25 From '99: My Top 20 Favorite Movies Of 1999

940   7.2   7.3 

Y'know how when you try to wake up your foot after it's fallen asleep & it then feels like there are a hundred thin needles piercing thru the flesh? Raise the level of that feeling from uncomfortable to horrific,
add a little razor-wire & an angelic smile, & there you go. You've got this movie.
Rarely does the face of horror look so beautiful and hurt so torturously bad at the same time.

493   6.7   7.2 

A lightweight Taraninoesuque film, that doesn't have the depth or style of other more quality films of the genre, but still, just the effort of trying comes off as satisfying. At least enough to provide some escape from the typical big budgeted same-ol' same-ol' that the decades of the nineties kept crankin' out.

176   6.9   7 

To be honest, at first glance, The Limey isn't too far off from a typical crime film of this variety.
However, with Steve Soderbergh in the director's chair, Terence Stamp in the zone as the lead & Peter Fonda who plays the antagonist with an evil that shows itself on the surface as but a sliver,
there's is enough in this movie to raise it just above the heap of the average revenge thriller.

950   6.5   7.2 

What if the the first alien life-forms to make contact with us happen to be the kind that watch too much television? Or even worse, what if they're Trekkies?
Galaxy-Quest starts out as a parody of the Star Trek franchise, but then, with just the right amount of heart, wry humor & even some satirical intelligence, this movie then evolves into a sci-fi adventure film with a premise that is alot of fun, on point and with a story that ends up standing distinctively on it's own.

2443   7   7.3 

As a self professed comicbook nerd, one would think that, naturally, I'd be a fan of fellow comicbook nerd, Kevin Smith. And as that sentence implicates, I'm not.
I enjoy watching & listening to his various convention & college speaking tours, but his movies, while not bad,
I don't think their humor & storylines are as solid as his stories that he likes to relay whenever he's in auditorium full of his fans.
Whenever I listen to one of his scripts, I tend to hear him talking more than I hear the characters conversing with each other.
Dogma is no exception to this,
the difference being that in this movie, I do enjoy listening to the points he brings about religion & the stigmas that result or tend to grow out it.
Still monolithically-centered writing, but still fun & interesting in the end, for me.

1189   5.8   6.1 

Y'know what? Forget the Caper, Sean Connery & just about everything else in this film. I mean, my god, Catherine Zeta Jones looks finer than any human should be allowed to look like, not just in this movie, but anywhere else. Heck, Pauly Shore or Larry The Cable Guy could've played the main role of the picture, & it still would've made Entrapment qualify to be on this list. Jus' based solely on Catherine Zeta Jones' high standard o' fineness.
I mean, seriously.
Damn.

2319   7.5   8 

An anthological effort by P.T. Anderson,
following several storylines of several different people,
centering on the various forms that the six degrees of separation take in connecting humans of a shared vicinity,
including shared insecurities, coincidences, not to mention anomolical, biblical(!) weather patterns.

3142   7.4   7.8 

Hey, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be John Malkovich, award-winning star of stage & screen?
Well then, watch this movie, foo.
Because in it, anyone who wants to, can become John Malkovich.
And let's be honest here,
anyone who can become John Malkovich has got it made in the shade.

164   7.4   7.3 

The family that loves together stays together.
Or, if taken too far,
just completely crumbles together.
A grey, sodden story of family disorder that's as bleak as the subject matter can be,
& provides for some really good acting (particularly Lara Belmont), not to mention an excellent directorial debut by Tim Roth.

1230   7.5   7.8 

A couple of Irish hood brothers go on a divine mission of vigilantism.
And Willian Dafoe is the FBI detective assigned to stopping 'em.
That is, untils he starts to find their actions kind of agreeable. And then finds himself dressing up like a woman.
Which I don't find agreeable at all.
Good solid crime flick that was entertaining to watch.
Though I do still kinda wish I could unwatch the Dafoe in a dress part.



