POLL RESULTS: TOP 100 FILMS OF THE 1990's

La Haine (74 points, 3 votes)

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The Crying Game (74 points, 4 votes)

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Sweet and Lowdown (75 points, 6 votes)

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Secrets and Lies (75 points, 4 votes)

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After Life (76 points, 4 votes)

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xpost

My wife and I are INFATUATED with Brenda Blethyn's character in "Secrets and Lies"!!!! She's one of the greatest cinematic creations ever.

Taste of Cherry (77 points, 5 votes)

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The Blair Witch Project (78 points, 5 votes)

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"Probably best seen on the big screen, before the hype. Give yourself over to its horror, and you're rewarded with plausible characters not killed for their sins (as in every other horror movie) but merely made the pure victims of a good setup (just like you)."

-- Pete Scholtes

Sean Penn's perf in S&D is absolutely beautiful -- and the ending a heart-rending improvement on La Strada -- but the only Allen '90s films I like a LOT are Husbands & Wives and Deconstructing Harry (neither of which made my cut either).

Kore-eda's new film opens in NYC on Friday.

I was bored out of my skull at the Blair Witch con. A woman came up to me afterwards and asked what happened at the end, and I said "They got our $10."

(x-post)

Naked Lunch (79 points, 7 votes)

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Anyway, did anyone nominate Last Broadcast? Don't remember seeing it on the list.

Er, no. The great thing about it is how it manages to mix social commentary (the situation of immigrants in the suburbs) with personal drama (especially in the finale, but I won't go into detail about that, don't want to spoil the film).

Yeah, but if there wasn't the witch shit, then it'd be 'some teenagers camping in the woods' and nothing else. They're there because of the witch shit.

There are a lots of psychological thrillers that don't need any supernatural thrills to work, no?

'no', and 'so what?'

And Tuomas, yes, of course. But the reason they were in the woods was to research a myth that they didn't believe in - and we don't believe in - so they are cornered by their own scepticism when things start going all freaky, man. It's an angle (admittedly, one done many times before, but I think it works).

Clueless (79 points, 8 votes)

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"Same light and empathetic tone as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, same familiarity with actual teen life, but with the Heathers Heathers taking center stage, and in a plot out of Jane Austen's Emma. Alicia Silverstone somehow makes getting mugged funny. In fact, she makes just about every real emotion she expresses funny. Later amplified to brilliant slapstick by Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde, but with less reality."

-- Pete Scholtes

"I wonder if Alicia Silverstone is pissed about Reese Witherspoon stealing her career."

-- D. Keebler

*recount suppressed by governmental order, indifference of the press*

okay never mind then

Twelve Monkeys (80 points, 9 votes)

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Buffalo 66 (80 points, 6 votes)

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"Yes, I know he’s a scumbag, but how can you not love a film where the first ten minutes are a portrayal of one man’s valiant quest to have a piss?"

-- emil.y

More probably later tonight.

You mean like Little Caesar, Hawks' Scarface, The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Godfather Part II...

Look, I like it -- or did the single time I saw it. It's certainly superior to a comic-book parody like Miller's Crossing. The only crime movie I voted for was Goodfellas (and, depending on yr definition, Man Bites Dog).

#89

Amateur (82 points, 4 votes)

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On 'still' being a gangster movie... in the 8th or 9th decade of the genre, you hafta be revolutionary to impress me, and I think Goodfellas meets that criterion better.

The first half was engrossing, but I think it was the second half that was even more impressive to me. There was something uncanny about the effect of watching those "endless rehearsals" as you called them - I thought it was quite poignant. Somehow the idea that you would work and work to get that perfect moment just right, juxtaposed with the serendipitous and fleeting way those moments actually occur in real life - it kind of erased the division between the mundane and the exceptional. A great, great film - it was #7 on my list.

Hmm, isn't the whole point of the film that he's a scumbag, yet in some odd way we can relate to him. Or maybe that is exactly what you're saying there.

Look, I like it -- or did the single time I saw it. It's certainly superior to a comic-book parody like Miller's Crossing. The only crime movie I voted for was Goodfellas (and, depending on yr definition, Man Bites Dog).

SPOILERS

The difference between the titles you mention and La Haine is that it is *not* a gangster film, it's a film about the youth in poor surburbs - which makes it more poignant and easier to relate to than yer basic crime flick. The key moment in the film is right before the finale, where it is made clear that the protagonists are not gangstas when they - despite the audience expextations - decide not to use the gun after all. Until, of course, they are forced to. The final scene becomes more powerful due to the fact that the person who fires the final shot is the member of the trio most staunchly against violence.

Since B66's release, it has been diminished by the knowledge Gallo was hardly acting in the role. (My fave VG performance is still Arizona Dream.)

Happy Together (83 points, 5 votes)

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Gummo (83 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote)

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Gattaca (83 points, 6 votes)

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Casino (83 points, 5 votes)

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I think Clueless and Sweet & Lowdown are the only ones I voted for thus far. I'm still holding out hope for Tank Girl.

Casino is a retread. A good one, but still.

i really didn't like gattaca much at all, but that might have been a function of having terribly high expectations.

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (83 points, 6 votes)

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The Apostle (86 points, 5 votes)

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"Southern rural preacher commits crime, goes on lam, starts new church where nobody knows him. Beautifully written and acted movie is a little like Night of the Hunter if the children and Robert Mitchum were melded into one character, him chasing himself downriver."

-- Pete Scholtes

All About My Mother

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haha Ok, good luck, dude. You know how on South park sometimes they have Cartman make horrible fun of the handicapped or something, but it's ok because you understand that Cartman is an asshole? It's like that, without Cartman.

Fucking Amal (Show Me Love) (89 points, 5 votes)

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A Brighter Summer Day
A Moment of Innocence
An Angel at My Table
Ashes of Time
Before Sunrise
Boiling Point
A Scene at the Sea
Casino
Centre Stage
Christmas in August
Chungking Express
Eat Drink Man Woman
Fallen Angels
Fireworks
Flirt
Flowers of Shanghai
Ghost in the Shell
Goodbye South, Goodbye
Goodfellas
Green Snake
Hard-Boiled
Heat
Henry Fool
Jerry Maguire
Jungle Fever
Maborosi
Pola X
Princess Mononoke
Raise the Red Lantern
Run Lola Run
Safe
Simple Men
Trust
Sonatine
Springtime in My Hometown
Taste of Cherry
The Apple
The Blade
The Blue Kite
The Chinese Feast
The Flower of My Secret
The Hunt for Red October
The Insider
The Last of the Mohicans
The Long Day Closes
The Mission
The Power of Kangwon Province
The Puppetmaster
The River
The Hole
The Silence of the Lambs
The Suspended Step of the Stork
The Thin Red Line
Through the Olive Trees
Life and Nothing More…
Too Many Ways to Be No. 1
Topsy-Turvy
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
Vive l’Amour

Gattaca is the kind of film s/f freeks fuss over -- ambitious concept, weak third act, etc. See also Code 46.

heh, no, but I should have suspected something since the DeNiro movie was 1986.

or something like that.

-- Amateur(ist) (amateurist@gmail.com), February 3rd, 2005 1:40 PM.

There we go, that's more like it. Administrators, lock this thread.

-- Riot Gear! (speed.to.roa...), February 3rd, 2005

You're speaking my language man, I think I wrote something RE: Anthony Wong in one of my blurbs. Still haven't managed to catch The Mission (can't find it anywhere), but it's high on my to-see list.

I couldn't remember if it was "lowly", "mere" or something else.

Uh, I offered to write comments but wasn't given any films to write about.

Actually, I was sad that Freeway didn't get nominated. Rent it now, if you haven't. It's Witherspoon's best performance by light years...

Still, the nominations thread was littered with Girolamo's desperate pleas for people to submit comments (any comments), so I still don't buy the arguement.

I was pretty surprised by Bogus Journey as well, because it was clearly weaker than the first Bill & Ted movie. Were people voting for it as an substitute for Excellent Adventure, since the latter was made in the eighties?

It's so cute that you assume I have a heart.

(x-post)

The bad news: My laptop (which has the results) has a dead power adapter, and I don't want to use the battery unless absolutely necessary until I get a new one. (I'm posting this from different computer, obv.)

You might have to wait a day or two for more results.

It's called THEATUH!!!

How many total ballots were there?

could you stop that listing Lucas?

...let me take a break to call you a PHAG.

because i changed his password :D

It wasn't an insult.

moderator! moderator! moderator!
-- Pears can just fuck right off. (fluxion2...), February 4th, 2005.

oh... what upsets people these days... you must do something important for a living

Frantic trip to Regent Street Apple Store = no money left, but a functional computer. I also spent today telling BT to fuck off - if they couldn't transfer my broadband between two central London addresses within six weeks, they don't deserve my business.

Anyway, that's another story.

Out of Sight (90 points, 6 votes)

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"A showcase for its cinematographer, for George Clooney's charm, for flashbacks and crosscutting, for Steve Zahn and Don Cheadle working their mojo, and for somehow making JLo's underplaying look good. In other words, a showcase for Soderbergh, except that he's mustered an ending that I can press "stop" before ever watching again. (Blame Elmore Leonard's source novel if you like.)"

-- Pete Scholtes

"Out of Sight is a very slick action movie without much action. Beautifully shot, Clooney's totally loveable, as is J Lo. Their sex scene = one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever."

-- Yanc3y

Leon, aka The Professional (90 points, 6 votes)

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"Crooked Cop Gary Oldman and his cronies come back to the apartment to execute young Natalie Portman's family. During the proceedings, an old lady neighbor pokes her head out to chastise and is warned by an Oldman lackey to go back inside. She doesn't. Oldman casually fires off a round or two in her direction. "HE SAID, GO BACK INSIDE!""

-- Alex in NYC

Bottle Rocket (92 points, 6 votes)

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"Indie filmmakers recast themselves as nerd thieves, knocking over the Barnes & Noble, hitting up James Caan for cred (see Peter Falk and Puffy in Made). They might also feel guilty about the initial lack of minority characters."

-- Pete Scholtes

"Even though filmgoers barely pay attention to his newer films, Jean-Luc Godard remains one of the most referenced living directors. The thing is, when a late-model film gets dubbed “Godardian,” it’s often due to an editing style or an individual character’s style of dress. What’s forgotten is that ol’ JLG had an excellent sense of the absurd. His crooks (they never could ascend to the title of criminal) were (day)dreamers who got in over there heads as not an accident but as a god-given right. This wasn’t lost on Wes Anderson, and it shows in every frame of Bottle Rocket."

