Welcome back to the Best Picture Expansion Project, where we imagine that the new Academy rule for Best Picture Oscar nominees, which increases the field from five films to ten, was in effect between 1943 and 2008.
Today, it’s time to visit 1999, which got two of its Best Picture nominees shockingly right and two of them terribly, terribly wrong.
(To visit the rest of the Best Picture Expansion Project, please go here.)
But before we start, I have a question…
I don’t feel comfortable covering any year before 1977. My movie knowledge is just too spotty. Is there anyone out there who’s up to speed on what might have been from 1943-1976? If so, drop me an e-mail. I’d love to have you write an entry or two.
And now, on with the show!
For a comprehensive list of films released in 1999, please go here.
Actual Best Picture Nominees
American Beauty (winner)
The Cider House Rules
The Green Mile
The Insider
The Sixth Sense
In Retrospect: Here’s the thing: The Sixth Sense is a masterpiece. Yeah, I said it.
The twist ending is cool, but the “Bruce Willis is dead” scene wouldn’t matter if the two hours leading up to it weren’t so good. M. Night Shayamalan is really touching something honest about how it feels to be lonely. All his characters pulse with emotion, yet none of them can express it. They’re so alive, but so isolated, and their passionate sadness is almost unbearable.
And oh yeah… ghosts. There are ghosts everywhere, symbolizing the bottled feelings festering in the living. And there’s Haley Joel Osment giving an unbelievable performance as Cole, the little boy who is so cut off from the world that he can only make connections with the dead.
I can relate to that. To the feeling of being young and overwhelmed by a world with no place for me. To the deep need to communicate and the fear that anyone who understands me won’t be part of the mainstream.
But it’s crucial to remember that the ghosts only seem dangerous. None of them are. They just need to be listened to.
It’s a sobering thought: If we don’t learn to speak up, then we could wander through our lives like ghosts, aching for someone to hear us. That’s one reason the final scene between Cole and his mother—the scene in the car—is so powerful: It’s the first time the living are as communicative as the dead.
Of the five nominees, I’d vote for The Sixth Sense, though American Beauty holds up well. It’s not quite the ass-kicking machine that I saw when I left the scene of an accident, but it’s solid.
Meanwhile, The Green Mile is such treacle that it almost retroactively destroys The Shawshank Redemption, writer-director Frank Darabont’s previous adaptation of a Stephen King work. At least his next King project was The Mist (a fantastic film). It’s nice to know that The Green Mile was the aberration.
And then there’s The Insider, which is one of the most boring “thrillers” I have ever seen. 1999 loses points for being the year that started our confusion about Russell Crowe. Remember? We thought he was cool.
The Expansion Pack
6. The Matrix
Forget the disappointing sequels and the endless knock-offs. Before The Matrix became cultural shorthand, it was a landmine in our movieplexes. Thought-provoking story, boggling special effects, and quite frankly, some of the best costumes of the 90s. Best Picture, y’all.
7. Toy Story 2
In your Expansion Pack comments, some of you have said that any year with a Pixar film is a year with a guaranteed nominee. I don’t totally agree, despite liking-to-loving every Pixar film I’ve seen. (I’m only missing Cars.) A Bug’s Life and Monsters, Inc. are too formulaic, and sinner that I am, I held back on Toy Story because I wanted all the glory to go to Toy Story 2. Good lord, I love this movie. The Janie the Cowgirl subplot rips my heart out, and I will never stop rooting for Mr. Potato Head and the T. Rex.
8. Being John Malkovich
An Oscar nominee for Best Director (Spike Jonze), Best Screenplay (Charlie Kaufman), and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener), Being John Malkovch is weird, funny, and wrenching. As with The Sixth Sense, a bizarre conceit is used to say something memorable.
9. Magnolia
I’ve already written about why I like this movie, so let me just say that if I could, I would name it Best Picture of 1999.
10. Three Kings
That unfortunate Lily Tomlin video has since suggested that David O. Russell is a nebula of crazy, but that doesn’t diminish the spiky humor and redemptive arc in this under-remembered Gulf War movie. Bonus points for revealing that Ice Cube can act.
Snubs
Man, there are just so many great movies to choose from. I was tempted to give slots to Tumbleweeds, Run Lola Run, Office Space, October Sky, The Iron Giant, Cradle Will Rock, All About My Mother, and even Notting Hill.
Slot 10.5 goes to Boys Don’t Cry. Ask me tomorrow, and it might bump Three Kings off the list.
