These are the 1993 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Endy Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I’ve seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. The Age of Innocence
2. Dazed and Confused
3. Green Snake
4. Iron Monkey
5. Matinee
6. The Piano
7. The Puppetmaster
8. Six Degrees of Separation
9. Sonatine
10. Three Colors: Blue

Best Director:

1. Martin Scorsese, The Age of Innocence
2. Richard Linklater, Dazed and Confused
3. Tsui Hark, Green Snake
4. Hou Hsiao-hsien, The Puppetmaster
5. Krzysztof Kieślowski, Three Colors: Blue

Linklater’s chronicle of the last day of school/first night of summer of a bygone era grows as it recedes in the memory. 20 years ago it was a goofy bit of comic nostalgia, an excuse to laugh at 70s fashions and the importance of Aerosmith. But the older I get, the better it gets. But I just recently watched The Age of Innocence again, and it’s now my favorite Martin Scorsese movie and I’m giving it the Endy here. This is Scorsese’s first directing nomination, but surely not his last. It’s Hou’s sixth nomination.

Best Actor:

1. Daniel Day-Lewis, The Age of Innocence
2. Bill Murray, Groundhog Day
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Last Action Hero
4. Anthony Hopkins, Shadowlands
5. Takeshi Kitano, Sonatine

Best Actress:

1. Brigitte Lin, The East is Red
2. Maggie Cheung, Green Snake
3. Holly Hunter, The Piano
4. Stockard Channing, Six Degrees of Separation
5. Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue

This is Murray’s fourth nomination (third in Best Actor) and his first win. Binoche won previously in 2007 and 2010. This is Cheung’s fifth nomination (fourth in Best Actress) with no wins as yet.

Supporting Actor:

1. John Goodman, Matinee
2. Larenz Tate, Menace II Society
3. Li Tien-lu, The Puppetmaster
4. Will Smith, Six Degrees of Separation
5. Val Kilmer, Tombstone

Also receiving votes: Harvey Keitel (The Piano), Tony Leung Ka-fai (He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Father), Dennis Hopper (True Romance), Ralph Fiennes (Schindler’s List), Sean Penn (Carlito’s Way), Matthew McConaughey (Dazed and Confused), John Malkovich (In the Line of Fire), and Kevin Costner (A Perfect World). This is the best selection of Supporting Actors I’ve seen in the course of handing out the Endys. Of course I’m giving the award to the guy who’s playing himself.

Supporting Actress:

1. Christina Ricci, Addams Family Values
2. Winona Ryder, The Age of Innocence
3. Josephine Siao, Fong Sai-yuk
4. Joey Wang, Green Snake
5. Emma Thompson, Much Ado About Nothing

The Supporting Actress group this year is not as good, but still has a pair of all-time great performances. Josephine Siao, with the best supporting performance in a kung fu comedy ever, just edges out Ryder’s career-best performance.

Original Screenplay:

1. Richard Linlater, Dazed and Confused
2. Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis, Groundhog Day
3. Jane Campion, The Piano
4. Chu Tien-wen & Wu Nien-jen, The Puppetmaster
5. Krzysztof Kieślowski & Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Three Colors: Blue

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Jay Cocks & Martin Scorsese, The Age of Innocence
2. Lillian Lee & Tsui Hark, Green Snake
3. Steven Zaillian, Searching for Bobby Fischer
4. John Guare, Six Degrees of Separation
5. Robert Altman & Frank Barhydt, Short Cuts

Non-English Language Film:

1. Green Snake (Tsui Hark)
2. Iron Monkey (Yuen Woo-ping)
3. Sonatine (Takeshi Kitano)
4. The Puppetmaster (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
5. Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski)

Three Colors: Blue was the first art film I ever saw that made me want to watch and rewatch it until I took it all in and felt I really understood what was happening and why. As such, it’s probably overrated in my memory. I can’t tell and I don’t care: these are my fake movie awards.

