Father Geek here, reporting that it is once again that time of year... list time. Hallenbeck has sent his "Ten Best" in to Geek Headquarters and it is time for geeks the world over to lay bare their film souls, or is that soles? Depending on how many ticket lines you've stood in it could easily be the latter of the two. As for me, well I've once again (third year in a row) seen 300+ motion pictures in theaters. That's new releases, re- releases, and re-edits; that's at film festival orgies, triple features, double features, midnight flicks, press screenings, test screenings, preview screenings, and premieres; at Grand Movie Palaces, Bland Mall Cinemas, Theater as Bar/Night Clubs, Theatre du Cafes, Post- Modern Soul-less Cavernous Multiplexes, and Run-Down on their Last-Leg Rat-Infested Ammonia Fumed Paint-Peeling Venues of Final Resort. I am an un-repentitive bonafide card-carrying FILM GEEK of the highest (lowest) order..... just ask my son.
Father Geek is 53 years old and my first film memory is of SONG OF THE SOUTH
at the Liberty Theater in Beaumont, Texas. As a teenager in San Antonio I once sat
through a 5 feature Kelly drive-in Blood-O-Rama climaxing with the lost classic 10,000
FEET OF BLOODY GUTS. I subscribed to Famous Monsters Of Filmland magazine
beginning with issue #2. I've watched every second of both of Quentin Tarantino's 30 film
Austin Cinema Endurance Tests, and wanted more! I took Harry to see his 1st film, THE
POSEIDON ADVENTURE, at Austin's Paramount when he was just a couple of days
old, and his 2nd film, CLOCKWORK ORANGE, at the Varsity a week later. I've studied
the French New Wave, Italian Neo-realism, German Expressionism, and the Spanish
Surrealists. I completed university majors in Sociology, Advertising, and Radio-
Television-Film. I love Russian Silents; Film Noir; WWII war films, Universal's Horror;
Warner Bros.' Musicals; Science Fiction Epics; Swashbuckling Adventures; John Ford
Westerns; the films of Capra, Curtiz, Huston, Pal, Hitchcock, Sturges, Hawks, Carpenter,
Lewton, Harryhausen, Burton, Max & Dave, and dozens of others. And now, once again,
I find myself sitting at my keyboard facing the thankless task of honing down those 300+
motion pictures of 1998 into some sort of "year's best" list.
I hate " best of /worst of " lists, they're all so subjective, so personal that they are
rendered useless in any "real" sense by anyone other than the creator. Harry and I see a
Hell-of-alot of film together. For the most part we agree pretty much on our feelings
about what we've seen, but I bet his list and mine will differ quiet a bit. I've seen a whole
bunch of film with Tom Joad, Johnny Wad, Sister Satan, Robo Geek, and Copernicus this
year; and even more with the "Line People" regulars, but I know our lists would vary very
widely in their makeup. That's why I did that little mini-bio-thingie up above, so you
would know where I'm coming from when you get into my list for 98. I am not going to
pretend to tell you what the BEST films of the year were/are. That is for you to decide for
yourself. I am going to tell you the 21 newly released films, big & small, foreign &
domestic that I had the most fun with this past year during the process of viewing over
300 flicks. Now there are movies I haven't seen yet, like THIN RED LINE and THE
GENERAL, that would surely replace ones on this list; and there are films I've already
seen, like PAYBACK and TARZAN, that would replace some on my list, but they haven't
been released yet so I'll have to consider them on some future listings. The following
feature films are not ranked according to quality or lack there of, and it is simply my list of
fun film that for a variety of differing reasons I hardily recommend you see in a good
theater on the big screen with a great surround sound system.
Here we go.
FATHER GEEK'S LIST OF 21 FILMS FROM 1998 NOT TO BE MISSED!!!
