My Top Ten Favorite Movies of 1999
Dateline: 12/27/99
I have a friend who picks movies by the reviews. If the critics say go, he goes. If the ads create enough buzz, if the cast is star-powered, if talk of Oscars is in the air, you know he's there.
This system, however, does not work for the discerning film addict. A lot of quiet, wonderful movies get overlooked. And all too often, the reviewers who dole out those four star quotes for the newspapers don't ask the right questions. What a makes a film memorable, enjoyable, meaningful? It's not the budget, or the hip young actress; it's not the special effects, and it certainly isn't the media blitz.
I know a love a movie when I am sitting in the theater watching the movie, and I am thinking about nothing else but that movie, its characters, its story. I know I love a movie when I sit through the credits, wanting to stay there. When, on the drive home, I am still thinking about it. When the next day, and the day after, there is something about that film I suddenly remember.
1999 was a good year for movies that had the power to stick with you. Below is my list of last year's films that carried me away and then infiltrated my everyday reality in unexpected ways.
Cheers, and a happy new year to you.
10. Splendor
Greg
Araki's late nineties attempt at the farce ala Preston
Sturges. This movie is like candy -- sexy, fluffy, with just the right amount
of sugar. Kathleen Robertson plays the girl with two guys. She loves them both.
What to do? Move them both in and make it a threesome. In this film, it works.
You laugh, you laugh a lot, and there is a fabulous pool scene with echoes of
Dustin Hoffman and The Graduate.
9.
Lovers on the Bridge
Finally
released in the USA this year, this beautiful movie, written and directed by
Léos Carax, stars Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant. The two live on Pont-Neuf
in the heart of Paris, and long stretches of the film are mired in urban grit
and pain -- until it all explodes in one of the most gorgeous sequences in memory,
when Paris celebrates the anniversary of the French Revolution and the lovers
waterski on the Seine amid fireworks. Breathtaking.
