Best Picture of 1999

The Winner: American Beauty.

The Other Nominees: The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, and The Sixth Sense.

My Choice: American Beauty. Three of the other nominees are worthy contenders; the exception is, of course, The Cider House Rules. I'd give a close second to The Sixth Sense, which is expertly crafted, but American Beauty is the greatest overall achievement in filmmaking among this group.

American Beauty (1999)

I don't know why I have waited so long to watch American Beauty, winner of the Oscar for Best Picture of 1999, again. I saw it in movie theaters when it was released and admired it. I purchased the DVD version not long after its release, yet it has collected dust on the shelf until now. Perhaps I thought it was the kind of film that doesn't grow richer upon repeated viewings. There was something precious about seeing it for the first time in a theater, a sense of surprise and admiration for what the filmmakers accomplished. Upon repeated viewing, however, I think I have a more mature response to the movie, and I've come to admire the performance of Kevin Spacey far more than I did the first time I saw it.

Spacey plays Lester Burnham, a middle-aged man who is unhappy with both his job and his family life. His wife Carolyn, played expertly by Annette Benning, has attempted to achieve perfection in all aspects of her life, but early in the film, you begin to realize that she is only able to maintain the appearance of perfection. Underneath, she and Lester both realize how much of a mess their suburban, upper-middle-class existence is. They are, in their own ways, very unhappy despite having all of the trappings that you would expect to make someone happy.

Lester loses his job (intentionally), begins buying pot from the kid next door, gets a job at the local burger joint, starts working out with the hopes of attracting the sexual attention of his daughter's friend (Mena Suvari)--quite a change from the depressing and depressed man he was before. He seems to want to relive his teenage years over again. Carolyn responds by having an affair with a fellow real estate agent, Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher), the "Real Estate King." (Just as an aside, I can't help laughing when she calls him "your majesty" in the middle of their first time together--hilarious.)

Simultaneously, the Burnhams' daughter Jane (Thora Birch) begins a relationship with the pot-selling kid next door, Ricky, who has been released recently from an institution and now spends a great deal of his time videotaping random people. He also films other moments of life, as well, including the famous plastic-bag-in-the-wind scene. Ricky's family life is pretty complicated too. His mother (Allison Janney, quite tamped down here) has apparently suffered a nervous breakdown, and his ex-military father (Chris Cooper, stunningly good as always) is something of a gun nut and quite a homophobe. His greatest fear, other than the possibility that his son is using drugs again, is that Ricky will turn out to be gay. His misinterpretation of what he sees through his window one night leads to some pretty shattering consequences at film's end.

This isn't the first film to delve into the underside of suburban existence and expose it for the falseness. However, American Beauty is expertly made and one of the best exposes of that life. There's a sense of tension throughout the story; you can never tell, for example, when Lester's hair trigger might go off. There are also moments of great humor as well, but it's the anger that Lester feels--and which Spacey conveys perfectly--that stands out for me. When he says, "You don't get to tell me what to do ever again," there's such malice and glee mixed together, I got a chill. His accidental discovery of his wife's affair while working the drive-through of a burger joint is one of the funniest scenes of the film, yet you get a very clear sense of just how much he's going to punish (silently) Carolyn for her indiscretion. Spacey's performance truly pulls the movie together for me, and I guess the rest of the cast seemed to overshadow him the first time that I saw it. Kudos to the Academy for paying closer attention than I did and giving him the prize for Best Actor. (I suppose that's ironic considering the tagline for the movie, "look closer.")

I suppose I could talk about the underlying theme in this film of how we respond to homosexuality. Two of the neighbors are a gay male couple, Jim and Jim (I know, but not that funny), who are accepted by most of the people in the area, but they spark an intense response from Col. Fitts (Cooper) when they show up on the doorstep to welcome him and his family to the neighborhood. There are several times that Spacey's Lester Burnham is "accidentally" thought to be gay. I suppose one could make a case that Cooper's reaction to the friendship that develops between Lester and his son Ricky prepares the viewers for what happens toward the end of the film--and I'd imagine several academics have done so, actually--but it remains shocking to me. I know that the film is trying to juggle numerous issues here, and perhaps I am paying too much attention to just one of the threads of the narrative, but certainly it seems that the ways that we see the world are directly revealed by the ways that we treats others who are different from us (or, oddly enough, just like us). And maybe that's what the film is trying to tell us with its repeated references to homosexuality. It's a mature film in its handling of this subject matter, and that's a testament to the talented writer, Alan Ball, who went on to more fame for writing and producing Six Feet Under on television.

