Fantastic account of one of the most interesting periods in Hollywood history, at a time when the box office had more power over American popular culture than it ever has or likely will ever have, given the advent of streaming and the fracturing of the moviegoing experience. Well researched and engaging, it puts each film into the context of the time and each other.

I really struggled with this book. I like the premise behind it, analyzing how movies have impacted society and culture, but the writing in it felt slightly choppy, and I didn't like all the swear words.
BUT, if you are a movie buff, and really enjoy analyzing pop-culture, then I think you would enjoy it. Once I could get past the swearing and into the writing I did enjoy how it talked about film festivals and how a lot of them got their jump-start there. Many of the films the book discusses are lower budget films, so it was neat to see that you don't have to be made of money to make a movie if you're passionate about it.

This was a really fun read. Lots of interesting information about film and enjoyable anecdotes. I learned a lot of behind the scenes stories which added a great deal to my knowledge of film in this specific year.

I had no idea of all the great movies that came out that year. What was even more fascinating was the story behind the movie. This book really opened my eyes to each behind the scenes story that made the movie interesting and famous. Raftery does a great job at make the book incredibly readable instead of droning on and on over little details. When each chapter began I was instantly hooked and had to finish learning about the featured attraction. As a side note, I had never seen Election before but this book changed that - great movie! I would highly recommend this book for any cinephile, history fan, or just someone who is looking for an interesting, yet different, kind of book. Good stuff found here.

For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery is a book in which the author examines movies from 1999, a groundbreaking year in cinema. Mr. Raftery is a culture writer and modern movie expect.

I never realized that 1999 was such a monumental year for movies. In his book Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen author Brian Raftery makes exactly that claim, the year where some landmark titles were pushed out – whether we knew it at the time or not.

The movies that the author writes about are, indeed, groundbreaking. They include Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense. Being John Malkovich. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. American Beauty, the wonderful Iron Giant, Galaxy Quest (quite possible the best Star Trek movie ever made), among others. It would be interesting to see if other years, certainly not all, had such outpouring of creativity.

As in many instances, many of the movies were not critically or commercially successful, but found their audience later on thanks to the many home video options which came on the market and quickly became affordable to the average American homes. It seems that many movies, which became examples of creativity and thinking outside the box office, were not accepted initially.

I thought this was a well-researched, and well organized, book. The author makes his case in an easy to read, relatable narrative without trying to seem too smart and go over the audience’s head. Some of the information borders on gossip, but there is enough film business entries to make the book interesting.

I enjoyed reading about the way many of the creators had to fight, often for years, to get their movies made, it made me wonder about the gems which we’ll never get to see. Many of the movies mentioned were not hits, either in monetary or critical terms, yet the author does make a case for each as to why they were either immediately successful, or gained appreciation later on.

Was 1999 the greatest movie year ever?
That could be debated endlessly around water coolers and IT departments – but honestly, who cares?
It certainly was a great year for movies.

It’s weird when you start being old enough to have lived through periods that now attract a great deal of nostalgia, but the turning of a century is a pretty big deal. In this book, the author attempts to convey a sense of what was going on in the world at that time, and how that impacted the movies that were made.

To be honest, I’m not sure he’s convinced me that 1999 was indeed the ‘best movie year ever’, but it was pretty dang impressive. American Beauty won the Oscars (and the afterword does acknowledge the cringe factor of that and other things, in light of recent scandals), Star Wars got a very long-awaited new chapter, and the world was introduced to bullet time and the Matrix.

It’s fair to say 1999, perhaps inspired by the once-in-a-lifetime feel of the date and the world on the brink of change – possible catastrophic, with the Y2K bug fears – produced more than its fair share of ‘weird’ or groundbreaking movies. Or perhaps the real thing is that such films were embraced by audiences and have survived to critical acclaim.

Themes of the year included a resurgence in teen movies (10 Things I hate About You, American Pie, Cruel Intentions, Election), a bit of nostalgia for the past (Talented Mr Ripley, The Mummy, Man on the Moon, etc), and questioning reality, either directly or the ‘is this it’ feeling, with movies such as The Matrix, Fight Club, Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, and the Blair Witch Project. The latter played with reality directly, pushing itself as ‘true events’ and keeping the not-dead actors away from the press to save the secret.

