Top 10 Films of 1993

1. "Groundhog Day" (Harold Ramis, USA)

2. "Helas pour moi" (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland)

3. "Sleepless In Seattle" (Nora Ephron, USA)

4. "Much Ado About Nothing" (Kenneth Branagh, USA)

5. "Smoking / No smoking" (Alain Resnais, France)

6. ''Schindler's List'' (Steven Spielberg, USA)

7. ''Short Cuts'' (Robert Altman, USA)

8. "Women On The Run" (David Lai, Corey Yuen, Hong Kong)

9. "Six Degrees Of Separation" (Fred Schepisi, USA)

10. ''Naked'' (Mike Leigh, UK)

Other great films:

32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (Canada)
The Actor (Iran)
Addams Family Values
The Age Of Innocence
L'Arbre, le maire et la mediathèque (France)

Baby Of Mâcon (UK)

Belle Epoque (Spain)

The Blue Kite (China)

The Bride With White Hair (Hong Kong)

The Bride With White Hair 2 (Hong Kong)

Butterfly And Sword (Hong Kong)

Carlito's Way
Caro Diario (Italy)

Cronos (Mexico)

Daughter Of Darkness (Hong Kong)
Dave
Dazed And Confused

Demolition Man

Dwa ksiezyce (Poland)

Les Enfants jouent a la Russie (France)

Erotic Ghost Story 3 (Hong Kong)

Fatal Love (Hong Kong)

The Firm
First Shot (Hong Kong)
Fong Sai Yuk (Hog Kong)
The Fugitive

Green Snake (Hong Kong)

The Heroic Trio (Hong Kong)
Hot Shots! Part Deux

Huevos de Oro (Spain)
In The Line Of Fire
Iron Monkey (Hong Kong)

Une Jeune fille si charmante (France)

The Joy Luck Club
Jurassic Park

Kalifornia

Kika (Spain)

The Last Action Hero

Legal Innocence (Hong Kong)

Love To Kill (Hong Kong)

Manhattan Murder Mystery

El Mariachi

Naked Killer 2: Raped By An Angel (Hong Kong)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Ninja Scroll (Japan)

Once Upon A Time In China III (Hong Kong)
Philadelphia

The Piano (New Zealand)
Pierscionek z orlem w koronie
Remains Of A Woman (Hong Kong)
The Remains Of The Day

Rising Sun

Ruby In Paradise

Sensual Exposure
The Snapper (UK)

Stalin's Testament (Russia)
Sword Stained With Royal Blood (Hong Kong)
Tai Chi Master (Hong Kong)

Tout ça pour ça (France)
Trois couleurs: Bleu (France)

True Romance

The Untold Story (Hong Kong)

Les Visiteurs (France)
The Wedding Banquet (Taiwan)
What's Love Got To Do With It

Wide Sargasso Sea (Australia)

The Wonderful, Horrible Life Of Leni Riefenstahl (Germany)
Zero Patience (Canada)

Short Top 3:

1. "Something Happened" (Roy Andersson, Sweden)

2. "Victor" (Francois Ozon, France)

3. "Ave Verum Corpus" (Alain Desrochers, Canada)

Top 3 Music Videos:

1. "Come Undone" (Julien Temple, Duran Duran)

2. "Livin' On The Edge" (Marty Callner, Aerosmith)

3. "Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" (Morgan Lawley, Digable Planets)

Top Commercial:

"The Showdown" (McDonald's)

TV Top 3:

1. "Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City" (Alastair Reid, PBS)

2. "Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Ryba brzana kielbik" (Olga Lipinska, Poland)

2. "NYPD Blues: Pilot" (Gregory Hoblit, ABC)

Other great TV shows:

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Dajmy sie zwariowac (Poland)

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Nasza chata z kraja (Poland)

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Tok szol (Poland)

Seinfeld: Junior Mint

Seinfeld: The Pilot

Cartoon Top 3:

1. "The Wrong Trousers" (Nick Park, Aardman, UK)

2. "Blindscape" (Stephen Palmer, UK)

3. "The Village" (Mark Baker, UK)  

Other great cartoons:

L'Attente (Canada)

Fleuve aux grandes eaux (Canada)

Oink (Canada)

Weak films of 1993:

Arizona Dream
The Assassin (Hong Kong)
The Bare-Footed Kid (Hong Kong)
Battle Angel (Japan)
Benny & Joon
Blade Of Fury (Hong Kong)
A Bronx Tale
Cap Tourmente (Canada)
Cliffhanger
Darkness In Tallinn (Estonia)
Down The Drain (Japan)
Dust Devil (South Africa)
Executioners (Hong Kong)
Faraway, So Close (Germany)
Farewell, My Concubine (China)
Fearless
La Florida (Canada)
Flirting Scholar (Hong Kong)
For Fun (China)
Germinal (France)
Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla II (Japan)
Il Grande cocomero (Italy)
Hard Target
I Am A Sex Addict
Indecent Proposal
In The Name Of The Father (UK)
I Love A Man In Uniform (Canada)
Into The West (UK)
Island Of The Dead (Russia)
Kanehsatake: 270 ans de résistance (Canada)
The Kung Fu Cult Master (Hong Kong)
The Last Harvest (Canada)
The Last Hero In China (Hong Kong)
La Machine Scorsese (France)
Magic Crane (Hong Kong)
Marie (Belgium)
Ma saison preferée (France)
Mrs Doubtfire
The Olympic Summer (Germany)
The Pelican Brief
Public Access
Reality Bites
Run And Kill (Hong Kong)
Schramm (Germany)
The Secret Garden
Serial Mom
Le Sexe des étoiles (Canada)
Shadowlands
Super Mario Brothers
Szwadron (Poland)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
This Boy's Life
The Three Best Things (Holland)
The Three Musketeers
Three Of Hearts

Weak shorts:

Je vous salue Sarajevo (France)
Me Mom And Mona (Canada)
Salut ma fille (France)
Valse-hesitation (France)
Week-end a Cannes (France)

Weak cartoons:

Small Talk (UK)

Weak TV shows:

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Cos wesolego (Poland)

Kabaret Olgi Lipinskiej: Wszystko juz bylo (Poland)

Top Musical of 1993

"What's Love Got To Do With It" (Brian Gibson, USA)

Helas pour moi (1993) *****

Much Ado About Nothing (1993) *****

Short Cuts (1993) *****

Schindler's List (1993) *****

Six Degrees Of Separation (1993) *****

Women On The Run (1993) *****

The greatest kung-fu masters of the Hong Kong cinema are men - Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Bruce Lee... The few women who have succeeded to carve themselves a place alongside them - Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock among them - were always very careful to keep their clothes on. Only one kung-fu master, Tamara Guo, has dared to put on display her sexuality alongside her fighting skills by appearing buck naked in serious kung-fu fight sequences. Unfortunately, Asian audiences rejected this daring concept. Her second film, ''Women On The Run'' (1993), directed by Corey Yuen and David Lai, was a huge flop, and Tamara Guo would never work as a lead actress in films again. And yet, the film itself is excellent. It's fast-paced, with terrific action sequences, complex characters and enough plot twists for a dozen movies. It wasn't the poor quality of the film that turned the mainstream Asian viewers off, but the daring concept of mixing kung-fu with female sexuality. There are two scenes when Tamara Guo has nude kung-fu fights. The first comes early on in the movie. Working as a prostitute, she lays naked in bed while her client relieves himself into her martial-arts trophy. Seeing this, she angrily attacks and beats the crap out of him, until her pimp arrives and he slaps her in the face. She is clearly a better fighter than her pimp, but she barely defends herself. It's a very erotically-charged sequence, with a naked woman fighting against two fully-clothed men. At first she is all-powerful, but then she's completely defeated. A similar sequence occurs again later in the film. Tamara and her friend Farini Cheung are ambushed by a gang of rapists. Farini is easily defeated, but Tamara manages for a while to beat the crap out of her attackers, even after they rip off all of her clothes. It's quite a sight, a naked girl fighting for a very long time completely surrounded by a dozen fully-clothed men. But eventually, they manage to overpower her and she gets raped just like her friend. Both of those scenes are very disturbing. Not because Tamara looses her kung-fu fights to more powerful opponents, but because she looses even though she is clearly a superior fighter. The message is clear - she is a woman and men are more powerful. There is no place for a courageous actress like Tamara Guo to compete against the male masters of the kung-fu genre. She cannot be allowed to use her sex-appeal and to put her nude body on display in order to compete with Jackie and Jet. They might loose.

