Lifetime Movies: 1999

I always knew this was going to be a strong year, but I was a little suspect of Vinny Guns' claim that it was the best ever. While I'm not ready to engrave the trophy, I don't really have an argument against not doing so.

The thing that stands out the most to me about 1999 is the number of films that are still relevant. We still reference The Sixth Sense as the standard by which we judge twist endings. The Blair Witch Project is still the yardstick by which we measure not just indie horror films, but faux docs, handheld camera-shot movies, really all low budget attempts at recreating that DIY success. It's only fitting then that my choice for the year is the movie that continues to have the biggest influence of all.

Winner: The Matrix

I'm calling it: this is the greatest science fiction film of all time. Forget the sequels. I don't care how many times the Wachowski Brothers claim they envisioned a trilogy, the second and third films play like afterthought money grabs. I can't blame them for that. I can blame them for the movies themselves, which aren't so much bad as bad enough to weigh down the remarkable achievement of the original. I have never seen a movie with as much word of mouth buzz. Remember, there was very little pre-hype surrounding this film, at least by today's standards. There was a jaw-dropping Super Bowl commercial introduction and then it just exploded. Nothing has been able to replicate its impact. It still blows me away.

(While I still say Brandon Lee would have been perfect as Neo, Keanu did an excellent job. But, get this: Will Smith was the original choice. When he turned it down to do Wild Wild West, they asked Nic Cage. And Sandra Bullock to play Trinity. Imagine the movie without Carrie-Anne Moss? I guess Sean Connery as Morpheus would have made it all better. I don't know if Hugo Weaving was the first choice for Agent Smith, but he created one of the greatest villains in movie history.)

Films of Note:

Magnolia: Almost any other year and this would have been number one. The reason P.T. Anderson is our most important filmmaker today.

Eyes Wide Shut: I think time will prove this to be the classic it is. Hopefully, time will also allow us to see the uncensored original version. Ridiculous. Bonus memory: toward the end of the film, two little kids snuck into the theater, sat in the front row, and started acting like stupid little kids. This was not the movie to do that and I screamed like hell at them. Sometimes I miss old Frank.

Being John Malkovich: The start of our Charlie Kaufman experience. And the start of this film is still some of the most brilliant stuff written. It loses direction toward the end, but there's no denying its daring originality. Plus, Vinny Guns has now hung up a Malkovich face in the SMC studio and I'm not ashamed to admit it scares me.

Even More:

Killer Animals: Deep Blue Sea is the second best shark movie ever. One of those movies where I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it afterward. Lake Placid was fun as well, though not nearly as fun as a movie with Bridgit Fonda and a giant crocodile should have been.

Johnny Depp: Sleepy Hollow saw him in classic Burton form, but he shocked me by throwing in two other mediocre at best films. The Astronaut's Wife was a generic Hollywood thriller that he had spent his career avoiding. And The Ninth Gate was supernatural schlock by child rapist Roman Polanski.

Comedy: Some very funny films came out including South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which may be the most I ever laughed in a theater (so much so that I saw it twice, something very rare for though I did it twice this year--see: Winner); Office Space, which now seems to be on TV every day but remains infinitely quotable (tails off in the second half, but that first half is nearly perfect); Dogma, Kevin Smith's generally on point view askewering of The Church (which I hoped was the start of his maturation as a filmmaker--it wasn't); American Pie, which despite its desperate gross out use of sight gags turned out to be a very sweet coming-of-age story; and the sadly underrated Mystery Men, with Ben Stiller's greatest performance to date.

One Last One: Arlington Road has gotten lost in time, but is one of those great little films just waiting to be rediscovered. Director Mark Pellington has not worked nearly enough since he put together this intense paranoid thriller. This is actually my second favorite thing he directed. The first being this.

Wow, 1999. And thank you. Y2K is next and I fear it's all airplanes falling out of the sky from here.