What's nice about updating what movies I've seen on my Bio page is that I have a pretty complete list of stuff I saw through the year.  Every once in a while I forget a movie or two (I shouldn't have a web page, really; I'm more of an obsessive compulsive poseur), but it's basically complete.

Anyway, I hope you can appreciate the number crunching I did to reach the following conclusions:  I saw 31 movies in 1998 that were released in 1998 (in other words, that could qualify as the top ten movies of 1998).  This means that a top ten list is the top third of the movies I saw.  Contrast this with my friend Jeff A.-- a top ten list for him will be the top 3% of the movies he saw (I'm probably making a mistake here; I don't know for sure that all 300 movies that he saw were released in 1998 but whatever).  This means that I got a pretty loose range for a top ten movies.  There's at least one on there that I want to take off every time I see it, but there's not really anything that I find better.

Also making things a little more complex than other people's lists is that I keep a ton ten list for those movies I saw for the first time in 1998 but may have been released long ago.  I find that a top ten list can be very deceptive if it doesn't do something like this.  For example, in 1998 I saw The Good, The Bad and The Ugly for the first time.  This baby is better than two-thirds of my top ten list of the year and obviously has changed the way I see cinema.  It's obviously one of the top ten movies I saw in 1998, but that doesn't make it one of the top ten of 1998, y'see?  I hate explaining this crap; I feel like an ineloquent goob.  Anyway, I should pretend to hew to the high ground and just do one list so that no one gets these long-ass explanations, and I don't get letters like, "You never saw The Good, The Bad & The Ugly until 1998?  What kind of puss are you?"  But I don't.  And we're arguably none the better for it (I won't even get into the problems of foreign masterpieces that don't hit the American shores for the first time until years after their original release and how to classify that).
 

Movies released in 1998:

And out of all of that, here's my top ten for the year, in the order that I saw them:

Storefront Hitchcock:  Jonathan Demme's documentary of a Robyn Hitchcock concert.  This is the one that I feel like taking off the list, in part because I saw Hitchcock in concert just the day after I saw this movie and Robyn Hitchcock in concert is one of the ten Natural Wonders of the World.  Demme's movie is just extraordinarily well-shot.  It's no Stop Making Sense, if you ask me, but I would be curious to see what the reaction would be of someone who's never been exposed to Robyn Hitchcock at all.  Not the most compromised choice on this list, but close.

The Kingdom II:  Lars Von Trier's five hour sequel to his five hour original.  Done as a miniseries for Danish television, The Kingdom is supposed to run fifteen hours in total.  A blend of Twin Peaks and ER, The Kingdom covers a Danish hospital possessed by ghosts, demons, and arrogant incompetent Swedish surgeons.  So, is this really a movie?  I'd say yup.  Although not nearly as scary as the first five hours, The Kingdom II perfectly blends human pathos, cheap thrills, good laughs, and make actually be moving toward making a genuine spiritual statement.  In between the first installment and the second, Von Trier made Breaking the Waves (which I haven't seen) which may explain why this second installments deals at greater length in matters of faith and spirituality.  The fact that it does so by having Udo Kier as a nine foot tall fully sentient newborn with a baby's voice should give you an idea of The Kingdom's unique charms. Highly recommended.

Last Days of Disco:  I haven't seen Metropolitan, but I have seen Barcelona.  Whit Stillman's latest movie, like the one before, seems to present the frustrations of an artist who is very, very good at one thing trying how to be good at other things. The Last Days of Disco covers Stillman's patented ground--frustrated WASPs letting off steam in billows of dry wit and trying desperately to connect in the resulting fog patch therein--and shows how much he wants to try and make something like a regular movie.  Three of the male buddies in the movie are a district investigator, a crook and a man in the middle, and you see Stillman wanting to make a movie about their conflicting loyalties (the type that Coppola, for example, used to be able to spin out effortlessly).  Stillman can't do it though, because his characters' passiveness are the keys to their comic richness which essentially makes a plot seem even more of an unnatural invasion than it would otherwise.  Stillman gets compared with Salinger in a lot of reviews that I read and they do seem to have this in common; they have a hell of a time making anything happen.  But like Salinger, Stillman's movies are delights of detail and conversation.  He's been called a very literary filmmaker.  Good luck getting out of the same snares that modern literature (funny, well-detailed, nothing happening) has trapped itself in, Whit.  Another iffy pick.

