The Best and Worst Movies of 1997

I took some time out to explore the whole evolution/creation debate, and though there will be definitely more of that to come, I thought it was high time I continue my lists of favorite movies from the 90's.  The last time I did one of these was for 1996, so this one will cover the year 1997:

The Best Movies of 1997

Air Force One, Face/Off, Mimic, MouseHunt, Con Air, George of the Jungle, As Good as It Gets, Scream 2, The Shining, and Titanic

Air Force One

Back when we had Clinton as the Chief Executive of the country, even the year before the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, Harrison Ford as President James Marshall in this movie was at least three times the courageous, moral President than Clinton could ever hope to be!  When his plane, Air Force One, is hijacked by Gary Oldman and his soldiers, he does whatever it takes to save his family, and refuses to deal with terrorists.

   

As  Good As It Gets

One of my all-time favorite romances because it is also the most real.  This is no storybook romance!  He's a cantankerous writer suffering from severe OCD, and she's a feisty, outspoken waitress with an ill child, and the one who brings them together is a gay man who's just been beaten and needs a dog sitter for his little lapdog.  Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, and Greg Kinnear all do some of their best work.

Con Air

"Put the bunny down!"  Nicholas Cage hit his stride as an action movie hero here, following up The Rock with this tale of a retired army ranger on an airplane full of vicious convicts who suddenly take over the plane. He must play along until he can turn the tables, aided on the ground by a US Marshall played by John Cusack.  With delicious roles for John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, and Steve Buscemi as some of the more memorable convicts and Colm Meany as a constant thorn in Cusack's side, not to mention a great crash landing on the Las Vegas strip, there's lots of stuff here action fans will just love.

  

Face/Off

Another great Nicolas Cage action flick, this one defies logic, but who cares?  John Woo directs this exciting action flick in which an FBI agent Sean Archer, played by John Travolta, manages to catch criminal mastermind Castor Troy, played by Cage, and then undergoes a procedure to have Castor's face grafted onto him so that the man's surviving brother will reveal the location of a bomb.  Things become much more difficult, however, when Castor wakes up, contacts his goons, and forces the doctor to give him Archer's face and identity.  When Archer manages to break out of prison, it's a cat and mouse game between them, with Archer's wife and daughter, and Castor's girlfriend and son, caught in the middle!  Convoluted and totally unbelievable, this is still an action movie not to be missed! John Woo knows his stuff!

George of the Jungle

Brendan Fraser has had his share of stinkers, both in the action and the comedy genres.  This isn't one of them.  The film manages to capture the flavor of the old cartoons in ways sorely missing from other cartoon updates such as Yogi Bear and Underdog.  A delightful, funny treat!

Mimic

The plot makes it sound ludicrous!  Giant cockroaches have evolved the ability to disguise themselves as human, and they're dangerous and hungry!  This silly description betrays a chilling little horror film, and the cockroaches are anything but a silly contrivance.  Yes, they've grown to be about the size of a man when standing up, but their "human camaflauge" is merely the mirage of a human face on their appendages, giving them the appearance of a vagrant in an overcoat from a distance, until they open their wings to reveal they are, in fact, nothing more than gigantic, vicious, killer insects!  If you're looking for a good creature feature, this is one of the scarier ones to come along.

MouseHunt

A wonderful family comedy, this one takes the concept of Home Alone, about a boy outwitting two thugs, and gives the role of the boy to a mischievous mouse.  Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, as brothers who own the house with the mouse, make for a wonderful comic pairing, and don't miss the hilarious cameo by Christopher Walken.  This is slapstick at its best!

Scream 2

So Scream was a hit, playing fast and loose with slasher film conventions while paying homage to the classics of the genre.  The question was, could the sequel be a hit too, especially in a world where sequels are, almost by definition, inferior?  The characters here even discuss the inferiority of sequels!  Yet, as with the first Scream, the level of the writing here is clever and still quite refreshing, giving horror movie geeks yet another film they could really love!  You may guess the main killer way before the end, but that doesn't mean there aren't some delicious scares to be had.  I loved the way it started, with Jada Pinkett Smith and Omar Epps getting hacked at the premiere of the movie Stab (based on the events of the first movie), and there's lots more playing with horror movie conventions mixed with great suspense. 

