Some eagled eye followers might notice an increased number of films from 1999. In celebrations of the book, Best. Movie. Year. Ever by Brian Raftery, a local theater near me decided to showcase movies released in the year of 1999 throughout June and July. With movies like The Matrix, The Blair With Project, Galaxy Quest, and many more playing at the theater, how could I pass up the opportunity to catch these movies on the big screen. With that in mind, let’s watch some movies like it is the Summer of ‘99.
They Live (1988)
It blows my mind how some films age like fine wine. They Live is a film about a construction worker, who stumbles upon some sunglasses that give him the ability to see … them lurking among us. Who are they? They are some skeletal blue aliens disguised as humans trying to keep the human race docile and in control. The sunglasses allow our hero, Nada, to not only see Them, but also see billboards and magazines simply telling us to obey. With his new-found knowledge, Nada sets out to try to disrupt their control by any means necessary.
I am sure some today would see this film as an attack on specific political groups. They would argue They are their side’s political opponent; hiding among good American citizens trying to destroy the country, but you know better, don’t you my loyal follower. They Live is about the class divide that threatens America; how the ruling class would long for us to be obedient workers. There is even a scene where Nada fights his best friend Frank, highlighting how They would rather see us fighting among ourselves. I do think this fight is too long, but as I reflected upon how our media has us at each other’s throats all the time, I began to appreciate the scene.
Movies like They Live, will always be my metaphorical sunglasses: exposure to the truth that the billionaire class wants to hide among us while controlling what we think, what we do, and what we say.
The Muppets Movie (1979)
It was the 45th anniversary of The Muppets Movie, so I felt it an opportune time to revisit this classic. The movie tells the tale of Kermit the Frog traveling across America to get to an audition in Hollywood. Along the way, he picks up members of the Muppet’s cast, including Fozzy, Gonzo, Miss Piggy and many others. The film is chalked full of the quirky comedy that the Muppet’s staked their claim on. It’s earnest comedy that can crack a smile on anyone’s face. I do find the plot of the restaurant owner, Doc Hopper, chasing down Kermit to force him to be the spoke person for his frog legs food chain a bit ridiculous. I imagine a frog mascot would cause people to feel guilty about eating frog legs. However, this MacGuffin is really to put a ticking clock on The Muppets and doesn’t detract from the film. Honestly, The Muppets as a whole feel timeless and are certainly overlooked by their corporate masters at Disney.
The Matrix (1999)
My loyal followers, what is there to say about The Matrix that hasn’t been said already. I remember seeing the film in my teenage years and being enthralled by the action. The ballet of guns and kung-fu; it completely captured my adrenaline junkie of a teenage mind. However, what really blew me away, rewatching the film, was how this movie says so much without having to physically say it. The Matrix warns us about our future conflict with machines and AI that we won’t win. The film philosophizes over what is real and what isn’t. It contemplates the dangers of being uncritical about your surrounding environment. Furthermore, it tries to reveal that so many boundaries we place in the way of our own happiness are simply not real. The spoon doesn’t exist. I can’t escape the idea that you could spend a lifetime peeling away the layers of this film, and you would see nothing but a near perfect movie. Sure, the CGI isn’t great, but that’s like asking your grandma to box Imane Khelif. I have no doubt The Matrix will be remembered as one of the greatest sci-fi films to have ever graced the cinema screens.
The Dead Don’t Hurt
I have been trying to extend my palette to include more than just action and horror films, and with my move across the country, I was in the mood for a movie about the lawless west. I yearned for a standoff at high noon between two gunslingers. I wouldn’t even scoff at a tumbleweed or two rolling through the shot. Thankfully, Viggo Mortensen is looking to bring those movies back with his film The Dead Don’t Hurt.
Mortensen takes the role of writer, director and lead actor in this story of two pioneers, Holger Olsen and Vivienne Le Coudy, who fall in love and head out west. Unfortunately, when the American Civil War comes knocking at his door, Olsen answers the call to defend the Union. Alone, Le Coudy, is taken advantage of by the son of a wealthy banker, forcing Olsen to set things right when he returns from the war.