Out of Sight:  Maybe my favorite movie of 1998.  George Clooney is a wiley bank robber on the lam; Jennifer Lopez is a smart federal marshall on his trail.  The movie, in short, is a romantic comedy, although it has lots of criminals and heists and gunshots to keep impatient fellows like me occupied.  The movie has charms galore, and perhaps its greatest charm is that it overplays none of them.  In this way, it is much more like the classic Hollywood films of  the '30s and '40s, who had almost supernal knowledge of how not to give you too much of a good thing.  (This really makes Out of Sight the anti-Pulp Fiction which gives you too much of everything until it essentially becomes delightful all over again.)  This baby does everything effortlessly that Last Days of Disco labors over, and gives that amazing Hollywood illusion of also doing everything that Last Days of Disco does well.  I will now make it a point to see anything else director Steven Soderbergh has done, and will rush out to see whatever he does next.  He may yet end up being our best American film director if he keeps this up.  I curse all the people who didn't rush out and see this in the theater on my say-so, because it's now considered one of the minor disappointments of the year.

Saving Private Ryan:  Because the battle scenes are the scenes that Samuel Fuller never got the freedom to make.  Because the performances by Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Jeremy Davies and Giovanni Ribisi are great.  Because there's a cool sniper scene, and because the american soldiers argue convincingly for massacaring surrendering soldiers.  Because Spielberg lets one of the most sympathetic characters die in a scene that had the audience screaming, and lets the coward live.  Because of those first twenty minutes.  But let's face it, this movie is far from great.  It shows, more than any movie that I've seen recently, how formulaic, bland and insipid American screenwriting has become on screen.  Another technical triumph for Spielberg who is getting a bit better and less patronizing as a filmmaker than the recent nadir of his '80s work.  He has an essential lack of trust in the audience, though, that keeps him from being great and sadly, I bet all the Oscars he's going to get this year for Ryan will reinforce that lack.

Something About Mary:  Good performances, good laughs, and good god, Cameron Diaz's breasts.  Better written than Private Ryan, that's for sure.  Without the (reasonably) sincere romantic angle, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy all the cheap laughs as thoroughly as I did.  Matt Dillon actually funny?  I thought I would sooner go to the grave that admit such a thing.  This film probably did more with its low budget/screamingly high return to counteract "Titanic" big-budgetitis than the flops of any number of Godzillas.  Of course, this means that there will probably be more crappy, coarase comedies, but who knows?  Maybe studios will learn the right lesson.

Six String Samurai:  A no-budget action wonder that I found more generally inspiring than actually good.  Star/co-writer Jeff Falcon who I remember faintly from his HK actioner days, makes the most of a great role, a Buddy Holly lookalike who's a wandering master swordsman making his way to Las Vegas in post apocalyptic America to become the King of Rock and Roll.  The director/co-writer, Lance Munghia, shows a lot of innovation in his setting and willingness to play up the connected themes of Spaghetti Westerns, Samurai movies and post-Apocalypse films (and by making Death a direct character, Bergman flicks, too) that reminds me of the excitement of world cinema in the '50s and '60s when an Italian director could rip off a Japanese filmmaker who was stealing from an american detective novel.  Unfortunately, not enough money or not enough ability makes this film feel like less of a smorgasbord than it should.  In other words, the fight scenes rapidly all end up seeming all the same, the surf music rapidly makes every scene play exactly the same, and the repetitive relationship of Buddy and the tag-along mascot Kid make the film seem less than the kick in the pants it presents itself to be.  It is still inspiring in its refusal to let a lack of money reign in its ambition.  Keep an eye on Falcon and Munghia.  I hope they get a shot to prove themselves.

Knock Off:  The only one of my top ten movies of the year that I've got a review up for (this says something about my movie reviewing habits, I know).  Van Damme and Tsui Hark make the closest thing to Seijun Suzuki movie I've seen with this action film about exploding pants manufacturers in Hong Kong.  I am one of ten people in this country who actually enjoys this movie; nonetheless, I am confident in recommending it.  If nothing else, I predict it will be the "hey, let's get stoned and watch this" movie of the early millennium.

Babe:  Pig in the City:  I'm not quite ready to talk about the trauma that is Babe:  Pig in the City.  It is brilliant and, arguably, very, very cruel.  I can't even think of those singing mice without choking up.  I would say it's not for kids, but they seemed easily distracted by every slapstick pratfall.  The adults, however, were sniffing pretty loudly by the end of this one and, from what I could see when they left the theater, all had the shocked expression of someone who's had a loved one come at them with a ballpeen hammer.  I'll never look at chimpanzees dressed in human clothes the same way again. This movie really does show what it's like to come and be overwhelmed by the city, particularly if you don't have opposable thumbs.  This movie made me treasure my opposable thumbs.  Well made traumatic movies are always tough ones to recommend, because they mean that you would willingly put yourself through the trauma again, given the choice.  I'm not sure I can bring myself to see this one again anytime soon, but would find it hard to say that you should pass up such a well-made flick that tries, like the best fairy tales, to actually teach children genuinely helpful lessons about the world in a way that doesn't mince on the darkness.  While I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to do a full review of this film, that doesn't mean you should pass up the delicious vegetarian recipes that are offered on the Babe: Pig In the City site.  A strange tie-in, but definitely preferable to all the candy-colored dross throughout the rest of the site that exists only to hide the potential trauma hiding within.  And definitely call me over for dinner if you make the sweet potatoes with rum and honey tangerines: The link to non-trauma inducing Babe recipes