Non-Fiction Film:

1. Latcho Drom (Tony Gatlif)
2. The War Room (Chris Hegedus & D.A. Pennebaker)

Animated Film:

1. The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick)
2. Ninja Scroll (Yoshiaki Kawajiri)

Unseen Film:

1. Blue (Derek Jarman)
2. The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang)
3. Naked (Mike Leigh)
4. Stalingrad (Joseph Vilsmaier)
5. 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (François Girard)

Also receiving votes: Madadayo (Akira Kurosawa), Surviving Desire (Hal Hartley), The Scent of Green Papaya (Tran Anh Hung), Smoking/No Smoking (Alain Resnais), Caro diario (Nanni Moretti), Fearless (Peter Weir), and M. Butterfly (David Cronenberg).

Film Editing:

1. The Age of Innocence
2. Dazed and Confused
3. The Piano
4. The Puppetmaster
5. Three Colors: Blue

Those dissolves.

Cinematography:

1. The Age of Innocence
2. Green Snake
3. The Piano
4. Schindler’s List
5. Three Colors: Blue

Art Direction:

1. The Age of Innocence
2. Green Snake
3. Matinee
4. The Piano
5. The Puppetmaster

Costume Design:

1. The Age of Innocence
2. The Eagle Shooting Heroes
3. Green Snake
4. The Heroic Trio
5. Matinee

Mant vs. Maggie Cheung. Mant wins.

Make-up:

1. Army of Darkness
2. The Bride with White Hair
3. The Eagle-Shooting Heroes
4. Executioners
5. Matinee

Original Score:

1. Jurassic Park
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas
3. The Piano
4. Schindler’s List
5. Three Colors: Blue

Adapted Score:

1. Coneheads
2. Dazed and Confused
3. Judgement Night
4. Matinee
5. True Romance

Sound:

1. Jurassic Park
2. The Piano
3. The Puppetmaster
4. Schindler’s List
5. Three Colors: Blue

Sound Editing:

1. Gettysburg
2. Jurassic Park
3. The Last Action Hero
4. Schindler’s List
5. True Romance

Visual Effects:

1. Army of Darkness
2. Green Snake
3. Jurassic Park
4. Kung Fu Cult Master
5. Matinee

These are the 1995 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Endy Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I’ve seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. Ballet
2. The Blade
3. Dead Man
4. Fallen Angels
5. Good Men, Good Women
6. Heat
7. Kamikaze Taxi
8. Kicking and Screaming
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. Whisper of the Heart

Best Director:

1. Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man
2. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Good Men, Good Women
3. Michael Mann, Heat
4. Masato Harada, Kamikaze Taxi
5. Yoshifumi Kondō, Whisper of the Heart

Very close race for the top prize this year, as Good Men, Good Women might be Hou Hsiao-hsien’s best movie. But Dead Man is simply one of my all-time favorite films. We discussed it way back on Episode 2 of The George Sanders Show.

Best Actor:

1. Johnny Depp, Dead Man
2. Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fallen Angels
3. Robert DeNiro, Heat
4. Colin Firth, Pride & Prejudice
5. Morgan Freeman, Se7en

This is DeNiro’s first Endy nomination, but I suspect it won’t be his last. Depp previously won for 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Firth’s performance is deservedly considered definitive. For those who say it a performance in a TV miniseries and not a film, I say “Pffffbbbbtt.”

Also receiving votes: Ralph Fiennes (Strange Days), Leslie Cheung (The Chinese Feast), Denzel Washington (Devil in a Blue Dress and Crimson Tide), Ian McKellen (Richard III), Stephen Chow (A Chinese Odyssey), Chris Farley (Tommy Boy) and Lau Ching-wan (Loving You).

Best Actress:

1. Alicia Silverstone, Clueless
2. Annie Shizuka Inoh, Good Men, Good Women
3. Parker Posey, Party Girl
4. Jennifer Ehle, Pride & Prejudice
5. Nicole Kidman, To Die For

Also receiving votes: Miho Nakayama (Love Letter), Julienne Moore (Safe), Charlie Yeung (Love in the Time of Twilight), Julie Delpy (Before Sunrise), Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility), Lili Taylor (The Addiction), Catherine Keener (Living in Oblivion), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Georgia), Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) and Elizabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas).

