criterionforum.org

It is on the margin for me right now, but could we add Oliver Parker's Othello (1995)? Strong performances by Fishburne and Branaugh in this one.

Done

Could you add Godzilla vs. Destoroyah which is such a charming and lovely tribute to the big G. This one is all about Godzilla dying of course, but what I really appreciate is how it tries to utilize those 40 years of history to see everything Godzilla has meant. We have fear of scientific process especially relating to trauma involving nuclear fallout, the mythological pseudo-god, and even a bit of the goofy savior of humanity elements. I hadn’t previously known how tied to the oxygen destroyer the film would be, but that’s such a brilliant way to bring things together.

I also thought Dead Man Walking was quite good if not as successful. There’s a lot of goods here, but mostly I wish that it showed off more of the abundant smarts it clearly has. Making Penn such a vile idiot is really beneficial as the film’s point on the extremity of capital punishment wouldn’t be as effective if Robbins thought Penn could make any sort of real redemption. It leads into other ideas that are more powerful than a wronged man narrative could provide.

That’s where we reach the film’s limits though as making the sister so naive on the process prevents the audience perspective from considering all of the points it tries to convey. I imagine the meaning for Robbins is the opportunity for expression of a left wing Catholicism, but I was just left with this sense that Robbins isn’t as considered in theological discourse as he is political. A Scorsese picture this is not. There’s not a real depth to the political discourse either though as everything is portrayed on the first feeling. I really realized the degree to which I was being let done in the scene with the Gunney. Those are three lovely performances let done by a script that won’t go where it needs to. Instead of leaving Sarandon speechless it would have been more effective for her to be able to explain how she sees him as deserving opportunities for redemption even though he is clearly an unpleasant person who has done an evil deed and have her well reasoned ideas fail in the face of humanity.

knives wrote: Wed Jul 09, 2025 9:50 am Could you add Godzilla vs. Destoroyah

Done

Stuart Saves His Family is a dumb SNL movie which gets way too real and I love it. Stuart is this over the top guy, but his skit bit is largely pushed to the side for a family that is largely played straight. The recently departed Harris Yulin as Stuart’s alcoholic father is especially good due to playing this like he’s in an Oscar winning drama. He really sells an absolute heartbreak to the audience that this cruel man is so lost. A particular piece of genius from the script level is introducing him through an act where his alcoholic irresponsibility would make a child impressed and an adult uncomfortable.

Ramis and his team managed to have me in tears with what is a fairly absurd movie. By making things so often so silly and hyperbolic it manages to create a reality of a damaged home more true than most any other I can think of.

Can you add Hilary (Hodgson). Animated short available on YouTube. A man tells a boy a strange bedtime story. I think it’s very funny.

Done!

Please add the following titles:
Outbreak (Wolfgang Petersen)
My Family (Gregory Nava)
Cry, the Beloved Country (Darrell Roodt)
Screamers (Christian Duguay)
Casas de fuego / Houses of Fire (Juan Bautista Stagnaro)
Hong ying tao / Red Cherry (Daying Ye)
Hei jun ma / A Mongolian Tale / Fei Xie

I've added all of those with the exception of Screamers, which I have as a 1996 film

Been a while since I posted mostly because I haven’t seen anything too exciting one way or the other. All of the films have been enjoyably okay, but without anything to really grab onto.

For example, Beyond Rangoon isn’t a bad film and I think the symbol of hope now being an ironic figure helps the movie’s sense of distress, but it also can’t help but feel like a tired attempt to chase a narrative style, Killing Fields, a decade past it’s prime. On another track Pilots is probably the Petzold that has worked best for me so far yet it doesn’t muster itself beyond being a very good television movie. I vibed with it even if he still has that Todd Haynes problem for me of being only intellectually stimulating and only just so. The humour hit well and elevated the emotions so that the lead became a healthy character to empathize with even as the story is about her unhealthy life.

