1990s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[Mr Sheldrake]

I thought the rule was concerned with a theatrical showing being required. Berlin Alexanderplatz qualified in the 80s as it was originally shown in the US in theaters and later a couple of times on PBS.

[Binker]

Before even addressing whether or not "has no defined end point" even successfully differentiates regular TV from the rest of the forms, which I don't it does in any meaningful way (esp in the case of the kind of TV which would presumably make this list), one would have to justify it as a valid criteria for exclusion to begin with.

All of these objections are nothing more than broad generalizations on the TV form which, although perhaps widely valid, simply do not apply to all TV. And if we really wanted to apply these criteria, hugely reliant on external factors, differing technical limitations, begin with no defined end, etc, with any degree of principle, huge percentages of the included forms would have to be excluded. We don't, because all of this, at least it seems me, is secondary to the end result of a filmic art form with which we can critically engage..

[zedz]

These are inherited rules, but I can understand where they were coming from. My assumption was that the rules were devised for the purposes of including a lot of 'films' that people would want to vote for in the context of other cinema. Some examples:

Berlin Alexanderplatz - Fassbinder's magnum opus, shot by him as if it were a film (hence the notorious problems with initial broadcasts) and primarily seen by members of this forum in a cinema when the first 80s list was canvassed. Ditto Heimat and Dekalog.

Important directors whose work has significantly or largely been in television, such as Mike Leigh, Ken Russell, Alan Clarke, Stephen Frears. These are all free-standing, self-contained works that play alongside their theatrical features in retrospectives. There's also a degree of ambiguity about several of these films - if we had a strict 'no television' rule, would a film made for Channel 4 in the UK, but which got a limited theatrical release, or was released theatrically in other territories, count or not? The funding for documentaries in many countries is so intrinsically linked with television broadcast that you'd need to conduct specific research into every title you wanted to vote for before you could do so.

I also think there's a real demarcation issue with ongoing television series, since they rarely have the same unity as any of the other forms we're looking at (music videos are MUCH more akin to short films than series television - it's silly to bring them up in this argument). If you think that only the Carpark episode of Seinfeld reached some kind of zenith, can you vote for that alone? What if somebody else wanted to vote for just a single season? Or wanted to specifically exclude the post-Larry David seasons? Or should we only allow votes for the whole shebang? If you missed a few episodes of a series, can you authoritatively vote for it? I imagine lots of people would rank the two seasons of Twin Peaks quite differently, and even different episodes.

None of those ambiguities apply to mini-series, which are conceived and produced as units and generally have a much greater degree of consistency.

I don't think we should be varying the groundrules this late in the game, but having a separate television list at the end of this round could be worthwhile. But such an exercise, as noted above, would need to have a whole new set of fairly complicated groundrules (e.g. you can only vote for entire series, so you have to take into account all the ups and downs of its history).

Personally, I have enough difficulty weighing up documentaries against experimental films against narrative features. Television series occupy a completely different brainspace.

[swo17]

If you think that only the Carpark episode of Seinfeld reached some kind of zenith, can you vote for that alone? What if somebody else wanted to vote for just a single season? Or wanted to specifically exclude the post-Larry David seasons?

Everyone knows the quality of a Seinfeld episode is directly proportional to the height of Elaine's "wall" of hair.

[Binker]

I also think there's a real demarcation issue with ongoing television series, since they rarely have the same unity as any of the other forms we're looking at (music videos are MUCH more akin to short films than series television - it's silly to bring them up in this argument).

I don't believe they're particularly similar to either. It just seems absurd to include music videos and then argue against television because it presents different financial, technical, artistic, or commercial concerns. The gaps in all of those aspects between the forms that are included are undoubtedly significant.

If you think that only the Carpark episode of Seinfeld reached some kind of zenith, can you vote for that alone? What if somebody else wanted to vote for just a single season? Or wanted to specifically exclude the post-Larry David seasons? Or should we only allow votes for the whole shebang? If you missed a few episodes of a series, can you authoritatively vote for it? I imagine lots of people would rank the two seasons of Twin Peaks quite differently, and even different episodes.

This is a problem, of course. I can see no obvious solution, it would probably just have to be a matter of coming to a consensus. Intuitively, I would probably say doing it by season seems most reasonable, but then I think about the Sopranos and the Wire in the 2000s, which might end up taking up 1/5 of my list.

Personally, I have enough difficulty weighing up documentaries against experimental films against narrative features.

Which is precisely the point.