In the beginning, I was certainly into the movie as this plot slowly started to boil over. I sat there in anticipation as I felt the film building to that epic final gun fight that westerns were known for. Unfortunately, in a blink of an eye, it was over. Our villain killed in mere seconds with no need for an epic standoff. As the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but feel narratively unsatisfied. It was like sitting in a rollercoaster as it climbs its way to the top, only for the drop to be a couple of feet. If Mortensen takes another crack at another western, I’ll certainly give it another shot, but the current attempt doesn’t leave an ounce of hurt.
The Strangers: Chapter 1
Before I saw The Strangers: Chapter 1, I thought the Immaculate and The First Omen would be the laziest horror movies I had seen that year. Never could I be so wrong; this movie is literally a carbon copy of The Strangers. Beat for beat. Plot point for plot point. Scenes like The Strangers tricking their victims into shooting an innocent victim, The Strangers ramming their car into the victim’s car, and the final chair moment have all been lifted from the original film. Is there anything new? Yes, small details alluding to the Strangers being milked for sequels, just like the Halloween and Friday the 13th series. Early on, the movie has a strange focus on the towns people, who are metaphorically erecting a giant neon sign saying some of them will be the Stranger. Also, our female heroine survives the attack from the Strangers hinting that she will hunt them down in later movies like Laurie in those God awful Halloween movies. Look, I am ok with Lionsgate trying to make The Strangers a yearly thing, but not if they are going to put this much effort into the series. Don’t bother with this series, just stick to the original.
The Batman (1989)
A lot of Batman movies and TV episodes look really unimpressive now when you realize they were operating off a cheat sheet. Jokes aside, I feel like I have seen Bruce Wayne nearly hang up the cowl so many times, it just feels like a tired trope. However, I imagine in 1989, it would be a big deal for a hero like Batman to walk away from it all, so I am willing to give Tim Burton’s The Batman a pass. For those unaware of this 35-year-old film, The Batman stars the caped crusader attempting to clean up the organized crime in Gotham when a new player joins the scene: The Joker. To make matters worse, Bruce has begun dating reporter Vicky Vale, causing Bruce to be torn between his two identities. While not my favorite, The Batman has a certain timeless quality to it and no doubt help inspire the Batman The Animated Series. It is certainly no Dark Knight, but I think this is still a respectable film in the Batman franchise.
The Watchers
I walked out of the film, The Watchers, feeling oddly unsatisfied. So much so, I bought the book this film was based off of on Audible. While I am not far into the book, author A.M. Shine is able to showcase a lot of details that I think the film is missing. The Watchers is a film about a girl who gets lost in a forest in west Ireland. She is able to find shelter, but soon learns she can’t leave, due to creatures that watch them throughout the night.
The film ends up feeling both too long and too short. The lack of detail in characters makes the film feel like it needs an hour added on. The audiobook was able to inform me that our protagonist, Mina, was a struggling artist. A detail that is an easy mark for getting me to sympathize with a character, yet is absent in the film. I honestly felt the characters in Abigail, the vampire monster girl movie, had more personality than the other three survivors Mina encountered. Simultaneously, the ending feels completely rushed and could have easily been cut down. It does one of those fake endings where everything feels wrapped up too easily, just to tack on another ten minutes that feel completely rushed.
