1990s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[zedz]

Maybe he meant longest narrative film?

I mean it in the sense of a proper film that had a proper theatrical release and wasn't just shown once or twice (or even made) in order to get into the record books. I don't think there's any longer film that qualifies in those terms?

[Gregory]

She's also in Cameron Crowe's Singles, which with Reality Bites and Empire Records captures the Gen X 20-something feel of the era, even if all three of these movies are pretty flawed affairs on the whole (and Fonda is given a really cringe-worthy plot line in Singles concerning her desire for breast implants)

I agree that Singles is not a very good film, but there's more to the Fonda character's role in the story than someone who actually wants breast implants, which are just a means to an end. As I remember it, Crowe wrote the character as a person lacking a strong identity, confidence, etc. and so wants to change herself in some dramatic way to impress Dillon's detached musician character by trying to take on the "rock star girlfriend" role a bit more. Breast implants were much less common back then and were pretty widely debated as a risky procedure. So yeah, not the most inspired arc for a character, but at least different from the usual rom-com fare.

I'll stick up for Reality Bites, though I haven't seen it in some time. It seems well worth revisiting for this round. I think it's unfortunate that the media latched onto it as a "Generation X" film exclusive of anything else, both because I'm skeptical of specious mass media-created "generations" and because it limited the film's potential appeal and has dated it—though this year it got a Blu-ray release*, so I guess a dated film is prime fodder for nostalgia. The other unfortunate thing about it was the way that Steve Zahn's character ended up getting cut down to such a marginal role that the potential was wasted and he fell victim to the fate of the tacked-on peripheral "gay friend" character.

* A 20th Anniversary release, which might as well have been labeled a Reminding You That You're Getting Old blu-ray.

[domino harvey]

My biggest problem with Reality Bites is that I don't think Ben Stiller's character is wrong in his actions towards Ethan Hawke's documentary footage in the big "sell out" finale-- it's edited and presented in an over the top manner, sure, but on a basic level Hawke's observations are mediocre and uninteresting and could benefit from MTV-style ellipses. Regardless of that creative decision, though, Hawke's character is so negative and unappealing in the film that it's hard to take the film's eventual narrative turn as a happy one.

[bamwc2]

Wellville is godawful and I say that as a big defender of/apologist for Alan Parker (though it does provide this genuinely classic scene). I have a lot of affection for Fonda too but Little Buddha would be my choice for the most lasting of her 90's films and she's barely in it.

Wow. Is it just me or does Little George look an awfully lot like Little Tim Blake Nelson?

[John Cope]

As far as Gen X movies go, I would recommend Jefery Levy's underseen S.F.W. Not a perfect movie by any means (tries way too hard to be the voice of its generation) but a distinctive one anyway and one with with some genuinely striking passages. Early Stephen Dorff but still at the peak of his powers (as he was not in, say, City of Industry from around that same time). I will never forget his "I'm not afraid to die" monologue in this as it reveals a non-affected non-bravado that we later see so casually and callously appropriated as "attitude" by the media machine. Back when he was coming off the great promise of Backbeat and *ahem* An Ambush of Ghosts. Should have made a far greater impact than he has.

[Tommaso]

While talking about Anne Parillaud, she also starred in [...]

... Shattered Image by Raoul Ruiz (1998), which I've just watched. Another example of why arthouse directors of that calibre should avoid Hollywood by all means. Ruiz even borrowed Wim Wenders' (and Jarmusch's) cameraman Robby Müller, so the thing at least looks stylish, but like Wenders' abysmal 1997 effort "The End of Violence" Shattered Image - which is the better film - feels like something that would have worked much better if Ruiz had made it on home ground. The story of a woman with multiple personalities - or multiple dream personalities - and its topics of rape, revenge, betrayal and suicide is pretty interesting (and seems to have proven too much for some reviewres, though it's actually not terribly difficult to make sense of it), but it's constantly marred by a clash between Ruiz' striving for a dreamlike cinematic puzzle and the harsh reality of Hollywood B-movie slickness and a 'heavy with meaning' soundtrack. Probably it would have needed someone like Lynch to pull this off in a convincing manner, and while Parillaud's performance is so-so, William Baldwin's as her lover/rapist/husband is plainly the most wooden thing I've seen for quite a while; goddamn awful. An interesting failure, nevertheless.

