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A review by alperezq
Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery
4.0
This book is cool. If you love movies, you'll enjoy this book.
The book tells in each chapter the story of one or more (mostly American) movies of 1999, how they were made, how they were received and what they represented. The nicest part about reading the book was re-watching (or watching for the first time) the movies that are covered by the book. And by watching them all together and reading the book one does get a full sense of what 1999 was like, not only in cinema but in the US in general; the book reflects how cinema was influenced and impacted by events like Columbine, Y2K, the gulf war, and overall the end of the millennium.
I thought the book was going to rely purely on nostalgia to be effective (the way many current tv shows and movies are), but it's actually quite objective about the quality of the movies and how they endured in the culture. And then again, one can't help but feel nostalgic, specially right now (mid COVID-19 pandemic) when the future of cinema is so uncertain. Also, those were damn good movies, and I'm so happy the book ends with my favorite: Magnolia.
Minor problems I had with the book are that a central narrative thread is lacking a bit, it all kinda comes together in the epilogue but I wish it had felt a bit less episodic in the earlier parts. And in a couple of chapters the author introduces movies where he doesn't seem to have much to say and should have just left them out, specially The Mummy and The Limey.
Music For this book:
Magnolia (Original Soundtrack)- Aimee Mann
American Beauty (Original Score) - Thomas Newman
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' "I put my heart - every embarrassing thing I wanted to say - in Magnolia"
' "You'd receive these extraordinary memos about the number of thrusts into a pie" says Chris Weitz. "and eventually you negotiate it down to a certain number." The filmmakers and the MPAA wound up settling on two thrusts'
'The elements that made American beauty seem so fantastical back in 1999 make it all the more relevant in 2019: its self-entitled pervert; its angry, screen-addicted teen; its fuming Nazi-lover next door. Like many of the movies of that year, American Beauty plays like an accidental warning of what was to come. You just had to look closer." '
'December 31 1999
It was new Year's Eve, and on a private beach resort in Mexico, a handful of couples had gathered to celebrate the end of the century. Brad Pitt and his then girlfriend, Jennifer Anniston, were there."
'As a certain madman once said: Losing all hope is freedom.'
The book tells in each chapter the story of one or more (mostly American) movies of 1999, how they were made, how they were received and what they represented. The nicest part about reading the book was re-watching (or watching for the first time) the movies that are covered by the book. And by watching them all together and reading the book one does get a full sense of what 1999 was like, not only in cinema but in the US in general; the book reflects how cinema was influenced and impacted by events like Columbine, Y2K, the gulf war, and overall the end of the millennium.
I thought the book was going to rely purely on nostalgia to be effective (the way many current tv shows and movies are), but it's actually quite objective about the quality of the movies and how they endured in the culture. And then again, one can't help but feel nostalgic, specially right now (mid COVID-19 pandemic) when the future of cinema is so uncertain. Also, those were damn good movies, and I'm so happy the book ends with my favorite: Magnolia.
Minor problems I had with the book are that a central narrative thread is lacking a bit, it all kinda comes together in the epilogue but I wish it had felt a bit less episodic in the earlier parts. And in a couple of chapters the author introduces movies where he doesn't seem to have much to say and should have just left them out, specially The Mummy and The Limey.
Music For this book:
Magnolia (Original Soundtrack)- Aimee Mann
American Beauty (Original Score) - Thomas Newman
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
' "I put my heart - every embarrassing thing I wanted to say - in Magnolia"
' "You'd receive these extraordinary memos about the number of thrusts into a pie" says Chris Weitz. "and eventually you negotiate it down to a certain number." The filmmakers and the MPAA wound up settling on two thrusts'
'The elements that made American beauty seem so fantastical back in 1999 make it all the more relevant in 2019: its self-entitled pervert; its angry, screen-addicted teen; its fuming Nazi-lover next door. Like many of the movies of that year, American Beauty plays like an accidental warning of what was to come. You just had to look closer." '
'December 31 1999
It was new Year's Eve, and on a private beach resort in Mexico, a handful of couples had gathered to celebrate the end of the century. Brad Pitt and his then girlfriend, Jennifer Anniston, were there."
'As a certain madman once said: Losing all hope is freedom.'