Tuesday, December 06, 2005

1998 - Review

Thin Red Line
Elizabeth
Saving Private Ryan
Shakespeare in Love
Life is Beautiful

This year's movies are either WW II movies or Elizabethan England. Three of them are great. 'Thin Red Line' is just a pretentious bit of navel gazing. And 'Elizabeth' is only slightly above average. As far as I know, Oscar doesn't report the vote totals, but I'd be surprised if either one of them was competitive.
This year is remembered as a big upset with 'Ryan' being more deserving but losing to 'Shakespeare'. After watching them many years later, I'd have to agree. 'Ryan' had problems, but it's clearly a movie for the ages. It's probably the most technically well made movie of the decade. In fact, I'd probably put 'Life' in second place. Still, it's not that big of an injustice. I still love 'Shakespeare' and probably will watch it more times in my life than the other two.
As I mentioned in the review, 'Shakespeare's score is probably tops for the decade. 'Thin Red Line' had a surpisingly good score of it's own. None of the other movies was notable for music.

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