Redheaded Reviews: Best. Move. Ever. How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery

This book contains some amazing movie titles that all came out in one movie year. Raftery doesn't cover all of the movies that came out in 1999, some of which were Oscar contenders because he felt they weren't movies that changed things. In movie history, there have been very few years that have totally changed the landscape of how movies are made. 1939 is one where The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach, and Gunga Din all came out. 1967 and 1985 saw small bumps in the historical timeline. But 1999 was a major bash into the world of cinema that would change things forever.

"By the time Sundance 1999 rolled around, there was a well-worn playbook for turning a low-budget movie into a middlebrow success, one that Miramax had helped create: find a slightly outsiderly tale of uplift with a famous face or two; hype up its festival cred and underdog charm; roll it out delicately across the country. Then a bunch of kids went and got lost in the woods, and the rules changed over again." Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez went to the University of Central Florida together and came up with the idea for Blair Witch back then about a group of documentarians who go looking for the witch in the woods are never heard from again.

Years would pass and they would mention this to fellow alum Gregg Hale would insist on producing it They would develop a brief teaser trying to get funding. Robin Cowie and Michale Monello would join the team which would be called Haxan films, named after a twenties faux documentary on witchcraft. It was hard raising money because while the investors showed the short to believed that the story was true about the witch, they couldn't see themselves giving them money for something like that. John Pierson, a man who was influential with independent film, got a hold of their tape and he was working on Split Screen a show on Independent Film Channel and he offered them $5,000 for the tape to air on the show and another $5,000 for a follow-up. This would give them enough to do bare-bones filming of their movie.

Hale who had been in the military for four years did a program there called SERE or Survival Evasion Resistance Escape. He wanted to use this for the movie and put the actors through it. They figured the best place to find actors was New York so that's where they advertised for them in the trade magazines. Heather Donohue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams would ultimately play the roles of the documentarians. Their performances were largely improvised with notes left at sites by the filmmakers that gave them directions to go in.

In 1998 Split Screen would air the second piece the Haxon's had for them and the Haxon's would start up a website encouraging the belief in the Blair Witch. When they aired it at Sundance they felt they got bad results. Some people walked out and the theater was silent as people walked out. But Artisan Entertainment executives who were impressed with the movie noticed two women shaking outside the theater and they asked if they were okay. The women told them they had just seen the scariest movie they had ever seen and they were afraid to walk to their cars. The men knew that they had to have this movie and won it for $1.1 million.

The actors had to put up with not working for a long while and having their IMDB listing them as dead in order to sell it to the crowds that they were actually dead. Soon it was a hit that had some fans vomiting in the theaters due to the shaky cam. But then would come the backlash against the movie and the haters who would take it out on the actors. I remember seeing Blair Witch with my then-fiancee who is now my ex-husband and being scared out of my wits. I didn't believe it was true because by that time that cat was out of the bag. But it certainly changed filmmaking.

What would the Matrix have been like if Neo had been Sandra Bullock or Brad Pitt or if the studio had gotten its way and Val Kilmer had been Morpheus? What if Kimberly Pierce hadn't gotten the funds to make Boys Don't Cry? Haven't are the view of Star Wars The Phantom Menace changed? I know it's my ten-year-old daughter's favorite of the entire series and watching it a million times with her has made me change my mind about it and learn to love it.

This book explores all the stories behind such classic movies as Run, Lola, Run, Office Space, Varsity Blues, She's All That, Cruel Intentions, 10 Things I Hate About You, American Pie, Election, Rushmore, The Virgin Suicides, The Iron Giant, Galaxy Quest, Eyes Wide Shut, The Mummy, The Sixth Sense, The Best Man, The Wood, American Beauty, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings, The Limey, The Insider, Magnolia. But leaves out such movies that were Oscar contenders like Cider House Rules and The Green Mile because while they were memorable today and some say great movies they didn't change cinema like these movies did. These movies busted boundaries and both in technical abilities (The rooftop shot with Neo back bending over bullets cost $750,000 and took two years to complete) and storytelling. Raftery does an excellent job of dishing the scoop behind these movies and what made them so important then and now and how we are due for another big movie year anytime now. I give this book five out of five stars.

Quotes

“This world has th Matrix all over the place,’Lana Wachowski said. “People accept ways of thinking that are imposed upon them rather than working them out themselves. The free-thinking people are those who question every sort of Matrix, every system of thought or belief, be it political, religious, philosophical.” Reality was right in front of you, if you looked hard enough. The question was whether you would want to live in a world that, at times, could be well beyond anyone’s understanding.

-Brian Raftery (Best. Movie. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen p 69)

10 Things [I Hate About You] came in second behind the Wachowskis’ sci-fi machine, a remarkable achievement, considering 10 Things’ comparatively miniscule hype level. Decades later, McCullah [Screenwriter of 10 Things I Hate About You] remains perplexed by The Matrix’s success: “I”ve made it all the way through,” she says. “I’m going ‘Whyare they in the sewers, eating porridge and wearing dirty sweaters? Don’t they want to live in the happy, shiny, clean world’”

-Brian Raftery (Best. Movie. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen p 91)

Doctor: You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.

Cecilia: Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.

-Virgin Suicides, 1999

“When my daughter was about nine years old,” says Fincher [the director], “I went to a school function, and she said, ‘Oh, I want you to meet my friend Max. Fight Club is his favorite movie’ I took her aside and said ‘You are no longer to hang out with Max. You’re not to be alone with Max.’”

-Brian Raftery (Best. Movie. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen p 236)

I always thought it would be better to be a fake somebody than a real nobody.

-Tom Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley)

While there, [Diane] Verona asked one of her new acquaintances what she’d do if she learned her husband was cheating on her. Her response: “I’d find the thing he loves the most in the world, and I’d destroy it.” Says Verona, “What I love about southern women is that they have this glasslike exterior, but they also have these steel backbones. You don’t cross them.”

-Brian Raftery (Best. Movie. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen p 276)