The 1994 Mini-List

[Never Cursed]

Can you please add Outside In?

The YouTube algorithm has done it again: Outside In, which both soothes and creates a headache as two unseen voices discuss how to turn a sphere inside out without folding or creasing it as early era CGI illustrates the problem at hand in yellow and purple. Probably once every minute I kind of understood what was going on, only for it to completely lose me and send me like eighteen steps back. Adult Swim before Adult Swim. An incredible whatsit

Watched this and its two sister shorts Not Knot and The Shape of Space off an edible. While I missed the casual dialectic explanation of the first short, these other two were even more unnerving in their detached attitude towards their subjects

[knives]

Herzog Ernst is close to a perfect film. It has this amazing animation style that I find very nostalgic and effective in conveying this ancient feeling crossroad between fairy tale and myth.

[knives]

If I went into Angel Dust blind I would have sworn this was a K. Kurosawa joint. It has a lot in common with his stylistic tics, narrative choices, and themes while having little clear precedent in the Ishii I have seen. Though there’s one musical cue which in addition to being one of the best in all of cinema is something I could only see Ishii pulling off.

[Lowry_Sam]

I don't see Alan Parker's The Road To Wellville with Anthony Hopkins, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda & Matthew Broderick in the list. I glossed over it when I searched on Kanopy for 1994 because it initially looked like a documentary (from the poster) on the origin story of Kellogg, but in fact it's a parody of the health & wellness craze's origins. Some might find it a bit prescient or over the top, but it's probably one of the better comedies of 1994 if you're looking for something light.

[swo17]

Added, thanks!

[Mr Sausage]

If I went into Angel Dust blind I would have sworn this was a K. Kurosawa joint. It has a lot in common with his stylistic tics, narrative choices, and themes while having little clear precedent in the Ishii I have seen. Though there’s one musical cue which in addition to being one of the best in all of cinema is something I could only see Ishii pulling off.

I wouldn't be surprised if Kurosawa were directly influenced by this. Os Perkins, too (Longlegs is very much in this vein). I enjoy these kinds of films. There's something so Japanese about having all your characters be distant guarded people who nevertheless can't help making every conversation about the state of their or someone else's soul. So no one seems to know anything about each other's lives, and yet they all talk as tho' they can peer into each other's innermost being. A perverse contradiction: hiding everything personal and yet compelled to reveal your deepest mysteries; avoiding proper conversations and yet desiring to dig so deep into another human that your spirits merge. It's an appropriate emotional palette for such an off-kilter, jagged visual style. The movie is so quiet and at the same time designed to rake your nerves. It helps you forget some of the more regressive, ridiculous ideas in the last third, like insanity being transferable to the point that psychiatry is a dangerous profession, or that intersex presentations are linked to traditional social roles. The movie's emotionally impactful, but its ideas don't bear much scrutiny.

I need to watch more films by this director.

[knives]

Ishii is an absolutely amazing director and kind of a lone soldier in that cyber punk generation of Japanese directors that includes Tsukamoto by making films intended to be enjoyed. Burst City is a particular favorite being this post apocalyptic Warriors/ It’s Trad Dad type of mash up. It’s hard to pinpoint any uniting themes in his work though consistently there’s a kind of outside looking in quality that allows him to deconstruct expectations. A couple of his shorts I’ve seen are also just these soulful things which suggest an ability to be completely involved that his more satirical films don’t necessarily suggest.

Ishii may be the most influential Japanese director that is still active.

[knives]

Dennis Hopper’s Chasers is a great comedy to add to the list. Hopper and DP Steiger really give it their all visually creating a sense of us watching some studio classic only to occasionally bust out some arty move like a long dolly near the end that might as well come from a Michael Mann film if he had a sense of humour.

This also does such a great job with tone. The premise is basically what if The Last Detail, but everyone hates each other and all the typical bonding things we see in movies doesn’t move them closer (discounting the Last Laugh type ending). That’s mixed with this weird unreality that I could see not working for some, but satisfying me in the same way screwball does. As in if one were to think about it the characters would be utterly repellent, but the unreality permits them by rule of funny.