Supporting Actor:

1. Gary Farmer, Dead Man
2. Kōji Yakusho, Kamikaze Taxi
3. Chris Eigeman, Kicking and Screaming
4. Ciarán Hinds, Persuasion
5. Alan Rickman, Sense and Sensibility

Supporting Actress:

1. Sharon Stone, Casino
2. Chloë Sevigny, Kids
3. Miki Sakai, Love Letter
4. Mira Sorvino, Mighty Aphrodite
5. Gina Gershon, Showgirls

Farmer is an obvious pick, of course. In Supporting Actress, this is one of the rare times when the Oscars and I agree on an acting winner. Sorvino really is quite wonderful, it’s a shame she never got another role half this good again.

Original Screenplay:

1. Jim Jarmusch, Dead Man
2. Masato Harada, Kamikaze Taxi
3. Noah Baumbach, Kicking and Screaming
4. Shunji Iwai, Love Letter
5. Daisy von Scherler Meyer & Harry Birckmeyer, Party Girl

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Amy Heckerling, Clueless
2. Chu T’ien-wen, Good Men, Good Women
3. Andrew Davies, Pride & Prejudice
4. Emma Thompson, Sense & Sensibility
5. Hayao Miyazaki, Whisper of the Heart

That’s right: three Jane Austen adaptations. There’s a fourth that just missed a nomination as well. There was something in the air in 1995.

Non-English Language Film:

1. The Blade (Tsui Hark)
2. Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai)
3. Good Men, Good Women (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
4. Kamikaze Taxi (Masato Harada)
5. Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondō)

Just missing are Shunji Iwai’s Love Letter, Tsui Hark’s Love in the Time of Twilight, and Pedro Costa’s Casa de Lava.

Documentary Film:

1. Ballet (Frederick Wiseman)
2. The Celluloid Closet (Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman)
3. Unzipped (Douglas Keeve)

This is Wiseman’s second win and eighth nomination. He won in 2014 for National Gallery.

Animated Film:

1. Ghost in the Shell (Mamoru Oshii)
2. Toy Story (John Lasseter)

Unseen Film:

1. La Cérémonie (Claude Chabrol)
2. Mabarosi (Koreeda Hirokazu)
3. Ulysses’s Gaze (Theo Angelopolous)
4. Underground (Emir Kusturica)
5. The White Balloon (Jafar Panahi)

Also receiving votes: La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz), Cyclo (Tran Anh Hung), The Flower of My Secret (Pedro Almodóvar), and Village of the Damned (John Carpenter).

Film Editing:

1. The Blade
2. Dead Man
3. Fallen Angels
4. Good Men, Good Women
5. Heat

Tsui Hark reaches the apotheosis of the fast-cutting action movie, a full decade before Hollywood begins to (badly) imitate the style.

Cinematography:

1. The Blade
2. Casa de Lava
3. Dead Man
4. Fallen Angels
5. Good Men, Good Women

What can I say? I’m a sucker for fish-eyes.

Also receiving votes: Love Letter, Se7en, Dead Presidents, Strange Days, City of Lost Children, Heat, Nixon, Shanghai Triad, Ballet, Sense and Sensibility.

Art Direction:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. City of Lost Children
4. Dead Man
5. Pride & Prejudice

Costume Design:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. A Chinese Odyssey
4. Dead Man
5. Sense & Sensibility

Everything Sharon Stone wears.

Make-up:

1. The Blade
2. Casino
3. A Chinese Odyssey
4. City of Lost Children
5. Species

Original Score:

1. City of Lost Children
2. Dead Man
3. Friday
4. Toy Story
5. Whisper of the Heart

Adapted Score:

1. Clueless
2. Dead Presidents
3. Devil in a Blue Dress
4. Kicking and Screaming
5. Kids

If it was “Adapted Song” this would easily go to Whisper of the Heart, as it is, “Country Roads” is almost enough to get it nominated in both categories.

Sound:

1. Casino
2. Dead Man
3. Good Men, Good Women
4. Heat
5. Seven

That telephone ringing.

Sound Editing:

1. The Blade
2. Braveheart
3. Crimson Tide
4. GoldenEye
5. Heat

Visual Effects:

1. Apollo 13
2. Babe
3. A Chinese Odyssey
4. Love in the Time of Twilight
5. Species

That’ll do, pig.