[colinr0380]

As far as Gen X movies go, I would recommend Jefery Levy's underseen S.F.W. Not a perfect movie by any means (tries way too hard to be the voice of its generation) but a distinctive one anyway and one with with some genuinely striking passages. Early Stephen Dorff but still at the peak of his powers (as he was not in, say, City of Industry from around that same time). I will never forget his "I'm not afraid to die" monologue in this as it reveals a non-affected non-bravado that we later see so casually and callously appropriated as "attitude" by the media machine. Back when he was coming off the great promise of Backbeat and *ahem* An Ambush of Ghosts. Should have made a far greater impact than he has.

I'll back you up on that film. Perhaps it is Dorff being in both, or the kidnap theme, but I usually bracket S.F.W. in with the later John Waters film Cecil B. Demented.

For some reason there were a couple of 90s films that seemed to be trying to be the modern version of Network or Dog Day Afternoon. Costa-Gavras's Mad City is another hostage-turned-media satire film that doesn't entirely work (its characterisations are too broad to create tension or believability). At least in S.F.W. Dorff was able to channel some ranting intensity to his long monologues.

In terms of his roles, Dorff was the nominal star of the cheesy sci-fi B-movie Space Truckers (although he is somewhat overshadowed by the supporting cast, including Charles Dance as the part cyborg villain who at one point attempts to threaten the captured heroine with his robotic penis, just in case you had forgotten that this film came from the director of Re-Animator and From Beyond!). And Dorff also did have that eye-opening role as Candy Darling in I Shot Andy Warhol!

Has anyone seen Bodies, Rest and Motion, also with Bridget Fonda? I haven't seen it but seem to remember that Criterion put it out on Laserdisc, and am slightly curious as to whether it is the Gen X equivalent of The Big Chill.

[colinr0380]

I know this isn't much of a defence of The End of Violence Tommaso but I quite liked it, once I got on its dreamy wavelength. I think it works best on a repeat viewing with the knowledge that there is not really any satisfying dramatic payoff from the events of the film. It can be a very frustrating first time experience because of that but I’ve found it works better on repeated viewings (and brilliantly the last time I watched it with the sound turned down, subtitles on and appropriate ambient music of my own choosing playing as Andie MacDowell slowly wandered through her darkened living room!) when the wish to see where everything is leading to becomes less of an issue. I guess that still fits with Wenders' other films where the journey is more important than the arrival. In this case it seems more about appreciating the stylised locations for their own sake, and the different social millieus such as Bill Pullman getting amnesia and getting adopted by a Mexican landscaping crew, the sci-fi surveillance paranoid thriller sections with Gabriel Byrne, or the brief early scenes with Udo Kier as a European director unsuccessfully trying to make an arthouse film within the Hollywood system and commiserating about the failures post-scene with his actors on the set made up to look like the cafe from Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

In fact, combine the surveillance and memory loss aspects of The End of Violence with the kind of dated futurism of Until The End Of The World and I think you’d end up with Southland Tales! And I mean that as a compliment, though I can see how it could be an acquired taste! (I'm taken with the idea that there might be a subgenre of 'insane Los Angeles set follies dealing with paranoia and surveillance’ films! The best of course being Lost Highway!)

[domino harvey]

Has anyone seen Bodies, Rest and Motion, also with Bridget Fonda? I haven't seen it but seem to remember that Criterion put it out on Laserdisc, and am slightly curious as to whether it is the Gen X equivalent of The Big Chill.

It (and SFW and the End of Violence, for that matter) is in my unwatched pile, so we'll soon find out!

[Tommaso]

Well, actually I always loved Until the End of the World and its exploration of our addiction to images (and by extension, modern media), and Wenders' obsession - most prominent at the time, even though it's probably still one of his major concerns - with filmmaking itself, but after Until the End of the World, the wonderful Lisbon Story (which might be my favourite Wenders, although this certainly has to do with my love for the band Madredeus) and his fine little Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky, which all in various ways addressed the image-making process, The End of Violence felt like a terrible letdown at the time, and it didn't get better when I re-watched it some time in the 2000s on dvd. It felt completely forced to me, the plot wasn't convincing and too 'contrived', Pullman's acting didn't convince me either, and the whole surveillance thing - while a logical outcome of his concerns in earlier films - seemed a bit too self-important or paranoid to me (and it lacked the humour with which the idea was treated some years later in Hopkins' "Tomas Katz"). In the light of Edward Snowden's revelations, however, perhaps the film will be seen as visionary some time in the near future? Good to see someone who defends it, in any case. Because I normally really like Wenders, but occasionally there are films of his where I wonder what led him astray...

