Crazy John's Best Films of the 90's

The 1990s: A Decade Spent in front of the VCR

When the 1990s began I was a mere handful of months away from seventeenth birthday. A film fanatic since the age of five, I was already devouring movies at about an average of two a week, thanks largely to the wonders of videotape. My choice of the most ideal film was without question Dawn of the Dead. Could it be anything else? That was a staggering and uncomprehending question for this critic in 1989.

The decade that a film fan comes of age in always hold strong feelings (how else can one explain Jean-Luc Godard still placing on 10-best lists?). In this last decade, I watched my first subtitled film (Time of the Gypsies), grew to not immediately turn the channel when a film was in B&W, and for what’s it worth, managed to stake out a college minor in Film Studies. I went from watching 14 hours of slasher films straight (March 1992) to driving four hours to see art films (Nov 1999). And after it all, I still liked zombie films!

A list of the best films of the 1990s is going to look pretty arbitrary. Fun to create, maybe fun to read, but how useful? From the standpoint of art, time will tell. We can make educated guesses, throw in our current favorites, get prissy when someone suggests a Titanic or a Jurassic Park, but in the end what is accomplished? It usually takes more than twenty years to be a contender on the Sight and Sound poll, and Film History classes often seem to stop at about ‘75. Who really wants to write the definitive word on the 1980s or 1990s after all?

All jokes aside, the 1990s, as a whole, were good to cinema. One need not play the death march as 2000 opens. The periodical Film Comment ends the year with a look back at important scenes, performances, or images which left an effect. Here are the scenes, images, performances, and films I’ll take with me into the next decade/century/millennium:

1990:

-- “I’m a Believer” (BULLET IN THE HEAD).
-- The Last Day sequence from GOODFELLAS.
-- Teen angst turned strangely optimistic and easy to embrace over pirate radio stations nationwide (PUMP UP THE VOLUME).
-- A reel of deleted kissing scenes (CINEMA PARADISO).
-- An Elephant’s funeral (SANTA SANGRE).
-- Nude lovers in a carrion truck (THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE, AND HER LOVER).
-- “Peach Tree” and Vincent Van Gogh (played by Scorsese) episodes from AKIRA KUROSAWA’S DREAMS.
-- Death approaching in an 1950s classic automobile as a woman defines what it means to get old (THE REFLECTING SKIN).
-- A Hong Kong West Side Story and a BULLET IN THE HEAD.
-- GOODFELLAS’ “Layla” montage.

1991:

-- “We’d have been there just in time for Tet!” Fellini’s 8 ½ made real (HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE).
-- HUDSON HAWK mailing himself to the Vatican.
-- Most profound and moving urban social analysis of the decade: CITY OF HOPE.
-- Best casting of the decade: Crispen Glover as Andy Warhol in THE DOORS.
-- “I’m a connoisseur of roads” (MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO).
-- Lily Taylor in DOGFIGHT.
-- Michelle Yeoh in POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP.
-- ZENTROPA’s projected images.
-- A wrestling picture. . . with the BARTON FINK feeling.
-- ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA’s fight on ladders in Battleship Potemkin remade as a martial arts film.
-- ONCE A THIEF’s epilogue of domestic bliss. . . and the climatic shootout just before.
-- Best cop film of the decade: Alex Cox’s slickly understated, and underrated, HIGHWAY PATROLMAN.
-- Most certifiably insane madman of the decade: Francis Ford Coppola in HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE.

1992:

-- “It’s a hell of a thing to kill a man. You take away all he has and all he’s ever gonna have. . . . We all have it comin.’” (UNFORGIVEN - one of the few westerns worth watching this decade).
-- A battle of machismo with giant, slabs of hanging meat as instruments of war (JAMON JAMON).
-- BOILING POINT’s M-16, hidden in flowers, which goes off a little too soon.
-- A HANDFUL OF SAND (aka LONE WOLF AND CUB: FINAL CONFLICT)’s final swordfight which takes place on a beach and ranks as one of the best scenes ever in a samurai film.
-- The future of China as depicted as a test of balance in the finale of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA 2.
-- The sheer magnitude of the quilt and the people and the names that keep coming (COMMON THREADS: TALES FROM THE QUILT).
-- Shootout in an ice house with exploding fire extinguishers (FULL CONTACT).
-- “Writers don’t kill people!” (THE PLAYER).
-- A lizard crawling over a broken baby doll’s face (JAMON JAMON).
-- Most twists and turns of the decade: THE CRYING GAME.
-- Worst place to dine: the tea house from the opening of HARDBOILED.
-- Cutting from the hijinks of a pair of wasted low level yakuza hoods (one played the hilt by the film’s director, Takeshi Kitano) to the perfect, constipated look on the dead-pan superiors (BOILING POINT).
-- What is the meaning of “Like a Virgin?” (RESERVOIR DOGS)