Best Picture:

1. Big Night
2. Bound
3. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
4. The English Patient
5. Goodbye South, Goodbye
6. Irma Vep
7. Mahjong
8. Romeo + Juliet
9. Trainspotting
10. Viva Erotica

Best Director:

1. Peter Chan, Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2. Anthony Minghella, The English Patient
3. Edward Yang, Mahjong
4. Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep
5. Danny Boyle, Trainspotting

Like with Boogie Nights in 1997 and Pulp Fiction in 1994, the exuberance of Trainspotting defines for me a stage of cinephilia, when I first began to really believe in the joy of making cinema. The Assayas film is a more refined expressions of that same drive, while the Chan and Minghella are sublime examples of more traditional romantic forms. But the Endy this year goes to Edward Yang, for what I consider to be his finest film.

Best Actor:

1. Stanley Tucci, Big Night
2. Anthony Wong, Ebola Syndrome
3. Ralph Fiennes, The English Patient
4. Philip Baker Hall, Hard Eight
5. Christopher Guest, Waiting for Guffman

Fiennes will eventually win in 2014 for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anthony Wong gets the win for one of the all-time great sleazy performances.

Best Actress:

1. Maggie Cheung, Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2. Frances McDormand, Fargo
3. Lili Taylor, I Shot Andy Warhol
4. Maggie Cheung, Irma Vep
5. Josephine Siao, Stage Door

Disaster as Maggie Cheung becomes the first actor to be nominated twice in the same category in one year, only to split the vote and allow Frances McDormand to sneak away with the Endy. One of the biggest upsets in Endy history. Nicole Kidman, Gina Gershon and Michelle Yeoh just miss out on nominations for Portrait of a Lady, Bound and The Stunt Woman, respectively.

Supporting Actor:

1. Tony Shaloub, Big Night
2. Owen Wilson, Bottle Rocket
3. Vince Vaughn, Swingers
4. Francis Ng, Young & Dangerous
5. Anthony Wong, Young & Dangerous 2

Supporting Actress:

1. Jennifer Tilly, Bound
2. Juliette Binoche, The English Patient
3. Virginie Ledoyen, Mahjong
4. Sylvia Sidney, Mars Attacks!
5. Shu Qi, Viva Erotica

Binoche will win Best Actress in 2007 (Flight of the Red Balloon) and 2010 (Certified Copy).

Original Screenplay:

1. Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson, Bottle Rocket
2. Ivy Ho, Comrades, Almost a Love Story
3. Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep
4. Edward Yang, Mahjong
5. Derek Yee, Law Chi-leung & Bosco Lam, Viva Erotica

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Anthony Minghella, The English Patient
2. Jonathan Gems, Mars Attacks!
3. David Koepp & Robert Towne, Mission: Impossible
4. Laura Jones, Portrait of a Lady
5. John Hodge, Trainspotting

Non-English Language Film:

1. Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan)
2. Goodbye South, Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
3. Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
4. Mahjong (Edward Yang)
5. Viva Erotica (Derek Yee)

Documentary Film:

1. La Comédie-Française (Frederick Wiseman)
2. Get on the Bus (Spike Lee)
3. Hype! (Doug Pray)
4. The Typewriter, the Rifle & the Movie Camera (Adam Simon)
5. When We Were Kings (Leon Gast)

The is the second year to feature a film about Samuel Fuller in the Best Documentary category, after 2013’s A Fuller Life.

Animated Film:

1. Beavis & Butthead Do America (Mike Judge)
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise)

Unseen Film:

1. A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf)
2. The Pillow Book (Peter Greenaway)
3. La Promesse (The Dardennes)
4. A Summer’s Tale (Eric Rohmer)

Also receiving votes: Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier), Crash (David Cronenberg), Evita (Alan Parker), Kansas City (Robert Altman), Escape from LA (John Carpenter), and Gabbeh (Mohsen Makhmalbaf).

Film Editing:

1. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2. The English Patient
3. Irma Vep
4. Romeo + Juliet
5. Trainspotting

Cinematography:

1. Bound
2. Goodbye South, Goodbye
3. Irma Vep
4. Mahjong
5. Romeo + Juliet

Art Direction:

1. The English Patient
2. Portrait of a Lady
3. Romeo + Juliet
4. Shanghai Grand
5. Trainspotting

Costume Design:

1. Irma Vep
2. Kingpin
3. Mars Attacks!
4. Romeo + Juliet
5. Trainspotting

Claire Danes with wings.

