It’s going to be a busy week with the Cahiers top 10, Sight and Sound poll, “Emancipation” screening and much, much more. Try to think of today as the calm before the storm.
I highly recommend Brian Raftery‘s bookbinder “Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen” which has been in bookstores now for over two years, but I finally got around to reading it this month. It reignited a conversation around 1999, maybe the best year at the movies … ever? Vulture even ran an entire chapter from the book on “Eyes Wide Shut.”
And so, the inevitable question one must ask is this: Are we heavily overhyping 1999? The short answer is no.
Being John Malkovich, Election, The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, The Limey, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Straight Story, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Insider, The Blair Witch Project, Bringing Out the Dead, Boy’s Don’t Cry, Go, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2, South Park, Office Space, The Talented Mr. Ripley, American Pie, Bowfinger, Dick, 10 Things I Hate About You, Arlington Road, Man on the Moon, The Dreamlife of Angels, Romance, Payback.
The result was a highly influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also set the tone for the 21st Century. It was a watershed moment, but people seem to also forget that was the same year “The Sopranos,” maybe the best series ever made, premiered on HBO.
Roger Ebert summed up the year pretty welll:
The Telluride and Toronto festivals had already started lobbing in great new films, and by the time I saw "Being John Malkovich" and "Three Kings" early in October, it was clear that Hollywood's hounds of creativity had been set loose and were running free. The last four months of 1999 were a rich and exciting time for moviegoers--there were so many wonderful films that for the first time in a long time, it was hard to keep up.
So, no, we are not overhyping 1999. It truly is the bees knees. Best movie year ever? Possibly. Is there any other modern-era year that evm came remotely close? I present to you exhibit A: 2007.
No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Zodiac, 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days, The Assassination of Jesse James, Superbad, Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Ratatouille, The Mist, American Gangster, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Sweeney Todd, Juno, Death Proof, Eastern Promises, Persepolis, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Darjeeling Limited, Black Book, Syndromes and A Century, Into the Wild, Knocked Up, The Host.
Hard to believe it’s already been 15 years since we got a seminal cinematic year like this one. Will we ever again? I’m hopeful. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but 2007 was the final year of the long and never-ending nightmare that was the Bush administration, it seemed to bring out very dark and unflinching statements from filmmakers.
One can legitimately claim that 2007 gives 1999 a run for its money. Jeffrey Wells seems to think so. It’s also the year Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel Coen and David Fincher released the maybe best films of their respective careers.