As many of the years around this time were, 1998 was a year of transition for me. I finished up at my weekly newspaper job in Rhode Island in late July, and immediately left on a road trip across the country with two friends, seeing baseball games in 14 major league baseball parks. (It was supposed to be 16 but we had to skip our games in Detroit and Pittsburgh for various logistical reasons.) This got me back in time to start at Columbia Journalism School in early September.
It was truly a chaotic period for me. I moved out of my Providence apartment on literally the day we were leaving on our trip, and since I'd left such a small window of time to do so, I ended up taking trips back and forth between Providence and my dad's house outside Boston (an hour's drive) overnight -- that many trips being required to get all my stuff situated in his garage for temporary, and in some cases long-term, storage. Even this was not enough, and on my final trip, I had all sorts of large objects strapped to my roof and my vision almost totally obstructed by the remaining objects stuffed inside my car, such that I could only see the driver's side rearview mirror and half of the front windshield -- meaning any time I had to change lanes to the right, it was basically conducted on blind hope. Only then did I finally throw a bunch of stuff in bags to leave on a trip that was lasting the better part of a month -- and oh by the way, not really having enough money in my bank account to make the whole trip.
When I did head off to New York upon my return, it was without knowing where I would live. Yes I managed to screw that up somehow. I was deep on a waitlist for university housing, so I paired up with another guy who was similarly up a creek without a paddle as we looked desperately for apartments for about three days. In the end I ended up getting his reluctant blessing to abandon him and take a studio apartment we'd looked at together that was too small for two people, but was only nine blocks from campus and basically my ideal scenario. I never did find out where he ended up living.
Ah the joys of being 24.
It was also an important year in terms of film criticism, as 1998 was the year they took me up on my offer to review one film a week for the section that appeared in all four of the community newspapers in the East Bay of Rhode Island. I was the reporter for The Barrington Times, but this insert also appeared in the newspapers in Warren, Bristol and Sakonnet. There was a picture of my face next to the reviews and everything. I'd start spending a disproportionate amount of time on these reviews relative to my actual paying work (though I don't think the quality of that work suffered). This might have given me an early clue about what I really wanted to do -- and about how useful journalism school might be in that ambition. (Answer: not very.)
Here are my favorite to least favorite films of 1998, as I ranked them in early 1999:
1. Happiness
2. Waking Ned Devine
3. A Simple Plan
4. Rushmore
5. Saving Private Ryan
6. Primary Colors
7. Babe: Pig in the City
8. Elizabeth
9. The Mask of Zorro
10. The Truman Show
11. Antz
12. The Butcher Boy
13. Buffalo '66
14. Dirty Work
15. There's Something About Mary
16. Life is Beautiful
17. Paulie
18. Deep Impact
19. Out of Sight
20. Two Girls and a Guy
21. The Last Days of Disco
22. Shakespeare in Love
23. Dark City
24. The Big Lebowski
25. The Wedding Singer
26. A Perfect Murder
27. The Horse Whisperer
28. Slums of Beverly Hills
29. Pleasantville
30. The Spanish Prisoner
31. Celebrity
32. American History X
33. A Bug's Life
34. Patch Adams
35. Hush
36. Les Miserables
37. Lethal Weapon 4
38. Enemy of the State
39. Dead Man on Campus
40. The X-Files: Fight the Future
41. City of Angels
42. Blade
43. Wild Things
44. The Big Hit
45. Armageddon
46. The Man in the Iron Mask
47. Godzilla
48. Madeline
49. Zero Effect
50. Baseketball
51. The Thin Red Line
52. Can't Hardly Wait
53. Mercury Rising
54. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
55. The Waterboy
56. Hurlyburly
57. U.S. Marshals
58. Almost Heroes
And here is the order in which those movies rank out of 6113 movies currently on my Flickchart. Following the ranking is the percentage of the ranking out of 6113 and the number of slots they rose or fell on my Flickchart compared to the other movies from that year that I ranked at the time. A positive number indicates a comparative rise of that many slots, a negative number a fall.
