Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (The Lists Project)

[Murdoch]

Wow, almost half my list didn't make it:

4. Joe vs. the Volcano (1990) - A sentimental fave of mine, I came across it several years ago on HBO and its impact hasn't lessened. The best of the Hanks-Ryan vehicles, and the best movie either has ever done, the story unwinds like a fable, with Joe's sweet release from his job and humdrum life shown with the right degree of whimsy and optimism. It also boasts a fun soundtrack that meshed quite well with the film.
13. Dark City (1998)
16. Live Flesh (1997)
19. Ashes of Time (1994) – I'm with zedz on this, one of Wong's best and one I need to rewatch, the visuals are breathtaking and I'm wondering if this film not faring well is due to people confusing it as a 2000s film because of the redux?
20. Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
21. Audition (1999)
22. Kicking and Screaming (1995) – This film captures perfectly what it is like to go to a liberal arts college.
29. The Pillow Book (1996) – A great example of Greenaway's cerebral style, the use of the human body as a vessel for storytelling is a very interesting concept that got me hooked on Greenaway - this was the first film I saw of his.
30. Trainspotting (1996) – I enjoy this despite myself.
32. A Tale of Springtime (1990)
34. The Hudsucker Proxy (1991) - Pretty much for Jennifer Jason Leigh only.
37. The Limey (1999)
38. The Funeral (1996)
39. Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train (1998)
40. In the Company of Men (1997)
41. The Addiction (1995) - An allegorical horror film that conveys addiction in a way only Ferrara could do, the two Ferrara films on this list have been the only of his I've been able to enjoy.
42. Rush (1991) – Pretty much for Jennifer Jason Leigh only, although I did enjoy the cheesy 90s guitar roars.
45. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) - I think this is a little too literal in its translation of Thompson, but it still works because of Depp and Del Toro's zaniness throughout.
46. Open Your Eyes (1997)
47. The Game (1997)
49. Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
50. eXistenZ (1999) – Pretty much for Jennifer Jason Leigh only.

[life_boy]

29 of my films made it, leaving 21 darlings, and 40 movies on the top 100 I have not seen (including the final #1, 5, 6, 19, and 20).

3. Hear My Cry (Maciej J. Drygas, 1991)
A giant of a film: some of these images are just emblazoned on my brain (the woman walking through the hall of locked doors, the crowd of people slowly swaying, the actual act that is the basis of the whole thing). The film spirals around the event lightly touching, appearing to veer off track completely only to gently slide back on point without a hiccup, only deepening one’s understanding of the man, event or reaction to either and proving that Drygas is in total command of the structure and pacing. And this is a debut feature! (as far as I can tell from his limited filmography resources), which makes it all the more impressive.

6. Black Ice (Stan Brakhage, 1994)
I limited my list to 2 Brakhage films, sorry Commingled Containers and Glaze of Cathexis), but Brakhage is too huge of an artist for me to ignore completely. To defend the beauty and power of his painted films is like trying to defend a sunset, but, I’ll try. Black Ice is something akin to an assault, a sense of powerlessness and darkness seeping in slowly and then rapidly overtaking the senses. I find it utterly terrifying.

8. Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee, 1993)
I love all McElwee’s films (even Backyard….especially Backyard) which do rely pretty heavily on cross-references to older McElwee films. Time Indefinite probably doesn’t work as well as an entry point or an isolated experience, but it is just as powerful and insightful as anything else he has done. I agree with zedz that this one isn’t as funny as Sherman’s March (what movie is?), but its treatment of death, loss and family is truthful and carefully done. McElwee is one of my favorite philosopher poets of cinema.

14. Stellar (Stan Brakhage, 1993)
In contrast to the claustrophobic Black Ice, Stellar is the polar opposite: floating through the vast unknown, swirling colors, depth and majesty (yet not without its own sense of dread). There is something soothing about it. It is incredible that such vastly different works were created by the same man using the same technique. I’ve only seen these Brakhage films on disc; I can’t imagine the power they have in a cinema.

15. State of Weightlessness (Maciej J. Drygas, 1994)
This film somehow manages to make For All Mankind seem superfluous (and I love that film!). It also contains my favorite Herzogian image that Herzog never lensed. [PS: A great double feature with the above title.]

18. Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold, 1998)
This film begins as a joke and ends as a nightmare. When and where the shift occurs, I’m not quite sure, but I have to hand it to anyone who saw something so bizarre and disturbing brooding under the surface of an innocuous 30’s programmer.

24. “Praise You” (Spike Jonze, 1998) [Fatboy Slim music video]
I am hardly a defender of music videos but was curious to see that not a one has been able to break a top 100 so far for either the 80’s or 90’s (maybe the votes are so wildly split?). As the 90’s found music videos really settling into their slick conventional aesthetics, I have to love someone like Spike bumping and grinding in there with this little VHS-C romp. I see a certain harking back to the development of early cinema in many of the best 90’s music videos, perhaps because the wisest makers realized they were making silent films again. You can call this one the Spirit of Edwin S. Porter, as our notions of reality and illusion are played with in a way that is only self-reflexive if you know who Jonze is and the whole video is ultimately wrapped up in the simple joy of watching people. “Praise You” is easily one of my favorite comedies of the 90’s.

25. Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992)
Spike Lee’s best film and one of the strongest attempts to make a conventional biographical film. Denzel is a giant and this is probably the only Lee movie I’ve seen where he doesn’t throw in something to diminish or completely ruin it for me (Jungle Fever might be on my list too if it wasn’t for that freaking coda).

27. World of Glory (Roy Andersson, 1991)
Small, expressive, powerful. Who was voting for Schindler’s List?

28. 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke, 1994)
This one floored me. Channel surfing through people’s lives until finding out what happens when one of them snaps. I wonder what else is on?

31. “Let Forever Be” (Michel Gondry, 1999) [Chemical Brothers music video]
&
41. “Sugar Water” (Michel Gondry, 1996) [Cibo Matto music video]
Forget the overwrought Drayton/Faris “Tonight, Tonight", the real Spirit of Méliès award goes to these two Michel Gondry videos, which meld the playful imagination of Georges with the puzzle-book technical capabilities of the late 20th century (Busby Berkeley by way of 80's video editing for #31 and carefully orchestrated palindrome for #41).

32. Public Housing (Frederick Wiseman, 1997)
Maybe its because this was my first Wiseman but nothing else of his has even come close (though I haven’t yet seen Near Death). Maybe its also because Wiseman feels a bit like a one trick pony, but here, the trick works like a charm.

35. Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (Errol Morris, 1997)
Boy, this seems like an obvious one, except that it’s a documentary….
[Chance for redemption: Morris made at least one great movie in the 00’s….]

40. The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993)
One of the quintessential Hollywood 90’s releases was the action thriller (now mostly usurped by the TV forensics drama), so I felt I should at least tip my hat to the one that got it right. Location shooting, a sense of naturalism, an integration of place into the warp and woof of the story, a careful, detail-oriented plot, Tommy Lee Jones in his best role and a twist ending that doesn’t twist too much (ala Usual Suspects). I loved it when I was 10 on a Saturday night in 1993, I love it still on a Friday night in 2009. But, it looks like I was completely alone on this one.

42. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997)
I’m still not sure why Herzog needed to remake this.

43. Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (Michael Rappaport, 1992)
A film as film criticism. In a perfect world, DVD extras would all be like this.

44. Amarillo by Morning (Spike Jonze, 1998)
Genuinely odd subjects are treated without irony or sarcasm, which is nearly as unbelievable as this film is affecting.

45. Anything Can Happen (Marcel Łoziński, 1995)
A 10 year old goes from park bench to park bench asking the lonely, sad and aging people all the questions adults could never ask each other openly.

48. Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995)
It’s been a while, but I remember being floored by Cage and the bleakness.

50. Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
Maybe the doc vote was split or maybe some people need to fill up there queues. This is on DVD and has one of my most oft-listened to soundtracks EVER.

Also, Top 12 for the interested:
1. Lessons of Darkness (Werner Herzog, 1992)
2. A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
3. Hear My Cry (Maciej J. Drygas, 1991)
4. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
5. Life and Nothing More… (Abbas Kiarostami, 1991)
6. Black Ice (Stan Brakhage, 1994)
7. Drifting Clouds (Aki Kaurismäki, 1996)
8. Time Indefinite (Ross McElwee, 1993)
9. The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sang-soo, 1998)
10. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
11. To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett, 1990)
12. The Match Factory Girl (Aki Kaurismäki, 1990)

[Scharphedin2]

As always, huge thanks to zedz – full striptease and all – for acting the custodian to this project. Assembling this list, I realized that I have not been back to the nineties very often in my viewing since the decade ended. There has been such a wealth of older films coming out on DVD at such a rapid pace that there really has not been time to spend on the recent past. That said, reading down the titles on that long final list last night was a wonderful confirmation that this decade too offered a wealth of excellent cinema.

Twenty films from my list made the top 100; 8 made the 1st tier of “also rans;” another 12 made the 2nd tier; and, 10 films did not have any other supporters at all.

Of the 1st tier “also rans,” I was most surprised to see Institute Benjamenta not making the list (no. 4 on my list). Of all the films I saw during the nineties (most of everything on my list this time around was seen at the cinema), this was easily the most magical. An incredible re-imagination of the source novel (Walser’s “Jakob van Gunten”) filtered through the rich world of the Quays’ haunting images. Equally visually striking was Greenaway’s The Pillow Book, and the experience of this film is simply not captured on DVD. I saw this at the cinema twice, and for all of Greenaway’s excesses -- which do not always work for me -- the way in which he worshipped the art and act of writing in this film, and the way he told the story, often with multiple frames within the image truly felt like something new and exciting at the time. Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Maborosi and Amelio’s Il ladro di bambini/Children Thieves were my highest placing films from Japan and Italy, respectively. I imagine that the relative lack of availability of these films placed them out of reach for enough people to not place them higher in the collective list. The former is a quiet (literally) meditation on loss, slowly unfolding through the experience of a young woman. It is a very subtle film, even by Japanese standards, I think. More than ten years after seeing the film, I hardly remember the plot at all, but completely remember the face and bearing of the young woman, and the sensation of having lived through an experience of the loss of a loved one with her by the end of the film. By comparison, Amelio’s film is more conventional, and wears its emotions and intentions on the sleeve. It is consciously placed in the realist tradition, and draws a line back to DeSica’s immediate post-war films. I remember being very moved and saddened by this film, which appeared to show how little progress the world has made since the end of the great war. Yimou’s To Live and Kaige’s Farewell, My Concubine were my Chinese bids for the decade. I clearly did not see as many Chinese films as some people contributing to the list, but I remember how impressed I was with these two (somewhat similar) films – everything about them: the epic quality of the stories, the powerful acting, the incredibly beautiful color photography. Polanski’s Bitter Moon was on the lower half of my list as a guilty pleasure, and Wild at Heart was at the top of my list as a personal favorite Lynch film. The latter never lived up to my initial impression, when I later saw it again on laserdisc and DVD, but on two consecutive nights back in the spring of 1991, my friends and I were thrilled out of our young minds at seeing the film on the very big screen at the largest movie house in North Europe.

Of the second tier “also rans,” it surprised me that Night on Earth and The Game did not place. The former is to me the most ambitious expression of Jarmusch’s very personal brand of comedy and filmmaking. It is quite clever, and it never fails to make me laugh – the only film, where I was threatened to be kicked out of a movie theatre for laughing in fact (Armin-Mueller Stahl as East German clown-cum-cab driver vs. Esposito’s streetwise fare kills me, and that is just the beginning, then there is Benigni rambling off his catalogue of sins to a Catholic priest, before we finally get to a carful of sobbing, shit-faced Fins – priceless stuff, and underscored by Tom Waits’ neanderthal rhythm and howls). The Game always struck me as a favorite around here, but I guess not. I included it as a compromise between Fincher’s films of the decade, all of which I thought were very good for the work of a young Hollywood director. I included Kids on my list, not really because I think it is a marvelous piece of filmmaking as such, but because I have rarely left a movie theatre feeling more hopeless, angry and indignant. Another guilty pleasure in this category for me was A Simple Plan – a middling to good Hollywood picture from a director, whom I would never have expected anything much from. The performance of Billy Bob Thornton as a tragic, backwards, socially inept hillbilly made it impossible for me to forget this film -- it was one of my favorite performances by an American actor in the ‘90s. Fearless was my tip of the hat to Peter Weir, who has made so many good films in his career, even if they always seem a little less exciting at a distance. It was another film I included on the basis of my memory of experiencing it at the theatre – the finale introduced me to Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, and for that, if nothing else, I gave it a place on my list. Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky did not receive much love on its initial release, and it would seem that time has not vindicated this gorgeous adaptation of Bowles’ novel, with sumptuous photography by Storaro, powerful performances by Malkowich and Winger, and the author himself present as something like a witness in the film, offering his final coda in voice-over. Another great adaptation to me, and one that I am surprised in general has not received more attention, is Jordan’s End of the Affair. To me it hearks back to all the great classic English films, with Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes as adulterous lovers against a backdrop of rainy London during the blitz. Stephen Rea gives a wonderful performance as the cuckolded husband, and Nyman is at his most evocative on the soundtrack, in a film that manages to be both very cinematic and literary at the same time. Scorsese’s Personal Journey probably impressed me more than any of his feature films – a grand love letter to the American film, and at the time of its release, it was like a tantalizing catalogue of films that one hoped to one day be able to see. And then, Apted’s 35Up, which I only saw recently, but which, along with the other entries of this series of documentaries spanning half a century, has been one of the most inspiring documentary film experiences of my life. And, of course I also had to include Kurosawa’s Madadayo, which was so obviously a farewell by the director, whose work – more than that of any other filmmaker – has been responsible for my personal passion for film. It is an epilogue to an enormous filmmaking career, and as such it is far from the heights that Kurosawa travelled in his prime, but more like a bittersweet final curtain call to all who has seen and loved the man’s films. Finally, two quintessentially American films that may look naïve today, but which to me represent all that is best in American life and film – Costner’s ambitious epic Dances With Wolves and Redford’s A River Runs Through It. In lieu of writing a long defense, I will go the personal route and say that the former was the last time my family went and was collectively swept away by a big film at the movies, and the latter was the last film I saw with a loved family member before his passing. Both films appeared to look over their shoulders, and attempt to defy the dictum that “they do not make them like that anymore,” and I suppose deep down, I will always feel that a film before anything else, should have a good and meaningful story to tell. For me, both of these films absolutely qualify.

I read over zedz’ long lists several times, but I am still convinced that some of the following films must be on there, and that it is just my weary eyes that are skipping them. In any event, here are the ones that it looks like I was alone in including:

17. Homo Faber aka Voyager – With its travelling and road movie elements, this always seemed like a film that Wim Wenders should have made. Instead Volker Schlöndorff did, and I was always surprised that with Julie Delphy, Barbara Sukowa and Sam Shephard as the stars that this film did not receive more attention. It is a faithful – and to me, quite excellent – adaptation of one of the big novels in post-war German literature (Max Frisch’s “Homo Faber.”) A very nice English-friendly DVD is out in Germany for anyone interested.