Before list submissions, I recommend watching the most bonkers Christmas short, White Christmas, up on YT (search "white christmas 1995" to get the full movie)

My thoughts from the holiday thread:

therewillbeblus wrote: Mon Dec 26, 2022 5:17 am It's by no means an objectively 'good' movie, but the animated 1995 short White Christmas is legit one of the most bizarre Christmas movies I've ever seen. It plays out like an Adult Swim episode that's only half-conscious of its ludicrousness, with absurd narrative escalations that include a superfluous kidnapping by Thunder and Lightning who embody Rocky and Bullwinkle villains (which is suddenly over almost as soon as it starts with a nonchalant shrug of deus ex machina), and a slew of kooky travel companions led by an effeminate goblin incarnation of Jack Frost who presents like a combination of Dobby the elf and Jar Jar Binks. It's surreal in ways that are occasionally clearly intentional, like with the wizard duo near the end who serve as reflexive commentators on the disinhibited imaginative eccentricities at play, but the arbitrary happenings are mostly pitched with sincerity, which makes it all even funnier- becoming an animated version of a so-bad-it's-good movie

If I'm going to vote for a bonkers animated Christmas special, it would have to be for my 2nd favorite Xmas special of all time (after SCTV), the Space Ghost Coat To Coast Xmas special, of which there were 2 (1994 & 1995?), but unfortunately it looks like only a promo and this excerpt remains on Youtube.

1995 was the year Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge started its legendary theatrical run – one which, if your standards aren't strict, has yet to end. (In the U.S., it is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.) It is the second-highest grossing Hindi film of the ‘90s, it all but swept its year’s Filmfare Awards. It’s a crowd-pleaser, a career-changer, part of the bedrock of New Bollywood.

And it starts substantively, with an émigré shopkeeper (Amrish Puri) in London feeding pigeons and pondering his place between nations. “I’ve spent half my life here, yet this land and I are still strangers.” DDLJ challenges connecting values to place, wonders at how much identity is rooted in tradition and how much can be informed by progress. The weightiest parts of the film belong to the shopkeep and his wife (Farida Jalal), whose yearnings and regrets have come to rest on their eldest daughter Simran (Kajol). She’s been promised away to an arranged marriage back in a country she no longer remembers, begs temporary reprieve to join friends who are seeing Europe by rail. “Can’t you spare me a month of my own life?”

That month fills most the first half of the picture. The movement is welcome, and the film was apparently fresh in showing Anglicized Indians (“neither one thing, nor the other”) as normal kids, comfortable comporting themselves no matter their surroundings, as opposed to disconnected embodiments of Western corruption. It doesn’t matter where they are, really: The movie almost immediately runs out of material, its sense of place is a blur. (Europe is primarily Switzerland.) The path errs obvious (an antagonistic road trip romance, the scheming mechanics of matrimonium interruptus), the only surprise being how often a film considered classic tips from familiar to plain. (Even feeble: A climactic action sequence is terrible both in its existence and execution.) Genre obligations prove as burdensome as tradition, product placement gets double-fisted, messaging gets muddled.

The male lead is Shah Rukh Khan, who here graduated from villain roles to romantic hero, and his fearless abrasiveness evolves from annoyance to boon. Movie’s longer than three hours, and though some switches flip at convenience, the run time helps Khan negotiate where arrogance becomes charm, and lets his character recall bad behavior when the only way to fit in is to bro out. DDLJ is resolutely safe stuff, so every tension is welcome. Which makes it tolerable, if not palatable, that a story rightly belonging to Kajol is dominated by Khan and Puri.

The real stars are the songs. All great. The musical numbers themselves are mostly serviceable. Color, energy, charisma. “Ho Gaya Hai Tujhko” is an effective turning point, reinforces themes of distance and longing as the young couple discover they’re in love away from each other. (That mandolin riff is never leaving you.) “Ruk Ja O Dil Deewane” has fun deploying its trumpet players.

This was the first movie directed by Aditya Chopra, son of Yash; he has not directed many, preferring to produce and mogul and occasionally write. There’s enough sporadic wit and consideration in his and Javed Siddiqui’s script to battle your doubts along the way, and enough of DDLJ works that it’s more than just a pleasant, inefficient soundtrack delivery system. But perhaps its perpetual presence in theaters speaks less to greatness than continuity. You’ve seen and enjoyed something similar so many times before and since; may as well play on.

Thanks everyone for your participation this month. Friendly reminder that lists are due today

swo17 wrote: Sun Jun 01, 2025 7:50 pm ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1995

VOTE THROUGH JULY 31

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.

Can you add Higher Learning to the list? Sorry for the late request!

Done!

Can you add Adam Curtis’s doc The Living Dead and I will submit?

Added

Done!

