Take Three: Kim Basinger

Craig here with Take Three. Today: Kim Basinger

Bay•sing•er

I think it’s time again to give Kim Basinger (remember, it's Bay-singer, not Bah-sinjahr, folks) some major credit. The lady's due. She’s gone from supporting eighties female through a love-hate (but Oscar-nabbing) nineties to her current career bloom as a character actress of some depth. Ms Basinger has always quietly impressed me. Here are three reasons why.

Take One: She loooovves purple.

Basinger’s career was birthed alongside the eighties. Feisty ladies in adventurous circumstances were her trade back then. Although through either slip-ups or fate she was often eclipsed by her male co-stars. In Never Say Never Again, The Man Who Loved Women, The Natural, Fool for Love, 9½ Weeks, No Mercy, Blind Date and Nadine she played second-fiddle female to, respectively, Connery, Reynolds, Redford, Shepard, Rourke, Gere, Willis and Bridges. These regulars of male-patterned eighties flicks manned the screen up to prematurely musty proportions, almost disguising Basinger’s versatile verbal retorts, bright mode of re-routing the drama her way and a daffy manner with a throwaway comic moment. She selflessly supported the fellas, but shone when it mattered.

With Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), she was the lone notable lady on set, and her Vicki Vale was more than mere distraction. Having to both glam-up the air around Michael Keaton’s dour-mouthed dark knight and de-glam the air around Nicholson’s garishly impish Joker was task enough. I've not read or heard of much credit being directed Basinger’s way for Batman, but in retrospect she’s to be cheered as a forceful female presence who cajoled Jack the Joker out of his randy advances. Outside of Michelle Pfeiffer’s ace feline-fatale in its first sequel, Basinger is still the only interesting lady in the Bat universe.

"I've just got to know. Are we going to try to love each other?"

Despite the thin characterization -- this comic strip gal is essentially Bruce Wayne’s Lois Lane – it’s a joy to look back at Batman’s first significant onscreen reincarnation and see a lively actress add a sultry playfulness to such a male-centric film.

Take Two: Not very hush-hush about Basinger’s Bracken

If Basinger blended the femme with the fun during the ‘80s, it’s no wonder Curtis Hanson cast her as Veronica Lake-a-like Hollywood hooker Lynn Bracken in 1997’s brooding Hollywood retro-noir L.A. Confidential. (There’s even a photo of Lake on Bracken’s wall and a clip of This Gun for Hire playing on screen.) It was a critical and commercial hit for Basinger after an early ‘90s career dip which saw four more Razzie noms to add to her collection. Her Supporting Actress Oscar win in early 1998, furrowed a few brows and boggled a few minds, as many thought hers was a slight and un-Oscarish role. (In my opinion the line-up that year wasn’t stellar – her only real competition being Julianne Moore for Boogie Nights.)

Basinger’s goods are initially concealed. Her onscreen skill not immediately apparent from the off. When she sways across the screen in a 1950s gown that's both expensive-looking and homely, it's hard to differentiate her from the flowing drapes in her Hollywood home. But it's in her interactions with her co-stars – often lengthy scenes filled with smoothly-delivered dialogue – where she earns every inch of that Oscar. She subtly, but seismically, cuts Pearce, Crowe and co. down to size with little but a withering turn of phrase, topped off with an elegant tilt of her head, before seducing them with implied tension creeping inbetween her spiky lines of dialogue.

She plays Lynn as a soft but sly soul, knowing but as fresh as the day is long. She’s poised and collected in every scene and well-versed in Hollywood style, but it’s all (intentionally) practised. If Basinger studied Lake’s work in preparation, it doesn’t show as onscreen imitation. And, if the research does peek through at times, it doesn’t matter. This actually enhances the performance. That’s who Lynn was – self-styled, only barely visible under the veneer of someone else, someone famous. As she herself said: “I'm really a brunette, but the rest is me.” And, indeed, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Take Three: Hot Damn Mama!

In the otherwise lacklustre arthouse awards bait The Burning Plain (2009) Basinger sizzles. She lifts the film out of its self-important stupor, breaking through its prestigiously wrapped exterior whenever she's on screen. As soon as her character Gina enters in her pick-up, the film comes alive. Gina is a New Mexico housewife and mother who secrets herself away to engage in an affair in a trailer with a local family man (Joaquim de Almeida). This mother comes with mastectomy scars and she's finally giving vent to what seems like years of surpressed passion considering her dull, loveless marriage. It's one of the most sorrowful and likeable performances I saw in 2009.

The aching confusion Basinger conveys in one particular scene – where, her secret having been realised by her daughter, she has to be at once the admonishing mother and the shocked, rumbled adulteress, all whilst pinned to her kitchen sink by her child’s accusing gaze – is nothing less than astonishing.