27. Bis ans Ende die Welt aka Until the End of the World – Wim Wenders has not fared well since the end of the eighties. I was torn between this – the director’s self-confessed magnum opus – and, the equally flawed Faraway, So Close. Apparently, it would not have mattered, as neither film appears to have received any votes. All flaws aside, this film -- both in the original, and the director’s cut -- has many great things going for it, but in the end the parts do not add up to a completely satisfying whole. We have a sci-fi premise of a device that records people’s memories for playback, we have a storyline that takes the film on location on four continents, we have a great cast including William Hurt, Sam Neill, Max Von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau, along with Wenders luminaries Solveig Dommartin and Rüdiger Vögler. We have one of the great indie-rock soundtracks of the decade, and great photography by Robby Müller. And yet…

28. The Secret of Roan Inish – This was my bid for a John Sayles film. I love this director’s subtle style, and the stories he tells are always humane and affecting. This one is set in Ireland, and concerns the legend of the silkies (seal people). It has all the authenticity of place and performances that Sayles is so adept at, and it is that rarest of things – a film for the whole family that is not “dumbed down.”

29. Basquiat – Julian Schnabel’s bio-pic of the eponymous New York graffiti artist felt very fresh at the time of its release, possibly for being the director’s first foray into the medium of film, telling a story about people he had known and the world he came from (painting).

32. Indian Runner – Sean Penn’s debut film as director, like Schnabel’s, felt like a film about real people and real experiences. David Morse and Viggo Mortensen starred, along with Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, and Charles Bronson.

33. Desperate Hours – With this film, I felt that Michael Cimino proved that he could make a conventional and powerful Hollywood thriller, and I thought his career would have re-ignited, but it was not to be so. Although mainly set within a single set, there is still the sense of the great American outdoors that contributed so much to Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate. Anthony Hopkins starred, but then again so did Mickey Rourke, and I suppose the audiences stayed at home, or, Hollywood was not convinced. In any event, Cimino has only made one film since this (Sunchaser), and it sank without a trace.

35. Beyond the Clouds – Far from Antonioni’s best films, I am still amazed that this film should not have received a single other vote. But so it apparently was… I can only say that it impressed me a lot on first viewing at a theatre, but admittedly less so years later on DVD, although I marked that down to my greater acquaintance with the director’s other works by the time I re-visited it.

38. Everything is Fine – Giuseppe Tornatorre’s follow-up to Cinema Paradiso with ageing Mastroianni playing a widowed padre familias from Sicilly, who travels to mainland Italy to visit his five children, all of whom in his mind have attained great success in life, but as it happens live very ordinary existences and have little time for the intrusion of their father in their lives. Alida Valli makes a cameo late in the film, and in general this film is just one great nostalgic trip.

41. The English Patient – International filmmaking on a grand scale based on a novel that I fell in love with on its publication. I am not sure the film would hold up for me today, but again, it was a marvelous experience at the theatre, when it came out.

46. Smoke – To me, the only really successful meeting between the cinema and author Paul Auster. I loved this film when it came out, but am not sure that it would appeal at all to people, who did not read Auster’s books up until this point. Personally, I have cooled a lot to Auster’s subsequent novels, and again I wonder if even this film would hold up for me, if viewed today.

The truly wonderful part about this lists project, and about the way that the world of cinema has become open and accessible in the last decade, is the way it allows us to fulfill expectation. I look over these lists, and I look at the hundreds of yet unseen films from the nineties that I own, and I am conscious that I could easily create a top 50 list of unseen films that would be many times more interesting than the list of seen films that I did submit. Ever since first falling in love with film, I always dreamt about those films that I had not yet seen, and this dreaming has been part and parcel of my joy and passion for film. A great film poster, a couple of well chosen stills, a few good sentences in a book or magazine… then the passing of time; this is often what has given me the greatest film experiences.

[GringoTex]

I never thought I'd have to defend my top two picks, but here goes:

1. Casino - For me the 1990-1995 period represents the apex of Scorsese's output, where he fully integrated his personal demons with his love of Hollywood style, and Casino is his magnum opus. It's part materialist analysis, prt gangster, part melodrama, part Western, and part rock music video. It's Scorsese at the height of his powers where he showed he could and would do anything with a camera.

2. Dazed and Confused - I just assumed this had become part of the young cinephile canon, but I was wrong. I'm personally offended that Anderson's wink wink snarky narcissism is so much more embraced than Linklater's full-bodied, lightly-buzzed egalitarian humanism.

8. From the East - Akerman uses tracking shots to explore the physicality of eastern European immigrants flooding into the West after the fall of the iron curtain. Or maybe she's using eastern European immigrants to explore the physicality of tracking shots. Either way, this bold socio-formal exercise perfectly captures the post-Cold War possibilities without a single instance of voice-over narration or on-screen dialogue.

9. Texasville - My swapsie, which only one participant took me up on (thanks, DH!). I sold it as the most honest portrayal of rural Texas life in the cinema, but nobody was buying.

22. Nobody's Business - Alan Berliner films his dad. I usually hate these kinds of films, but this one is hilarious.

24. La Vie de Jesus - Once upon a time (or simply, "once"), Dumont made an incredible film where the characters were so intrinsically a part of their environment that you couldn't separate the two. And then with L'Humanite, everything started to fall to pieces.

[Dr Amicus]

20 of my list made it to the top 100, another 20 into the also-rans to a greater or lesser degree (Prospero's Books to The Garden), and ten loners. I may come to the others later, but it's Panda time now:

12:Kundun Really? Am I the only one who loves this film around here? For me, Scorsese's finest film of the 90s and his last great film. It may well be one sided in favour of the Dalai lama, but it's still a great film.

13: Batman Returns. Probably my favourite Burton, although Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood were definitely bubbling under. Ignoring the requirements of action cinema - the set pieces are often perfuntory - and instead redefining the blockbuster as an S&M tinged dance of death between the four principal characters, all of whom are more-or-less psychotic loners. Whom you feel sorry for (in particular De Vito's remarkable Penguin).

28: La Guerre Sans Nom (The Undeclared War). Probably no surprise really. Tavernier's four hour documentary about the Algerian War, seen through the inhabitants of one small French town. Such specificity just makes it more universal. I only have this on VHS from it's (only?) showing on the BBC - it deserves to be better known.

29: twentyfourseven Shane Meadows first feature - and one of the great British films of the decade. The plot - Bob Hoskins sets up a boxing club for disadvantaged boys - is standard stuff, but the tenderness with which the material is treated and the performances coaxed from the cast makes this memorable. Hoskins hasn't been this good since.

32: Strip Jack Naked: Nighthawks 2 Part making of (Nighthawks), part autobiographical essay. The latter is extremely moving, the former illuminates the original film and, with all the deleted material, offers glimpses of the film(s) it could have been.

37: Alien 3. It may have suffered production difficulties (to put it mildly), but another art-house blockbuster released in the same year as Batman Returns. Some of the cast disappear in the release version, but the remarkable imagery throughout, as well as the performances of Weaver and Charles S. Dutton, carry the film. And the ending is remarkable.

45: Fetishes. Nick Broomfield goes to an S&M club and almost meets his match. This made me laugh, it made me go NOOOOO!!!!!, it opened my eyes... Probably not a great film, but it's educational(!) and entertaining - and Broomfield had some good anecdotes at the London Film Festival when I saw it (including the time the camera crew went into the wrong room and caught the CEO of a major financial institution in a very compromising position).

46: Kiss of Death A cracking little thriller following generic requirements but (a) doing it well and (b) with some great character performances. Barbet Schroeder's best US film (proviso - I haven't seen Barfly), and the highpoint of David Caruso's post NYPD Blue assault on cinema stardom.

48: Wild Bill. Geronimo is just bubbling under, but this was Walter Hill's best film of the decade. The multiple flashbacks / film stocks is alien to Hill's more usual style, but it pays strong dividends here - and the whole is rooted in a typically fine Jeff Bridges performance. Oh, and Bruce Dern is great as well.

49: Stonewall Nigel Finch's fictionalised drama of Gay Liberation and the Stonewall riots was completed just before his death. I liked his earlier film, an adaptation of The Secret Language of Cranes, more than many, but this is in a different league. Truthful (in at least a general sense) and funny - the sequence showing the attempt to find a bar who won't serve the characters as they're gay is one of my favourite of the decade. I have this on VHS - it's about time it made it DVD in the UK.

