]

Could you also add Alan Rudolph’s Afterglow which is kind of Rudolph’s an old master playing effortlessly with his toys film. It’s not his deepest and is entirely entrenched in all of his past preoccupations. With someone this good though, flying this high, that’s enough. Rudolph and his actors portray pain and loving so well that even when they exist in a world of the past I find off putting I love them and care that they achieve happiness and personal glory. Nolte going on about women being women shouldn’t work, but he and the script hit on the yearning that helps form that person. I wanted him so badly to find peace. He never feels less than the potential of a good person and that truth runs throughout the leads.

[John Cope]

Didn't realize it wasn't on the list. Always had it tipped for my top 10. It's actually among my favorites of his work. I've always thought of its more grounded human dramatics and raw, exposed emotional vulnerability as a link back to Choose Me.

[swo17]

Added

[knives]

Thanks Swo.

Didn't realize it wasn't on the list. Always had it tipped for my top 10. It's actually among my favorites of his work. I've always thought of its more grounded human dramatics and raw, exposed emotional vulnerability as a link back to Choose Me.

The further I’m away from this the more I like it especially the conclusion which is so incredibly multi-layered in how the audience feels about them. Like, I don’t know exactly how ‘happy’ an ending anyone gets and maybe it is better to think of them in terms of catharsis.

[Lowry_Sam]

...my second favorite film by Ann Hui, Eighteen Springs?

What’s your first?

Well I haven't revisited it since the mid 1980s, but I found Boat People even more impactful than The Killing Fields, which I had seen a week or 2 earlier. It was probably the first film I had seen that depicted the Vietnam War (or perhaps any war) where the experience of Westerners wasn't the central focus & so it had a lasting impression. I don't know if it will hold up as well as I remember. Critiques since then have claimed it to be a bit overwrought & I have many more films to compare it to now, so I'm not sure it will hold up as well as I remembered.

That being said, I haven't even seen 1/2 of her output. I really wish more of her titles would be readily available in at least HD.

[therewillbeblus]

I really like Choose Me but Afterglow just felt like a sloppily-lite callback to its interests and showed none of its charms. I really liked the women in this - Christie and Boyle are dynamite in their parts, but neither Nolte and especially Miller don't fill the shoes of Carradine et al. Something like Trouble in Mind is way more effective for me - this one can't decide whether it wants to be dreamy or grounded and oscillates rather than find that sweet spot that the best of Rudolph's work does, where it can be both in the magic of the movies. Afterglow is like a flat soda, its title unearned

[knives]

Yeah, I can’t defend Afterglow from that entirely. Until the last half hour or so I might have been with you in fact. It’s definitely his weakest film I’ve seen though That’s an impressive statement in itself.

Hopefully these other watches I’ve had recently will do better for the people.

Not yet on the Masterlist, thanks swo for all the additions,Konate’s Gift is the best of the three Fanta Régina Nacro films I’ve seen. It’s fundamentally a PSA, but like any great work of propaganda it succeeds because of how exciting it is as a story. It takes a fabelistic tone as a man’s wife returns to town changed with a magic that leaves him impotent. In the background the town is ravaged by a cursed disease no one can defeat. Of course really she just developed an education and learned that condoms can prevent aids.


Dial H I S T O R Y is a tough one to pin down and all the better for it. What seems to be explored is the way extremity creates narrative and how news functions as the storyteller, a job it is completely inadequate to handle. Grimonprez continues to just be a better Adam Curtis to me as he weaves this paranoia into a leftist fable on human psychology.

Extra points for featuring the PLO in a neutral manner and making it work.

[John Cope]

I regard Afterglow as really the last classic Alan Rudolph film and by that I mean that it's among the ones that most thoroughly captures his aesthetic, his thematic interests, his unique tone and temperament as well as uniting the collaborators of his best and most classic films (specifically the tech contributors in this case, Mark Isham's gorgeous score and Toyomichi Kurita's equally gorgeous cinematography, since here we don't have any of Rudolph's regular stable of actors--though Nolte would work with him again several more times). And I do think this is among his very best films, alongside Choose Me, Trouble in Mind and The Moderns (maybe also Equinox and Mrs. Parker).

