My Year in Movies
1. In Which I Bemoan the Lack of Decent Distribution for Adventurous Films and the Sale
of Austin's Last First-Run Independent Theater
I know, I know, I sound like a cracked CD, but at least I'm not going to start off by saying this was the worst movie year since x, because I'm much more concerned that I'm not really in a position to guage whether this was the worst movie year since x. I shouldn't complain, I suppose; I live in Austin, TX, and though it's not New York or L.A. or San Francisco or Chicago, I'm able to see things like Funny Games, La Séparation, Gadjo Dilo, and Western, albeit months after they've premiered on the coasts. But why can't I see the latest films by Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, or Hou Hsiao-hsien, just to name a few masters? With the art-houses full of studio-backed mediocrities like Shakespeare in Love and Gods and Monsters, I guess there just isn't room. I haven't seen a masterpiece this year, but I'm beginning to resign myself to the fact that I'll have to catch the most likely candidates--at Austin Film Society screenings or (sigh) on video--years after they've made the festival rounds.
As a hardcore cinephile, I'm beginning to feel like I'm practicing some sort of archaic science--like I should be wearing purple robes, poring over some video obscurity in a dank cellar. "Nice page, but, uh, haven't you seen any movies I've heard of?" pretty much sums up the reactions of family and friends to this site, and who can blame them? In Austin, foreign films like the ones I mentioned above (along with knockout revivals like La Maman et la putain and Le Notti di Cabiria), get puny one-week runs at the Village Art, a run-down theater in a bad location. And having seen far too many of these movies with audiences of about four or five, I have a sick feeling that one day I'm going to find it boarded up. It's hard to believe that in a town so well-known for its film culture, a town that contains the largest university in the country, there's no student-run film series. And to top it off, the legendary Dobie Theatre, Austin's last first-run independent, the theater that first gave Slacker a chance, has been bought by Landmark Theaters, an art-house chain, and is now screening the aforementioned Gods and Shakespeare, along with Waking Ned Devine, all of which are also showing at Austin's more upscale art-house, the Arbor. Austin's two major film festivals, SXSW and the Austin Film Festival, aren't much help either as far as international cinema is concerned, with the former's distinct Sundance feel, and the latter's mix of no-budget indies and premieres of mainstream fluff like Pleasantville and The Mighty. Something's gotta give; I don't think I can convince abc to move to New York.
2. Two Disturbing Trends
I wasn't really thrilled with the year's "shocking" black comedies (Very Bad Things, Happiness, Your Friends & Neighbors) and I cringe just thinking about the teen-movie "renaissance" (I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Disturbing Behavior, Urban Legend, Can't Hardly Wait, The Faculty), but I'd have to say the most disturbing trend I witnessed in 1998 was the box-office triumph of critically reviled movies like Rush Hour, Armageddon, Lethal Weapon 4, The Waterboy, Patch Adams, Stepmom, and the first hit of 1999, Varsity Blues. I haven't any hard evidence to back this up, but I can't think of a year in which critics and audiences have been more out of sync. And the movies I've mentioned didn't just have huge opening weekends, they were all solid word-of-mouth hits with long, profitable runs. I can only guess at the reasons--the ascendency of marketing, surely; the ravenous teen audience; the unwelcoming climate for serious criticism, especially in daily newspapers (witness the firing of the New York Daily News' Dave Kehr, partially for panning The Rugrats Movie). I'm only interested in box-office results insofar as they predict what kinds of movies will be made in the future and while the Patch Adams trailer made me physically ill, the half-dozen Patch Adams ripoffs we'll no doubt see in the next few years has me seriously contemplating the end of civilization.
Some of those Patch Adams clones will no doubt be Miramax products masquerading as art-films, which leads me to my second disturbing trend. Just as Coors and Anheuser-Busch line the shelves with beers that are designed to look like microbrews, corporate-owned "indie" companies such as Miramax, October and Fine Line fill what little art-house space we have things like Sliding Doors, Waking Ned Devine, Little Voice, Gods and Monsters, Elizabeth, Next Stop Wonderland, Mrs. Dalloway, Character, Cousin Bette and Shakespeare in Love. Their target audiences may skew a bit higher (in age and affluence) than those of standard Hollywood product, but ultimately these movies travel a road every bit as shallow and comforting as the latest faceless blockbuster. Miramax has triumphed by convincing its audience that to be a sophisticated movie buff one need to look no further than their latest costume job, while serious, adventurous (and, yes, entertaining) movies like Un air de famille, Taste of Cherry, and Fallen Angels are rudely shoved further into the margins--as curiosities for those with "specialized" taste.