[Gropius]

Many interesting picks above so far.

It seems less than half my list charted, but then many of these titles have poor distribution. There’s much I was unable to see (Hou and Akerman, to take two), having been only a nascent cinephile in the 90s, and discovering most of the ‘harder stuff’ in the 00s.

Full 50 with comments where relevant:

1. Vive l’amour (Tsai, 1994) – Like many others, I regard Tsai as ‘the’ great director to emerge in the 90s. All of his 90s features made my list, but somehow this one stands out for its tragicomic depiction of the loneliness of urban living as manifested in the architecture of Taipei (although that could basically serve as a synopsis for any of his films). The final Warholian face shot of a woman crying has already become vaguely iconic.
2. Abendland (Kelemen, 1999) – After Tsai, I’d cite Germany’s Fred Kelemen as the most exciting young director of the decade. Unfortunately his work so far seems to be invisible outside festivals and the occasional repertory screening, and he has resisted DVD. Something of a fellow traveller of Tarr, but adopting a more ‘degraded’ aesthetic (this one uses VHS inserts), his meandering visions of nocturnal misery and displacement never lose their grip.
3. London (Keiller, 1994) – One of the most elegant fictionalised documentary essays yet made. More architects should go into film, as they often have a ready-made visual sense. Maybe a bit Anglocentric to find universal backing.
4. The Baby of Mâcon (Greenaway, 1993) – Greenaway seems to have gone out of his way to depict something loathsome here, with extraordinary results. Again, 'baroque' in every sense.
5. Outer Space (Tscherkassky, 1999) – Foggy Eyes voted this experiment in processing found footage even higher, so I’ll let him defend it.
6. Side/Walk/Shuttle (Gehr, 1991) – Gehr is one of the grandees of 70s structural film. This one takes you in a lift above San Francisco. There’d have been more of this kind of stuff on my list if I’d been able to see it (e.g. James Benning).
7. Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, 1991) – Watch it for the atmosphere, and forget about the ‘source’ novel.
8. La Plage (Bokanowksi, 1991) – Only saw this short once (in a programme with L’Ange), but I remember a striking organ swell over distorted images of people on a beach.
9. In Titan’s Goblet (Hutton, 1991) – Peter Hutton approaches film as an inheritor of the landscape painting tradition.
10. The Quince Tree Sun (Erice, 1992) – Glad this made the final list.
11. Naked (Leigh, 1993)
12. Irma Vep (Assayas, 1996) – Pleased this charted so highly. It would be worth it for the final five minutes alone.
13. Frost (Kelemen, 1997) – Another Kelemen, some four hours long. Rivals Satantango in its way, although less epic in scope.
14. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang, 1991)
15. eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1999) – An underrated work. The virtual reality theme may be ‘obvious’, but again, Cronenberg creates unsettling atmospheres like no other (although IMHO he seems to have lost it a bit in the 00s), and I include Lynch in that equation.
16. Cremaster 1 (Barney, 1995) – Barney takes the self-indulgence baton from the likes of Greenaway and runs with it on his college athlete legs. Grandiose art spectacle, with allegorical testicular blimps floating above a sports stadium in Idaho.
17. Train of Shadows (Guerín, 1997) – Saw this at recent retro. Pseudo-period images speak for themselves.
18. Conspirators of Pleasure (Švankmajer, 1996) – No S. made the list?
19. Institute Benjamenta (Quay/Quay, 1995) – Probably should have placed this higher. Aside from the visuals, Mark Rylance’s pathos-heavy performance stands out.
20. The Hole (Tsai, 1998)
21. See You Later (Snow, 1990) – A 30-second clip of a man leaving an office slowed down to Muybridgean proportions.
22. Food (Švankmajer, 1992)
23. The Wind Will Carry Us (Kiarostami, 1999)
24. Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai, 1992)
25. Sicilia! (Straub/Huillet, 1999) – Austere as always from this pair, but addictively so, with some luscious landscape shots smuggled in along the way.
26. 89 mm from Europe (Łoziński, 1993) – Rarely met a railway-themed doc I didn’t like, but this monochrome snapshot of the track gauge being changed on the Polish-Belarusian border is in the best tradition of quiet observation. The director's son would like to stay and chat to one of the workers, but is 'in a hurry'.
27. Rosetta (Dardenne/Dardenne, 1999)
28. Robinson in Space (Keiller, 1997) – As good as its predecessor, if necessarily slightly less original. Expands the remit to the dreary motorways and ports of England.
29. Fate (Kelemen, 1994) – The earliest Kelemen I’ve seen, shot on Hi-8 and involving a Russian accordionist (can’t go wrong with that formula).
30. Sátántangó (Tarr, 1994) – I suppose this belongs higher up, but knew it would have plenty of backers.
31. The Last Bolshevik (Marker, 1993) – Think I might even pick this over Sans soleil: less picturesque, but more historically engaged. Another post-communist elegy.
32. Funny Games (Haneke, 1997)
33. Prospero’s Books (Greenaway, 1991) – An oblique take on The Tempest, worth watching for the majestic 87-y.o. Gielgud, and the operatic strains of Nyman just before he parted ways with Greenaway and became the hack of The Piano.
34. Afriques: Comment ça va avec la douleur? (Depardon, 1996) – Another impressively ambitious essayistic documentary. Depardon deserves some English-subbed releases.
35. The Match Factory Girl (Kaurismäki, 1990)
36. Short Cuts (Altman, 1993)
37. Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997)
38. The River (Tsai, 1997)
39. Mother and Son (Sokurov, 1997)
40. Von heute auf morgen (Straub/Huillet, 1996) – S&H do a ‘comic’ Schoenberg opera, although laughs are not guaranteed. Begins with a shot of the graffiti slogan 'Where lies your hidden smile?', which reminds me that I need to see the Pedro Costa doc of that name (along with everything else by Costa prior to Colossal Youth).
41. Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1995)
42. Cremaster 2 (Barney, 1999) – Bees flying out of a penis, Norman Mailer as Houdini, cowboys on ice, and a Mormon choir, or did one imagine it all?
43. Archangel (Maddin, 1990) – One of the North American auteurs to have suffered in this vote.
44. Xiao Wu (Jia, 1997) – Early promise from one of the festival toasts of the 2000s.
45. Home Suite (Smith, 1994) – Anonymously-named film artist John Smith takes us on a handheld VHS tour around his soon-to-be-demolished London house. More interesting than that sounds.
46. Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
47. Heat (Mann, 1995)
48. Untitled (For Marilyn) (Brakhage, 1992) – I’m not a major Brakhage fan, generally preferring experimental films that work with photographic imagery to those using animated painted stock, but the bursts of colour in this one stood out.
49. Bad Boy Bubby (de Heer, 1993) – Australian cinema is a collective grey area. This frequently uncomfortable oddity is well worth seeking out.
50. Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993)

[denti alligator]

Of the 1st tier “also rans,” I was most surprised to see Institute Benjamenta not making the list (no. 4 on my list). Of all the films I saw during the nineties (most of everything on my list this time around was seen at the cinema), this was easily the most magical. An incredible re-imagination of the source novel (Walser’s “Jakob van Gunten”) filtered through the rich world of the Quays’ haunting images.

And it was my no. 1. It also made at least one other person's list, so I'm bummed it did place on the final 100.

[swo17]

38. Sugar Water (Michel Gondry, 1996) – Two other votes for this, but nowhere near putting it over. My vote for Let Forever Be got edged out, I’m afraid, but I wasn’t the only person to welch on that deal!

I agreed to that deal based on my memory but upon rewatching some old favorite Gondry videos, I felt compelled to move my support to Sugar Water. It should say something that we both made this same decision independent of one another!