And don’t think I didn’t consider putting The Blair Witch Project on here. I totally did.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Doug // Jul 2, 2009 at 11:38 am
My 10:
Magnolia
Being John Malkovich
Boys Don’t Cry
The Insider
American Beauty
The Straight Story
Toy Story 2
All About My Mother
Holy Smoke
Run Lola Run
Honorable Mentions:
Cookie’s Fortune
The End of the Affair
The Iron Giant
The Matrix
South Park
Topsy-Turvy
2 Roommate Joe // Jul 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Love these posts. Of the 5 nominated Best Pictures, I’d keep 3 (Sixth Sense, American beauty, and The Cider House Rules, which I find was underrated because of the perceived Harvey Weinstein vote-wrangling).
In order of preference, the other 7 in my top 10 are:
Fight Club (my #1)
Being John Malkovich
The Blair Witch Project (yes)
Boys Don’t Cry
Election
Go (YES!)
The Matrix
3 katy // Jul 2, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I totally agree with you, Mark, that The Sixth Sense is a masterpiece, and the twist ending isn’t why at all. I think it must be one of my top films ever. It also has *not* been retroactively destroyed by the slow, spectacular Shayamalan swan dive since. (Although I must say, I never think that his films are as bad as most people do. Interesting failures, those movies.)
The Cider House Rules and The Green Mile are both awfully treacly. I resent them both, but for different reasons: Green Mile because it was so dreadful and yet so acclaimed, and Cider House because I loved the more-complicated, worlds-richer book so much more.
This was another great year in film. I think my list would look like this:
1. Sixth Sense
2. American Beauty (which I loved at the time, but now I am more ambivalent about due to my “suburban expose” fatigue)
3. The Insider (which I liked)
4. Being John Malkovich
5. Cradle Will Rock (a musical? the redeeming power of theater? the New Deal?)
6. Run Lola Run
7. Three Kings –> my husband’s fave
8. Magnolia
9. Boys Don’t Cry
10. Go –> I agree, Roommate Joe!
I’m a Matrix agnostic. And although I was Pixar’s champion for the 1995 race, I can’t endorse Toy Story 2. I will admit that since my kid got here I’ve rewatched the Pixar films, um, pretty extensively. I loved Toy Story 2 back in 1999 (the character Jessie has a lot to do with it), but upon many, many viewings I think Toy Story is just a stronger film. (Cars, by the way, sucks. Don’t bother. I’d argue for Monsters Inc. and A Bug’s Life, but we can wait until those years.
)
4 Destiny // Jul 2, 2009 at 1:27 pm
In no particular order:
1. American Beauty
2. The Talented Mr. Ripley
3. The Insider (give it another chance, Mark, it’s by far Crowe’s best work)
4. The Red Violin
5. The End of the Affair
6. Being John Malkovich
7.All About My Mother
8. Magnolia
9. The Matrix
10. Fight Club
I understand that many people love the Sixth Sense, but I saw it a few months after everyone else saw it so I was looking for the twist, which I figured about 15 minutes in, so it wasn’t that exciting an experience for me.
Run Lola Run and Sweet and Lowdown would be my honorable mentions. This was a great year. I recall watching the awards at the Spice House at Emory, and Angelina Jolie’s goth look and make-out session with her brother. That’s what the Oscars are really about.
5 ferretrick // Jul 2, 2009 at 1:44 pm
I’m confused by the treacle criticism of the Green Mile. While I personally liked the film, I see several cardinal criticisms you can throw at it-Magical Black Person being the most obvious. (And the nauseating screen presence of Tom Hanks, but that’s my personal issue). But, treacle? The Magical Black Person is unjustly executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Another prisoner dies horifically in the electric chair. And Tom Hanks sees his “gift” as a curse from God…I’m not seeing treacle here.
6 Doug // Jul 2, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Ferretrick, glad to hear you and I share the same feeling on Hanks!
7 katy // Jul 2, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Eh, Ferretrick, I guess I mean treacle in the sense that I thought it was melodramatic, unsubtle, credibility-straining, corny. I just don’t remember buying one second of that film from start to finish. As I recall, it did have to do with the Magical Black Innocent Who Died For Our Sins, the fakey-fake South, the eternal life theme … and wasn’t there a cute pet mouse? Anywho, it all seemed a little pat. Haven’t seen it since it was released, though, and I’ve changed my mind before.