That nervous, twitchy panic that Basinger often falls back on in lesser films – all deflected glances and lips-a-tremble – is skillful here, chimed in pure accordance with Gina’s situation. The hot shame of a mother caught in flagrante delicto has rarely been so maturely rendered on screen; never has Basinger looked so helpless, so in need of sympathetic intervention. Another actress, given to more histrionic outbursts, would've stopped the scene dead and danced over its corpse, but Basinger hits the mark with each awkward gesture. She was excellent elsewhere in the film, but in this one small scene Basinger gave us her character’s entire life. Where was Oscar nom number two?

Three more key films for the taking: My Stepmother Is An Alien (1988), 8 Mile (2002), While She Was Out (2009)

Take Three: Laurence Fishburne

Craig here with Take Three

Today: Laurence Fishburne

Take One: Security vans and alien lands

It’s a cheeky sidestep this week. More of a Take Six – although still in three bite-size chunks. For starters, there’s two roles in a couple of nifty, no-fuss genre hits that he contributed supporting turns to recently: Armored (2009) and Predators (2010), both directed by Nimród Antal. In the former he was one of six average Joes – disgruntled security guards feeling the blue collar recessionary bite – hedging their bets on a massive, self-devised and of course ill-thought-out stolen loot payout. Fishburne was Baines, the brawny, aggressive one to whom nobody gave any truck. Along with Matt Dillon, Jean Reno and Fred Ward he lent Armored a hefty dose of gruff gravitas. He got to exercise his infectiously throaty laugh, shoot people willy-nilly and royally show up many of the other supporting actors (Skeet Ulrich I'm looking at you) without too much in the way of visible strain.

Fishburne: Armored van man

Commanding, seasoned actors such as Fishburne may be seen by some to be slumming it in genre quickies like this, but he gives it as good as he always does. It’s decent work – teamwork not dream work – and Fishburne does plenty of heavy lifting, raising it head and shoulders above likeminded flicks. Likewise with Predators. Here he’s Noland, a bedraggled and paranoid ex-assault soldier hiding in the belly of an abandoned alien ship. So he’s literally slumming it here. He scavenges for food. He mumbles something indecipherably questionable over his shoulder to an imaginary friend (or perhaps his agent just off-camera) to the general bafflement of lead Adrien Brody, head of Predators' all-new grunt bunch. Then he leads the not-so-merry lot through twisty tunnels into a sneaky trap. Noland’s outlook was never good, but Fishburne by turns allows him a cool entrance (deceptively dressed as he is as a rogue predator) and a gleeful hint of disturbed menace – both things that another, less talented, actor may well have skimped on. Fishburne elevates these two recent genre treats nicely.

Fishburne (left) and imaginary friend (right) looking fed up in Predators

Take Two: The Matrix Reassessed (just not very thoroughly)

I don’t think I’ve ever written a word about any of the three The Matrix films ('Riginal, Reloaded, Revolutions -1999-2003) before. Any cursory dip into their vastly all-encompassing waters, muddied with plenty of techno/psycho-babble, simply confuses me and I run for the hills. The worlds-within-worlds, meaning-within-meaning slant to the films whooshes over my head fast as a bullet; my comprehension of them slower than bullet time. I saw all three purely for the nifty fight scenes and the spaceships with tentacles. Its “legacy” or its “symbology” I can leave, thanks muchly. That’s why my favourite bits usually featured Fishburne kicking Keanu Reeves in the face. Or vice versa. Or even when he fired two guns simultaneously whilst standing on top of a speeding special effect.

Fishburne as Morpheus kickin' ass in The Matrix: Revolutions.
Or is it Reloaded?

He was Morpheus, and although he wasn’t entirely free of spouting mystical, daft, brain-twisting nothings during some parts of the films ("Welcome to the desert of the real" – "The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal."), he also made for a no-nonsense alt-world figurehead for much of his screentime – spouting impractical, daft, meaningless nothings ("Switch! Apoc!"), which I could relate to far more readily. He’s indeed the most watchable and entertaining presence in the three films (closely followed by Hugo Weaving’s Mr. Smith).

Fishburne as Morpheus kickin' ass in The Matrix (original).
Or is it him taunting Keanu off set?

Seeing him strut his stuff, dressed in obligatory Matrix cast member uniform of black leather and impossibly cool shades, was worth the combined three films' ticket prices alone. His career may forever be entwined with that of the Matrix phenomenon, but when you have an actor effortlessly delivering thespian goods – and more importantly, making us believe that the words Mjolnir and Nebuchadnezzar actually mean something – in a film series with more convoluted loose ends than a particularly tricky mathematical equation, you know it's a job done well. Who cares what colour pill to take – as long as it’s Fishburne shaped.

Take Three: An unlIKEable role

Fishburne’s best lead role was in What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993), for which he bagged his only Oscar nod. As Ike Turner, the whacked out, drugged-up singer who puts Angela Bassett’s Tina through the spousal abuse ringer, Fishburne essayed one vividly memorable role. Fishburne's deeply unlikeable Ike was played with such stern conviction, that he was more than just the flipside of fun in Brian Gibson’s acclaimed biopic. The (famous) man who beat and tormented Tina Turner was surely a complicated role to play (Fishburne allegedly turned down the role five times; only saying yes after Bassett signed on), but he ensured his Ike was a resolutely watchable character.

