Click here for my Epinions essay on the Best films of 1999, and here for my Epinions essay on the Worst films of 1999
Top 10 Best & Worst list of 1999
First off, this isn’t really just the top 10. Some movies I just didn’t have much to say about. Others I really wanted to mention since even though they weren’t ‘perfect’ films, they had enough about them that make them worth mentioning.
Also, I’ve noticed that there are a lot more really good films than bad films on my total list. This is somewhat since I tend to like most films, but I think it is more because I’m smart enough to habitually avoid the really bad films. With some pride, I can say that this year I never did catch "Mod Squad", "Plunket & Maclane", "Baby Geniuses", "Wing Commander", "Idle Hands", "Bats", or either of the Kevin Costner films.
The Best Films of 1999
The top 4 films on my list are really close in quality, but "Fight Club" edges them out because it is both an incredibly well made film, as well as being socially important. The film had excellent acting (Edward Norton has still not done anything less than spectacular work), and Norton deserves the credit far more than Pitt does. In a year of so many male performances that were better than the films they were in, Norton really shined. Norton had to carry this film on his shoulders, and amazingly people still discuss the film as if it were Pitt’s film. The direction of the film by David Fincher did an excellent job of straddling that fine line between clever camera work that calls attention to itself and helping to progress the story. A lot of the story had to be narrated directly to the audience, and Fincher kept us entertained through his direction.
The film’s big revelation one-upped even "The Sixth Sense", and it was amazing that it seemed to get away with what was even the more difficult ‘trick’ to keep interesting on a second viewing.
The film’s critique on modern capitalism is a little lost in the way that the film goes over the top with the story, but points are made clear and concisely about men in today’s society. The themes, ideas, as especially the film itself cannot be ignored. These are today’s men who are being told what it means to be a man by people who aren’t. The film practically starts with men who have lost their testicles being told to cry in each other’s bosoms. The lead character’s life is so boring that even the credits can only call him ‘narrator’. This character defines human life only in terms of their monetary value. All this is what he learns to break away from.
This film, more than any other in years, has more to think about after the credits are over. There are so many obvious things that aren't explained to you. This movie lingered with more people than any other recent film, and I found myself discussing the film’s meaning with others months after the film had left the theaters. Some films are inappropriately described in their press releases as 'an instance cult classic'. This film can become nothing else but just that.
2) Being John Malkovich - My Ranking: 5
This film is surely the most outrageous film on my list. It may seem ‘tame’ as opposed to "Fight Club" or even "Three Kings", but this film is one of the most bizarre in years. Most films are only unusual in their characters, or plot twists. This film was odd in almost every frame. Just try explaining the story to someone who hasn’t heard of the film yet. Even in the little moments, the film defied ordinary conventions. Remember the giant Emily Post reading poetry? Remember the puppets practically fornicating through a wall? Or the Malkovich in Malkovich scene? The movie is so unusual that it wisely chose the characters to act only somewhat surprised at the crazy universe they existed in. The movie achieved pure genius on many occasions (the Juliard school of puppetry?), but it’s truest moment of greatness had to be the video introduction to "The 7 ½ floor"!
One of my favorite quotes about this film came from Roger Ebert who said about Malkovich’s performance "It took some courage for him to take this role, but it would have taken more courage to turn it down."
3) American Beauty - My Ranking: 5
"I don't think there is anything worse than being ordinary" - character in the film
Ordinary is one thing that American Beauty can be sure it isn't. What is amazing is that most unusual films escape the ordinary by having unbelievable plots or characters. This film is simply incredible in the way that it transcends the ordinary by giving us characters which we feel are all around us, but have just never been put on the screen before. This is no small feat. Most first time directors throw in all sorts of outrageous actions or people, but this film seems to revel in the commonplace.
The acting never misses a step, and I mean that from all half-dozen or so major characters. The directing seems to be getting lots of attention, but I think the script is what really deserves it. Most of the clever ideas in the directing probably started at the script level, but that is just my guess. Think of how so many people consider this film funny. Then think about exactly what we are laughing at during the movie. There are no clear jokes being told. We are just laughing at all the slight references to things we understand and recognize, and most of them are actually pretty depressing.
The film didn’t seem to have a particularly clear message to me, but who cares, when it makes you think about so many different things.
4) The Sixth Sense - My Ranking: 5
This was surely the greatest traditional film this year. It didn’t take any huge chances, or even do anything that particularly well, but like "Ghost" a decade ago, it just did everything right. Even the relentless previews and commercials that gave so much of the story away couldn’t tarnish this gem. The lead actor (supporting actor nomination, my ass!) gave what was quite simply one of the finest performances by a child actor ever. The story kept you interested all the way through, making us care about the characters and the situation. I saw many things coming ahead of time, but was still impressed and entertained with the twists it gave us. The ending was a stroke a genius, and its box office was surely helped by the large number of people who insisted upon seeing the movie a second time to see if it ‘cheated’. I’m glad to say that it didn’t.
