The last year of the century felt like the end of the world both globally and on a personal level. The Y2K bug was going to turn all of our toasters and cars against us, hordes of cannibals were going to storm our bunkers in the aftermath, and I was graduating high school. That’s a lot of stuff to drop on somebody all at once. I started this year with a stronger social circle than I had ever had in my life and a quickly firming status as somebody of value in my little bubble world, and by the end of it school had ended, everybody I knew moved on to more interesting places/things, and I stepped into the bleak world of community college; everything I had seemed to have been ripped away from me and I entered into a very dark place. More than ever exploring cinema became an important part of my life. It now served not only as an escape, but also as the last bastion of permanence in my life. Everything I knew might have gone away, leaving me alone and confused, but the movie theaters were still there. Some directors that I had come to love were back with new treats, a couple future favorites popped up with eye opening films. Diving even deeper into film was a way of reminding me who I was, and a way of helping me feel like myself. Factor in that this was the last year we were going to get any new films before the cameras exploded in our faces and the zombies ate our brains and 1999 ended up feeling like a pretty important year in film for me.
10- The Insider ***
The Insider proved to be Michael Mann’s swansong as far as making films that I was interested in went. This is where he started his experimenting with shooting things in a more digital looking handheld style, and while the effect looks a bit commonplace among recent films, at the time it was a pretty unique visual experience. The story is the sort of reporters and lawyers looking into government or corporate cover-ups tale that usually bores me to tears, and I was put off by the slow moving first act, but towards the end of the film things really start to pick up and get intense and engaging. The effectiveness is largely due to the performances of the actors and the way they are able to craft three-dimensional characters that we learn to care about. Pacino is good here, sinking his teeth into a more grounded role and playing things more subdued than he sometimes can when he starts yelling and strutting. Often times, probably when he’s less than interested with the material he’s working with, he can slip into just playing the Pacino persona. Here he buckles down and really does good work. Even better is Russell Crowe playing against tough guy type and being really believable as an aging corporate family man. I contend that this performance won him an Oscar, even though they didn’t give it to him until a year later after realizing that they screwed up. The story of this film can be a bit preachy and manipulative, but it’s worth sitting through for the performances and Mann’s eye for photography.
9-The Virgin Suicides ***
Sofia Coppola’s first feature film was a small but very dark suburban story about a family of sisters living in an oppressive household, and the hold they have over the imaginations of some of the neighborhood boys. While not a perfect film, it was clearly the work of a director who was working with a strong voice, a clear vision, and who had the potential to develop into a real auteur. The production design and photography were beautiful, the actors were well directed, and the things that The Virgin Suicides did right went a long way toward disproving any criticisms people might have had of Coppola because of her being the offspring of filmmaking legend. James Woods and Kathleen Turner are memorable and sort of frightening as the girls’ parents. Kirsten Dunst does maybe the best work of her career; at the very least its one of the few things I’ve seen her in where she lives up to the promise she showed as a young girl in Interview With the Vampire. The film looks a bit mundane at the surface level, and I believe that’s intentional, so the dark places it goes by the film’s climax can come as a bit of a surprise. And I think that’s a decent metaphor for how I felt about this film after I saw it, it looked kind of bland and uninteresting, but I walked away from it pleasantly surprised. And boy howdy was that Trip Fontaine an absolute dreamboat.
8-American Beauty ****
American Beauty was the huge Oscar bait film of 1999, and may be the biggest case of art film aimed towards the masses ever. Riding the wave of Kevin Spacey’s ridiculously awesome run of performances in the middle part of the decade and a successful ad campaign that made the film look provocative and sexy, American Beauty was seen by a lot of people and was a huge topic of conversation for quite a while after it’s release. The film looked gorgeous and was a huge statement for a first time director to make. Sam Mendes could very well have been the new best director of all-time for all we knew immediately after this film came out. I don’t think anything he’s done after this has been nearly as successful, but there’s no denying that after this one cleaned up at the Oscars he was king of the world. Spacey is predictably great here, his subplot of mid-life crisis suffering suburban drone being the most entertaining part of the film; but he maybe gets the show stolen from him by Annette Benning, whose portrayal of a tightly wound WASPy housewife felt at the same time visceral and realist. The stuff with the teenagers and angst and plastic bags has all aged terribly and is a huge weak link when it comes to this film as a whole; but there’s no denying the power and joy that Benning and Spacey were able to conjure when the spotlight was on them and their portrayal of a poisonous, though probably terrifyingly common failed marriage. I can’t imagine this film would have been nearly as big a financial success if the kids were excised from the script, but if the focus could have been put solely on these adult actors we might have gotten a truly great film instead of merely a good one.