1. Happiness (167, 97%) 0
2. Rushmore (170, 97%) 2
3. A Simple Plan (215, 96%) 0
4. Out of Sight (330, 95%) 15
5. Saving Private Ryan (349, 94%) 0
6. There's Something About Mary (384, 94%) 9
7. Babe: Pig in the City (454, 93%) 0
8. Waking Ned Devine (465, 92%) -6
9. Elizabeth (636, 90%) -1
10. Deep Impact (641, 90%) 8
11. Paulie (794, 87%) 6
12. Shakespeare in Love (804, 87%) 10
13. Primary Colors (808, 87%) -7
14. Antz (893, 85%) -3
15. The Mask of Zorro (921, 85%) -6
16. The Butcher Boy (922, 85%) -4
17. Life is Beautiful (1046, 83%) -1
18. The Truman Show (1071, 82%) -8
19. The Wedding Singer (1138, 81%) 6
20. Dark City (1186, 81%) 3
21. The Horse Whisperer (1353, 78%) 6
22. Two Girls and a Guy (1609, 74%) -2
23. Dirty Work (1650, 73%) -9
24. Celebrity (2087, 66%) 7
25. Buffalo '66 (2270, 63%) -12
26. The X-Files: Fight the Future (2435, 60%) 14
27. A Perfect Murder (2447, 60%) -1
28. The Last Days of Disco (2507, 59%) -7
29. The Big Lebowski (2535, 59%) -5
30. American History X (2609, 57%) 2
31. Slums of Beverly Hills (2707, 56%) -3
32. The Big Hit (3499, 43%) 12
33. Blade (3524, 42%) 9
34. A Bug's Life (3615, 41%) -1
35. Pleasantville (3684, 40%) -6
36. Les Miserables (3806, 38%) 0
37. The Spanish Prisoner (3807, 38%) -7
38. Hush (3919, 36%) -3
39. Wild Things (3959, 35%) 4
40. Enemy of the State (4051, 34%) -2
41. City of Angels (4167, 32%) 0
42. Dead Man on Campus (4278, 30%) -3
43. The Thin Red Line (4741, 22%) 8
44. Madeline (4759, 22%) 4
45. The Man in the Iron Mask (4894, 20%) 1
46. Lethal Weapon 4 (4957, 19%) -9
47. Zero Effect (4971, 19%) 2
48. Can't Hardly Wait (5005, 18%) 4
49. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (5040, 18%) 5
50. Godzilla (5142, 16%) -3
51. Armageddon (5217, 15%) -6
52. Patch Adams (5218, 15%) -18
53. Baseketball (5252, 14%) -3
54. Mercury Rising (5550, 9%) -1
55. U.S. Marshals (5713, 7%) 2
56. Hurlyburly (5784, 5%) 0
57. The Waterboy (5933, 3%) -2
58. Almost Heroes (6022, 1%) 0
The writing of this post uncovered something that hasn't happened in a while, which is a film missing from my Flickchart. For some reason I had not been ranking The Waterboy, so I just added it for the first time. Obviously it did not do very well.
Five best movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): Another Day in Paradise, The Cruise, Gods and Monsters, He Got Game, Smoke Signals
Five worst movies I've seen since closing the list (alphabetical): The Hi-Lo Country, King Cobra, Small Soldiers, Woo, Your Friends & Neighbors
Biggest risers: Out of Sight (+15), The X-Files: Fight the Future (+14), The Big Hit (+12)
Biggest fallers: Patch Adams (-18), Buffalo '66 (-12), Dirty Work/Lethal Weapon 4 (-9)
Stayed the same: Happiness (1st), A Simple Plan (3rd), Saving Private Ryan (5th), Babe: Pig in the City (7th), Les Miserables (36th), City of Angels (41st), Hurlyburly (56th), Almost Heroes (58th)
Average percentage on Flickchart: 53.71% (3 of 10 so far)
This might be my lowest ranked top movie so far, as Happiness is only 167th on my Flickchart -- and I've got a rewatch scheduled for the next few weeks that will assess whether even that is too high. Overall though it is a strong year compared to the nine others I've looked at, with the third highest average percentage on Flickchart so far.
The biggest riser, Out of Sight, has definitely grown in my estimation over the years. I definitely liked it at the time I saw it, but it may have struck me as a bit post-Tarantino or something, and a comedown from the films of his I had liked the most. Especially with more than a decade of glowing mentions on Filmspotting to increase its profile in my mind, as well as one very favorable rewatch, I have now launched it upward so I believe is actually my highest ranked Soderbergh film. (Yes, within the past few years it has surpassed Erin Brockovich at #481.)
The other big risers are movies I retroactively think must have been better than I actually thought they were at the time. The X-Files movie now gets lumped in with the show, as I wave a hand over the whole thing and call it superior entertainment -- even if the show, of which I watched probably half the episodes, was clearly far superior. As for The Big Hit, I now imagine it must have been a fun, pulpy, star-studded crime movie when in reality it was probably more miss than hit. Maybe I'll rewatch that one at some point.
It's hard to believe Patch Adams could have dropped 18 spots because I remember really disliking it at the time. I knew from trailers that it was going to be a treacly mess, and it was, but I suspect it ultimately ended up doing more for me than I thought it was going to, which is the explanation for its generous #34 ranking at the time. Over the years I've righted the narrative in my head about this movie -- or so I think I have, without the benefit of a rewatch -- as I now use the movie as a bit of a go-to example of a movie that tries too hard to please.
The drop for Buffalo '66 is undoubtedly the result of the problematic nature of director-star Vincent Gallo after this movie, as he made the tediously indulgent The Brown Bunny, in which Chloe Sevigny famously gives him a blowjob on screen, one whose every detail you see. He became defined as an empty provocateur and enfant terrible in my head, and the quite good Buffalo '66 has suffered -- in part because in hindsight, I can see the future Brown Bunny Gallo in that movie.
I probably overrated Dirty Work in 1998, but the fact that it is one of the biggest fallers now seems sad in the wake of Norm Macdonald's death.
Okay only two of these left. It shouldn't take a math genius to figure out that 1997 is up next in November.
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