Best of the Year

Breaking the Waves is a movie of such revelatory power that it can almost startle you into believing in God. Emily Watson gives the performance of the year in Lars von Trier's perverse consideration of faith and sacrifice. It's inspired perhaps the sharpest division of critical opinion all year, and that's only fitting -- if the movie were any easier to swallow, it could hardly be as potent. With devilish confidence, the movie opens and shuts its case and then, in an "epilogue," makes a 180-degree turn and asks us how we feel about that. Months later, I'm still fretting about it.

Wong Kar-Wai's twin tales of gently obsessive romance are at once slight and overwhelming. The first of the two stories, following the trail of a beautiful and mysterious drug smuggler, defines a hipper-than-noir 90s sensibility. The second, which guides us vicariously through interior-decoration-as-voyeurism, is an off-kilter story of big city love on the order of Woody Allen, but more smartly assembled. Together, they offer a glimpse of something akin to but other than everyday life, a timeless Hong Kong fantasia. Photographed in painterly swashes of color and light, Chung King Express is the escapist's perfect real world fantasy.

Do I have to surrender my credentials as a cinema gourmet if I confess my love for this vertiginous Italian zombie movie? Rupert Everett is just right as the cynical groundskeeper of the Buffalora Cemetery, and Francois Hadji-Lazaro (City of Lost Children) plays Gnaghi as his comic/tragic counterpart. Two sides of one coin, these characters discover the boundaries of a world haunted by the physical remains of those who are already dead. Michele Soavi, best-known as a progeny of horror maestro Dario Argento, finally came into his own with this gruesomely funny, giddily inventive, and occasionally very grim English-language feature.

Was there a film this year that loped along with more cockeyed energy than the defiantly funny Trainspotting? The witty performances embellish John Hodge's pared-down screenplay adaptation (from Irvine Welsh's novel), and Danny Boyle directs the whole project into a self-consciously hip state of bliss. This ensemble of affable losers are aided by some of the year's best imagery and a terrific pop-music soundtrack.

Citizen Ruth (Miramax)

In the wake of the rather obvious social "satire" of Natural Born Killers and To Die For, we got a portrait of a different kind of lady and an exploration of the ways that human subjects literally disappear in the shadows of the mass media glare. Living up to its billing as a sophisticated comedy in the tradition of Preston Sturges, Citizen Ruth is fast, funny, and deceptively straightforward -- one of a handful of films this year that truly live up to their potential.

The English Patient (Miramax)

This shameless tearjerker was one of the best times I had at the movies all year. Purists cavil about writer/director Anthony Minghella's reshaping of novelist Michael Ondaatje's story, but I found that the film balanced itself out nicely. Most importantly, the five lead performances are all terrific. Engrossing and enchanting, if never quite as meaningful as it yearns to be.

Mars Attacks! (Warner Brothers)

Underrated by audiences who seemed surprised to learn that Tim Burton is indeed one twisted fellow, this loving homage to old SF movies is spiked with sharp black humor -- for once, these jokes are as dark as advertised. That's not to say it doesn't have problems getting started, or that none of the jokes fall flat, but the reckless and deeply personal (to the tune of $70 million) Mars Attacks! delivered the year's most exhilarating evening at the movies.

Everyone Says I Love You (Miramax)

Woody back in form? Well, not quite, but this will do. Woody surrounds himself with an able cast for a movie that seems to come more naturally than anything he's done since Hannah and Her Sisters. If the situation comedy is strictly secondhand, the jokes are still funny. Happily, the deck is stacked with a handful of inspired musical numbers that culminate in a movie-magical pas de deux on the banks of the Seine that's awfully hard to resist.

Welcome to the Dollhouse (Sony Classics)

It's been called mean-spirited, but attitude counts in Todd Solondz' re-examination of junior high school. Critics commented on the notable physical similarites between the geeky, bespectabled director and his protagonist Dawn Weiner, and it's obvious where his sympathies lie. Dawn is painted as a victim but not a saint -- she's a little weird, a lot confused, and plenty bittter in this, a picture-perfect recreation of a miserable life.

