1999: Movies Seen
Submitted by Imposter on Mon, 07/19/2004 - 02:21
Tags:
This Year's Model
- All About My Mother - dir: Pedro Almodovar; st: Cecilia Roth, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña, Antonia San Juan
****½
- Being John Malkovich - dir: Spike Jonze; st: John Malkovich, John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, Catherine Keener, Orson Bean
- Buena Vista Social Club - dir: Wim Wenders; st: Ry Cooder, Ibrahim Ferrer, Carlos González, Rubén González, Luis Barzaga
- Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai - dir: Jim Jarmusch; st: Forest Whitaker, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman, Frank Minucci, Tricia Vessey
- The Iron Giant - dir: Brad Bird; st: Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel, James Gammon, Cloris Leachman
- Kikujiro - dir: Takeshi Kitano; st: Takeshi Kitano, Yusuke Sekiguchi, Kayoko Kishimoto, Yuuko Daike
- The Road Home - dir: Zhang Yimou; st: Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglei, Zheng Hao, Zhao Yulian, Li Bin, Chang Guifra
- The Sixth Sense - dir: M. Night Shyamalan; st: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut - dir: Trey Parker; st: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes
- The Straight Story - dir: David Lynch; st: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Jane Galloway, Joseph A. Carpenter
- Toy Story 2 - dir: Ash Brannon, John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich; st: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer
****
- The Big Kahuna - dir: John Swanbeck; st: Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Peter Facinelli
- The Blair Witch Project - dir: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez; st: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C Williams
- Bringing Out The Dead - dir: Martin Scorsese; st: Nicholas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames
- Chaos - dir: Hideo Nakata; st: Masato Hagiwara, Miki Nakatani, Ken Mitsuishi, Jun Kunimura
- Dead Or Alive - dir: Takashi Miike; st: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa, Renji Ishibashi, Hitoshi Ozawa
- Election - dir: Alexander Payne; st: Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Jessica Campbell, Chris Klein
- Galaxy Quest - dir: Dean Parisot; st: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell
- The Limey - dir: Steven Soderbergh; st: Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Barry Newman
- Not One Less - dir: Zhang Yimou; st: Wei Minzhi, Zhang Huike, Zhenda Tian, Enman Go, Zhimei Sun
- Office Space - dir: Mike Judge; st: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Ajay Naidu, David Herman, Gary Cole, Stephen Root
- Running Out Of Time - dir: Johnny To; st: Andy Lau, Shiu Hung Hui, Ching Wang Lau, Ruby Wong, YoYo Mung
- Shower - dir: Yang Zhang; st: Wu Jiang, Quanxin Pu, He Zeng, Xu Zhu
- Sweet And Lowdown - dir: Woody Allen; st: Sean Penn, Samantha Morton
- Three Kings - dir: David O. Russell; st: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze
- The Virgin Suicides - dir: Sofia Coppola; st: Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, Kathleen Turner, James Woods
***½
- 200 Cigarettes - dir: Risa Bramon Garcia; st: Ben Affleck, Janeane Garofalo, Gaby Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Martha Plimpton
- American Beauty - dir: Sam Mendes; st: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley
- Analyze This - dir: Harold Ramis; st: Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow, Chazz Palmintieri
- Dick - dir: Andrew Fleming; st: Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, Dan Hedaya, Will Ferrell, Bruce McCulloch
- Eyes Wide Shut - dir: Stanley Kubrick; st: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sydney Pollack
- The Hurricane - dir: Norman Jewison; st: Denzel Washington, Vicellous Reon Shannon, Deborah Unger, Liev Schreibner
- Ringu 2 - dir: Hideko Nakata; st: Miki Nakatani, Rikiya Otaka, Hitomi Sato, Kenjiro Ishimaru, Yurei Yanagi
- Taboo - dir: Nagisa Oshima; st: Takeshi Kitano, Ryuhei Matsuda, Tadanobu Asano, Shinji Takeda, Koji Matoba
***
- Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me - dir: Jay Roach; st: Mike Myers, Heather Graham, Michael York, Robert Wagner
- Bowfinger - dir: Frank Oz; st: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Christine Baranski, Jamie Kennedy
- Dogma - dir: Kevin Smith; st: George Carlin, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Alanis Morissette