9. Texasville - My swapsie, which only one participant took me up on (thanks, DH!).

For the record, I watched Texasville as well, and actually quite enjoyed it. In fact, I made an effort to watch at least one of the swapsies from everyone that suggested one.

2. Dazed and Confused - I just assumed this had become part of the young cinephile canon, but I was wrong. I'm personally offended that Anderson's wink wink snarky narcissism is so much more embraced than Linklater's full-bodied, lightly-buzzed egalitarian humanism.

I suppose I might as well be the Rushmore spokesman here, but I would hope that we could all take the list results with a grain of salt and a little bit of civility. D&C was not in direct competition with Rushmore any more than it was with any other film. I could easily pick one film I loved that didn't make the top 100 and one film that made the top 10 (or hell, the top 5) that I think is vastly overrated and raise hell about it, but I'm not sure what purpose that would serve. The final list results are arguably one of the least compelling elements of the project. I get much more satisfaction out of reading people's defenses of their favorite films, which introduce me to so many more wonderful films and help me reevaluate others that I might have once written off. Honestly, I have found the lists project to be a great way to organize my viewing habits, and I've been exposed to so many great films this way that I might not have ever seen otherwise. I think something like 15-20 of the films that eventually made my list were ones that I had not seen before the start of the project. And many more bubbling under.

Also, for what it's worth, I love Linklater (Waking Life will be placing very high on my 2000s list) though I hadn't thought much of D&C the one time I watched it probably ten years ago. Thanks to several comments in support of D&C on this forum (including yours, I believe) I gave it another chance about a month ago and actually liked it quite a bit more than I had remembered. So, um, can we be friends?

All hail the lists project, and all hail zedz.

[GringoTex]

I suppose I might as well be the Rushmore spokesman here, but I would hope that we could all take the list results with a grain of salt and a little bit of civility. D&C was not in direct competition with Rushmore any more than it was with any other film. I could easily pick one film I loved that didn't make the top 100 and one film that made the top 10 (or hell, the top 5) that I think is vastly overrated and raise hell about it, but I'm not sure what purpose that would serve. The final list results are arguably one of the least compelling elements of the project. I get much more satisfaction out of reading people's defenses of their favorite films, which introduce me to so many more wonderful films and help me reevaluate others that I might have once written off. Honestly, I have found the lists project to be a great way to organize my viewing habits, and I've been exposed to so many great films this way that I might not have ever seen otherwise. I think something like 15-20 of the films that eventually made my list were ones that I had not seen before the start of the project. And many more bubbling under.

Suddenly the dominance of Rushmore in the forum makes perfect sense.

So, um, can we be friends?

Of course. Just because I think your favorite film is stupid doesn't mean I don't love you.

And thanks for watching Texasville!

[foggy eyes]

Blimey, Gropius, that's a fascinating list. Nice to see someone doing as much cinephilic exhumation (for want of a better word) as zedz! I was worried that I'd be the only person voting for a Keiller film, so am very pleased to see it on yours. Weirdly, I think we might have put Robinson in Space in exactly the same position...

21. See You Later (Snow, 1990) – A 30-second clip of a man leaving an office slowed down to Muybridgean proportions.

I forgot about this. Bugger. It's brilliant, and would make a good double-bill with a Martin Arnold epic (Pièce touchée, perhaps). Really need to see more Kelemen, but the VHS boot of Abendland that circulates is ratty as fuck. I might brave it now, though. The same goes for Gehr. Will be looking into Bokanowski and more Peter Hutton ASAP (probably tonight) - I saw Landscape (for Manon) in a dog's breakfast-type programme at the NFT recently, and it was very dark and very beautiful...

26. 89 mm from Europe (Łoziński, 1993) – Rarely met a railway-themed doc I didn’t like, but this monochrome snapshot of the track gauge being changed on the Polish-Belarusian border is in the best tradition of quiet observation. The director's son would like to stay and chat to one of the workers, but is 'in a hurry'.

Presumably this is on one of the (many) PWA sets I don't have, right? Time to put in another order...

Anyway, what to say about Outer Space? The first time I saw it was at a conference about a year ago - not on film, but a big projection screen at least. Adrian Martin popped in the Index DVD, turned the volume up to 11, and a few minutes later I was trying to fit my jaw back into my face. For the unprepared, it's a full-on audio-visual assualt: menacing, tumultuous and wildly unpredictable (to the point at which it deconstructs itself, turns inside out, and emerges bedraggled on the other side). Perhaps unexpectedly, given the "source", it's deeply sensual at times (e.g. the overlapping movement/representation of Barbara Hershey's hands as she reaches into the drawer), and the fact that everything is, of course, painstakingly handmade - right down to the rhythm of the clicks, pops and hisses of the soundtrack - is mindblowing. The Entity is fascinating too, and perhaps the greatest thing about Outer Space is that all it seems to do is unleash the latent pure energy and tension within Furie's film - to steal from AM, it's not simply a reinvention, but a masterful piece of interpretative criticism..

[cysiam]

5. Crumb (Zwigoff) - One of my favorite documentaries ever and my favorite of the 90's. It's utterly captivating throughout, although that might have to do more with the subject.
9. Happiness (Solondz) - Completely fucked up.
16. Dazed and Confused (Linklater) - I have yet to see a better portrait of youth put on film.
28. In the Company of Men (Labute) - This is the only Labute film that works completely for me. It might be because it's the only one of his films where the characters seem like rounded human beings not just completely horrible caricatures.
33. What's Up, FatLip? Documentary (Jonze) - A funny and sad look at a failed artist that never resorts to mockery.
34. Trainspotting (Boyle) - A guilty pleasure and sentimental favorite. I love the way Boyle uses color in this.

[Gropius]

Really need to see more Kelemen, but the VHS boot of Abendland that circulates is ratty as fuck. I might brave it now, though.

I don't think it would matter a great deal, since the look of the film is deliberately 'lo-fi' anyway. It used to be shown on the FilmFour channel back in the days when human beings still seemed to be involved in programming it, before it was reduced to an ad-filled rotation of the same handful of 'indiewood' films and second-tier 'britflicks'. Another sad UK-centric fact is that Patrick Keiller was one of the last to benefit from BFI funding before they axed the production department, so we may be missing out on a new generation of unfunded work.

Presumably this is on one of the (many) PWA sets I don't have, right? Time to put in another order...

Yes. Of the ones I've seen, I think Lozinski (along with Karabasz), is the pick of the litter, although others here prefer Drygas, who only emerged in the 90s. Poland seems to be quite unusual (at least in the later 20th C.) in having had a state-sponsored school of documentary filmmakers who never neglected the aesthetics of the medium, and put intellectual seriousness before 'entertainment'. There may also have been similar pockets throughout the world (I hear good things about the Germans, as well as the Canadians), but they haven't benefited from such affordable DVD sets.

P.S. Unfamiliar with Martin Arnold. Must look him up.

[LQ]

28. In the Company of Men (Labute) -This is the only Labute film that works completely for me. It might be because it's the only one of his films where the characters seem like rounded human beings not just completely horrible caricatures.

Although The Shape of Things is my favorite LaBute film (and is sure to place very high on my '00s list) I agree with you about In the Company of Men, which I placed in my top ten. I appreciated it all the more after having been subjected to Your Friends & Neighbors (sorry, swo!).

I'm curious, who else voted for Ninja Scroll? It was #39 on my list and is one of the best anime feature films ever made, in my opinion.

I was also happy to see that I wasn't alone in voting for Woody Allen's Shadows & Fog (my number #19), which I found to be such an absurd, dazzling, clever delight.

I'll also chime in with the chorus... thanks so much, zedz (and to all the other participants!). This was the first time that I got involved in the Lists Project, and the payoff was tremendous: it was because of the Project that I finally got around to watching a Kiarostami film, and wow...what a world The Wind Will Carry Us opened up!