Secrets and Lies (October)

Mike Leigh's follow-up to Naked is nowhere near as acerbic, but it's certainly smart on issues of family, and funny to boot. Most remarkable is Brenda Blethyn's stops-out performance as the on-the-skids factory worker whose life gets a shot in the arm after she first lays eyes on the daughter she long ago gave up for adoption. Timothy Spall, who actually gets to growl "Secrets and lies!" toward the end of the film, is also excellent.

Best Happy Ending
Animator Nick Park was seen chasing a taxi down the streets of midtown Manhattan one rainy Saturday after a hotel porter failed to unload the nine-inch plasticine Wallace and Gromit figures from the cab's trunk. (Wallace and Gromit are, of course, the stop-motion stars of the Oscar-winning short films The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave). By Monday morning, when all hope seemed lost, the New York media reported on the story. Days later, Wallace and Gromit were back in Park's arms after the cabbie checked his trunk and returned the figures.

Best Reason to Leave the U.S.
Media mogul Ted Turner reportedly kept Fine Line Features from making its October target date for the release of Crash, David Cronenberg's controversial adaptation of J.G. Ballard's novel. The movie was released in Canada as planned, and yours truly seriously considering making a weekend trip to Toronto expressly to see the film. Crash, I'm told, is now locked into a March release, although star Holly Hunter was recently quoted as saying she was still unsure whether the uncut film would ever be released in the U.S.

Best Reason to Pay For Cable
Cinemax broadcast Breaking the Waves director Lars von Trier's four-and-a-half-hour haunted hospital epic The Kingdom uninterrupted and subtitled, doubtless confounding some audiences and delighting others.

Worst Trend in Distribution
This holiday season, so many high-profile films were dumped into theaters at the same time that it seemed nigh impossible to make time for each critically acclaimed release, let alone take a chance on lesser-known items. Fully half of my top ten list was released to theaters in the last two months of 1996, which may seem like movie heaven, but what about the purgatory we were sentenced to for the rest of the year?

Best Book on Film
David Thomson's Rosebud is an intense reading of the life of Orson Welles. This biography contains some of the finest writing I've ever come across -- I'm particularly fond of the pauses in this biographical narrative where Thomson enters conversation with his imagined publisher, who questions Thomson's recounting of events and embarks with him on investigations of the films themselves. Elsewhere in the book, Thomson is a keen, respectful observer of Welles' life. He occasionally plays the apologist, but never glosses over the man's tremendous flaws. The book flags a little in the second half, as it must after Welles has his first and only triumph with Citizen Kane, but it's inspired biography, breathtaking criticism, and a terrific read. Get the book and be warned -- you'll be hard-pressed to avoid holding a private Welles film festival as you read, or as soon as you finish.

Best Video Release
It took more than three years (and, perhaps, 12 Monkeys) to jockey the Criterion Collection's laserdisc edition of Universal's Brazil past a gauntlet of suits who stymied the project. When Brazil won the Los Angeles Film Critics' award as the best picture of 1985, it was not clear whether the film would ever be released in the U.S. The picture was a few minutes longer than Gilliam's contract stipulated, and bore a downbeat ending that set off warning bells at MCA headquarters. Gilliam resisted the studio's efforts to make drastic cuts, and waged war against studio head Sid Scheinberg in the trade and consumer press -- he went so far as to take out a full-page ad in Daily Variety calling Scheinberg on the carpet for not releasing the film. Screenings for L.A. area film critics basically forced the issue, and Universal eventually released a version of Brazil that had been tinkered with in only minor ways.

The Criterion LD includes Gilliam's "final final" cut of the film, which differs from all previously released versions in minor ways. More importantly, it's an exhaustive historical excavation that stands apart from the text of the film itself -- Criterion's supplements include an audio commentary by Terry Gilliam running the entire length of the film on a supplementary soundtrack, exhaustive information on special effects and production design, discussions by co-screenwriters Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown on the evolution of the script, a delightful on-the-set documentary called "What is Brazil?" and a patchy recounting of the so-called "Battle for Brazil" assembled from interviews by film critic Jack Mathews. Still, what may be most important and most fascinating about this release is the inclusion of the entire "Love Conquers All" version -- an alternate, truncated cut of Brazil (featuring lots of alternate takes, re-edited sequences, and even some extra footage) prepared by MCA which was finally released to syndicated television. Audio commentary by David Morgan elucidates in detail exactly which cuts were made, and what impact they have on subverting the subversive nature of Gilliam's storytelling. For a look at the movie that almost wasn't, Criterion's Brazil is entertainment, education, and cautionary tale all at once.