The Sixth Sense (1999)

You can't watch The Sixth Sense, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, the same way the second time that you did the first time. Once you know the "twist," it's impossible to be as surprised as you were the first time you saw it (unless, of course, someone ruined the surprise for you, and if they did, shame on them). However, I have to say that I actually admired the film much more this second time. I appreciated more just how carefully and artfully constructed it is. Because I knew the ending, I could concentrate more on how the film was put together. And it's quite a marvel to behold, a triumph of editing.

Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist, Malcolm Crowe, who's been feeling out of sorts since he and his wife encountered a very unhappy former patient of his (Donnie Wahlberg, in a surprising cameo appearance). Crowe is shot by Wahlberg's Vincent and, after the passage of some time, attempts to overcome what he considers his failure to help his patients by working with clients again. He takes on the case of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a young boy whose parents have divorced and who has been "acting out" in school.

After Cole reveals to Malcolm that he "sees dead people" (a line that has become such a cliche by now), the good doctor starts devoting tremendous amounts of time to helping his new patient, neglecting to spend as much time with his wife although he slowly begins to realize that he should (cue the new "boyfriend"). Cole's mom, played by Toni Collette, is similarly frustrated when she fails to see any progress in her son's odd behavior. As fiercely as she protects him at times, she also finds him to be a tremendous puzzle.

Obviously, there's a lot going on in this film about redemption and doing the right thing and attempting to expiate one's guilt. I can't reveal a great deal more without giving away some key elements of the plot that should truly remain a surprise (although this film is almost ten years old now--shame on you for having missed it so far). Let's just say that you become increasingly more accustomed to the idea that Cole does, indeed, see dead people, those who have unresolved issues that need attention. And this "talent" or "gift" or "curse"--whatever you'd like to call it--leads to a pretty surprising revelation or two.

I want to mention just how good Osment is in this movie. He was just 10 years old when he made this film, but he is shockingly authentic. He portrays a very troubled young boy with accuracy and deep emotion. It's tough to watch him in the part now and not worry about whether or not he understood too much of what this movie is about. I'd prefer to think that he was somewhat unaware of at least some of the more gruesome details, but even if he were, he handles them in such a quiet, mature way that you can easily see why his performance was Oscar-nominated. (Of course, they put him in the Supporting Actor category, but he is as much a lead as Willis is in the film.)

I'd also like to point out the editing. What the filmmakers do here is cut away, sometimes even fading to black, just before a scene can reveal "too much." You won't notice it the first time you watch The Sixth Sense, but this second time I couldn't help but realize just how carefully the various moments of this movie are cut apart and put together. I don't usually "rave" about a film's editing (although some certainly deserve it), but this is very thoughtful work. There's a consistent tension in the film because just as you could or might learn some detail that would change your perception and perhaps prepare you for the surprises to come, you cut away to a different moment. I suppose some might consider the editing style to be somewhat manipulative, but even if it is, it's incredibly effective as well.

If you're feeling up for a bit of a game, you might also spend some time tracking the use of the color red throughout the film. It's there all the way through. I don't think I've seen this color used more effectively since the Kryzysztof Kieslowski's film of the same name (Red, not The Sixth Sense). It's obviously used metaphorically here too, so see if you can figure it out as you go or if you have to think about it retroactively as I did.

The Insider (1999)

I'm surprised I never saw The Insider, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, before, particularly since a significant portion of the film deals with a famous lawsuit filed by the state of Mississippi. I met the Attorney General of the state, Mike Moore (who plays himself in the movie), several times while I was still a newspaper reporter, and I have to admit that I admired his sense of integrity. He seemed to be a genuinely unaffected person; in fact, the first time I met him was at a gas station, and he was pumping his own gas. How many attorneys general can you say that about these days? He's the one who attacked the tobacco companies in the early 1990s for the Medicare health costs that the state had to pay for those who are addicted to smoking; he and the state won, by the way.