Here we have the classic Rudolph tropes of heightened style and artifice in conjunction with glimpses of painfully revealed sensitivity, sincerity and vulnerability that informs it all. This careful integration of seeming extremes really is what distinguishes his work and what probably still keeps it marginal despite the great accomplishment of it; I just generally think that there are too many that don't know what to do with that and would rather just dismiss it. But it is a dramatic and remarkably rare accomplishment (I think here too of Zalman King's Chromiumblue TV series, met with a similar sort of incomprehension and disregarded for similar reasons, and the extremes there are even more extreme--it's also worth noting that King actually collaborated with Rudolph on 1980's Roadie). This is a thorough integration and does not cause a whiplash effect on an audience as the significance of that integration is well considered. The roundelay of two couples switching partners unbeknownst to each other lends itself to bedroom farce and even screwball comedy and Rudolph plays into that, especially in scenes in the younger couple's apartment which is a massive and obvious theatrical set in which the stylized artifice is fully acknowledged and embraced (it's almost certainly not an actual apartment within the famed Habitat 67 building in Montreal which provides the characteristically fetishized exterior--Rudolph always loves idiosyncratic modern architecture). He even finds time to play up associations with frustrated housewife-handyman porn. Meanwhile we get an ample dose of Rudolph's signature stylized comic dialogue but played typically low key, unforced, so that the artifice of it exist in the contents of it, the actual words and language rather than the delivery. As such this then is an element that provides a bridge between the overt artifice and those moments of reflective melancholy that exist almost as cracks in a facade. And yet, as ever in Rudolph's work, the sincerity is not in competition with the artifice or positioned as somehow more "real" and authentic but is actually positioned along a spectrum of continuity and naturally emerging expressivity. All modes then are true and real and offer up revealing and insightful glimpses at the characters and their world.

Having said all that humor in Rudolph always seems to be a litmus test for tolerance. We find characteristic examples in lines in dialogue ("I don't know what I like but I know what art is," "I'm not completely without charm. As a matter of fact, I live up to the very edge of my charm.") or actual dialogue (In the midst of an attempted romantic clinch: "I'm watching. I don't want to miss anything." "Don't worry. Nothing's happening.") and visual gags (Nolte glugging Geritol in a bubble bath). All of this still makes me laugh heartily every time after all this time but I recognize this does not work so well upon everyone and may be another big sticking point, especially given the dryness with which it's all dispensed.

I admire the sophistication of the film; the performances tend to get most of the credit in this one but it's a beautifully crafted script. The central heartbreak here, that which haunts the Nolte-Christie relationship and which is powerfully resonant at the end, is revealed to us only gradually through incidental detail along the way. It's a reminder of Rudolph's overarching stylistic methodology in which moments of raw sincerity are only glimpsed along the way as a means of acknowledging their existence and reality and their informing of all. Here as the depths of this circumstance are plumbed and revealed they stand in contrast to the rather murky and opaque Miller character, easily the most impenetrable of the four main characters; he is often accompanied by a signature and ornate revolving camera move the meaning of which is not immediately clear. But this is an appropriate contrast too as it's a match for the way in which the rotating sets of couples overlap and eventually mirror one another's circumstances and tragedies; specifically how that alluded to central heartbreak is reflected in the Boyle character's situation at the end and how that then acknowledges the difficulties inherent in any marriage. Indeed, what may be Afterglow's greatest accomplishment is how knit together and unified it all is as a thematic and aesthetically coherent whole, how the intimate personal revelations are tied into and made possible and meaningfully relevant by the comedic structure and vice versa.

[swo17]

Konate’s Gift

Added

[John Cope]

Please add First Love, Last Rites.

