1990 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1990:

1. Ghost
2. Home Alone
3. Pretty Woman
4. Dances With Wolves
5. Total Recall
6. Back to the Future Part III
7. Die Hard 2
8. Presumed Innocent
9. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
10. Kindergarten Cop

What are your top three films for 1990? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Close-Up
2. Slacker
3. Total Recall

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

1. Edward Scissorhands
2. Awakenings
3. Goodfellas

Also love Total Recall, Wild at Heart, Paris Is Burning, Jacob's Ladder and Singapore Sling.

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Paris is Burning
3. Slacker

Relatively easy year to pick for me.

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Total Recall
3. Dances With Wolves

Few blind spots for me this year, Wild at Heart and Dreams most notably

 

1. Total Recall
2. Jacob’s Ladder
3. Slacker

really good year to start a great decade. I don’t know that there’s a year in the 80s where Goodfellas or Wild at Heart wouldn’t make it in my top 3. I went with Slacker because of what it meant to me when I saw it and I just love that Linklater has entered the fold.

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Close-Up
3. Wild at Heart


Great year

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Awakening
3. Slacker

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Close Up
3. Life is Sweet

There's not much more to say about Goodfellas that hasn't been said - everyone's seen it, and it's beloved for a reason. Who else was inspired by Paulie to cut their garlic wafer thin when making pasta?

Close Up is Kiarostami's fascinating docu-fiction hybrid, about a man impersonating Iranian director, Makhmalbaf. The film invites and encourages you to question it's falsehoods and to find the truth in the lies, both in the story and the film itself, with the film-makers very present in the reality of the film. Even with all that, Kiarostami still manages to find moments of mundane and simple beauty, in a way that very few other people could.

The first two were easy, but I had a bit of a hard time with the third, but I went for Leigh's story of a family of Londoners, Life is Sweet. There's no major tragedy here, or significant events, but that allows Leigh to mine bits of truth and wonderful performance in the smaller moments. The conversation between mother and daughter at the end of the film is absolutely as good as anything Leigh has ever done, with an incredibly empathetic and touching performance from Alison Steadman.

Some other good stuff for me include Farewell China, about a man travelling to a nightmare version of New York to look for his missing wife, with a really fantastic and heartbreaking supporting performance from Maggie Cheung.

Also nightmarishly New York is Abel Ferrara's King of New York, with a brilliant central performance from Christopher Walken as a drug king-pin. Ferrara merging his grimy, exploitation past, with bigger budget mainstream aspirations, a bit like Tarantino would do a few years later.

For a very different type of nightmarish New York, there's Wilt Stillman's Metropolitan, a satire about a group of hyper privileged upper class students, deeply in love with each other and impressed with themselves. It's not quite biting enough for me, but it contains an all time great wince-inducing line, "I don't read novels, I prefer good literary criticism".

We have two big HK film-makers this year, John Woo's Bullet in the Head, a Deer Hunter-esque tale about friendships and innocence gone awry in Vietnam, and Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild, a loose, meandering and quite confusing (or it is to me anyway) story about youth, love and family in the 60s.

There's also Aki Kaurismäki's sad and lonely little film, The Match Factory Girl, if you're in the mood for some serious melancholy.

I assume Goodfellas is going to win this at a canter.

 

This is a great year that kicks off the decade in fine style, not only thanks to several original films but also plenty of underrated sequels. My top three are as follows -

1. GoodFellas
2. The Exorcist III
3. Tremors

The following in bold came extremely close to taking that third spot with the rest easily being at worst mild favorites; Total Recall, The Hunt for Red October, Awakenings, Arachnophobia, RoboCop 2, Quigley Down Under, Back to the Future Part III, Misery, Miller’s Crossing, Die Hard 2, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, The Witches, Darkman, La Femme Nikita, Nightbreed, Blue Steel, Boiling Point, Internal Affairs, The Russia House, Narrow Margin, Home Alone, King of New York, Dick Tracy, and Dark Angel.

 

You’ve never seen Goodfellas?

 

It was close.

 

I wonder if the ending of Jacob’s Ladder has turned some people off from it. The movie is an outstanding piece of psychological horror all the way through but with an M. Night Shayamalan style twist that arguably takes away from the story and atmosphere that the movie built up to that point. To me it doesn’t take much away, and on my first viewing I loved it and was blown away but as I’ve gotten older I do kind of wish it ended more consistent with the rest of the film. Still one of my favorite films ever though.

 

Goodfellas and Tremors are Top 10 all time for me.



Tremors is the perfect mix of genres: Western, comedy, horror, B-movie, buddy film, small town setting… plus all practical effects. The first sequel Aftershocks is still a favorite. Every low-budget sequel after that was just plain dumb and unwatchable.

 

I agree with all that you said about the first film, not seen the rest so can't comment on those but what I enjoy so much about it is the film is a clear loving homage to classic 50s monster B-movies.

 

Some hard cuts to make this year. Other good stuff:
Paris is Burning
Frankenhooker
Home Alone
Slacker
Gremlins 2
Total Recall
Tremors
The Suckling
Hard to Kill AND Marked for Death
Lionheart
Problem Child
Meet the Applegates
Pledge Night

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Close-Up
3. Tremors

Really good year overall. I love seeing the love for Tremors - a perfect "saturday afternoon" movie and rewatchable as hell.

I've actually never seen Total Recall, which feels like a big miss for me, since I like Verhoeven. Just never gotten around to it.

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Tremors
3. Miller's Crossing

 

Trying to watch some overlooked ones for 91. Doing Night on Earth now




I kinda hate it!

 

Scorsese has so many great musical moments, but this one has always been the best. The way the music swells as the truck doors open is breathtaking.

 

you are right but i’m not doing a bit when i say the color of money “werewolves of london” scene is right up there

 

Home Alone and TMNT foreverrrrrr

 

1. Goodfellas
2. Tremors
3. Misery

 

Goodfellas wins it with 28 votes. Close-Up was in second place with 9 votes. Goodfellas will move on to the bracket.

 

pretty close.

 

Anyone else remember this gem? Haha