1999

Winner:

American Beauty was the deserving winner this year. While it does not stand up to the very best of pictures, it is certainly better than most winners, and better than its competition this year. For starters, the production is excellent. The film’s directed by Sam Mendes and it’s hard to believe it was his directorial debut for a feature length film. While he’s had a lot of critically acclaimed films since, he didn’t have another Best Picture nominee until 2019’s 1917. He would win Best Director for this film. The film also won for cinematography and was nominated for editing and score, though I didn’t think the score was particularly notable. The film easily navigates between being visually beautiful and intellectually deep, somehow finding the right shots for both. The acting is superb, especially Kevin Spacey, though he has completely fallen from grace and is likely to never return. I admire stories with strong voices, and I enjoyed his voiceovers at the beginning and end of the movie. If they had used more of his narration to frame the movie, it would have been stronger. I’m not sure I would have voted for him to win the award for Best Actor this year, but he wasn’t a bad choice. The entire cast was solid, though the only other person to be nominated for an Academy Award was Annette Bening. As for the story, which won an award for screenplay, although it slowly unfolds, it is never boring. The level of intrigue just keeps building. Eventually, you are desperate to know who killed Kevin Spacey. It’s not a spoiler to say this. They make it clear he dies in the opening moments. Critics and analysts have interpreted the movie many ways. I prefer to keep it simple and see it as a criticism of the madness and emptiness of modern American suburbia when such beauty and authenticity are just beneath the surface and ignored. It’s a theme even more relevant today in the digital age and one that resonated for me then and still today. While I would have made this subtle commentary a bit stronger, perhaps with a stronger voice, and I would have featured a better soundtrack, it was good enough to win Best Picture in most given years. It hasn’t stood the test of time as well as it might have though, in part because of Kevin Spacey and in part because some critics find the middle class beauty themes a little trivial after the social trauma of the early 21st century. I find that a little silly. It’s likely the film will come back into favor in days to come.

Nominees:

The Cider House Rules is based on a John Irving novel of the same name and Irving would win an Academy Award for the adapted screenplay. Sometime early in graduate school, when I was swamped with reading text after text about history, and missing the simple joy of reading good literature, or well-crafted stories, I resolved to read for pleasure at least a half hour each day, and mostly I still do. In this period, I finally read the John Irving books I meant to read. The World According to Garp was one of the films that influenced the transition from my childhood to adulthood films, though I saw it well after the release. I always meant to read the book, and ended up reading several Irving books in a row, among them The Cider House Rules. His writing is rich, in language and in character and plot development. They seem to be beautiful ramblings until they are much more. The film is the same, a beautiful rambling until it is much more. The film as directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who was nominated for Best Director. His only other Best Picture nominee was for the next year’s Chocolat. The film was also nominated for editing, production design, and the score, and overall it had a nice classic feel which helped set the tone for a quirky story about days gone by. It becomes a story about the eccentricities of our relationships and humanity, beautifully told. The film is not quite as beautiful along the way, as it lacks the superb language approaching the more profound parts. It takes longer to get there, it seems, which is rare to say of a film as opposed to a book. My main issue, however, is that they excised some crucial parts of the book, though Irving did the screenplay himself. In the end, even without some crucial parts of the plot, it is a sweet film, and even sometimes profound. It just takes a while to get there. In the meantime, the production is decent and the acting is subtly brilliant. Michael Caine does not get the credit he deserves, even with the awards over his career (he would win an award for this supporting performance but he was the only cast member even nominated for an Oscar). The same could be said about Charlize Theron. As for Tobey Maguire, he never got the credit he deserved. I hope he has another act or two as he gets older, one that might lead to new heights. The Cider House Rules takes on the personality of its author and screenwriter, but I cannot help but think if outside pressures had not Hollywoodized this story, it would have been more profound in the end. It lacks the richness of an Irving novel, and the richness of Garp. Instead of a solid film, it might have been powerful.