Shakespeare In Love:  This and Out of Sight pretty much will have to duke it out for my fave movie of 1998.  A crowd pleaser dressed up as an historical flick, Shakespeare's travails to meet his deadlines, turn out a popular play and make something inspired are captured through that coyest of traps, comedy.  Gwyneth Paltrow is surprisingly good, Ben Affleck is surprisingly good, nothing but pleasant surprises all the way around.  I'll have to see if it holds up to repeated viewings, but this cinematic love letter to the theater has a script by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman (who has been given the shaft end of the credit in all the reviews that I've read; at least he fares better than Joseph Fiennes who plays Shakespeare.  Fiennes has his name misspelled several times on Shakespeare in Love's official movie site!  Just a special way to say thank you, Joe...) and kicks ass.  It has a good shot at really cleaning up at the Oscars (I think Judi Dench as Queen Elizabeth is probably a shoo-in for supporting actress and Paltrow might even get nominated) which is funny because this movie is pretty low brow  (sword fights, Gwynneth's boobies, a renaissance episode of the Flintstones written by Mensa memebers), although, like its Renaissance models, it manages to both educate and entertain.  Great, great sutff.  It's still in theaters, you know.  Why don't you catch it now?
 

Part III:  Everything Else

In order to make my top 10, I made sure that I didn't count any movies that I had seen previously.  This makes life a little easier for me; I don't have to have Jaws and Force of Evil in the running.  The idea, anyway, is to give an idea of what was new for me in cinema in '98, no matter how long it's been around.

So here's my top 10 in the order that I saw them:

Gonin (1995):  One of the best failed heist films since the '50s French film Rififi.  Like that film, Gonin excels in its coolish eye for setup and its unflinching capture of tragedy.  In Gonin, all this is heightened by having a sense of time and place;  the losers who try to rip off the Yakuza are all types that thrived in Japan's heyday and are finding themselves lost in the country's new depression.  Good nightmarish stuff.

Fireworks (Hana-bi) (1997):  Talk about burying the lead.  This is the best movie, old or new, I saw in 1998.  I had toyed with making it a 1998 film so that I could throw it at the top of the list and rant and rant about it.  Part of the problem is I still feel like I have very little to say about it, not least because of its multi-tiered storyline.  The movie follows two cops, one of whom has been permanently handicapped and made to retire from the force, the other coming to terms with the fact that his wife is dying of a fatal illness.  Writer/director/star Takeshi "Beat" Kitano does his most masterful work yet, so much so that my previous Kitano fave, Sonatine, fell a bit flat when I saw it again (Rolling Thunder's crummy print didn't help much).  My roommate Weeb was just starting to watch a Japanese art movie and said, "sometimes I don't know if I would rather watch this or something like Lethal Weapon IV."  The great thing about Hana-bi is it's a bit like watching both.  The violence and brutality of Hana-bi is brutal, jolting and startling.  Set against the slow, poetic takes and the flashback oriented structure of the film, you do kind of get that sort of "Lethal Weapon IV meets an art film"  feel.  Coming soon to video.  I recommend to everyone that they not miss it.

A Life Less Ordinary (1997):  Well, the damage's already been done, but here goes.  Screwball comedy! Screwball!  Screwball!  Screwball!  Lots of fun, not very deep in the slightest.  They should just rename this one "There's Something About Mary and Obi Wan Kenobi" and rerelease it this summer.  Because it's worth a look.  Really.

My Flying Wife (1991):  Yeah, really.  A dumb Hong Kong movie with Sammo Hung in it that I'm sure is very Encounter of the Spooky Kind derivative, but I really, really liked it.  Sammo plays this guy who was bad in his previous life so a ghost of the woman he wronged and her son come back to take revenge.  Oh, yeah, and the guy who saves a woman from committing suicide thus preventing her son from becoming reincarnated is also in deep with the ghost woman.  Lots of neat stuff in this movie, including an enjoyably ludicrous possession scene of Sammo by General Kwan.  Great little "what the hell is going to happen next" movie.