These antics make it all the more satisfying that the plays at drama and theme work so well. Eleniak Gives such an amazing performance that it’s instantly frustrating that she didn’t have more of a career. She really carries the film on her shoulders as it spins a light feminist message about the vantage of institutions and the need for a wit that even at the cost of humanity doesn’t guarantee survival. Most of all though she’s hilarious.

[swo17]

Added, thanks!

[andyli]

Turned my ballot in. I know it's late but I hope someone else also has a place for Back to Back, Face to Face so it doesn't end up among the orphans. With this gentle satire, Huang Jianxin builds an allegory of Chinese people, and himself specifically, through a story of a tiny intellectual bureaucrat who is well loved by his colleagues but constantly failing in his attempts to win favor of the "up there". The irony is more in the face if you consider what Huang himself has become in the 2010s, riding the wave of Chinese box-office explosion and making all those mainstream ideological blockbusters. To me, Huang remains one of the best, if not the best, of the so-called Fifth Generation. He's certainly the most underrated. Over this early-to-mid period of his career he injects a firm style of absurdity into his reality of a modern China that is fast changing and ever-confusing, while the other Fifth Generation filmmakers turn to history and make their Cultural Revolution fictions. No one understands the mentality of Chinese people, especially those who try to make it either in the guan chang (arena of government officials) or shang chang (business circles), of the 90s (and by extension the 00s) better than he does. And these people pretty much help form the China we know today. He uses modern China and its not-so-modern citizens as a lens to analyze the society's conflict between ideas old and new. In this sense, he is not unlike Edward Yang (to think of A Confucian Confusion made in the same year as Back to Back but less effective). He is therefore not as readily accessible by the West as those of his generation analyzing China's older/rural traditions and other more fashionable themes. Still, Back to Back is his masterpiece and well worth checking out.

[therewillbeblus]

I noticed when voting that you can vote for not only Rose Lowder's individual Bouquets and the grouped together "Bouquets 1-10", but.. all of her Bouquets through 2022! Not sure if it's an error or not, but I'll be voting for them in sets of ten, since for some reason I've had varying reactions to each ("21-30" is her masterpiece, but I didn't feel comfortable grouping that into consideration for 1994)

[swo17]

That was intentional and I was probably going to vote for the entire series together myself, though I recognize that the groupings of 10 each have a little bit of a different feel to them

[swo17]

Back to Back, Face to Face

Dang, I wish the WCL release were still available somewhere, as I enjoyed both Black Cannon Incident and Dislocation (and voted for the former in my 1985 list)

Also, friendly reminder that lists are due today!

ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 1994

VOTE THROUGH JUNE 30

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

[swo17]

The 1994 List



##. Film (Director) points/votes(top 5 placements, aka likely votes in decade list)/highest ranking

