Best of '98: Moments out of time

Film Comment, Jan, 1999

* The ravens in the downed plane -- A Simple Plan ...

* Rubbing out reality: red trucks speeding through The Gingerbread Man's frames, wiping what we think we can depend on being there ...

* In a cave's utter dark, the purring of a very large cat -- Passion in the Desert ...

* After the atomic bomb, a villageful of charred pigs in The Butcher Boy ...

* In longshot, watching a thieving streetkid get executed out on the railroad tracks: the last bitter truth in Central Station ...

* In Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller turns away from his men -- eager to kill a German prisoner (Joerg Stadler) -- to stand silent for a long while: something more than a man's life hangs in the balance in that place, in that time ...

* Conversing with a dead man's growling stomach in Tu Ridi ...

* Car chases that mean something -- Ronin ...

* Bulworth: "How old do you think I am?" Nina, unhesitatingly: "Sixty." Warren Beatty playing hardball ...

* The Stranger (Sam Elliott) and The Dude (Jeff Bridges) passing time at the counter in The Big Lebowski's bowling alley: two way-cool wayfarers ...

* In The Gingerbread Man, Robert Duvall's madman, speechless in more ways than one over being shot through the throat by a wimpy lawyer (Kenneth Branagh), sits out his dying on his front porch: as if Boo Radley had somehow taken a very wrong turn these many years later ...

* "Hot fun in the summertime ..." scoring Judith's (Holly Hunter) jaunty stroll down a magical/ordinary New York street at the end of Living Out Loud ...

* Marching through the jungle into battle, Charlie Company meets and passes by an indigenous Melanesian, who pays them no mind: The Thin Red Line ...

* The dying Captain Miller sits staring in amazement as the German tank he shot with his .45 blows up -- an Empire of the Sun vision become reality, in Saving Private Ryan ...

RICHARD T. JAMESON

I.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

II.

AFFLICTION THE BIG LEBOWSKI THE BUTCHER BOY HAPPINESS LIVING OUT LOUD OUT OF SIGHT RUSHMORE A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES TASTE OF CHERRY THE THIN RED LINE

III.

BULWORTH CELEBRITY THE GENERAL THE GINGERBREAD MAN GOD SAID, "HA!" GODS AND MONSTERS HIGH ART PRIMARY COLORS RONIN THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY THE TRUMAN SHOW WITHOUT LIMITS

actors

Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Duvall, Brendan Gleeson, John Goodman, Tom Hanks, Anne Heche, Holly Hunter, Lisa Kudrow, Ian McKellen, Bill Murray, Nick Nolte, Eamonn Owens, Ally Sheedy, Donald Sutherland, Julia Sweeney, Billy Bob Thornton

ensembles

HAPPINESS, OUT OF SIGHT, PRIMARY COLORS, SAVING PVT. RYAN

emperor's new clothes

"Dogma 95" and THE CELEBRATION

very bad things

THE AVENGERS, DANCING AT LUGHNASA, THE IMPOSTORS, MONUMENT AVE, NO LOOKING BACK, A PERFECT MURDER, PHANTOMS, POLISH WEDDING, THE THEORY OF FLIGHT, VELVET GOLDMINE, WAKING NED DEVINE

KATHLEEN MURPHY

1. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

2. BELOVED

3. THE BUTCHER BOY

4. THE BIG LEBOWSKI

5. RUSHMORE

6. AFFLICTION

7. OUT OF SIGHT

8. HAPPINESS

9. A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES

10. MRS. DALLOWAY

11. LIVING OUT LOUD

12. HIGH ART