1994 poll

[Lencho of the Apes]

Choose your favorite films from 1994 (according to IMDb).

– Each person votes for up to 20 movies. Do not feel compelled to fill the maximum allowable number, only true favorites.
– Do not rank the films except the number 1, it gets two points..

Users are urged to post their provisional lists as soon as possible so that others may use them for recommendations. You may, of course, revise your lists at any point prior to the deadline.

Ballots posted by people who do not participate in other parts of the forum will not be counted.

Deadline for 1994 lists will be Monday, January 14 at approximately 1 PM Pacific Time.

[Lencho of the Apes]

My 1994 checklist looks plebbier than usual, but I'll endorse these as a preliminary list:

In The Mouth Of Madness - Carpenter
Nadja -
La Reina De La Noche - Ripstein
Serial Mom - Waters
The Silences Of The Palace


Here's the list of what I know is available; I hope to add to it as other peoples' recommendations come forward. Watchlist-style. EDIT: 35 added, 12/27, 16 more on 1/7.

A La Folie - Kurys
Amateur - hartley
Angel Dust (Gakuryu Ishii)
Barcelona - Stillman
Being Human
Black Ice (Stan Brakhage, USA)
Black Is... Black Ain't (Marlon Riggs)
多桑 [A Borrowed Life] - Wu Nien-jen
Bullets Over Broadway - Allen
Burnt by the Sun (Nikita Mikhalkov)
Cabin Boy
Casa de lava (Pedro Costa)
China Moon
Clear and Present Danger (Phillip Noyce)
The Cloud Door (Mani Kaul)
A Confucian Confusion - Yang
Crumb - Zwigoff
the day the sun turned cold - yim ho RLp2
Death And The maiden - Polanski
Drunken Master II (Jackie Chan/Lau Kar-Leung)
Dumb and Dumber (Bobby Farrelly/Peter Farrelly)
Eat Drink Man Woman
L'Eau Froide - Assayas
Ed Wood - Burton
L'Enfer - Chabrol
Exotica - Egoyan
Fado - Ruiz
Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)
Le Franc
the glass shield (charles burnett)
Heavenly Creatures - Jackson
Hoop Dreams - Steve James
The Hudsucker Proxy
I Can't Sleep - denis
I'll Do Anything (James L. Brooks, 1994)
immortal beloved (rose)
陽光燦爛的日子 [In the Heat of the Sun] - Jiang Wen
In The Mouth Of Madness - Carpenter
Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan)
It Could Happen to You (Andrew Bergman)
Jeanne La Pucelle I/II - RivetteThe Last Seduction (John Dahl)
Legend of the Drunken Master
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - Kaurismaki
The Mask (Chuck Russell)
Maverick (RIchard Donner, USA)
Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle - Alan Rudolph
Mod Fuck Explosion - Moritsugu
Muriel's Wedding (P.J. Hogan) -
Natsu No Niwa/The Friends - Somai
Natural Born Killers - Stone
New Nightmare
On Deadly Ground
Once Upon A Time In China V - Hark Tsui
Once Were Warriors - (N.Z. )
平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ [Pom Poko] - Isao Takahata
Pret-A-Porter - Altman
Pulp Fiction - Tarantino
Queen Margot (Patrice Chereau)
Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Reality Bites (Ben Stiller)
River of Grass - Kellly Reichardt
Satantango - Tarr
Schramm - Buttgereit
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
Sister my Sister
Sodbusters - Eugene Levy
Spanking the Monkey
The Specialist (Luis Llosa)
Speed - de Bont
Taxandria (Raoul Servais)
Three Colors: Red - Kieslowski
Three Colors: White - Kieslowski
Vanya On 42nd Street - Malle
What Happened Was... - Tom Noonan
Wild Reeds (Andre Techine)

[pabs]

Crumb (Zwigoff)

[Pretentious Hipster]

Hoop Dreams - Steve James

多桑 [A Borrowed Life] - Wu Nien-jen
The Red Thread - Carl Brown
Sátántangó [Satan's Tango] - Béla Tarr
Amateur - Hal Hartley
陽光燦爛的日子 [In the Heat of the Sun] - Jiang Wen
Picture of Light - Peter Mettler
Serial Mom - John Waters
平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ [Pom Poko] - Isao Takahata
صمت القصور [The Silences of the Palace] - Moufida Tlatli
Trois couleurs : Blanc [Three Colours: White] - Krzysztof Kieślowski
Trois couleurs : Rouge [Three Colours: Red] - Krzysztof Kieślowski
はがね [Fe] - Kanji Nakajima
What Happened Was... - Tom Noonan
Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles [Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 1960s in Brussels] - Chantal Akerman
U.S. Go Home - Claire Denis

[ofrene]

Satantango
Joan the Maid 1: The Battles
Joan the Maid 2: The Prisons
Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?
Vive L’Amour

A Dedicated Life
Casa de Lava
I Can't Sleep
JLG/JLG: Self-Portrait in December
Little Odessa
Pulp Fiction
River of Grass
Speed
Two Brothers, My sister

see more for poll but Satantango will remain my favorite of this year, maybe...

