Bit of a curates egg, this. The first in an intended series of pictorial overviews of cinematic decades, Movies of the 90s features multiple colour stills and mini essays from around 140 films released between 1991 and 2000. As you would expect from art and photography publishers Taschen, the production standards are excellent. Every page is in full colour (except where the films is black and white, as in the case of Ed Wood and Dead Man), the paper is weighty, and the whole 800 pages of it has an irresistible touchy-feelyness.
But the high standards of presentation are less evident in the prose. Each of the entries is a mixture of plot summary and sub-Sight and Sound analysis of the sort that evaporates from memory the second you've finished reading. So much so that I can't remember a single significant point from any of the pieces. The prose is not aided by a sometimes stilted translation into English (it would appear that German is the primary language of the writers and editor Müller, who contributes a slightly more meaty introduction); and the book is certainly done a great disservice by the truly sloppy copy-editing (a significant number of the entries have words or letters missing) and out-and-out clangers (Basic Instinct only Verhoeven's third film?).
In other respects, too, the project is a little eccentric. Part of the fun of a book like this is agreeing, or not, with the choices of films covered. While the massive bias towards Hollywood is instructive, it is pleasing that the editor found room for one domestic German comedy little known outside its borders (Maybe … Maybe Not, 1994) and a handful of other non-US productions (Loach's Raining Stones, Raise the Red Lantern, La Belle Noiseuse, etc.). At the same time the presence of rubbish such as My Best Friend's Wedding ("in the best tradition of screwball comedies like The Philadelphia Story", apparently) or the vile True Lies is truly perplexing; all the more so considering that while Oscar recipients are noted for each entry, multiple Oscar winners such as The Usual Suspects, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Howard's End are completely absent. And while you'll not get an argument from me about the merits of Unforgiven, does every film Eastwood was associated with in the decade have to be included? Including Space Cowboys?!
But if you can put up with such quirkiness (no bad thing, really) and irritating lapses in editorial quality (rather worse) then you are left with 800 gorgeous colour pages, as thorough a companion to the decade as could reasonably be expected, for twenty quid. Yes, that's £20.00. Goodness knows what profit margin Taschen is expecting from this project. Is it almost ungrateful to complain? Mmmm, probably.
Reviewed by John Atkinson