1993:

-- Single greatest sequence of the decade and most perfect ending: the line of survivors making their way around Oscar Schindler’s grave (SCHINDLER’S LIST).
-- Most unique way to film a biography: THIRTY-TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD.
-- Friends betraying friends in a bright hell of a Chinese purge in the best epic of the decade (FAREWELL, MY CONCUBINE).
-- “Is he the Oriental?” (TRUE ROMANCE).
-- The heroes set up for a slaughter: TAI CHI MASTER.
-- Mailing yourself back to Poland (WHITE).
-- Biggest acting surprise of the decade: Lyle Lovett as the baker from Robert Altman’s adaptation of one of Raymond Carver’s best stories, “A Small Good Thing” (SHORT CUTS).
-- The look on Christopher Walken’s face playing a mobster who is getting his entire Sicilian heritage raked over the coals by a gleeful cop (Dennis Hopper) in TRUE ROMANCE.
-- Sneaking across the hall to sleep with your mistress as your stunned barely teenage daughter looks on (DAMAGE).
-- Why the world must be coming to an end and the fiction of this thing called the Present by Johnny, a British low life not likely to see another year (NAKED).
-- Julianne Moore’s naked (literal and figurative) confession on her character’s past affair (SHORT CUTS).
-- The film which Juliette Binoche should have won the Oscar for: BLUE.
-- Best fantastical romance and best fantastical villains: BRIDE WITH THE WHITE HAIR.
-- Best use of 70s music this decade: DAZED AND CONFUSED.
-- Best loving family of the decade: SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER.
-- Best short film of the decade: DOTTIE GETS SPANKED, which is also, Todd Haynes’ best work to date.

1994:

-- Best film of the decade set in a desert: ASHES OF TIME.
-- Funniest film of the decade: ED WOOD.
-- A script as thought out and interesting as any game of chess: FRESH.
-- FIST OF LEGEND’s final fight with the Japanese commander. In that scene, the remake surpasses the original Bruce Lee classic, Chinese Connection.
-- The opera broadcast into the courtyard of a group of stunned hardened criminals: hope (THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION).
-- A world’s first launch into space and the legend of Prometheus (WINGS OF HONNEAMIS).
-- Kidnaping and a giant Sunday (CHUNGKING EXPRESS).
-- Most fascinating three hour film dealing with sports and families: HOOP DREAMS.
-- Connections on a phone line, voyeur ex-judges, and how we choose to live our lives. Nothing but the big questions from RED, the third (and best) of the Three Color films.
-- Why do people go night after night to same strip club? Why do people work in them? In EXOTICA, Atom Egoyan provides for the coldly unsettling answers.
-- DRUNKEN MASTER 2's nonstop action finale where Jackie Chan keeps topping himself.
-- PULP FICTION rewriting Deliverance for the big city.
-- You can’t go home again: SPANKING THE MONKEY.
-- Bela and the squid (ED WOOD).
-- A nearly blind samurai makes a final stand (ASHES OF TIME).

1995:

-- Christmases of turmoil, prisoners released, arrested again, one group moves out, another moves in, all without a single cut (ULYSSES’ GAZE).
-- A phone call stretching across centuries (12 MONKEYS).
-- SAfE’s Julianne Moore on the floor of the dry cleaners
-- RICHARD III’s tank through the study.
-- David Lynch’s one minute in LUMIERE AND COMPANY.
-- Takeshi Kitano playing a sexually confused hitman who shows up for his big hit with an automatic in one hand and an umbrella in the other (GONIN).
-- Kevin Spacey in THE USUAL SUSPECTS.
-- The milkshake poet in BEFORE SUNRISE.
-- Most devastating loss of innocence of decade: the finale of SHANGHAI TRIAD.
-- Most dysfunctional family: CRUMB.
-- Most perfect ambiguity of the decade: SAFE.
-- Boldest experiment of the decade: LUMIERE AND COMPANY.
-- A modern day Gulliver riding Lenin into the land of the Lilliputians (ULYSSES’ GAZE).