- The Ninth Gate - dir: Roman Polanski; st: Johnny Depp, Frank Langella, Emmanuelle Seigner, Lena Olin, Barbara Jefford
- Romance - dir: Catherine Breillat; st: Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stévenin, François Berléand, Rocco Siffredi
**½
- Cruel Intentions - dir: Roger Kumble; st: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillipe, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair
- The Muse - dir: Albert Brooks; st: Albert Brooks, Sharon Stone, Andie MacDowell, Jeff Bridges
- Mystery Men - dir: Kinka Usher; st: Hank Azaria, Claire Forlani, Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, Greg Kinnear
- The Thomas Crown Affair - dir: John McTiernan; st: Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, Denis Leary, Ben Gazzara
- The World Is Not Enough - dir: Michael Apted; st: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Marceau, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards
**
- 8 ½ Women - dir: Peter Greenaway; st: John Standing, Matthew Delamere, Vivian Wu, Toni Collette, Amanda Plummer
*½
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - dir: George Lucas; st: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, oh yeah. Any animated musical with a song as good as Uncle F****r deserves mucho praise. And it should have won the oscar for best song too (Garsh darn Academy Awards!).
Tallyho
:?)
Dam Straight, it should of won!
funniest movie ever made..maybe. L;}
Many curses for giving American Beauty only ***½.
Thanks! :-)
I thought it was just brilliant the first time I saw it. Second time, just excellent. Third time, well...
It's a film that doesn't hold up to multiple viewings for me. Luckily I haven't watched it in a while, or else it would have placed further on down, and who knows what kind of curses you would have placed on me then.
Maybe I can work some counter-voodoo and bless you for ranking The Road Home so highly. :-)
Why is it that every time I curse people I notice someone else blessing others?
Balance of energy, man!
Maybe it's an 'Unbreakable' situation where I was made to disseminate evil and others are meant to counter my deeds.
But on the other hand, being represented by Samuel L. Jackson is pretty cool.
Man, what a wonderful movie! Very simple, very sweet, and a real treat to loook at. Can I expect the same level of quality from the other Yimou flicks as I've experienced so far?
I certainly think so, but after years of Zhang Yimou cheerleading, I'm hardly an objective critic anymore. That won't stop me from giving you a quick chronological rundown of his filmography though:
Red Sorghum: Formerly cinematographer for Chen Kaige, Zhang makes directorial debut here. It's supposed to be great, but I haven't seen it. I might be able to track down a VHS copy, but I'm holding out for DVD. Sadly, I might be holding out for a looong time. Maybe if Hero and House of Flying Daggers do well we'll start to see a few of his missing titles hit shelves.
The Puma Action: The sophomore slump. After the success of Red Sorghum somehow Zhang ended up making a straight-forward and (by all accounts) poor action movie. Haven't seen it; doubt it will ever see the light of day on home media.
Ju Dou: A lavishly shot, beautifully colored tragic masterpiece.
Raise the Red Lantern: See above.
The Story of Qiu Ju: Slightly grainier look, touches of comedy to lighten the load. Wonderful.
To Live: Along with Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, one of Zhang's best. A multi-generational epic.
Shanghai Triad: His gangster film. While very good, this didn't quite work for me as well as the others, although I know many folks who love it.
Lumière and Company: A series of short films by different directors, Zhang being one. Haven't seen it.
Keep Cool: Haven't seen it, doesn't seem to be available.
Not One Less: Very good.
The Road Home: Very, very good.
Happy Times: Merely good, but many directors would kill for one of Zhang's lesser efforts (I warned you I wasn't objective!)
Hero: His first wuxia film, and one of the best the genre has to offer. Uses Rashomanesque structure to good effect, and harkens back to his earlier gorgeous use of rich, rich color.
House of Flying Daggers: His second and purportedly final wuxia film. Coming to the US this November. Can't wait!
To Live looks like the earliest of the Yimou films available at Netflix, so I added that to the queue.
And thanks a lot for the rundown! I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of these now.
And I'm looking forward to hearing what you think!