I guess I agree there's no reason to change things at this point, I was just sort of curious as to the initial reasoning.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Persuaded by some of the enthusiastic comments earlier in the thread, I watched La Cérémonie this weekend. I've only seen a handful of Chabrol's films, mostly from his 60s/70s period. Notwithstanding some superb performances by the cream of French female acting talent, what impressed most was Chabrol's subtle switch of emphasis with the narrative. Starting with Sophie's illiteracy, which is revealed after leaving a series of subtle clues, he suddenly changes tack and bonds Sophie and Jeanne with their mutual criminal pasts; Sophie's arson that killed her father, Jeanne's "murder" of her mentally ill child. The motivation behind the final act of violence doesn't seem so straight-forward to me, which is what makes it so disturbing. Sure, the middle class family patronise Sophie, as even Melinda suggests, and Jeanne has her own issues, which extend as far as opening the family's mail, but I wonder whether the conclusion seems born out of a will to perform an act that they can't be proved guilty of rather than any class antagonisms? Makes you think.

[ptatler]

Just realized that JESUS' SON qualifies (it has an IMDB date of 1999). Definitely on my list. Anyone else?

[colinr0380]

The Onion A.V. Club on Heavenly Creatures.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Having seen the wonderful 'A Moment of Innocence' by Mohsen Makhmalbaf this weekend, I'll endeavour to watch more of his celebrated 90s work in time for this poll; Gabbeh, Salaam Cinema, Actor etc.

[Camera Obscura]

I've been (re-)visiting some Kitano's lately. For now A Scene at the Sea (1991) tops the list. Pure magic.

[Michael Kerpan]

I've been (re-)visiting some Kitano's lately. For now A Scene at the Sea (1991) tops the list. Pure magic.

This and Sonatine remain my favorite Kitano films.

[Camera Obscura]

Saw Sonatine yesterday. Also a great film, another strong contender indeed!

And Summer of Kikujiro (1999) is another outsider on my list. Very touching and extremely funny.

[LQ]

The A.V. Club on Beau Travail.

[domino harvey]

Well, I'd already had in my possession something called the "John Travolta Triple Feature" after needing to acquire Blow Out for the 80s List Exchange. And hey, the other two films were 90s pictures, so surely it couldn't hurt to give 'em a spin, right? Famous last words

Easily the worst of the two is Get Shorty, an astonishingly unfunny and tiresome Elmore Leonard adaptation that is about as subtle in its filmmaking satire as its cast is in delivering their lines. Oh boy did this one get old fast. At a certain point I was grasping for anything at all to like about it. I came up with a ninety second scene between Travolta and DelRoy Lindo where they blithely gab away about screenwriting like a couple Chatty Kathies which was kind of funny, but that's it. This is a film that sets up its gags with big orange traffic cones to let you know they're coming. Also, I'm pretty sure I've now met my Dennis Farina Quotient for life.

Marginally better was John Woo's mediocre action film, Broken Arrow. I'm assuming this is a film invoked in screenwriting classes, because it follows cliched methods of mapped script structure so thoroughly that at some point I actually started enjoying how telegraphed and obvious it all was. I'm hardly an action film's core audience, but about ninety percent of the so-called action in this film was just people shooting at other people with actual damage rarely incurred-- I have a hard time accepting this is satisfying even to people who like these sorts of things. And you wouldn't think there would be so many explosions out there in the desert, but boy, there they are. The film was basically saved solely by Samantha Mathis, who early in the film cockteases a helicopter into crashing into a canyon and then later kicks another helicopter's motionless blades into a bad guy, disabling him. At least one of those things resulted in an explosion.

[Yojimbo]

Well, I'd already had in my possession something called the "John Travolta Triple Feature" after needing to acquire Blow Out for the 80s List Exchange. And hey, the other two films were 90s pictures, so surely it couldn't hurt to give 'em a spin, right? Famous last words

Easily the worst of the two is Get Shorty, an astonishingly unfunny and tiresome Elmore Leonard adaptation that is about as subtle in its filmmaking satire as its cast is in delivering their lines. Oh boy did this one get old fast. At a certain point I was grasping for anything at all to like about it. I came up with a ninety second scene between Travolta and DelRoy Lindo where they blithely gab away about screenwriting like a couple Chatty Kathies which was kind of funny, but that's it. This is a film that sets up its gags with big orange traffic cones to let you know they're coming. Also, I'm pretty sure I've now met my Dennis Farina Quotient for life.

Marginally better was John Woo's mediocre action film, Broken Arrow. I'm assuming this is a film invoked in screenwriting classes, because it follows cliched methods of mapped script structure so thoroughly that at some point I actually started enjoying how telegraphed and obvious it all was. I'm hardly an action film's core audience, but about ninety percent of the so-called action in this film was just people shooting at other people with actual damage rarely incurred-- I have a hard time accepting this is satisfying even to people who like these sorts of things. And you wouldn't think there would be so many explosions out there in the desert, but boy, there they are. The film was basically saved solely by Samantha Mathis, who early in the film cockteases a helicopter into crashing into a canyon and then later kicks another helicopter's motionless blades into a bad guy, disabling him. At least one of those things resulted in an explosion.

