The Usual Choices
Barton Fink (Joel Coen)
The Commitments (Alan Parker)
The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott)
But how about...
Frankie & Johnny (Garry Marshall)
I LOVE, LOVE this movie, and as far as I can discover, I am the only person on the planet who does. For my money, it is easily the best post-Tootsie rom-com (not that there is much competition), and one of the most underrated quality movies ever made. Virtues? Okay...Al Pacino plays against type and is both soft-spoken and charming; rough urban edges are left in but don't slash into the comedy; Michelle Pfeiffer is just gorgeous; the side-characters are good-natured people who you can't help but like; funny lines that blend in with the romantic / sad scenes; beautiful music; a perfect ending. Yeah, I acknowledge a couple of minor weaknesses, but I'm not gonna tell you about those. Please just see it. I don't like being alone.
...and what about...
Hear My Song (Peter Chelsom)
So light and fluffy it threatens to blow away at any moment, HMS is one of the, er, unsung little British comedies. The thing oozes charm and blarney, with a storyline which has something to do with a huckster concert promoter, a tax-evading tenor and true love. With daft old characters from the Ireland of John Ford's dreams, and only a smattering of late 20th Century conversational swearing and casual nudity, it tries extremely hard to be endearing and amusing. And, for the most part, it succeeds. Just try disliking it.
P.S. Is that old guy with the beard (one of Ned's Irish pub mates), Jack Elam? Sure the hell looks like it. They starred together in Big Bad John the year before HMS, so I thought...Bet it is. Anyone?
...not to mention...
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Nicholas Meyer)
While I'm not much of a Trekkie, I did love the original series when I was a kid in the 60's (although I find the show to be a little twee now) and was a fan of the New G to the point of buying the box set. This film, along with II: The Wrath of Kahn are the best movies of the whole franchise, old, new, spin-off or reboot generation. To me, and I bet most non-fanatics, it comes down to the comedy act of the three leads, mixed in with grand adventure / save-the-day tales. It's nice to see that everyone made the effort to lose some weight for this outing, and, like John Wayne in The Shootist, it's a perfectly enjoyable and appropriate adieu from the first cast.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Dead Again (Kenneth Branagh)
I've probably rated this too harshly, but the bloody thing made me mad. The potential for a pretty good Hitchcockian / paranormal thriller is all there, but it gets totally stuffed up by: an underworked script, a weak lead performance by the director, poor timing decisions (especially regarding the comedic inserts) and a lush musical score which is too up front too often. But the biggest mystery / crime is...why bring gender swapping into the mix? It has zero impact on the outcome, and is dropped on us like it's a plot-bombshell, but it's almost immediately abandoned. How huh can you get?
My Top 10 Films of 1991
 |
| eHarmony Hardcore |
#02 A Frankie & Johnny (Marshall)
#03 A- Barton Fink (Coen)
#04 A- Dogfight (Savoca)
#05 A- The Silence of the Lambs (Demme)
#06 A- Class Action (Apted)
#07 A- Guilty By Suspicion (Winkler)
#08 A- Proof (Moorhouse)
#09 A- Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Meyer)
#10 A- Fried Green Tomatoes (Avnet)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ The Man in the Moon (Mulligan)
#12 B+ Hear My Song (Chelsom)
#13 B+ Homicide (Mamet)
#14 B+ Thelma & Louise (Scott)
#15 B+ Bugsy (Levinson)
#16 B+ Enchanted April (Newell)
#17 B+ Grand Canyon (Kasdan)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Terminator 2: Judgement Day [WOW!! Mindblowing SFX!! Er, what else you got?]
> B Black Robe [looks magnificent, but handled too gently...even the finger amputation]
> B L.A. Story [it is nearly as good as it wants to be]
> B Soapdish [you gotta give it credit...it really wants to be funnier]
> B The Fisher King [Jeff's story is more involving than Robin's; was the dragon really necessary Terry?]
> B Backdraft [an arsonist's pornography]
> B The Doctor [it wants to make an important point but "Physician: Heal Thyself" got there first]
> B- The Rapture [it goes from porn to promising to creepy to funny to stupid; Mimi does a good job though]
> B- The Commitments [just makes me want to play some real Wilson & Otis; and what happened to the story?]
> B- My Own Private Idaho [who knew that hustling, homelessness and abandonment were so damned noble?]
> B- Cape Fear [exaggerating Cady from an evil bastard into a cheek-chewing demon was a mistake]
> B- The Addams Family [how can any actor hope to compete with an amputated fully-mobile hand?]
> B- The Doors [in the end, it is the story of a boy-man who believed his own bullshit]
> B- Defending Your Life [for a film about being dead, both its touch and its point are too soft]
> B- At Play in the Fields of the Lord ["some books should remain books"]
> B- Naked Lunch [some books should remain books]
> B- Hudson Hawk [I actually didn't think it was that bad...or good]
> B- City Slickers [harmless and well-meaning and forgettable]
> C Hook [Peter Pan with even extra schmaltz]
> C Dead Again [Hitchcock wannabe but very ain't]
> C Sweet Talker [the only reason to see it is that it was filmed in Beachport]
> D Prospero's Books [I reserve this for when I just can't get to sleep]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1991 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Afraid of the Dark (Peploe); Boyz n the Hood (Singleton); City of Hope (Sayles); Close My Eyes (Poliakoff); Closet Land (Bharadwaj); Convicts (Masterson); Daughters of the Dust (Dash); Death in Brunswick (Ruane); Edward II (Jarman); Flirting (Duigan); The Hours and Times (Munch); Impromptu (Lapine); The Indian Runner (Penn); Jungle Fever (Lee); Kafka (Soderbergh); Let Him Have It (Medak); The Miracle (Jordan); Mississippi Masala (Nair); New Jack City (Van Peebles); Night on Earth (Jarmusch); Once Around (Hallstrom); The People Under the Stairs (Craven); Prague (Sellar); Queens Logic (Rash); A Rage in Harlem (Duke); Raining Stones (Loach); Rambling Rose (Coolidge); Riff-Raff (Loach); The Rocketeer (Johnston); Rush (Zanuck); Slacker (Linklater); There’s Nothing Out There (Kanefsky); A Woman’s Tale (Cox)
Best Performances of 1991
Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise
Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs
Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs
Tommy Lee Jones in JFK
Jack Palance in City Slickers
Mercedes Ruehl in The Fisher King
Susan Sarandon in Thelma & Louise
Robin Williams in The Fisher King
But how about...
Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes
While this lead part radiates instant audience-attachment, if the actor had played it a shade too tough or a shade too cuddly, it would've sunk the entire movie. But Mary is just perfect: always physically fearless, a ball of emotion, highly moral, disgusted by bullshit, common sense cut with kindness. She is an adult tomboy who is more than just jeans and unbrushed hair. It helps that the actress who plays her as a child doesn't linger in the memory - Mary is able to construct the character pretty much from the get-go and add little quirks (with her, it's all in the eyes) and bits of business to dig her into our affections.
...and what about...
River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho
While I wasn't overly taken by the film itself (I can't help it...I have always had an aversion to Beautiful Losers and their tales of woe), River was just superb in the lead. A little boy in the body of a man, he just wants to find his mum. Seeking affection and protection, his whole being shuts down whenever his life gets too much, falling into sleep (narcolepsy) as an escape. Through mumbled conversation (a mixture of scripted and improvised lines), River reveals how truly sad a person he is. And yes, the fact that the real young man only had two more years left on this Earth does add poignancy to the performance.
...not to mention...
Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear
It all comes down to the thumb-sucking scene (tip: you may feel like a shower afterwards). While I'm not a fan of this film version, the weakness of the 1962 original was the daughter - she was not much more than a tethered goat; virtually only a plot device. Not Juliette. Psycho Cady stokes the girl's carnality to such a degree that her terror is not only of the man, but also of what he has unleashed in her. Juliette grapples with this new character-force throughout the second half of the movie, her childishness long gone. The physical confrontations that follow can be seen as attempts to regain the daughter's innocence. An interesting spin on the story, and all put into place by Juliette's unsettling performance.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Sissy Spacek in JFK
I am a Sissy fan. No stronger dramatic actress has graced our screens. But even the gods trip over sometimes. Channeling what seems to be an astronaut's wife (complete with hairsprayed do, vocal shrillness and peculiarly goosesteppy walk), Sissy is almost daring Kevin to get angry-drunk, sleep around and bitterly divorce her, or at the very least throw a dinner plate onto the floor and scream out "you're tearing me apart!". Grotesquely one-dimensional, I half-expected to hear Sissy say something like "So our president was murdered by his own government. That doesn't mean that you should let your meatloaf go cold." Grating.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1991
 |
| "Give me the map." |
#02 River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho
#03 Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear
#04 Al Pacino & Michelle Pfeiffer in Frankie & Johnny
#05 Mary Stuart Masterson in Fried Green Tomatoes
#06 Reese Witherspoon in The Man in the Moon
#07 Lili Taylor in Dogfight
#08 Mimi Rogers in The Rapture
#09 John Goodman in Barton Fink
#10 Val Kilmer in The Doors
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Robert De Niro in Guilty By Suspicion
#12 Gary Oldman in JFK
#13 Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise
#14 Hugo Weaving & Genevieve Picot & Russell Crowe in Proof
#15 Danny Glover in Grand Canyon
#16 Jessica Tandy in Fried Green Tomatoes
#17 Dustin Hoffman in Hook
#18 Annette Bening in Guilty By Suspicion
#19 Tommy Lee Jones in JFK
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs [I have always had a believability problem with Jodie]
> Robin Williams in The Fisher King [really can't tell you why...apart from his nude scene of course]
> Mercedes Ruehl in The Fisher King [too Noo Yawk for me; always was, even when she was in Frasier]
> Nick Nolte in The Prince of Tides [wish he hadn't fallen in love with his shrink - blights what came before]
> Jack Palance in City Slickers [Jack Dark is infinitely preferable to Jack Lite]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1991 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: JFK (Oliver Stone)
SILVER: Frankie & Johnny (Garry Marshall)
BRONZE: Barton Fink (Ethan & Joel Coen)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: River Phoenix (My Own Private Idaho)
SILVER: Val Kilmer (The Doors)
BRONZE: Robert De Niro (Guilty By Suspicion)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes)
SILVER: Lili Taylor (Dogfight)
BRONZE: Mimi Rogers (The Rapture)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs)
SILVER: John Goodman (Barton Fink)
BRONZE: Danny Glover (Grand Canyon)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear)
SILVER: Jessica Tandy (Fried Green Tomatoes)
BRONZE: Annette Bening (Guilty By Suspicion)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Al Pacino & Michelle Pfeiffer (Frankie & Johnny)
SILVER: Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise)
BRONZE: Hugo Weaving & Genevieve Picot & Russell Crowe (Proof)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Reese Witherspoon (The Man in the Moon)
SILVER: Anna Chlumsky (My Girl)
BRONZE: TBA
The Alternate Razzies for 1991 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Prospero's Books (Peter Greenaway)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Kenneth Branagh (Dead Again)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Sissy Spacek (JFK)