[domino harvey]

Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (Errol Morris 1997) Morris gathers together four unrelated specialists and ties their interviews together using linking footage and thematic insights in order to blur their individuality and increase their seemingly non-existent interconnectedness. Unfortunately, I didn't and don't buy it and the film doesn't work for me because while some of the facts learned about the areas of expertise are interesting, none of the subjects themselves offer much about themselves or their work in a lively enough fashion to make this amount to anything more than a shrug, and the filmmaking and overall approach had a far greater miss record than needed to make something of this nature worthwhile. I didn't actively dislike the film, but I can't say I got much out of it either.

Nobody's Business (Alan Berliner 1996) --knives spotlight-- This one I did, though, so I want to thank knives for his much appreciated recommendation. The filmmaker's attempts to interview his father, Oscar Berliner, about his life and family are met with consternation and obfuscation and downright derision at almost every step, and while you'd think this would get old after a while, what the youngest Berliner is able to do is quickly establish a portrait of a man with a complicated relationship to the conventional notions of family (heritage in particular). Along the way the director brings up all manner of interesting tangents examining why those of us slightly more accommodating to such thoughts and concerns about family are the way we are. The answer, to me at least, seems to be we're not any more or less valid than the thorny Oscar Berliner himself, even if most of us at least have the requisite tact to not make it as painfully clear where we stand on some things! A fine and entertaining film, it would have easily made my list for the Documentaries List, but probably won't factor into this one. But I was definitely glad to have seen it.

Shake, Rattle and Rock! (Allan Arkush 1994) Rock N Roll High School director Arkush sets his sights on the 50s-era teenage music scene in this scrappy pic that dwells in the long shadow cast by the weirder and more successful Hairspray a few years prior. Teenybopper Renée Zellweger just wants to have fun and dance to the dangerous "jungle rhythms" of rock music, much to the chagrin on her mom Nora Dunn and neighborhood morality fascist Mary Woronov. The cast, as you can tell, is a total hoot, with Gerrit Graham from Phantom of the Paradise, John Doe of X (as a teenage biker[!]), Max Perlich from Homicide, the dad from the Patty Duke Show, and Howie Mandel all putting in time, with the latter quite good as the local TV dance party host who just wants the kids to have a good time, kapow!

This was produced as part of Showtime's Rebel Highway series of low budget feature films that either remade or just took the title of an AIP teen-targeted cheapie from the 50s, handing the reigns to some well-known names (William Friedkin, Robert Rodriguez, and John Millius among others) and miraculously managing to cast young stars in all ten produced films that went on to bigger and better things. I'd only seen Joe Dante's somewhat disappointing Runaway Daughters from the series (which not even Charlie Haas could help), but I ended up really enjoying this one, messiness and all. Unsurprisingly, really, given that post-war era America is my sweetest of sweet spots, but it does have enough pastel-colored gaudiness throughout to possibly entertain the non-converted as well.

I particularly liked how the film managed to highlight the overall "teenager"-ness of the situation as presented beyond the specifics (the local busybodies fear rock music because it both reminds them of their children's burgeoning sexuality and because it is positively associated with black culture) and into a more universal angst. It's sloppily made and constructed and the film is laughably anachronistic at times (One of the rebellious biker's copy of On the Road is a modern Penguin edition), but it's pretty goofy fun (as evidenced immediately by the opening musical number consisting of Zellweger ferociously lip-synching to "the Girl Can't Help It" while thrashing about messily in her bedroom) and hard to not smile with throughout its scant running time despite its obvious cable budget and shooting constraints.

[Mr Sheldrake]

Has anyone seen Bodies, Rest and Motion, also with Bridget Fonda? I haven't seen it but seem to remember that Criterion put it out on Laserdisc, and am slightly curious as to whether it is the Gen X equivalent of The Big Chill.

Bodies, Rest and Motion is one of my favorite 90s films, I had it on my list in the last 90s project. Fonda is at the peak of her languid sexuality and Pheobe Cates is very good (and beautiful) as her best friend. Tim Roth gives the expected Tim Roth performance and it fits well with the ambiance, a film about young people who find themselves adrift at a crossroads age, "what am I doing with my life? is there anywhere for me to go?" sort of questions. The dialogue is stylized (from a play) as is the gorgeous desert cinematography.