BTW, I know that the pic above is from the second film, but it''s such a cool image, I couldn't resist using it here (especially since I wasn't that big of a fan of the sequel, so I'll probably never end up using it again...).

119   7.5   7.7 

Have you ever wondered what was the story behind the making of the short fright film Coven, pronounced with a long "o" instead of the standard short "o" most associated with the word?
Well, if you're like most fans of films from the early 2000's, the answer is most likely "No". Followed up by another question "What the hell is Coven?".

Rather than explaining what "Coven" is & why the long "o" that has become attached to it, it might just easier to direct you toward this particular move. It's an american movie called "American Movie" and it will clear any and all confusion that might have surfaced after reading this entry.

180   5.7   5.8 

In this movie, Harvey Keitel's character first gets exposed to a full frontal nudity by a super-sexy Kate Winslet & then, he gets to sleep with her.....
Lord, I so wish I became an actor....
And why I don't have this movie listed at #1, I honestly couldn't tell ya.....

Lemme just say that
when I first saw that particular scene,
I can promise you, the words that I came outta my mouth definitely were not Holy Smoke.
Holy sh#t was more like it.
Then I just spent the next thirty minutes touching & retouching the rewind button. And I don't mean the one on the VCR.

4681   7.3   7.5 

While I really like the style that Burton has to his movies, for my money, they usually seem to lack the substance to back up the strength of the uniqueness of their look. Sleepy Hollow is the exception. The idea of this movie wasn't one that had any real appeal for me, but in the end, I found it to have more in terms of story & character than I would've initially expected. I think Mr. Burton's work, though still considered somewhat as visually "avante garde" (I mean, y'know... as far as a mainstream director is concerned...), would be held in much higher regard if he could flesh out his stories, as well as he did for Sleepy Hollow.

3966   7.2   7.9 

The first Toy Story was a computer movie that showed how sophisticated graphics can be integrated into a really top quality & solid story.
One whose visuals matched it's plot in emphasizing the warmth & color that was starting to become more & more "faded" in the tired 2-D animated family films that movie producers had seemed to be tiredly cranking out at the time.
The second Toy Story movie showed that it was possible to make an animated sequel that matched (or even surpassed, depending on who you talk to) the original.



By the time we get to the third installment, we end up with one of the most successful, critically & financially, animated film franchise series of all time.

1219   6.5   7.2 

An excellently & stylistically shot story involving three soldiers in the Persian Gulf war, out to steal a cadre of Saddam Hussein's treasure that is specifically made up of gold bullions.
And as this movie explains, when they say bullions,
they don't mean like the soup.

1405   7.2   7.5 

.... but when they're directed by a woman, they do. Especially if the boy is really a girl.



I think that had Boys Don't Cry been released any other year, it would've easily have made it either to the top spot or close to it.
The fact that for 1999, it's only at number ten shows that this was an exceptionally good year for high quality films.
It was really hard for me to rank the all these films in the top ten in the order that I did. If it were possible to list the number one spot for this year ten times over, to include this & the next nine movies, I would.

730   6.4   7 

.... is a bitch. Especially when it's for $130,000.
Oh, wait....
I meant $70,000.
I gotta be careful....
As this movie shows, getting those kind of numbers mixed up is liable to get someone killed.

7492   8.4   8.9 

I'd post a comment here about this movie, but the first rule about Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club.

2530   5.7   6.3 

First of all, I couldn't care less how over-hyped this movie was. Anyone's whose opinion of this movie was as an adverse effect from this, it's their fault for giving it any attention in the first place. No hype, no matter how well-founded, should ever be believed.
Secondly, as kid, sure, but as an adult, I really can't get scared from movies anymore. Especially, if there's a monster or a Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers involved. The minute I see any of these guys on the screen wearing some kind of fright-enhancing mask or wielding a sharp object with a screaming Abercrombie & Fitch-looking teenager's name all over it, I am instantly reminded that I'm watching a movie, & thereby negating any chance of suspending my belief enough to being frightened anymore. However, Blair Witch tried to bring the horror of cinema as close to the real world as any fright flick could since Night Of The Living Dead (IMO, that is), thus making it seem like this situation could actually happen in this frame of reality. Plus, a major part of the fear-factor for this story's premise is that the lead characters, or even the viewers themselves, never actually get to see the witch in question. And as it has been stated many times over centuries, "The unknown is one the greatest fears to the human mindset".



