GMD Social Poll: Top Ten Films of 1993

For the next year I'd like to tackle the 1960's, but which year in that decade would you like:

  • 1960

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • 1961

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1962

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • 1963

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • 1964

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • 1965

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1966

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1967

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1968

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1969

    Votes: 2 25.0%

  • Total voters
    8
This turned out pretty much how I expected it to. The directors I was sure were going to dominate dominated and there probably is an egregious overuse of words like “erotic”, “thriller” and “erotica”. Blog spam occasionally included for added "context" or something, though considering one of the films on the list, it seems appropriate. An exceptional year, one of the best of the decade. Anyway...

1. Dangerous Game (Abel Ferrara) - One of the most brilliant uses of the film-within-a-film device, Ferrara's hate letter to his chosen profession is the epitome of a “misunderstood masterpiece”, crafting a story out of everything that can go wrong when set life and real life blur and the fictional film at the center of the narrative starts to resemble the real lives of the actors and vice-versa. The confessional nature and overarching theme of guilt is carried over from Bad Lieutenant (1992) in a big way, giving the film a very personal, and sometimes uncomfortably so, feel, Ferrara even going the extra self-reflexive mile by casting his real-life wife at the time, Nancy, as the wife of Harvey Keitel's director character Eddie Isreal. An obvious comparison would be Zulawski's La femme publique (1984), with the fictional directors being surrogates for the real life masters and the lead females playing multiple roles (in more than one sense of the term), though Dangerous Game is of course its own thing entirely, with the unmistakable grit that is inherent in every Ferrara film giving an already emotionally raw film even more sting. The films original title, “Snake Eyes”, couldn't have been more appropriate as the film is venomous, the ensemble cast brilliantly delivering Nicholas St. John's poisonous, acidic dialogue. Keitel can't be anything but good and Madonna does legitimately phenomenal work, but the unsung hero of the film is James Russo who goes to the depths of misery, emitting so much rage and spitefulness it's a miracle he didn't spontaneously combust. This stands alongside The Addiction (1995) as one of Ferrara's masterworks. Of course it went over most everyone's head in 1993. I need these things.

2. Flesh and Bone (Steve Kloves) - The most egregiously underrated film of not only this year but perhaps the entire decade. It's genuinely baffling how underseen this film is, especially with a cast of this caliber. Perhaps it was because leads Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan were an item and audiences wanted a light romcom and not a hauntingly grim southern gothic neo-noir western. One of the darkest films to come out of 90's Hollywood, the black cloud that adorns the home video releases of the film also hovers over Quaid's head throughout the entire film with the desolate, often overcast and stormy west Texas locations having a personality all their own but also a unique, melancholic beauty wonderfully captured by Kloves. And again, that cast. Quaid and Ryan were never better and a young Gwyneth Paltrow, years before she took to blogging about butthole cleansing techniques, makes for convincing white trash. It's James Caan, however, that leaves the biggest impression. Caan is menace personified as Quaid's estranged career criminal father who returns to tie-up loose ends. A bad man in every sense of the word. Brilliantly subdued, too making him all the more sinister. The film also has one of the finest soundtrack selections with Cowboy Junkies' “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” being the perfect sonic backdrop for two lost souls drunk together in a roadside motel. If there's one film deserving of a “cult”, it's this.

3. Craving Desire (Sergio Martino) - The Italian's were never shy when it come to borrowing certain things from whatever films are popular in America at any given time, but it some cases they were really borrowing from themselves. The American slasher owes a hell of a lot to the Italian giallo as does the erotic thriller, so when the later became the hottest thing in the 90's of course Italy was going to get in on the action. Aesthetically, Craving Desire couldn't be anymore early 90's erotic thriller if it tried and more than likely was aimed more for late night American cable than Italian theaters. Hardly a bad thing, if anything the films time capsule qualities make it all the more endearing, but while the film may visually resemble an American potboiler the film is 100% Italian in execution. This of course means the film is 10x more fucked up than any American thriller of the day, with an incest theme springboarding the film into even more gleefully depraved areas, even going full horror near the end. Vittoria Belvedere smolders as a psycho nympho cousin, even giving some of the more well known femme fatales of the era a run for their money while Martino, a jack of all genre trades, knows exactly the kind of film he's making and revels in it, ultimately resulting in one of his best films. Premium sleaze.