7-Three Kings ****
David O Russell’s treasure hunt story set during the Persian Gulf War remains the only film that I’ve seen and liked about American soldiers in Iraq. It’s funny at times, it’s emotional at times, it has an interesting story; it’s really just an interesting film so chocked full of entertaining stuff that its hard to pigeon hole or classify. The performances are all good, with Spike Jonze being particularly memorable playing a wacky sort of weasely little hillbilly. George Clooney followed up his turn in Out of Sight with this and it proved to be a sort of turning point in his career where he moved on to doing more interesting Hollywood projects. Mark Wahlberg, similarly, used this as an effective follow up to his role in Boogie Nights and set his place in stone as not only an actor, but a star. The setting lends itself to some beautiful photography, and the stylistic flourishes of O Russell takes things up a notch even further. There’s really a lot to like here, and I don’t find that I hear many people still talking about this one. It’s become a bit of a forgotten, underrated gem.
6-Eyes Wide Shut ****
Eyes Wide Shut is the last film we got from Stanley Kubrick before he passed away. If you’re interested in film in any way, that has to hold some sort of significance to you. Was it a fitting cap to his career? That’s very debatable, but taken as a standalone piece I find it to be a solidly made, interesting, visually striking, and sometimes haunting film. It seems to polarize audiences a bit, and I can see being turned off by the subject matter, but I’ve never understood how anyone could debate its quality. I think a lot of the hate that gets thrown its way stems from disappointment that Kubrick’s last work wasn’t quite a staggering work of unparalleled genius, combined with it’s use of mega stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman as a bit of stunt casting. Say what you will about the formerly married duo, but they are both interesting to watch in this film. Especially intriguing to me was the way Cruise’s self assured charm and Cheshire grin were used in a more sinister manner than usual, painting him as less of a big damn hero and more of a self involved narcissist than he has been in any other film. And that’s where the heart of this film and most of its intrigue lies; in the duplicitous, flawed nature of its characters. There’s nobody you can get behind 100% in this film, nobody who’s completely in the right or totally morally devout. If you don’t like that, I can see not enjoying this film. If you’re uncomfortable exploring the dark side of sex and relationships, more used to wrapping yourself up in the warm blanket of typical Hollywood romances, I can see being turned off by this. But if you’re at all interested in exploring a beautifully photographed work of art made by one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, then Eyes Wide Shut is at least worth giving a try.
5-Being John Malkovich ****
I can’t imagine a more pronounced, one of a kind, wonderful way for oddball writer Charlie Kaufman and music video director Spike Jonze to announce their arrival to the feature film world than this debut. Being John Malkovich is completely unlike anything else in the film world. It’s production design, photography, and performances are all singly unique and serve to make an immediate statement on the viewer; but the insane, meta, self referential plot is what truly sets this film apart as being wholly unique and impossible to classify or critique in the framework of some sort of genre. To call this film imaginative would be a ridiculous understatement. But, originality isn’t all that it has to offer. Often funny, always interesting, and constantly visually stunning, Being John Malkovich goes beyond just being a creative experiment and is able to succeed at being an entertaining film that pretty much anyone can watch and enjoy. It’s even got a performance from Cameron Diaz that isn’t at all annoying! If this film had been made after the Sandra Bullock rule went into effect, then Diaz would have been a shoe-in for an acting Oscar.
4-Office Space ****
When Office Space came out it was a small budget comedy with a bunch of no name actors and one successful television actress who at that point had failed to transition into films. It had terrible trailers, no hype, and came and went in the theaters without getting on anybody’s radar or earning any sort of recognition whatsoever. Fire years into its home video release and everyone you have ever met had seen it a million times and could quote the entire script from memory. Office Space might be the most visible case of a film gaining success and popularity through a grass roots, word of mouth process ever. It absolutely exemplifies the term “cult classic”. Wildly hilarious, profoundly cathartic, and relatable to just about everybody I’ve ever met, Office Space earns every bit of recognition it gets through sheer force of genius screenwriting and the power of strong comedic performances. Peter Gibbons, Michael Bolton, and even Samir Nagheenanajar have become household names. Mike Judge has gone from being the guy who did Beavis and Butthead to being a respected feature filmmaker. Office Space will join the pantheon of comedy films that everybody is expected to see and love like Caddy Shack and Animal House, and it absolutely deserves the honor.