Runners-Up:
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (widescreen laserdisc, Elite)
Se7en (widescreen laserdisc, Criterion)
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (widescreen cassette, New Yorker)

Best Ear for Pop Music
Cameron Crowe, whose Jerry Maguire used The Who's "Magic Bus," The Replacements' "I'll Be You," and Bruce Springsteen's "Secret Garden" to unpretentious effect.

Worst Film of the Year
Homage. Sheryl Lee stars as a celebrity soap opera star and Frank Whaley as the insufferable twerp who moves into her mother's house to get closer to the object of his fanboy affections. At the beginning of the film, we learn that he winds up shooting her dead, and the rest of the movie is a dull, pretentious investigation of the events leading up to crisis. Whaley combines the worst sensibilities of Matthew Modine and Michael J. Fox into a single peevish dunderhead. Lee looks good, but she's no less petulant and one-dimensional than the screenplay she's given. And Blythe Danner has been around long enough to deserve better than the mish-mash of arty, asinine close-ups of her face and lips that set the stage here. This had its origins as a stage play, and on the stage it should have remained. Inexplicably, this got a couple of good reviews. A dreadful mistake.

Best Lowbrow Action Movie
Maximum Risk. I had to go see this one by myself, at matinee prices, but I still have fond memories of a brainless afternoon at the movies propelled by a few excellent set pieces, engaging action direction by Hong Kong stylist Ringo Lam, and a noisy climax involving a chainsaw and a big side of beef (no, I'm not talking about Van Damme). Dumb fun all the way. From this, I snuck into Feeling Minnesota, which was even dumber but not nearly as much fun.

Best Music Video
Pet Shop Boys: "Before." Howard Greenhalgh, the PSB's video collaborator since 1993, directed this gorgeous piece incorporating computer animation and live dancers in a breathtaking short film that actually enhances the song rather than overwhelming it. Since MTV won't deign to play PSB videos in America, you pretty much had to catch this one on the big screen at a PSB-friendly club near you. Me, I watched it on my computer screen -- it's available in the U.S. as an "enhanced CD" single for three or four bucks. Quite a bargain, if you're a PSB fan with a CD-ROM drive.

Best Reason to Turn on MTV
Now that "alternative" music is firmly entrenched in the mainstream, even MTV's supposedly cutting-edge 120 Minutes is starting to look like everything else on the channel. Even so, fans of the unusual should set their VCRs: at 1 a.m. (ET) on Saturday night/Sunday morning, the network is running an hour-long program of techno and industrial music video called Amp. Some of this material looks suspiciously like the same old stuff (Gary Numan, The Prodigy), but some of it is bold and abstract -- sharp, synthesized eye candy synchronized to unpredictable electronic beats. MTV is still way behind the curve -- various home-brewed video shows on independent stations have been doing this kind of thing for years -- but it's nice to see them trying to catch up.

Best Movie Theater (New York)
Chain: Sony Theaters Lincoln Square. The 900-seat THX-certified Loew's auditorium, with its wide, curved screen, is the venue of choice in this complex, but in truth all nine of the theaters on the second floor are excellent, and equipped with SDDS digital sound. Even non-digital Dolby surround sounds great in these theaters, and the seats are the most comfortable in Manhattan. I'd avoid the three theaters downstairs -- in the State auditorium, at least, the theater exit is right next to the screen, which makes you painfully aware of the people around you going for extra popcorn and taking bathroom breaks.

Independent: Film Forum. I'll admit that I've underutilized this venue in years past, but the Forum has a consistently vigorous and daring repertory programming schedule and makes room for some of the most interesting truly independent filmmaking to play New York, from Dadetown and A Single Girl to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and the Mizoguchi retrospective. Projection is good and sound is merely adequate, but the cappuccino is tasty and film-buff ambience is at the max.