Lifetime Movies : 1999...

Prince foreshadowed this year in films almost 2 decades earlier...we all partied like it was 1999, simply because it was 1999, in 1999. To me...this is the best year in film since 1899, when there were no films.

When I first looked at all the films in the year 1999, I wrote down a list of 13 films, by far this is the most "Great" films of any year I have. The BEST of that 13 is as follows:

American Beauty
Being John Malkovich
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
Magnolia
Office Space
The Matrix

These 6 were the ones I starred...the ones I highlighted as my favorite from that year, sure I then narrowed it down to a top 4...but I will not reveal that cut in the other films as to not have any negative repercussions from those filmmakers...in case they read this I just do not want them to feel left out

So the Best film of 1999 is:


I looked forward to this moment when it came out the summer of 1999 for about 10 years. Once I got to college and started to like films and Full Metal Jacket had come out the question was "When will he make another"...the first news from this film was that Kubrick would make a film based on an old short story called "Dream Story", but he would update it and have the two leads be psychiatrists. The last was a rumor that the Cruise character would be a doctor of some kind. Once the news came that the two would be Cruise and Kidman, it was an official film. In later years rumors of Kubrick's "unfinished film" and Cronenberg saying that scenes were just added in and others saying that the film has sound problem and the whole digital guests covering the orgy was all just noise in an ocean of people who at first didn't like the film. Originally Kubrick thought this film should be a black comedy with Steve Martin....so much is in this film, so much around it with Kubrick's death...some is shown in a documentary called "Kubrick's Boxes" which was on a few years ago on IFC, it was about the enormous about of research that Kubrick did for each film..the most being EWS..and the unfinished Napoleon film he might have done.

When I saw it I remember thinking this was an instant hit and one of the 5-10 best films I have ever seen...Kubrick had already died and some of that may have been me still mourning the greatest director ever...but 11 years later I still feel it's incredible. Somewhere the old film strips of Harvey Keitel and Jennifer Jason Leigh still exist...and I want to see it...somewhere the original edit exists, somewhere the original orgy scene exists (that last one does now in the new Kubrick set)

But the film is a series of people attracted to Cruise, his perspective as a person struggling to hang on to his "Doctor" status while using it to enter into infidelity..once his wife admits to feelings of infidelity herself, Cruise is spun out of control and tries to redeem himself..the colors of red and blue, the Christmas time decor and beautiful sets (the orgy house is a British Castle also used as Wayne Manor in Batman Begins)...It's a great film, it has its problems like sets not looking like the real thing...but it's a dream, and its Kubrick's last film..the best of 1999

Others:
The Sixth Sense: I never wanted to believe in this film, I thought it was a scam, then my future wife talked me into seeing it...I loved it...it made me want to see Night's next film Unbreakable, which to me is his best and last best film.

Toy Story 2: Great film, best opening scene of any Pixar film, the idea that Woody is a collectible is great..in today's world though he would have been e-Bay city

American Beauty: Kevin Spacey was brilliant in this and so was Chris Cooper...I really thought back then that this would have held up better over time, I haven't seen it in a while, but people tend not to think of this as highly as I thought

Being John Malkovich: I recently read the original script from www.beingcharliekaufman.com and it was much weirder...Spike Jonze makes it a much more personal and sad film...Kaufman is still King

Election: I was a student government advisor and so learned to love this film....Broderick's last good film?

eXistenZ- Came out before the Matrix (FRANK!) It's for me plot and story better then the Matrix with Matrix like story...another Great JJL film (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and one of the first times we see Jude Law...I am a sucker for Cronenberg...the Matrix is easier to watch and re-watch but the bio-guns and pods and dream like quality are awesome...check out the Chinese restaurant scene for total gross outs

Fight Club- OK no one saw this when it came out...I heard about it was in the making, and immediately bought the book, read it and couldn't wait since Fincher was re-teaming with Pitt...this is a great film and one that people my age (maybe not Frank) really identify with..the corporatization of America had been happening for years, but this is the Generation X response to it...now let me get off my dell CPU and drink my Starbucks

The Green Mile- Still waiting for everyone else in Hollywood to let Darabount just make whatever film he wants to and for whatever price...all his movies are great and this one is also

Magnolia- PT Anderson will be on every list for whatever film he makes...he is the new Kubrick I guess...Magnolia can be pretentious I guess...but John C. Reilly grounds any film (even Ground Zero)...Frogs from the heavens, bloody braces, cop loses a gun, pedophile dad, dying dad, mad son...check that 2 mad sons, PSH (Philip Seymour Hoffman), fucked up Julienne Moore...PT just throws the world at us and asks us to care.

Notting Hill- I love this film...makes me laugh and cry and Hugh Grant can do no wrong...my favorite film of Julia Roberts playing herself

Office Space- Mike Judge makes this cult classic...we had a teacher that would show this in his economics class...he got fired...this film is awesome

The Matrix- Yes, I did have this on my list...it was great and even inspired Darren Aronofsky (friend of the site) to make The Fountain..it's hard for me to not think of the other 2 films that follow...they are grade C films while this is an easy A...not to mention The Matrix came out after Columbine...so it could not have inspired the killings..unless those two freaks were time travelers

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.