Fishburne can do mean and moody with ease. His impressive physicality and screen allure (and, here, confident vocal inflections – Fishburne also sang Ike’s songs in the film) surely assisted in his playing someone so monstrously pre-rendered. But he also managed to make human the troubled, abusive aspects of Ike’s character; there are times when you truly feel for him, despite the violence, which is solely down to Fishburne’s sincere, unshowy and very giving performance.

One of the defining images from Tina: What's Love Got to Do with It

Fishburne and Bassett were a fantastic acting duo; their torturous scenes with hysterically hollered dialogue and intricately performed physical choreography still contain as much hard-to-watch power as they did seventeen years ago. Watching Fishburne flesh out the subtle differences between the fun, earlier days and the tumultuous events later – from living the chart-riding high life to that quietly creepy kiss he plants on Bassett’s cheek during a sombre performance – is compulsive viewing. What’s Oscar got to do with it? Fishburne’s performance itself is proof enough of his onscreen greatness.

Three more key films for the taking: Apocalypse Now (1979), Deep Cover (1992), Akeelah and the Bee (2006)

Yes, No, Maybe So: The King's Speech

I suppose I must pick up my Oscar-pundit speed now. Sorry for the delays...

Let's talk about The King's Speech



As you know this film came roaring out of Toronto as the audience award winner (see previous post) and The Film to Beat at the Oscars... unless you think that's The Social Network but it's since it's only late September fans of either (in reality or in theory) need to calm down. We were always confident that The King's Speech was an Oscar film even before they started filming which is why we've predicted it for several nominations since April. But now that the trailer is here allowing non-festival goers to have a looksee, what do we think?

On the bright side, it looks fun. Or at least it looks fun to anyone who loved watching Eliza Doolittle learn to properly e·nun·ci·ate. It also gives Colin Firth a meaty role that seems like a reward for elevating A Single Man (2009) (but for the fact that he probably signed for this before anyone saw how great he was in last year's nominated turn). I'm also THRILLED -- and yes it needed to be typed in all caps -- to see that Helena Bonham Carter has managed to escape Burton's gothic dungeon for some badly needed air. She's probably heading straight to her second Oscar nomination with relative ease; You know how they love those supportive wives. What's most surprising about the trailer is that the production values look superb and not in some vaguely rote prestige way but with a vividly handsome specificity. I didn't expect great visuals so maybe Tom Hooper's Best Director buzz isn't so far-fetched for a film that on paper seemed like one for the acting and production design branches mostly.

On the other hand, I am completely allergic to Geoffrey Rush in hambone mode. His win for Shine (1996) is one of my least favorite Best Actor prizes in the category's history and they nominated him for the entirely wrong film in 1998 as he was much more restrained and effective in Elizabeth than he was in Shakespeare in Love. He looks to be bringing the kook to scenes that already have inherent kookiness (speech therapy's comedy friendly exercizes) and I may just break out in hives watching him go for a second Oscar. I'm taking epipen into the theater with me... just in case.

Then we come to the Oscar Bait -- as if Royalty Porn weren't enough of it -- which is the World War II 'Nazi's are coming!' time frame. I hope it's less awkwardly handled here than it was in Mrs. Henderson Presents which this film vaguely reminds me of sight unseen. That's not a purposeful mental jump. It's worrisome rather but probably just based on account of early Oscar buzz, prestige actors, and the world war haunting the periphery of a "light" film.

Again, I might need the epipen but the festival buzz is certainly something to think about in an optimistic way. I'm a Yes leaning Maybe So because, again, Geoffrey Rush is a total No for me most of the time ...especially whilst clowning around. Look, we can't help what we're allergic to. Don't give me a hard time about it.

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So? And do you buy the Oscar frontrunner (or thereabouts) hype?
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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: Se7en (1995)

In this film-loving series we look at movies from all over the cinematic time line and in each genre pool to select a shot that particularly resonates with us, be it for aesthetic, thematic or for simply eye candy reasons.

This week we look back at David Fincher's breakthrough hit, Se7en (1995) which celebrates its 15th anniversary today. It happens to be my favorite serial killer picture ever, though I should note that its only real competition is Silence of the Lambs since this is an overstuffed genre with few actual classics.

Se7en's opening credits were an instant classic of the form and unfortunately so duplicated thereafter that the jarring edits, mental/visual derangements and perfect rock track probably feel like clichés to young viewers. But Se7en absolutely unnerved when it hit in 1995. My favorite shot comes about 80 minutes in when Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) and Detective Lt. Somerset (Morgan Freeman) finally discover John Doe's (Kevin Spacey) lair, the very place those opening credits would call home sweet sick home. After some creative corner-cutting search warrant business, begin to investigate its secrets.