Now, I generally try not to point fingers, but I feel like there might have been some inexperience behind the wheel here. Unfortunately, this was the director, Ishana Night Shyamalan’s, daughter of M. Night Shyamalan, first feature film. She had previously directed a handful of episodes of Servant, alongside her dad. So I imagine this was a new experience for her. Like most young filmmakers, probably learned a lot of hard lessons during this film. Personally, I hope she doesn’t take too much of the criticism to heart, learns the hard lessons and gets back on the horse. Despite the failures of The Watchers, I do think the world needs young voices in the director’s chair.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Found footage films learned the wrong lessons from The Blair Witch Project. So many found footage films will use the premise to quickly flash a glimpse of a CGI monster followed by ten minutes of disorientating running through the woods. The Blair Witch Project never resorts to this cheap trick. It knows it can create fear and paranoia with a simple legend of a witch in the woods and three young adults who get lost trying to find her. It’s about the stress of being lost and letting your mind create its own version of hell. Personally, I am a firm believer in the theory that the witch is not even there. I have a feeling the next found footage film I watch, will be judged with heavier scrutiny. This is how to do both psychological and found footage film, that I know nobody learned from. This has to be on every horror fan’s watch list.
Inside Out 2
The Inside Out series is certainly a special series in the Pixar pantheon. The characterization of these emotions allow us to connect with our own emotions in a way very few movies can achieve. If you haven’t cried at either movie, you might want to try, or else be exposed as an undercover lizard person.
This time around, Riley has hit puberty and some new emotions have moved into her head. With Riley’s friends moving to new schools, she is desperate to make the varsity hockey team in order to make new friends. For a sequel like this, the stakes are actually quite small, but that’s what happens when you’re a teenager. A new emotion, Anxiety, quickly takes over, and it is up to Joy and the gang to help save Riley. With the million portrayals of characters with anxiety, it could have been easy for this new emotion to get lost in the sauce, but I thought this was a great way to show off this complicated emotion. I’ll admit, I didn’t cry as hard as I did with Bing Bong’s death, but I did feel transported back to those high school days when small problems felt so world ending.
Inside Out 2 definitely sits in the top ten of Pixar movies, a high honor when you look at Pixar’s history, but I still fear for the studio. There is no doubt Disney is in a free fall. The parks, their bread and butter, have priced out average American families, forcing the movies to carry more of Disney’s financial woes. You could say Star Wars and Marvels Studio should be taking on this task, but those brands have eroded their good will with a torrent of subpar movies and Disney + shows. I fear Disney is going to force Pixar to play safe and pump out sequels. Now, yes, Inside Out 2 is a sequel, but I feel Inside Out is a series best experienced with a good five or more years between sequels. So what does that leave Pixar with? Toy Story 5? The Incredibles 3? As sad as Bing Bong’s death was, it will be nothing compared to Pixar’s potential closure.
eXistenZ (1999)
I am honestly not sure how I talk about this one. No matter how I slice it, anything I say will probably be merely skating on top of a massive iceberg. There is undoubtedly a deep rabbit hole on both sexual and existential themes this movie explores. The movie, eXistenZ, is about a video game designer on the run from assassins for developing a game bigger than Grand Theft Auto 6. She teams up with a marketing trainee who she drags down the rabbit hole of her game eXistenZ. Along with the typical body horror, director David Cronenberg is known for, the film also dives head first into questions of what is even real. Not really the question you want to ask when you release the same year as The Matrix, but I do appreciate how the film frames this question in the context of video games. Do your best to forget The Matrix and give this movie a try.
Galaxy Quest (1999)
I am not sure if this story is true or not, but I stumbled on a comment on Reddit while trying to figure out if Trekkies liked Galaxy Quest. The comment stated that Sir Patrick Steward refused to see the film as he thought it was mocking Star Trek and its fans. It wasn’t until Jonathan Frakes told him it was a loving homage to Star Trek that he finally saw it. Galaxy Quest is a film about a cast of actors getting pulled into space by an alien race who believe them to be the stalwart heroes after mistaking their sci-fi show for a documentary series. The film opens with the actors at a convention highlighting the annoyance of playing characters in a show like Galaxy Quest: uncomfortable costuming, overeager fans and egotistical co-workers. I could see why Steward initially thought so negatively about the film. However, as the cast help the alien race overcome a monstrous foe, they do start to see the joy and hope they bring to people. Even as someone who never got into Star Trek, I walked out really appreciating the love-letter feel Galaxy Quest had pinned to its chest. Sam Rockwell is also incredibly underrated in this film.