Book Review: Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery

There's no doubt the year 1999 marked a high point for American movies, each month brought out one challenging film after another. Brian Raftery's book revisits these movies and the people who made them.

Raftery takes the reader through a year marked by erratic mood shifts. The economy was booming and the international situation appeared stable. At the same time fears of Y2K and global terrorism had folks on edge. As the year unfolded the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal would end with an anti-climatic impeachment trial, while the Columbine Massacre would be a dark harbinger of the future (gun violence would play a big role in many films of the year). Meanwhile the omnipresence of technology and the internet would a foment a more existential sense of unease, an unease the movies would channel.

Mega-blockbusters of costumed heroes had yet to conquer the big screen. Adult themed dramas still had a place at the multi-plex. Robert Downey Jr. was still known as an eccentric character actor; Netflix was a start up company that offered DVD rentals through the mail.

Unbeknownst to many, television was about to give movies a serious run for their money. The Sopranos debuted in 1999, heralding the birth of long form story telling in the TV form. Prestige TV from Breaking Bad to Game of Thrones would hold a privileged place in the culture, a place movies held for decades.

What makes 1999 memorable were the sheer variety of movies that transfixed audiences. The Blair Witch Project, an ultra low budget horror movie, would terrify movie goers more than any other film. The "found footage" approach presaged reality TV, but also resorted to old school gimmicks in the tradition of William Caste. Alternately, The Sixth Sense from newcomer M. Night Shyamalan perfected the Hitchcock approach, proving a PG-13 movie could terrify.

The teen movie underwent a brief renaissance from post John Hughes movies like 10 Things I Hate About You to the raunchy humor of American Pie to the dead on satire of Election. 

Meanwhile adults took in American Beauty (the Oscar Winner for Best Picture), The Limey, and The Insider. Paul Thomas Anderson's epic drama Magnolia proved the appropriate last major American film of the 20th century - a soul bearing examination of mortality and broken lives in modern L.A.

Older directors also returned to the screen. George Lucas's Star Wars: The Phantom Menace divided fans. The posthumous Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut perplexed many, leaving more questions than answers from the mysterious director. Terrence Malick, at one time known as the J.D. Salinger of American cinema, returned with the subdued and philosophical WWII film The Thin Red Line. 

New voices also produced some gems. The Matrix from the Wachowski siblings blew everyone out of the water, stealing some of the thunder from The Phantom Menace. Fight Club from David Fincher perhaps best captured the mood of the year with its satire of repressed masculinity. Office Space from Mike Judge sent up workplace malaise and Being John Malkovich by Spike Jonze wreaked havoc with definitions of identity. 

Best Movie Year Ever proves through nostalgia and incisive analysis of why 1999 was a landmark year for movies. As Raftery point out, many of these films under performed at the Box Office and it was only as years went by when they were recognized, a sign many were ahead of their time.