The 1995 List



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

01. La Cérémonie [A Judgment in Stone] (Claude Chabrol) 336/16(10)/2(x4)
02. Safe (Todd Haynes) 264/13(8)/1(x2)
03. Подземље [Podzemlje] [Underground] (Emir Kusturica) 236/13(4)/1
04. Before Sunrise (Richard Linklater) 209/12(5)/1
05. Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch) 187/12(4)/2
06. 墮落天使 [Do lok tin si] [Fallen Angels] (Wong Kar-wai) 147/8(3)/1(x2)
07. Clueless (Amy Heckerling) 139/9(4)/1
(tie) Casino (Martin Scorsese) 139/10(2)/5(x2)
09. La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz) 137/7(4)/1(x2)
10. Heat (Michael Mann) 134/11(1)/5
11. Haut bas fragile [Up, Down, Fragile] (Jacques Rivette) 121/6(3)/1
12. 幻の光 [Maboroshi no hikari] [Maborosi] (Hirokazu Kore-eda) 120/9(1)/2
13. Toy Story (John Lasseter) 113/7(2)/1
14. A Comédia de Deus [God's Comedy] (João César Monteiro) 107/6(3)/1
15. Seven (David Fincher) 106/9(2)/1
16. 耳をすませば [Mimi o sumaseba] [Whisper of the Heart] (Yoshifumi Kondō) 92/8(1)/3
17. To Die For (Gus Van Sant) 89/6(1)/4
(tie) Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee) 89/6(1)/3
19. O Convento [The Convent] (Manoel de Oliveira) 86/5(2)/1(x2)
20. 12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam) 85/5(2)/4
21. Kicking and Screaming (Noah Baumbach) 84/8(1)/1
22. Το βλέμμα του Οδυσσέα [To vlemma tou odyssea] [Ulysses' Gaze] (Theo Angelopoulos) 71/3(3)/2(x2)
(tie) Babe (Chris Noonan) 71/4(1)/1
24. Smoke (Wayne Wang) 70/5(1)/5
(tie) Clockers (Spike Lee) 70/5/7
26. Die Hard with a Vengeance (John McTiernan) 65/5(1)/5
27. Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin) 64/5(2)/1
(tie) The Addiction (Abel Ferrara) 64/4/7
29. Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (David Lynch) 61/3(1)/2
(tie) Crumb (Terry Zwigoff) 61/5(1)/2
31. 攻殻機動隊 [Kōkaku kidōtai] [Ghost in the Shell] (Mamoru Oshii) 60/4(1)/5
32. Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven) 59/3(1)/2
(tie) The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi) 59/4(2)/4(x2)
34. A Close Shave (Nick Park) 58/4(1)/4
35. Lord of Illusions (Clive Barker) 57/3(1)/3
36. سلام سینما [Salaam cinema] (Mohsen Makhmalbāf) 56/3(2)/3
(tie) The Neon Bible (Terence Davies) 56/6/8
38. Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton) 54/3(2)/2
39. بادکنک سفيد [Badkonake sefid] [The White Balloon] (Jafar Panahi) 51/5/11
40. Kids (Larry Clark) 49/4/6
41. Dead Man Walking (Tim Robbins) 47/3/7
(tie) 好男好女 [Hao nan hao nu] [Good Men, Good Women] (Hou Hsiao-hsien) 47/3/6
43. Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 44/4/7
44. Deseret (James Benning) 41/2(1)/4
(tie) La Cité des enfants perdus [The City of Lost Children] (Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro) 41/3(1)/1
(tie) The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer) 41/4(1)/2
(tie) Flamenco (Carlos Saura) 41/3/10
48. The Bridges of Madison County (Clint Eastwood) 40/2(1)/2
49. Full Body Massage (Nicolas Roeg) 38/2(1)/4
50. A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (Martin Scorsese & Michael Henry Wilson) 37/2/6
(tie) Cold Comfort Farm (John Schlesinger) 37/2/6
(tie) Lust och fägring stor [All Things Fair] (Bo Widerberg) 37/2/6

ALSO-RANS

Friday (F. Gary Gray) 36/2(1)/3
Le Garçu (Maurice Pialat) 33/2(1)/1
Ah, l'amour (Don Hertzfeldt) 33/2/7
Thương nhớ đồng quê [Nostalgia for the Countryside] (Đặng Nhật Minh) 33/2/7
Two Deaths (Nicolas Roeg) 32/2(1)/1
Get Shorty (Barry Sonnenfeld) 32/2(1)/4
Mighty Aphrodite (Woody Allen) 32/2/8
Apollo 13 (Ron Howard) 31/2/8