By my count Fonda appeared in 29 movies in the 90s and then virtually disappeared.

.

[The Narrator Returns]

My Spotlight Pick is Noah Baumbach's Highball, which he made on the (very) cheap after Mr. Jealousy wrapped, with much of the same cast. It may very well hold the title of the most incompetently shot-and-edited movie made by a then-visually capable director, with sub-sitcom lighting and some occasionally shoddy editing (if you weren't aware that Baumbach has called it unfinished and since disowned it, you could probably guess just from watching the end result), and yet I'm spotlighting it because it's absolutely hilarious. It may even be Baumbach's funniest movie. To give you a taste, it has Peter Bogdanovich as a party guest who won't stop doing his impressions of famous movie stars, Chris Eigeman and Carlos Jacott doing their respective things, an amusingly grumpy performance by Baumbach himself, and possibly the best way of getting around the "Happy Birthday" copyright that's ever been captured on film. Look past the technical demerits and Baumbach's dislike of it, it's frequently hysterical. It's available reasonably cheap on Amazon, and if you like any of the people involved with it, I recommend a blind-buy.

[A]

As I love the 90s, and there are many underappreciated films few people will probably enjoy as much as I do, I decided to pick a Spotlight title that probably some here already know and which I think has a chance of resonating with many people on this forum. So my Spotlight pick for the 90s is the US-film Flesh and Bone (1993) by writer-director Steve Kloves, who unfortunately decided to quit directing movies after The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) and this one. Flesh and Bone is a slow-moving and quietly detached character study of a man who is unable to leave his past behind, even as he confronts and conquers his demons. It is about dealing with trauma and how harrowing events can dominate a person and his way of life. Dennis Quaid plays the protagonist, James Caan his father, and Meg Ryan and Gwyneth Paltrow their unassuming and temporal but crucially important love interests. The film is filled to the brim with mood and atmosphere as it constantly tries to subdue the bombast that Kloves has shoved into each moment - like a simmering bubble of lava or a trembling electrical cord, the nervously calm demeanor conceals an abyss of emotional dread. This film should also be easily available on various cheap but decent looking and sounding DVDs with different region coding. And did I mention that it has cinematography by Philippe Rousselot and a score by Thomas Newman?

Here's a crucial scene from it that doesn't give anything away if you haven't seen the film but is a very good example of the overall mood and attention to detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFWyx60vkU

[The Narrator Returns]

Some bad movies shot by great cinematographers:

Anywhere but Here (Wayne Wong w/ Roger Deakins, 1999): An episodic, only fitfully successful coming-of-age story enlivened by good lead performances by Natalie Portman and Susan Sarandon, nice cinematography, and not very much else. There's a surprisingly effective sequence about two-thirds in when Sarandon is forced to go back and confront the family members she suddenly abandoned for a pipe dream in LA, but even with that, the movie's nothing to write home about.

Cool as Ice (David Kellogg w/ Janusz Kaminski, 1991): A movie that feels equally in debt to MTV, Nickelodeon, Diane Arbus, Crayola, David Lynch, and Dr. Seuss, and that's only barely scratching the surface of its bizarre qualities. This is a movie where Vanilla Ice in: Rebel Without a Charm fights for attention with a painfully out-of-place plot about corrupt police officers and child kidnapping, with production design apparently overseen by a sugar-crazed seven-year-old. Someone more astute than I compared it to a "Terrence Malick cereal commercial", and if that or anything above sounds intriguing, then I recommend you check out this waking nightmare of a musician vehicle.

A Walk in the Clouds (Alfonso Arau w/ Emmanuel Lubezki, 1995): By comparison, this is just bland stuff. It tries to yank at the heartstrings, but fails to elicit tears or any emotion besides mild sleepiness. It doesn't help that Keanu Reeves is just miscast as the romantic lead of a heart-on-the-sleeve melodrama, and he fails to convince the audience that he's anything besides Keanu Reeves in old-timey clothing delivering stilted dialogue.

Jennifer 8 (Bruce Robinson w/ Conrad Hall, 1992): A remarkably inept thriller absent of any thrills, chills, or just surprises in general. The only time there's any life in it is a ten-minute sequence where an FBI agent played by John Malkovich interrogates Andy Garcia over the death of his partner. Otherwise, it's shapeless and dull, with some gorgeous cinematography to make you think you're watching something worthwhile.

