It's one of the more obligatory parts of the job, this
annual declaration
that ten films are worthy of special note for the year just past.
The number is an arbitrary one -- there are years which deserve
far more, and those which deserve far fewer. Still, there are
usually a few films each year which might have slipped through
the cracks between Hollywood marketing blitzes, and it is one
of the more satisfying parts of being a film critic that I can
bring some of these films to the attention of those who might
otherwise have missed them.
1998
1) The Truman Show -- I'm convinced that, if Paramount
had chosen to market
The Truman Show without revealing its central plot point, it would
have been recognized as a masterpiece without reservation. Even
knowing the story behind Truman Burbank's unique existence didn't
hinder fascination with this brilliant social satire. Andrew Niccol's
marvelous script gave it a brain, but Jim
Carrey's career-turning performance gave it heart. Few films have
captured
American's relationship with television as effectively, nor showed
us the price we pay. Most astonishingly, it manages both a happy
ending and a final line of dialogue that's absolutely chilling.
Truly the year's best melding of film art and
craft
2) Shakespeare in Love -- No one since the Bard himself
has had more fun with
the English language than Tom Stoppard...and curiously, he's used
it to greatest effect while having fun with the Bard himself.
Stoppard (who also crafted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead)
co-wrote this smart, effervescen speculative romance which skewered
Shakespeare's plays, oddball lit-crit theory, gender roles and
- o all things -- Hollywood, all in the disguise of a simple love
story. Joseph Fiennes made a charmingly overwrought artist, Gwyneth
Paltrow his radiant muse, and Judi Dench a
scene-stealing Queen Elizabeth. Crowd-pleasers with as much brain
as heart are a rare commodity; this one had humor, passion and
wit to spare.
3) Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows -- I broke with
one tradition to
review this film in the first place, and I'll break with another
to give it its much-deserved place of honor. The year's best documentary
happened to debut on television (the A&E network), but that
doesn't diminish it achievement one iota. Framed as a year-in-the-life
of one popular professional wrestler -- Bret "The
Hitman" Hart -- Paul Jay's brilliant film managed to cover
far more thematic
ground than you'd expect. It's a tale of father-son relationships,
of personal integrity, of entertainment, and of the peculiar place
where the wheels of capitalism grind individuals into the dust.
Part character study, part social commentary and part thrilling
sports drama, Hitman Hart kept me enthralled sitting at home on
my couch, and that's even more impressive than keeping me enthralled
in a theater seat.
4) Saving Private Ryan -- It has already become a bit
fashionable to wag
fingers at Steven Spielberg's World War II epic, noting that its
substance doesn't quite hold up to its viscera. It's true that
it lands its hardest cinematic body blows with images of physical
devastation, but I remember the psychological
devastation nearly as vividly. The human faces of war -- including
Jeremy
Davies' unforgettable collapse into cowardice -- take their place
with the Normandy assault in an epic deserving of the term. Ryan
is fascinating hybrid of the old-style patriotic war film and
the post-Vietnam "isn't war hell" tract. It takes a
chance on the notion that war most certainly is hell, but that
sometimes it's actually worth it.
5) Out of Sight -- Like most of Universal's 1998 offerings,
Out of Sight was
a disappointment at the box office; unlike most of Universal's
1998 offerings
this one didn't deserve it. Screenwriter Scott Frank, who did
a pretty good job once before of adapting Elmore Leonard for the
screen(with Get Shorty), does an even better job in this funny,
sexy and sly caper. The characters have every ounce of Leonard's
oddball punch, giving several of the performers (including stars
George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez) the best roles of their film
careers to date. Director Steven Soderbergh, meanwhile, finds
the unpredictable love
story at the center of the film and gives it remarkable zip. Out
of Sight is
the cinematic equivalent of great beach reading -- both unpredictable
and effortlessly entertaining.
6) Happiness -- No sophomore slump was in evidence in
writer/director Todd
Solondz's bitterly funny follow-up to Welcome to the Dollhouse.
Many critics and viewers attacked Happiness as misanthropic, nihilistic
or gratuitously shocking, none of which captures the perceptive
sadness at the heart of this
fascinating ensemble piece. It happens to be the story of people
on a frustrating quest for happiness; the reason that quest appears
doomed is that most of them -- like most of us --can only define
happiness in terms of things they don't have or can't have. Solondz
also dared to find the tortured humanity in society's monsters
-- notably Dylan Baker's chilling turn as a pederast doctor -
which made the film even less palatable to many. It may be hard
to watch, but Happiness shows sympathy for a society lost in its
longings.
7) A Bug's Life -- John Lasseter, the brilliant director
of Toy Story, steps
down only half a notch for this marvelously kinetic piece of family
entertainment. A Bug's Life may have been the second of 1998'sanimated
insect films, but it turned out to be a hilarious triumph of visual
story-telling. It also came up with the year's single most visionary
conceit -- the end-credits "blooper reel" of the computer-generated
actors -- which made an already very good film feel like the work
of a genius. You could quibble with a couple of characterizations,
but it's not worth the effort. Ninety solid minutes of smiles
are too precious.
8) Hurlyburly -- We've all seen other insider satires
of film industry types,
filled with cynicism and self-loathing. Hurlyburly, based on David
Rabe's stage
play, takes all that cynicism and self-loathing and gives it a
soul. That soul belongs to the mid-level Hollywood player portrayed
by Sean Penn, a man trying to find some human connection in a
place where humans don't connect too much. Penn's performance
shows him at his edgy, engrossing best, shifting between numbing
himself to everyone else's numbness and fighting against it. His
journey of re-discovery anchors a film filled with sharp performances
-Meg
Ryan as a burned-out stripper, Kevin Spacey as Penn's
heartless business
partner -- and Rabe's machine-gun dialogue. Though confined a
bit by its stage roots, Hurlyburly delivers both energy and unexpected
optimism.
9) Beloved -- "Too long," groused some; "too
dark," complained others; "too
impenentrable," shrugged many. Too bad. Though its title
hardly reflected its general reception, Beloved was an unforgettable
film experience. At its center it's a ghost story, the tale of
a spirit from the dead that overwhelms the lives of the living.
It was also a story of banishing those ghosts, of finding ways
to
move beyond the horror of a bleak past. Director Jonathan Demme's
languid pacing, the source of so many jabs at Beloved, was critical
to its atmosphere of foreboding; the look and feel of this film
were part of its haunting pull. Oprah
Winfrey and Danny Glover acted as the tormented center of the
story, but the
supporting performers --Thandie Newton, Beah Richards and Kimberly
Elise -- were even better. Beloved was a truly literary film as
well as the most uplifting horror film I can recall.
10) There's Something About Mary -- Peter and Bobby Farrelly
found the
borders of good taste, then proceeded to trample them into oblivion
in the kind of comedy Mel Brooks used to make when he still had
a sense of the outrageous. Sure, it had its slow patches. It also
provided the kind of gut-level laugh comedies just don't produce
much any more. And don't underestimate the importance of Cameron
Diaz's effortless comic appeal on the success of this film --
there aren't too many women who could play an object of obsession
effectively, or pull off that rather unique hairstyle without
looking stupid. Silly,
surreal (Jonathan Richman's wandering minstrel) and consistently
surprising,
There's Something About Mary delivered big-time fun.
