this week on 100 Films

It was 1999 Week on 100 Films in a Year this week! Read my introduction here:




As part of that, 5 brand-new reviews were published:


Election (1999)

the whole film has a conflicted idea of identification. It has you side with a teacher who wants to tear down the dreams of a bright, dedicated, enthusiastic young student. And I don’t mean it tries to get you to side with him — you do side with him. But then it proceeds to tear his whole life apart, as if in punishment for what he wanted to do; and, by extension, it punishes you for wanting him to do it.

Read more here.


The Iron Giant (1999)

The animation is stunningly well done, exhibiting exceptional fluidity and detail in its character animation, in particular. That’s in spite of the film having a reduced budget and time schedule thanks to the box office failure of previous animations by the studio — in Bird’s words, they had “one-third of the money of a Disney or DreamWorks film, and half of the production schedule”, but that meant greater production freedom

Read more here.


The Limey (1999)

The movie jumps back and forth in time — not from scene to scene, but from shot to shot. For instance, Stamp’s arrival at the home of his daughter’s friend, and the conversation that follows, is jumbled up with shots of him on the plane, driving in the city, the people his daughter was associating with, and even within the conversation itself, sometimes speech continues on the soundtrack while we watch the characters not talking, or doing something else. This isn’t a conceit Soderbergh uses for one scene, or wheels out now and then, but an overall approach.

Read more here.


Office Space (1999)

there’s sort of a wish-fulfilment thing going on here, which must partly explain its popularity. It’s a film about low-level white collar workers, stuck in unfulfilling office jobs, having to do the repetitious and sometimes stupid bidding of the higher-ups — guys who don’t actually do anything, really, but will certainly get to keep their jobs when lay-offs are needed, even as the little guys who actually do the work get the sack. Wouldn’t it be great to find yourself in a position where you could stick it to Management?

Read more here.


The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)

Throw in a couple more sex scenes (and a few less high-profile contributors) and you’d have late-night TV filler. There’s virtually no swearing and certainly no violence, but with some gratuitous boobs you’ve got a 15/R-rated flick. The film doesn’t really need such titillation to attract attention, because it’s a strong cat-and-mouse thriller in its own right. On the other hand, it doesn’t shy away from sexuality and the part that could play in such a ‘game’, so in that respect it’s more plausible than a million other neutered movies.

Read more here.


My 100 Favourites series got in on the action too, with 2 related posts:


Fight Club (1999)

Quote Most Likely To Be Used in Everyday Conversation: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” — Tyler Durden

Read more here.


Galaxy Quest (1999)

Our heroes arrive in the bowels of their screen-faithful ship to find “a bunch of chompy, crushy things” impeding their path — for absolutely no reason. “We shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?… This episode was badly written!”

Read more here.


More next Sunday.