The Doom Generation (Gregg Araki) 29/2(1)/5
ラブレター [Rabu retā] [Love Letter] (Shunji Iwai) 29/2/10
Strange Days (Kathryn Bigelow) 29/4/10
Land and Freedom (Ken Loach) 28/2/7
Nadja (Michael Almereyda) 28/4/9
La Fille seule [A Single Girl] (Benoît Jacquot) 27/2/10
Angels & Insects (Philip Haas) 27/3/11
Xích lô [Cyclo] (Trần Anh Hùng) 26/2(1)/2
Evidence (Godfrey Reggio) 25/2/11
Nixon (Oliver Stone) 25/3/16

Dead Presidents (Albert & Allen Hughes) 23/2/14
La flor de mi secreto [The Flower of My Secret] (Pedro Almodóvar) 22/2/9
紅番區 [Hung fan kui] [Rumble in the Bronx] (Stanley Tong) 22/2/13
The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman) 20/2/11
摇啊摇, 摇到外婆桥 [Yao a yao yao dao wai po qiao] [Shanghai Triad] (Zhang Yimou) 18/2/12
Antonia [Antonia's Line] (Marleen Gorris) 16/2/16
Koza [Cocoon] (Nuri Bilge Ceylan) 13/2/14
Black Is... Black Ain't (Marlon Riggs) 12/2/15
Les Cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma [One Hundred and One Nights] (Agnès Varda) 11/2/17
Mallrats (Kevin Smith) 11/3/20

Persuasion (Roger Michell) 10/2/17
Flirt (Hal Hartley) 9/2/18
Georgia (Ulu Grosbard) 8/2/21