4. The Washing Machine (Ruggero Deodato) - Despite what the title may lead one to believe in light of Deodato's possessed phone line film Dial: Help (1988), this isn't another appliance themed horror film. Pretty much everything said above regarding Craving Desire could be applied here. Yet another Italian genre veteran at the helm of another film informed by American erotic thrillers, this is somewhat more in line with classic giallo, though the plot of a detective getting involved over his head with the prime suspects in a murder case is very Basic Instinct (1992)-esque. Much like Craving Desire, this being an Italian film, Deodato's approach is more than slightly skewed, this being a head scratchingly strange affair with the murder suspects being three sisters, each being more loony than the last who throw salads into crotches as a means of seduction and get frisky with the hapless detective in a museum surrounded by blind people. Patently absurd but never boring for a second. A very different film from Deodato's more infamous titles like Cannibal Holocaust (1980) or The House on the Edge of the Park (1980) which is probably why it's hardly ever mentioned (though it did get a nifty DVD release in a metal case made up to actually look like a washing machine), but also shows how versatile a filmmaker he really is. As an aside, I love it so much I renamed my blog after it's original Italian title, “Vortice mortale”.

5. Body of Influence (Gregory Dark) - One of the pinnacles of the direct-to-video erotic thriller and not simply Dark's work in the medium which was always a cut above his contemporaries. The most psychological of his erotic thrillers, this is also perhaps the darkest (pun intended) of the lot, going down some fascinating and thought-provoking rabbit holes pertaining to human psychology and sexuality with Dark using psychosexuality to craft one of his most gleefully fucked up pot-boilers. The star patient is queen of the video thriller and Dark muse Shannon Whirry, who's sexually dominant/repressed split personality leads unorthodox shrink Nick Cassavetes (son of John) down a most unethical path while he's in the middle of assisting his cop buddy in a murder investigation. Whirry is at her vest best here and the whole idea of the double/split identity gives Dark license to occasionally let the guise of reality to slip, if only for a few moments, and the way the murder investigation eventually ties in with the main story surrounding Whirry is really clever screenwriting. Whirry even gets a line worthy of Cronenberg, opining “The body has its own morality. Listen to the flesh”. Don Swayze however has perhaps the best line. “It was sex, man. Pure sex”. An apex of a lost genre unique to it's time

6. Secret Games 2: The Escort (Gregory Dark) - The Darkman strikes again in what was an exhaustively prolific year, with Dark (or Hippolyte, as he signed his erotic thrillers) churning out four exceptional thrillers and three hardcore titles. By his own admission, for someone who spent the majority of his career making sex films of both the hard and soft variety, Dark's films aren't exactly “sex positive”. His hardcore films are surreal freak outs that seem designed to repel rather than arose and the foundation of his softcore thrillers is how ill-equipped most adults seem to be when it comes to dealing with their desires. Unlike the majority of Dark's softcore films, Secret Games 2 is unique in that it isn't a thriller. Taking only the prostitution angle from the first Secret Games, a seminal film for the genre, Dark delivers a blistering erotic psychodrama on how easily sex and love are confused and how each can be wielded as a weapon. Barely leaving leading man Martin Hewitt's house save for a few quick scenes, the film at times beings to resemble a claustrophobic play, Hewitt breaking the fourth wall multiple times, addressing the screen via video, musing on sex, women and relationships. In a brilliant move, Dark reveals to have played a secret game of his own with the editing late in the film, giving the reveals at the end of the film an even more cynical bite. Another jewel in Dark/Hippolyte's softcore crown that set a higher standard for 90's erotica.