Twilight (Robert Benton w/ Piotr Sobocinski, 1998): By comparison, this world-weary mystery-thriller is merely adequate. The mystery at the heart is pretty predictable, and its attempts at comedy don't work (Giancarlo Esposito shows up with his future Gus Fring accent as excitable comic relief, Reese Witherspoon shoots Paul Newman in the dick), but it's oddly comforting nonetheless, anchored by great performances from Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, and James Garner.

Reality Bites (Ben Stiller w/ Emmanuel Lubezki, 1994): A movie that defined an awful generation. The people we're supposed to root for (Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke) are completely unlikable characters you don't want to spend time with, which is just a bit of a problem. Stiller occasionally seems like he's trying to make a more biting movie than the one he is making (the John Mahoney stuff in particular, especially when he interviews the author of the self-esteem book Mommy, Why Do I Hate Myself?).

In Dreams (Neil Jordan w/ Darius Khondji, 1999): Everyone involved with this movie should really have known better than to make this movie, but I'm so glad that they didn't. A movie paced so quick that it conveniently forgets to answer questions like "Why is this happening?" or "What are these people doing?", it builds to a level of insanity previously unknown to mid-budget studio movies. Its structure is echoed in its Elliot Goldenthal score, which starts out like a normal orchestral score before building in dissonance until it's gone completely abstract by the end. Add in typically dark, golden, and gorgeous cinematography by Khondji and the filmmakers expecting us to be scared (multiple times!) by apples, and you don't have a good movie, but you have a damn entertaining one. Come on, how can you hate a movie with a shot like this in it?

[Shrew]

Cool as Ice was my slot 50 on the Musicals list, and it will probably be here too. I don't know why this isn't a massive midnight movie hit a la The Room. It's got the same mixture of misguided attention to absurd detail, a lack of basic understanding of human relationships, and tonally off subplots. True, there's no auteur of Wiseau's idiosyncrasies, but the surreal production design and Kaminski's cinematography make up for it. The movie is just constantly swinging back and forth between legitimately beautiful images and Vanilla Ice's anti-charisma/WTF plotting that it's like a (dumb, uber-90s) sword taken to a canvas.

Can we do like a 50th Slot Spotlight? Cause this is a wonderfully awful film that I think everyone should see.

[swo17]

Yes, you can make a spotlight out of any film that's a lock for your list.

[domino harvey]

A Far Off Place (Mikael Salomon 1993) The 90s were the last decade of non-crass aspirational family/kids films where awful stuff happened to average kids and the average kids don't give up and instead persevere. It's an element sorely missing in most modern entertainment of all kinds directed at this age bracket, spurned on by a reduced value such, uh, values have in a "Let's shield our kids as much as possible but then still give them internet access" world. And I can say without exaggeration that A Far Off Place is the cruelest, hardest, most wonderfully dark kids movie I've ever seen. It's a film that opens and closes with huge font warnings assuring viewers that no animals were harmed. No such warning exists for all the humans who get offed by rabid poachers in this Africa-set adventure story however, though these deaths are far more disturbing on a narrative level. To give you some idea, the film opens with elephants being poached via machine gun fire, their tusks then sawed off in unfortunate detail. Then the poachers are themselves fired upon and killed. And all of this within a minute of the "Walt Disney Pictures" logo popping up on the screen. I have no earthly idea how this film got through the MPAA with only a PG, but I suspect a large portion of the budget went to paying off the panel!

Of course, the opening violence is only a taste of the hard nature of the film, which quickly establishes its bold mercilessness in the first twenty minutes by having young Reese Witherspoon, who had snuck off in the night from the homestead of her gamekeeper family to attend to an injured bushman friend, come upon a bloody massacre upon returning back in the morning, stumbling upon the blood-soaked, bullet-riddled bodies of everyone who worked alongside her family-- and her mom and dad and the father of a visiting NYC brat. It's a shocking moment, beautifully captured by the cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchía (A name I was unfamiliar with but it turns out among other gigs he's a regular lenser for Mamet as well) in a wonderfully framed shot-- Witherspoon catches the carnage out of the corner of her eye through a crack in door framed to the extreme right of the screen, the rest of the image blocked out by the door in the massive 'Scope frame. It's a perfect moment.