The Green Mile is one of the best Stephen King novels, of which I have read many, though not lately. He was one of my favorite writers in the 1980s and 1990s, and for a good part of the 2000s decade as well. His stories are always at least highly entertaining and sometimes they’re magical, especially when they have a touch more fantasy in them instead of horror. Despite the occasional brilliance of Stephen King’s writing, only two adaptations of his books are as good as or better than the originals. This is one, and it was rightfully nominated for adapted screenplay (you could make a case it was a better adapted screenplay than The Cider House Rules, which won, but you could also make a case the other way). The other King adaptation arguably better than the book is The Shawshank Redemption. Both are directed by Frank Darabont, who has only directed a few other films in his career. Set in the Great Depression, the movie has an authentic feel to it, thanks to very artful production. It wasn’t nominated for any technical awards other than sound, but maybe it should have been. I thought the acting was very good across the board, though none of the roles demanded very much. It’s surprising Tom Hanks wasn’t nominated for his performance, not because he deserved it but because he was nominated for something seemingly every time he walked out a door at this point in his career. The only nominated actor was Michael Clarke Duncan for his supporting role. But the best part of the film is the story, though I might have found a way to tell it with less time. It’s more than three hours. The thing about the story, is that it is not necessarily an important one to tell about some historical event or person in our recent past, and it is not necessarily full of inherent meaning. It’s just a good story, one that pulls you in and makes you care about what happens to the characters. Stephen King is good at that, as well as creating an emotionally satisfying ending to an absorbing tale. Such films are hard to come by on the list of nominees in this era, the years in which I was aware of such things. The Academy had a hard time recognizing something that did not have an assigned or inherent meaning and is just a good story, though not important in tangible ways. These films seem a little out of place when they do show up on the list, but there is no reason for it. Still, I agree with the nomination.

The Insider is based on a true story about a whistleblower in the tobacco industry. It’s weird to think the tobacco industry was so influential at one point, and that influence was achieved by nefarious means. The film is a corporate thriller, and one of the best of that genre, if there is such a genre. Director Michael Mann knows how to make a movie that stimulates the senses of sight and sound and this is one of his best. The Insider was likely strong enough to withstand average production, but the excellent direction only strengthens it. Michael Mann was nominated for Best Director, and in another year he night have won, though this year was stacked with solid directing. The film was also nominated for cinematography, editing, and sound. The acting is stellar. Russell Crowe was the only one nominated for an acting Academy Award. Back then you heard a lot of Hollywood insider gossip and rumors, and one of them was that Crowe deserved the award this year, and when he won the next year for Gladiator, it wasn’t because he gave the best performance that year but because he was robbed this one. And then the year after that he gave the best performance again for A Beautiful Mind, but lost the award since he didn’t deserve the one for Gladiator. So he should have had two Best Actor awards instead of one for Gladiator. That was the insider scoop back then. I’m torn as to whether Russell Crowe was stronger than Kevin Spacey this year, but in hindsight I think he likely deserved to win the award. I also don’t think the win for Gladiator was completely undeserved, not because it was a particularly strong performance but because no one else gave a strong enough performance to clearly beat him. As for Crowe deserving to win for A Beautiful Mind, well, it was a great performance and would serve to win in many years, and maybe that year. But Denzel Washington was fantastic in Training Day as well and I would have voted for him. Crowe’s performance in this film was subtly brilliant, and so much of the films needed subtlety. The performance was perfect for the role. Al Pacino also gave a restrained performance that was surprisingly good. As for the story, which was nominated for a screenplay Oscar, it is a vitally important one, for many reasons. I do feel the movie was unnecessarily slow in the beginning. They could have done a better job setting the stage for what ends up being a very compelling movie. Still, there is no doubt this movie is worth considering for Best Picture, though it falls short.