So while it still didn't scare me, TBWP probably came as close as it possibly can come to at this point in my life. As far as I can remember, I've never had any real inclination to go out on a camping trip of any sort.
But now, because of this film, sleeping under a tent overnight in the middle of the woods, is a situation that I can definitely say that I will never expect to try & initiate.
Ever.
And for me, The Blair Witch Project earns a couple of extra points just for that.

1213   7.3   7.9 

Just when I thought that my hairy pimp-ass had finally reached a point in life that was hardcore enough that even the idea that I could get misty over a movie-ending was, for me, about as far on the otherside of the street, that it was in anudder 'hood, dawg.
Then comes along the Iron Giant, & proves me wrong.
And it's not just that it's a movie,
but even worse, it's an animated movie.
A cartoon.



Whenever I watch the scene with the line " ....Superman.",
I always find it quite difficult to refrain from repeatingly dabbing at that "something in my eye" that starts to become annoyingly persistent.
Damn.
Watching a movie makes life hard to be a hardcore gangsta a pimp.

8321   7.8   8.7 

Even though all the follow-ups, videos & merchandising would take the next cyber-evolutionary step in visuallly out-doing the one that started it all,
the story in this first chapter of Neo & Co. was still fresh & not yet over-wrought with complicated ideas & all walks of philosophical influences that tended to bog down what originally started as a really cool concept with monumental possibilities.
You are now entering the Matrix.

5554   7.8   8.5 

Personally, I think that this is a movie that tries to remind us that we have the ability to keep life in perspective, but usually don't. I think that what AB tries to say with it's message, especially at the end is much bigger than most of us realize. This is a film that I hope I can remember to watch every 4 or 5 yrs of my life, just as a reminder to "something" that I genuinely believe we all already know, but hardly ever allow it's awareness to surface during the course of our lives.
Or maybe I'm just looking at things bigger than what they really are in this movie.
Which could easily just be a side effect of the one-too-many times that I kept pressing the pause button during Thora Birch's naked breasts scene.

982   7.4   7.9 

Russell Crowe is the insider trying to expose the truth of the mega-business of tabacco & Al Pacino is the outsider who finds himself involunteerily pitted against the corporate politicks of the media which both men were counting on to help in the cause. Watching both actors on screen is an example of the kind of movie chemistry that can result from the combination of solid acting abilities along with the directing & writing powess of Mr. Mann. And all this without the need of any special effects or CGI, & yet a film that still provides a level of entertainment on par with that of any big budget blockerbuster.

674   7.7   8 

What do you get when you put a true tale of a man who unconventionally travels on a unconventional journey, with an unconventional director?
You get an unconventionally "conventional" yet moving film by David Lynch, in which he simply goes about telling you The Straight Story.



In other words,
Eraserhead, this ain't.

6085   7.5   8.2 

Okay,
saying that this is M. Knight Shyamalan's best film (by far) may sound overly obvious (by far),
but,
it is (by far).



A very good from-the-beyond-yarn that starts out by depicting the debilitating effects that may result from being able to percieve ghosts. Then, almost completely, turns it around to show how this paranormal ability can be more of a help than a hindrance, if we just gave the spooky spectres a chance.
Maybe seeing dead people ain't so bad.
Though when I think about it,
if I had to deal with any kind of communication with lost spirits,
I'd rather just stick to commiserating online with all of my fellow "Listalolites" on this site.