-- D. Keebler

Schizopolis (96 points, 6 votes)

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"I finally saw "Schizopolis" this weekend--I have a new found respect for Soderberg now. What an incredibly funny & daring film: it's like the bastard child of Jean-Luc Godard and Woody Allen."

-- jay blanchard

"This movie is kind of thing that could only happen in Charlie Kaufman’s greatest day of dreaming and/or wanking. But it didn’t. The best “Lost Film” of the decade."

-- D. Keebler

Hard Boiled (97 points, 4 votes)

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"Anthony Wong: hands down the greatest bad-guy actor of this era."

-- Mil

"Hard Boiled does not glorify slaughter. The slaughter is carried out like a ballet, very artistic, but still appalingly bloody. Even among the killers there is a sense of good (note how Chow Yun Fat and his nemesis agree to a pause in the action in order to free the hospital patients) and Tony Leung never sees the end credits! Who the fuck would have expected that?"

-- CRW

Actually, Woo made this film as a response (perhaps indirectly) to what were called the "triad recruitment" films that were coming out in HK at that time, some that were merely gangster films, others that were quite possibly financed by the triads and used as sly bits of propaganda. He decided to make Anthony Wong as evil as possible in this one, shooting up nurses and patients and such. What's funny is AW didn't do a lot for me in this film, I think it's an average performance. He went on to give a great, great performance in many other films, especially the awkwardly titled Beast Cops.

The Straight Story (98 points, 7 votes)

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"Second only to Pulp Fiction on my decade list, this movie starts with a great story: An old man travels across a couple states on his lawnmower to see his dying brother. Like The Dreamlife of Angels, it's one of those few movies about kindness that isn't sappy, and it mines each scene for the feelings that most movies would have only hinted at or alluded to. The conversation between the two old vets in the bar, talking about World War II, might be Lynch's best moment since "In Dreams" in Blue Velvet, and is more powerful than ten Saving Private Ryans."

-- Pete Scholtes

"it's the type of movie i think i could sit down with my mum and enjoy together, and we have the most polar opposite taste in films imaginable."

-- Mil

"I watched The Straight Story again recently and realized it might be one of my favorite of his films (as opposed to the first time I watched it, where my reaction could be summed up as such: "WTF?"). It's very touching, and about as involving as a film with so little "action" gets."

-- nickalicious

xpost - I don't know if I hate Saving Private Ryan as much as I used to. I've mostly forgotten the last 2 hours with the Spielberg schmaltz laid on thick. But I'll still take Band of Brothers any day.

Short Cuts (98 points, 7 votes)

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"The best and worst of Altman, on one stoned and horny summer day."

-- Pete Scholtes

"If not Altman’s best film, Short Cuts is his ultimate statement. Here he finally pulls off the giant mosaic he’d been aiming at for, oh, about 20+ years. It helps that there was good source material (Carver’s stories), and for once there was also a clear plan of attack (as opposed to Nashville, which was sort of accidental epic, and it shows.) Extra points for succeeding in spite of Andie McDowell’s shaky southern accent."

-- D. Keebler

Schindler's List (98 points, 5 votes)

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"I think it's a very good film. It might even be the only Spielberg film I unproblematically like. Spielberg plays to his strengths this time, as the Holocaust is the kind of subject that invites you to put the audience through an emotional wringer."

-- DV

"Was Schindler a reluctant hero or sly opportunist? Or both? Our slick opportunist director doesn't pretend to know for sure. But he applies all his big-film skills heroically as producer-director to make an epic that moves like a musical, and makes me cry even as I resent Spielberg for accepting that Oscar on behalf of Holocaust victims."

-- Pete Scholtes

"I'm mixed on this movie - overall, I think it is effective - I think the brutal clearing of the Jewish ghetto (in Cracow I think) during the first third is brilliant filmaking and the presentation of the inhumanity of the Nazi true believers (like Fiennes' character) was well done - also, the rendering of Schindler in the first 3/4 of the movie as an unrepentant war profiteer is much more credible (see recent book exposing the depths of the real life Schindler's money-grubbing ways) than the "happy ending" transformation."

-- j.m. lockery

Wait, isn't that her real accent?

Drunken Master II (The Legend of Drunken Master) (99 points, 6 votes)

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"See Drunken Master II as the pinnacle of Jackie's balance between comedy and fighting ability."

-- Kingfish

"His best film is probably Drunken Master 2. Nice history lesson, fasntastically lyrical action, proper subboss-subboss-boss action progression."

-- Andrew Farrell

Two big goofs in Schindler: red dress girl, and "I could've saved one more person" hug scene.

ET > Empire of the Sun > Amistad > his 70s stuff > Schindler

DM2 is one of the best comedies of the decade.

Beau travail (100 points, 6 votes)

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"Claire Denis is my favorite filmmaker, honest - how to find space here & say I really *love* the last scene that leaves you reeling in Beau Travail."

-- daria gray

"'Beau Travail' rocks! As well as a good and original literary adaptation, its a visually stunning commentary of Frantz Fanon's ideas of psychoanalytical trauma (what about that chopped up narrative?) and cultural displacement in an era of post-colonialism. At least that's what she told me. Anyway, just sit back and watch the colours! What cinematography!"

-- Will McKenzie

"Sheer, moving poetic genius with an end sequence to end all end sequences – there is nothing in cinema, that I have seen, quite like it in fact. Startling, bizarre, and acutely poignant, once seen – it is never forgotten."

-- Alex K.

Thanks for your support.

i dont.
-- bass braille (...), February 4th, 2005.

bass, you're an ass. i didn't know this joint was a private party for snips like you. maybe you ought to direct a bottle or two in the right direction so you can cope a little better with what ails you.

peace

but she actually is a southerner! she sucks though.

"Claire Denis' Beau travail, alongside Bruno Dumont's L'Humanité, is a French film I wouldn't suggest to those who get easily bored at the cinema. But if one is willing to forget the conventions of narrative cinema and accept the sometimes documentarian, sometimes corporeally poetic way Beau travail approaches it's subject, this should be a true treat for both the eye and the mind.

The story is very simple: Galoup, a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion, has to deal with his jealousy and envy, when a new recruit called Sentain becomes a hero in the eyes of his men. Alongside Galoup's soldiers, the only other important player in this bizarre drama is Forestier, Galoup's superior, who he obviously admires, but who doesn't share his resentment for Sentain. Gradually, Galoup's envy for Sentain becomes too much for him to take, and his downward spiral begins.

Denis depicts, with a great sense of detail, how the military routines dominate every aspect of the legionnaires' (and especially Galoup's) life. This is portrayed effectively in the beginning of the film, when the soldiers' crude attempts to dance in a disco are compared to their beautiful, elegant movements during physical training. To Galoup, military discipline has become the only form of self-expression, and for this reason he hates Sentain, who tries to bring a little more humanity to the camp. Or does he? A curious aspect of the film is that we never see any of the things Galoup, in his narrative, accuses Sentain of. Only in the end Sentain acts against Galoup's strict orders, and this could be seen as counterreaction to Galoup's obvious hatred towards him and his unreasonable forms of punishment; the humane deed Sentain commits is something any soldier, who isn't thoroughly programmed, would do. Since the story is told from Galoup's point of view, it could be argued that he has become paranoid, that as soldier without a war or an enemy he is only looking for a target for his emotional output (which the military life has distorted into hatred and envy), and Sentain, because of his one act of heroism, happens to be an apt target.

The above, however, isn't the only way to interpret the story. It is quite possible that Sentain acts the way Galoup says he does, and this turns the movie into a triangle (or a rectangle) drama between Galoup, Sentain and his men, possibly even his superior. The only thing Galoup's seems to (or is able to) care about is the military, and disciplining the legionnaires is his way of showing his affection. But this balance is broken by Sentain, whom the men admire, and who's actions are approved by Forestier. Since Galoup fears he is about to lose the very substance of his life, he reacts the only way is familiar with: by tightening his rule. Galoup's behaviour is, of course, bound to have repercussions, but there is no other option he can possibly think of.

Besides the way military life takes control of the men, Denis' other obvious point is to show how absurd and pointless the army routines appear through the eyes of an outsider. During the film we see countless training sessions and war excercises and witness the soldiers' dull everyday life, but never do we see them doing anything useful. At one time the legionnaires build a camp in the desert, but the only reason for this seems to be Galoup's desire to get some action to the bored men. Beau travail's antimilitaristic theme becomes even more obvious, when the legionnaires' life is shown in contrast of the Africans who neighbour them. These people shepherd their herd, weave mats, sell things, make food, and watch with astonishment as the soldiers dig a hole in the middle of nowhere. The personal drama in the film becomes even more tragic, when Denis shows just how meaningless is the system that produces these kind of human beings. In the terrific final scene we see the whole scale of Galoup's desperation, as it becomes obvious that he can never be anything but a sad, retired army officer with no chance of fitting into the civilian world."

Starship Troopers (101 points, 8 votes)

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"I remember waiting for this to come out in 1997 and excited by the prospect of another Verhoeven sci-fi film, even though the early word was that it was mediocre. It ends up being only an even more devastating satire than Robocop!

It ranks highly in my list of favorite films from the past ten years, and I imagine it will only grow in stature over time."

-- Gear!

"I don't think Starship Troopers is neccessarily a satire of fascism per se--sure it is on some level, but what really interests me about the movie is how it implicates its genre, the big action-event movie, as a form with fascistic, nationalistic tendencies."

-- slutsky

"He's afraid!!!"

-- Pete Scholtes

"This is one of the greatest satires I've ever seen, specifically because it doesn't let on its agenda (the "Do You Want To Know More?" commercials are the only obvious winks). The film was villified upon release for its celebration of fascism and its casting of American actors as Brazilians and for the "90210" cast and so on. Which misses the point completely. Paul Verhoeven made a propaganda film depicting a fascist, militaristic world. To take it further, he depicted a futuristic world overrun by American imperialism and defined by its ability to destroy any enemies that came into view. It could also be suggested that the event igniting the war against the bugs is merely an excuse to destroy a convenient and easily hated enemy. It's as if Verhoeven made this film post-9/11, for all the parallels it holds with America over the past several years. Oh, and it's a well-crafted, gory, funny adventure story too. Just don't forget you're slyly being duped into rooting for Nazis. Which is perhaps the whole point."