1. AMERICAN HISTORY X
2. ANTZ
3. APT PUPIL
4. THE BIG LEBOWSKI
5. THE BUTCHER BOY
6. DEADMAN'S CURVE
7. THE FACULTY
8. FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
9. GODS AND MONSTERS
10. LA CUCARACHA
11. LOCK, STOCK, & TWO SMOKING BARRELS
12. OUT OF SIGHT
13. PLEASANTVILLE
14. PRINCE OF EGYPT
15. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
16. A SIMPLE PLAN
17. SIX-STRING SAMURAI
18. TOUCH OF EVIL (re-edit)
19. TWENTYFOURSEVEN
20. VAMPIRES
21. WICKED
Well there you have it, FATHER GEEK'S favorites from 98. I had alot of fun at the cinema this year, not near as many stinkers as in 97 or 96. I can't honestly think of one right now that made me want to go run screaming warnings of danger from the theater like that guy at the end of the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. Well, there was that one with the embarrassing scene on the front porch with all the... no, no I won't get negative. There were a few that made me want to hide my head under a paper sack, but my mind has mercifully blanked them from my memory. I could easily list another 21 that I had fun with that were just a hair beneath the above on my personal rating system. Films like ELIZABETH, YOU'VE GOT MAIL, ARMAGEDDON, BLADE, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, CUBE, THE MIGHTY, A BUG'S LIFE, PRIMARY COLORS, MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, and HALLOWEEN H2O could have easily made my list during a lesser year, and you should still go see them if you get a chance before they leave the big screen forever.
There is one SHORT I saw this year that has nested in my head and will not leave. Though only 25 minutes or so, my memory treats it as though it were a full feature length film. Ray Bradbury and Stuart Gordon's WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT is a real jewel, not to be missed; dig, search it out, don't let it die in "Short Film Hell". If I remember correctly Disney owns a piece of it, make them show it!
If you want to find out more about the movies I've listed, or the ones I didn't for that matter, most have been reviewed on AICN and you can find out what Harry, I, and others thought about them with a little effort at combing through the files using our various search mechanisms. Until next time, this is FATHER GEEK signing off.
FATHER GEEK !!!
FATHER GEEK!!!!!!!!!
DON"T COP OUT ON US!!!! WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE FILM OF 98?
DON"T COP OUT ON US!!!! WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE FILM OF 98?
Well, I thought I got away with it, but alas its not to be. OK, Old Father Geek's 10 most favorite motion pictures of 1998 in reverse order are:
10. LOCK, STOCK, AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (A most un-British, British crime/action movie, more fun than a barrel of monkeys)
9. ANTZ (An intelligent, witty, CGI cartoon for adults as well as the kids, daring, fantastic phantasmagorial work)
8. THE BIG LEBOWSKI (A total delight, it appears that smart comedy isn't dead after all, its just not up in our face all the time)
7. THE BUTCHER BOY (Irish film comes of age with no IRA, outstanding, if some what disturbing images and performances by all)
6. PLEASANTVILLE (Fun, fanciful, innovative, meaningful film, a visual delight with a message for us all)
5. TOUCH OF EVIL (re-edit) (The last "Great" Film Noir motion picture is even better now, wow, 2 B & W films in a turn of the century best of list)
4. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (Best "put you in the thick of the action" realistic war film I've seen to date)
3. PRINCE OF EGYPT (Glory be to God, hand-drawn actors, penciled characters that emote, I never thought I'd live to see it, near perfection in traditional animation magic)
2. A SIMPLE PLAN (As perfect a post-noir drama as I've ever seen, near flawless thriller of a film)
1. GODS AND MONSTERS (An absolutely perfect motion picture about perfectly realized characters, everyone involved should be rewarded for this "Great" flawless film effort)
Well there you go, you'all drug it out of me. Those are my top ten favorite movies of this my 53rd year of cinema watching. My parents took me to see Bogart & Bacall in Howard Hawks' version of Hemingway's TO HAVE & HAVE NOT in an Army Air Corps Theater near Walla Walla when I was just 2 1/2 weeks old and WWII was still blazing on all fronts. I don't remember it, but you could say that that was the primal root that grew into the mighty Oak that is Aint It Cool News.
What 98 film attempt rates the bottom of my list of 300 seen? Thats hard to say since I've forgotten the titles to most of the really bad ones, but I'd have to say that the embarrassingly awkward, poorly executed, terribly uneven BELOVED comes real close to claiming my title of worst cinema of the year. It had its nose stuck so high in the rarefied air of self-importance that it failed to see, or smell it's own dung covered pretentious bare ass. What a waste of talent at every level, sad. Some good individual work lost in a forgettable (please) miscued film.
Over the coming years which of the1998 flick crop will I watch the most? Well it will more than likely have to be something with a real sense of visual style, fast, light, and action packed, it will probably be THE FACULTY, or maybe SIX-STRING SAMURAI, I've seen SSS eight times already. DAMN, it might even be one not on my list of 21. I've already watched ARMAGEDDON a dozen times, or more. No one ever said list making was a perfect art. If you remember I said I hated lists!
FATHER GEEK out, for now.