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

The Living Dead (Adam Curtis) 11
L'Univers de Jacques Demy [The World of Jacques Demy] (Agnès Varda) 25
Nadie hablará de nosotras cuando hayamos muerto [Nobody Will Speak of Us When We're Dead] (Agustín Díaz Yanes) 8
Духовные голоса [Dukhovnye golosa] [Spiritual Voices] (Aleksandr Sokurov) 15
El día de la bestia [The Day of the Beast] (Álex de la Iglesia) 3
女人四十 [Nu ren si shi] [Summer Snow] (Ann Hui) 9
Hilary (Anthony Hodgson) 11
L'Appât [Fresh Bait] (Bertrand Tavernier) 2
Forget Paris (Billy Crystal) 2
When It Rains (Charles Burnett) 14
Guimba, un tyran une époque [Guimba the Tyrant] (Cheick Oumar Sissoko) 11
Citizen X (Chris Gerolmo) 8
Les Misérables (Claude Lelouch) 16
Sonic Outlaws (Craig Baldwin) 9
Party Girl (Daisy von Scherler Mayer) 15
Blur: Country House (Damien Hirst) 17
Cry, the Beloved Country (Darrell Roodt) 21
Dave Matthews Band: Ants Marching (David Hogan) 18
Dave Matthews Band: What Would You Say (David Hogan) 22
红樱桃 [Hong ying tao] [Red Cherry] (Daying Ye) 5
Premonition (Dominic Angerame) 10
Unzipped (Douglas Keeve) 4
Les Rendez-vous de Paris [Rendezvous in Paris] (Éric Rohmer) 4
Ballet (Frederick Wiseman) 21
水の中の八月 [Mizu no naka no hachigatsu] [August in the Water] (Gakuryū Ishii) 7
L'uomo delle stelle [The Starmaker] (Giuseppe Tornatore) 24
My Family (Gregory Nava) 22
Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity (Guy Maddin) 5
Stuart Saves His Family (Harold Ramis) 15
Heavy (James Mangold) 7
Le Hussard sur le toit [The Horseman on the Roof] (Jean-Paul Rappeneau) 4
Home for the Holidays (Jodie Foster) 19
Higher Learning (John Singleton) 24
While You Were Sleeping (Jon Turteltaub) 25
El callejón de los milagros [Miracle Alley] (Jorge Fons) 14
Casas de fuego [Houses of Fire] (Juan Bautista Stagnaro) 23
White Christmas (Keith Scoble) 25
The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre [Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation] (Kim Henkel) 7
新宿ボーイズ [Shinjuku bōizu] [Shinjuku Boys] (Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams) 3
Primus: Wynona's Big Brown Beaver (Les Claypool) 20
Roumanie (Lucian Pintilie) 14
Wszystko moze sie przytrafic [Anything Can Happen] (Marcel Łoziński) 16
From the Journals of Jean Seberg (Mark Rappaport) 21
Madonna: Bedtime Story (Mark Romanek) 19
R.E.M.: Strange Currencies (Mark Romanek) 15
GoldenEye (Martin Campbell) 25
Záhrada [The Garden] (Martin Šulík) 12
Braveheart (Mel Gibson) 23
Massive Attack: Protection (Michel Gondry) 21
Al di là delle nuvole [Beyond the Clouds] (Michelangelo Antonioni) 21
Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis) 13
Welcome II the Terrordome (Ngozi Onwurah) 24
Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam (Nick Broomfield) 9
Circle of Friends (Pat O'Connor) 10
When Night Is Falling (Patricia Rozema) 24
Pulp: Common People (Pedro Romhanyi) 14
Pulp: Disco 2000 (Pedro Romhanyi) 16
Stairs 1, Geneva (Peter Greenaway) 19
Forgotten Silver (Peter Jackson & Costa Botes) 22
Tommy Boy (Peter Segal) 6
The Passion of Darkly Noon (Philip Ridley) 8
Richard III (Richard Loncraine) 20
The American President (Rob Reiner) 11
渚のシンドバッド [Nagisa no shindobaddo] [Like Grains of Sand] (Ryōsuke Hashiguchi) 14
The Crossing Guard (Sean Penn) 25
Björk: It's Oh So Quiet (Spike Jonze) 11
The Pharcyde: Drop (Spike Jonze) 19
The Underneath (Steven Soderbergh) 20
Joy Street (Suzan Pitt) 4
ゴニン [Gonin] [The Five] (Takashi Ishii) 18
Zone (Takashi Itō) 20
みんな～やってるか！ [Minnā yatteru ka] [Getting Any?] (Takeshi Kitano) 16
Billy Madison (Tamra Davis) 12
Dolores Claiborne (Taylor Hackford) 10
Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo) 14
Tod für fünf Stimmen [Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices] (Werner Herzog) 19
Outbreak (Wolfgang Petersen) 13
黑駿馬 [Hei jun ma] [A Mongolian Tale] (Xie Fei) 20
マークスの山 [Mākusu no yama] [Marks] (Yōichi Sai) 6

21 lists submitted

Thank you swo

1. Devil in a Blue Dress
2. Up, Down, Fragile
3. Before Sunrise
4. The Quick and the Dead
5. Clueless
6. Safe
7. The Addiction
8. The Convent
9. All Things Fair
10. Lord of Illusions

TMDaines wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:03 am Adam Curtis’s doc The Living Dead

This was a great documentary about America 20 years from now. If you had suggested it earlier, I would have voted for it!

6 of my top 10, also-rans and orphans: Cyclo (one of my all-time favorites), Unzipped, Marks, "Ah, l'amour", Flower of My Secret, Love Letter.

The other 4: Fallen Angels, [safe], God's Comedy, and the Lynch short.

Also: just noticed Sono's deliriously brilliant Bad Film was listed for 1995, the year it was shot - though the first screenings were, I think, in 1997 and, of course, it was "revised" 15 years later. It would've been top 5 for me, and another orphan!

yoshimori wrote: Sun Aug 03, 2025 5:41 am Also: just noticed the Sono's deliriously brilliant Bad Film was listed for 1995, the year it was shot - though the first screenings were, I think, in 1997 and, of course, it was "revised" 15 years later. It would've been top 5 for me, and another orphan!

A tricky film to assign. I went with "1995/2012" to capture when it was shot and when it eventually received some kind of wide release. (I never noticed anything about a 1997 release when I was looking into this though.) When I assign more than one year to a film, it will always be eligible based on the earliest year listed. I recommend taking 20 minutes or whatever to read through the list of eligible titles for each year. In my experience, there will usually be a handful of surprises

Thanks swo! Interesting that the number one film had no number one votes (I’m pretty sure I had it in second behind Kicking and Screaming)