-- Jimmy J.

The Butcher Boy (102 points, 6 votes)

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""Fer feck's sake, Francie..." At last a childhood nightmare full of humor and brutality, free of tweeness."

-- Dr Morbius

L.A. Confidential (105 points, 10 votes)

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Jacob's Ladder (105 points, 7 votes)

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"The scene close to the end of 'Jacob's Ladder' where his Chiropractor/Guardian Angel, Louie, is explaining about how the Demons he sees are really Angels and how he must let go so those Angels can take him away to be at peace, then Jake gets up and walks a few faltering steps and Louie, with a beautific smile clasps his hands and says quietly 'Hallelujah'."

-- mzui

""Jacob's Ladder" worked me over pretty good. We were on our way home from the theater and I was okay as long as I didn't have to talk, but then my wife asked me something and I just lost it. Had to pull over on the side of the highway and fall apart for a while; meantime my wife was wondering if I was having a nervous breakdown."

-- William Crump

I have never understood Basinger's Oscar-worthiness in this movie, and in fact consider the love story to be the least interesting thing about LA Confidential. No matter. The movie is otherwise full of fantastic performances, particularly from Russell Crowe. Remember when he was a find, an exciting young actor, before he became the outsized Russell Crowe, the laconic and brutish starlett-fucker?

But most importantly, LA Confidential makes movie mythology that did not exist before it -- a Los Angeles every bit as violent and intriguing as gangsterland Chicago. Chinatown, for all its style, was not really about Los Angeles. It was about Jack Nicholson, mainly, and some water diversion and incest. LA Confidential is about the kind of racial tension and corruption and celebrity obsession that could not happen anywhere else. Most movies about LA are about how stylish and/or vapid the place is. This one is about how ugly and alive and real it is, and it's brilliant.

Run Lola Run (106 points, 8 votes)

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"East and West Germany crash into each other, create techno-soundtracked metaphor."

-- Pete Scholtes

*or possibly wrong

Also, Jacob's Ladder is the 90s Angel Heart, a one-trick short story in search of a director.

If there is another movie that has been more overrated than this one I'd like to see it just so I can say I have seen the most overrated movie of all time.

the key word is most.

(in other words, keep on doin' whatchu doin', lucas.)

LA Confidential's last 8 minutes or so are crap.

Agreed, except this is a good thing.

The Limey (107 points, 9 votes)

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"The Limey totally kicks ass and everyone should see it. It abandons any pretension or whatever that fogs up a lot of the other Soderbergh films. It also is nothing like Oceans Eleven. It's a lot more straightforward/less ridiculous/and actually more fun (sorry that punctuation doesn't make sense). Though I liked Traffic too."

-- Nick A.

"it's unfinished and oddly-paced in a way quite faithful to the films it's emulating (60s Point Blank-style revenge pictures, not film noir). What's great about soderbergh's genre work is also what i guess can be frustrating about it - its aesthetics are more meticulously "studied" than usual (and it's here where his film-geekiness really kicks in, not in the arty pictures nobody sees), which means you wind up getting his homage to what's good AND bad about the source material."

-- jones

"The Limey is utter class! Stamp's performance is eccentric, yes, but utterly rivetting too! (and the conceit of using the footage from Poor Cow is worthy of David Thomson's novel Suspects)."

-- stevie t

"Probably the grooviest excavation project of the decade: take a few signature actors from decades past (Terence “Far From The Maddening Crowd” Stamp, Peter “Easy Rider” Fonda, Barry “Vanishing Point” Newman, and Lesley Ann “Choose Me” Warren), a style from Richard Lester, scenes from an old English crime flick (Poor Cow), and mix accordingly with director on the comeback trail. Fun ensues."

-- D. Keebler

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (107 points, 5 votes)

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"If you think it's just a gangsta/samurai/mafia style thing, consider that I have near-zero interest in any of these genres/memes, and ghost dog is one of my favorite movies. I don't know how you miss emotion in it. It's far more pervasive in Dead Man, admittedly, but it's definitely there."

-- gabbneb

"The scene where all of the old Italian mobsters are sitting around the shop and the landlord comes and gives them grief for not paying the rent was pretty funny. I liked the way he went character for character in the room in the sequence, it is a funny lineup of old tough guys."

-- earlnash

"whittaker brings a quiet dignity to this character that i can't imagine being played by any other afro-american actor. rza's theme is one of the best of the 90's too."

-- Mil

Clerks (110 points, 7 votes)

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"i still give it props for being one of the first films that got me interested in 'independent cinema', i guess you could say. it's tainted moreso by his later work, i feel"

-- Mil

"Kevin Smith will probably be remembered quite rightly as a one-trick pony. But, at least in the beginning, that trick was one of the funniest things around. “Did he say ‘making fuck’?”"

-- D. Keebler

"As a huge Jim Jarmusch fan I'm quite sad to say that Ghost Dog is his worst film since his debut, Permanent Vacation (which, out of all his movies, Ghost Dog pays most resemblance to). Stylistically there's nothing wrong with the film; the cinematography is beautiful and the Rza's score fits the movie perfectly. The usual Jarmusch themes of alienation and chance encounters are explored, although in somewhat flat and uninspired way. But all this does not fully explain why I have such mixed feelings about the film.

Although the characters portrayed in Jarmusch's films are usually more than a little eccentric, there still is certain universality to them, making the viewer able to relate with these strange people. This is not the case with Ghost Dog. Ghost Dog, the main character, is so far off this plane that his actions and words left me cold, and I didn't care what happened to him (as I cared about the main characters of Down By Law and Dead Man, for example). This is by no means Forest Whitaker's fault; he carries out his role perfectly, but this role was written so that there's no way to relate to his character (the only exception to this being his scenes with the French-speaking ice-cream salesman). One can argue that this is a deliberate choice made by Jarmusch, but that doesn't make the film any better. Jarmusch's seems to have wanted to make a stylish crossbreed of a samurai film and a gangster film, and in this he succeeds perfectly. But, by making the protagonist a stone-cold hitman who follows the samurai ethos, he makes it impossible to understand him or to have any sympathy for him (unless the viewer himself happens to be a samurai hitman). So, at the end of the film I was left feeling just as uncaring as Ghost Dog himself felt.

Perhaps one of the reasons for my disappointment is that I'm beginning to grow tired of these lonely outsiders Jarmusch constantly displays (even though he's great at doing it). I think his next project should be less like Ghost Dog and Permanent Vacation, and more like Down by Law and Night on Earth. In those two films he explored the full scale of emotions, from alienation and loneliness to friendship and love. In Ghost Dog we have only the former two."

"This is Jarmusch's millennial movie, a 21st century bookend to the 19th century revisionism of Dead Man. That film, a Zen Western shot in silvery black and white, chronicled the triumph of imperial death culture—the rape of the land and the genocidal devastation of Manifest Destiny. Ghost Dog is about the ultimate breakdown of that same system, the failure of tribalism in a world of blurry borders.

It's also a lot of fun, at least if you accept it on its own terms. Ghost Dog is a near-mythic figure, and Jarmusch doesn't bother trying to explain him beyond a single flashback. Why he lives on a rooftop with an aerie of carrier pigeons, where he received his samurai assassin training, how he rationalizes his dispassionate killing—none of it is clear. And that's okay, both because Jarmusch is working with a metaphor rather than a character and because he's found the perfect actor to embody it. Forest Whitaker has always had an unexpected grace, a sly stillness behind his lazy eye and babyfat frame. In Ghost Dog, he moves like a dancer, twirling his long-barrel pistols like swords and gliding through crowded streets as if he were actually invisible."

He was so great in The Crying Game, Johnny Handsome, and The Color of Money; so wasted in Phone Booth, Panic Room, and Good Morning, Vietnam; so stuck in Article 99 and Diary of a Hitman. Bird was misconceived, but that wasn't his fault. Body Snatchers was fun, but I barely remember him. Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a stereotype.

I'll probably watch Ghost Dog again with pleasure when I get around to it. But there's just something cute about Jarmusch movies that keeps me from going back...

I liked Whitaker and the music in GD, nothin else. It's a comedy?

Haven't seen all of Clerks since it showed at MoMA in '94 (pre-music soundtrack). It charmed me as nothing of his has since, but that it's considered a landmark by any criterion but commerce makes me sick.

!

I kinda hope he's wrong, but who knows?

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/story.jsp?story=486864

Good news is that I should be able to do another bunch today or tomorrow. (But not this second.)

Topsy-Turvy (111 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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Comments?

Braindead (aka Dead Alive) (114 points, 7 votes)

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"_Braindead_, AKA _Dead Alive_. The zombie flick directed by Peter Jackson. Ridiculously funny & over-the-top. (Not exactly a horror movie, I guess, but it isn't far from the _Evil Dead II_ school.)"

-- David Raposa

"Dead-Alive (its other name) truly is one of the funniest films of all time - no hyperbole there. How many other narratives deal with metaphors such as mother figure = Sumatran rat monkey??? Beware: if you do not like exorbitant amounts of gore, avoid."

-- Vic

Unforgiven (115 points, 8 votes)

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Pi (115 points, 10 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"I loved pi when it first came out, partly because I didn't know whether I was supposed to be laughing or not.

pi is silly fun, but it's also maybe anti-intellectual silly fun.

But I still love pi for its acting - every single performance is great if not wonderful - and maybe even more so for its mise-en-scene: Aronofsky is showing people and places that are distinctly New York and Jewish and academic in ways that don't appear in films by other filmmakers who work in those environments. Sol's apartment in pi is maybe my favorite location in any movie."

-- gabbneb

"To drag this aside I have got to continue on Pi - I cant put my finger on why, but the film haunts and compels me in a way no other film ever ever has, I can watch it again and again, to me thats a GOOD film, but thats also a personal reaction I guess."

-- Trayce

"a film about math, obsession, the world, insanity, frustration, greed, and isolation. How the quest for the impossible can drive a person insane. Max was so close, but do far away. He was the quintessential genius who couldn't handle the pressure of his knowledge. Beautifully shot and beautifully claustrophobic. So much better than aronofsky's second effort."

