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[proximoception]

I wonder if the late '90s will ever be recognized as the greatest period for films--in the English-speaking world.

Comments

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

The notion occurred to me while glancing back at my attempt at a 100 favorite movies list, where c. 1994-2001 contributed disproportionately.

To my mind that's when a number of 'name' directors peaked:

Coens: Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There
Cronenberg: eXistenZ, Naked Lunch, perhaps Crash
Lynch: Straight Story, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive
Spielberg: Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, AI
Egoyan: Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter

Also there were great late entries from Kubrick, Polanski & Malick: Eyes Wide Shut, The Ninth Gate & The Thin Red Line

Others: Titus, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Slacker, Jesus' Son, Schizopolis, Quiz Show, Jackie Brown, Heavenly Creatures, The Edge, The Insider, The Ice Storm etc.

Whereas '70s movies in English that hold up for me are a pretty small number: Chinatown, O Lucky Man!, maybe Network and Badlands, a handful of others...

And there's a lot of entertaining '40s ones, but how many are more than entertaining?

You seem to get further out from the mainstream in your viewings. What's your take?

[agoraphiliac.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I'm kind of blanking. Not on the 90s in particular, but just the form of the question makes me say: "Movies, huh. I know I liked some. What were they?"

I'm very fond of Riff Raff, by Ken Loach. I guess that's mid- or early 90s, though.

Of your list, I'm especially crazy about Exotica & eXistenZ.

I wish there were entertaining movies now. I guess people have said that before: now we have bloated special effects, where we used to have well-written but relatively unambitious entertainments.

Just randomly, apropos nothing: I like Nicholas Ray's "Bigger Than Life." It's a crazy mess of a movie: it sort of lurches from drama to public service announcement about the dangers of untested medicines. But to watch James Mason go from milquetoast to raging patriarch, especially when he starts quoting from the Abraham and Isaac story, is a delight.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's both silly and impossible to summarize such things. And like you I'm only really sure that the movies of the last few years have been unprecedentedly wretched. Some combination of CGI, the demographic shift to Y/Tweens, and Sept 11?

Never did see Riff Raff. Land and Freedom had some great moments. I think I saw some of Bigger Than Life on TV a few years ago? I remember the widescreen being good for couches, lots of lamps being turned on and off, Grade A Masonic hamming. I miss the widescreen of '50s/early '60s movies on the Turner stations, that tiny band of toylike people leaning among aquarium hues and porcelain textures.