My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 2 - Schindler's List (1993)

Schindler's List (1993; Universal Pictures)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Thomas Keneally (novel); Steven Zaillian (Screenplay)

Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes

This is the film a lot of hardcore film fans probably expected to be #1.  It currently ranks #7 on the IMDB top 100, it’s #8 on the American Film Institute’s, and it won an impressive seven Oscars including best picture.  It’s probably as close to “perfect” as a film can get.  The only reason it is number 2 on my list is because the number one slot is reserved for my favorite film of all time.  It’s a personal choice, and does in no way mean I think less of this movie.  That said…

Schindler’s List tells the story of industrialist Oskar Schindler (Neeson), a shrewd businessman who operates in the employ of the Third Reich for the war effort while turning a profit, but in the end, he is faced with a choice: greed, or the right thing.  The film is told in two parts: the first focuses on the Nazi’s advance in power and their segregation of Jews into the ghettos, the second centers on the Final Solution, where the remaining few were shipped to camps and a systematic genocide began.  Meanwhile, Schindler himself is hiring a number of Jewish workers for his factory and as he is essential to the Reich’s success at the time, he becomes an obstacle of sorts for the cruel Nazi Lieutenant Amon Goeth (Fiennes).  Schindler’s right-hand man Mr. Stern (Kingsley) begs him to help, but at first Schindler is reluctant until a fateful encounter at a Nazi train depot almost finds Stern in Birkenau until Schindler cames to his rescue.  After this near loss of his colleague and friend he is inspired to do all he can to save as many lives as possible by signing them on as recruits for his factories to protect them from the trains to the concentration camps.  Of course, there is a lot more to this film than that, but for a core synopsis, that’s the best I can word it.

Schindler’s List forces the audience into a hard position.  If you were Oskar Schindler, how far would you go to save these otherwise-doomed souls from the hands of the evil Third Reich?  Because, his stand against Hitler’s forces could have not only cost him his enterprise, but his very life.  Yet, the revelation that he can use his influence to help people, even if it is just a few in the grand scheme, makes his actions all that more meaningful.  This is a story of one man doing all he can to save only a few lives at the risk of losing his freedom.

The film is shot in beautiful black and white, having a deep contrast creating a very crisp look.  Every shot is astounding, too.  There are beautiful scenes juxtaposed against a rightfully-mournful tone.  Likely the most striking and memorable visual moment shows a young girl in a bright red dress against the entirely black and white scene.  This one piece of symbolism has become the defining image of the film from an artistic standpoint.

The performances by all involved are just excellent, too.  Ralph Fiennes in-particular gives a grim and harrowing Oscar-nominated performance as the Nazi officer.  Every scene with him is just chilling.  Unlike a cartoonish villain lacking humanity, we see that in him because we know what he is, but his performance is quite understated despite a few shocking moments.  Liam Neeson gives the best performance of his career here and shows a hint of just how much of an essential performer he could have continued to be if it weren’t for the dreadful Phantom Menace grinding his career to a screeching halt for nearly a decade.

I railed against the Oscars a few times during this list but the Academy got it right in 1994, because in-spite of not ONE actor from this film winning an Oscar, the movie as a whole was recognized for the artistic achievement it was.  There are very, very few films that really depict the Holocaust in any capacity for a few reasons.  First, it isn’t the sort of subject one associates with “entertainment” and secondly, if you mess things up, you are through.  Nobody will respect you as a filmmaker again.  This goes all the way back to the notorious Italian Nazi exploitation flicks of the 70’s which have gone down in legend as some of the most deplorable pieces of cinema ever filmed.  So, it’s understandably-rare to see a quality, successful film tackle this subject, especially as masterfully as Schindler’s List does.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 16 - Apollo 13 (1995)

Apollo 13 (1995; Universal Pictures)

Director: Ron Howard

Writers: Bill Broyles, Jr. and Al Reinert (adapted screenplay); Jim Lovell and Jeff Kluger (novel)

Starring: Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris

The Apollo missions were the culmination of centuries of science and mathematics evolving over generations, ending with a few chosen men walking on the dusty terrain of Earth’s Moon.  It is a story that has been told time and time again.  However, the flight of Apollo 11 was not the last of the NASA’s lunar excursions.  The Apollo 13 mission was intended to send a few astronauts to the Moon for further study but this objective was cut short due to a sudden and shocking tragedy.