Just when I thought it was safe to give 'Get Shorty' another try!

And I've always worked on the assumption that 'Face/Off' is the only Hollywood Woo I need to see before I die.

[LQ]

And I've always worked on the assumption that 'Face/Off' is the only Hollywood Woo I need to see before I die.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who champions Face/Off!

[domino harvey]

Well, Cahiers liked Face/Off. But seeing as how the film doesn't contain Samantha Mathis and does contain Nic Cage, I can't say I'm very willing to risk it.

[swo17]

But seeing as how the film doesn't contain Samantha Mathis and does contain Nic Cage, I can't say I'm very willing to risk it.

I take it you are all over this then.

[domino harvey]

Sixteen years later and it's still hard to believe American teens didn't turn out in droves for action superstars Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo

[Yojimbo]

Well, Cahiers liked Face/Off. But seeing as how the film doesn't contain Samantha Mathis and does contain Nic Cage, I can't say I'm very willing to risk it.

'Face/Off' is the Nic Cage film that people who can't stand Nic Cage point to as evidence that the exception proves the rule.
He really does lighten up in this one.
(come to think of it, he does in 'Raising Arizona', also!)

[colinr0380]

Face/Off was actually the film that drove me away from John Woo and Nicolas Cage! Cage might lighten up in this one but this was the first film I saw of his where he does his 'wacky faces' routine (I prefer him deadpan, as in Con Air: "Put the bunny back in the box!") And because he trades faces with Travolta part way through they both get the chance to do their wacky over the top act.

There was one quite well handled scene in the film where a child is listening to Somewhere Over The Rainbow during a police raid and the shootout gets choreographed to that, but otherwise I'd stick to Hard Boiled (or Bullet In The Head. Isn't that a 90s Woo?) I'd also stay away from Hard Target, the loose remake of Most Dangerous Game set in New Orleans, if you aren't already a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme!

In an attempt to get to completely the other end of the spectrum, can I recommend Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird. It is an extremely harrowing watch but that in a way is a testament to how good a film it is. It takes a subject of a woman having baby after baby taken away from her by Social Services and twists our annoyance (or at least my annoyance!) at this stupid woman continually getting pregnant only to have the inevitable happen as her children are taken from her into a much deeper sympathy for why she would get trapped in such a vicious cycle (the line in Dancer In The Dark where Selma says that she had her son despite knowing he would go eventually go blind if not treated was for the selfish but sadly human and understandable reason that "I just wanted to hold the baby" always makes me tear up, not only for the situation in that film but because it reminds me of Ladybird, Ladybird). There is almost a Cassavetes like excrutiating feel to a number of the scenes as the horrifically inevitable situation occurs and there is nothing that can prevent it from fully playing out.

The way that the social workers and wider public bodies are content to just 'clean up the mess' rather than actually try to understand the family's situation and help them out of their despair is still extremely relevant today. Add to that the beautiful way that the film deals with issues of class, race and illegal immigration without it ever becoming about the 'issue' more than the characters, and it becomes sadly understandable why it seems to have not been shown on British television for over a decade. Everyone in the film bears some responsibility for the situation that occurs, but at the same time everyone in the film deserves to be understood. And that does not really fit in with a society where finding someone to blame and portraying a particular party in a situation as irredeemable in order to achieve some sort of closure on a situation, or to chase headlines, takes primacy.

[Yojimbo]

Face/Off was actually the film that drove me away from John Woo and Nicolas Cage! Cage might lighten up in this one but this was the first film I saw of his where he does his 'wacky faces' routine (I prefer him deadpan, as in Con Air: "Put the bunny back in the box!") And because he trades faces with Travolta part way through they both get the chance to do their wacky over the top act.

I usually can't stand Travolta but as the whole movie is over the top in the best John Woo tradition, I don't blame either actor for enjoying themselves in the making of it.
I do agree that 'Hard Target' is truly awful (with or without Van Damme)

[domino harvey]

Finally caught the Thing Called Love. Oof, apologies to Gringo Tex, but this one is unfortunately going in the books as yet another late-period failure from Bogdanovich. A creaky ensemble piece that rests almost wholly on actors who barely register, this bit of country music wish fulfillment is as sluggish and frustrating as Phoenix's performance. A few nice moments are sprinkled throughout (Such as the convenience store wedding or the uncomfortably close camera placements outside the hospital), but the three minutes of country music performed in They All Laughed contained more energy and heart than anything in this film.

[LQ]

If I had to pick one film at this point to force everyone to watch (preferably Clockwork Orange-style), it would be Your Friends & Neighbors, Neil LaBute's masterpiece of marital dysfunction and sexual obsession, and an even stronger film, I think, than the better known (but still great) In the Company of Men.

