The 1990 Mini-List

[swo17]

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1990

VOTE THROUGH FEBRUARY 28

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

[therewillbeblus]

Can you please add

Fear (Rockne S. O’Bannon)
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
She Shoots Straight (Cory Yuen)

[swo17]

Done

[yoshimori]

Can one vote for the Twin Peaks pilot? If so, please to add it.

And Jissoji's Ultra Q will make my list, if that can be added.

And, while I'm typing, I'll recommend, for those who haven't seen them, two great Japanese films from 1990, Kitano's A Late Season Extra Inning Loss for the Home Team [aka, in America at least, Boiling Point] and Oguri's Sting of Death, now on a Radiance blu-ray. ... And Brakhage's sadly-not-on-video "Passage Through" - about 50 minutes long, with maybe 49 minutes and 45 seconds black screen!

[swo17]

The Twin Peaks pilot is listed as Northwest Passage. I've added the Jissoji

[knives]

Here’s a few suggestions for the main list. These are mostly shorter films so I hope everyone gives the time to check them out.

Wade’s Fary the Donkey is a pretty classically told fairy tale that is just sharp enough to bite.

I’m honestly a bit surprised Bonfire of the Vanities isn’t already on the list. ‘90s DePalma is my favorite era of him where he’s just walking through set pieces daring the audience to blink. This is a flawed start to the decade, but I think only on account of three pieces of casting (Hanks, Willis, and Freeman). Everything else is brilliant with a script that renders into brief jolts a brilliant if verbose satire. The camerawork services that well too. Sometimes DePalma can make aesthetic a show, but I believe here is he genuinely servicing the story.

Going to the shortest of the shorts is a childhood favorite in Weldon’s To Be. It takes its fundamental philosophical question and makes it simple enough to make a lasting impression on myself as a young child staying up late watching Oh, Canada on Cartoon Network. Yet, it’s so brilliant that revisiting it as an adult I’m constantly musing over it. Help being part of the discussion by watching.

Things I Like, Things I Don’t Like is my favorite of Jeunet’s early shorts using vibrant editing for a very silly purpose.

This last feature I’ve written so much of I almost want to make it a separate post. That film is Kat Shea’s dirty Streets. I recognize this sits within a genre of films, but this is so singular and strong in how it does it without a blush of exploitation that it must stand as uniquely great. Applegate is amazing and sensitive portraying her character as naive and strong simultaneously. It’s a hard ask in many ways and she’s clearly up to the challenge.

Shea’s script and direction make this all possible. She takes a lot of cues from Streetwise which helps in particular with the relationship between the young leads which has to go a certain place and be convincing as such without undermining the overall themes of trauma. She even gives Applegate a moment reminiscent of Moonrise Kingdom’s “you have no clue what you’re talking about” moment where Applegate attempts to distinguish between love and her occupation and realizes how her beloved has no clue.

Shea also seems to try to rectify her previous blushes with transphobia but painting a realistic picture on the side of gay youths and how heterosexuals use homosexuality against community members. It’s a terrifying scene featuring one of the more terrifying villains I’ve seen. He’s a serial killer representative of major city police forces. An unstoppable machine ready to devastate the most helpless.

[swo17]

Thanks for the suggestions. How would you feel about Fary the Donkey being eligible for the '80s list instead? I'm seeing information placing it in 1988 or 1989 though there's not a lot to go on

[knives]

I don’t have strong feelings either way for the dating.

[swo17]

Alright well I've put it in the '80s and added all the others to 1990

[brundlefly]

One title from this year for which I have perhaps undue affection is Wayne Coe’s anthology Grim Prairie Tales, which sees James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif trading horror stories across a frontier campfire.

Their frame story is the worst part and fills the bulk of the short run time. Every line of dialogue is excruciating (I own a German DVD, have been tempted to watch the unsubtitled dub), most of the action feels awkward. The first fifteen minutes choke every gasp of promise with misery. Have I sold you on this yet? How about the fact it seems to only be available in a muddy pan/scan version that hints that the cinematography – this is Janusz Kaminski’s first feature – should be making things better?

