Coen Brothers Make a Lasting Impression: the Best Movies of the 1990's
Jan 06 '03 (Updated Nov 07 '04)
The Bottom Line I've love to hear your thoughts regarding the list; leave a comment, okay?
Yet another "best of" list, but (hopefully) not a boring, who cares snoozefest. Of course, we're all just kidding ourselves in regards to the definitive nature of such things—no one has seen all the movies out there, so no one is really in a position to say—but they're still fun to do. And, perhaps, I'll pique your interest with an unfamiliar title.
These then are my choices—right or wrong, for better or worse, subject to change whenever I feel like it—for the best films of the 1990s:
10. Muriel's Wedding (1994)
The Australian director, P.J. Hogan, followed up this, his first feature, with another wedding picture, the Julia Roberts vehicle My Best Friend’s Wedding. You can skip that one (a disappointing step down for Hogan) but it would be a mistake to pass this one up as well. Toni Collette stars as chunky, marriage-obsessed Muriel. Collette gained over 40 pounds for the role but, unlike Robert De Niro in his showy, much-talked-about turn as Jake La Motta in "Raging Bull" (where De Niro also gained a lot of weight), she wasn't showered with publicity and praise—no Oscar nomination much less a win. A shame, that, because her chameleon-like performance here is terrific. She's the centerpiece in a movie that's both comic and tragic, part dysfunctional family saga with browbeating father ("You’re all useless") and the feelings of worthlessness he engenders, part silly look at the tremendous weight placed on the wedding ceremony. The opening scene, which features Muriel catching a wedding bouquet and subsequently being asked to "throw it again" is priceless.
9. Sonatine (1993)
The title is puzzling (a variation on sonata perhaps?) but this artfully made Japanese story of a Yakuza hit man and his gang is the real deal. Directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano, most of the story takes place in and around a secluded Okinawa beach house as Kitano and his men lay low after an explosive confrontation with a rival gang. Here they revert to an endearing, happy, child-like playfulness...for a time. Along with terrific set pieces, the film has a memorable Tangerine Dream-like score. Not that Kitano needs it, but the video jacket cover bears Quentin Tarantino's stamp of approval. The director, too, is well regarded among the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd—his Hana-Bi (Fireworks) chosen as the best film of 1997 by that influential magazine. I like this one even more.
8. Homicide (1991)
Shamefully overlooked David Mamet police drama casts Joe Mantegna as a detective pulled off a big case to work on a small-time murder of an elderly Jewish woman shopkeeper. It seems routine, but proves to be anything but, as the movie turns into a personal identity saga (Mantegna, who is also a Jew, must decide what that means; is he a police officer first and foremost? does that define who he is?). Goes deeper than your standard thriller, but doesn't disappoint on that level. With William H. Macy.
7. Ed Wood (1994)
A celebration of legendary awful filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr. (Johnny Depp) and those "freaks and dope addicts" in his orbit. Foremost among them, a drug-addled Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) who Wood befriends late in life (when no one would hire him). Director Tim Burton beautifully catalogues all the delirious details (Wood was a transvestite with an angora fetish) in a gorgeously shot, highly romanticized look at one of Hollywood's most eccentric personalities. The movie cuts off at a high point in Wood's career—a screening of "Plan 9 From Outer Space", all things being relative—and doesn't pursue his descent into alcoholism and skin flicks. For the complete truth and even more jaw-dropping revelations (Ed's wife Kathy claims Tony Curtis dabbled in cross-dressing as well) read the Rudolph Grey book, "Nightmare of Ecstasy".
6. Dead Man (1996)
Another lusciously shot (by Robby Muller) black-and-white film. Jim Jarmusch's elegiac anti-Western recalls Robert Altman's terrific "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" in time period and also in its portrait of a harsh, ugly, muddied western town (here, the aptly named Machine). Johnny Depp is cast as William Blake. No, not the famous poet—although he is mistaken for him by Native American Gary Farmer—but rather an accountant from Cleveland who arrives via train only to discover he's been screwed over on a promised job. A lot of reviewers passed on this one (including Roger Ebert who didn't care for Neil Young's haunting, feedback-heavy guitar score) but that doesn't mean you should.
5. Goodfellas (1990)
Martin Scorsese directs a film based on the Nicholas Pileggi book "Wiseguy"—a true-life account of Irish mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). The movie is fairly faithful to the book—large bits of voice-over dialogue lifted wholesale ("As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster") and that's a good thing. Starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci (both hard selling) this is bravura filmmaking (watching it is "like getting strung out on pure sensation" according to the late New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael) and yet there's ample room for what's often most exciting about movies—the small detail.
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino started out in a video store and his love of movies is made abundantly clear here. Early on we're referencing Robert Aldrich's terrific film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (suitcase with unexplained contents) and there's little (or no) letup to follow. Often imitated, daring and influential (and for those who considered Tarantino a flash-in-the-pan, that notion was laid to rest with his terrific follow-up Jackie Brown).
3. The Big Lebowski (1998)
The complex plot owes something to Howard Hawks' similarly titled The Big Sleep, but then this Coen brothers masterpiece also pays tribute to Busby Berkeley musicals of the thirties so maybe that doesn't really get us anywhere. This is a beautifully written film that starts off with the soiled carpet of one Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), who would rather be called "the Dude" and a kidnapping and ransom plot that escalates into something akin to war. Goaded into "drawing a line in the sand" (notice the use of George Bush Sr.'s war vernacular) by a bowling pal (John Goodman)—who sees life through his Vietnam past—the Dude gets in way over his head. The central image in the film (I believe) is balls. Bowling balls, most obviously, but those associated with men too—and, by extension, man's propensity towards testosterone-fueled stupidity, aggression and violence (it should be noted that the pacifist-leaning Dude is never actually seen rolling said ball, or otherwise causing pins to fall). Clever in it's wordplay too: at one point the Dude refers to his situation ("a lot of ins, a lot of outs") and a couple of scenes later there's talk of stopping off at an In-N-Out burger. Loads of fun and one I could watch many more times, although "that’s just, like, (my) opinion, man."
2. The Scent of Green Papaya (1993)
The Vietnamese director, Tran Anh Hung ("Cyclo") has a painter's eye (and how nice it is to see someone who is so attune to film space—foreground, middle ground, background, that sort of thing). His film, set in Saigon pre-Vietnam war, concerns a young girl who takes up residence in a middle-class home as a servant. Shot entirely on soundstages in France, it's a slice-of-life in the best sense, in the everyday goings-on, in the carefully observed.
1. Fargo (1996)
Another gem from the Coen brothers (and you could throw in "Barton Fink" as well). What makes this one so special is the protagonist—a 7-month pregnant police chief played by Frances McDormand (in a terrific performance). This Minnesotan (the Coens also hail from that state and wonderfully capture the unique vernacular) goes about her work—and her life—in a supremely admirable way. Notice, for example, how she uses precisely the right amount of force necessary to apprehend the killer—neither too much nor too little. William H. Macy, on the other end of the spectrum, plays a sleazy car salesman who sets in motion the whole awful mess, in which Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare figure in, and all for what, a little money.
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Tarantino's strategy: "...have the characters speak at right angles to the action..." - Roger Ebert
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