-- todd swiss

Velvet Goldmine (116 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"This is the extremely rare film (for me) which I can watch more or less ad infinitum, only getting further sucked in each time, finding more and more going on underneath the tiniest glances, subtexts, cuts, colors, smirks, glints of something so transcendental, momentary, and evanescent. Cuts to the heart of the meaning of adolescent music through the perspective of the teenager, while showing the disillusion and confusion equally encountered by the rising star. Is Brian the enigmatic and elusive one, or is Arthur the one hiding? In this sense, they are the same person, separated only by time and profession. (Which perhaps creates no further distance possible.)

I love this film so much that I nearly lost it when I received rostrum camera instruction on shooting credits from the guy who shot them for this one. (And they are well done, too.)

Treat it less like a film and more like an experience. Much seems flimsy on the surface, and the style is all over the place, but not without reason. Haynes's tightly controlled direction in Safe and Far From Heaven is evidence enough that these were deliberately pulled tropes rather than flashy stylistics."

-- Girolamo Savonarola

"I just love that movie. And I am thrilled to death the real-life Arthur is on this forum. The movie's Arthur was my favorite character, as I suspect he was for most of the people who like this film."

-- Many Coloured Halo

The Insider (116 points, 6 votes)

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"It's been quite a long time since I've watched The Insider, but the scene that I can remember most clearly demonstarting action-film style qualities is when we first see RCro: the camera trained almost literally on his shoulder, and the claustrophobia creates so much nervous energy that it might as well be an action scene. And Mann does throughout the entire movie, that beautiful man."

-- Leee

"Here's a new one: a suspense thriller of the conscience."

-- Pete Scholtes

"a classic tale of good beating unbelievable evil. A story of ultimate sacrifice for the public good. The breakdown of the Wigand family is portrayed so brilliantly. Wigand's struggle is so real and so uplifting when he wins despite losing it all. Pacino, Crowe and Mike Wallace all shine in this greatly moving film."

-- todd swiss

The Shawshank Redemption (117 points, 6 votes)

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Comments?

A pointless sneak preview clue: the next film up was the first title I ever bought on DVD. Not that that's gonna help you figure it out... ;)

does this imply that every commercial film is failing its objective/intent? an easily-digested verisimilitude of real life usually is the objective of the commercial film.

(I feel bad, now, for quoting out of context.)

(a) the insider did so well. all i remember is being annoyed by it. BUT i guess that means that heat probably got tons of points, which i don't mind so much

(b) that the first place votes didn't start really showing up until now.

shawshank redemption is a movie i loved at the time but now make fun of myself for liking, with, i don't think, any additional viewing having occurred in the interim.

I understand this reaction -- the text of the film - some comment about man being naturally bestial and sadistic - is both regressive and insincere -- but I don't agree with it. Or I don't think it's the whole story, anyway. I mean, it's a meta-Western, and some of its debunking is pretty old hat (Hollywood's been debunking the Western for almost as long as it's been making them). But I think Eastwood's real subject isn't even the Western so much as the whole idea of heroes and the necessity of myth but also its inescapable lies. The way we tell ourselves stories about the world to make some kind of moral sense of it, even as we know the stories are fictions, our own projections. Among other things, the movie dwells specifically and uncomfortably on the actual act of killing -- what it means and what it does, not just to the person killed but to the one doing the killing. All of which is maybe too hifalutin, since Eastwood (whatever his other merits) isn't much of a deep thinker. But his questions are sincere and interesting. I can't think of another action hero who has so meticulously taken his personal mythos apart on screen, turned it over and weighed it. I think he's genuinely curious about how it all works, how he works, and what what he does means. And if he gives himself a little bit of a by at the end, that's OK by me.

White Hunter, Black Heart > Unforgiven

I voted for Topsy Turvy & Dead Alive.

I thought the Citz Kane-like stuff in VG almost sunk it (Bale was, unusually, a bore).

Russ Crowe in Insider = teenager w/ gray wig in high school play.

I voted for Topsy Turvy, too, but I saw it so long ago that I couldn't possibly make an intelligent comment on it.

Also, of course, the careful recreation of the era -- the novelty of telephones, e.g. -- was fun in itself.

As for Unforgiven and existentialism, yeah, I think it's basically an existentialist movie -- altho, again, in a deeply felt but not particularly incisive way. The key is that scene on the hill, with Clint and the kid talking about killing; I might be remembering it wrong, but I swear there's a lone leafless tree there in the background. It's all very Beckett (albeit without the jokes). Clint gives his great "It's a hell of a thing to kill a man..." line, and then the kid, still struggling for rationalizations, says, "Well, he had it coming." And Clint says, "We've all got it coming, kid." Sartre by way of Sergio Leone.

But some of the others have moments: The whole sequence in Shawshank with Brooks getting a job at the grocery and eventually carving his name in the ceiling board at that boarding house... then Morgan Freeman's character later working at the same store, living in the same room. That was really moving/chilling. Stephen King at his best. The switch of voice-over worked really well there, too.

Gene Hackman's character was great in Unforgiven, but that one shrinks on you (especially that journalist character--yes, we get that Westerns are lies). Give me True Crime any day.

The fight between Gilbert and Sullivan in Topsy-Turvy was memorable. The Hebrew-as-math plot of pi was cool.

I don't remember anything about Velvet Goldmine.

I should say, I remember loving the music. Great subject, too. It just felt cold to me somehow.

The Player (118 points, 9 votes)

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"The Player is in some ways my fav. altman film. Funny it took metafiction to make him so damn FOCUSED."

-- Sterling Clover

City of the Lost Children (119 points, 7 votes)

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"I don't remember a damn thing about City of Lost Children, because I don't think I've watched it with the sound on, so I don't know if it was high-concept -- but Christ was it pretty."

-- Tep

"City of Lost Children, by being as innocent and childlike as it was, I think it came off as very powerful and raw emotionally, kinda like a 6-year-old's nightmare. Plus the story is very fresh and creative. (Honestly, I think it's the most Gilliam-ish non-Gilliam film evah, which only makes me like it more.)"

-- nickalicious

Hoop Dreams (124 points, 8 votes)

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"Like American Dream, Hoop Dreams is about class, and the lies Americans tell their kids (and themselves) to keep on keeping on. An amazingly intimate documentary tracking two young basketball players over a period of years, from high school to college, as they are courted by basketball scouts and groomed to become hot commodities. Lots of docs  followed the same pattern afterward, but few cut this close."

-- Pete Scholtes

"Hoop dreams i love, just love - "immma keep on and on, and ima never stop" "

-- james

Wayne's World (125 points, 9 votes)

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"Wayne's World is hilarious! It's so random and absurd. The first one more so, but the second one has its moments. Like when Wayne is trying to think up an idea, and he sees a poster to Woodstock, so he says "Waynestock!" and then sees a bunch of CDs, and says that Aerosmith and Pearl Jam will be there! And then looks around and sees... an old man fashioning a canoe out of wood?

It's probably the best SNL inspired movie, which isn't saying much, but it is so by a long long run."

-- David Allen

"The Spheeris Wayne's World is perfect."

-- adam

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (126 points, 7 votes)

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"I see it as an Unjustly Maligned Film, stylistically impressive and genuinely disturbing. Following Laura as she tries and fails to escape her pre-ordained doom is very affecting."

-- DV

"I love the little kid with the pointy-nose mask. Is that the one with Jimmy Scott doing "Sycamore Trees"? And David Bowie going mental with a Southern accent? Classic."

-- Nordicskillz

"I was so glad the film was made, Laura Palmer was the most interesting character in the whole series, despite being absent. I don't think many pieces of art have broached the subject of how the victims of sexual violence deal with it, it's a bold story which suits its surreal structure and tone. The whole thing feels desperate and insane and mirrors Laura's psyche perfectly.

So the best scenes for me are the ones that show people desperately trying to keep up appearances in the midst of this utter insanity, the madman tailing Leland and Laura and screaming at them or Cooper's play with the CCTV.

The more I watched the film, the more I wanted Lynch to take on a Clive Barker book at some point. The little man / giant stuff fits into Barker so well, these things are neither Gods, aliens or whatever, they're just something other, so much like the beings in "Weaveworld" or "The Great and Secret Show". Lynch does "Weaveworld". Now there'd be a film. And a budget.

Um, yeah. Classic, classic, classic."

-- Lynskey

Ratcatcher (127 points, 9 votes)

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"This is the greatest anything ever. I just saw it. It made me cry in several places. "[Ratcatcher] is a freight train of affectations that clicks with me on the most amplified levels......" "

-- david h(0wie)

"It's excellent -- and the cinematography is so precise and efficient to be frightening. For such a bleak film it is surprisingly haunting."

-- clive

"Ratcatcher is one of the strangest films I have ever seen. The first half did not connect at all, seemed gritty social realism by numbers, slow and wholly uninvolving with a cliched plot. Then there was thje brief fantasy sequence with the mice and when we got back into the main plot (and the Dad was partially humanized) I absolutely adored it. Not only that but it made the first half all make sense and beautiful in reflection. Very, very brave opening too."

-- Pete

Festen (aka The Celebration) (129 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"Festen is a great film, but whether that is a triumph of Dogme principles (as opposed to just decent actors/script) is debatable. DV is essentially an actor's medium - they can move around a lot more, go off on tangents without wasting film, and the random, serendipitous nature of Dogme keeps things from getting predictable and repetitive, which is death for an actor. That's why Dogme engenders that drama club style of acting, which in turn provides the "raw emotion" that you attribute to the directors."

-- Nordicskillz

"Easily the best of the Dogme films, in part because it is the only one that feels as though it had to be made in that way and no other, due to an odd sense that one has stumbled across a warped family reunion video, complete with drunk relatives, bickering and the like, but on a scale enhanced x1,000. Maintaining the only part of the manifesto that remained unwritten (come on guys, let’s really shock people, yeah) whilst not compromising on believability, it is a stark portrait of dysfunction, and reveals the seamy
underbelly masked by the face of respectability without re-treading old ground. Also, Thomas Vintenberg = k-hott, rowr!"

-- emil.y

"well, I don't have much to add beyond noting that Festen is one of the most intense films I've ever witnessed. The dinner scene where the son reveals the 'family secret' is just so unexpected and tense and unsettling. It would probably rank among, oh I dunno, my favorite 20 or 30 films. Its impact is overwhelmingly due to the strong performances, and if these were indeed conjured and abetted by the Dogme / digital video methodology then I'm all for it. I don't see where the principles regarding lighting and set design make much difference, and just seem sort of silly (as is the whole idea of a manifesto)."