[foggy eyes]

P.S. Unfamiliar with Martin Arnold. Must look him up.

This is a must-have. Assuming that you're a Londoner, it's probably easiest to pick up a copy at the NFT or ICA (they usually have a few Index discs in stock)...

(Re: Abendland - check your PMs!)

[GringoTex]

Histoire(s) du Cinema and 2x50 Years of French Cinema - Godard was already mostly through Histoire(s) when he was invited to contribute a film about French cinema for the celebratory Centennial of Cinema series in 1994. There was no celebration- only a wake. Godard takes a befuddled Michel Piccoli through a hotel to quiz the staff on the history of French cinema to prove that cinema is dead. It's dry, brittle, and bitter until the very end, when Godard breaks down and delivers us an emotional montage of stills of cinema's greatest thinkers. The heroic shot of Truffaut with the words THE FRENCH CINEMA IS BEING CRUSHED UNDER THE WEIGHT OF FALSE LEGENDS blazoned across the frame is damn near agony.

Searching for Bobby Fischer - The rarest of rarities in Hollywood:an intelligent, empathetic look at childhhood without an ounce of cynicism.

Letter from Waco - Using 16mm, 8mm, and video, Don Howard explores the entanglement of football, religion, race, and death in his hometown of Waco.

[Shrew]

I was going to lament Platform's absence (my 4), but then I realized that I'm an idiot and it's a 2000 film, not 1999. Whoops.

But I am surprised that no one else voted for poor Career Girls (11). It's an amazing journal of how two old friends can shift from an awkward reunion where each seems changed considerably to a dearly intimate relationship again. The flashbacks have a bit too much twitchiness and toward the end a certain coincidence feels a bit unnatural, but overall the character exteriors are gradually peeled away to reveal how little really has changed. Maybe it's just because it was my first Mike Leigh film, but I was really blown away.

[zedz]

Some random passes at other people’s darlings:

life_boy:
I was astonished at the low placing of Malcolm X, one of the most accomplished mainstream American films of the decade. Lee in general seemed to be way out of favour.

(and to swo as well) I can’t help but be amazed by Sugar Water every time I see it. Not only does the execution of the idea seem like a miracle (just consider the moment when a cat walks across the screen into his own past / future), but you marvel at what kind of a cinematic intelligence could have come up with that idea in the first place. For the 00s, the possibly even more phenomenal Come into My World will be in my top ten.

Scharphedin:
Thanks for the extended reflections. I was surprised that an arthouse tentpole like Farewell My Concubine didn’t fare better. Chen is another filmmaker who’s apparently fallen fast and far. Life on a String didn’t get a single mention. I don’t think it’s a particularly great film, but it does contain a couple of the most extraordinary images in all 90s cinema. I’m not a fan of Zhang at all, but if I’d had room I would have included Tian’s similarly neglected The Blue Kite. Much less flashy than Chen and Zhang, but much more affecting, in my opinion, and one Fifth Generation film that really points the way to Jia Zhangke. It’s probably closest to Platform (which got a couple of premature votes this time around – so don’t forget it next time).

I’ve never been a great John Sayles fan, but my favourite film of his (Limbo, 1999) was eligible this time around but attracted nary a mention. It starts out in clunky, earnest issue-dom like a lot of his films (to me, City of Hope seemed like a really long episode of L.A. Law), but turns into a survival thriller and, ultimately, a sly narrative experiment. And, shot by Haskell Wexler, it’s surely his best-looking film.

Gringo:
I also thought Dazed and Confused was hard done by (not that I voted for it – Slacker had a chance, but it ended up in the mid-80s, below World of Glory, and Sonatine, and Outer Space, and Love’s Debris, and The Tango Lesson, and the other Alone (Kabakov ’99), and. . . ), and its non-show was one of the mysteries of the vote, considering how much support I’d assumed it had around here, but there were lots of similar surprises in that regard (some of them pleasant).

I’m half with you on Casino. The first half is one of the most audacious things Hollywood has ever done, and had me on the edge of my seat: a portrait of an institution told in an experimental, diagrammatic style that was more an update of Vertov and Eisenstein than anything in the American narrative tradition. It was like finally seeing how one of the great ‘what ifs’ of film – how to adapt Das Kapital – could finally be achieved, and it was absolutely thrilling. Unfortunately, the transfer of attention to the human drama in the second half seems to me pretty banal in comparison, with Scorsese right back in his comfort zone and me much less interested in the outcome (however well-acted and –orchestrated that part of the film might be).

Gropius:
I’m as irritated with Matthew Barney as the next guy, and have found his recent stuff hopelessly overinflated and much less interesting, but Cremaster 2 is a rather dazzling spectacle (squeaked into my list last time around), and Cremaster 1 has a hypnotic discipline that works strongly in its favour. The ‘how dare he have such a budget and such exposure when other / better experimental filmmakers are struggling?’ criticism is understandable, but I’d rather see these films from the other end of the telescope: ‘why can’t other big budget blockbusters be this bat-shit crazy?’

Foggy:
As far as “cinematic exhumation” goes, there are a couple of contributors who could teach Gropius and me how to suck eggs. There were also a handful of newbies and lurkers who contributed, and I’d like to invite them to break their silence in this thread.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Some of mine that never made the final list.

Temptress Moon (#5) When melodrama was the chosen path of the Fifth Generation, Chen Kaige's film turns in on itself; an often bewildering film about power, corruption and family, complete with some of Chris Doyle's best camerawork.

The End of the Affair (#11) Graham Greene's my favourite writer and finally we have a cinematic adaptation that does his work justice. Jordan's film is a mature romance with a blackly comic edge, with an especially fine performance by Julianne Moore.

The Cable Guy (#29) Never really liked Carrey's straight performances in Man on the Moon and The Truman Show, two films that don't really hold up, though critics admired his work. Instead, this is Carrey's comic persona taken to its extreme; the blackest of black comedies - often frightening but always exceptionally amusing.

Strawberry and Chocolate (#31) Had some reservations about this; loyal pro-Castro student and homosexual artist strike up an unlikely friendship - it's the recipe for mawkish sentiment. Instead, it's rather affecting.

Pleasantville (#33) One of two Reese Witherspoon films in my list. I assure you there'll be none in my 00s list. Satirises the mores of the 50s and proves that the grass wasn't always greener.

Not One Less (#38) Zhang Yimou's career is bookended by lurid, intense melodramas and extravagant wuxia films. In between comes this documentary-style, almost neo-realist account of a rural school. Simple, real, honest and moving.

[colinr0380]

I’ve never been a great John Sayles fan, but my favourite film of his (Limbo, 1999) was eligible this time around but attracted nary a mention. It starts out in clunky, earnest issue-dom like a lot of his films (to me, City of Hope seemed like a really long episode of L.A. Law), but turns into a survival thriller and, ultimately, a sly narrative experiment. And, shot by Haskell Wexler, it’s surely his best-looking film.

Darn my memory, another film I was specifically going to mention on my list, had even posted about and then completely forgot to include.

I also agree on The End of the Affair - while I quite liked the 1950s film (with Peter Cushing in the cuckolded husband role!), it was obviously hampered by having to skirt around some issues, while the Jordan film was able to fully explore them which made the choice of restraint (despite the rather excessive 18 rating given by the BBFC due to a couple too many vigorous buttock thrusts by Fiennes in the sex scene!) in both the characters and the film itself at certain moments much more impactful. But in the end it did not make my list.

I remember saying to zedz when I submitted my list that I couldn't do justice to the decade with only 50 spots. I ended up having to drop Liebestraum, Taste of Cherry, One False Move and so on, among many others that I didn't get to see before voting, though I did remember about Smoking/No Smoking just in time to swap Seven out for it!

