1992 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1992:

1. Aladdin
2. The Bodyguard
3. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
4. Basic Instinct
5. Lethal Weapon 3
6. Batman Returns
7. A Few Good Men
8. Sister Act
9. Bram Stoker's Dracula
10. Wayne's Wold

What are your top three films for 1991? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
2. Malcolm X
3. Husbands and Wives

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. Malcolm X
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
3. Rebels of the Neon God

Also under consideration: Ram Ke Naam, progressive Indian documentarian Anand Patwardhan’s look at religious fundamentalism and nationalism in his country, Reservoir Dogs because it’s very good, I enjoy Boomerang and Wayne’s World, I remember liking the Unforgiven but I’ve only seen it once, in high school.

 

1. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
2. Aladdin
3. Malcolm X

4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Unforgiven
6. Hard Boiled
7. Bitter Moon
8. Benny’s Video
9. Braindead
10. Army of Darkness

Figured I'd just start going for a top 10 now since there's so much great stuff. Fire Walk With Me is by far my favourite of the year though.

 

Coincidentally, yesterday a student told me I look the Penguin from Batman Returns.

 

1. Wayne’s World
2. The Mighty Ducks
3. Encino Man
4. 3 Ninjas
5. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

 

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Batman Returns
3. Home Alone 2

…I obviously need to see more from this year

 

1. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch)
2. The Quince Tree Sun (Erice)
3. Unforgiven (Eastwood)
-
4. The Last Dive (Monteiro)
5. The Long Day Closes (Davies)
6. Antigone (Straub-Huillet)
7. Raising Cain (De Palma)
8. Rapado (Rejtman)
9. The Player (Altman)
10. Life, and Nothing More… (Kiarostami)

A lighter year than the last few. Still a strong batch of films, but only the number one and two picks here would stand alongside any of the top 10 I listed for ‘91.

 

1. The Story of Qiu Ju
2. Rebels of the Neon God
3. Porco Rosso

The Story of Qiu Ju is (probably) my favourite Zhang Yimou film. Gong Li's character, watches her husband get kicked in the balls by the local village chief and then seeks justice for him through China's various legal systems. A fascinating look at bureaucracy, and the rural & city divide in China in the early 90s, with each time Qiu Ju is rejected, she takes it to the next court, motivated only by principle.

Rebels of the Neon God has an undeniably fantastic title, and it's a Tsai Ming-liang about youth disaffection and urban ennui in modern Taipei, which was a very common theme in Taiwanese films in this period. A great little slice of isolation in the big city.

Porco Rosso is Miyazaki's charming and spellbinding adventure about a pig pilot during WW1 in Italy. It's a smaller, simpler film than some of his others, closer in tone to Kiki's Delivery Service than something like Spirited Away. Also contains an all time great line, "I'd rather be a pig than a fascist."

For some good HK stuff, we have a remake of King Hu's Dragon Inn, which has a scene stealing performance from Maggie Cheung. There's John Woo's Hard Boiled, which feels like a culmination of all of his action cinema before that, and the last great film he made before moving to Hollywood, where I stopped enjoying his stuff. There's also two Angel Terminator films, both with Moon Lee, containing some ferocious stunt work and martial arts choreography. Jackie Chan's Police Story 3 came out this year too, with a brilliant supporting role for Michelle Yeoh, and what should have been the last in that series.

There's Aladdin and The Muppet Christmas Carol, both of which I watched incessantly on VHS as a kid.

A couple of European films about violence and media portrayal of violence that I like is Haneke's Benny's Video, and the very unpleasant but captivating Man Bites Dog from Belgium.

For a good short (25 minute) film, there's Mike Leigh / Jim Broadbent's A Sense of History, a mockumentary of sorts about an upper class member of the gentry as he shows us round his family's stately home.

 

1. Malcolm X
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. Unforgiven

 

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Unforgiven
3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Honorable mentions:

Malcolm X
Bad Lieutenant
Last of the Mohicans
Hard-Boiled
Batman Returns
Army of Darkness
Wayne’s World

 

1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Malcolm X
3. Army of Darkness

 

1. Unforgiven
2. Hard Boiled
3. Last of the Mohicans

Malcolm X is the biggest blind spot for me here. Still, shocked at the (relative) lack of love for Hard Boiled and especially Unforgiven, that one was a no brainer for me

 

This is a far weaker year for me but there are still a decent amount that I really like -

1. Hard Boiled
2. Candyman
3. Basic Instinct

Bold ones are more favourites followed by other notable, albeit lesser, efforts that I enjoy; Batman Returns, Unforgiven, My Cousin Vinny, One False Move, Reservoir Dogs, A Few Good Men, The Last of the Mohicans, Patriot Games, Sneakers, Raising Cain, Lethal Weapon 3, El Mariachi, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Innocent Blood, and Unlawful Entry.

 

I am watching Sonatine now to prep for 1993, although I do have a strong top 3. I need to watch Hard Boiled

 

1. Unforgiven
2. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
3. Malcolm X

the twin peaks film didn’t quite live up to the best of the first two seasons but still good enough to sit number two in a decent year. Some others worth mentioning are Reservoir Dogs, Aladdin which is my favorite Disney movie, My Cousin Vinny, and 3 Ninjas because the 7 year old me would be pissed if I didn’t mention it. I need to see Hard Boiled.

 

It is funny how much the Twin Peaks movie was dismissed at the time considering that the third season really continues that story more than anyone would have predicted.

 

A very close year so far. Four films have at least ten votes.

 

Come on Twin Peaks!

 

I haven't seen Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, as I assumed it was fully tied to the TV show, which I also haven't watched as I'm not much of a TV person.

However, just briefly looking it up now, I can see it's listed as a prequel. Is it something that would be enjoyable without having seen the TV show, or would it completely rely upon it?

I'm usually a huge fan of Lynch, and would like to get through Twin Peaks someday, but I do find these big "Prestige" TV Shows a bit of a daunting time commitment.

 

nah, you definitely need to see the show first.

 

Figured so! That's a shame for now at least. Thanks!

 

It would be better to see the show, but the overall plotting is so abstract at times that you are going to be lost either way. The best part of the movie is the prequel portion.

 

I don't watch much television these days, but Twin Peaks is definitely worth the commitment. I think it falters in the back half of the second season, but everything up to that point is characteristically Lynch and highly entertaining. Fire Walk With Me might be his best film, at least top 3. And The Return is one of the rare contemporary works that lives up to the abundant claims of its status as a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

 

1. Porco Rosso
2. Army of Darkness
3. Hard-Boiled

 

Unforgiven
Braindead
Reservoir Dogs

Honorable mention for the severely underrated Sneakers.