Met expectations

The 10 best movies of 1998

By Charles Taylor

Nov 30, 1998 | If pleasure and drama and emotion are what draw us to the movies -- and, finally, I believe that's why anybody goes to the movies -- then it always seems a little strange to me to sum up the year past by talking only about movies when those qualities were also present elsewhere. For me the most dramatic and affecting moments of the year would include Victory Gallop snatching the Triple Crown away from Real Quiet in the final seconds of the Belmont Stakes; the perverse Gothic romanticism of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which has been as thrilling and affecting as anything at the movies this year; the stubborn principled defiance of President Clinton's grand jury testimony; the inexplicably moving juxtaposition of Jay-Z's boasting with the sample of the little orphan girls from "Annie" on the single "Hard Knock Life."

But the list that follows has to concentrate on the movies, for which it's been a pretty good year. The fall's sparse pickings did sometimes make it seem that we were paying the price for a summer in which there was always something to go see, if not top-notch pictures like "The Truman Show," "Out of Sight" and "The Mask of Zorro," then pleasing diversions like "Six Days, Seven Nights," "Dance with Me," "Blade" and "How Stella Got Her Groove Back." Unlike in some years, I actually had to winnow down my list. The movies I've regrettably left off are Lisa Cholodenko's impressive debut "High Art," Richard LaGravenese's lovely, melancholy comedy "Living Out Loud," Nick Gomez's startlingly original "illtown" and Andy Tennant's Cinderella charmer "Ever After." Their absence is entirely due to the arbitrary number assigned to 10-best lists; all those films certainly deserve mention with the best of 1998.

I think it's fruitless to attempt to divine overall trends from a list, and so I won't try. I'm grateful that good work continues to get made and disappointed that, far too often, it doesn't manage to get seen. There's no point in claiming we are in a golden age of moviemaking, and equally little point in proclaiming, Sontag-like, the death of the art. The movies below, and numerous moments and performances in others not mentioned here, are what made me feel privileged to be a film critic.

1. "The General"
John Boorman's dark, searching portrait of Dublin career burglar Martin Cahill paints him as a disruptive force sprung full-blown from the collective Irish id. Refusing to either deny Cahill's tenderness and loyalty or shield us from his brutality, Boorman willingly complicates our responses, nowhere more so than in the casting of Brendan Gleeson as Cahill. Teddy-bearish and terrifying, Gleeson radiates both largeness of spirit and pettiness of purpose. The master of visionary go-for-broke filmmaking has become a spellbinding storyteller of enormous warmth and humor, a master of characterization. In many ways a prickly tribute to the country Boorman has called home for the last 30 years, "The General" embodies Ireland's sentimental and black-humored hard-luck soul.

2. "Babe: Pig in the City"
Seeing that George Miller's sequel to his worldwide hit was a wilder, darker film than the original, Universal canceled the premiere claiming the director needed more time to finish it (translation: It's in trouble). And the studio has made scant use of the raves the movie has received. In other words, Universal gave the impression that this little piggy was a stinker. What it is is the single most inventive and magical piece of filmmaking of the year. This "Babe" isn't the soothing rural idyll the first film was. It's a dark and wondrous fairy tale set in a world run amuck -- a pipe dream of the big city where Venetian canals are within a stone's throw of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. Miller, constantly pushing himself and his material further and further, has made one of those rare movies that has more imagination than at times it knows what to do with. Wonders are scattered through every frame. The movie's buzzing energy puts you right on the director's wavelength, makes you hungry for every delight he's eager to give you. Perhaps more than any of the other of the films on this list, this flawed masterpiece exudes a boundless fervor for filmmaking.

3. "Great Expectations"
The heart of Dickens' novel beats strong and true in Alfonso Cuaron's strange, breathtaking and rapturous updating (adapted by Mitch Glazer). The movie offers the thrill of people taking beautifully reckless chances that all pay off by a combination of confidence, skill and daring. Working with production designer Tony Burrough, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and the great Italian artist Francesco Clemente (who did the spare, delicate charcoals and watercolors for Ethan Hawke's artist-hero), Cuaron has made a movie in which the emotions are inseparable from the visuals. In her best work to date, Gwyneth Paltrow makes us grieve for a girl incapable of grieving for anything, even herself. And as Hawke's secret benefactor (the role Finlay Currie immortalized in the David Lean version), Robert De Niro does some of his most complex acting, and certainly his warmest.

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