The story of how Jim Lovell (Hanks), Fred Haise (Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Bacon) survive a crippling explosion aboard their ill-fated vessel is a gripping and captivating tale of strength and ingenuity.  A fuel leak leads to an explosion that rocks the ship and severely damages several essential systems, most dangerously were the climate control unit and the oxygen and air filtration system.  With certain death looming just around the corner, these three men fight to stay alive and escape the cold and deadly throws of space.  To make it back, the heroic explorers require the help of a dedicated team of technicians in Houston and one astronaut named Ken Mattingly (Sinise) who, after testing positive for measles, was forced to stay grounded.  The lengths that the headstrong NASA workers go to keep their men alive are the stuff of legend, and make for some fascinating dramatic tension.

Through the 90’s, Ron Howard had proven himself to be one of the most talented and consistent directors in Hollywood.  The former child actor and Happy Days star shocked everyone by becoming a super-talent behind the camera, taking on challenging projects that use tension and drama to keep their audiences frozen to their screens.  His work on Apollo 13 is astounding, and though the film did not sweep the Oscars (being up against the titan that was Braveheart), it deserved the awards it was nominated for.  In my honest opinion, Apollo 13 ranks alongside some of the most idiotic Oscar snubs in history, close to the likes of Citizen Kane losing Best Picture to How Green Was My Valley in 1942.

Apollo 13 is a blend of beautiful cinematography, superb performances from everyone involved, an engaging and true story and a very intelligent screenplay.  There is not a boring or pointless scene in this movie.  Everything counts, from the time the astronauts spend on Earth preparing for their missions, to the scenes that cut back to their families.  There is no filler.  The film paints a vivid picture of how everyone connected to this shocking event felt upon hearing the news.  Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise (a personal favorite performer of mine) all give some of the best performances of their excellent careers in this enthralling and tense drama.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 27 - Fight Club (1999)

Fight Club (1999; 20th Century Fox Pictures)

Director: David Fincher

Writer: Jim Uhls

Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter

Fight Club is the 1999 film adaptation of the novel of the same name from writer Chuck Palahniuk.  It is a funny indictment of unbridled consumerism, drawing comparisons to shopping from Ikea with enslavement and disease.  It is certainly an anti-establishment message shoved into a strange series of parallels and metaphors.  So, who better to put together a plot puzzle like this than the man who directed The Game and Seven?

Edward Norton plays a (sort of) unnamed narrator who is tormented by his endless fight with daily life and his sudden urge to buy increasingly-useless crap from the consumer catalog du jour.  Depressed and struggling with crippling insomnia, our narrator begins to attend various support groups for disease and addiction for things he does not even suffer from, only to feel… something.  This therapy works, until a woman named Marla (Carter) begins showing up for the same groups, becoming a plaguing distraction.  During a business trip, he meets an outgoing, fast-talking man named Tyler Durden (Pitt), who seems to have none of the same fears and worries he suffers from.  Essentially, he is the narrator’s polar opposite.  A freak disaster leads the narrator to contact Tyler and they meet up, becoming friends, and eventually, this leads to them fighting in an alley.  Over time, this one fight evolves into hundreds, all over the country, from multiple groups of Fight Clubs, and replaces any need for support groups and shoulders to cry on.  Things grow and grow, becoming even more desperate, and Marla is dragged back in with Tyler, with whom she begins a very, very loud sexual relationship.  With the narrator's own vision of what Fight Club becoming distorted into a movement that has grown far out of his control, the film’s tone becomes extremely dark and more than a little threatening, all leading to a climax that is surprising and kind of terrifying..

Fight Club is a brutal rejection of casual consumerism.  It mocks marketing, and even has the Club members use that marketing as a weapon against the system they feel has enslaved them.  The mood shifts from comic to thriller steadily throughout the film, but from the very beginning there is a sense of unease.  We are told early in the film that “With insomnia nothing’s real.  Everything’s far away.  Everything’s a copy of a copy of a copy…”, and that is exactly what much of the first act feels like.  Scenes are very dreamlike, full of strange imagery of floating catalog price information and CGI penguins.  There are subliminal images that flicker and disappear, almost like hallucinations, and the whole production has this very cold, artificial feel to its benefit.  The surrealist elements of the film never feel too out of place since we are meant to be seeing this world through the eyes of a troubled man.  

David Fincher was the perfect choice to direct this movie.  He is able to weave incredibly complex and layered narratives into a cohesive and captivating story.  He is probably better at this than just about any other director working in Hollywood today, with successes like Zodiac and The Social Network telling stories that span several years with a great deal of coherence, something that is very difficult to do without losing your audience.  Fight Club just may be one of the most ambitious film adaptations of all time.  Not because of thousands of fighting soldiers and castles that need to be modeled and CGI’d, but because it is a story told in first person, from the perspective of an individual who sees the world very differently from the way most people do.  Fincher’s ability to put you in the eyes of this one broken and desperate man is simply astounding.  