[flip]

Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami)

Satantango (Bela Tarr)
Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
Rouge (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke)
The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
The Kingdom (Lars von Trier)
Taxandria (Raoul Servais)
The Paper (Ron Howard)
Amateur (Hal Hartley)
Jeanne la Pucelle I (Jacques Rivette)
To Live (Zhang Yimou)
L'Enfer (Claude Chabrol)
Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
Black Ice (Stan Brakhage)

[DT.]

1. Crooklyn (Spike Lee)

In the Heat of the Sun (Jiang Wen)
In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter)
Katatsumori (Naomi Kawase)
The Last Seduction (John Dahl)
Little Odessa (James Gray)
Queen Margot (Patrice Chereau)
Satantango (Bela Tarr)
Serial Mom (John Waters)
Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami)
Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle)

Want to watch:

Cold Water (Olivier Assayas)
Pret-a-Porter (Robert Altman)
Wild Reeds (Andre Techine)
L'Enfer (Claude Chabrol)
Burnt by the Sun (Nikita Mikhalkov)
Barcelona (Whit Stillman)
Death and the Maiden (Roman Polanski)
Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
To Live (Zhang Yimou)
The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli)
Crumb (Terry Zwigoff)
A Confucian Confusion (Edward Yang)
London (Patrick Keiller)
The Glass Shield (Charles Burnett)

[sally]

1994? did i spend half an hour trying to connect to this bloody wifi for 1994? what kind of christmas present is that? this calls for sherry.

[...]

I'm not sure how much I like the movies of '94, but at least I've seen a lot of them, so at least got some more titles to sort through than I did for 2013. Will those exciting videostore days ever stop paying dividends?

Some of the titles that might be able to make the final list:

Le Franc
Through the Olive Trees
Sister my Sister
Ashes of Time
Once Were Warriors
The Glass Shield
To Live
Being Human
A Confucian Confusion
Vive L'Amour
The Wooden Man's Bride
Cold Water
Chungking Express
Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker
Lamerica
A Soul Haunted by Painting
Cabin Boy
Love on Delivery
A Great Day in Harlem
Hoop Dreams
Baseball
Exotica
New Nightmare
Eat Drink Man Woman
Queen Margot
Barcelona
In the Mouth of Madness
Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle
Wild Reeds
Legend of the Drunken Master
Crooklyn
47 Ronin
In the Mouth of Madness
The New Age
Faust
It Could Happen to You
The Monster
From Beijing with Love
Heavenly Creatures
Spanking the Monkey
Ed Wood
Quiz Show
On Deadly Ground

[sally]

that said there's my soul in film:

1. london (keiller)

and the godard that made me realise i can't watch godard movies any more cuz devoted hysterics:
JLG/JLG - autoportrait de décembre

the first oliveira i ever saw which set me up forever for him
a caixa

and:
through the olive trees
casa de lava (costa)
felix in exile (kentridge)
a confucian confusion
ermo - xiaowen zhou
the day the sun turned cold - yim ho
vive l'amour
lothringen!
whispering pages - sokurov
trying to kiss the moon - dwoskin
take care of your scarf tatiana - kaurismaki
a pure formality - tornatore
buried in light - cohen



satantango
us go home

to watch:
fado - ruiz
barcelona
starting place - kramer
back to back, face to face
love on delivery
in the heat of the sun
why is yellow the middle of the rainbow (if someone has eng subs!)
the silences of the palace
twilight
faust

[greennui]

1. Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the '60s in Brussels (Chantal Akerman)

I Can't Sleep (Claire Denis)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai)
Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
London (Patrick Keiller)
River of Grass (Kelly Reichardt)
Vive L'Amour (Tsai Ming-liang)
Casa de Lava (Pedro Costa)
The Last Seduction (John Dahl)
Crumb (Terry Zwigoff)
Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-wai)
Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana (Aki Kaurismäki)
Satantango (Béla Tarr)
US Go Home (Claire Denis)
Cold Water (Olivier Assayas)
The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli)
Lothringen! (Jean-Marie Straub/Danielle Huillet)
Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan)

[kanafani]

