1998 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1998:

1. Armageddon
2. Saving Private Ryan
3. Godzilla
4. There's Something About Mary
5. A Bug's Life
6. Deep Impact
7. Mulan
8. Dr. Doolittle
9. Shakespeare in Love
10. Lethal Weapon 4

What are your top three films for 1998? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. The Thin Red Line
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Rushmore

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

 

My top three is the strongest it has been since probably the 70's. Such great films from filmmakers in very different eras in their career; the return of the master, a lark from directors in their prime, and an up-and-comer. The Truman Show was prophetic, Histoire(s) du Cinema is listed as a 1998 film, 42 Up was truly insightful, A Night at the Roxbury is still endearing, and The Faculty was fun. Saving Private Ryan is a landmark in cinema, unfortunately not able to sustain the greatness of the opening. American History X and Happiness were important films when I was younger, but I worry they won't hold up. Wild Things was a big film for me when I was 11 or 12, as well.

 

1. Happiness
2. Buffalo ’66
3. The Idiots

4. Fucking Åmål
5. Love & Pop
6. The Truman Show
7. The Celebration
8. Saving Private Ryan
9. American History X
10. The Big Lebowski

Some oddballs this year but I love them dearly.

 

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Can’t Hardly Wait
3. The Faculty

 

1. The Big Lebowski
2. The Thin Red Line
3. Out of Sight

 

1. The Truman Show
2. The Waterboy
3. Bride of Chucky

hm: Ringu, the Faculty, Practical Magic, Scooby Doo Zombie Island

 

1. The Truman Show
2. The City of Lost Children
3. Waking Ned Devine

Honorable mentions:
Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line are two great WWII movies that came out this year.
Rushmore is also probably my favorite Wes Anderson movie, though part of that might just be nostalgia.

 

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
3. The Wedding Singer

 

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Happiness
3. Saving Private Ryan

 

1. The Big Lewbowski
2. The Celebration / Festen
3. Mulan

The Big Lewbowski is beloved and endlessly quoted into oblivion by now, but it is ridiculously funny.

The Celebration is the first Dogme film (with Von Trier's awfulThe Idiots coming second this year), it's a pitch black comedy (just...) about an appalling family gathering together to celebrate their father's birthday. It's horrible and painful to watch, but Vinterberg manages to keep it watchable and not too harrowing by finding humour in places you wouldn't expect.

I love Mulan - my favourite Disney cartoon, wonderful songs, some great action scenes and the film has lots of little visual flourishes in the animation. Less than 90 minutes, but establishes characters; leading, villains and supporting really well.

The hugely influential and copied Ring released this year. I saw it in the cinema a few years ago, and that final slow moment when she comes out of the TV and lurches towards the camera is absolutely terrifying in it's slowness and dread.

Jackie Chan's Who Am I is fun, and worth it just for the final sequence on top (and then tumbling down) a massive skyscraper.

From Iran, we have The Silence, about a young blind boy, who is extremely sensitive and attuned to musical instruments, and the film is an interesting blend of neo-realist type scenes on the streets and alleys, mixing with fantastical moments involving music.

For a Hong Kong film, we have Bio Zombie, which is so 1998 that there's a key plot point involving a Game Boy Camera. A low budget and gloriously scrappy film about some friends and a zombie attack while in a mall.

My Name is Joe is a fantastic and typical Ken Loach gritty drama about the romance between a working-class alcoholic in the rough areas of Glasgow and his health / social worker.

Two big American war films that I haven't seen in a long time, but I remember enjoying a lot with The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan.

Finally, there's Chinese film Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl, set during the Cultural Revolution and about a young girl being sent away to the remote areas of China to work on the land. It is quite possibly the most distressing and tragic film I think I've ever seen. I basically haven't been able to get it out of my head since watching it. Extremely powerful, but only recommended with a massive caveat, that it's really harrowing.

 

1. The Truman Show
2. The Big Lebowski
3. He Got Game

Also considered Bug's Life, Private Ryan and You've Got Mail but I feel like He Got Game is one of Spike's most underrated.

 

The Truman Show
A Simple Plan
Snake Eyes

Shout out to The Wedding Singer and Dirty Work

 

Another superb year that is packed with quality efforts, making choosing my top three rather difficult but regardless they are the following -

1. The Truman Show
2. Ringu
3. Ronin

Could have easily picked the following in bold for that third spot with the rest being at worst enjoyable; The Big Lebowski, The Mask of Zorro, Out of Sight, A Simple Plan, Croupier, Saving Private Ryan, Dark City, The Thin Red Line, Blade, Deep Impact, The Negotiator, Gods and Monsters, Deep Rising, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Rush Hour, Antz, Enemy of the State, Small Soldiers, and Elizabeth.

 

1. The Thin Red Line (Malick)
2. New Rose Hotel (Ferrara)
3. Histoire(s) du cinema (Godard)
-
4. After Life (Koreeda)
5. Buffalo 66 (Gallo)
6. Aprile (Moretti)
7. Eternity and a Day (Angelopoulos)
8. Snake Eyes (De Palma)
9. The Celebration (Vinterberg)
10. Wait and See (Somai)

Additional great works: The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong), Pickpocket (Jia), Bullet Ballet (Tsukamoto), Sada (Obayashi), Flowers of Shanghai (Hou), Christmas in August (Hur), April Story (Iwai), Love & Pop (Anno), A Hero Never Dies (To)

A massive year indeed.

 

1. The Thin Red Line
2. Snake Eyes
3. The Big Lebowski

It’s crazy that Saving Private Ryan was nowhere near the best war film in the year it came out. The Thin Red Line changed the way I thought about movies and is the standout in a loaded top 3 and a loaded overall year. Snake Eyes is De Palma at his best, behind only Blow Out. So many other memorable films this year: Half Baked, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Basketball, Can’t Hardly Wait, Fallen, Buffalo 66, Rounders, Rushmore, The Faculty. The creative juices were flowing in ‘98

 

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Rushmore
3. The Truman Show

Honorable mentions:

The Thin Red Line
Saving Private Ryan
Out of Sight
The Wedding Singer
Babe: Pig in the City
A Bug's Life
Dark City

 

Yay more snake eyes appreciation

 

1. The Thin Red Line
2. Armageddon
3. The Big Lebowski

"He's got space dementia"

 

I considered Armageddon. It achieves a transcendent level of magnificent, earnest, bizarre excess that is so captivating, but Michael Bay became too aware of that later in his career and has mostly lost all charm since.

 

I see we are getting into the realm of vulgar auteurism.

Armageddon is jingoistic propaganda, and it isn't a satire of it like Starship Troopers. It is hard to enjoy it as fun trash like something like Batman and Robin because Bay is constantly pushing a very right-wing agenda. It is Team America but they mean it literally.

 

It is all of those things, it's trash, but I'll never forget the first time I saw it.

 

I actually just watched Armageddon for the first time last night (I'm watching Bay's entire catalog in chronological order bc I hate myself). It's definitely jingoistic and casually sexist among other things, but I didn't find it to be flagrantly offensive by Bay's standards (except that 30 second scene of "Shanghai", which is what I imagine Bay thinks Shanghai actually looks like)

I actually got a kick out of the bit where the president and Keith David's crew almost fuck the whole mission up. At its core I think Bay's message for the movie, if there is one, is that the American everyman is the true hero of the world. I've heard it only gets more nihilistic from here

 

As a teenager, something like Armageddon was highly appealing but I haven't seen it in like a decade as films by Bay have become less and less something I care for. Even more so when there are better versions out of there of what he attempts to do, Deep Impact is definitely the better of that kind of film from that year.