5) Three Kings - My Ranking: 4½
This film is the only movie of the year that truly straddled major release and independent film successfully. I’m amazed that they were able to get this film such a wide release with such potentially controversial subject matters (for one, humanizing both the Kurds, and more amazingly, the Iraqi army). The film truly toyed with us. It gave us a horrible villain and then made it difficult to not feel the suffering of his family by Americans. We are shown our soldiers partying and reveling after their (our) victory, but then we see how ordinary most of the ground troops were, and how I certainly wouldn’t trust them to fight for me. Actually, most interesting is that what we get are Iraqis killing Iraqis while we do nothing, except try and rob their national treasury. Amazingly, this doesn’t seem to disturb us watching it.
The film does lose some juice about three quarters of the way in, but not enough to kill it. The film succeeded at being funny, serious, exciting, and political. This last one is important, because I haven’t seen too many films lately that are critical of our politics. Usually when a film attempts satire, it is at best a cheap comedy. Not here. This film is in the same league as the film "MASH", or the novel "Catch 22", and this is not small praise.
The first great film of last year. The film wasn’t flawless, but when the film was good, it had some of the finest twisted lines of dialogue I’ve ever heard. The director, David Cronenberg, truly is responsible for some of the most disturbing visions ever committed to film. And these are made even more disturbing by the fact that no one in the film tends to find them disturbing. Although similar in its ideas about virtual reality, if "The Matrix" was a comic book, than this film was a philosophy lesson.
This under appreciated film had more energy and cleverness than almost any other film this year. It was funny, exciting, interesting, and enjoyable. The movie took some outrageous chances, and they almost all worked. The large cast of mainly newcomers was excellent. The clever way the plot laid itself out could have easily failed, but didn’t. As twisted as "Being John Malkovich" was, did anything in that film equal the oddity of watching a cat (subtitled) argue telepathically with a kid on drugs?
If I have any complaints for the film, it was one of the last pro drug movies I have seen in a long long time. According to this movie, Ecstasy is a fun trip, and smoking weed will let you get the chance to sleep with 2 women and experience tantric sex.
8) After Life - My Ranking: 4½
People who don’t like to go to the movies to think, should avoid this film at all costs. I’ll briefly mention the idea of this film, since so few people saw it. The film takes place in the afterlife, where the recently dead have to decide what their favorite memory is, for that is all that they get to remember in their next existence. The film was fascinating not necessarily from the script or acting, but in the fact that it was able to make us think more and more about what our one greatest thought was, or will be. A lesser film would tell us what our final thoughts should be, this film presented so many options so that we keep adding to our list of options.
9) The Matrix - My Ranking: 4½
This film was something we just don’t see enough of anymore: A truly incredibly well crafted action flick. The brother directors of this film definitely know how to give us a show. They manipulate time and space with their editing and camera work, but do it so well, that these things exist in the background of the movie, instead of being emphasized, like a lesser film would do. And, the film had the best martial arts scene of the year, even though we had 3 or 4 films imported from Asia.
10) Run Lola Run - My Ranking: 4½
This German import was an antithesis of "The Matrix" in that all the splashy direction was pushed in our face, but that is where it worked best. There is so much innovation from the director that it feels like an experimental college short film. When most films tell the same story we’ve seen before, this film basically tells one story 3 different times, in 3 different ways. What was amazing about the film was that it managed to keep inventing new things from the opening credits all the way to the end. This was one of the few films in the last several years that can exhaust you just from watching it!
11) Summer of Sam - My Ranking: 4½
I’m very confused how this movie didn’t do better at the box office. It was Spike Lee doing what he does so well. His camera lives and breathes as it always seems to choose just the right angle to add to the actors and the script’s intention. I found his subject matter to be extremely interesting, and am surprised that no reviewer seemed to bring it up. While most filmmakers would naturally want to choose to do a movie about the serial killer ‘Son of Sam’, Spike instead made a film about this guy’s influence on the people of New York that year. He deftly handled a dozen characters, all going in different directions, and brought them together in an insightful way. Each of these characters was as deep and alive as the camera work and script were. Even the largest character in the film, mob mentality itself.
