Before I get too far into this, I would like to express my disdain for the Academy awards of 1998. How did "Shakespeare in Love" win for Best Picture? How did Roberto Benigni win for Best actor in "Life is Beautiful"?
Both "Shakespeare in Love" and "Life is Beautiful" were great films. However, I recently saw "Gods and Monsters", and Ian Mckellan delivers greatness yet again. He was nominated for the best actor, and he should have received it.
"Shakespeare in Love" was a very good film. For the first time, I can say that Gyneth Paltrow did a great job in a film, although Kate Blanchet (Queen Elizabeth in "Elizabeth") is my pick for Best Actress over Paltrow. However, "Saving Private Ryan" was the film of the year. SPR and Terence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" deliver both great performance and also a harrowing portrayal of not only war, but the madness surrounding it.
Back to general disdain. I have less complaints about the 1998 Academy Awards than I have about previous years. At least this year good movies were nominated. Last year, and in previous years, many excellent films were not even nominated. In 1997, "Titanic" won Best Picture. Why? There was a small film called "The Sweet Hereafter", starring Ian Holm. This film was not only the best film of 1997, but also one of the best I've seen from the 1990's. Yet it was not even nominated for Best Picture. I don't remember exactly, but I don't believe Ian Holm was even nominated for Best Actor. He deserved the nomination, but perhaps not the win.
The basis of these paragraphs is simple: the Academy has not been right since 1993. At least in the major categories. And I don't think Liam Neeson received the Best Actor award for "Schindler's List". He certainly deserved it. Every year, the Academy gives the awards to some films that really doesn't deserve anything. "Titanic" was 2-dimensional and trite. "The English Patient" would have been the same as "Titanic" had Ralph Fiennes not been in it. To be succinct, the Awards ceremonies reward nothing but popularity and two dimensional performances.
At least this year wasn't as bad as previously. The nominees were all good films. Other than "Happiness", nothing I can think of was left out of the mix. My only problem with this years Academy Awards is some of the winners.
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MY TOP 10 LIST
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Normally I have a top 10 list. This year is different. I know the header says "Top 10", but that's only because I had to cut it down. I ended up with 25 films I liked, and that seemed to be just listing the movies that came out. Overall, I've seen numerous excellent films this year. As a result, I've decided I wanted to give a few films the recognition they've deserved. I've had a few surprises this year. "American History X" was a truly pleasant surprise for me, although it barely scrapes the end of the list at number 11. This is truly one of the examples that I had to cut off from a top ten. I'm not telling anyone the movie was great, because it did fall upon some familiar cliches, but it dealt with them in a refreshing manner, and that is half the battle. When I first heard that there would be a movie about Edward Norton as a racist, I was willing to completely ignore the knowledge that that movie existed. However, this movie turned out to be great. About everybody in this film does great. Edward Norton is a skinhead who learns the evils of hate when he experiences it firsthand in prison. The movie not only shows his change, they show how he changes. When he goes in, he's loud and evil. When he leaves four years later, he's a quiet and intelligent person. He's learned that his previous actions are wrong. The movie doesn't stop there. It doesn't show the cliche of "Prison taught me the error of my ways". Norton's character changes in prison, but not because of the system. I'd tell you exactly how, but it's an integral part of the film and I'd rather you see it yourself rather than have me tell you.
Dark City was a surprise to me. This film took the borders of noir to its limit; then shattered that line. Its mingling of sci-fi and noir could have been tacky. But it worked beautifully. Rufus Sewell is a man accused of murder. He doesn't remember doing it, and he seems to have the power to manipulate his environment. He can change the composition of his surroundings. Buildings move and doors appear. This film is really something you need to see to understand.
Recently I saw "A Simple Plan", starring Billy Bob Thornton and Bill Paxton. This film was perhaps the biggest surprise to me. Nothing was as it seemed in this noir-esque thriller about Hank (Paxton) and Jacob (Thornton) Mitchell who, with Jacob's friend Lou Chambers, find a crashed plane out in the woods filled with $4.4 million. It starts as a simple plan. Keep the money and if nobody says anything after the plane's found they split the money three ways. This plan gets less and less simple when Hank's wife (Bridget Fonda) is told and decides they need to cover their tracks a bit better. Although this film isn't as good as many of my other picks for 1998, this is a favorite for me.
Ian Mckellan's "Gods and Monsters" was a truly excellent look at film director James Whale, a fictional account of his last few months of life. The director of films such as "The Bride of Frankenstein" and "Showboat", he was one of the first openly homosexual men in Hollywood, and live the end of his life in seclusion. Away from the limelight and reporters, Whale was free to do as he pleased. The film doesn't give us a character, but a person. Ian Mckellan possesses that uncanny and rare ability to create an entire person, as if we were simply viewing a documentary of a man. Brendan Frasier doesn't ruin it, by the way.
1. The Thin Red Line
2. Dark City
3. Happiness
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. The Truman Show
6. Life is Beautiful
7. Elizabeth
8. Waking Ned Devine
9. A Simple Plan
10. Gods and Monsters