Now, I am trying to stay vague with this article because if you have not seen this movie yet, it is a must-watch.  It is violent, gritty, and even a little convicting.  You could have been doing something great, and you did nothing productive.  In a shocking and brutal, but funny scene, Tyler holds a young man at gunpoint for “wasting his life” and not pursuing his dream career, for which he lets the man live with the promise that he will pursue a better life.  It is mean, but it is also honest.  Fight Club certainly has a little bit of preachiness to it, which is usually a turn-off, but I never got the feeling that this was based on some schizophrenic’s insane ramblings like I did with tripe like The Day After Tomorrow or overwrought, heavy-handed ripoff material like Avatar.  I was entranced by the film’s fun visuals and darkly humorous tone.  The screenplay is freaking outstanding and every performance is damn good.  Brad Pitt gives what is probably my favorite performance of his career as Tyler Durden and Edward Norton is bringing his A-Game as an awkward, nerdy doormat who is transformed into a tough-as-nails, takes-no-crap badass over the course of the movie.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 28 - Rushmore (1998)

Director: Wes Anderson

Writers: Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson

Starring: Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray

Wes Anderson makes his first appearance on my list with his 1998 film Rushmore.  This is Anderson’s second feature film and the first one he did to really get promotion, thanks to a more recognizable cast and a higher-profile marketing campaign.  Rushmore is a strange film, as is typical for Anderson, only, it is strange in a proper way.  I will go more into Anderson’s style of filmmaking later but suffice it to say for now, if you have not seen a film by Wes Anderson, then  you have not really seen anything like it.

Rushmore is the story of a super-intelligent teenager named Max Fisher (Schwartzman) who has a great deal of influence at an exclusive private academy called Rushmore.  He is followed by his much younger protege who more or less acts as his secretary as he heads and organizes a bevy of time-consuming clubs.  As a result of his devotion to extra-curricular activities, Max’s grades are suffering and he finds himself at odds with the headmaster, who places him on academic probation.  Meanwhile, a beautiful young teacher named Ms. Cross becomes the target of Max’s affection, a crush that comes between him and his much older friend named Herman Blum (Murray), when she and Blum begin dating.  The plot shifts to focus primarily on Fisher and Blum’s fight over Ms. Cross, which increases in desperation.

If the synopsis seems a little broad, that would be because it is a Wes Anderson film.  Anderson’s stories are usually a series of layered plots that are intermingled with the film never focusing firmly on just one for too long.  There is enough of an underlying focus for the story for there to actually be a movie, but it never becomes the center of the film, it is just there to tie together the various other subplots.  Rushmore is a constant stream of sight gags and an odd awkwardness that may come off as ineptitude, until you actually watch the entire film.  The strange pauses, fourth-wall-breaking montages and tone throughout the film all add up to a strange experience, but a funny one.  Chances are, however, that if you do not like one Wes Anderson movie, you will probably dislike all of them, with the one exception of the more recent Moonrise Kingdom, which was an excellent movie, and a definite evolution for Anderson as a filmmaker.  

Rushmore is a funny, slightly disjointed and unhinged movie about teenage awkwardness and social standing and it challenges norms of filmmaking in just about every scene.  Anderson has made it part of his style to break the established “rules” of direction, and what comes of it is both a funny film, and a unique artistic idea.  All of his movies have a distinct palette as well, which further add to their identity.  Anderson makes a distinct sharp yellow the chromatic focus of every scene, with browns and soft greens becoming compliments.  These earth-tones are then contrasted with foreground elements like Max’s bright red beret.  Another interesting trademark of Anderson is how he makes certain performances stand out in scenes by have them follow slightly more subdued acting from other lead characters.  This makes some more dramatic scenes seem louder than they really are, giving the illusion of a heightened series of events, without ever breaking the sardonic feel of the movie.

My 40 Favorite Films of the 90's - 36 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

T2: Judgement Day (1991; Tristar Pictures)

Director: James Cameron

Writers: James Cameron, William Wisher, Jr.