7. The Bilingual Lover (Vicente Aranda) - Vicente Aranda was already a legend by 1993, having made the surrealist classic Fata Morgana (1965) and two of the greatest Spanish horror films, The Exquisite Cadaver (1969) and The Blood Splattered Bride (1972). The 90's however was perhaps his best decade. Beginning with Amantes (1991), which garnered praise at every festival it played it and earned Aranda a Goya award for best film, Aranda continued on through the decade with a series of erotically charged melodramas that in some ways explored some of the areas that Gregory Dark was trafficking in with his thrillers. This film is somewhat of an outlier. While the film has plenty of the fierce sexuality that defines Aranda's 90's work, it actually has more in common with Aranda's more radical, surreal early films. An exceptionally strange film, it's story could have easily been made into a psychological horror film, and there are nods to The Invisible Man and Phantom of the Opera, but Aranda chose to take an absurd tragicomic approach to love becoming obsession. The humor is as out-there as it gets, with the central character communicating with an altar-ego through the toilet and eternal Italian beauty Ornella Muti getting her kicks hanging shoes on erect appendages. Even stranger is how personal a lot of the film was for Aranda, with a main theme being the Catalan dialect. Coming off a success like Amantes with a film like this took some balls. One of those films where the question of “Who was this made for?” repeatedly arises. Exactly what made Aranda so great.

8. Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara) - The most surprising title in Ferrara's oeuvre, even more so considering it came the same year as Dangerous Game, one of his most un-commerical efforts and it's not hard to see why given his experience on this film. In developmental hell since the 80's with several names attached long before Ferrara was ever considered, the film got the red-headed stepchild treatment from its own studio. Being a studio film, Ferrara was, of course, plagued with interference and would later joke that he should have never been given access to that kind of money but the film is a perfect example of what can be achieved when someone with actual talent and ideas is given a large budget to work with. Ferrara not only brings a side of family drama to the pod people invasion, but none of the films budget was wasted. Shot in scope with so much light needed for some of the nighttime shots Ferrara described it as “setting the actors on fire”, the glossy sheen of the film services the horror in several instances and the skin-crawling effects of the aliens replication process is very Cronenbergian. The military base setting might not be subtle, but it provides an uneasy ambiance, already being a strictly ordered and conforming environment. The family stuff isn't shoehorned in either, playing a integral part in the story, there being a nice crossover with the broken family unit and the aliens “replacing” humans. Massive sound design, too. The piercing shriek the aliens communicate with to identify humans is sure to give any sound system a workout, especially the one let out by Meg Tilly. “Where you gonna go? Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere. 'Cause there's no one like you left.”

9. Intruso (Vicente Aranda) If Aranda was one of Spain's most dependable directors, then his muse Victoria Abril is one of the countries most dependable actresses. Abril began working with Aranda in the late 70's and would appear in several of his films and would go on to work with Almodóvar as well in some key titles. Brilliant as she is in the aforementioned Amantes, this is perhaps her finest work for Aranda, with the whole story of overwhelming guilt that leads her to allow a dying ex-lover into her happy family home resting on her shoulders. Stylistically, Aranda could take anyone to school be he also knew when to hold back and his approach is mostly no frills here, letting Abril and the rest of the cast carry the film into its inevitable, morose conclusion. An extremely downbeat affair, there are times when the sickly, depressed mood of a film like Aranda's Exquisite Cadaver begins to take hold, the film being even darker with the addition of two children (two wonderful, non-annoying child actors, by the way. A rare thing.) with Abril's guilt building until a showstopping moment when she really gets to lose it in front of her husband and children. We're a happy family, indeed. With the response to The Bilingual Lover essentially being a collective “What the actual fuck?”, this was Aranda's attempt to at going back to an Amantes type storyline, but like the rest of Aranda's 90's work, no two are exactly the same, the grim atmosphere of rot making Intruso a definite standout and one of the best films to come from on of the most fruitful director/actress collaborations.