The Shining

Fans haven't been kind to this TV movie version of Stephen King's famous haunted hotel novel, and over the years, after the Stanley Kubrick original slowly became a bonafide horror classic (though truthfully, more Kubrick than King), this TV movie, mostly shot at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, King's inspiration for the novel, captured most of the themes from the novel missing from the Kubrick version, and truthfully, Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay, and Courtland Mead are much closer to the characters from the book too.  Sure, the hedge maze in the original turned out to be scarier than the hedge animals from the book that show up in this TV remake, but many other elements were just as scary, or more scary, than the Kubrick film, such as the chilling "woman in the tub".  

  

Titanic

What list of the top ten movies of 1997 would be complete without including James Cameron's classic take on this historical tragedy, turning Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in the bona-fide movie stars!  Their characters, Jack and Rose, may not have been on the original boat, but fans forgave Cameron his dramatic license, and when the ship goes down, it is quite the cinematic experience!  Very few films become instant classics.  Even fewer actually deserve that title.   This one does.

The Best of the Rest

Alien: Resurrection

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

Contact

The Devil’s Advocate

The Edge            

Hercules

Liar Liar

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Men in Black

Tomorrow Never Dies

This list features films that just missed making it into the top ten, for various reasons.  The sequels Alien: Resurrection and The Lost World: Jurassic Park had a few interesting ideas, yet were still inferior sequels (see Scream 2 above), and Tomorrow Never Dies was a good James Bond movie in a long, inexhaustible line of "good" James Bond movies.  Many people probably thought Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Liar Liar, and Men in Black were funnier and more inventive than George of the Jungle or MouseHunt, yet even so, it's debatable.  Hercules was cute, but doesn't quite compare to other recent Disney hits, and though Contact, The Devil's Advocate, and The Edge are more original, and are entertaining movies, they're not really the best of the year, now are they?

The Worst

An American Werewolf in Paris

Anaconda

The Fifth Element

Life is Beautiful

The Relic

A Simple Wish

Spawn

Starship Troopers

Vegas Vacation

Wishmaster

Turbulence didn't make this list because it's one of those serious films that's so bad, it actually works as a hilarious comedy.  At any rate, it was funnier than Vegas Vacation, the worst of the Vacation movies, or A Simple Wish, which was even worse!  The Fifth Element had some inspired Sci Fi concepts, but Chris Tucker's annoying character ruins it!  (Drew, if you're reading this, I'm sorry.  I just didn't like it.)  Anything inspirational in the Roberto Benigni film Life is Beautiful is strictly coincidental, a fluke, as proven by anything else Benigni has ever been in (including his irritating "performances" at the various award shows to pick up his awards for this uneven and unbelievable film).  The rest of this list, more than half, are horror movies.  None of them were scary, or particularly memorable.    

Oscars and Box Office

Here's the big hits at the Oscars and at the Box Office for 1997.  These are the ones that didn't make my lists above:  Despite wanting to possibly see them some day, I never did see Amistad or The Wings of the Dove, have no real desire to see The Full Monty or Boogie Nights, and had never even heard of Kundun.  Meanwhile, I did see Good Will Hunting and L.A. Confidential and just didn't find them all that great.

Notable Oscar Films:

Titanic

As Good As It Gets

The Full Monty

Good Will Hunting

L.A Confidential

Men in Black

Amistad

The Wings of the Dove

Kundun

Boogie Nights

Biggest Box Office Hits:

Titanic

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Men in Black

Tomorrow Never Dies

Air Force One

As Good As It Gets

Liar Liar

Good Will Hunting

The Fifth Element

The Full Monty