It’s amazing to realise that a ploy like that could work, or that UK audiences managed to see The Matrix without massive spoilers, when it opened several months after the US, or that anyone had the joy of the big reveal in the Sixth Sense. The internet was a different, fledgling beast in those days, obviously.

I loved reading about movies, it turns out, and the snippets of back story here were fantastic to a film geek. Stanley Kubrick took the world’s most famous actor (Tom Cruise) out of circulation for almost 2 years – and that impacted huge tranches of the industry. There’s a lot of revealing info about how much the studios like to meddle, and definitely a sense of how disconnected and damaging poorly devised marketing campaigns can be.

And through all this there’s the reminder of what life was like a scant 20 years ago. That a movie like Boys Don’t Cry was *so* shocking, whereas I’d like to think trans rights have come along a great deal, and today we’re more shocked by Lester drooling over a teenager in American Beauty.

Definitely recommended, then, especially for movie buffs (natch!). Be ready for debates about why some movies get whole chapters, and others brief – if any – mention. Austin Powers was released that year, and Dogma, and I could go on.

Now, can we have a series of these books for every other year, too, please?! :)

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Brian Raftery's Best. Movie. Year. Ever. Since it was all about films released in 1999, it covered movies I'd heard of and films I hadn't. I was 7 in 1999, so there were definitely some movies I hadn't seen.

The chapters were thorough, covering films throughout their development, and reflected back on both those films in their time and the way opinions changed about them. My favorite running gag throughout is the constant mentions of The Matrix, either people loving it, being curious about it, or not wanting anything to do with it.

Overall, I think Raftery makes a great case for how 1999 changed film and how we're in a similar spot now. In the "golden age of TV," are we due for another year like 1999? I hope so!

Best year ever? That;s up for debate, of course [what isn't?], but Raftery makes a compelling case for the Class of 1999. The book takes deep dives into the cultural impact of that year's films, with making-of takes and a whole lotta you-are-here-even-if-you-weren't there context. 'B.M.Y.E.' will inspire informed rewatches and/or have you loading up your Netflix queue with must-see movies.

Best. Movie. Year. Ever. : How 1999 Blew up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery is a 2019 Simon & Schuster publication.

I love pop culture books, but they aren’t all created equal. At my age, what stirs up feelings of nostalgia are movies, television, and music which were popular a lot longer ago than twenty years.

Still, it is hard to believe the movies discussed in the book are already approaching the ‘classics’ stage.

While it is certainly debatable, and even dubious, especially for someone of my generation, to suggest 1999 was the best movie year EVER, there were some pretty good movies released in that year.

The author may be looking at all the movies released in the past eighteen or nineteen years and found them wanting, a lackluster reflection on the movie industry as whole, in my opinion, making a few of the movies listed here stand out more than they may have otherwise.

The nostalgic part, for me, about this book isn’t what these movies meant to me, but what they meant to my kids at the time. The Sixth Sense was a favorite for my daughter, while The Matrix was a favorite for my son. None of us liked ‘The Blair Witch’.

The surprise hits, the trends, the comedies, the social and political movies, all reflect the mindset of a generation. Yet, nearly anyone, who is so inclined, these days could compile a list of movies from any given year, add some Wikipedia knowledge to complement the list, such as who starred in the film, who directed it and produced it, and why it was included in the book, then organize it in some clever way, and then package it for a quick cash grab.

However, this book takes things a step beyond listing standout movies from 1999. It truly captures the mood of the country, explaining why a movie made an impact, even it wasn’t expected to, and reminds readers of popular television programs, political issues and world events that shaped the country and the attitudes of the American public.

To connect that mood and atmosphere via the art of the cinema is what really makes the book interesting and thought provoking. It also made me smile because to this day, an occasional quote from one of these movies comes to my mind, and I realize that while these movies may not have had an impact on me in the same way they did those younger than myself, I was affected by them more than I realized, and yes, I would, after some reflection, I have to agree that 1999 was a stellar year in films- still not saying it was the best year EVER- but it certainly is a contender!