Se7en, like all of David Fincher's work, is meticulously designed and this one in particular is just gorgeously shot. I consider it cinematographer Darius Khondji's best feature work and his omission from the Oscar line up that year was a real shame. That's not actually a split screen. Fincher and Khondji have made awesome use of the multi-room apartment set and smartly blocked the actors. For a brief moment before the detectives separate and cross cutting and horrible discoveries begin, we see them both searching different spaces simultaneously. There's multiple light sources and pockets of saturated color, Somerset's room has cool colors and Mills hallway is hot, rather like the personalities that make up this fractious partnership. But despite multiple lights, colors and faux split screen, the image is never muddied or chaotic, just darkly foreboding and dynamically alive both literally (the movement of the flashlight) and figuratively (what horrors lurk in these rooms?). In this shot, Mills and Somerset are almost shining their flashlights at each other, but as always they're seeing things differently.

Incidentally this is my favorite Brad Pitt performance outside of Fight Club. It's full of the kind of masculine anguish and wounded bird magnetism that's Leonardo DiCaprio's bread and butter these days. Brad went the extra mile... that broken left wing is his own.


6 More Deadly Sinners. That Makes Se7en

• Brown Okinawa... looks at how attached Detective Somerset is to his job.
• Serious Film... appreciates the craftsmanship and thinks Se7en lingers.
• El Fanatico... gets creative like John Doe's books. Check out all these shot groupings.
• Stale Popcorn... chooses seven deadly shots. Well, one is life-affirming.
• Sketchy Details... absolves the detectives of their sins.
• Plakatay... lives in the shadows.
  

 Other Films in This Series

• Angels in America (2003)
• X-Men (2000)
• Showgirls (1995)
• Bring It On (2000)
• Black Narcissus (1946)
• A Face in the Crowd (1957)
• Pandora's Box (1929)
• Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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Unsung Heroes: The Fight Choreography of Rob Roy

Hey, folks. Michael C. here from Serious Film with another overlooked contribution to film greatness. This time out let's look at a favorite of mine going back to my teenage years: the fight choreography of Rob Roy (1995).

William Hobbs is the Marlon Brando of movie sword fighting. He is the guy who blasted away years of mannered and artificial fight choreography and brought it down to Earth. A fencing advisor with credits ranging from The Duelists and Dangerous Liaisons all the way back to Olivier's Othello, one would be hard pressed to find a memorable sword fight from the last fifty years which Hobbs did not have a hand in creating. Out of that lifetime of memorable scenes his masterpiece is undoubtedly the climactic duel from Michael Caton-Jones' Rob Roy. It is a scene that doesn't just sit atop the list of great movie sword fights, but deserves prominent mention in any discussion of the cinema's all time great action sequences.

On a technical level the staging feels like the closest approximation of the real thing ever put on film. Rob Roy leaves in all the elements that the classic Hollywood sword fights left out: the grueling physical effort, the intense concentration required to avoid being killed in the blink of an eye, the long pauses interrupted by a flurry of violence, the courage it takes to even approach someone whose sword is drawn. Nobody is dropping quips in between the action here.

Mind you, I have nothing but love for the great fencing matches of Hollywood's Golden Age. I was raised on Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone. But the work of Hobbs in this field has the same effect as the method acting revolution -- after this nothing can be the same.

Hobbs' brilliance is to make the fencing matches more about the characters than the violence. In the case of Rob Roy, I can't recall another fight scene where the strategies of the opponents can be so clearly understood. We know that Tim Roth's Oscar nominated "Cunningham" perilously outmatches Liam Neeson's "Rob Roy". Yet Cunningham has learned the hard way not to underestimate Rob, who can be powerful and dangerous given the slightest chance. So unlike every other movie sword fight where the audience merely watches for the killing blow, here we follow along as the Neeson and Roth try to outthink each other, Cunningham trying to exhaust Rob with a series of small wounds, and Rob hoping to survive long enough to take advantage of Cunningham's overconfidence. It's a mental duel as much as a physical one.

Hobbs must have known he had a once-in-a-career opportunity on his hands when he was presented with the script. Most movie sword fights spring up suddenly; characters are in them before they know what's happening. Rob Roy's climax involves an arranged duel to the death. It unfolds deliberately, with a sense of pervasive dread. Hobbs takes full advantage of the opportunity, and he, along with the rest of the filmmaking team, crafts not just a milestone in fight choreography, but an unforgettable dramatic scene as well.

Posterized: Coen Bros

An Asian remake of the Coen Bros' debut Blood Simple hit theaters this weekend. It's called A Woman a Gun and a Noodle Shop. So let's mark the occasion of their first remake (unless I missed one?) with a look back at the peaks and valleys of the Coen Bros. They're consistently interesting filmmakers and often inspired (see Robert's 'Directors of Decade' column) but have you seen their whole filmography?

Here we go...

Blood Simple (1984) | Raising Arizona (1987) | Miller's Crossing (1990)

Barton Fink (1991) | The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) | Fargo (1996)

The Big Lebowski (1998) | O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) |
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) | The Ladykillers (2004) | No Country For Old Men (2007)

Burn After Reading (2008) | A Serious Man (2009) | True Grit (2010)

How many have you seen? How would you rank them? It's a pretty consistently fascinating filmography, percentage wise. Well done, Joel and Ethan. Do you think Oscar was correct to focus mostly on Fargo for the 90s and No Country for the Aughts? And am I the sole person alive who wishes Holly Hunter were nominated for Best Actress for Raising Arizona in 1987 instead of Broadcast News?