Gattaca (1997):  Very, very iffy choice, but what the hell.  Writer/director Andrew Niccol was actually interested in making a genre movie that had aspirations to being about a lot of stuff.  You can tell that Niccol is an accomplished Hollywood screenwriter (look for him to get nominated for The Truman Show this year at the Oscars) because the third act is an unholy mess.  Nonetheless, it's a moving little thriller for a good chunk of it and there are some good performances here (particularly Jude Law; watch out for this guy).  I liked it a lot more until my pal John saw it and tore into it.  But that's the nature of movies, I guess.  I'll still stick by this one because we need more American movies like this.

Treasure Hunt (1994):  Treasure Hunt is one of Chow Yun-Fat's last HK productions and I was surprised by how much I liked it.  I'll have to watch it again because, frankly, I saw at the UC Theater on what was to be the last night ever of their seminal Festival Hong Kong and I was kind of choked up and sentimental.  Nonetheless, this flick about a secret agent guy and a mysterious woman with mysterious powers hiding out in a Monastery left no goofy charm unturned, be it a cute fat kid monk with glasses, a flying scene or Chow teaching the monks how to play baseball.  One of the joys of HK movies is their interest in supporting characters; here, the grouchy, unhealthy cab driver of the only taxi in the small province turns out to be the top monk who's quit to have a real life.  His fight with the head of the monastery is a hoot.  Uneven, but I was still really, really glad to see it.

Khuda Gawah (1992):  I'm slow to give credit sometimes, as my brother Tim knows since he tried to get me to watch Miller's Crossing over and over and over and only after I gave him back his tape (after having it for a year) did I watch the movie and pronounce it one of my ten favorites ever.  D'oh.  Here, brother Chris was way ahead of the curve in seeing and recommending this really rad Indian flick.  Three hours long and spanning two generations, this movie has musical numbers, gun fights, torture scenes, love scenes, primal melodrama, slapstick and a cast of dozens.  It's all here.  Dickens, Shmickens; give me a Mukul Anand movie any day.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly  (1966):  Oooh, baby.  I could go on and on about Leone's daring with his close-ups, his eye for color and composition, his surprising sympathy for evil and his cynical belief in good.  But what's the point?  If you've seen it, you know what I mean.  If you haven't, no amount of my babbling will win you over.  Although El Topo is pretty much the ne plus ultra of spaghetti westerns for me and baroque rip-offs like Django may be more faithful to the genre (I get the feeling that Leone was getting pretty impatient with the genre by the time of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly),  this near parody of the genre Leone made world famous has a strong satisfying feel to every frame.  Whatever you do, don't miss seeing it in widescreen.  Anyone who releases a pan and scan version of this film deserves to be tried for war crimes.

Prodigal Son (1982):  Two films on this list by Sammo Hung; that seems significant (although Sammo directed this one and just starred in My Flying Wife).  This early HK flick is pretty much a punk rock historical action movie; it deconstructs and mocks the genre as cruelly as Sid Vicious covered "My Way."  Yuen Baio plays the spoiled son of a rich merchant who thinks he's a master of kung fu, when in fact his father is paying anyone he fights to throw the match.  Finding this out, Yuen tries to apprentice himself to the only one who was honest enough to beat him-- HK acting god Lam Ching Ying who, in The Prodigal Son, plays a Peking Opera performer (who plays the women parts).   Yuen Baio learning superior Wing Chun from a cross-dressing eyebrowless Peking Opera performer is subversive enough, but the movie twists another notch when we meet the "villain" of the piece; an older merchant who, like Yuen, will beat anyone to prove that he's the best.  Before the movie's done, we gain sympathy for the villain, shake our head at the actions of the hero, and are treated to a thrilling knockout showdown that shows the stupidity and pain of thrilling knockout showdowns.  Fans of HK movies should really check this one out, no matter how much it bruises their beloved old Shaw Brothers flicks.

Gummo (1997):  Bunny boys, swearing children, dead cats, black tape on nipples, rain storms, garbage, chair wrestling, and the best use of a Madonna song ever.  Poetic, cruel, stupid, really great.  Harmony Korine might have swiped his moves from Godard and others, but it's sure great seeing them turned on America.  Might as well see it now so you know what people will be stealing from (even if, God help us, it's for a Levi's commercial) in 2003.  I worked with this guy in Los Angeles who called the Replacements "the most overrated underrated band of all time."  Gummo is like that, although it may very well turn out to be the most underrated overrated underrated movie of all time.  We'll just have to see, won't we?