01. 重慶森林 [Chung hing sam lam] [Chungking Express] (Wong Kar-wai) 313/15(11)/1(x3)
02. Trois Couleurs: Rouge [Three Colors: Red] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 287/15(9)/1(x3)
03. Exotica (Atom Egoyan) 251/14(2)/1
04. Sátántangó [Satan's Tango] (Béla Tarr) 249/11(9)/1(x3)
05. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino) 242/13(7)/1
06. زیر درختان زیتون [Zir-e derakhtan-e zeytin] [Through the Olive Trees] (Abbas Kiarostami) 214/11(5)/1
07. Trois Couleurs: Blanc [Trzy kolory. Biały] [Three Colors: White] (Krzysztof Kieślowski) 129/8(4)/2
08. Riget [The Kingdom] (1994-1997) (Lars von Trier & Morten Arnfred) 125/6(4)/1
09. Ed Wood (Tim Burton) 114/10(1)/3
10. Crooklyn (Spike Lee) 112/7(3)/1
11. U.S. Go Home (Claire Denis) 109/6(2)/1
12. Barcelona (Whit Stillman) 106/8(1)/4
13. 東邪西毒 [Dung che sai duk] [Ashes of Time] (Wong Kar-wai) 98/8(1)/5
14. Hoop Dreams (Steve James) 91/7(1)/4
(tie) The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel & Ethan Coen) 91/9/6
16. L'Eau froide [Cold Water] (Olivier Assayas) 88/6(3)/5(x3)
(tie) Quiz Show (Robert Redford) 88/6/6(x2)
18. Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen) 86/6(2)/4
19. Black Ice (Stan Brakhage) 83/6(1)/3
20. Speed (Jan de Bont) 81/6/7
21. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson) 78/5(2)/1
(tie) 飲食男女 [Yin shi nan nu] [Eat Drink Man Woman] (Ang Lee) 78/5(2)/3(x2)
(tie) The Last Seduction (John Dahl) 78/6/7
24. Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle) 77/5(2)/3(x2)
25. 獨立時代 [Du li shi dai] [A Confucian Confusion] (Edward Yang) 76/4(2)/2
26. 活着 [Huo zhe] [To Live] (Zhang Yimou) 74/5(1)/2
27. 愛情萬歲 [Ai qing wan sui] [Vive l'amour] (Tsai Ming-liang) 72/4(1)/5
28. Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone) 69/6/7
29. Léon [The Professional] (Luc Besson) 68/4(1)/1
30. L'Enfer [Torment] (Claude Chabrol) 65/6(2)/2
(tie) Les Roseaux sauvages [Wild Reeds] (André Téchiné) 65/5(2)/2
32. Ладони [Ladoni] [Palms] (Artur Aristakisyan) 63/3(1)/1
(tie) The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont) 63/4(1)/5
(tie) The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles) 63/4(1)/2
(tie) Jeanne la pucelle [Joan the Maid] (Jacques Rivette) 63/6(1)/1
36. 平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ [Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko] [Pom Poko] (Isao Takahata) 62/4(1)/5
37. Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis) 60/3(2)/2
38. La Reine Margot [Queen Margot] (Patrice Chéreau) 54/3/6
39. Пред дождот [Pred doždot] [Before the Rain] (Milcho Manchevski) 53/4/7
40. Il postino [The Postman] (Michael Radford) 52/3(1)/4
41. Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell) 51/3(1)/1
42. Bouquets 1-10 (1994-1995) (Rose Lowder) 50/3(1)/4
43. Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 á Bruxelles [Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels] (Chantal Akerman) 48/3/7(x2)
(tie) Тихие страницы [Tikhiye stranitsy] [Whispering Pages] (Aleksandr Sokurov) 48/3(1)/5
(tie) JLG/JLG, autoportrait de décembre [Self-Portrait in December] (Jean-Luc Godard) 48/4/8
46. Dumb and Dumber (Peter & Bobby Farrelly) 47/3(1)/3
47. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Alan Rudolph) 45/3(1)/4
48. Amateur (Hal Hartley) 42/3/9
49. Clerks (Kevin Smith) 41/2(1)/3
50. The Lion King (Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff) 40/3/9
(tie) Ladybird Ladybird (Ken Loach) 40/4/12

ALSO-RANS

J'ai pas sommeil [I Can't Sleep] (Claire Denis) 37/3/8
What Happened Was... (Tom Noonan) 36/3/11
High School II (Frederick Wiseman) 35/2(1)/3
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott) 35/2/8
Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana [Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana] (Aki Kaurismäki) 35/3/9
Serial Mom (John Waters) 34/2/7
Casa de Lava [Down to Earth] (Pedro Costa) 34/2/8
Grosse Fatigue [Dead Tired] (Michel Blanc) 33/3/6
Fresh (Boaz Yakin) 32/2/8