3. Don't you have anything nice to say?
Well, yes, actually--I'm rather upbeat about my top ten list, which as usual contains ten small, miraculous bursts on the otherwise depressing cinematic landscape. Regarding my rampant xenophilia, yes, I realize that nine of the ten are foreign films. In my defense, I do think that the American Independent scene (e.g. Smoke Signals, Next Stop Wonderland, Hav Plenty) is in pretty dire straits right now, and hey, at least the nine come from an impressive array of different countries (France, Hong Kong, Russia, the UK, Iran, Japan, Denmark, Austria). I'm not a complete pushover, either--I saw some pretty bad foreign films this year as well (Artemisia and East Palace, West Palace come to mind). I'm somewhat relieved, however, that my favorite film of the year is the sole American entry (and, perversely, a teen movie and a Disney product). For eligibility information, check out the Tedious Minutia page. Some choice flicks I missed include The Eel (closed on a freakin' Tuesday) and La Sentinelle (car broke down on the way there).
10. The Celebration (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998)
Whatever you think of Dogme 95, the overhyped manifesto spearheaded by Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier which is apparently designed to produce some kind of "pure" cinema, this enthralling trainwreck of a family drama would be unimaginable without the vertiginous camerawork and the natural lighting--the most noticeable results of following the tract's rules. Sometimes a few constraints can be a good thing.
9. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami, 1997)
This 1997 Cannes Palme d'Or winner, a minimalist parable with a twist, consists almost entirely of long dialogue sequences and rather drab shots of the Iranian countryside. It follows a man trying to find someone to help him commit suicide, but despite the apparently cheery title (a reason to live, according to one character), the remarkably puzzling (and ultimately resonant) ending stubbornly refuses to generalize or simplify its hero's plight.
8. Hana-bi (Fireworks) (Takeshi Kitano, 1997)
I have a few reservations about his films' brutality, but writer-director-star Kitano is a complete original, and this near-masterpiece, which effortlessly alternates naked sentiment and bone-crunching violence, is clear evidence he's some kind of oddball visionary. I prefer this to the other Kitano film released here this year, 1993's Sonatine, which is stranger but less consistent.
7. Nil by Mouth (Gary Oldman, 1997)
It was a good year for directing debuts by successful actors, what with Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66 and this harrowing, partially autobiographical drama, written and directed by Oldman, which chronicles a seriously dysfunctional family with unflinching honesty. The suitably woozy camerawork (by Ron Fortunado) compliments the brilliantly intense performances of Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, and Oldman's real-life sister, Laila Morse.
6. Love and Death on Long Island (Richard Kwietniowski, 1997)
The year's second-best comedy is a delightful Death in Venice riff about a stodgy British writer (John Hurt), who becomes obsessed with a minor teen-idol (a game Jason Priestley) whom he inadvertently spots in something called Hotpants College II. Hurt, shamefully ignored in this season's year-end awards, is absolutely magnificent here. One can only speculate that the similarly-themed but much inferior Gods and Monsters, which was released much later in the year, stole this movie's thunder.
5. Mother and Son (Aleksandr Sokurov, 1997)
A nearly plotless Russian drama in which a man tends to his dying mother may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I was riveted by the beauty of Sokurov's distorted images, in which the world seems to literally drip off the screen, and by the way the movie's stillness creates a charged atmosphere in which the slightest movement-- the flutter of a moth, the passing of a train--carries intense dramatic weight.
4. Un air de famille (Cédric Klapisch, 1996)
The most pleasant surprise of the year, this blink-and-you-missed-it gem is based on a successful play by two of the film's actors, Jean-Pierre Bacri and Agnès Jaoui, and rather than "open it up" for the film version, director Klapisch (When the Cat's Away) makes expert use of widescreen composition to provide some cinematic kick. Anyway, the play's great and the actors (especially Catherine Frot) are perfect.
3. The General (John Boorman, 1998)
There isn't anything in this exhilarating black-and-white biopic about the notorious Irish gangster Martin Cahill that you haven't seen before, but Boorman's inspired direction proves once and for all that craftsmanship counts for something--these clichés sing. Featuring gorgeous widescreen images, a brilliant soundtrack, an impeccable sense of pacing, and a staggeringly great performance by Brendan Gleeson (I Went Down).
2. Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai, 1995)
I feel a little bit guilty about including this film on my list because I saw it on video (it opened in Chicago after I moved and ended in Austin one day before I arrived), but even on my crappy TV set, I quickly became intoxicated by Wong and DP Christopher Doyle's crazed flow of images. Almost a remake of Wong's Chungking Express, this movie is funnier and more moving, uses music better, and stretches Wong's signature style to the limit.
1. Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
I first saw this in October at the Austin Film Festival at around 10:45 at night, after working my 8 to 5 job and sitting through an excrutiating screening of Pleasantville that, due to technical difficulties and a Q&A with the director, lasted about 3 1/2 hours. I was exhausted and not in the mood to see another movie, but almost immediately Rushmore lifted my spirits and put a big, goofy grin on my face that lasted for about a week. I felt good because I realized that even in the age of Carrey and Sandler and the Farrelly brothers, it's possible to make a studio comedy that's uproarious, clever, sincere, beautifully filmed, and not the slightest bit black.
Runners-up, in order: Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 1997), Hands on a Hardbody, the Documentary (S.R. Bindler, 1996), Out of Sight (Steven Soderbergh, 1998), The Last Days of Disco (Whit Stillman, 1998), Henry Fool (Hal Hartley, 1997), La Séparation (Christian Vincent, 1994), Western (Manuel Poirier, 1997), Marius et Jeannette (Robert Guédiguian, 1997), Buffalo '66 (Vincent Gallo, 1998), Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano, 1993)
4. Heavenly Revivals
The ten best older films I saw on the big screen in 1998, all solid A's:
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1974)
Der Bitteren Tränen der Petra Von Kant (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)
Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940)
Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1961)
La Maman et la putain (Jean Eustache, 1973)
Les Quatre cents coups (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
Other highlights: Bertrand Tavernier's Capitaine Conan, a better war film than both Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line; Powell 'n' Pressburger's lovely A Matter of Life and Death at the Music Box; David Cronenberg's Shivers, probably the best exploitation film I've ever seen; Raul Ruiz's rare dance film, Mammame; the Cassavetes series at the Music Box, especially Faces, A Woman Under the Influence, and Love Streams; the...umm...interesting Jack Smith retro at the Film Center; Hiroshi Teshigahara's sumptious Woman in the Dunes; my first Straub/Huillet, History Lessons; surviving all 100 minutes of Joyce Wieland's Reason over Passion; surviving all 200 minutes of Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World; Bruce Lee larger than life in Enter the Dragon; the sublime incompetence of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond; the just plain incompetence of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast; wondering what all the fuss was about after finally seeing The Exorcist; Hawks' Twentieth Century and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Wilder's The Apartment, among others, at the Paramount's Summer series; the Austin Film Society's mini Fassbinder retro, especially Angst essen Seele auf, Martha and In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden; West Side Story in 'scope; new prints of Metropolis, Nosferatu and The Battleship Potemkin accompanied by local bands at the Alamo Drafthouse; Richard Linklater's punishing experimental shorts program at the CinemaTexas Short Film Festival; Matthew Arnold's Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy and Jay Rosenblatt's Human Remains, also shown at CinemaTexas, which might have placed in my top ten if I allowed short films; wondering what the hell was different about the re-edited Blood Simple at the Austin Film Festival; Peter Wier's ridiculous but irresistable Picnic at Hanging Rock; and on video, a format which I can hardly stand anymore, my first exposure to Andrei Rublev, Mikey and Nicky, The Naked Kiss, Mouchette, some marvelous Lumière shorts, and the first five parts of Kieslowski's Decalogue (the picture and sound quality was so bad on these tapes I couldn't force myself to view the rest).
5. Overrated
Smoke SignalsHe Got Game
Pleasantville
Antz
Gods and Monsters
Elizabeth
The Truman Show
The Thin Red Line
Shakespeare in Love
Life is Beautiful
Saving Private Ryan
(well, gee, whadayaknow, all the best picture nominees . . .)
6. The Void
City of AngelsMeet Joe Black
Sliding Doors
Can't Hardly Wait
Waking Ned Devine
East Palace, West Palace
Smoke Signals
Enemy of the State
He Got Game
Little Voice