I'm getting more curious about True Grit (2010) as we near its release. That Carter Burwell evening I attended helped stoke my interest and then of course there's the cast and general quality of their filmography to recommend it, trailer unseen. Perhaps I should read the novel. Have any of you read it?
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Flashback: Best of the 90s (Pt. 2)

Start with Pt 1 of this 90s Flashback... if you're confused about what's going on. To make a long story short, I'm excerpting items from an old zine I wrote in Spring 2000, during the first year of the website. Yes, I was originally juggling too many things. Why that's not like me AT ALL.

We previously covered my dated lists for Actors, Supporting Actresses and Supporting Actors -- lists I don't agree with in full anymore (though the supporting actresses list I quite like still). So now we move on to Picture and Actress.

Best Actress
Top ten chronological order. What follows is original text from the magazine, with the winner in bold text. I had purposefully excluded 1999 which is why you don't see Kate Winslet for Holy Smoke or Hilary Swank for Boy's Don't Cry though here's what I wrote about Swank in that same zine...

I'm rooting for Swank on Oscar night. But I must express concern that she could turn into Elisabeth Shue and only have this one great role in her.

Ha. I was right but it's funny in retrospect to have proof that I had no animosity at all (I love Shue). I mean I wasn't giving the Swankster mean nicknames or spoofing my own hatred of her and I was actually rooting for her to win that first time. It was that damn disingenuous "girl from a trailer park" campaigning and the second win that rubbed me in directions wrong and wrongest. [sic]

• Anjelica Huston, The Grifters (1990)
  Her daring unsympathetic work tore through the screen.
• Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  Clarice Starling is one for the history books.
• Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise (1991)
  I'm loathe to separate this duet, so I shan't.
• Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns (1992)
  Meow. Her funniest most magnetic star turn this decade.
• Emma Thompson, Howards End (1992)
  She shone as the passionate but centered Margaret Schlegel
• Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue (1992 [sic] it was actually 1993. I think I was avoiding a certain 1993 problem in my head! read on.)
  A mystifying transcendent performance.
• Holly Hunter, The Piano (1993)
  One of our finest comic actresses in her best dramatic work.
• Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
  No one knew she had this in her but I'm glad she did.
• Frances McDormand, Fargo (1996)
  An expert comic performance that owns the great film.
• Helena Bonham-Carter, Wings of the Dove (1997)
  She gets better and better and this is the top.

Hmmm. Looking back I'm confused why Julianne Moore [safe] isn't listed. I was also a bit surprised that Meryl Streep's Postcards From the Edge didn't factor in but then I remembered that it took quite some time before Meryl Streep's "Suzanne Vale" started threatening to be my favorite of her character gallery.

1993 was too good a year in Best Actress. Too many riches.

And I'm a touch surprised to see Juliette Binoche there though I think the performance is a hypnotic icy marvel. The film was released in the States in 1993 which means that I'd have to bump Michelle Pfeiffer from The Age of Innocence off of my best actress 5 that year (*sniffle*) which would leave me with Holly Hunter, The Piano (winner) and nominees: Angela Bassett, What's Love Got to Do With It; Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue; Stockard Channing, Six Degrees of Separation and Emma Thompson, Much Ado About Nothing (previously discussed) none of whom I am able to part with. Sorry 'Chelle! It hurts me more than it hurts you.

Best Picture
[Chronological Top Ten. Winners in bold red. What follows is original text. 1999 I had originally excluded as it had just ended and I was still deciding on "bests" for that year.]

Heavenly Creatures and Porn Stars

• Beauty & The Beast (1991)
  Best cartoon of the decade. The genre has thankfully exploded since this.
• THELMA & LOUISE (1991)
  Eternal thanks fo Ridley, Callie, Susan & Geena. Best road trip of the decade.
• Husbands and Wives (1992)
  Allen's best film of the 90s. Its status will grow in time, trust me.
• Trois Coleurs (1992-1994)
  Have this experience! Kiezlowski's enthralling spiritual trilogy.
• THE PIANO (1993)
  Jane Campion's painterly erotic masterwork.
• Schindler's List (1993)
  I hate to include Spielberg but he actually deserved the kudos on this one. (recently discussed at the blog)
• Heavenly Creatures (1994)
  Peter Jackson's surreal mood juggling giddy nightmare.
  
• Dead Man Walking (1995)
  Tim Robbins enthralling and enormously moving death row drama.
• Boogie Nights (1997)
  P.T. Anderson's mega-entertaining superbly acted porn-opus.
• Wings of the Dove (1997)
  Vastly underrated James adaptation by Iain Softley and a trio of fine actors.