1999: THE YEAR THAT WAS. THE YEAR THAT WASN'T.

1999 was an incredible year for the movies. The book starts with a bang, at the end of the year, as the whole world is wondering and worrying about the "Y2K problem." Was it the end of the world? The collapse of civilization?

If the groundbreaking movies that came out in 1999 are any indication, everyone acted like it might be the end of everything as we knew it, and man oh man, they went for broke!

It would take a book to list them all. Thankfully, this one exists!

But here are a few:

- The Matrix
- Fight Club
- Eyes Wide Shut
- Office Space
- The Blair Witch Project
- The Sixth Sense
- Being John Malkovich

And that's only the tip of the iceberg!

1999 was a dream year for cinema. What it wasn't: the beginning of a new golden age. In the years that followed, movies did not necessarily get bolder and more visionary, If anything, franchises and tentpoles came to dominate the scene.

I don't think I realized how good we all had it in 1999 when it came to the movies. It took reading this book for it truly dawn on me.

Was 1999 really the best movie year ever? "Best. Movie. Year. Ever." certainly makes a convincing case .

The author's painstaking research and attention to detail is obvious in the writing of this book. There were many facts that I only discovered after reading this!

When I first learned of Brian Raftery’s book, Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, in which he makes the case that 1999 was a watershed year for modern cinema, I had to do a double-take. “Nineteen ninety-nine? Really?” I wondered in disbelief. See, in 1999 I was a college student with a lot of free time on my hands that was spent regularly watching movies—movies that, I can honestly say, didn’t feel especially groundbreaking at the time.

Raftery opines, however, and with the benefit of hindsight, that an unusually large number of remarkable films released in 1999 were noteworthy for a number of reasons. For instance, The Blair Witch Project broke new ground in its approach to filmmaking, not to mention the press and marketing to generate buzz around it. The Matrix set a new standard for the viability of special effects in cinema. Movies like Fight Club and American Beauty tapped into the prevailing popular mood in the United States (if not the world) in a manner unlike other films before or since. Films geared towards specific demographics—teens in the case of Ten Things I Hate About You and She’s All That, African-Americans for The Best Man and The Wood—enjoyed remarkable success. It was also the year George Lucas revisited the Star Wars universe with The Phantom Menace, once again igniting the flames of a fandom both for good or ill.

Interestingly, it didn’t matter that many of the remarkable films that came out in 1999 ended up disappointing at the box office. Most would garner critical acclaim and gain their cult following on home video, further cementing their status in popular culture.

Raftery is correct that the environment in 1999 created a perfect storm not just for the production of movies unlike any before, but also for moviegoers to engage with and be engaged by these movies in new and interesting ways. The Internet was only really beginning to become mainstream at that time, the equipment with which films were made grew increasingly accessible to aspiring filmmakers, technologies for special effects were becoming both more powerful and more affordable, and film festivals were on the lookout for the new new thing. As such, there is no denying that such factors contributed to the quality and kinds of films that made their way to theaters in 1999.

Yet Best. Movie. Year. Ever. doesn’t so much develop the argument that 1999 was a seminal year in cinema as it does beg the question and state it as fact. This is just as well, because people are bound to have their own opinions and present their own counterarguments on the matter. Besides, many of the films that came out that year were in production many months beforehand (Stanley Kubric’s Eyes Wide Shut had been filming at least since 1996) and so the year of their release is almost largely incidental in retrospect.

Nonetheless, alluding to the unparalleled excellence of 1999 as a year in cinema is a wonderful framing device for taking a deep dive into the movies that came out that year. This Raftery goes about with gusto, and is where Best. Movie. Year. Ever. shines. Each chapter provides a behind-the-scenes look at one or several similarly-themed films, complete with discussions about the influence such films have had in popular culture, as well as interviews with many of the principals involved in making them. All in all, it’s wonderful journalism about media in general and filmmaking in particular.

It’s unlikely that Best. Movie. Year. Ever. will do much to settle any debate once and for all about whether 1999 was indeed the best year in movies to date (or ever!), seeing dead people, the influence of midichlorians, and the first rule of Fight Club be damned. Whether or not one agrees—and I’ll admit, the book had me at Galaxy Quest—one thing’s for sure: it’s fun to read about the movies we love, which is why Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is a great book to read

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, Netgalley.com and the publisher, Simon and Schuster. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review.

