But you can hardly consider angst or spiritual quests new themes. The truly new trend this year was the way that the "Star Wars" prequel's release date played havoc with the release dates of other films.
It turned the first half of the year into a film waste land, while studios were too chicken to release anything good ahead of The Phantom Menace. In fact, there was such a dearth of good movies, both highbrow and lowbrow, that The Mummy made over a hundred million dollars! For a while there, I was so desperate to see a decent movie that I nearly sat through a French movie about two women who work in a sewing factory! I shudder to remember it.
Fortunately, once Jar-Jar was behind us, beginning around late September, there were plenty of decent films that came out, released on a regular basis.
The worst 8 films that I personally saw in 1999 (hey, only eight! I must be getting more discriminating when going to the movies) were: Cruel Intentions, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Phantom Menace, Tarzan, Arlington Road, Bowfinger, Analyze This, and worst of all: Dogma.
| Movies - in NO order | Director |
| Central Station (1998! rel. Jan. 1999) | Walter Salles |
| Hilary and Jackie (1998! rel. Jan. 1999) | Anand Tucker |
| My Name Is Joe (1998! rel. Feb. 1999) | Ken Loach |
| Leila - maybe (1996! rel. Dec. 1999) | Dariush Mehrjui |
| Children of Heaven - maybe (1997! re. Feb. 1999) | Majid Majidi |
| The Last Days (1998!) | James Moll |
| American Movie | Chris Smith |
| The Limey | Steven Soderbergh |
| After Life - maybe | Hirokazu Kore-eda |
| Rosetta - maybe | Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne |
| My Best Fiend | Werner Herzog |
| October Sky | Joe Johnston |
| The Dreamlife of Angels | Erick Zonca |
| Limbo | John Sayles |
| Princess Mononoke | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Meeting People is Easy - maybe | Grant Gee |
| Lenny Bruce: Swear to Tell the Truth | Robert Weide |
| The War Zone - maybe | Tim Roth |
| Earth | Deepa Mehta |
| Autumn Tale - maybe | Eric Rohmer |
| Movies disqualified (not released in the first 355 days of 1999) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cradle Will Rock | will wait for some reviews before seeing or not | Tim Robbins |
| 42 Up | will definitely see | Michael Apted |
| Topsy-Turvy | wanna see | Mike Leigh |
| The End of the Affair | will toss a coin re: renting video | Neil Jordan |
| A Map of the World | this has the potential to be a stinker | Scott Elliott |
| Titus | anyone's guess | Julie Taymor |
Heaven Can Wait (1943) The Line King A Man For All Seasons Desk Set A Civil Action Once Were Warriors A Night To Remember Life Is Beautiful The Thin Red Line Passport to Pimlico The Butcher Boy All The President's Men To Be Or Not To Be (1942) Rushmore Billy's Hollywood Screen Kiss Cruel Intentions I Went Down Married to the Mob A Simple Plan As Good as it Gets The Boys of St. Vincent Swingers Three Coins in the Fountain Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Night of the Comet Go Baseketball Dr. Zhivago The Matrix Poltergeist Misery Chasing Amy 7 Faces of Dr. Lao Dazed and Confused A Room With a View Babe 2: Pig in the City Stowaway Mulan Mystery Train Kagemusha Star Wars Part 1: The Phantom Menace Henry V (1945) Adventure Day Henry V (1989) Anne of the Thousand Days The Legacy: Murder & Media, Politics & Prisons Election Gidget Goes to Rome Amarcord The Sugarland Express Searching for Bobby Fischer The Stunt Man Duel Zorba the Greek The Desperate Hours Tarzan A Man of no Importance Wild in the Streets Into the Deep Raiders of the Lost Ark Bound Bedknobs and Broomsticks The Winslow Boy A Little Stiff Arlington Road Jane Eyre (1944) Xiu Xiu: the Sent Down Girl The Blue Angel It's All True American Pie Genghis Blues Anne Frank Remembered Yom Yom The Seventh Million The Blair Witch Project Carmen Miranda: Bananas is my Business Mystery Men The Iron Giant Eight Men Out The Wild Bunch The Third Man Say Anything The Sixth Sense Berkeley in the Sixties Bowfinger Forbidden Zone Angel Baby Hollow Reed The White Balloon One False Move The Patchwork Girl of Oz Yidl Mitn Fidl Pollyanna Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) Baraka American Beauty Good-bye, My Lady Moonstruck The Wizard of Oz Three Kings Family Dog Fight Club Singin' in the Rain Macbeth (1948) Show Me Love Beautiful Thing Racing With the Moon God's Waiting Room Being John Malkovich Lady and the Tramp Analyze This Sleepy Hollow The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 101 Dalmatians (1961) Dogma Kingergarten Cop The Insider Boys Don't Cry Toy Story 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer The Straight Story Buena Vista Social Club The Dinner Game The Green Mile South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut A Christmas Story The Talented Mr. Ripley