Back to the film, though. The Insider is about the attempts by Big Tobacco to cover up just how addictive cigarettes are, thanks to chemical alterations the companies make in the nicotine itself. Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe) was a corporate officer in charge of research who is fired after confronting his bosses over their misrepresentations to the public. He is asked by a producer for the TV show 60 Minutes (played by Al Pacino) to be a part of a story on a different topic, but Pacino's Lowell Bergman quickly figures out that Wigand has an even bigger story to tell. The rest of the film is about the attempts to get Wigand's story on air, despite attempts by the tobacco companies and even the corporate structure of CBS to stop it.

The acting is all first-rate in this film, and I would call particular attention to Christopher Plummer, who does an astounding job of portraying Mike Wallace with all of this talent and vanity. Crowe and Pacino work exceptionally well together; it's a battle of intensity whenever the two of them appear on screen. I think Crowe may win most of the time, but Pacino certainly is still in the game. At least in this film, he's not doing his usual bombastic Scent of a Woman style of acting.

The film is a bit long, clocking in at almost three hours. There are moments I could see being cut without hurting the trajectory of the plot, such as the whole business at the beginning of the film with Bergman trying to get Wallace an interview with a leader of Hezbollah. I know it's meant to give us a sense of the kind of person that Bergman is, but the rest of the film ably demonstrates that. Still, this is a suspenseful movie, and it takes viewers through one of the more interesting (from my perspective as a former reporter, at least) cases of the clash between journalistic ethics and corporate mentality.

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile, nominated for Best Picture of 1999, requires patience. It's a very slow-moving film, clocking in at just a bit more than three hours long. It has very little in the way of action sequences, and it's really very confined, for the most part, to a single cell block in a Louisiana prison. In fact, it's almost an hour into the film before you even find out a central point, one that is the key to the entire film's plot. And yet this is a mesmerizing film. It's quite a presentation of the ideas of faith and goodness.

Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a guard on Death Row who comes to realize that he is in the presence of a miracle after the arrival of a very large convict named John Coffey, played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Edgecomb and his fellow guards are, with one notable exception, all good-hearted men. They seem to want to treat the prisoners with respect and dignity, unless the prisoners fail to deserve such treatment. Only one, really, does that, and he's played by Sam Rockwell doing a rather bad Gary Oldman version of a crazy convict. I suppose Rockwell's "Wild Bill" Wharton is meant to show the contrast between good and evil, but he does go a bit over the top at times.

Duncan, a giant of a man, plays John Coffey very simply and effectively. He's a man who only wants to do what he thinks is good, and he seems to possess the ability to know when someone good is in need. He realizes that Edgecomb is suffering from a bladder infection and asks the guard to come to his cell to talk to him. He grabs Edgecomb's crotch until the prison's lights start to get brighter and then what appear to be insects fly out of his mouth. It's a pretty stunning sight the first time you witness it; actually, it's a pretty stunning sight each time. What to do with John Coffey becomes a discussion for all of the guards after he brings back to life a mouse that a fellow prisoner has befriended. How does one behave when confronted with a miracle?

You're going to have a couple of very uncomfortable moments watching this film, so be warned. Three people are executed by the electric chair; they are on death row, after all. The filmmakers present each of these executions in pretty explicit detail. You'll learn a great deal about how executions took place during the early part of the 20th Century whether you want to or not. The second one, in particular, involving Michael Jeter's Del, who speaks with such an indecipherable accent that I had to keep rewinding, is the most gruesome, thanks to the aforementioned "bad guard," the aptly named Percy Wetmore. He's one of the true villains of the piece, something that John Coffey notices almost immediately.