Sleepless In Seattle (1993) *****

A romantic love story with an unusual twist: the two leads (Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) don't actually meet until the film's conclusion. A superb film in all respects.

Groundhog Day (1993) *****

Endlessly inventive comedy starring Bill Murray as a Pittsburgh weatherman who attends the Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney. He's then doomed to relive that day over and over again. This superb "high concept" idea allows the film to experiment with endless possibilities of rewriting its own narrative.

Smoking / No smoking (1993) *****

A movie about simple decisions that might have a crucial impact on one's life. A woman lights a cigarette, a man makes a date with his girlfriend, a husband says something nice to his wife. As result, one becomes either a vagabond or a successful businessman. There are twelve different outcomes.

Carlito's Way (1993) ****

True Romance (1993) ****

The Piano (1993) ****

Naked (1992) ****

The Remains Of The Day (1993) ****

Superb drama set in pre-war England.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) ****

Truly marvelous and incredibly inventive film about Halloween ghosts taking over from Santa and organizing their own Christmas celebrations. The greatest puppet-animation movie of all time. Musical numbers:

"This Is Halloween" ***
"Jack's Lament" **
"What's This" **
"Town Meeting Song" **
"Jack's Obsession" *
"Kidnap The Sandy Claws" **
"Making Christmas" *
"Oogie Boogie's Song" *
"Sally's Song" *
"Poor Jack" *

Jurassic Park (1993) ****

Superb mixture of horror and sci-fi genres, based on Michael Crichton's bestselling novel.

The Fugitive (1993) ****

Tremendously exciting chase picture about an innocent convict escaping from the gallows.

Kika (1993) ****

The Firm (1993) ****

Excellent adaptation of John Grisham's best novel. The finest chase thriller since "No Way Out". 

Ninja Scroll (1993) ****

Demolition Man (1993) ****

Caro Diario (1993) ****

A three-part Italian comedy. The first episode consists of a series of travelling shots revealing the great beauty of little-known districts of Rome. The second part is set on small islands in the Mediterranean. The final episode mercilessly lampoons the medical profession.

"On My Vespa" *****
"Islands" ***
"Doctors" ***

Rising Sun (1993) ***

Ruby In Paradise (1993) ***

Kalifornia (1993) ***

Dave (1993) ***

An amusing comedy with Kevin Kline impersonating the president of United States. Full of hilarious, self-reflexive jokes (including Oliver Stone coming up with a not-so-paranoid conspiracy theory).

Butterfly And Sword (1993) ***

A "wu xia pian" pic from Hong Kong, whose action sequences were directed by Ching Siu-Tung. Directed by Michael Mak and produced by Chu Yin-Ping. A great closing-credits song.

The Blue Kite (1993) ***

Unlike Chen Kaige's "Farewell My Concubine" (1993) and Zhang Yimou's "To Live" (1994), two other Chinese films about the Cultural Revolution, Tien Zhuangzhuang's "The Blue Kite" eschews melodramatic and stylistic excesses in favor of simplicity and realism.

L'Arbre, le maire et la mediathèque (1993) ***

Very philosophical, gently satiric film set in a quiet French village.

The Age Of Innocence (1993) ***

Social conventions in snobbish 19th-century New York.

Addams Family Values (1993) ***

Excellent sequel to the 1991 hit.

Once Upon A Time In China III (1993) ***

This isn't the final installement of the "Once Upon A Time In China" saga (there were two more films after that), but it is the last "Once Upon A Time In China" movie starring Jet Li (before Chiu Cheuk took over).

The Wonderful, Horrible Life Of Leni Riefenstahl (1993) ***

Fascinating documentary about the controversial German filmmaker. A close friend of Adolf Hitler, she directed "Triumph Of The Will" (1935), a brilliant documentary that glorified the Nazis. In this film, she defends her life's work, claiming that art and politics should be judged separately. The second adjective of its title nothwithstanding, this film makes a very convincing case for her rehabilitation. It certainly presents her as an apolitical (though occasionally naive) artist fascinated by African culture and marine ecology (unusual interests for an alleged Nazi sympatizer).