New Year's Day, 1998

THE 10 BEST MOVIES OF 1997
This is my list. My opinions. I'll be happy to hear your opinions, whether they're about your own choices or about mine. (E-mail is fun!) Twenty-one movies made my "possibles" list.
Before the actual Top 10, the films that came close and the movies that I expected not to like, but really, really enjoyed.
The Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): The last 20 minutes of The Devil's Advocate, In & Out, Liar Liar, love jones, Rhyme & Reason and Titanic. The Best Surprises (in alphabetical order): The Assignment, Breakdown, Eve's Bayou, The Fifth Element and Soul Food.

MY LIST

1. Kundun: My hands-down winner. A hard film to love, but worth the effort. Relax and let it wash over you. It's Scorcese as Monet. And the subject is love. Love of all mankind. (Here's hoping that Disney will avoid the tag line, "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll shave your head and chant gutturally.")

2. Wag the Dog: As cynical as Kundun is spiritual. Great script. Great acting. Great story. You'll laugh out loud and if you think about it, you may cry, because there's no real reason it couldn't really happen. It may already have happened.

3. Boogie Nights: An epic from 27-year old Paul Thomas Anderson. How could it be about anything but pornography (or television)? It's a ride so harrowing that it makes the deck of the Titanic look like a safe place to be, but that doesn't keep it from being funny and a little sexy too. Middle America didn't want to look. Their loss.

4. Good Will Hunting: I really wanted to hate Matt Damon. All the hype always triggers my B.S. alarm. But then he co-wrote and co-starred in this movie and I had to jump on the bandwagon. It's a movie for anyone who's paid the price for being special in any way. It's the movie Oliver Stone would have made instead of Platoon if he stayed in the Ivy League instead of going to Vietnam.

5. L.A. Confidential: The beloved. Dolls, dames and guns. Glad to have you back. It's no Chinatown, but what is? Laughs, thrills and great suits make it the cop flick of the year, if not the decade.

6. My Best Friend's Wedding: I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I loved seeing this movie. I was charmed from the silly girl group opening to the gay-friend-saves-frustrated-babe's-bacon ending. It not only brought back Julia Roberts, but re-launched Rupert Everett and Cameron Diaz with great movie star turns.

7. Grosse Pointe Blank: John Cusack is a smart actor. And this is a smart movie. From the underrated director George Armitage (Miami Blues), this movie kills. And the soundtrack is one of the year's very best.

8. Contact: When I left the theater I expected to receive an "I Survived Matthew McConaughey's Performance" T-shirt, but outside of that, I loved this movie. It wasn't at all what I expected and that was a problem for audiences, but movies about something other than pyrotechnics are worth the trouble. Sadly, I'm betting that Contact will be seriously diminished by shrinking to video. It's a movie that needs its space.

9. Face/Off: Bang bang, you're dead. Or not. Let's try that again. This time with a thousand bullets and a missile. Still not dead? Cool. Blow some more stuff up, please. Woo is the best and with Face/Off, he was at his best. Both violent and tender, disgusting and compelling. And Cage/Travolta and Travolta/Cage were at their movie star best.

10. Deconstructing Harry: Woody Allen's best serious comedy since the brilliant Crimes and Misdemeanors. Woody finally lets us in on what he really thinks of the women in his life and it's not pretty. But it's funny as hell. Literally.

10.5 Afterglow: I saw the movie after press time, but I had to squeeze it in. I'm not an Alan Rudolph fan, but critics' awards for Julie Christie drew me in. Turns out that she was only one of four lead actors doing the very best work of their careers. Plus, the screenplay is so solid, simple and beautiful that even the gimmicks that usually drive me nuts in Rudolph's work somehow charmed me instead.

E-mail me your picks. And check out the Top Movie Stories of 1997. Tommorow, the movies I didn't get. And the weekender offers up the Worst 10 of 1997.