-- Broheems

The Silence of the Lambs (130 points, 7 votes)

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"Personally, I'm sticking with Silence.... It's multiple sequels and prequels notwithstanding, on its own it has a captivating tone and raised several intriguing questions about gender roles, voyeurism, transformation and violence. Buffallo Bill, whose demons were brought on by abuse and rejection rather than some lofty ideal of self-appointed vigilante-ism, seemed plausible (Buffalo Bill was loosely based -- like Norman Bates in Psycho and Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- on Ed Gein, though also with a dash of Ted Bundy).

There are myriad other elements as well. Silence also features "Goodbye Horses" (in a memorably disquieting scene)."

-- Alex in NYC

"he 'oh-shit-they're-at-the-wrong-house!!' moment is the most royally rippd off sequence of the past decade. unbelievable! its in everything."

-- piscesboy

"the autopsy scene, Foster and Glenn are in a funeral home in West Virginia. Totally love that scene, the details are great (including the exterior shot where you see a bunch of teens walking up outside, like they're waiting for news of their friend), and everyone in it, esp. the bit players, are great. The one old man with a flattop who is the funeral parlor owner (he's been in some David Lynch stuff, not sure of his name) is fantastic."

-- hstencil

"Silence all the way. Lecter gets all the attention, but the movie is really about Clarice; I've watched it at least a dozen times now, and am ever more impressed with the way that it reinforces and builds on its theme of a woman navigating a perilous male environment, with Buffalo Bill as the ultimate threat--a ruthless predatory male looking to conquer and consume/assume feminity itself. It just gets deeper and deeper. Among the many reasons Hannibal sucked ass is that it's about him, not her."

-- Lee G

The Matrix (132 points, 9 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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Comments?

Three Colors: Blue (138 points, 5 votes)

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"This isn't really an important film, and I have trouble extricating it from Rouge and Blanc, but taken alone, this film had the biggest emotional impact on me of any film released in the '90s. Juliette Binoche is radiant and quite brave in the role, and this is my favorite
example of Kieslowski behind the camera."

-- polyphonic

"Might well overrate Blue slightly 'cos of mad pash for J. Binoche, but the opening car crash sequence is up there with the car crash scene from 'Wild at Heart' for bringing home terrifying destructive power of automobile. Love the way that Kieslowski grounds his metaphysical mumbo-jumbo in everyday actions/objects - superb set-dressing and attention-to-detail - while totally preserving ineffable sense of mystery blah blah."

-- Andrew L

It's so weird when something I posted like four years ago gets quoted on one of these polls. If I had it to write over, I'd probably say "End of Beau Travail = OMGWTFLOL!!!ROFFLE!!!"

I couldn't remotely buy that squishy little Welshman as a cannibal.

That kinda pre-emptive nonargument work on the debate team?

How about "soggy"? Blue is my least favorite of the three.

--Blue at least has Juliette Binoche, who is to sadness what Julia Roberts is to smiling or being pissed off. I wish she would hook up with a director as good as Erick Zonca (The Dreamlife of Angels).

--I felt like the energy went out of The Crying Game as soon as Forest Whitaker left the movie, and the love object was a clingy stereotype after that. But hey, it was probably good for the culture.

--Watching Jody Foster and Anthony Hopkins act the shit out of lines that really amounted to not-much (Oh my God, he knows she used to be poor!) was genuinely enjoyable, and so was the escape scene. I would rather fast-forward through the holy-shit-Bill-is-a-deviant-gay-psycho-and-now-Demme-will-feel-obliged-to-make-Philadelphia-to-make-up-for-it scenes.

--Gummo felt like a dirtier precursor to Cold Mountain's hillbillysploitation, but Lisa Carver called it authentic so what do I know.

--The Matrix was a great premise and radical political metaphor. If the climax wasn't a bust, I would have voted for it.

--Wayne's World has the "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene, a free pass to heaven for everyone involved.

--Twin Peaks has those two great set pieces--the truck freakout, and the loud club with subtitles. I saw it at the newly opened Mall of America, and it was like walking out of a David Lynch movie and into a David Lynch movie.

I want to see Ratcatcher again, too. A DVD fest should be part of the WORLD ILX FAP.

Amen. I'm glad both Clueless and WW made the list, ILX clearly isn't as elitist as some other clubs. You're also right about The Matrix, it was good until the final act, but the final act was like the Mother of All Cliches.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (139 points, 6 votes)

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The Nightmare Before Christmas (139 points, 10 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"The Nightmare Before Christmas may well be my favourite film of any genre ever."

-- Mark C

"Nightmare Before Christmas.

i always like the idea of an entire land about christmas, looking oddly Victorian..."

-- Jay Dee Sah Mon

Babe (140 points, 9 votes)

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"Great voices, including James Cromwell as the stoic farmer, who's actually more charming than the pig."

-- Pete Scholtes

The Usual Suspects (142 points, 9 votes)

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"i'm so burnt out on this movie, i probably wouldn't watch it for another 10 years i reckon. at some point at least, it was an all-time fave. i'm really not sure how i feel about it now"

-- Mil

Slacker (144 points, 8 votes)

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"i don't like the ending. i like the long crane shot where the guy runs over his mother. the best parts are the jfk conspiracy theory guy in the bookstore, and the old guy (the third-to-last character) speaking into his portable tape recorder while walking around early in the morning. oh and the guy who pretends to have served in the abraham lincoln brigade of course; i like how sweet and patient his daughter is."

-- Amateur(ist)

"Sure, there is a valid argument that the Austin filmed Dazed & Confused doesn’t really reflect the nature of the town, that it uses a just generic Anytown USA to tell the story. On the other hand, Slacker IS Austin—with all that implies. It’s also a snapshot of a time gone by, back when George W. Bush was a harmless Baseball man, and his daddy was the jackass president."

-- D. Keebler

Happiness (144 points, 8 votes)

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" don't get the Solondz hate. Happiness is indulgent greatness, and Storytelling is smug and self-hating and disgusting and too-clever-by-half and perfect. What's not to like about the little worm?"

-- Harold Media

"I love this film. I know it’s wrong to. Powerful, pitch black and at times unbearable to witness, this film also makes me laugh till it hurts. Every deft, delicate absurdist touch, to the unspeaking weightlifter in Lara Flynn Boyle’s apartment, to the thick nasal breathing that Seymour-Hoffman adopts throughout has me in absolute awe. Every single minute aspect to this picture displays a chilling deliberateness that I can’t help but take my hat off to. This truly is some piece of work. Is it satire? Is it realism? As the Joker says in Batman, “I don’t know if it’s art… but I like it.” "

-- Alex K

"Happiness heartily dedicates itself to the complete opposite of Hollywood moviemaking norms -- it gives you absolutely no clues as to how to receive it, and leaves you sitting there uncomfortably, having to actually think about whether you're going to decide to find it amusing or sick or sad or cynical or what ... and it ends on such a remarkable we-mature-within-this- mess note. And so while I see the very clear connections to American Beauty in terms of subject matter, my enjoyment of Happiness came much more from seeing it as an attack on the idea that films should tell you how to feel rather than letting you work it out for yourself ... I think."

-- Nitsuh

The next film shall be...something I haven't seen, and therefore can't comment on at all.

part of

implicit message

in this case when John Connor realizes he's losing

"Expertise in an area where everyone assumes they are an expert is assumed to be snobbery." -- Charles Taylor.

i still haven't seen nightmare before christmas. it never seems like a good time to watch it! happiness i've been warned off of by too many people, but who knows, someday.

And do action movies ever age gracefully? They're more prone to topicalism (everyone fighting the Russians and/or coke dealers in the 80's), fad-ism (everyone ripping off the Matrix once that became a big hit), and becoming dated due to advances in technology and FX than any other kind of movie.

I don't think Die Hard or Lethal Weapon or The French Connection or Bullitt or Jaws or The Empire Strikes Back have aged much at all. Even T1 has a sort of timelessness about it. But T2 just doesn't hold up for me. The special effects which were so amazing then look like shit now, and for my money, this is Arnold's first boring performance, and it a true precedent to Eraser, The Sixth Day, etc.

Movies like Jaws and Predator haven't aged much because they're not really "action" movies, they're suspense movies. Seeing the monster is secondary to the fear you feel in knowing what the monster might do.

The action movies whose main selling points are car chases and blowing things up are the ones that haven't aged well.

(the royal "you," not anyone specific here)

Also if Heat wins I will kill you all, jsl.

No Tarantino flicks have showed up yet, I sorta fear that Pulp Fiction might win, whereas Jackie Brown, his best flick, won't end up on the list at all.

But this is all that's left in T2 now that Arnie's spread the same Schtick over 200 shit movies since.

"Terminator 2" (using marketing abbrevs: dud) is an OK actioner made repellent by the "only shoots to wound" fucking bullshit. A cyborg was the first compassionate conservative.

>I'm glad both Clueless and WW made the list, ILX clearly isn't as elitist as some other clubs<

Clueless was a cute little movie (I didn't see WW -- 90 minutes of my life for a cute TV sketch?), but that line of proud "populism" reminds meof Michael Moore saying progressives had to watch "Friends" to connect with The People. Nobody would nominate Fight Club over thebiting satire of "Party on"?

I just saw the Demme "Manchurian Candidate" and, while no way as special as the '62 original, it seems in every way a smarter and more skillful 'thriller' tham "Lambs." Jonathan Rosenbaum on the vileness of the Lambs:

http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movies/capsules/11098_SILENCE_OF_THE_LAMBS

Someone once asked Stephin Merritt what his favorite recent film was, and he said "Nightmare Before Christmas with the sound off."

Would The Usual Suspects not seem utterly ridiculous on a second viewing?

'cute', yeah, things people like are 'cute', things you, man who can't spare 90 minutes, are... what? anyway, i'll take watching 'friends' over dressing up like a slob as my way of 'connecting'.

Anti-elitism vs. anti-anti-elitism, fite!

For your information, I dídn't like Clueless or Wayne's World because they made me connect with "The People" (whoever they might be), I liked because they were funny and made me connect with the characters. I think there are lots and lots of films (starting from Chaplin and ending with LoTR) which appeal to all sorts of viewers without having to be labeled high-brow or low-brow.

No, MOST things people like, at least as measured by box office, are not 'cute' but horseshit.

