OVP: Previously, in 1999...

1999 : A Look Back

1999 is next up in our Oscar Viewing Project, and is our 26th season of this series.  This will be our first look at the 1990's, which was the first decade that I watched the Academy Awards live.  My first full ceremony was 1995 (in 1994, my parents video-taped The Lion King performances and Jessica Lange & Tom Hanks' speeches the year before, but were too scared to let a kid watch a show hosted by David Letterman, so I didn't get to see that live), but I do remember this one so well that I can still sing all of Billy Crystal's opening number.  I was also a teenager when 1999 happened, so while I did see some of the movies we'll discuss this season live (including Best Picture nominee The Sixth Sense, which was the first DVD I ever owned), most of the biggest titles were ones I picked up a few years later when I was finally allowed to watch R-Rated Movies.  There are a few titles I don't trust my memory enough, so I will be rewatching in the coming week or two (specifically the two Best Picture frontrunners), but we will have quite the span for a few of the other ones.  If you disagree with me...I have a comments section for a reason (but this is where decades worth of Oscar notes is going to come out in my favor).

So now, let's go back.  Back to a time of Y2K scares, JK Rowling writing beloved books & not peddling hate speech, and Pokemon rising while Napster collapsed.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Box Office

This is what the Top 10 at the (Domestic) Box Office looked like:

1. Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace

2. The Sixth Sense

3. Toy Story 2

4. Austin Power: The Spy Who Shagged Me

5. The Matrix

6. Tarzan

7. Big Daddy

8. The Mummy

9. Runaway Bride

10. The Blair Witch Project

This is genuinely exciting to me.  We are moving continually further back with Oscar, and every time we go back, I see how certain types of movies became more profitable.  You have movie-star driven comedies here (Big Daddy, Runaway Bride), an original SciFi epic (The Matrix), and horror (The Sixth Sense, The Blair Witch Project).  Yes, there's two franchise sequels and one remake, but only 30% would be a miracle today if that was all that was at the top of the box office.  I am happy to report that I have seen all of these movies (6 of them when they originally came out in theaters), and have seen most of the films that made $100 million.  I know for a fact I've never seen The General's Daughter (despite its apparent success, do you think even John Travolta remembers making this movie?), and here's where I confess something 25 years after the fact-I don't know if I've actually seen Double Jeopardy or American Pie.  These were HUGE zeitgeist hits (this was back when movies were a much bigger cultural conversation), but while I know I didn't see them in theaters, I must now tell the youngsters who read this blog about a magical thing called cable television.  Both of these movies ran incessantly on cable (before you could easily record and certainly pause television so you just were forced to watch what was on waiting for your program to start), and as a result I've seen the endings of both of these movies at least a dozen times, I don't know if I've seen them fully straight-through.

The Films I Missed

While I've seen all of the Oscar nominees, I haven't seen every film in 1999.  Looking at the precursor awards, some of the bigger titles I'm missing are The Muse, An Ideal Husband, Anywhere But Here, and The Legend of 1900.  I will, over the coming weeks, be watching a number of major films from the year that I believe I cannot live without (though, give or take The Legend of 1900, I feel like I'm fine skipping the rest-share against in the comments if you disagree).  Some of the titles I want to catch include some minor works from prominent filmmakers (Following, Ratcatcher, Bringing Out the Dead), huge films that were culturally important at the time (Dogma, Office Space, Run Lola Run), while there's a couple others like The Limey & Mansfield Park I've just always wanted to try.  Due to this, we might go a teensy bit slower to start on this, though I am hoping that by Sunday we'll at least have had two ballots out, and do not want this to last beyond the end of July (I'm already working on completing our screening for our next season, which will be another "before John was born" season like we did with 1931-32).  In the meantime, sound off on the contests you're most excited about (and which you're most excited to see me weigh in on) in the comments!