A most excellent year

These are definitely making the list:
Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the 60s in Brussels (Chantal Akerman, 1994)
U.S. Go Home (Claire Denis, 1994)
Nadja (Michael Almereyda, 1994)
Vive L'Amour (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994)
I Can't Sleep (Claire Denis, 1994)
Satantango (Béla Tarr, 1994)
Passions (Kira Muratova, 1994)
River of Grass (Kelly Reichardt, 1994)
A Confucian Confusion (Edward Yang, 1994)
A Borrowed Life (Wu Nien-Jen, 1994)
Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami, 1994)
The Silences of the Palace (Moufida Tlatli, 1994)
Little Odessa (James Gray, 1994)
Exotica (Atom Egoyan, 1994)
Joan the Maid 2: The Prisons (Jacques Rivette, 1994)
Joan the Maid 1: The Battles (Jacques Rivette, 1994)

These are also list-worthy:
A Great Day in Harlem (Jean Bach, 1994)
The Glass Shield (Charles Burnett, 1994)
Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994)
Crumb (Terry Zwigoff, 1994)
What Happened Was... (Tom Noonan, 1994)
I'll Do Anything (James L. Brooks, 1994)
Three Colors: White (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994)
The Day the Sun Turned Cold (Yim Ho, 1994)
Casa de Lava (Pedro Costa, 1994)
Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Three Colors: Red (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1994)
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Michael Haneke, 1994)
To Live (Zhang Yimou, 1994)

[kanafani]

1994? did i spend half an hour trying to connect to this bloody wifi for 1994? what kind of christmas present is that? this calls for sherry.

Awww come now magpies, the nineties were a good time.

[sally]

well, they were good but i spent a lot of the nineties not watching movies (i think new nightmare is the only 94 i actually saw in the cinema)

but i'm still having the sherry anyway.

[rischka]

cheers sally assembling a list

possible #1





will probably maybe watch

ermo
in the heat of the sun
river of grass
why is yellow the middle of the rainbow
a confucian confusion
wrony
casa de lava
amateur
whispering pages
barcelona
lothringen!
l'enfer

[arkheia]

Solid year, although it's been awhile since I've seen some of these films so I'll probably try to revisit a few before finalizing my list. I'll try to keep this post updated with links to my notes in case anyone wants to know a little more about a film before deciding to check it out.

1. Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des années 60 à Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman) - Letterboxd Notes

Considerations:
Black Is... Black Ain't (Marlon Riggs) - Letterboxd Notes
Muriel's Wedding (P.J. Hogan) - Letterboxd Notes
In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter) - Letterboxd Notes
Drunken Master II (Jackie Chan/Lau Kar-Leung)
Lullaby (Nana Janelidze)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
Lothringen! (Jean-Marie Straub/Danielle Heilet)
Dumb and Dumber (Bobby Farrelly/Peter Farrelly)
Casa de lava (Pedro Costa)
A Borrowed Life (Wu Nien-Jen)
The Cloud Door (Mani Kaul)
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (Kundan Shah)
Angel Dust (Gakuryu Ishii)
Trying to Kiss the Moon (Stephen Dwoskin) - Dwoskin's notes on the film

[sally]

trying to kiss the moon is 94? i've seen it (and added to my list above) but ironically if anyone wants to watch it legally it apparently is coming to the bfi player on 14th jan. so you have exactly no time to watch it for this poll.

[Silga]

Provisional list:

1. Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson)

Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
Serial Mom (John Waters)
Reality Bites (Ben Stiller)
The Mask (Chuck Russell)
It Could Happen to You (Andrew Bergman)
Blue Chips (William Friedkin)
Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)
Dumb and Dumber (Farrelly brothers)
The Last Seduction (John Dahl)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
Clear and Present Danger (Phillip Noyce)
Renaissance Man (Penny Marshall)
Guarding Tess (Hugh Wilson)
Blown Away (Stephen Hopkins)
Terminal Velocity (Deran Sarafian)
The Specialist (Luis Llosa)
Drop Zone (John Badham)

Actually, I watched a film from 1994 yesterday. The remake of 'Seven Days in May' called 'The Enemy Within', starring Forest Whitaker, Jason Robards and Sam Waterston. Nowhere near the Frankenheimer's classic.

Also, New Nightmare is the worst film of 1994.

Watchlist:

China Moon
The Hudsucker Proxy
Hoop Dreams
Quiz Show
Exotica
Fresh
Little Odessa
Barcelona
Don't Drink the Water
Oleanna

[sally]

i just noticed stephen chow's love on delivery (which looks a lot of fun) is on netflix.