If you’ve never seen The Sixth Sense and think you might want to, stop reading this review. There are no overt spoilers that you won’t otherwise see in a commercial, but you might be able to infer something. I saw The Sixth Sense a decade and a half after it came out when I decided to watch every single Best Picture nominee. It was a cultural phenomenon when it came out. Everybody talked about it. It was the second highest grossing film that year, trailing only Star Wars: Episode I. I missed it because I missed a lot of movies back then, not because I did not want to see them. I was in the military when this came out, likely training for a deployment. By the time I saw it, I was well aware of the ending. Even knowing full well what would happen, it is still a gripping movie. M. Night Shyamalan is a household name as a director these days but this was his breakthrough film. You could argue this is his best work but there are other films for which you could make strong cases as well. His films are very hit or miss but when they hit they are brilliant. The film makes superb use of Philadelphia as a background, especially the use of older architecture. It was filmed in autumn colors, with golden leaves in the trees. I don’t know if this was a conscious decision but there could be no better season to capture the mood of the film. What was a conscious decision is the limited use of the color red except in important scenes. Overall, it’s fantastic at having an eerie, and just slightly creepy factor, while also being tender. Every aspect of the film sets the mood. The choice of lighting and shot framing is perfect. The film has a classic feel, perhaps even something Hitchcock might have made, while retaining its own modern flair and distinctive voice that would come to represent Shyamalan films. The soundtrack is eerie as well, though not always consistent. While Syamalan was nominated for Best Director, it’s a puzzling oversight the only technical award was for editing. It had more nominations for acting. Bruce Willis has made a career out of his workmanlike performances. Perhaps he is underrated, and perhaps when you see his early films and abilities you see that he could have gone a much different way than chiefly as an action star. His patient and calm demeanor might have been perfect for the role. Haley Joel Osmond does some superb child acting, capable of such vulnerability, as reflected in his nomination for his supporting role. He started off his career as the son of Forrest Gump then soon found himself in this role. While he has had a continued career as a working actor, he never quite matched the same great heights. Toni Collette is solid in her role as the boy’s mother, and was nominated for a supporting role, certainly a sign of things to come. M. Night even inserts himself in the film as a minor character, as he often does. It’s a near flawless script (one nominated for original screenplay) and that’s a testament to the talents of Shyamalan as an overall storyteller and not just director. It’s instantly intriguing and immediately makes you want to know where it’s going. It’s full of low key intensity and unfolds at a near perfect pace. It’s the perfect guessing game for the viewers. The few times the pace starts to slightly fade, it quickly snaps right back. It has some truly memorable moments. The “I See Dead People” scene is one of the most iconic from the era. That quote was ranked the 44th best quote by the AFI. Back then, you could purchase parody shirts that said “I see dumb people” and I wanted to buy one. It also has some incredibly tender moments, like when he gives the sister of a deceased girl the doll she waned her to have. The ending packs an emotional punch no matter how many times you’ve seen it, and it’s quite a rewarding film. It’s a fantastic ghost story that you didn’t see coming. I can see why this was something of a cultural phenomenon and box office hit, and also why it was nominated for Best Picture, even if it’s not your typical nominee, at least not for those days. I can also see why it had some staying power, finding its way into the American Film Institute lists, checking in at 60 in the list of greatest thrills and 89 in the updated top 100 list. You might make a case that it was the best movie this year, but it wasn’t a strong year and it wouldn’t be that strong of a case.

Other notable films: This is one of the very rare years that the Academy got things somewhat right. Not only did it choose a solid Best Picture, but the other four nominees all deserved their spots. There was no weak link, and that is a rare thing, though you could argue for the inclusion of a few other movies. Being John Malkovich is unique storytelling and is truly inventive if not also a little unsatisfying. / Boys Don’t Cry isn’t the most powerful or engrossing stories but features one of the best performances in film history by Hilary Swank. / Fight Club has one of the most unique voices in film history, and is hypnotizing as it pulls you into a cleverly constructed plot. It does lose a little momentum in the last half hour, but is one of the most intriguing films of the decade. While I admit it is an insane and polarizing film, I would have given it strong consideration for a nomination. / Girl on the Bridge is a French film that’s absolutely hypnotic and has some of the best production not recognized by the Academy. / It might not belong on the list but The Matrix is rightfully a classic. I understand some Oscar purists have problems with science fiction and action films. I do not, if they are still excellent films. Even if some people dismiss the story and the way it’s told, it merits consideration for the sheer power of its groundbreaking production. / Snow Falling on Cedars is a hauntingly beautiful story with gorgeous production to match.

Top Five: American Beauty, The Matrix, Fight Club, The Green Mile, The Sixth Sense