[Michael Kerpan]

My most expected (but nonetheless painful) orphan:

1. Ohikkoshi / Moving (Shinji Somai, 1993). Comments and pictures here. Dyue to a computer catastrophe, I couldn't even lend an unsubbed copy of this gem (no subbed release exists, and no subbing script has ever shown up online).

The rest:

5. Qiu Ju da guan si / The Story of Qiu Ju (ZHANG Yimou,1992). I'm very surprised that this ZY film fared so poorly. Have less people seen this? Or do people just not like seeing a frowsy GONG Li?

6. Palwolui Christmas / Christmas in August (HUR Jin-ho, 1998). One of the best Korean films ever made. And I didn't do a lick of campaigning for it. Not sure of its current availability (this was the first Korean DVD I ever bought).

7. Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana / Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (Aki Kaurismaki, 1994). One of the most good-natured of Kaurismaki's film. I never have been able to understand why others don't love this as much as I do.

8. Persuasion (Roger Michell, 1995). I consider this the best Jane Austen adaptation ever, hands down. Michell does a fantastic job of capturing the look of Austen's era. And the two leads are virtually perfect (as is the rest of the cast).

9. Haut bas fragile / Up, Down, Fragile (Jacques Rivette, 1995). Oh well, this did a bit better than these others. Perhaps it would have fared better if a subbed version was available.

10. Bakha satang / Peppermint Candy (LEE Chang-dong, 1999). Another of the best Korean films ever. Clearly few (or no) other Korean movie fans are currently active here.

12. You hua hao hao shuo / Keep Cool (ZHANG Yimou,1997). No surprise here -- as this rather atypical ZY film remains almost completely unavailable. I've only seen it courtesy of a Spanish-subbed video (which I treasure).

13. Am zin / Running Out of Time (Johnnie To, 1999) . Not much sign of Johnnie To fandom in the voting pool. Too bad. A tour de force for To and the two Lau's.

16. Conte d'hiver / A Winter's Tale (Eric Rohmer, 1992). I am quite surprised by the overlooking of this, the most interesting of Rohmer's seasonal films.

18. Musuko / My Sons (Yoji Yamada, 1991). Maybe someday Yamada will get his due in the West. This is one of his best. Too bad the only available subbed version is the mediocre (albeit passable) HK DVD.

20. Le fleuve aux grandes eaux / The Mighty River (Frederic Back, 1993). One of the most visually beautiful animated films of the decade. A bit more "political" than Crac or Man Who Planted Trees, but still this history of the St. Lawrence River is a must-see for animation fans.

24. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997). I thought other people also thought this was one of Herzog's best works of the decade.

26. Ke tu qiu hen / Song of the Exile (Ann Hui,1990). Another film that has been almost impossible to see. The good news -- a subbed DVD was released recently. The bad news -- its a mediocre pan and scan job (despite the fact there was once a nice widescreen Laserdisc version).

27. Moe no suzaku / Suzaku (Naomi Kawase, 1997). Kawase's first feature film might still be her best (despite a few minor lapses). There is (or was) a wonderful French DVD (French subs only).

29. Secret défense (Jacques Rivette, 1998). Another fine Rivette film that got almost no love here.

30. Yi ge dou bu neng shao / Not One Less (ZHANG Yimou, 1999). I concur in thirtyframesasecond's lament that this got so little recognition.

33. Guo nian hui jia / Seventeen Years (ZHANG Yuan, 1999). I find Zhang Yuan's output variable, but this one (about a prisoner and a jail guard) is one of his best films.

34. Jeon tae-il / A Single Spark (PARK Kwang-su. 1995). An important Korean film -- and a very powerful one. My pick for the best "political film" ever (about a crusader for workers rights).

36. Nashan naren nagou / Postmen in the Mountains (HUO Jianqi, 1999). A sweet-natured naturalistic film by one of ZY's younger classmates.

37. Tian mi mi Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan, 1996). Possibly the best HK romance (with comic tinges, but not quite a romantic comedy) ever. Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai are superb. Not currently available on DVD, of course.

39. Karisuma / Charisma (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1999). One of KK's most intriguing films. I can't believe no one else voted for it.

40. Hôhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun / My Neighbors the Yamadas (Isao Takahata, 1999). Episodic (it was based on a comic strip), but utterly wonderful animated home drama (rather reminiscent of Naruse's Sudden Rain).

41. Serial Experiments: Lain (Ryutaro Nakamura, Yoshitoshi Abe, Chiako Konaka et al, 1998). One of the best animated series ever (despite a few rough edges).

42. Trzy kolory: Bialy / Three Colors: White (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994). The only one of this trilogy I affirmatively like.

43. The Secret Garden (Agnieszka Holland, 1993). One of the best "children's films" of the decade.

44. Jeanne la Pucelle / Joan the Maid (Jacques Rivette, 1994). Yet another fine Rivette film virtually ignored. Ho hum.

45. Wo de fu qin mu qin / The Road Home (ZHANG Yimou,1999). Possibly ZY's most moving film. If only Zhang Ziyi didn't run around _quite_ so much, I would consider it perfect.

46. Ban sheng yuan / Eighteen Springs (Ann Hui, 1997). Perhaps once Ann Hui dies people in the West will begin taking an interest in her remarkable body of work. A wonderful period piece.

47. Kikujirô no natsu / Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano, 1999). One of my favorite Kitano films -- with my favorite Jo Hisaishi score.

49. Keduldo urichurum / The Black Republic (PARK Kwang-su. 1990). The first film of the Korean new wave (though there were a few precursors). A politically hard-hitting work that could not have been made even a few years earlier.

[mattkc]

Just a few, since only eight of my choices made the top 100.

1. J'entends plus la guitare (Philippe Garrel, 1991)
A sort of elegy for Nico, the sense of a specter looms over every frame, and the living feel almost absorbed in light. It's personal to the bone and beautifully formed. Now available on DVD with the equally magnificent Les baisers de secours.

5. Sicilia! (Straub/Huillet, 1998)
It's great to see this landed on some other lists. Not my favorite of theirs, but perhaps one of their most moving. Each frame is perfect, and the stately rhythm of this feature, little more than an hour in length, gives it an almost monumental weight, and its persuasive power (like all Straub/Huillet) far exceeds its running time. Antigone ranked even higher for me, the wonderful short Lothringen! came in at number 10, and Gropius and I were probably the only ones to vote for the severe Von heute auf morgen.

8. Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1995)
Probably not his most perfect work, but extraordinary and moving all the same. This was one of the first Hou films I watched and the one that began to convince me this wasn't just another great filmmaker. The amazing fluidity of the transition towards the end from b/w to color in one camera movement reminds me oddly of a similar moment in Bruce Baillie's Quixote...

9. Secret défense (Jacques Rivette, 1998)
"Classical" Rivette, and I love it. The train ride has already been commented on elsewhere on the forum. Formally imposing but luscious, strangely statuesque, and all-round remarkable.

11. Inquietude (Manoel de Oliveira, 1998)
The last film I saw in an Oliveira retrospective, and the one that really clicked on every level for me. These strange picturesque images feel like they themselves are looking outward even as you're looking in.

13. The Blade (Tsui Hark, 1995)
To Ashes of Time what Rio Bravo is to High Noon! Well, alright, not quite, but this frantically paced tale of a one-armed swordsman is my choice of action movie of the decade. On one hand it's a wild, visceral experience, and on the other it's masterfully handled, unpretentious, aesthetically rich, minutely crafted and built up of details rather than grand gestures.

15. Babylon Series #3 (Stan Brakhage, 1990)
Part of a group of numbered series' using entirely abstract, photographed shapes of colors (the others are called Romans, Arabics and Egyptians). The Babylon Series is maybe the most mystical, cryptic arrangements of light inspired by Babylonian glyphs.

[Yojimbo]

My most expected (but nonetheless painful) orphan:

5. Qiu Ju da guan si / The Story of Qiu Ju (ZHANG Yimou,1992). I'm very surprised that this ZY film fared so poorly. Have less people seen this? Or do people just not like seeing a frowsy GONG Li?

7. Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana / Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (Aki Kaurismaki, 1994). One of the most good-natured of Kaurismaki's film. I never have been able to understand why others don't love this as much as I do.


16. Conte d'hiver / A Winter's Tale (Eric Rohmer, 1992). I am quite surprised by the overlooking of this, the most interesting of Rohmer's seasonal films.

24. Little Dieter Needs to Fly (Werner Herzog, 1997). I thought other people also thought this was one of Herzog's best works of the decade.

29. Secret défense (Jacques Rivette, 1998). Another fine Rivette film that got almost no love here.

.

The Story of Qiu Ju was in my first draft 50, but it was one of 2 or 3 films that had to make way.

I voted for both 'Tatjana' and the Rivette: I haven't seen your other Rivette
(I take it like me you were disappointed with 'Noiseuse')
'Little Dieter' was another film that slipped through my IMDb power-search radar as I'm sure I would have found space for it, - probably at the expense of 'Crumb', in my final 50.

I haven't watched 'Winter' yet: until then 'Autumn' is my favourite: perhaps we most love those that most closely approximate our own stage in life? 8-)

[roujin]

11. Bruce Weber's video for Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring" (1990) - Not surprised this didn't make it since it's not as creative or jaw-dropping as the Gondry videos or whatever. It sort of aims to capture that elusive feeling of youth and fun (italics very much required) and succeeds in part because the song is just that good and because of the lovely and playful way Weber's b&w images are edited. It's not all that impressive, really, just completely invigorating.

14. Simple Men + 21. Amateur - Outside of Wong, Hartley was my director for the 90s. Trust may turn out to be the best of the 90s films, but I feel like even after a couple of viewings, I've exhausted it (and the grenade business was always just really silly). Simple Men contains that great Sonic Youth dance sequence while the latter has what's probably Donovan's best performance. The Book of Life and Henry Fool could've made it in, too, but these two felt right at the time.

30. Porco Rosso - There's nothing better than being inside Miyazaki's world for a couple of hours. The image of a pig flying an airplane is so silly that by the end, I'm always surprised that I could let myself be as moved as I am by it.

31. Boyz n the Hood + 32. A Bronx Tale - It wasn't a concidence that I placed these two right next to each other. They're pretty similar films. It might be nostalgia since I associate these two with some of my earlier times, but my memory tells me that they are both extremely moving (if not terribly original) pieces of filmmaking. I figure they'd make a good double feature.

33. Live Flesh - Surely this is Almodovar's sexiest film (or at least the one that fetishizes (sp?) the bodies of each sex the most). It also features a fine performance from Javier Bardem who even back then was all smoldering and fantastic (in a wheelchair!).

36. Sombre - One of the more haunting experiences I've ever had. It's a film haunted by darkness and fraught with danger and terror. Its images are dazzlingly fragmented but the perverse beauty to be found within them is without equal in what I've seen (not much but still).

38. Umi Ga Kikoeru - I'm hoping that someone else can step in to defend this one as I don't feel to comfortable talking about it since it's been a while. I just remember tentative romance and that damn trademark Ghibli joyfulness which for me is enough to put it above most films.

39. Crooklyn - It's one of my favorite Lee films (since I'm a sucker for films about childhood) with a soundtrack that is out of this world. I'm still not sure about the fish lenses (?) in that one sequence but the rest is delightful.

40. In the Heat of the Sun - I can't help but link this to A Brighter Summer Day although in all respects it's a lesser film. I mainly remember those jarring instances where the film would interrupt the narrative to interrogate the truth of the images (did this event really take place like this? Is our protagonist lying?).

42. She and Her Cat - There's an inverse relationship in Makoto Shinkai films between the length of the film and its quality. So, the shortest of his films is actually his best. At 5 minutes, it manages to be both extremely silly and kind of poignant in the way that it portrays loneliness. I also really love that faux-grainy animation. It's tops!

43. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - For my money, it's one of the best musicals ever. Make of that what you will.

48. Gummo + 49. Nowhere - Another two films that I'll always associate together. They're both kind of ridiculous in a way. The former with its hillbilly metalheads and cat killing and poetic voiceovers. The latter with its dayglo teenage pop culture ultraviolence, aliens, and god knows what else. They're both ridiculous but its the ending of both films that really sell them for me. One suggesting the fragility of the images we've been watching and the second suggesting the impossibly of love. I think I also pretty much hated Nowhere the first time I watched it. Another good double feature.

50. A Touch of Fever - Apparently one of the landmarks of 90s Japanese film? It's an examination into the lives of a couple of college students who begin to sell their bodies. There's this really fascinating scene late into the film that's both completely awkward and shamelessly emotional that features the director of the film (in what feels like an exorcism of his demons, weird stuff).

[Gropius]

I’m as irritated with Matthew Barney as the next guy, and have found his recent stuff hopelessly overinflated and much less interesting, but Cremaster 2 is a rather dazzling spectacle (squeaked into my list last time around), and Cremaster 1 has a hypnotic discipline that works strongly in its favour. The ‘how dare he have such a budget and such exposure when other / better experimental filmmakers are struggling?’ criticism is understandable, but I’d rather see these films from the other end of the telescope: ‘why can’t other big budget blockbusters be this bat-shit crazy?’

That's sort of my take on him, too. He may live up to every tabloid stereotype of the money-wasting conceptual artist, and be a bit of vain buffoon, but the Cremaster Cycle conjures up an alternate universe in which the fantasies of classical Hollywood at its most lurid are cannibalised, given the mystical modernist treatment and regurgitated in unrecognisable shapes. He is perhaps most valuable as a symbol for what might be possible in a world in which film artists were not constrained by market demands, and with any luck, and some no doubt unfair distribution of cash into strategically-positioned hands, the remainder of the 21st century will throw up several more Barneys.

As for where he's gone since (namely Drawing Restraint 9), I disagree that it's 'hopelessly overinflated' (surely overinflation is the name of his game), and would argue that the alliance with Björk - apposite, given that she's in some sense his female parallel in the music industry - has been beneficial, although I found the scene in which

SpoilerShow

they hack at each other's limbs with flensing knives

(that might be considered a spoiler by some) as difficult to stomach as anything in Miike's Audition or an Eli Roth torture flick.

Just a few, since only eight of my choices made the top 100.

I'd be intrigued to see your full list, then, since the Straub-Huillet is the only one I've actually seen of these few you discuss. A copy & paste would do if you don't have time to annotate it. I hope some of the much-praised Oliveira's back catalogue makes it to Anglo-subbed DVD before he expires.

[Michael Kerpan]

8. Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 1995)
Probably not his most perfect work, but extraordinary and moving all the same. This was one of the first Hou films I watched and the one that began to convince me this wasn't just another great filmmaker. The amazing fluidity of the transition towards the end from b/w to color in one camera movement reminds me oddly of a similar moment in Bruce Baillie's Quixote...

Arggggh!

I was certain I had included this on my list (one of my top 5 HHH films). And somehow it's not there. Major screw-up for me!

The Story of Qiu Ju was in my first draft 50, but it was one of 2 or 3 films that had to make way.

I voted for both 'Tatjana' and the Rivette: I haven't seen your other Rivette
(I take it like me you were disappointed with 'Noiseuse')

'Little Dieter' was another film that slipped through my IMDb power-search radar as I'm sure I would have found space for it, - probably at the expense of 'Crumb', in my final 50.

I haven't watched 'Winter' yet: until then 'Autumn' is my favourite: perhaps we most love those that most closely approximate our own stage in life?

I like Belle Noiseuse well enough -- but already had too many other Rivette films to squeeze in.

I like Rohmer's Tales of Winter and Summer _almost_ equally, Autumn trails behind a bit -- and Spring (though okay) is far behind.