Fun (Rafal Zielinski) 31/2(1)/3
71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls [71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance] (Michael Haneke) 30/2(1)/2
Lucas: Lucas with the Lid Off (Michel Gondry) 30/2/8
Priest (Antonia Bird) 29/2/6
In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter) 28/2(1)/3
Утомлённые солнцем [Utomlyonnye solntsem] [Burnt by the Sun] (Nikita Mikhalkov) 27/2/12
Lekce Faust (Jan Švankmajer) 23/2(1)/5
Death and the Maiden (Roman Polański) 22/2/14
New Nightmare (Wes Craven) 20/2/10
The Puppet Masters (Stuart Orme) 20/3/11

London (Patrick Keiller) 19/2/9
River of Grass (Kelly Reichardt) 19/2/14
Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle) 18/3/10
Wrony [Crows] (Dorota Kędzierzawska) 18/2/13
Stille Nacht IV: Can't Go Wrong Without You (Stephen & Timothy Quay) 18/2/14
Cabin Boy (Adam Resnick) 16/2/12
二嫫 [Er mo] (Zhou Xiaowen) 16/2/14
Chasers (Dennis Hopper) 14/2/13
Dellamorte dellamore [Cemetery Man] (Michele Soavi) 14/2/15
The Hour of the Pig (Leslie Megahey) 11/2/19
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Tom Shadyac) 11/2/20

Little Odessa (James Gray) 10/2/18
The Glass Shield (Charles Burnett) 7/2/22

ORPHANS

Film (Director) highest ranking

Total Balalaika Show (Aki Kaurismäki) 1
Umbrellas (Albert Maysles, Henry Corra & Grahame Weinbren) 7
Reality Bites (Ben Stiller) 16
That's Entertainment! III (Bud Friedgen & Michael J. Sheridan) 19
La Séparation [The Separation] (Christian Vincent) 11
I Like It Like That (Darnell Martin) 17
Spanking the Monkey (David O. Russell) 12
Genesi: La creazione e il diluvio [Genesis: The Creation and the Flood] (Ermanno Olmi) 11
I.Q. (Fred Schepisi) 16
エンジェル・ダスト [Enjeru dasuto] [Angel Dust] (Gakuryū Ishii) 11
Lamerica (Gianni Amelio) 11
背靠背, 脸对脸 [Bei kao bei lian dui lian] [Back to Back, Face to Face] (Huang Jianxin) 4
Backbeat (Iain Softley) 20
Bűvös vadász [Freischütz] [Magic Hunter] (Ildikó Enyedi) 22
True Lies (James Cameron) 24
I'll Do Anything (James L. Brooks) 20
The Red Book (Janie Geiser) 8
A Great Day in Harlem (Jean Bach) 15
Dieu sait quoi [God Only Knows] (Jean-Daniel Pollet) 6
陽光燦爛的日子 [Yang guang can lan de ri zi] [In the Heat of the Sun] (Jiang Wen) 15
The Santa Clause (John Pasquin) 23
Här är karusellen [Revolver] (Jonas Odell, Stig Bergqvist, Lars Ohlson & Martti Ekstrand) 9
#5 (Joost Rekveld) 13
Canción de cuna [Cradle Song] (José Luis Garci) 13
Green Dream (Josephine Massarella) 15
The Color of Fear (Lee Mun Wah) 2
Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori) 19
Altair (Lewis Klahr) 14
Herzog Ernst [Duke Ernest] (Lutz Dammbeck) 2
Stan nieważkości [State of Weightlessness] (Maciej J. Drygas) 8
The Cremaster Cycle (1994-2002) (Matthew Barney) 8
باب الواد الحومة [Bab el-oued al-hawma] [Bab El-Oued City] (Merzak Allouache) 25
Aux petits bonheurs (Michel Deville) 23
Sinéad O'Connor: Fire on Babylon (Michel Gondry) 10
Stina Nordenstam: Little Star (Michel Gondry) 16
Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan) 18
Nattevagten [Nightwatch] (Ole Bornedal) 17
Travolta et moi [Travolta and Me] (Patricia Mazuy) 4
R.E.M.: What's the Frequency, Kenneth? (Peter Care) 11
Fritänkaren [The Freethinker] (Peter Watkins) 20
Clear and Present Danger (Phillip Noyce) 17
Color of Night (Richard Rush) 23
Nobody's Fool (Robert Benton) 18
Ween: Voodoo Lady (Roman Coppola) 18
夏の庭 [Natsu no niwa] [The Friends] (Shinji Sōmai) 10
Outside In (Silvio Levy, Delle Maxwell & Tamara Munzner) 15
Sparks: When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'? (Sophie Muller) 21
Beastie Boys: Sabotage (Spike Jonze) 9
Weezer: Buddy Holly (Spike Jonze) 23
Naughts (Stan Brakhage) 18
The Chartres Series (Stan Brakhage) 17
The Mammals of Victoria (Stan Brakhage) 15
Death Machine (Stephen Norrington) 25
Sonic Youth: Bull in the Heather (Tamra Davis & Kim Gordon) 24
The Ref (Ted Demme) 15
An Interview with Dennis Potter (Tom Poole) 19
Blue Sky (Tony Richardson) 12
黃飛鴻之五龍城殲霸 [Wong fei hung chi neung lung shing chim pa] [Once Upon a Time in China V] (Tsui Hark) 25
Blue Chips (William Friedkin) 16
Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders) 8