I finally sat down with Your Friends and Neighbors...and while I didn't loathe it, I found little to appreciate about it. Sorry, swo I just found everything in the film so calculated, unrealistic, and bereft of any meaning or purpose beyond pure provocation. Sure, the dialogue was witty and well-written but come on..who talks like that?? These people are presented in the film as mirror-images of our own friends, our own neighbors, of ourselves.. but who actually acts like these characters? Every single conversation, every single action was just so blatantly contrived in order to showcase LaBute's mad writing&directing skillz that although everyone acted their little hearts out, each scene fell completely flat.

I got progressively more and more irritated with the movie after Stiller's initial come-on...the first thing that made me cock an eyebrow in suspicion. Then you have the interludes in the art museum with the fakey little device of Kinski sidling up to every single character, getting thisclose and striking up the same conversation in a silent exhibit...what was the motivation for each character for even -being- there in the first place, if not for the opportunity for LaBute to fashion another "quirky" scene? The sauna scene also really frustrated me...honestly, you're going to listen to someone reminisce about anally raping someone in the locker rooms and then just...get dinner with him the next night?? The way everyone interacted with Jason Patric's character rang so false to me...at least Keener finally yelled, "what the fuck is wrong with you??" (and why was Patric there harassing her? Yes, I know why, but what on earth was his motivation? He cared about his friend? Obviously, as we see at the end, he doesn't care about his friends.)

What I 'love' about In the Company of Men(and what makes me shudder so) is the fact that the characters seem all too real; I can completely believe that someone could so cruelly manipulative, just for the fun of it. We're given believable characters in the trappings of a familiar world, and its downright scary. And I don't feel that In the Company of Men is overwritten and overwrought in the slightest.

I know that people are incompatible sexually, always want their friend's girl, hate themselves and the people with whom they associate...many good movies have whispered (or shouted) this in my ear. Your Friends & Neighbors doesn't have anything to tell me except that LaBute, here more so than ever, is so damn full of himself.

[swo17]

I'll grant you that Friends & Neighbors is calculated, and I can see what you're saying about Company of Men being more believable, but I guess I'm not really drawn to the film because it's supposed to represent what is actually secretly going on amongst my neighbors. If you didn't buy the dialogue or relate to the characters, I guess I can't argue with that, but I would like to address your accusation that the film was "bereft of any meaning or purpose beyond pure provocation," as I see the opposite going on here, at times even possibly too obviously.

I think the film is trying to show how unfulfilling it can be when we are only looking after our own interests, and forever chasing after recapturing some meaningful experience from our childhood, or some preconceived notion of what what will bring us happiness, especially as it pertains to sex. Throughout the film, the sex instinct is treated like a finicky master; we do not understand why it wants what it wants, but trust that it knows the best for us, no matter how much it messes up our lives, because it at least promises a few moments of gratification. At no point during the film does anyone stop to question this, or attempt to make a conscious decision in opposition to an instinctual desire. They are all slaves to their instincts. At one point (I believe after the bathroom speech), Eckhart's character asks Patric's, "Do you think you're a good person?" Like the others, he is having difficulty evaluating the worth of the decisions he has made in his life, when he is pretty much just going along with the flow, and not actually making any himself. One of the selfless sides of sex, reproduction, is barely even mentioned in the film, but the general attitude towards it is demonstrated in a scene where Jason Patric, easily the greatest prick in the film, is seen handling and kicking a plastic fetus like a football.

If this is starting to sound a little preachy, I think that's actually part of the intent. There are a couple of references to Adam and Eve in the film, as well as the aforementioned discussion of relative goodness. But I don't think the film would work for me as much if it were just a message film. A lot of the characters have an uneasy creepiness to them, but my favorite of the bunch by far is Eckhart's poor schlub, who genuinely thinks he is moderately successful and happy, but is really just one of the most boring people you could ever meet. He has a lot of great lines, but the exchange with his wife in the grocery store to me is just priceless. The sauna scene with Patric's speech that you mention is a key point in the film, and not an easy one to like, but in a way, it's almost more sad than it is provocative, as it shows that his character really hasn't grown up from that moment, that he is actually proud of it, and that in his own contemptible way, he is always trying to relive it. (And I love the capping line, "Any of you would have done the same. Common decency dictated the whole thing.") I think Eckhart and Stiller show an appropriate amount of shock at his speech (and I'm sure they have heard plenty of other shocking things from him over the years). And as for them casually dining with him the next day, I don't know, I have a few friends that I keep around just for the WTF factor. When you've been friends for that long, it doesn't matter how crazy the things you hear are, you know that's just their way, and you're beyond reevaluating the friendship.

In any case, I at least appreciate you taking the time to give the film a chance. I said from the start it was a love or hate it affair, and if it makes you feel any better, my wife is also clueless as to my admiration for this movie. I guess I can at least take consolation in the fact that we seem to agree on Company of Men. I really wish LaBute would get back to making films more like these first two, and The Shape of Things.