But the stories themselves are refreshingly suggestive and meaningful, avoiding cheap shock (though everyone best remembers the climax of the second segment) and dipshit karmic irony. They’re good enough you almost (almost) don’t mind that Coe follows each by making Dourif and Jones compliment him on his own work. If you can shrug off its disappointments, the movie succeeds in making the case that the best place to contemplate the nation’s character is at the juncture of these two genres.

[Lowry_Sam]

Can you add Beeban Kidron's Oranges Aren't The Only Fruit? IMDB shows its first airing on UK tv as January 10 and I don't think it was screened in cinemas until after its tv debut, despite being listed as 1989 on IMDB. I saw it in The Castro theater as part of th SF Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in June '90 and the program mentions that it was initially intended to be a 3 part tv series (in 1989?) but in fact ended up being aired in its entirety as a movie on January 10 1990.It might not be an easy one to find. I liked it so much that I imported the dvd when it came out, but it has never been upgraded to blu/HD and it doen't look to be available on Youtube, though there's an interview with Kidron on the film.

[swo17]

IMDb says 1989 because of a lone festival screening. Everywhere else I'm looking I see 1990. I've added it there, thanks!

[knives]

Before I forget here’s the Masterlist in Letterboxd form. Also, my first few real viewings.

Love at Large, missing from the Masterlist, is a delight thanks to seeing what Rudolph’s idea of a plot propulsed movie is (though the plot is rather incoherent). This is also the rare voyeur story that seems guilt free about that fact.

Tokyo Heaven is what had me going to Rudolph as Somai is working within that stylized Hollywood recollection though Here Comes Mr. Jordan is the birthplace rather than noir.

[swo17]

I've added the Rudolph

[Lowry_Sam]

Can you also add Mark Kitchell's Oscar nominee for best documentary Berkeley In The Sixties? One of the better documentaries on the student movements of the 60s.

[swo17]

Done

[Lowry_Sam]

FYI: On the Criterion channel:

An Angel At My Table
Close-up
Cold Dog Soup
Cry baby
The Comfort Of Strangers
Daddy Nostalgia
Diary For My Mother And Father
Europa, Europa
Farwell China
Janine
Life Is Sweet
The Match Factory Girl
May Fools
Metropolitan
Mister Johnson
Paris Is Burning
Ronin Gai
Songs For Drella
A Tale Of Springtime
Tales Of A Golden Geisha
TGM The Liberator
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!
Two Lies
What's Up Connection
Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael
Yum, Yum

On Kanopy:
I, The Worst Of All
Pacific Heights
Ken Burns: The Civil War


Anyone know of good sources for
The September Of Mine
The Branches Of The Tree
The Tales Of The Majid
How To Live In The German Federal Republic
Liberté, égalité, fraternité, et puis après...
Stanno Tutti Bene
Hamoun
Tobu yume wo shibaraku minai
Madar
Ishanou

?

[domino harvey]

Just submitted my list. This is an incredibly strong year, I didn't realize how much so til I started putting together my list. Of course as with last year, number one is a complete no brainer

[knives]

Honestly the year is so good and varied that I have no clue what you could be thinking of.

[domino harvey]

I’ll give you a hint: it’s To Sleep With Anger

[knives]

Ha, wasn’t even thinking of that one (though it’s totally going to be on my list). I was actually thinking Paris is Burning which to me is a perfect documentary.

[domino harvey]

That one was in my submitted top 20, at any rate

[TechnicolorAcid]

I thought you all were talking about Close-Up which is my number one until further notice.

[brundlefly]

I thought you all were talking about Close-Up which is my number one until further notice.

Same. But I also treasure "Sink or Swim" enough that I wouldn't want it lost in the mix.

Plenty to brain about.

[domino harvey]

Also voted for Close-Up, but I can only hope some of you have at least seen To Sleep With Anger before being so sure that it doesn't belong at the top of your lists