10. Calendar (Atom Egoyan) - Sandwiched in-between the masterpiece The Adjuster (1991) and his breakthrough film Exotica (1994), this is one of Egoyan's most curious works. Obviously a very personal project for Egoyan and wife/muse Arsinée Khanjian with the two of them starring as fictionalized versions of themselves, their Armenian heritage playing a crucial role in the film, it's a very deceptive and tricky little film. With a run time of a little over an hour, on the surface the film seems to be a fairly simple story of a break-up between a photographer commissioned to take pictures of old Armenian churches and his wife as she gradually falls for their tour guide. Simple enough, but Egoyan's fractured, Roeg-like editing and storytelling make the film one of the most fascinating portrayals of a doomed relationship. Jumping back and forth between the couple on their trip and Egoyan in the present having odd dinner rituals with various prostitutes, the film is enigmatic by design but never cold or uninvolving, due in large part to the personal nature of the film but like in so many other Egoyan films, the feeling of loss and longing is always hovering. As awkwardly funny as some of the dinner scenes are, there is an undeniable sadness to them, the photographer, like so many other characters Egoyan has written, being reduced to repeating the same rituals over and over in an attempt to hold onto the past in some way. The home video look of some of the flashbacks give the film an even more up close and personal feel and it's worth noting that Egoyan never actually appears on screen during those scenes, it being up to Khanjian to effortlessly convey the proper emotions. A testament to how great an actress she really is. The photography angle also serves as a free lesson in shot composition and framing.

HM:

Mirror Images II
Untamed Cowgirls of the Wild West
New Wave Hookers 3
Schramm
Return of the Living Dead III
Kika
Bloodstone: Subspecies II
Sins of the Night
M. Butterfly
The Dark Half
Dark Waters

Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors is also worth bringing up. One of his most derided efforts, but it's admirable in that he was attempting to do a European style Sadean erotic horror film, very Jess Franco, just with a 90's erotica aesthetic. Very good looking film with some memorable imagery plus Robert Englund as the Marquis de Sade. Also, Witchcraft V: Dance With the Devil. Not one that's likely to ever be considered classically “good”, but it rules. If you have to see one entry from that, the longest running direct-to-video series in horror, make it that one. The bad guy looks like Dio.
 
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1. The Temp
2. Lifepod
3. Demolition Man
4. Jurassic Park
5. Red Rock West
6. Fatal Instinct
7. Arizona Dream
8. Coneheads
9. The Pelican Brief
10. The Vanishing

Leaving out Bad Boy Bubby and Body Melt since they're Aussie movies and @CiG would count them as 1994 films, so can throw them in when we do that year.

I'd been meaning to watch Red Rock West and The Temp for a while as they're some of the better-sounding Lara FB films. I wouldn't say The Temp is great, but it's exactly my kinda thing - awkward and slightly unrealistic interactions, quirky dialogue, and random fucked up shit like the shredder scene and the fact it's a cookie company. :rofl: And failing that, I'll let my dick have some of the vote.

eoonk3d.jpg
 
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Obviously a good year for me. I'll definitely have a top 10, but I still have to decide about the ranking, though I'm quite sure I'll put the German movie "Wir können auch anders" at no. 1.
 
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Tombstone
Jurassic Park
Cliffhanger
Men In Tights
The Fugitive
Demolition Man
Last Action Hero

eek, I've never seen Schindler's List
Haven't seen Falling Down in forever
Same with Hard Target

But growing up, I watched Jurassic Park and Cliffhanger CONSTANTLY!
 
1. Sonatine (ソナチネ)
2. True Romance
3. Hard Target
4. Red Rock West
5. Carlito's Way
6. Flesh and Bone
7. Judgement Night
8. Tombstone
9. Iron Monkey (少年黃飛鴻之鐵馬騮)
10. Nowhere to Run

11. Crime Story (重案組)
12. Cliffhanger
13. Last Action Hero
14. Rising Sun
15. Return of the Living Dead III
16. Extreme Justice
17. A Bronx Tale
18. Point of No Return (The Assassin)
19. The Fugitive
20. The Sandlot



Classic underrated JCVD cheeze.
 
Flesh and Bone, a wise selection.

A wise recommendation.

am i high or did you not already post this list with pictures earlier

Yeah after Bloopy reminded me that Bad Boy Bubby and Body Melt are '94 movies, I just redid my whole list and reposted it sans pics. Fuck it.

2. Schramm: Into the Mind of a Serial Killer

Was looking into this one just now, seems cool. The serial killer it's loosely based on was also the basis for a cool James Woods movie, I forget the name, but Schramm looks way sleazier.
 
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