The "runners up" listed were Edward Scissorhands, Howards End, Pulp Fiction, Queen Margot, Babe, Fargo and The Truman Show. And my three favorites of 99, listed elsewhere in the zine were Being John Malkovich, Run Lola Run and All About My Mother. (I've always enjoyed Lola but I didn't remember it as that high up!)

Some notes: It appears that I was in love with the word "enthralling" in Spring 2000. I guess I could not choose an adjective for Heavenly Creatures so I just went with all of them. I was also, not yet dead set against "ties". The Piano (see my review) now holds the throne on its own and those porn stars, waitresses on the run and murderous teen girlfriends continue to sit nearby as ladies in waiting to "Best Film of the 90s." (And yes, I do still think Beauty & The Beast is the best animated film of the 90s. Sorry Toy Story and Princess Mononoke) The rest of the list would need a seriously rethink or overhaul.

And if that weren't enough -- you're all "please stop. It's 2010!" yeah, yeah, we'll get back to it -- here were some other fighting words back then. Original Text follows. I can't totally stand by all of this since it's 10 years ago that I wrote this and I haven't seen at least half of the films since. Plus, I seemed to have had a distinct distaste for films with negative messages. But here's what I wrote ten years ago...

The World is Stone Pt 1 (Unjustly aborted movie children i.e. the most underrated films of the 90s.)

• One True Thing
  Dismissed as just a fine Streep film. Sorry, try again. Just a fine film.
• Velvet Goldmine
  Time has lifted [safe] to grand cinema status. Same thing will happen to Todd Haynes' most electric film.
• Strange Days | Nell | The Ref
  Not classics but severely and rudely underrated.
• Queen Margot
  This film floors me. Luscious. Epic. Incredible.
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
  You might want to hate it but you'll learn to love it.
• Truly Madly Deeply
  A rarely insightful look at the mourning process with two terrific lead performances.
• Batman Returns | Mars Attacks
  Burton's least appreciated. Funny and clever films.
• Living Out Loud | Home for the Holidays
  The first was widely shrugged off, the second universally hated. I'll never get why. Holly Hunter is perfection in both.
• Men Don't Leave
  An emotional stunner with Jessica Lange in top form.
• Romeo + Juliet
  The media tried to reduce it to "Shakespearean MTV" when it's a visually inspired experience. DiCaprio and Danes briefly gave Young Hollywood a good name.

The World is Stone Pt 2 (spoiled brats - overrated films of the 90s)

• LA Confidential
  Didn't anyone else find the ending a major cop out?
• Deconstructing Harry
  One of Woody's worst. Childishly vicious.
• Henry Fool
  A revered arthouse film that's so pretentious I felt like tearing at my skin.
  
• Forrest Gump | Saving Private Ryan
  Two ultra adored patriotic Tom Hanks blockbusters with scary political implications or simplified messages.
• In the Company of Men
  It's just inert as a film. Lifeless even in all its bile.
• Braveheart
  Mel Gibson's sick, homophobic, bloodthirsty operatically self-indulgent mess. Won the Oscar of course.
• Casino
  Just when I was sick to death of it, I realized it was only halfway over. Repetitious, ugly, and revered based solely upon the name in the director's chair.

Hmmm.

Many many people have told me I should love Casino (1995) as they do. Perhaps I wasn't in the right place? But I still remember the visceral hatred of it in the movie theater ... so I'm scared to go back. I rarely employ "pretentious" as a kneejerk insult now so I wonder what I'd think of Henry Fool today? I still have plenty of hate for Forrest Gump (see recent proof) and Braveheart (see recent proof) but I am confused at the dismissal of LA Confidential which is obviously a goodie.

Things I have no memory of: Hating In the Company of Men or loving One True Thing.

What were your favorite and least favorites of the 1990s back in 2000?
How is the list different now?
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Flashback: Best of the 90s. (Pt 1)

Remember when I shared those 80s scrapbook pages on "Before Websites Pt 1 and Pt 2"?

Well inbetween scrapbooking two decades back and the total new digital world of the Aughts, there was the long transitional period of the 1990s. Remember when the internet was just text (Anyone? Anyone?). The last two issues of my 90s zine (that pre-website relic mentioned in the Julianne Moore interview) were published in 2000.

<-- "90s character collage" Oil on canvas. I'm confused why I included The Phantom Menace because I hated the movie. I think I wanted something "up to the minute" Ha!

I had just moved to NYC and was in the process of chucking Quark for Dreamweaver. The first version of the site was already up and rapidly taking over my life so I'm not sure why I was trying to do both web & print. It was transitional hedging maybe. Plus html was way confusing at first before apps starting doing all the coding for you. Different era.

Interior "Ten Best" pages --- >

I thought I'd share these ancient lists on "Best of the 90s" for fun. I can't really stand by half the choices now 10 years later but can you stand by all your choices from Spring 2000?

Best Supporting Actor
[Top Ten Chronological Order, Winner in Red. Original text with the names listed. The very first one surprises me like you don't even know but we'll get to that in a minute.]

• Tommy Lee Jones, JFK (1991)
  Tommy back when he was exciting to watch onscreen.
  
