Good kids You know what is really fun? Choose a director you like, then trace the ideas you like about him back through two paths: the films by others that surely influenced him, and also back through his own earlier work. I like Rodriguez. I do. I like the risks he takes, his proclivity to… Continue reading Bedhead (1991)
Tag: 1990s
Films released in the 1990s
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
Missed Baywatch I’m constantly amazed at how quickly some fresh, edgy cinematic ideas go stale. This was strange enough it its time to be noticed: the placement of the narrative stance within the sixth grade. Having played its small role in advancing the scope of narrative irony, it is now merely stupid. I guess the… Continue reading Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996)
Alicia (1994)
Stillborn This is purely personal, but I have a few wickets through which a film must pass for me to willingly splice it into my imagination. I’m only talking here about films that present themselves as art. — It has to be competent, which for me can translates into the degree to which it exploits… Continue reading Alicia (1994)
Aladdin (1992)
Sweet Arabian Skins This, to my mind, is a terrific concoction. It has no story to speak of. Oh, there’s some motion and noise but they are only there to give us something to look at while the three main notions unfurl, all of which are magically competent. There are the songs. Disney can do… Continue reading Aladdin (1992)
The Basketball Diaries (1995)
Visions of the Other Side Unless you are just filling space until you die, you’re going to want something out of experiences like this. The idea is supposed to be that someone can guide us to alternative worlds and report back with something useful or at least interesting. It is not enough to merely watch… Continue reading The Basketball Diaries (1995)
Beautiful Girls (1996)
Dorothy This is some pretty good writing. You know it is pretty good when it deals with ordinary silliness and is directed by a non-entity and yet still engages. This is a fellow that is not afraid to write junk films, but who has also written the amazingly deft self-referential “High Fidelity” and the ambitious… Continue reading Beautiful Girls (1996)
Basil (1998)
Class Yet another example that just plodding through a novel has little to do with making a tenable film. This one just thrashes through the story with nary a nod to cinematic necessities. But it does have Derek Jacobi, an actor with so much presence it almost makes the trip worthwhile. Derek knows how to… Continue reading Basil (1998)
Barton Fink (1991)
I’ll Show You the World of the Mind Any Coen film is worth traveling to see. All of them are enterprises about the enterprise of film-making or writing, but you never know what little side voyage we’re going on, what creases of creation we’re exploring. In this case, instead of playing with a genre, they… Continue reading Barton Fink (1991)
Barcelona (1994)
Talk to Him A great joy in a life with film is to discover a film that is competent and coherent, that exists cinematically but which on reflection has dynamics worth rejecting. After all, you build your life not so much on absorption but on paring. A great sorrow in film is to encounter a… Continue reading Barcelona (1994)
BAPS (1997)
The Curse of the Story Projects like this start with the notion of self-parody. You create funny characters that carry a funny world with them. The Waylons do a good job at this, with the mannerisms so over the top you are aware of the actresses at every moment. TeeVee skits can work on this… Continue reading BAPS (1997)