1996:

-- “Samson Unchained” and “High Road to Damascus” two lost Biblical epics “found” by Peter Jackson in THE FORGOTTEN SILVER.
-- Campaign managers discussing how tight their bosses are (A PERFECT CANDIDATE).
-- Sam Dees summing up his father as the owner of everything in town in LONE STAR.
-- William Blake (Johnny Depp) floating away at the end of DEAD MAN.
-- “So, I guess that was your friend there in the woodchipper, eh?” (FARGO).
-- A family get together to end all family get togethers (SECRETS AND LIES).
-- An adopted child comes home with marital problems, a sexual frustration, and two gay federal agents in tow (FLIRTING WITH DISASTER).
-- Bess (Emily Watson) out on the ship where no hookers go, and Udo Kier is the captain (BREAKING THE WAVES).
-- A sleep filled journey west where each awakening brings less and less civilization until you wake up and there is Crispen Glover (DEAD MAN).
-- Most fascinating study of how the sins of the parents are dealt with by the next generation: LONE STAR.
-- Most brilliantly unlikeable cast of the decade: CITIZEN RUTH.
-- What really did happen at Robin Hood Hills? PARADISE LOST asked the challenging questions and kept the audience riveted.
-- Medieval Times (THE CABLE GUY).
-- World Cinema’s first cinematic martial arts fight courtesy of New Zealand (THE FORGOTTEN SILVER).
-- Emily Watson in BREAKING THE WAVES.
-- William H. Macy in FARGO.
-- Philip Baker Hall in HARD EIGHT.
-- Most frightening villain of the decade: Kris Kristofferson as the sheriff who rules the border with an iron hand in John Sayles’ LONE STAR.
-- Weirdest Bergman homage and strangest gangster film: Abel Ferrara’s THE FUNERAL.
-- Most misunderstood film of the decade: THE CABLE GUY.

1997:

-- “Long Way Down (One More Thing)” from BOOGIE NIGHTS.
-- L.A. CONFIDENTIAL’s Victory Motel.
-- People in motion (HAPPY TOGETHER).
-- HANA-BI (aka FIREWORKS)’s ending: a kite on a beach and two bullets left in a gun.
-- Ordel (Samuel L. Jackson)’s stunned reaction to his missing money and his nonchalant second in command, Louis (Robert De Niro) in JACKIE BROWN.
-- Banky (Jason Lee) explaining what all women want (CHASING AMY).
-- Most hateful trick of the decade: IN THE COMPANY OF MEN.
-- Most humane, political film of the decade: MEN WITH GUNS.
-- Peter Fonda as honey maker Ulee in ULEE’S GOLD.
-- Ian Holm as the insurance man with a dying daughter in THE SWEET HEREAFTER.
-- The ICE STORM which concludes the film. It’s message is clear: all are connected.
-- Coldest photography of the decade: the ice landscapes of THE SWEET HEREAFTER.
-- Best Foreign thriller of the decade: Pedro Almadovar’s LIVE FLESH.
-- Confessing love into a tape recorder (HAPPY TOGETHER).
-- A stressed out policeman (Takeshi Kitano) finally losing it over a cop killer in HANA-BI (aka FIREWORKS).
-- Most unsettling documentary of the decade: WACO, THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT.
-- “Is it this row, Lou-is?” (JACKIE BROWN).

1998:

-- Pan up to a refugee camp as an existential hell on earth (ETERNITY AND A DAY).
-- Bill Pullman as the eccentric private detective Daryl Zero in THE ZERO EFFECT, the most neglected film of the decade.
-- A race for shoes (CHILDREN OF HEAVEN).
-- RUSHMORE’s falling tree.
-- The meanest, most devastating line of dialogue of the decade: The father’s response in THE CELEBRATION.
-- Only court oriented film worth watching: A CIVIL ACTION.
-- RUSHMORE’s yearbook.
-- Most hellish combat footage of the decade (century): D-Day in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
-- ELIZABETH losing her girlish innocence in the final scenes.
-- Apocalypse Now: the school play (RUSHMORE).
-- How would you spend the last day of your life? ETERNITY AND A DAY demands that a poet (Bruno Ganz) appreciate a wedding, a musical composition, and make the difference in a life of a young boy.
-- Best message of the decade: Those that appreciate art often can’t afford it. Those who can afford great art seldom appreciate it - THE RED VIOLIN.
-- CHILDREN OF HEAVEN: Screen children one can actually love.
-- A soldier’s death innercut with the memory of an Eden on Earth (THE THIN RED LINE).
-- Burning a street urchin’s clothes in a modern day Viking Funeral (ETERNITY AND A DAY).
-- Best illegal romantic chemistry: OUT OF SIGHT.