[swo17]

I've added it as a 1998 film, since it only had a festival screening in 1997 and opened wider/got awards recognition the next year

[swo17]

Sorry for not posting a reminder about the deadline earlier, I've been swamped at work. Related: I may be late posting results, so there's still plenty of time to vote. Also...

Dial H I S T O R Y is a tough one to pin down and all the better for it. What seems to be explored is the way extremity creates narrative and how news functions as the storyteller, a job it is completely inadequate to handle. Grimonprez continues to just be a better Adam Curtis to me as he weaves this paranoia into a leftist fable on human psychology.

Extra points for featuring the PLO in a neutral manner and making it work.

This was awesome

[ryannichols7]

threw my ballot down before you had to message me about it, so I feel accomplished! hope all is good with work swo!

great year for film and music videos alike. I will admit I had a panic moment when I saw Pulp's "Help the Aged" on here thinking I somehow missed "This is Hardcore" (their best video and one of the best vids ever). forgot that "Aged" came quite in advance of the record and I can vote for the latter next month. some Pulp superfan I am!

[Lowry_Sam]

I will admit I had a panic moment when I saw Pulp's "Help the Aged" on here thinking I somehow missed "This is Hardcore" (their best video and one of the best vids ever). forgot that "Aged" came quite in advance of the record and I can vote for the latter next month. some Pulp superfan I am!

Just saw them live (w/ LCD Soundsystem @ The Hollywood Bowl) & had hoped for this one live (no go), but they did do This Is Hardcore, which was very much based on the (greatest) video (of all time), complete with huge chandelier over the stage and parting red curtain and Jarvis reclined in a chair. I don't usually vote for music videos or shorts for these, but if there's one that will go in for 97 it would have to be Come To Daddy by Aphex Twin.

[Roger Ryan]

I will admit I had a panic moment when I saw Pulp's "Help the Aged" on here thinking I somehow missed "This is Hardcore" (their best video and one of the best vids ever). forgot that "Aged" came quite in advance of the record and I can vote for the latter next month. some Pulp superfan I am!

Just saw them live (w/ LCD Soundsystem @ The Hollywood Bowl) & had hoped for this one live (no go), but they did do This Is Hardcore, which was very much based on the (greatest) video (of all time), complete with huge chandelier over the stage and parting red curtain and Jarvis reclined in a chair. I don't usually vote for music videos or shorts for these, but if there's one that will go in for 97 it would have to be Come To Daddy by Aphex Twin.

Pulp did do "Help The Aged" when they played Detroit last month. Cocker noted that he was a stickler for keeping everything in the original key which meant he could no longer hit the high notes in the last line of the chorus and asked the audience to sing that line instead each time it came around!

[swo17]

The 1997 List



##. Film (Director) points/votes(top 5 placements, aka likely votes in decade list)/highest ranking

01. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson) 313/16(9)/2
02. Lost Highway (David Lynch) 306/16(9)/1(x4)
03. もののけ姫 [Mononoke-hime] [Princess Mononoke] (Hayao Miyazaki) 244/12(7)/2(x3)
04. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson) 240/14(5)/1(x3)
05. ...طعم گيلاس [Tame gilas] [Taste of Cherry] (Abbas Kiarostami) 231/12(7)/1
06. 春光乍洩 [Chun gwong cha sit] [Happy Together] (Wong Kar-wai) 228/13(7)/1(x2)
07. The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan) 224/14(3)/2
08. キュア [Kyua] [Cure] (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 203/10(7)/1(x2)
09. Funny Games (Michael Haneke) 190/9(5)/1
10. Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino) 189/15(2)/3
11. The Ice Storm (Ang Lee) 152/11(1)/3
12. 河流 [Heliu] [The River] (Tsai Ming-liang) 118/7(2)/1
13. Deconstructing Harry (Woody Allen) 115/9(1)/3
14. Gummo (Harmony Korine) 104/7(1)/1
(tie) The Game (David Fincher) 104/8(2)/4(x2)
16. The Spanish Prisoner (David Mamet) 89/5(2)/1
17. Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest) 88/6(2)/4(x2)
18. はなび [Hana-bi] [Fireworks] (Takeshi Kitano) 83/7/10
19. Titanic (James Cameron) 82/6(2)/1
20. Insomnia (Erik Skjoldbjærg) 80/7(1)/4
21. 小武 [Xiao wu] [Pickpocket] (Jia Zhangke) 78/6(1)/3
22. Starship Troopers (Paul Verhoeven) 77/4(2)/2
23. La vita è bella [Life Is Beautiful] (Roberto Benigni) 73/4(2)/4
24. うなぎ [Unagi] [The Eel] (Shōhei Imamura) 71/5(1)/5
(tie) Eve's Bayou (Kasi Lemmons) 71/7(1)/5
26. Kundun (Martin Scorsese) 70/5(1)/3
27. Face/Off (John Woo) 69/6(1)/5
28. パーフェクトブルー [Pāfekuto burū] [Perfect Blue] (Satoshi Kon) 64/5(1)/2
29. Carne trémula [Live Flesh] (Pedro Almodóvar) 59/4(1)/4
(tie) Career Girls (Mike Leigh) 59/6(1)/2
31. The Blackout (Abel Ferrara) 58/5/6
32. Мать и сын [Mat i syn] [Mother and Son] (Aleksandr Sokurov) 57/4(2)/1
33. Grosse Pointe Blank (George Armitage) 56/5/9
34. Good Will Hunting (Gus Van Sant) 55/3(1)/4
35. آینه [Ayneh] [The Mirror] (Jafar Panahi) 53/3(1)/1
36. 초록 물고기 [Chorok mulgogi] [Green Fish] (Lee Chang-dong) 49/3/6
37. Nowhere (Gregg Araki) 46/4(1)/2
(tie) Scream 2 (Wes Craven) 46/5/10
39. La Vie de Jésus [The Life of Jesus] (Bruno Dumont) 45/4(1)/4
(tie) Ossos [Bones] (Pedro Costa) 45/3/9
41. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (Jay Roach) 44/3/8
(tie) Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld) 44/4/13
43. Kasaba [The Small Town] (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 42/2(1)/4
(tie) Rien ne va plus [The Swindle] (Claude Chabrol) 42/3/6
45. Le Bossu [On Guard] (Philippe de Broca) 40/2(1)/4
(tie) Три истории [Tri istorii] [Three Stories] (Kira Muratova) 40/3/7
47. Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell) 38/2(1)/5
(tie) Absolute Power (Clint Eastwood) 38/2/6
(tie) Gattaca (Andrew Niccol) 38/2/6
50. On connaît la chanson [Same Old Song] (Alain Resnais) 36/2(1)/5
(tie) Contact (Robert Zemeckis) 36/2/7
(tie) بچه‌های آسمان [Bacheha-ye aseman] [Children of Heaven] (Majid Majidi) 36/2/8(x2)

ALSO-RANS

Larmar och gör sig till [In the Presence of a Clown] (Ingmar Bergman) 35/2(1)/5
Le Film à venir [The Film to Come] (Raúl Ruiz) 35/2/7
The House of Yes (Mark Waters) 35/3/9
Public Housing (Frederick Wiseman) 35/3/6
The Butcher Boy (Neil Jordan) 34/3(1)/1
The Rainmaker (Francis Ford Coppola) 34/3/10
The Apostle (Robert Duvall) 33/2(1)/2
Bent (Sean Mathias) 33/2/6

ユメノ銀河 [Yume no ginga] [Labyrinth of Dreams] (Gakuryū Ishii) 32/2/7
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (David Mirkin) 31/3/10
The Boxer (Jim Sheridan) 28/3/12
Spice World (Bob Spiers) 27/2/9
SubUrbia (Richard Linklater) 27/2/9
Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (Errol Morris) 27/2/12
Das Schloß [The Castle] (Michael Haneke) 26/2(1)/1
Chasing Amy (Kevin Smith) 25/3/11
The Wings of the Dove (Iain Softley) 24/2/9
The Myth of Fingerprints (Bart Freundlich) 23/2/6
Afterglow (Alan Rudolph) 23/2/10
The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo) 23/2/10