Make-up:

1. The English Patient
2. From Dusk til Dawn
3. Kingpin
4. Mars Attacks!
5. Romeo + Juliet

Farrelly grotesquerie at its best.

Original Score:

1. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
2. The English Patient
3. Goodbye South, Goodbye
4. Irma Vep
5. That Thing You Do!

Adapted Score:

1. Basquiat
2. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
3. Romeo + Juliet
4. Swingers
5. Trainspotting

Very tough category this year. Swingers rode a wave of swing dance/Rat Pack revivalism, so that’s obviously out. Tough to pass over the New Wave/Punk hits and The Cardigans, but I have to go with the Teresa Teng tribute that is Comrades.

Sound:

1. Big Night
2. Comrades, Almost a Love Story
3. The English Patient
4. Irma Vep
5. Trainspotting

The sound of scrambling eggs.

Sound Editing:

1. The Frighteners
2. Independence Day
3. Mission: Impossible
4. The Rock
5. Twister

Visual Effects:

1. The Frighteners
2. From Dusk til Dawn
3. Independence Day
4. Trainspotting
5. Twister

These are the 1997 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Endy Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I’ve seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. Boogie Nights
2. Cure
3. Happy Together
4. Jackie Brown
5. Lost Highway
6. The Mirror
7. Starship Troopers
8. Taste of Cherry
9. Too Many Ways to Be No. 1
10. Xiao Wu

Best Director:

1. Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights
4. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Cure
2. Quentin Tarantino, Jackie Brown
3. David Lynch, Lost Highway
5. Wong Kar-wai, Happy Together

Honestly I’m afraid to go back and rewatch Boogie Nights. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, a film that defined the youthful exuberance and openness of the early stages of cinephilia for me in my younger days. I’d hate to go back and find it to be less than the thrill I got walking into the theatre right at the start of that opening tracking shot. Lynch will win Best Director in 2001 for Mulholland Dr. This is Tarantino’s first nomination for directing, he will have been nominated for Original Screenplay in 2009.

Best Actor:

1. Kōji Yakusho, Cure
2. Leslie Cheung, Happy Together
3. Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Happy Together
4. Thomas Jay Ryan, Henry Fool
5. Leonardo DiCaprio, Titanic

Best Actress:

1. Joey Lauren Adams, Chasing Amy
2. Pam Grier, Jackie Brown
3. Patricia Arquette, Lost Highway
4. Mina Mohammad Khani, The Mirror
5. Kate Winslet, Titanic

I’m arguing back and forth on whether this should go to Cheung or Leung, they’re both so good. Giving it to Leung, as his perspective dominates so much of the film, while knowing that both will have more chances at the Endy as we move backward in time. Leung will be nominated another four times between 1997 and 2004, winning in 2000 for In the Mood for Love.

Supporting Actor:

1. John C. Reilly, Boogie Nights
2. Chris Tucker, The Fifth Element
3. Robert DeNiro, Jackie Brown
4. Robert Forster, Jackie Brown
5. Russell Crowe, LA Confidential

Supporting Actress:

1. Julianne Moore, Boogie Nights
2. Minnie Driver, Grosse Pointe Blank
3. Parker Posey, Henry Fool
4. Bridget Fonda, Jackie Brown
5. Sarah Polley, The Sweet Hereafter

You could fill out two or three supporting actor categories with the cast of Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown and LA Confidential. 1997 was a great year for ensembles. Moore just missed a nomination for The Big Lebowski in 1998, so this might be a bit of a make-up award for her.

Original Screenplay:

1. Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights
2. David Lynch & Barry Gifford, Lost Highway
3. Jafar Panahi, The Mirror
4. Abbas Kiarostami, Taste of Cherry
5. Matt Chow, Szeto Kam-yuen & Wai Ka-fai, Too Many Ways To Be No. 1

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Cure
2. Hideaki Anno, End of Evangelion
3. Quentin Tarantino, Jackie Brown
4. Sadayuki Murai, Perfect Blue
5. Edward Neumeier, Starship Troopers

Non-English Language Film:

1. Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
2. Happy Together (Wong Kar-wai)
3. The Mirror (Jafar Panahi)
4. Taste of Cherry (Abbas Kiarostami)
5. Xiao Wu (Jia Zhangke)

Documentary Film:

1. Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (Errol Morris)

Morris picks up his first (but surely not the last) Endy with the only doc I’ve seen from this year.

