Films from 1999 you should watch if you haven’t already:
- Toy Story 2 – A Pixar film about your toys. Good for kids, good for you too.
- The Sixth Sense - I swear this is M. Night Shyamalan’s only good film. The guy is a hack! A hack, I say!
- American Beauty – Great drama that won the Oscar for best movie. I think this was the movie that introduced me to Kevin Spacey.
- The Green Mile – I like most Tom Hanks movies, and this is no exception. Just go into it knowing it’s a three hour investment of time.
- The Mummy – I’m serious; it’s good clean fun. The computer animated special effects don’t really hold up, but there is some corny humor that reminded me a bit of the Evil Dead series.
Underrated films of 1999:
- South Park – Bigger, Longer and Uncut – On the surface, South Park seems vulgar and crass. Underneath that veneer there is usually a smart message taking aim at some of society’s hypocrisy. And this one is delivered as a musical!
- Run Lola, Run – A German movie that plays out three scenarios of a girl’s day. Each one has one minor difference that throws her time line off, causing the day to play out in a different way.
- SLC Punk – Move about punks growing up in Salt Lake City in the 80s. The story shows how all punk rockers come to realize they need to grow up and get an education so they can affect the changes they claim to seek. To quote the main character’s father, “I didn’t sell out, I bought in.”
- Trekkies - A documentary about obsessed Star Trek fanboys. You get to watch a couple get married, in full Klingon regalia. It’s funny and engaging.
Overrated films of 1999:
- Disney’s Tarzan – I think this started Disney’s decline into animated movies with indistinguishable plots played by different stereotypes. Or maybe this was when I started to realize it.
- Austin Powers – Sure, it was funny at the time, but this is a movie franchise that won’t seem to die. Three Austin Powers movies later I think we can all agree that Mike Myers is a washed up, one-trick pony that was only kind of funny in the 90s. Why do all his characters have a bad Scottish accent? Think of Fat Bastard, Shrek, probably someone in Love Guru, The Axe Murder movie, probably some other movies I’m forgetting…see what I’m saying?
- American Pie - High school humor. A “controversial” pie fucking scene made this the talk of Tinseltown. Formulaic humor and otherwise lame plot and characters. If you’ve seen one comedy set in a high school, you’ve seen them all.
- Varsity Blues – Speaking of movies set in high schools, this one isn’t anything special but it I recall everyone in my class talking about this movie. Skip it.
- Dogma – Kevin Smith’s faux-intellectualism and potty humor is meant for teenagers. This movie is less a commentary on religion and the Catholic church, and more a movie about Kevin Smith’s desire to make jokes told by jaded Catholic school children. To think I used to be a fan of Jay and Silent Bob. I guess a more years and a solid education changed my opinion of “intelligent” humor.
So what do you all think? Agree? Disagree? Did I gloss over something?