Les Deux Orphelines Vampires [Two Orphan Vampires] (Jean Rollin) 22/2/10
As Good as It Gets (James L. Brooks) 22/2/11
4 Little Girls (Spike Lee) 22/2/12
Affliction (Paul Schrader) 22/4/18
The Fifth Element (Luc Besson) 21/2/10
Rosewood (John Singleton) 20/2/8
Cube (Vincenzo Natali) 18/2/11
Flucht aus Laos [Little Dieter Needs to Fly] (Werner Herzog) 18/4/16

Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman) 17/2/12
新世紀エヴァンゲリオン劇場版 [Shinseiki evangerion gekijōban] [End of Evangelion] (Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki) 17/2/12
Брат [Brat] [Brother] (Aleksei Balabanov) 17/2/13
Aphex Twin: Come to Daddy (Chris Cunningham) 17/2/15
Björk: Bachelorette (Michel Gondry) 13/2/17
Cop Land (James Mangold) 11/2/17
La tregua [The Truce] (Francesco Rosi) 7/2/22

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

Martín (Hache) (Adolfo Aristarain) 21
Lolita (Adrian Lyne) 3
Washington Square (Agnieszka Holland) 8
Ma vie en rose [My Life in Pink] (Alain Berliner) 7
Mean Guns (Albert Pyun) 8
Abre los ojos [Open Your Eyes] (Alejandro Amenábar) 7
半生缘 [Ban sheng yuan] [Eighteen Springs] (Ann Hui) 4
Wag the Dog (Barry Levinson) 16
Money Talks (Brett Ratner) 7
O Que É Isso, Companheiro? [Four Days in September] (Bruno Barreto) 5
Geraldine Fibbers: California Tuffy (Carla Bozulich) 12
Level Five (Chris Marker) 11
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Clint Eastwood) 16
甲方乙方 [Jia fang yi fang] [The Dream Factory] (Feng Xiaogang) 17
Hamam [Steam: The Turkish Bath] (Ferzan Özpetek) 5
Frost (Fred Kelemen) 1
香港製造 [Heung gong jai jo] [Made in Hong Kong] (Fruit Chan) 13
Pulp: Help the Aged (Garth Jennings) 24
Buud Yam [Spirit of Ancestors] (Gaston Kaboré) 3
Corpus Christi (1997-1998) (Gérard Mordillat & Jérôme Prieur) 5
Mimic (Guillermo del Toro) 22
Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (Guy Maddin) 19
The Other Also (Hal Hartley) 22
The Delta (Ira Sachs) 18
U2: Staring at the Sun (Jake Scott) 18
Witman fiúk [The Witman Boys] (János Szász) 21
Von heute auf morgen [From Today Until Tomorrow] (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet) 25
Alien Resurrection (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) 6
Yours (Jeff Scher) 10
Mojo (Jez Butterworth) 12
Clockwatchers (Jill Sprecher) 12
Le Bassin de J.W. (João César Monteiro) 23
Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (Johan Grimonprez) 6
Uncut (John Greyson) 16
Pavement: Stereo (John Kelsey) 21
Hercules (John Musker & Ron Clements) 10
Prodigy: Smack My Bitch Up (Jonas Åkerlund) 17
Tren de sombras [Train of Shadows] (José Luis Guerín) 3
Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (Kirby Dick) 17
復讐 運命の訪問者 [Fukushū unmei no hōmonsha] [The Revenge: A Visit from Fate] (Kiyoshi Kurosawa) 17
R.E.M.: New Test Leper (Lance Bangs & Dominic DeJoseph) 19
Bliss (Lance Young) 3
Sans titre (Leos Carax) 16
Gasman (Lynne Ramsay) 19
Voyage au début du monde [Viagem ao Princípio do Mundo] [Voyage to the Beginning of the World] (Manoel de Oliveira) 7
Il principe di Homburg [The Prince of Homburg] (Marco Bellocchio) 9
瀬戸内ムーンライト・セレナーデ [Setouchi mūnraito serenāde] [Moonlight Serenade] (Masahiro Shinoda) 7
The Big One (Michael Moore) 25
La Divine Poursuite (Michel Deville) 5
Björk: Jóga (Michel Gondry) 25
Daft Punk: Around the World (Michel Gondry) 5
Santo Luzbel [Saint Lucifer] (Miguel Sabido) 5
萌の朱雀 [Moe no suzaku] (Naomi Kawase) 15
In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute) 12
Barbara (Nils Malmros) 6
U Turn (Oliver Stone) 13
Robinson in Space (Patrick Keiller) 14
Event Horizon (Paul W.S. Anderson) 11
Вор [Vor] [The Thief] (Pavel Chukhray) 7
The Borrowers (Peter Hewitt) 23
Yo La Tengo: Sugarcube (Phil Morrison) 16
The Blood Oranges (Philip Haas) 1
Généalogies d'un crime (Raúl Ruiz) 24
Love and Death on Long Island (Richard Kwietniowski) 21
高度戒備 [Go do gaai bei] [Full Alert] (Ringo Lam) 16
The Castle (Rob Sitch) 25
鬼火 [Onibi] [The Fire Within] (Rokurō Mochizuki) 18
14 Tage lebenslänglich [14 Days to Life] (Roland Suso Richter) 23
Namai [The House] (Šarūnas Bartas) 6
Con Air (Simon West) 14
Blur: On Your Own (Sophie Muller) 20
The Chemical Brothers: Elektrobank (Spike Jonze) 23
The Notorious B.I.G.: Sky's the Limit (Spike Jonze) 24
Amistad (Steven Spielberg) 16
Gadjo dilo [The Crazy Stranger] (Tony Gatlif) 18
Double Team (Tsui Hark) 14
Ulee's Gold (Victor Nunez) 4
Gridlock'd (Vondie Curtis-Hall) 13
Waco: The Rules of Engagement (William Gazecki) 6
Air Force One (Wolfgang Petersen) 21
失楽園 [Shitsurakuen] [Lost Paradise] (Yoshimitsu Morita) 19
有话好好说 [You hua hao hao shuo] [Keep Cool] (Zhang Yimou) 15