Okay, let's tackle this argument... Here is the list of the twenty biggest world-wide box-office hits of all time:

1. Titanic (1997)
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
5. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
6. Jurassic Park (1993)
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
8. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
9. Finding Nemo (2003)
10. Independence Day (1996)
11. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
12. The Lion King (1994)
13. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
14. Shrek 2 (2004)
15. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
16. Spider-Man (2002)
17. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
18. The Sixth Sense (1999)
19. The Incredibles (2004)
20. Armageddon (1998)

Out of these twenty films I'd say at least five are great (The Return of the King, Finding Nemo, Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, The Lion King), and six are good (Titanic, the other two LoTR films, Spider-Man, The Sixth Sense, The Incredibles), so that's already the majority. Note that this list doesn't take inflation into account and therefore includes only recent films. Inflation counted for, we'd probably see such "horseshit" films as Gone With the Wind, 2001, Bambi, Casablanca, etc.

haha. He must mean that episode where Monica is trying to hide the fact that she goes shopping with someone other than Rachel, because Rachel would be devastated by the news that shopping, surely life's most important activity, is being shared with someone else.

The people? Jeez. Moore's been living in Manhattan too long already.

Comparing non-inflation-adjusted figures is completely misleading though - a practice that the movie industry likes to encourage, because it makes the hurdle lower for them to generate "Biggest Movie Ever" hype. I read an article recently where the author wrote that treating a 1960 dollar the same as a 2000 dollar is the same as treating a dollar the same as a rupee. I.e., you would never see a list of top-grossing international movies that didn't convert to a common currency, but that's identical to a list of top-grossing domestic movies that doesn't adjust for inflation.

Film List
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Star Wars (1977)
The Sound of Music (1965)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
The Ten Commandments (1956)
Titanic (1997)
Jaws (1975)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Exorcist (1973)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
The Sting (1973)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Graduate (1967)
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Fantasia (1941)

(x-post)

"great"? Spidey 2 and ROTK were two of the duller juvenile noisefests I've seen in years. Pure distillations of popular, tech-obsessed cinematic illiteracy.

(x-post)

I don't esp see the Top 20's relevance, as we were going by Clueless / Wayne's World, ie hits, not blockbusters.
Anyway, it was a generalization, and I wasn't taking just about movies.

Fair enough, I was just trying to question your generalization. I'd say that for every horseshit hit film there's at least one good hit film, but I guess my tastes are wider than yours.

Terminator 2 was ruined for me by a slow and bloated ending--it was 20 minutes too long, and the sci-fi of it wasn't as interesting. But watching a few early scenes in the video store recently, I thought they held up damn well (the "your foster parents are already dead" scene was pretty great).

The idea that action shouldn't "hold up" is hooey. Just compare/contrast the '70s Assault on Precinct 13 and its state-of-the-shitburger remake. Or Duel and its immitators.

When I say "hold up", I simply mean "can I still suspend disbelief when I'm watching this movie?" For T2, the answer is no. For the others I listed, the answer is yes. It's not about "making previous films irrelevant", which is specifically why I listed a bunch of movies that predate T2 or come from the same era.

It's impossible to have a general discussion about film art without it becoming about grosses. SO much changed 1975-80.

On a lesser webboard, this is where I'd get personal.

You are a figure of fun. I point and laugh.

Nah, I like you too much for that.

But seriously, Raiders is probably in my top 10 of all time. Doom wouldn't crack my top 1000.

I feel you. Saw the re-release of E.T. and aside from the idiotic digital replacement of guns with flashlights in the opening, the story has the same magic. Frog scene = one of many classics.

Temple of Doom has a great opening scene, but the comedy is very weak, and the grossout very gross. Pauline Kael was high.

I mean Raiders > Terminator > T2 >>> Doom

For a change, her taste for pulp was dead on!

Yes.

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/14/light_my_fire.html

why are people saying T2 is dated? I watched it a year ago and I thought it still looked great & was lots of fun.

Never, ever understood the appeal of ET - either the film or it's stupid plastic muppet charecter. Sorry.

It's impossible to have a general discussion about film art without it becoming about grosses. SO much changed 1975-80.

You're the one who brought it up dude

You linked it to refute a generalization I didn't much care about one way or the other. I'd rather argue about movies than about critics.

Speaking of movies: The Empire Strikes Back was "spectacularly bad"?! (Maybe we should just hash this out in the '80s poll.)

Fallen Angels (146 points, 5 votes, 2 first-place votes)

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"A film that takes place almost entirely at night in Hong Kong, apparently the loneliest city in the world after hours, where even Michelle Reis finds herself sobbing alone in a dingy apartment. A dark companion piece to Chungking Express (which had its own transcedent, romantic ending with one solitary line of dialogue), Fallen Angels nevertheless leaves one exhilirated and wishing they could be a mute, possibly insane criminal prowling the city at night serving ice cream to unwilling customers. And the final shot--a pan from two characters riding on a motorcycle emerging from a tunnel to a low-angle of Hong Kong skyscrapers above--is almost inexplicably beautiful."

-- Riot Gear!

"I can actually remember very little about the plot of this film, but the fact that so many isolated images remain burned onto my brain makes me place this so high. The cinematography is some of the most evocative I have seen, with place, atmosphere and emotion filling every single frame."

-- emil.y

Three Colors: Red (147 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"In his last directed film, one that naturally invites comparisons to Shakespeare's The Tempest, Kieslowski just as magically assumes the role of Pygmalion, creating the most perfect woman ever to grace cinema. But Valentine's beauty does not count as Kieslowski's masterstroke -- that distinction belongs to his ability to allow us to breathe life into Valentine, who herself reaches across the impossible divide of the screen separating our worlds and lights a breath in us as well."

-- Lee Wang

"Red is flawless else we'll have fisticuffs."

-- Leee Majors

Okay, enjoyed the Salon piece, too. But I think he's wrong about a couple things.
--Film critics don't get more editorial pressure than op-ed page writers.
--Critics aren't experts in the same way foreign correspondents are. It really is a democratic art, in that the non-professional can have a highly developed film sense without being a good writer. In my opinion, for instance, that 6-year-old was right about the The Sixth Sense and the critic was probably wrong.

Before Sunrise (152 points, 10 votes)

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"the truest romantic film I have ever seen. Two scenes must be mentioned because of their achingly romantic situations: the telephone scene and the scene in the listening booth. I wish that every romantic movie could be this good."

-- todd swiss

"perhaps our different takes on it have to do with our readings of the vagaries of the acting by delpy and hawke--people's reactions to acting, like acting itself, tend to be quite mysterious and difficult to explain. a lot of people hate ethan hawke, in this and other films. i've always liked him. he is perhaps a bit foppish in real life (his bad boho novel, bad boho film, etc.) but i think this quality actually contributes to the lifelikeness of the characterization in "before sunrise." indeed one of the pleasures of the film, one of the ways it seems to capture the rhythms of conversation almost uncannily, is how hawke routinely pushes a point a little too hard, raises a subject only to watch it flounce, etc. and how willing delpy is to move the conversation along nonetheless. that's an example of what i mean about form and content."

-- amateur!st

Heavenly Creatures (158 points, 9 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"Although Peter Jackson's film's are constantly entertaining, Heavenly Creatures is his only film that has the makings of a masterpiece."

-- Tuomas

"I saw it for the first time, and was really blown away. I'm not quite too sure why, either. I think the fact that we're presented with two quite sympathetic characters who commit a totally brutal act is one of the main appeals of the film: very few directors would take such a risk. The slow descent into madness as well just feels right. It's also carried out with the delirious glee of small girls playing as well, the scene where Pauline goes to Juliet's house for the first time and she's running around dressed as a fairy princess really encapsulates the whole feel of the movie. And then there's the ever present sense of complete doom that something really bad is going to happen. Plus it has naked Kate Winslet as well, which can't hurt. I think, above all, it resonates with me and a number of other people nowadays because it deals with the death of childhood."

-- Dom Passantino

"i think the mother's very extremely evident worn-down worry and fear-anger-love towards pauline — all the stuff her daughter can't teach herself to see — is heartbreakingly exact, as is the moment when pauline says "treat yrself", where her tenderness towards her mum very nearly reasserts itself at the next-to-last second

i also love pauline's furrowed-brow glare"

-- mark s

"It certainly is Jacksons best film - and Winslets, come to that. The scene which leads up to the moider is breathtaking, the sense of the mother's impending doom is one of the best moments of true horror of any movie I've seen."

-- DavidM

Safe (163 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"...well the whole film made me really uneasy, of course. The baby shower asthma scene just creeped the fuck out of me, as I went to the bathroom right before and came back and was like "aaah!" If it's more of a critique of the sterility of modern society/suburbia - and the medical solutions (presented as cold and morbidly clinical) it offers - was Haynes also satirizing the alternative medicine methods unremittingly/in toto, and thereby articulating a position of there being no hope, escape or remedy? Where can one feel "safe" ? If that is his position, this extremely stark film becomes even bleaker, colder and more depressing in retrospect. Does it offer any solutions? Despite how her own ennui may have caused her reactions, the way the new age guru kept making the patients only blame themselves for their illnesses also bothered me, and I don't think the ending was necessarily a hopeful one, as Moore's character was not improving in health, but declining."

-- Vic

"There is no other film i think about so much - scenes from it pop into my head a few times a week. Its meanings are so slippery and difficult to grasp - your opinoins on the characters change with every scene: Is she getting better or worse; does she reach some kind of peace or has she been brainwashed; is her illness psychosomatic or real? is her husband unfeeling or confused or does he have some kind of empathy? i have watched the last scene maybe 10 times and every time i do i feel something completely different - she's gone mad - she's at peace - she's dying...; is the acting realistic or stagey? do people talk this way now or do they just talk like that on television: Do they learn it from television and now use it in life?

I love the way Julianne Moore looks directly at the screen/ mirror /YOU - and says she loves you - is she telling you as the viewer or herself as a reflection? Nothing else Todd haynes or julianne Moore have made has approached this power. There is nothing like it. Most movies, Even other intelligent films, signal to you what kind of emotion you should be going through this one leaves everything hanging. i keep going back to it."

-- jed

"Overrated, but still effectively creepy, and with Haynes muse starring in the most un-actress-like role of any '90s movie."

-- Pete Scholtes

"One of my top 10 movies of all time. I agree with fletrejet, I think the point was Haynes presents the situations with complete ambiguity and lets the viewers bring their own perspectives to the film. Usually a filmmaker will attempt to direct you towards a conclusion, but Haynes plays this one like real life. We're presented with a situation and asked to make our own decision with the facts presented to us. I thought the cult was handled extremely well, there's some evidence that it's explotative of the members yet at the same time there's evidence that it's quite helpful to many of them as well. Can we deny their happiness and improved lives just because they might be being manipulated? Perhaps this manipulation is part of the cure?