If you are a fan of the movies, you are going to want to grab yourself a copy of this book. It should become required reading for film and art history students. 1999 was an amazing year for cinema. Mr. Rafferty touches on all the hits and misses of the year with interviews from all involved in the film making process.

Best quote: "As a result, movie stars were often afforded an unquestioning reverence, one normally reserved for third-world despots." Hilarious and true.

5 out of 5 stars. Highly recommended.

1999 was a surprisingly prolific year for movies. Office Space. Election. The Matrix. 10 Things I Hate About You. In his new compendium, Raftery discusses the factors that made it such a great year--economics, business, cultural, etc.--and delves into the history of many titles released in 1999. I was a little depressed to realize that 1999 was TWENTY years ago, but I remember seeing many of these in the theater, and it was fun to think back on that time and also learn more about each film.

An extensive and genuine compilation of the most brillant and productive year in American cinematic history. In a ocean of memories and nostalgia, the author brings exclusive material including the interviews with the iconic artists of this emblematic year just at the edge of the new millenium. A master piece!

#Simon&Schuster #NetGalley #Movies
#BestMovieYearEver.

Best. Movie. Year. Ever. from Brian Raftery makes a very compelling argument for 1999 being (one of) the best movie year ever.

The book is broken into chapters that cover one or a few films, usually grouped by some common element, each. Raftery walks a fine line between being too much film business or too much just gossip. There is enough behind the scenes narrative to satisfy our curiosity, plenty of explanation of how and why each film was made (and often almost not made), and plenty of contextualization so we can place these films within the larger context of what was happening in the world.

While the films mentioned are now almost universally known if not appreciated, many were not particularly successful when released. Their inclusion here helps to make this something more than just a "greatest hits" type book. It isn't simply about the box office or the profit, though that must be considered. This book really does make a case for 1999 being a great year in film. The best? That can be debated endlessly and never come to a satisfactory answer. But really, who cares? In retrospect, it really was a great year, even if it took a few years for us to fully realize it.

I highly recommend this to readers who love the cinema and for those, like myself, who like remembering the past through artifacts from the time, in this case film. There is a definite nostalgia trip for those of us who remember 1999 clearly, but without degenerating into just being nostalgia. Understanding why some movies succeeded that year while others, equally good, took time to gain an audience also makes the reader think about how our own views about things have changed with time. Maybe even our feelings about some of these films.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Brian Raftery indeed shows that 1999 was a unique year in film...if not one of the best ever. He writes through a series of essays and part of the payoff for me was nostalgia. Another part, no doubt, is a clear explanation for why I spent so much of 1999 in the theater.

In 1999, Hollywood as we know it exploded: Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. Election. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense,.Star Wars: American Beauty. Three Kings. Magnolia. Those are just some of the landmark titles released in a dizzying movie year.. The result was a highly unruly, deeply influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also give us our first glimpse of the coming twenty-first century. It was a watershed moment that also produced The Sopranos; Apple’s Airport; Wi-Fi; and Netflix’s unlimited DVD rentals.

Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is the story of not just how these movies were made, but how they made our own vision of the world. It features more than 130 new and exclusive interviews with such directors and actors as Reese Witherspoon, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, Nia Long, Matthew Broderick, Taye Diggs, M. Night Shyamalan, James Van Der Beek, Kirsten Dunst, and dozens more. It’s the definitive account of a culture-conquering movie year none of us saw coming and that we may never see again.

1999 was definitely an interesting year for movies. I remember growing up in the 90s and just loved all the movies that came out. To this day, The Sixth Sense has been one of my favorite 90s movies. The author talks in detail about how the movies back in 1999 changed and paved the way for movies, directors, and actors to come in the 2000s. This was a fun and nostalgic read. I would recommend it to any 90s movie fans.

Thank you #NetGalley for the ARC of Best. Movie. Year. Ever. by Brian Raftery
Pub Date: 16 Apr 2019