8 Roommate Joe // Jul 2, 2009 at 2:26 pm
The Talented Mr. Ripley! I totally forgot that — okay, I guess that dumps The Cider House Rules off my list.
9 Angie // Jul 2, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Notting Hill is a really terrific movie that usually just gets written off as a romcom.
I agree about Toy Story 2, and would just add that Sarah McLachlan’s “When She Loved Me” really makes me cry and I’m a 27 year-old relatively stable woman.
10 Gonzalo // Jul 2, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Being John Malkovich is probably one of my top 5 movies of all time. I wholeheartedly love this movie; I’ve watched it quite a few times, and I’m always impressed when I finish it. I think this has to be my pick for the year.
I’m not sure I agree with the Sixth Sense, but then I haven’t seen it in forever. I really enjoyed it when it came out, but the Shyamalan follow-ups have sullied me to all his movies. And some of its lines became such a cliche in jokes and parodies, that it just gets on my patience even if I watch a scene now. Perhaps it’s time for me to re-examine this one.
I also agree that American Beauty still holds up pretty well. My love for that movie may have died a tiny little bit since I first saw it in the cinema, but it is still a great movie.
Cider House Rules: I saw this when it came out, and I remember almost nothing about it. So there.
And, finally, Three Kings was a pretty great movie, but I’m not sure it qualifies as top-10 material for me.
11 Michael // Jul 2, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Funny how strong and off-track some of my reactions are to these:
I have disliked/loathed American Beauty from the first–I find it (like a lot of Alan Ball at his worst) one-half snarky, smug, caricatured, and mean-spirited and one-half insultingly sentimental-faux-lyrical, especially about sex. No, thanks.
I WANT to like Being John Malkovitch, but am always put off by the unending visual ugliness of the film, and it makes me downhearted that, given the chance to occupy other lives and experiences (the reason we have imaginations and art), everybody just focuses on getting new kinds of sex. (Maybe I’m on a prudish tear?)
On the other hand, Talented Mr. Ripley (an ambivalent treatment of its source, but I don’t care) pulls me in every time. not least by the sheer beauty of the photography and visual design, which cues the sneaky eroticism.
I love Cradle Will Rock with all my theater-geek lefty heart, until the too-schematic conclusion.
And, speaking of theater geekhood, I am the personal slave of Topsy-Turvy–I love that film from the blue velvet seats in the first shot to the vengeful wifely fantasy voiced at the end. Have the dialogue virtually memorized–”I am much concerned about your little weakness . . . ” I could nosh on the acting Mike Leigh gets out of his actors for weeks. And I do.
12 Mark Blankenship // Jul 3, 2009 at 1:21 am
Hey Ferretrick — I hear what you’re saying about the angst and violence in “The Green Mile,” but to me, those elements don’t dilute the contrived and unrestrained sentimentality of the Magical Black Man as Jesus and, as Katy calls it, the fakey-fake South in which people find redemption if they just keep drawling and crying. When I compare the cheap emotion in this film to the complex feelings in “The Shawshank Redemption” and (especially) “The Mist,” I find it difficult to believe they come from the same filmmaker, inspired by the same writer.
And Angie… “When She Loves Me” is one of my favorite Randy Newman songs, particularly the way Sarah McLachlan performs it. Totally heartbreaking.
And Destiny: “Sweet and Lowdown!” Crap! I forgot about that. I loved it. It’s certainly close to my top ten. (And big ups to the SPICE House Oscar party!)
And Michael: To me, the cruel joke of “Being John Malkovich” is not that everyone focuses on getting new kinds of sex, but that they focus on getting new kinds of control. Much of that control is sexual, but then there are the scenes where Malkovich is being forced to dance like a puppet. The point (to me) is that trying to control other people only cuts us off from life… that the act of manipulation does more damage to the puppet master than the puppet.
Take John Cusack’s character: He tries so hard to avoid vulnerability around the people he loves—to just manipulate them until they can’t leave him—that he gets trapped inside his little girl. He is too terrified to stop trying to control people, and as a result he loses all control.
Meanwhile, Cameron Diaz and Catherine Keener give themselves over to impulse, and they end up liberated. I don’t see that as a “let’s start boinking” thing so much as a “sexuality represents a general willingness to be vulnerable” thing.
13 katy // Jul 3, 2009 at 8:49 am
Okay, Michael convinced me … I really like Topsy Turvy and Talented Mr. Ripley, too. I’m apparently terrible at limiting it to ten films.
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