1999:

-- “Go Back to the nursing home, Grandpa,” (THE LIMEY).
-- A chase through John Malkovich’s subconscious (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH).
-- Reese Witherspoon’s facial expressions (ELECTION).
-- The Trickster tricked (MAN ON THE MOON).
-- The motorized chair in TREKKIES: is the guy a genius or a nut?
-- An estranged son returns home to his hard-to-like father on an unusually rainy night in MAGNOLIA.
-- TARZAN and Jane chased by monkeys.
-- “What’s wrong with Michael Jackson?” (THREE KINGS)
-- David Strathain in LIMBO. -
- Tom Cruise as Frank T.J. Mackey in MAGNOLIA. -
- Chris Cooper as the psycho next door in AMERICAN BEAUTY. -
- Hilary Swank as the not quite boy next door in BOYS DON’T CRY.
-- Meeting the wife at the drive-threw of a hamburger shop (AMERICAN BEAUTY).
-- The Cars “You’re Just What I Needed” (BOYS DON’T CRY).
-- Cooking deer while surrounded by the plastic variety (THE STRAIGHT STORY).
-- Lily Partridge (Julianne Moore) breaking down in front of condescending, suspicious drug store workers in MAGNOLIA.
-- The run-down house in the middle of nowhere in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT.
-- Attacking to Air Supply (THREE KINGS).
-- TARZAN versus the tiger.
-- THE GREEN MILE’s second execution.
-- What did happen to Jenny (THE LIMEY).

Recently, both Film Comment and The Village Voice have given their lists of the best films and directors of the decade to somewhat surprising (in my mind) results. Tarantino and Scorsese are a given of course, but how about the high ranking Iranian Abbas Kiarostami and Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien? Trying to find either director’s oveure on video in the US (let alone on the big screen) is about as difficult as finding someone to recommend Showgirls.

Kiarostami’s Cannes winner Taste of Cherry is available, but don’t anyone hold their breath for his earlier Close-Up and Through the Olive Trees. Hsiao-hsien is a lost cause, nothing on tape, nothing coming to a theater near you. Taste of Cherry, while certainly interesting and visually impressive, came overrated. As for Hsiao-hsien, one day maybe the rest of us will get a chance to view his films, until then. . . . So, perhaps out of necessity my (very subjective) choices are slightly more traditional. Call it the decade’s best established American director, best newcomer, best International filmmaker, and best Hong Kong director (since HK was my favorite film producing capital through the first half of the decade).

1) John Sayles -- If I had to choose the best fiction film of the decade, it would have to be Sayles’ Lone Star. City of Hope would make the top ten as well. That would leave Passion Fish, Secret of Roan Inish, Men with Guns, and Limbo. No other filmmaker had a track record like that this decade.

Runner-up: Martin Scorsese because, while he might not have had the decade in his palm, I still get excited every time a new film of his comes out.

2) PT Anderson -- With Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, Anderson is the newest director that gives one hope for film in the 00s.

Runner-Up: Francois Girard (Red Violin, 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould) for telling epic stories with personal themes in fascinatingly original ways.

3) Theo Angelopoulos -- Many find this Greek filmmaker a pretentious, self-indulgent blow hard. Detractors argue that his films are unwatchable. Slow? Absolutely. Overlong? Possibly. But, every scene fascinates. Sometimes you have to risk it all, to try to raise the aesthetic stakes. Ulysses’ Gaze and Eternity and a Day are two of the most fascinating, and unique films of the 90s.

Runner-up: Krzystof Kieslowski whose Three Color trilogy (Blue, White, Red) constituted a far more fascinating large canvas than anything George Lucas will ever dream up.

4) John Woo -- For me, John Woo ruled the first part of the decade (Bullet in the Head, Once a Thief, and Hardboiled). Then came the mindless fun of Hard Target, the dull Broken Arrow, and overrated Face/Off. Nonetheless, I’m a sucker for that Mission Impossible 2 trailer.

Runner-up: Wong Kar-wai (Ashes of Time, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, and one unseen by me: Days of Being Wild) is no less a filmmaker than Woo, but in a much different vein.

Lastly, here is a plug for what I consider the greatest film of the decade: HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE. This film ranks with the best of Herzog’s jungle movies at showing obsession and the most surreal work of David Lynch and Alexandro Jodorowsky in terms of absurdity. And, it’s all true! As great as Apocalypse Now, Hearts of Darkness has become impossible for me to separate from the Coppola masterpiece.

That’s it for the 1990s, 115 films that matter, 8 master directors, and a lot of great moments. See you in 2010.

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