After more violence and action, the film then follows our three intrepid teenage heroes (and their dog!) as they set out into the Kalahari desert, dodging the continued attempts of the poachers to kill them and nature's own attempts in the arid landscape. That base plot sounds like it could be some eye-rolling Hardy Boys garbage, but the film is cruel and fabulously observant, and while it hits many of the notes you'd expect with the set-up (each member of the trio proves to be invaluable to the survival of the whole, &c), the film never lets up and, more importantly, seems to be working on a different aesthetic level than most films aimed at a young audience. The film is beautifully shot. If it seems like I'm harping on that, it's because it's one of the strongest takeaways. There is a surreal moment near the end of the film involving Witherspoon, collapsed and hallucinating in the desert as a sandstorm rages all around her and the villainous poacher fires round after round at her from a swirling helicopter that achieves a cinematic sublimity that happens far too rarely no matter how many movies I see.

Anyone going into this expecting kiddie arthouse Walkabout Jr is going to be disappointed-- despite its odd approaches and flourishes, this is still a mainstream film (though I prefer it to Roeg's film). It's a family adventure film and comes with all that entails. But it uses the conventional beats and motions and character-types to service something far greater than expected, and I found myself admiring it more and more as it progressed, until finally I was left with greatness. A Far Off Place is precisely why I cast a wide net with my viewings and pull in anything that I suspect I might even remotely respond to, because every once in a while I'll stumble upon a fantastic discovery like this that makes all the man-hours spent on lackluster or ephemeral flicks worthwhile. Will make my list and highly recommended to those receptive to the pleasures of a superior kids movie.

the Boondock Saints (Troy Duffy 1999) I needed to get caught up on my Bro Cinema, and what better place than the number one best film of all time, according to brahs. I've heard so much praise of this film from the backwards baseball hat wearing crowd that I admit I'd put off ever actually watching it and slagged on it sight-unseen. But now comes the perfect opportunity to justify a viewing and see where the chips actually fall. Now, despite my readiness to make fun of anyone who likes this movie, I went in ready to love it regardless. I have no problem expressing affection for embarrassing movies (just browse my post history). The Boondock Saints got the same shake any film gets from me. And, the verdict is… the film's a piece of shit. Of course.

There's a lot to pick on here, but the thing that really bothered me about this film was the way Duffy was unable (or, more likely, unaware) to rein in his entire cast, who are so rudderless that everyone on screen looks and behaves like those friends of the director who always pop up in student films. It doesn't help that Willem Dafoe appears to have sensed what a rotten film he's in and uses his (too) ample screentime to dick around in ways that alternate between amusing and tiring. The film thankfully spares us any semblance of a romantic subplot, but still manages to sneak in all manner of homophobic garbage by making Dafoe gay (and eventually dressing him up in drag, no less). I was also unclear on the justification for a lot of the vigilante murders that occur, especially when, if I understand correctly, two of the victims who pay with their life committed the grievous sin of… masturbating in a peepshow booth specifically engineered for just such a paying customer and sanctioned by the object of arousal? Huh? This is on par with the stated targets of thieves, rapists, and murderers? The film has no interest in exploring the moral grounds taken by the vigilante brothers of the title in moments like this, only in glorifying in their bloody exploits. There is exactly one interesting segment in the film involving Dafoe walking his police colleagues through a reconstruction of a massacre by inserting himself into it, but the rest of the film's violence is just lurid and uncomfortably fetishistic. Like most Tarantino ripoffs, the copycat director doesn't seem to understand how or why Tarantino uses violence and instead confuses presence with presence. I see there's a sequel. No power in the heavens above or the frat houses below could compel me to sit through more of this.

Casino (Martin Scorsese 1995) I know I bring this up all the time with Scorsese, but I would be willing to wager money that regardless of its length, on a per minute average this film has the most musical cues ever. And if it doesn't, it certainly takes the more subjective title of Most Obnoxiously Persistent and Overused Music Cues Ever. Dear God, every two minutes I wanted to scream at Scorsese to stop hitting shuffle and just calm. down. The whole movie is like a seven year old getting buzzed on six bowls of store brand Froot Loops. It's not even the good namebrand stuff and yet he's still bouncing around as a result. This look at gangsters operating in and around Vegas is often looked down on as Goodfellas Jr, and with good cause. Everything about the film has a been there, done that feel to it. Is it ever boring? No, and at three hours I thank Scorsese for that much. But it also doesn't add up to anything. Sharon Stone plays the ultimate Scorsese woman: desirable, untrustworthy, and ultimately pathetic. It's a role that the more I think about how she's presented, the more frustrated I get. So, I guess the film offers that as well. To the few of you here and elsewhere who are trying very hard to make this an overlooked classic in the Scorsese oeuvre, excuse me, I think I have something in my throat.

