1997 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1997:

1. Titanic
2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
3. Men in Black
4. Tomorrow Never Dies
5. Air Force One
6. As Good As It Gets
7. Liar Liar
8. My Best Friend's Wedding
9. The Fifth Element
10. The Full Monty

What are your top three films for 1997? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Starship Troopers
2. Jackie Brown
3. Lost Highway

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

Boogie Nights is a really close four. Taste of Cherry and Funny Games were close. Batman and Robin is a great superhero movie. The Lost World is much better than it gets credit for. Alien: Resurrection is not a good movie but so many of those images have stuck with me for over twenty years now.

 

1. Boogie Nights
2. Ossos
3. Starship Troopers

 

Good year.
Gummo
Good Will Hunting
Jackie Brown
Face/Off
Batman and Robin
Nowhere
Austin Powers
Anaconda
Chasing Amy
Vegas Vacation
Beavis and Butthead Do America

 

1. Perfect Blue
2. Good Will Hunting
3. I Know What You Did Last Summer

 

Need to watch:
Fireworks (Fana-Bi)
Lost Highway
Happy Together

 

1. Ossos (Costa)
2. Mother and Son (Sokurov)
3. Lost Highway (Lynch)
-
4. Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami)
5. Fireworks (Kitano)
6. I am Keiko (Sono)
7. From Today Until Tomorrow (Straub-Huillet)
8. Voyage to the Beginning of the World (Oliveira)
9. Made in Hong Kong (Chan)
10. The Blackout (Ferrara)

Strong year for debuts as well: Green Fish (Lee), Gummo (Korine), La vie de Jésus (Dumont), Perfect Blue (Kon), Suzaku (Kawase)

 

1. Boogie Nights
2. Starship Troopers
3. Jackie Brown

Honorable Mentions:

Lost Highway
Men in Black
L.A. Confidential
Austin Powers
Good Will Hunting
Face/Off
Wag the Dog
Titanic

Gummo and Funny Games have been on my watch list forever, but I've never gotten around to them

 

1. Starship Troopers
2. Good Will Hunting
3. Face/Off

 

1. Perfect Blue
2. Gummo
3. Princess Mononoke

4. Lost Highway
5. Boogie Nights
6. Starship Troopers
7. Good Will Hunting
8. Life is Beautiful
9. Event Horizon
10. Happy Together

Man this year is stacked. Lost Highway would top my list most years. Also I didn't include End of Evangelion despite it probably being my favourite of the year just because it feels more like the ending of the anime than a standalone film. What a great year for anime.

 

This is easily one of my favourite years as not only is sci-fi represented by several great efforts but this year also has my favourite James Bond film of the decade, a film which is quite possibly my second or at worst third favourite action film of the decade and my favourite Tarantino directorial effort. That said my top three are -

1. Jackie Brown
2. Starship Troopers
3. Face/Off

There are several more that could have easily taken the second and third places which are in bold with the rest being notable favourites; The Game, L.A. Confidential, Boogie Nights, The Fifth Element, Gattaca, Cure, The Rainmaker, Breakdown, Liar Liar, Grosse Pointe Blank, Tomorrow Never Dies, Good Will Hunting, Men in Black, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Contact, Con Air, Air Force One, Conspiracy Theory, Cop Land, Mimic, Dante’s Peak, MouseHunt, Cube, Event Horizon, Kiss the Girls, and The Relic.

 

1. Perfect Blue
2. Taste of Cherry
3. Happy Together

When I was a little kid, I used to be scared / fascinated by the Perfect Blue VHS that I'd see in Blockbuster, specifically the image of the lead character with blood running down her face. I only managed to see the film a few years ago, but I thought it was wonderful and terrifying - and it's one of the few films that I think a (loose) remake could be really interesting, with the way fan / "stan" and internet culture is very different, but still quite terrifying now.

Taste of Cherry is Abbas Kiarostami beautiful and sad film, about a man trying to end his own life, and full of moments that only Kiarostami could film, focusing on the small details in life. The ending is perplexing, but intriguing, showing some sort of behind the scenes footage. A film that really sticks with you.

Happy Together is Wong Kar Wai's film about a romance in South America, that also focuses on nationality and statehood, releasing just before, and speaking to the handover of HK back to China. In classic Kar Wai style, the film is extremely loosely scripted, with Chen Chang's character being added well after shooting had started, because Leslie Cheung had prior commitments.

A good year for Japanese cinema in general, with Fireworks / Hana-Bi, Cure, Rainy Dog and Princess Mononoke all excellent films, about violence to some degree or another.

From the UK, a couple of good ones include Under The Skin, which is the debut role for Samantha Morton, and a great small story about grief and hopelessness. There's also the Welsh cult classic Twin Town, about a couple of young men from a "pretty shitty city". Not sure how popular this is outside Wales / UK, but everyone's seen it here. There's also Face, a film about small time crooks, with big political undertones. Very 1997, full of Britpop (and a supporting acting role from Damon Albarn), trip-hop, post-Thatcherite, pre-New Labour film really, that instantly summons up a time and a place.

For European stuff, there's Almodovar's Live Flesh, a classic Almodovar melodrama about a group of people colliding and intersecting, coming in and out of each other's lives with disastrous consequences. Haneke's Funny Games is his deeply uncomfortable, very unpleasant film about violence and voyeurism and cinema in general. Not sure I want to watch it again, but it had a massive impact on me.

I also have a soft spot for the ludicrous Devil's Advocate with Pacino this year, just because of how turned up to 11 his portrayal of the Devil is. Starship Troopers, Jackie Brown & Boogie Nights are obviously deservedly going to do well this year too.

Scorsese's Kundun is one of the few of his films that I haven't seen, so have been meaning to get to it someday, if only because Christopher from the Sopranos is a big fan...

 

1. Boogie Nights
2. Jackie Brown
3. Ossos

considered Titanic, Lost Highway, and Starship Troopers for top 3 as well, and I also have not yet seen Kundun

 

1. The Fifth Element
2. Starship Troopers
3. Gattaca

Solid year for sci-fi

 

1. Boogie Nights
2. Private Parts
3. Star Wars: A New Hope Special Edition
4. Grosse Point Blank
5. Break Down
6. AUSTIN powers International Man of Mystery
7. Face/Off
8. Contact
7. Jackie Brown
8. As Good Burger Goodwill Hunting As It Gets
9. Starship Troopers
10. Lee-Loo Dallas Multipass

 

I totally forgot Good Will Hunting came out this year. At one point it was my favorite movie ever.

 

1. Good Will Hunting
2. Contact
3. Batman & Robin

Also love Perfect Blue, Romy and Michele, and Clockwatchers

 

I have probably written more about Starship Troopers than any other film. It is so rich with themes and ideas, and it is baffling to me that professional movie critics at the time did not understand that. Then again, a lot of otherwise intelligent adults don't recognize the propaganda we are indundated with all the time.

 

1. Cure
2. Lost Highway
3. The End of Evangelion

 

Also, thirteen-year-old me when I first saw it… “men and women shower together and you get to see boobs?!?!”

 

I definitely liked it for different reasons when it came out.

On a related note, does anyone remember toys being sold for movies that were very much not for children? Our local Toys R Us had Starship Troopers toys.

 

Hard-R rated movies from the 80s had their own toy lines for children… Robocop, Rambo, Aliens.

 

Starship Troopers was one of my most pleasant surprises of the last few years. I had only seen the poster and thought it would be bad for some reason.

 

Antz, the Dreamworks animation film from a year or so later is basically (ish) Starship Troopers for kids.