The members of the cast are well chosen. In addition to Hanks and Duncan, I'd single out David Morse as one of the other guards, Brutus Howell. His character is nicknamed "Brutal," but really he's just a quiet man who takes his job very seriously. Warm-hearted Bonnie Hunt plays Edgecomb's wife, James Cromwell offers some stoic support as the prison warden, and Patricia Clarkson makes a brief but illuminating appearance as the warden's cancer-stricken wife. Percy Wetmore is played by Doug Hutchison, and he's so very good at playing someone with a rotten core. I suppose one could say that the good characters are "too" good and the bad ones "too" bad, but the actors infuse their parts with a real sense of humanity.

I didn't particularly enjoy the frame narrative involving the now-elderly Edgecomb telling his story to another resident of the retirement home where he stays. It doesn't seem necessary, and I think it actually lessens the impact of the overall story somewhat. I suppose the filmmakers wanted to have some sort of "reason" to start and end the narrative, but I think what happens on the Green Mile (the nickname for death row because of its green floor) is intriguing enough. It doesn't need anything more to make it a compelling story.

I hope people don't watch The Green Mile thinking that it's some sort of parable about religious faith. I don't think it has anything to do with any specific religion, really. In fact, John Coffey says that he doesn't even want a minister when it's time for his execution. There's a lot of talk here about what constitutes heaven and what might or might not be a miracle, but this doesn't seem to be a movie obsessed with pushing a particular religious agenda. It's more about our personal faith, what we choose to believe in or not believe in, about how we decide to live our lives.

The Cider House Rules (1999)

The Cider House Rules, a 1999 nominee for Best Picture, is yet another example of just how wrong Hollywood gets it sometimes. How can you take a story about abortion, incest, drug abuse, medical malpractice, racism, class struggle, and orphanages (just to name a few of the controversial topics it covers) and turn it into this bland of a film? Put it through the Hollywood grinder, obviously. Then you need to get it undeservedly nominated for a number of awards so that it looks like a prestigious film.

Tobey Maguire plays Homer Wells, an orphan who grows up to be the protégé of the doctor who delivered him, Dr. Wilbur Larch (played with his usual gusto by Michael Caine). Homer quickly learns that the good doctor is not only helping young women who wish to give their children up for adoption at the orphanage; he's also performing abortions, which were illegal at the time in the state of Maine. After having a crisis of conscience, Homer leaves the orphanage and finds work as an apple picker. In fact, he begins working for the fiancé of the girl he eventually falls in love with. The fiancé is played by Paul Rudd, who conveniently disappears for most of the movie while his character is serving in the military (so nice to have those pesky distractions out of the way). The girl is played by Charlize Theron. Of course, Homer is going to fall in love with her. Who wouldn’t fall in love with such a beautiful woman who’s left all alone after having an abortion?

While working on the apple farm and living in the "cider house" with several African Americans who are also hired to do the seasonal work of picking apples, Homer learns about more of life's dark secrets. For example, Mr. Rose, played by Delroy Lindo with enormous gravity, is sexually assaulting his daughter, the imaginatively named Rose Rose, played by Erykah Badu (who is quite a find as an actress). Homer volunteers to use the skills he has learned while "interning" with Dr. Larch to solve Rose's problem. In fact, he merely creates more problems. This pattern keeps getting repeated throughout the film.

I thought the John Irving novel upon which the movie is based was daring and enlightening. It took chances and made you, at times, not like some of the main characters or their actions. The movie seems to take too few of those chances. There are far too many scenes about the complexity of the decisions that characters must make so that we will feel sympathetic toward them. There’s always a “reason” for why someone behaves the way that she/he does. It's just a bit too pat, frankly, to match the depth of this subject matter.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the look of the film. It's beautifully shot, gorgeous cinematography, just the way you want a film about incest and abortion to look. I was reminded of the criticisms leveled at The Color Purple all those years ago, about how a tale of spousal abuse was somewhat "glorified" by the golden light in which it was shot. Well, Spielberg's film has nothing on The Cider House Rules in that department.

I'm sure that I (and the members of the Academy) must have seen plenty of films during 1999 that would be more worthy nominees for Best Picture than this film. I suppose the Miramax publicity machine was at its greatest strength in those days. Otherwise, I can't really explain how this film is included as one of the five best for that year.