[flyonthewall2983]

If you haven't, see Overnight. It really shows Duffy for the pretentious asshole he is.

[Gropius]

A Far Off Place (Mikael Salomon 1993)
the Boondock Saints (Troy Duffy 1999)

Sorry to go into meta-commentary mode, and I know it's come up before, but I remain curious about your rationale for putting the initial definite article in lower case while retaining the capital for the indefinite. Is it a 90s thing?

[domino harvey]

It's much simpler than even that: I don't like capitalizing the word "the" unless it comes at the beginning of a sentence. It's just a weird quirk I have (like alphabetizing all titles beginning with articles by their article [as seen above] except "the")

[A man stayed-put]

I agree very much with domino's assessment of Casino- to me it has always felt, with the editing and music cues, like the longest trailer ever made. Goodfellas and Age of Innocence are my Scorsese's for this list and will both feature high.

Strange Days
Baggy and inherently dated but the 2 ½ hours fly by. The POV stuff is unnervingly well done; hugely exciting in the opening armed robbery sequence and hugely disturbing in a later, infamously harrowing, sequence.
The film does have some points to make about the viewers complicity in the depiction, and consumption of, screen violence but Bigelow is too much of an action director to spend much time mulling this over. Visually it’s stunning enough to distract from a muddled plot and Fiennes does a fine job as the sleazy but essentially decent protagonist. The film’s MVP though is Angela Bassett, fantastic in what initially looks like it may be a stock sidekick role.
Might make the lower reaches of my list.

Ravenous
The bizarre opening sequence sets up expectations of a zany horror-comedy (I came very close to turning it off). Thankfully, the film, although darkly amusing throughout, abandons this immediately and switches to an atmosphere of isolation and threat , as Guy Pearce’s coward/hero is posted to a California mountain fort to join a host of eccentrics. The excellent, Robert Carlyle’s appearance at the fort and the tale he has to tell cranks up the dread, and the first half of the picture culminates in a genuinely frightening scene that is the highlight of the picture.
I found the second half, including the predictable climax, far less interesting or rewarding.
Antonia Bird (who apparently took on direction duties after production had commenced) does an excellent job in the creation of mood and the soundtrack is worth noting (Nyman and Albarn) as interesting, if sometimes a little intrusive.

eXistenZ
A lock for the upper reaches of my list. To avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen it, I’ll just reel off a load of encouraging words; imaginative, disgusting, funny, sexy, intelligent and thrilling.
I loved it, and it now ranks alongside, it’s spiritual precursor, Videodrome as my favourite Cronenberg.

Fallen Angels
I’ve always found this a more enjoyable experience than Chungking Express (parts of which I find highly irritating- but will be revisiting as part of this project) although stylistically and thematically it’s very similar and apparently grew out of a dropped segment of the previous film.
Seeing it again, knowing it quite well and without the initial dazzle of WKW’s visual tricks, I found the storyline dealing with Takeshi Kaneshiro opening up businesses after hours much funnier than I remembered and, his relationship with his father, very moving. I don’t find the hitman section as interesting or affecting but there’s still a lot to enjoy formally.
The use of the Flying Picket’s ‘Only You’ over the end credits always delights me as well (RIP Wales' own Brian Hibbard, who passed in 2012).

[domino harvey]

I agree very much with domino's assessment of Casino- to me it has always felt, with the editing and music cues, like the longest trailer ever made.

Ha! That's perfect, I love it. I admittedly don't care much for GoodFellas but can understand those who get a lot out of it. I haven't seen the Age of Innocence yet, mainly because I know as soon as I grit my teeth and buy the DVD, the Blu-ray will be announced. I saw Bringing Out the Dead for the last 90s List when it was a "swapsie" and thought it was okay, and I haven't seen Cape Fear since I was a kid and may revisit for the list. Anyone want to argue for giving Kundun a shot?

[Forrest Taft]

Innocence is already out on blu-ray, in Europe at least!

[knives]

Anyone want to argue for giving Kundun a shot?

It's Scorsese's Little Buddha take of that what you will.