[thoxans]

SáTáNTANGó (Béla Tarr)

barcelona (whit stillman)
chungking express (wong kar-wai)
cold water (olivier assayas)
the glass shield (charles burnett)
hoop dreams (steve james)
i can't sleep (claire denis)
in the mouth of madness (carp)
pom poko (isao takahata)
texas chainsaw massacre: the next generation (kim henkel)
through the olive trees (abbas kiarostami)
us go home (claire denis)

*seen ninety-nine

**if i was ten years old, then my list would look like this:
blank check (rupert wainwright)
cabin boy (adam resnick)
camp nowhere (jonathan prince)
double dragon (james yukich)
drop zone (john badham)
little giants (duwayne dunham)
no escape (martin campbell)
saved by the bell: wedding in las vegas (jeff melman)
the shadow (russell mulcahy)
surviving the game (ernest dickerson)
time cop (peter hyams)
true lies (james cameron)
with honors (alek keshishian)

[brian d]

lothringen! (straub/huillet)
where the sun beats (pinto)
casa de lava (costa)
vive l'amour (tsai)
queen margot (chéreau)
l'enfer (chabrol)
jeanne la pucelle: the battles (rivette)
jeanne la pucelle: the prisons (rivette)
marie's song (von glasow)
chungking express (wong)
immortal beloved (rose)
the cloud door (kaul)

(final list)

[---]

1. "Roswell" (Bill Brown)

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses
Chungking Express

[wba2]

Fine year. The 90s, the last good decade for cinema.

Seen 100+

Final List

01. Tikhie stranitsy "Whispering Pages" (Aleksandr Sokurov, Russia/Germany)
02. Die Sieger "The Invincibles" (Dominik Graf, Germany)
03. Chung Hing sam lam "Chungking Express" (Kar-Wai Wong, Hong Kong)
04. Drop Zone (John Badham, USA)
05. Maverick (RIchard Donner, USA)
06. Charachar "Shelter of the Wings" (Buddhadev Dasgupta, India)
07. Color of Night (Richard Rush, USA)
08. Speed (Jan de Bont, USA)
09. Little Odessa (James Gray, USA)
10. Paradjanov: A Requiem (Ron Holloway, Germany/USA)

11. Black Ice (Stan Brakhage, USA)
12. Wyatt Earp (Lawrence Kasdan, USA)
13. Otaku (Jackie Bastide, Jean-Jacques Beineix, France)
14. Felidae (Michael Schaack, Germany/Denmark)
15. China Moon (John Bailey, USA)
16. God sobaki "The Year of the Dog" (Semyon Aranovich, Russia/France)
17. I.Q. (Fred Schepisi, USA)
18. Dumb and Dumber (Peter Farrelly/Bobby Farrelly, USA)
19. Second Best (Chris Menges, UK/USA)
20. Serial Mom (John Waters, USA)

[kanafani]

Fine year. The 90s, the last good decade for cinema.

wba my man come on. At least qualify your statement. Last good decade where? Hollywood? Germany? The "festival circuit"? The universe? How? Why?

[wba2]

Just generally speaking. For Hollywood it was defintiely the last, cause after Titanic it all went downhill pretty fast, for Germany, I think the 2000s might have been better (at least you had "berlin school" stuff). The festival circuit established itself firmly in the 2000s, circulating shit ad infinitum.
It might have been the switch to digital, the idea that "anybody can make a movie", which opened the floodgates, or just the general disinterest with all things cinema, as the internet and gaming and other stuff got more popular.

I just think that if you pick a random film from the 2000s, you're ten times as likely to have to watch shit, than if you do the same for any previous decade. Of course all that major shit had already started in the 90s, but it wasn't dominant yet, as it is now, in the 2010s.

It seems people are fine now with shooting a film without any reason, any drive, any inspiration, merely being content that they "are working/shooting a movie". This wasn't yet the case in the 90s.
If you go even further back in time, say to the 30s, it's difficult to find a totally lame movie. All of them were seemingly made with a modicum of energy.

[thoxans]

idk if less good films are actually being made nowadays compared to back then, or whether it's a case of merely having to wade thru more mediocre/bad films to find the good ones, since the democratization of the medium has increased the output of motion pictures exponentially. also, i think it's just flatout difficult to recognize greatness when you see it in the moment sometimes, and that it can in fact take a year or two or ten to discover/appreciate a really really great film

[thoxans]

Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (Kundan Shah)

def gonna watch this one for the poll (besides, i need to watch three more films before the new year to make it to 200 for '18)

[nrh]

added ruiz's fado to the resources folder, it's one of my favorites of his.

[MatiasAlbertotti]

added ruiz's fado to the resources folder, it's one of my favorites of his.

How do I get access to resources?

[mesnalty]

Same password as back on the old forums, if you had access there. If not, PM me and I'll let you know.

I just watched Fado, thanks nrh! One of the most enjoyable Ruizes (Ruices?). It's elliptical and strange like most of his work but connected by a web of motifs. I read something that said it came from his attempt to adapt Dostoevsky's The Eternal Husband, in which case it would join Whispering Pages as an extremely impressionistic "adaptation" of Dostoevsky from this year. (And further my suspicion that no author's oeuvre has spawned a more intriguing set of film adaptations than Dostoevsky, with the exception of Shakespeare if only because of sheer volume.)