I also love the ending, how he brings us to this changing point in the characters' lives and asks us to make the decision along with the characters. We can see the difficult choice and play out the final scene in many ways, and all we are left with is our personal resolution and the evidence that supports it. This film is fantastic for group viewing and debate."

-- zaxxon25

The Ice Storm (165 points, 8 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"Everyone in this film did their best work in this film, including the director. A great story, and one that is burned on my brain."

-- polyphonic

"I never thought ang lee had such an even, unjudgemental, beautiful, and complicated film as this in him. though I don't know too much abt his other films. as I said on the other thread, everyone is v. v. good in it too - tobey maguire auditioning his version of quaint and goofy fr his future peter parker; sigourney weaver so reasonable and cold; christina ricci her usual dispassionate edged with adolescent curiosity; elijah wood 'sexual'; even kevin "a fish called wanda" klein (sp?) can't ruin it.) pretty bleak, however."

-- cºzen

Glengarry Glen Ross (170 points, 9 votes)

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"Quotable Mamet on full, self-loathing throttle, and with the perfect sausage party cast. Alec Baldwin scene = classic."

-- Pete Scholtes

"I like sharp, snappy scripts and heavyweight actors attempting to act each other off the screen. This film has both in spades. Al Pacino eats up the screen in what could be, for me, his finest role to date. Like when he tells the cops “I did it…”, or his insult to Spacey “you stoopid fuckin’ cunt” you have to love him for it. And what about Baldwin’s monologue? If you’ve ever worked in sales or anything close, you’ll be blown away by his ‘motivational’ speech: “Third prize is you’re fired”. Almost perfectly acted by a dream team cast – I never tire of watching this movie."

-- Alex K.

Lone Star (171 points, 9 votes)

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"Sayles' apotheosis, with a touching, transcendent, quiet final scene not played as a revelation, just as life. "It's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice." "

-- Bill Weber

Waiting for Guffman (174 points, 10 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"Last night, I went to see Big Fish, which was as bad as I thought it would be. So, in an effort to get the bad taste out of our mouths, my best friend and I watched Guffman for like the zillionth time. Let me add that I'm not someone who watches movies over and over: there's probably only 20 or so movies that I've seen more than once, and under 10 that I've seen more than twice. But Guffman NEVER fails to make me laugh. At this point, it's like total comfort food for me."

-- jaymc

"infinintely rewatchable."

-- Mil

"I second the notion that Waiting For Guffman (and Spinal Tap too) only gets funnier with every viewing. and I hate to watch most movies more than once."

-- Anthony Miccio

"Oh my goodness, Guffman... The "Stool Boom" song, My Dinner with Andre action figures... "'Ello! 'Ow are 'ou?" "He sings, he dances, he directs. There's only one other person who can do that, and that's Barbara Streisand." I love it."

-- Prude

Miller's Crossing (174 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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"The great thing about Miller's Crossing is that no matter how many times I see it, I never remember the plot."

-- Tonight at ten

"I have espoused the virtues of this masterpiece before on the ilx boards, but suffice to say, this film is everything I want in a picture – humane, dark, witty, clever, allegorical, complex, loaded with consequence, and littered with tiny details, unique undertones, and double meanings that I am still deciphering each time I watch it. Its commentary upon such universal themes as love, betrayal, trust, friendship and ethics is at once intricate, poignant, darkly funny and, beneath the comic-book gangster veneer, above all, human. Beautifully shot, beautifully lit, beautifully scripted and beautifully acted, I can’t fault this picture. It enraptures me each time I watch it. One scene to convince you of its genius? Check out Albert Finney blowing away a couple of goons who invade his house, then chasing them down the street with a ‘Thompson’ while smoking a cigar, set to the strains of Danny Boy blaring out from a battered-in gramophone."

-- Alex K.

Anyway, the discussion was about ILX being non-elitist, which puts us all in the position of being the same self-proclaimed experts that Taylor was talking about. That's all.

#67 L.A. Confidential
#59 Pi (1 first)
#44 Nightmare Before Christmas (1 first)
#37 Before Sunrise
#30 Waiting for Guffman (1 first)

even kevin "a fish called wanda" klein (sp?) can't ruin it

I don't see your point, I think Kevin Kline is excellent in most of his films, including The Ice Storm. I'd say he's a much better actor than he's given credit for, also when it comes to drama roles. Ditto for Ethan Hawke.

Pretty much all that have ever been attempted.

The last 10 or so picks, save Lone Star and Glengarry (which was perfect on stage), recall that "Manhattan" phrase Academy of the Overrated, Gen Y style.

The whole cult-base final section of "Safe" just doesn't work for me. A friend who claims it's the best film of the '90s says it took the fourth or fifth viewing for him to realize it's a comedy. That's too many for me.

Miller's Crossing lovers, rent all the Warners Gangster Collection. Now. Then repent.

So you guys loooove hit-and-miss TV-sketch style comedies, huh? With two-dimensional characters by design?

39-30 were really great, but hey, what do I know, I guess I'm just a founding member of the Gen-Y Academy of the Overrated.

Miller's Crossing is hands down the best Coen film.

Fallen Angels should be number one! But I think it's going to be Goodfellas, which isn't a bad choice.

Fallen Angels was by far my least favorite Wong, but I can't recall much about it.

Delicatessen (186 points, 9 votes)

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Toy Story (190 points, 14 votes)

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Toy Story is so good, though I prefer Toy Story II, one of the few movies ever that almost made me cry. But yeah, Toy Story is awesome too.

Boogie Nights (192 points, 12 votes)

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"Enjoyable, if overlong, conscious widescreen epic. In a rise-and-fall-of, look-at-specific-era-of-American-culture sorta way. Again, surrogate families/parents, by way of "Nashville". The world of porno gone "GoodFellas". The guys I went to film school with at the time claimed that the final scene even TIMED OUT to the same length as DeNiro's closing mirror monologue in "Raging Bull". "

-- absolute skittles

"That part in Boogie Nights where all the different scenes are juxtaposed against each other and there's that absurdly minimalist soundtrack and Don Cheadle's character is getting fucked up (not in the drug sense though) = powerful shit mang."

-- nickalicious

xpost: damn, I thought Boogie Nights would be higher

Jackie Brown (196 points, 14 votes)

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"One long coffee-break of a movie that's better the second time, once you know how little the plot has in store. Tarantino completely rewrote the book, but that's apparently what it took to better capture the lazy mood of other, better Elmore Leonard novels (this is Leonard's favorite adaptation, he says). The characters measure each other carefully, weigh each situation, consider their options, and play each other, killing, kissing, or seeking out a chemical fix in some dark bar with classic soul on the jukebox. Samuel L. Jackson at his most relaxed nearly blows the Pam Grier/Robert Forster team off the screen (I'm still convinced better actors could have made the movie sing more), but there's a quiet and real chemistry in the Grier/Forster non-couple, and even the sunniest mall scenes can't shake the weird scariness of that Chris Tucker/Meters' "Sissy Strut" sequence (I'm being vague for anyone who hasn't seen this). Part of me wishes the entire movie would take place with Bridgette Fonda in that living room."

-- Pete Scholtes

"All the actors have room to breathe, think, react, gather their defenses, change strategy. It's the closest thing to a John Sayles movie you'll ever see from QT. Which is a recommendation in my book."

-- Tracer Hand

Jackie Brown gets overrated for the valuable human element provided by Grier & Forster (and the only substantial de Niro performance of the last dozen years?), nearly neutralized by Samuel J's blaxploitation joke-on-legs.

I could've flipped a coin on Delicatessen vs City of Lost Children, but I haven't seen either since their debut so they missed the cut.

The first time I saw Boogie Nights I thought it was great. It's a film of massively diminishing returns, though, moreso when you realize PT Anderson doesn't have an original thought in his head, and he just grafts stories onto a particular template in order to remake some of the films he wishes he had made in the first place. I don't mind thievery in genre films, but when a guy is allegedly making "thoughtful, deep, emotional pictures", but in actuality is just making shallow cover versions of better films, I call foul.

(haha, that just goes to show how damned LONG that scene was)

Eyes Wide Shut (196 points, 11 votes)

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"DV is right - when you read the source material, it's surprising just how faithful EWS is to Schnitzler's slight, surreal comedy of manners. The tokenistic updating. and relocation to an obviously constructed 'New York', only adds to the film's detached and dreamlike air - nothing in it feels 'right' or 'real'. And I think Kubrick is gently mocking Cruise's status as number one sex symbol by getting him to play a bit of a bumbling idiot who stumbles from one encounter to another, seemingly oblivious to other people's desire for him. DV is also on the money w/ the David Lynch comparison - according to Lynch, Kubrick once nominated 'Eraserhead' as his fave film, and you can see the things that they have in common - exquisitely composed images, sloooow pacing, an air of menace and mystery, a refusal to give the viewer 'obvious' answers. Even after watching EWS a couple of times, I'd be hard-pressed to articulate what the film is 'saying' exactly - be careful of what you wish for? That the idea of infidelity is better than the actuality? That desire has nothing to do with 'relationships'? Or that dull marriages need a bit of spicing up?"

-- Andrew L

"I have much love for Barry Lyndon and Eyes Wide Shut, flawed as they may be; in those flicks Kubrick did try to build characters, and not just say something about the human condition. The ending of Eyes Wide Shut showed Kubrick more humane than he'd been since Paths of Glory."

-- Tuomas

"Just re-watched Eyes Wide Shut, and the pre-lude to the orgy (with the Romanian chanting and Nick Nightingale playing keyboard blindfolded) is nothing short of masterful. It was so good I wanted to cry.

I sort of figured that would be Kubrick's thinking behind the naval officer scenes, and they do sit better on subsequent viewings, I just hate the grainy blue film it's shot with. Music's good though."

-- David Steans

"As with the next film on my list, the criticisms leveled at Kubrick's "real" final film seemed to me to stem more than anything else from expectations of what it "should've been" preventing reviewers and audiences from admiring it for what it was--to my tastes, one of Kubrick's finest films."

-- Josh Timmermann

Ed Wood (200 points, 13 votes)

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"Burton's funniest film, Johnny Depp's intoxicating breakout, Martin Landau's Oscar: a movie about visionaries believing in themselves so hard, and with so little apparent effort, that being silly never occurred to them."