The rest of the great films that just didn’t seem to quite make it:
Sleepy Hollow - My Ranking: 4½
Every frame of this film was incredible to look at for its art direction. Tim Burton has a look that is all his own, and we should be cherishing it in a museum somewhere. Apparently the entire film was shot indoors, even though the majority of the film took place outdoors. Wherever this 20-acre set exists, I hope they start giving tours of it. This was Depp’s film, and he should be honored for creating a hero who spends a good portion of the movie being wrong about everything he deduces about the crime, and the rest of the time hiding under the covers. I can’t say I’ve seen a film’s lead behave quite like this before. I really liked the way the story started off thinking that it wasn’t going to lean towards the supernatural and then took us further and further into the twisted fantasy world that does the legend justice.
Eyes Wide Shut - My Ranking: 4½
Like most Kubrick films, this was slow, long, far too drawn out, and almost too meticulously plotted out, and yet was obviously a well constructed masterpiece of mood and timing. The film suffers from not being quite sure of what it was trying to do or say, and even later reading references to the book didn’t quite help. As a matter of fact, a lot of the film contradicts itself. Still, this movie will stick with you for some time.
Drop Dead Gorgeous - My Ranking: 4
This was hands down, the funniest film of the year. I may have laughed more at this film than any other two films this year. It went way past decency in a lot of scenes (but nothing like "Something About Mary"), but always kept me laughing. And this was a banner year for Kirsten Dunst, who starred here, and in what was possibly the second funniest film of the year, "Dick".
This film had a clever idea, and pulled it off with true ambition. It followed an item through 5 different countries, 5 different times, and 5 different stories. And all of these were interesting, and took chances. The film had the feel of a much larger, grander, older European film, which hasn’t been made in about 3 decades.
Of the classic horror monsters, I think it is safe to say that Mummies have got to be the least threatening. If you can’t outrun a classical mummy, then you deserve to have whatever a 3000 year old corpse wrapped in gauze bandages can do to you. This film threw everything it could at us to make a mummy a truly threatening creature. I think this film had the best special effects of the year. I was more impressed with their use, than I was with the effects in "The Phantom Menace". This was an extremely well done version of the kind of adventure we would normally see in the serials from the 30s, or in the Indiana Jones films.
Cruel Intentions - My Ranking: 4½
Although the film was obviously a remake of a story that has been successfully put to film at least twice in the last decade, it was a success due to the details. The story and the dialogue emphasized what makes this situation so interesting to us. The two leads were pretty despicable people, but we can’t help but admire the horrible deeds they are doing. It’s hard to write a great villain that is likable not because of what they do, but because of the way they do it, and this film succeeded.
Payback - My Ranking: 4½
I really liked this film for all the reasons most people didn’t like it. I loved the unusual pointlessness of the lead’s mission. What an incredible risk Mel Gibson took by taking this role where he is such a horrible person. If you thought the characters in "Cruel Intentions" were bad people, you haven’t seen a lead like this, possibly ever. The film starts with him robbing a homeless guy, and really only goes down from there. Yet, somehow I couldn’t help but root for the guy, even though I can’t possibly tell you why.
The Worst Movies I saw in 1999
(in reverse order)
Starting with the Least Offensive:
The Messenger - My Ranking: 2½
I didn’t think it was possible to make an uninteresting film out of such an interesting story. This film actually wasn’t so much uninteresting as it was just about the least interesting parts of the legend.
Outside Providence - My Ranking: 2½
The movie certainly tried hard, so I don’t want to fault it too much, but it just didn’t work. It wasn’t very funny, it made some large reaches in logic with the plot, and it wasn’t very original. Still, the scene with the dean reading the letter from ‘Drugs Delaney’ was a touch of genius.
I’m still not exactly sure what people found funny here. I know with my audience, that I was laughing at all the jokes the rest of the theater wasn’t, and I was dead silent during the times my audience laughed. Is bringing back the "Porky’s" film something we want to do as a society? I don’t think so.
With such a good premise, one of the greatest actors, and very good supporting characters, how could this film go so wrong? I can’t tell you. With far too many side plots, and a ridiculous ending, only the films superior acting kept it from being one of the very worst films of the year.
9) 13th Floor - My Ranking: 2½
Not a horrible film, but just sort of drawn-out and boring. It probably would’ve worked better as a half-hour Twilight Zone episode.
8) The Bachelor - My Ranking: 2½
Normally I probably wouldn’t have seen this film, but I had a friend who was supposed to have a small part in it, but unfortunately she got cut. It did have its moments, but Oh! I don’t know if I’ve ever watched such bland characters going through such unfunny situations.
7) The Haunting - My Ranking: 2½
Arrgh! The second of two horrible films from Dreamworks this year. I couldn’t believe how unusually ridiculous this film was considering the backing it had. The only reason to see this film was for the special effects, which towered so far above anything else in this film that, it only made the lackluster story and characters even less interesting.
There were characters who are introduced as possibly important, and then never heard from again. Possible plots begin to develop, and then suddenly stop. And the ending… Was it a good ending, a bad ending? I couldn’t tell, and possibly neither could the filmmakers.