21 lists submitted

[knives]

Thanks so much for this Swo and thanks to the others who voted for Cabin Boy and Chasers.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks swo!

1. U.S. Go Home
2. The Color of Fear
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Riget
5. Satantango
6. Chungking Express
7. Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels
8. JLG/JLG – Self-Portrait in December
9. Black Ice
10. Bouquets 1-10

[domino harvey]

Thanks swo! Despite the top 10 not being very reflective of my own list, I think I still only had one orphan (Blue Sky)

[yoshimori]

Three of my top ten (and the top three, no less) got just one other vote. Thanks to whoever saved Jeanne la pucelle, High School II, and 71 Fragments from orphanization. One person? Two? Three?

And apologies to the person who voted for the R.E.M. video. I don't keep mvids on my own movie lists, but if I'd noticed it as an option here, I'd've included it.

[swo17]

If it helps to navigate the music videos, I'll usually search for ": " in the eligibility list. Some of those are feature films with a colon in the title, but the vast majority are music videos. It also helps if you're logging your viewings on IMDb, which acknowledges music videos, as opposed to Letterboxd, which does not

[yoshimori]

Thanks for the pointer! Will proceed accordingly. And thanks, again, for all your work.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Thanks swo!

1. U.S. Go Home
2. The Color of Fear
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Riget
5. Satantango
6. Chungking Express
7. Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels
8. JLG/JLG – Self-Portrait in December
9. Black Ice
10. Bouquets 1-10

For a second, I thought your number two was the Bruce Willis/Jane March film!

[domino harvey]

Which someone did vote for!

[John Cope]

That would be me, albeit not in my top 10.

1. Exotica
2. Sátántangó[Satan's Tango]
3. Vanya on 42nd Street
4. زیر درختان زیتون[Zir-e derakhtan-e zeytin][Through the Olive Trees]
5. 東邪西毒[Dung che sai duk][Ashes of Time]
6. La Reine Margot[Queen Margot]
7. Ладони[Ladoni][Palms]
8. The Cremaster Cycle(1994-2002)
9. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
10. Casa de Lava[Down to Earth]

Meanwhile, whoever else put Vanya in their top 5 also placed it at # 3. Would love to see that list.

[Maltic]

This seems to be one of the years which broader audiences (to the extent there is such a thing these days for older movies) regard as one of the major ones in film. Another being 1999.

Other than two obvious ones in Pulp Fiction and Shawshank, I'm not actually sure which films account for it, though Leon seems to be popular at retro screenings. And perhaps here in Denmark, people haven't gotten the message that you're not supposed to like Forrest Gump.

[scotty2]

Thanks swo.

Also-rans:
13. Burnt by the Sun
14. River of Grass
24. Faust

Orphans:
11. Lamerica
15. A Great Day in Harlem