• Michael Lerner, Barton Fink (1991)
  The funniest supporting turn of the decade
  
• Leonardo DiCaprio, What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)
  The breaking point of Hollywood's It Boy.
  
• Ralph Fiennes, Schindlers List (1993)
  Astoundingly frightening American debut.

Leonardo DiCaprio (Gilbert Grape) & Ed Harris (The Truman Show)

• Samuel L Jackson, Pulp Fiction (1994)
  Much celebrated bible quoting hitman. Great.
  
• Martin Landau, Ed Wood (1994)
  Great character actor doing comic justice to a legend.
  
• Kevin Spacey, The Usual Suspects (1995)
  Kevin's much lauded Keyzer Soze role.
  
• William H Macy, Fargo (1996)
  Almost as great as McDormand. High praise.
• Rupert Everett, My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
  Wasn't even nominated. What?!?!
  
• Ed Harris, The Truman Show (1998)
  Terrific work from the ever magnetic actor.

That's what I said then. As you can see I wasn't yet a frothing at the mouth "Category Fraud!" crusader since there's at least two "leads" in there. In fact, for '99 I chose Haley Joel Osment (ru: Jude Law) who is obviously the lead of The Sixth Sense and in my runners up I list Rupert Graves in Where Angels Fear to Tread and how is that anything but the lead role? The weirdest nominee in this best of decade top ten is Tommy Lee Jones. I barely remember that performance -- I think he had white hair and that there was some rabidly anti-gay tone to his scenes? -- and what I do remember I don't like. I'm so confused that it's listed but that's what the pages say. The other thing that sticks out at me is that I was apparently on a first name basis with Kevin Spacey (unhh....) and I excluded Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights (very odd).

So yeah, I'm not happy with this list at all. I'd probably only keep half of it. But I'd need to watch a few movies again.

Best Supporting Actress
[Top Ten Chronological Order, Winner in Red. Original text with the names listed]

Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear) & Patricia Clarkson (High Art)

• Annette Bening, The Grifters (1990)
  As the delicious decadent Myra Langtree she was radiant.
• Uma Thurman, Henry & June (1990)
  Seduced Henry, Anaïs and the world as June Miller.
• Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear (1991)
  At just 18, stole the show from Lange, Nolte and DeNiro.
• Judy Davis, Husbands and Wives (1992)
  Gave Allen's neurosis a whole new energy level.
• Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction (1994)
  The hip film's central female role. Uma nailed it.
• Dianne Wiest, Bullets Over Broadway (1994)
  Dianne is always a treat. Against type, she soared.
• Joan Allen, The Crucible (1996)
  Breathtaking. One of the great screen presences.
• Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights (1997)
  Should've won the Oscar. What were they thinking?
• Christina Ricci, The Ice Storm (1997)
  Smart sad work. Confirmed her best-of-generation status.
• Patricia Clarkson, High Art (1998)
  How did this marvelous turn go so unnoticed?

That's what I said then. Obviously Catherine Keener would've made the list for Being John Malkovich had I waited a year to compile this. (I'm always so hesistant about brand new movies. A weird tic. And apparently I did the same thing here declaring 1999 movies ineligible for these top tens. Weirdness.) But nothing much surprises me about these supporting actresses. Love them all and the next ten would be almost as wondrous.

Best Actor
[Top Ten Chronological Order, Winner in Red. Original text with the names listed. I've recreated the illustration here just because I thought it was funny and I remember being super angry that Anthony Hopkins started going hammy and/or phoning it in starting about the mid 90s.


I no longer have any strong feelings about him. The quality dropoff was so severe that even know 15 years later I see his name in casting items and I feel nothing more than "Why'd they go with him? Laziness in thinking about their options?". Like, what was he doing in The Wolf Man? I feel like you give that same part to some hungry actor his age who never got inundated with huge offers and they're going to reward you with something special even if the movie bites. I don't mean to sound cruel about Sir Hopkins and I did name him Best Lead Actor of the Decade and that's saying something. He'll always have 1991-1993 when every performance was an event!]

• Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs (1991)
  Perhaps overcelebrated but it's a juicy star turn.
• River Phoenix, My Own Private Idaho (1991)
  A transformation that made him an icon.
• Denzel Washington, Malcolm X (1992)
  Should have easily bagged him the Oscar.
• Daniel Day-Lewis, In the Name of the Father (1993)
  Does anyone else miss this guy? Great actor.
• Anthony Hopkins, Remains of the Day (1993)
  Unquestionably fine. Does repression like no one else.
• Nicolas Cage, Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
  His last great performance before big budgets beckoned.
• Sean Penn, Dead Man Walking (1995)
  Completely believeable difficult turn as a repentant killer.
• Ian Holm, The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
  A performance as complex as the film. That's high praise.
• Ian McKellen, Gods and Monsters (1998)
  Should have won the Oscar. What were they thinking?
• Edward Norton, American History X (1998)
  Fierce work that confirmed his best-of-generation status.