I do want to credit the film for having Lily Taylor as the lead, since I’ve been following her career for a while now, but she deserves better.
6) The Corrupter - My Ranking: 2½
Another film that just didn’t work. It should have been better, but the film chose to give us nothing new or exciting in lieu of an unoriginal story and uninteresting characters.
5) Black Mask - My Ranking: 2½
As a subtitled Jet Li film, I wasn’t expecting too much from it, but it wasn’t even that good of a martial arts film. A lot of the fights were just boring. But what puts the film on my worst list is the fact that it is edited so bad that my friend came up with the theory that the film was originally a long running TV series that was cut into a 90 minute film. No such luck. The story has so many blatant 10-minute holes that I can’t believe the film was released so disjointed.
4) Twin Dragons - My Ranking: 2
I shouldn’t fault Jackie Chan too much, since he does try so hard, but the film just didn’t work for me. Only a few good stunt or fight scenes, and a lot of the comedy I just didn’t find funny.
3) 200 Cigarettes - My Ranking: 2
First off, I hated the title.
This is one of those films that you can’t help but forget as you are walking out the door. The film just kind of lied there. No scenes were able to rise above a certain level of blandness. The movie had a neat cast, but like "Mystery Men", it just never worked, and I cannot figure out why.
What a mess! And from Dreamworks, if you can believe it. Lots of great actors (Annette Benning, Robert Downey Jr., and Stephen Rea), a good director and good production house couldn’t make sense of this film. There were some neat underwater scenes, and one exceptionally well edited scene taking place between two times and two different escaping prisoners. However, this couldn’t make up for a ludicrous plot and individual scenes that made no sense at all. Eventually this film will become a trivia question: Which film did Annette Benning get attacked by Apples?
1) Universal Soldier 2 - My Ranking: 1½
Bleech! One would expect that the acting would be bad, the story paper-thin, and the film mostly just an excuse for various explosions and fight scenes. What I wasn’t expecting was that the fights wouldn’t be interesting, the dialogue ludicrous, and really horrible attempts at adding unnecessary emotional subplots. And to top it off, the film had almost no connection at all with the first Universal Soldier film. As a matter of fact, it almost ignored the details of the first film.
Other notes on the year's films:
Best supporting performance: Christopher Plummer in "The Insider". His key scene alone was worth the price of admission.
Most disappointing film of the year: The Phantom Menace. With all the hype, secrecy, and care put into this film, why did it have so many things wrong with it. There were leaps of logic, script detours that weren’t followed through, and it just felt like a bad kid’s film. He should have known that his fans expected more. Considering that this is the most expensive independent film ever made, why did it seem so unnecessarily commercial? How could they have one of the largest casting calls ever to find the perfect Vader-child, and come up with such dreck? Why was this film so aimed at little children, when surely he realizes that they like pictures made for older kids as well?
Most disappointing section of a film this year: The last half of "Pushing Tin". I really loved the first half, and couldn’t believe how uninteresting the last half became. Another complaint would be for "Austin Powers 2". There were so many original jokes that I was disappointed at the number of jokes rehashed from the previous film.
Movies that took the most chances this year: The first would be "Ravenous". An unusual tale of cannibalism in the frontier days. This film is destined to be a cult favorite. Also, "Payback" deserves mention for taking one of the most bankable stars, and having him play a truly unlikable character. And excellently, I must add!
Funniest film of the year: "Drop Dead Gorgeous" easily had more laughs than any other film this year. Runners Up: "Office Space", & "Dick".
Most unusually successful genre: The Horror Genre
It should be noted that 1999 was probably the greatest year for horror films ever. Before this year, I doubt there have been more than a dozen or so horror films that can truly be called great films. This year, we saw "The Sixth Sense", "The Blair Witch Project", "Sleepy Hollow", "Ravenous", and "Stir of Echoes". All of which I’d saw were good films, most very good films. "Stigmata" although not good, wasn’t too bad. Even "American Movie" deserves some mention since it was a documentary about a low budget horror film named "Coven". Only "In Dreams" and "The Haunting" sullied this year with the sort of quality normally associated with horror films.
Scariest Movie of the year: In what is probably the greatest year ever for horror films, the award for scariest film of the year goes to "Trekkies". Honestly, those people really scared me.
Best editing of the year: What a tough call in a banner year for editing. "Go", "Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels", "Fight Club", "Any Given Sunday", "Limey", "Run Lola Run" and "The Matrix" all had spectacular editing. "The Matrix" mixed different speeds and angles like a beautiful symphony. "The Limey" may have been the first truly spatially edited film ever. I honestly cannot choose which film deserves top prize.