-- Pete Scholtes

"A most frustratingly good director, because lately he has gone through mostly odd missteps. Not QUITE a mass-market David Lynch or anything, though he has the knack of handling big budget projects more than Lynch does. Still, most everyone I know seems to have a Burton film they adore above all others and for me that's Ed Wood, which becomes my favorite film of the nineties the more time goes on..."

-- Ned Raggett

"One of the ironies of modern film, that such a terrific, hilarious, and often touching film could be made about one of the worst filmmakers of all time."

-- polyphonic

Magnolia (201 points, 10 votes, 2 first-place votes)

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Barton Fink (201 points, 11 votes, 1 first-place vote)

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Comments?

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (203 points, 13 votes)

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Comments?

"Magnolia" has one of the worst endings of any movie I have ever seen. And by "ending", I mean the last 45 minutes or so (but especially the last 10).

I know I ask this question at most polls, but how short do you think the list will have to get before it will be easy to call the remaining films? Pretty damn short is my guess.

Anderson doesn't really know what to do with kids, but that's hardly a unique failing among directors. It just seems weird for a movie about child abuse.

Courtney Love reviews Boogie Nights:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5940046

and these ones have a chance:
breaking the waves
fast, cheap and out of control
exotica
city of hope
contact
dazed and confused
farewell my concubine
the fifth element
hudsucker proxy
iron giant
joe vs. the volcano
life is sweet
mr. death
naked
office space
the piano
princess mononoke
the thin red line
titanic

Anyway: Magnolia is good and maybe even great, because of its big goofy heart. Talk about a movie not afraid to seem stupid. But it still mostly avoids embarrassment (I even like the frogs, I'm afraid). Favorite bits: the reporter interviewing Tom Cruise (as much for her as him -- she's so unruffled and sure of herself); the first encounter between John C. Reilly and the cokehead girl, when he goes to her apartment to tell her to turn down the stereo; the painful scene in the bar with William Macy and the waspy old queen (and Supertramp).

Barton Fink...I like the first half fine, but it goes seriously off the rails. They're shooting for a Lynchy thing, and they don't bring it off. It's their "art film" pastiche, but it's like they couldn't decide whether to send up art films or make one, and got stuck in between. John Goodman's good.

South Park is near fucking genius. It would be in my curriculum for any study of the Clinton era.

Actually, I think they decided to do both - and that they managed to pull this off is part of what makes the film for me. John Goodman is good in it, yes. As are pretty much everyone else, from Turturro to Judy Davis, to John Mahoney in the sozzled Faulkner role, to Michael Lerner as the fascist studio boss. I still think it's the best Coen Bros movie, and it's probably my favorite of the 90s.

Best part of the movie. "My memory's getting womanish on me, all lying and deceitful."

My first reaction was to share your skepticism, but when I went back and checked my ballot, I found South Park listed, of all places, at #21. So I guess I have to agree with the poll result in its unfathomable wisdom.

Actually, I have no idea.

A chance:
Ghost in the Shell

Er, in what way is South Park reactionary? I'm not a big fan of Trey Parker's and Matt Stone's libertarian politics, but in this particular film the way they deal with censorship and with how protecting the children is used as an excuse for everything is spot on. I think South Park deserves to be number 21, it's one of the best comedy/musical films of thew nineties. I think the musical part of it is often ignored, even though Trey Parker writes damn catchy scores and builds up great musical scenes; this has been evident ever since Cannibal! The Musical, his first film. Also, I love the way the movie builds upon the characters of the TV series and somehow makes them into something more touching than mere satirical vessels; Satan as the ignored lover is great, and when Kenny finally takes his hood off, before sacrificing himself to save the world, and says "Goodbye!", without mumbling, that almost brought a tear to my eye.

(i like the South Park movie, #21, sure why not)

Because so very few people belong to either category, certainly not the electors of the US.

Err, no. They were self-imposed only under threat of being outside-imposed. This was about a year after Columbine, and "think of the children!" was at its height. That's why South Park is not just great because it rude and funny, but because it was a brave film to make.

And it's also (morally) good. Normally, when I hear talk of how satirical comedy has to have a "heart", I reach for my revolver, but the fact that the film is really sweet most of the way through is the thing I didn't expect.

breaking the waves
dazed and confused
farewell my concubine
the fifth element
hudsucker proxy
iron giant
naked
office space
the piano
princess mononoke
the thin red line

(I don't think the people who voted for the seventy films we've seen so far will have much time for Titanic, though I could be wrong).

So that's 11-goes-into-8. If you put a gun to my head and said "three of these aren't going to be in the top 100 films of the 90s", I'd pick Naked, The Piano and, er, maybe The Fifth Element. There is a lot of hate for the Hudsucker Proxy, but the high placing of the other Coen Bros. films gives me hope.

You guys really fall for these (Hollywood) directors who are marketed as visionaries in Entertainment Weekly, don'tcha? As I wait for Hou Hsiao-hsien or Andre Techine to appear. And Fight Club was "a mess" or "wobbly" compared to some of this half-baked silliness?

I liked Magnolia a whole lot more when it was called Short Cuts.

I wish Trainspotting was still to come, but I suspect it's too British.

Jocelyn, that saddens me. You wouldn't be any fun at the opera, either!

That wasn't a comment about the level of my retardedness, was it?

You really fall for these directors who are marketed as visionaries in the Village Voice and Chicago Reader, don'tcha?

(And literally, NO. Hoberman loved Dogville, one of my most loathed films in years, and JR is on the Million $ Baby bandwagon.)

Yes, like Kassovitz, Neil Jordan, Woody, Mike Leigh, Hirokazu, Robert Duvall, Kiarostami, Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam, Lisa Heinzerling, Vincent Gallo, Hal Hartley, Wong, Korine, Scorsese, Altman, Almodovar, Peter Hewitt, Moodysson, Besson, Woo, Lynch, Chan, Denis, Verhoeven, Lyne, Tykwer, Jarmusch, Kevin Smith, Peter Jackson, pre-Hollywood Aronofsky, Spheeris, Haynes, Jeunet & Caro, Steve James, Lynne Ramsay, Vinterberg, Kieslowski, Solondz, Linklater, Sayles, James Foley, Trey and Matt Stone and Kubrick.

Or were you talking about the other ~20 films on the list, 1/3 of which are by 3 directors?

OTM

I don't for a second believe that they (the electors of the US gov) ARE far-rightists or puritanically religious. I think any argument to claim so is misinformed, and deserves a better argument than this one: no.

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At the time the movie was released ('99) the much-belabored 'censorship laws' oft-referenced in criticism of the film were largely self-imposed fuzzy guidelines by the Hollywood industry.

Err, no. They were self-imposed only under threat of being outside-imposed. This was about a year after Columbine, and "think of the children!" was at its height. That's why South Park is not just great because it rude and funny, but because it was a brave film to make.

And it's also (morally) good. Normally, when I hear talk of how satirical comedy has to have a "heart", I reach for my revolver, but the fact that the film is really sweet most of the way through is the thing I didn't expect.

-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), February 17th, 2005 3:29

Brave, how? Being brave would involve some real risk-taking. Saying fuck, or featuring a poorly-animated puppet of Saddam singing musical numbers isn't brave, it's silly fun -- if you like that kind of thing. Pushing the 'rude' button is the equiv. of poking a sibling in the eye to see what happens; the reaction's predictable but the intensity isn't. Moreover, I can't imagine sitting through a film that didn't have a heart. Movies = move us. A purely cerebral experience is unsatisfying, and I'm glad South Park was able to affect you. It wasn't able to affect me at all, however, and in being so distant, so reactionary in its politics, and so ... dull ... in my eyes belongs nowhere on a list of 'top films' of the anything.

Also - Dan - we agree on Magnolia.

This is not true and, even if it was, bringing it up in an argument about South Park strikes me as being wilfully obtuse about what's happening in the movie.

Optimally, yes. Sorry it didn't move you. That seems to be all your argument boils down to, though.

Man, if you can't appreciate a toe-tapping song about using dirty words, I can't help you.

And how am I willfully obtuse about what's happening in the movie? Admittedly, I haven't seen the flick since it was in theatres ... but I don't remember it doing anything but mucking around on the (safe) edge of artifically and conservatively-set taste-lines. I'll be the first to acknowledge that I don't remember it well, but I can't imagine I'd miss a huge layer of satire or incisive commentary.

Also: Though I once did, I no longer give a shit as to your opinion of me, Dan, especially since I realize exactly how insultingly poor it is. But I'd appreciate if you could keep conversations (and I do enjoy discussing this shit with you) from veering toward passive digs at my person. Insinuating my 'willful obtuseness' or a 'loathe'-ful redefinition of the word 'reactionary' does nothing to continue a conversation except make me feel like I shouldn't bother arguing lest I be insulted. As I've said before - if you've got shit with me, bring it into the open. I can take it.

What the fuck is it about expressing opinions about movies? My wife and her ex-bestfriend are now not even on speaking terms, largely because of a difference of opinions about films. Anyone else sense the over-blownness of it all?

Sorry Morb, but your theory of film criticism seems to be a CYA of poo-pooing everything popular & not giving your approval until the a Voice critic ok's it first.

(xpost "Se7en" was great, though! And "The Sixth Sense" would have been great had I not seen the ending first.)

Being nihilistically funny is not the same as being cerebral, and there's nothing wrong with that kind of humour (which was all over the South Park tv series), I was just expressing a pleasant surprise that the movie wasn't like that, and that that approach worked.

Well, Christopher Nolan's not the first person to think "OMG our entire sense of self is based on our memories!", but that's the best example in film (or other media) of such that I can think of. Insight I don't particularly want, but well- or forcefully-argued cases are grand.

I thought the narrative was great and my considerable enjoyment of it is almost exclusively on that level

The actual answer to the question "Who set him up?" is brilliant, and I definitely got my money's worth there, in purely cerebral terms. I got a little more as well, because I cared about Guy Pearse's character.

I didn't say anything about blockbusters--it just seems from your responses that you associate yourself more with the hipster critics who dismiss anything popular as pretentious or "been done", yet wholeheartedly embrace the newest Spielberg picture for some unexplained uniqueness or "humanity".

Andrew summed it up best-- Jay - it's not enough that the right people love a movie, the right people have to hate it too, you dig?

That's enough from me--I'm not even supposed to be posting to this thing...