3-Election *****
This was actually Alexander Payne’s second feature film, but it was the first I had seen at the time, the first that got a really big release, and the first to hint at Payne being one of the best working directors on the planet. The fact that a film I gave five stars to was put out by MTV is absurd and awesome. Who could have seen this film coming? Who could have seen its ad campaign and known it was anything more than a forgettable teen comedy? I’m pretty sure I saw this one accidentally, but I know for a fact that I was more pleasantly surprised while watching it than I have ever been watching anything else in my life. Election is an adaptation of a novel by Tom Perrota, and it’s one of those very rare cases of an adaptation being worlds better than it’s source material. That’s not to say that Perotta’s book is bad, but the screenplay that Payne created out of it adds so many layers, so much hilarity, that I consider it to be an absolute masterpiece. The fact that The Cider House Rules beat it for the writing Oscar is a terrible indictment of the credibility of that voting body. Election is at the same time darkly hilarious and starkly realist. Payne is a filmmaker with a strong vision and an instantly identifiable style. He has gone on over the past decade to become one of the greatest satirists of our time and one of my very favorite directors; and it all started with this film.
2-Fight Club *****
And from one ultra successful adaptation of a book to film to another: I don’t know if I’d go as far as to call David Fincher’s film version of Fight Club a huge improvement over the Chuck Pahlaniuk novel, but it certainly stands strong next to it in a way that few film adaptations do, and I could see a strong case being argued in the favor of either. Certainly one of the things that the film has that the book lacks is the distinct, masterful visual style of David Fincher. I’ve said before that Fincher is a strong director, but ultimately limited by the material that he’s working with. Fight Club is dark, violent, and funny; a perfect fit for Fincher’s sensibilities, and it’s my favorite thing that he’s done. My man-crush on Brad Pitt has never been stronger than it is here playing the wildly charismatic cult leader Tyler Durden. Fight Club is a work that absolutely exemplifies the period of time in which it was made. It’s very pre 9/11, very pre dot com bust. It’s a time capsule of 90s ennui, and a perfect portrait of a lost generation of people who were too comfortable, too cared for, completely without a struggle and unsure of their ultimate purpose. That it can deal with such heady material and still be flashy, action packed, hilarious, and spell bindingly beautiful says a lot. While some may be turned off by it’s bleak, nihilist viewpoint, I imagine it drew in an equal amount of people who completely related to it due to it’s content. . If I had come across Tyler Durden back then, you can be damn sure I would have been living in that rundown house with him and helping him with his disruptive chaos missions. And despite any moral objections you might have to the content, the quality of the craftsmanship is undeniable and can’t be ignored. Fight Club isn’t just a movie to get college kids riled up and crazy, it’s a piece of art that will be remembered for decades to come, and the second best film of 1999.
1-Magnolia *****
Magnolia had no right to be anything other than a complete mess. With a sprawling cast, a marathon runtime, too many parallel running storylines, and a handful of really out there artistic liberties taken, Magnolia looks like the recipe for a filmic disaster. Ninety nine out of a hundred times films that try things on this level fail in spectacular fashion. I can’t imagine a stronger testament to the genius level of PT Anderson’s talent than this film turning out to be a flawless, exquisite masterpiece. Magnolia is rich with themes, visually astounding, full to overflowing with virtuoso performances, funny, cerebral, poignant; everything you could possibly want from a filmgoing experience. If Anderson took the potential he showed with Hard Eight and fully realized it in Boogie Nights, then he goes a step further and proves himself to be a filmmaker without classification with Magnolia. Name any one of the true greats, any of the absolute legends of filmmaking history, and Anderson’s name belongs right next to them. Tom Cruise absolutely blows every bit of work he had done previous or has done since out of the water with his portrayal as Frank TJ Mackey. His performance starts off broad and hilarious, takes a sinister turn, and ends in a powerfully emotional moment unlike anything else he has ever attempted. Jason Robards’ performance of a man on his death bed, given while practically on his actual deathbed, is one of the most authentic, hard hitting turns in a film I have ever seen and should be required viewing for anybody with an even tertiary interest in movies. The emotional depths that he was able to reach and the charm and personality that he puts on display looks like a herculean effort when you realize that he was at the end of his life, and you compare what he was able to accomplish with performances from other actors in their primes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for this film. I dare you to go down the cast list and find somebody who was less than perfect in this. William H Macy, John C Reilly, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Julianne Moore, a who’s-who of the best actors of this generation, all get meaty, complex parts and completely knock them out of the park. Long time character actors like Philip Baker Hall and Henry Gibson help shoulder the load and more than hold up standing next to everyone else. Every character is at times hilarious, at times serious, at times emotional, and always believable, organic, and wildly entertaining. The film is incredibly well paced; it’s over three hour runtime flying by like nothing. All of the intersecting stories are handled impeccably. Each one is engaging enough to stand on its own. Tonally the film never feels confused, the stories weave in and out of each other effortlessly and all build to an emotional climax at the same moment. It’s a smooth ride from the interesting opening narration all the way to the mind-boggling climax, and one of my very favorite films to revisit.