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick

I am pretty sure it is safe to call The Terminator one of the best thrillers of the 80’s.  It is a very simple movie in its story and structure, yet it was intensely explosive and entertaining.  In the film Linda Hamilton plays Sarah Connor, a waitress who becomes the target of a time-traveling killing machine called the T-800 sent from the future by a computer-controlled consciousness called Skynet.  She was to bear the child who would lead the resistance against the machines.  Her death would mark the end of the fight for man in the future, so a time travelling human named Kyle Reese was sent back to protect her, but inadvertently falls for her, and well-shot love scene marks a major turning point in the film.  In the end, Sarah successfully destroys the machine that pursued her and shortly after the events of the film, she finds that she was pregnant with Kyle’s child, who she named John, and this brings us to Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

The titular Judgement Day is in reference to a nuclear attack from Skynet that was its first strike in the war against mankind.  The sequel is set a few years before Judgement Day, this time the Terminator is reprogrammed and sent back by the human resistance to protect John Connor.  It is discovered that Skynet is making the first move on the teenage John’s life by sending back a deadly new type of Terminator called the T-1000, a cybernetic liquid metal alloy that can take any solid shape and even replicate the face and voice of humans.  It is Skynet’s deadliest weapon yet, and sending back a requisitioned terminator is the only hope to save John’s life.  

The film focuses on the T-1000’s pursuit of John Connor, and the T-800’s attempts to protect him.  Along the way John orders his protector to help him break his mother out of a mental institution where Sarah Connor was incarcerated after her traumatic encounter with the machine in 80’s had led her to warn of their coming threat and the authorities’ rejection of her warnings resulted in her becoming increasingly violent.  After a successful rescue, he three heroes meet with a weapons dealer, gather a small arsenal, and make an attempt to stop Judgement Day by finding the machines’ architect Miles Dyson and killing him, but ultimately they acquire his aid and attempt to stop the devastating nuclear attack that was only a few years away.

Judgement Day was a mix of ideas from the start.  It was part high-concept science fiction, part action blockbuster and it featured solid performances from everyone.  A big takeaway from this film is Robert Patrick as the T-1000, which is a seemingly-unstoppable juggernaut willing and able to kill anyone and do anything to accomplish its task.  Like the Terminator that tried to kill Sarah before, it is a terror that does not sleep, eat or even slow down.  Yet, the T-1000 is even more deadly as all weapons seem useless and all attempts at eliminating it are futile.  The villain is easily the best thing about this movie, but it still quite excellent as a whole.

I do want to take just a moment and talk about James Cameron as a director.  I will not go on too long here, but I do want to say that he is incredibly talented visual artist, able to weave together great action scenes and has always been ahead of the curve in his ability to harness the latest visual effects technology to its fullest potential.  That said, he has never really come across to me as a particularly capable storyteller.  The Terminator series has a pretty straightforward story as a whole, despite a few attempts to add depth.  Yet, it seems to me that, while Cameron can certainly write an action scene and a solid David vs. Goliath plot, he does not seem particularly good at handling human characters.  One major flaw with Terminator 2 is how Sarah is a normal working woman in the 80’s yet finds herself institutionalized then escapes this facility a trained tactical weapons expert.  There is also the fact that John Connor is a conveniently-skilled hacker, an ability that is necessary for the plot to work, but not fully utilized or expounded upon.  Lastly, there are the plot holes surrounding the Terminator himself.  If he was reprogrammed, how is he being controlled?.  For that matter, how is Skynet controlling him?  If he was assigned orders before he was sent back, then why is he able to deviate from these orders at all?  We see in the unbelievably-flawed Terminator 3 that the machine is more than capable of defying the orders of anyone that sent it back in order to accomplish its ultimate task.  How are the humans able to send anyone back at all?  All of this has been addressed to an extent by outside media like books, comics and (to a certain degree) the later films, but Terminator 2 seems to exist solely for the action.  There is not much of an attempt to expound upon the basic premise, there is only the effort to make everything big and pretty.  This is a problem I would continue to have with Cameron’s films even up until today.  There is simply so much that makes no sense in all of his films, yet these problems are readily dismissed.  I just cannot let him off the hook for his films’ issues, however, because there are just too many of them.

So, why then is Terminator 2 (or T2, as it is known from its early-90's marketing campaign) even on my list at all?  Well, that is a very easy question to answer.  Terminator 2 sits at number 36 because it is a loud, aggressive, fun action flick.  Nothing more, nothing less.  For the same reason Die Hard is held at such high regard, Terminator 2 is a movie I love because it is simply fun to watch.  The performances, while written in a hackneyed sort of way, are still acted well, and the action set pieces and effects scenes are all some of the best of the 90’s.  It is a driving, high-energy film with very little downtime, and that pace keeps me coming back to it every once in a while.