That's what I said then. And said rather repetitively, too. I used some of those exact same lines for Best Supporting Actress. Where was my editor? Oh, yeah. That was me. Elsewhere in the magazine I proclaim Kevin Spacey in American Beauty Best Actor of 1999 and now I would definitely rewrite history to pretend that I chose Jim Broadbent in Topsy Turvy (who I at least nominated. Yay, me). I had also forgotten that DDL made so few movies in the 90s (only 5) despite becoming a big star with the first of those (The Last of the Mohicans). And then he made even less in the Aughts (4) ! Does this mean we can only expect 3 movies from him from 2010-2019? And if so, does one of them really have to be a Sherlock Holmes sequel since he works so infrequently?

I'm also a bit surprised that I didn't give the top prize to River Phoenix as I was quite obsessed with My Own Private Idaho in the 90s. River Phoenix would've turned 40 last week. One has to wonder what would be different in the movies had he lived. Which star would never have risen up instead. Which roles we're familiar with would he have ended up playing?

I'm disappointed looking back that I didn't list Christopher Guest whose "Corky St. Clair" in Waiting for Guffman is arguably the finest comedic character creation of the 1990s. He should've made the list.

River Phoenix (My Own Private Idaho) & Christopher Guest (Waiting For Guffman)

You know what to do in the comments. Your lists please... and how have they changed over the past ten years. What did you love or hate then that you've changed your mind about now? And let's say you were born in the late 80s or in the 1990s. Which of these movies have you always meant to see but just haven't got around to yet?

p.s. If you're new to the blog and want to see more recent "best ofs" you can check out Best of the Aughts or my awards for 2009.
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Posterized: Dame Emma Thompson

Okay, so she's not a Dame yet. Shut up. It's only a matter of time!

Nanny McPhee costar Maggie Gyllenhaal at Emma's star ceremony
for Hollywood's Walk of Fame earlier this month.

Nanny McPhee Returns is on 2000+ of the nation's screens but I probably won't be seeing it. Remember two days back when we discussed what we were always looking for in a movie? One of my answers should have been beauty. I am not a beauty fascist in real life but I suppose I am at the movie theaters. Hollywood's great actresses should be immortalized with key lights, flawless makeup and evening gowns. Movie stars are supposed to be fantasies... our idealized selves. That's why Old Hollywood still has so much appeal. The studio system understood this. I like beauty on my silver screens so I really don't want to see Emma Thompson -- who can be just ravishing (see Much Ado About Nothing. I mean, my god. She's breathtaking in that movie) -- made to look purposefully hideous.

Anyway... her career in posters.

The Tall Guy (89) | Henry V (89) | Impromptu (91)

Dead Again (91) | Peter's Friends (92) | Howard's End (92)

Much Ado..., Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father (93)

Junior (94) | Carrington (95) | Sense & Sensibility (95)

Intermission. In early 1996 after five Oscar noms and two wins (acting & screenplay) and several arthouse hits, the screen career seems to slow down. She was only 36. It's difficult to say what caused this. A listers sometimes just volunteer for that and if so who could blame her? Her first six years of fame were crazy huge and chaotic.

<--- Emma with her husband Greg Wise at the premiere of his most recent movie in 2009

Consider... She was 30 when fame hit. The first six years of fame were bookended with her wedding and then divorce from Kenneth Branagh (also often her director and co-star) and the movies were iconic arthouse titles. And then there's that stellar 1993 wherein she won the Oscar in the spring then appeared in three more arthouse smashes, two of which she was Oscar nominated for. [Tangent: If you ask me I think Much Ado... is the best of those three '93 performances -- even if it's the least of the three films -- so it figures it's the one she was snubbed for.]

Or maybe it wasn't an intentional break but maybe the offers just started to dry up? The cinema is sometimes nonsensical like that. This is also the time period in which she and Greg Wise, the dangerously good-looking man who breaks her screen sister Kate Winslet's heart in Sense & Sensibility, fall in love. They've been together ever since and were married in 2003.

The Winter Guest (97) | Primary Colors (98) | Judas Kiss (98)

Wit (01) | Angels in America (03) | Love Actually (03)

Mike Nichols to the rescue with two acclaimed pay cable movies that reminded fans what a sensational screen presence she is.

Imagining Argentina (03) | Nanny McPhee (05) | Stranger Than Fiction (06)

Brideshead Revisited (08) | Last Chance Harvey (08) | An Education (09)

not pictured: Pirate Radio (09), two Harry Potter films (04/07) the current Nanny McPhee sequel and a few cameo parts or voice roles.

How many have you seen? Is it odd that she's not in the last two-part Harry Potter film (I can't remember if that character is in the last book)... or if she is, that they aren't crediting her since she's not listed as being part of the cast? And don't you wish she'd have more plum parts again? She was so moving in Last Chance Harvey but it was one of those sacrificial December lambs needlessly disposed of during the year's busiest month. When I rewatched Angels in America a few weeks ago, I was reminded what a glorious comic personality she has. She's the best of both worlds, really, able to wear both of those iconic thespian masks. She sells comedy and tragedy with equal inspiration.
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