23 lists submitted

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks swo,

1. Lost Highway
2. The Spanish Prisoner
3. Princess Mononoke
4. Boogie Nights
5. La divine poursuite
6. The Blackout
7. Deconstructing Harry
8. Good Will Hunting
9. Taste of Cherry
10. Two Orphan Vampires

I had The House of Yes at 11, props to the other two fans. Tough to see Deville orphaned on this board!

[Lowry_Sam]

Pleasantly surprised to see a film with its highest placement, a single #2, beat a film that topped 4 lists.

[John Cope]

A genuinely great year in which it was particularly difficult to find a way to limit a list to just 25 and really any of those could have been in the top 10. There were numerous tough calls to be made and titles I would have liked to have included and had to leave off (e.g. Washington Square, Chasing Amy, Lyne's Lolita, etc. ). At the same time there are only 8 titles within the official top 25 here that appear within my own 25 and the rest I didn't include and probably wouldn't have. There were also surprises within this official list, at least to me. I thought. for instance, that Oliveira's Voyage to the Beginning of the World would do much better as it seemed like one of the films of his most likely to do best generally in such rankings, the other being I'm Going Home; well, that turned out to not be the case with this one at all; we'll see about the other one soon.

1. The Blood Oranges (Haas)
2. Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
3. Bliss (Young)
4. Kasaba (Ceylan)
5. Corpus Christi(1997-1998) (Mordillat & Prieur)
6. The Myth of Fingerprints (Freundlich)
7. Voyage to the Beginning of the World (Oliveira)
8. Lost Highway (Lynch)
9. The Sweet Hereafter (Egoyan)
10. Afterglow (Rudolph)