Catching Up With The 90s: The Ones You Haven't Seen, And What You Thought

Because somebody mentioned it and I thought it sounded like a great idea.

Carlito's Way - This is probably my second favorite De Palma, after Blow Out. It'd make a fantastic triple feature with Prince of the City and American Gangster. I was a big anti-De Palma guy on the boards for a while, but this film, yet again, proves what a fool I was. Pacino is so good here, as is Penn. It's one of the great late-period Pacino performances, and I like the poor man's Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Ann Miller.* That end set piece (even though I recognized the profile when the film started) is better than the train sequence from The Untouchables, and I really liked the film's use of voice over.

Barton Fink - Eh. I liked parts of it, but overall, it felt more like an exercise than anything. Considering that's how the project got started (while the Coens were writing Miller's Crossing, a far superior film), I can see how Barton is everything the Coens were going through at that time. I liked Goodman a great deal, and I thought the visuals were stunning, but this is one that I appreciated on a technical level rather than really connecting with. As a fan of Lynch and Mulholland Drive, I am all about the "What's it all about, Alfie?" school of filmmaking, but I didn't feel like this film challenged me enough to make me want to think about it further. The Coens have done far better.

*She's Carmine Sabitini's daughter Tina.

I quite adore this film, even though I've only seen it once. Pullman's a terribly underrated actor, and this was back when Ben Stiller was taking interesting roles. It's a shame Jake Kasdan turned out to be such a shitty director. Like father, like son, I guess.

Keep in mind that I am one of the few people that count Hudsucker Proxy among their favorite Coens (for years it was the only one of theirs I was allowed to see, so I watched it quite a bit), so maybe Barton just didn't connect with me. Keep in mind that I'm not saying it's a bad movie -- because it isn't -- but it's one where I went into it with high expectations that I didn't feel were met. It's definitely a film that I'd be interested in reading a little bit more on. And I forgot to mention that I loved John Mahoney's Faulkner riff. Good stuff there.

A film that I had seen before (see "watched it a lot when I was younger"), but hadn't seen in years until this past weekend was The Fifth Element. Plot-wise, the film makes no sense, but it's bright, colorful, fun, and it has more going on visually than most summer blockbusters being made today. It's one where it's clear Besson was just given a fuckton of money and allowed to pursue his vision. I got to give it props to that -- and the girlfriend, who is a big fan, pointed out that Oldman was doing W. before we even knew who W. was. Also, "Leelo Dallas multipass."

I forgot about one of my favorite parts of Carlito's Way: the soundtrack. I'm a disco fan, so I liked that it was almost wall-to-wall dance music, but Patrick Doyle's score was awesome and I dug how De Palma used some of those dance tunes in creative ways. I'm thinking about the use of "Backstabbers" when Viggo shows up.

The girlfriend is a big Titus fan, and she decided it would be a great idea to start watching it late one night. I didn't get too far with it, but here's my review:

What the fuck is this motherfucking crazy movie? Harry Lennix is great, though.