Animated Film:

1. End of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno & Kazuya Tsurumaki)
2. Evangelion: Death and Rebirth (Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki & Masayuki)
3. Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon)
4. Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki)

Unseen Film:

1. Destiny (Youssef Chahine)
2. Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan)
3. Same Old Song (Alain Resnais)

Film Editing:

1. Boogie Nights
2. Cure
3. Happy Together
4. Kundun
5. Lost Highway

Cinematography:

1. Boogie Nights
2. Happy Together
3. The River
4. Titanic
5. Too Many Ways to Be No. 1

Art Direction:

1. Boogie Nights
2. The Fifth Element
3. Starship Troopers
4. Titanic
5. Twilight of the Ice Nymphs

Costume Design:

1. Boogie Nights
2. The Fifth Element
3. The Ice Storm
4. Starship Troopers
5. Titanic

Don Cheadle’s King Tut outfit.

Make-up:

1. Boogie Nights
2. The Fifth Element
3. Kundun
4. Men in Black
5. Titanic

Not only because of Milla Jovovich’s hair. Other stuff too.

Original Score:

1. Kundun
2. LA Confidential
3. Princess Mononoke
4. Starship Troopers
5. Titanic

Score, not song. The song is terrible, the score is good.

Adapted Score:

1. Boogie Nights
2. Grosse Pointe Blank
3. Happy Together
4. The Ice Storm
5. Jackie Brown

The Delfonics in an upset!

Sound:

1. Boogie Nights
2. Lost Highway
3. The Mirror
4. The River
5. Xiao Wu

The sound design in Jia Zhangke’s debut is extraordinary, the noises and chaos of the rapidly modernizing city intruding on and dominating every aspect of the young pickpocket’s life.

Sound Editing:

1. Face/Off
2. The Lost Word: Jurassic Park
3. Men in Black
4. Starship Troopers
5. Titanic

Visual Effects:

1. Lifeline
2. Men in Black
3. Starship Troopers
4. Titanic
5. Twilight of the Ice Nymphs

These are the 1998 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Endy Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I’ve seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. April Story
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Expect the Unexpected
4. The Flowers of Shanghai
5. Histoire(s) du cinema
6. The Last Days of Disco
7. The Longest Summer
8. New Rose Hotel
9. Rushmore
10. The Thin Red Line

Best Director:

1. Joel & Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski
2. Hou Hsiao-hsien, Flowers of Shanghai
3. Jean-Luc Godard, Histoire(s) du cinema
4. Fruit Chan, The Longest Summer
5. Terrence Malick, The Thin Red Line

Hard not to reward the Coens for their best work, but Godard’s massive Histoire(s) is one of the great directorial achievements of the decade, a project that is still ahead of its time more than 15 years after it was completed. Hou, Malick, Chan, and Wes Anderson (who just missed a nomination) all have Endys in their future. Somewhat surprisingly, this is the Coens’ first directorial nomination. Odds are their next best shot at a win will come in 1990.

Best Actor:

1. Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski
2. Anthony Wong, Beast Cops
3. Tony Leung, The Longest Nite
4. Willem Dafoe, New Rose Hotel
5. Jason Schwartzman, Rushmore

Best Actress:

1. Takako Matsu, April Story
2. Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth
3. Rebecka Liljeberg, Fucking Åmål
4. Chloe Sevigny, The Last Days of Disco
5. Asia Argento, New Rose Hotel

Supporting Actor:

1. John Goodman, The Big Lebowski
2. Lau Ching-wan, The Longest Nite
3. Christopher Walken, New Rose Hotel
4. Bill Murray, Rushmore
5. Sean Penn, The Thin Red Line

Supporting Actress:

1. Carina Lau, Flowers of Shanghai
2. Michelle Reis, Flowers of Shanghai
3. Alexandra Dahlström, Fucking Åmål
4. Kate Beckinsale, The Last Days of Disco
5. Olivia Williams, Rushmore

Lau Ching-wan was the workhorse star of the early days of Milkyway Image, and this might be his best year. In addition to this nomination, he also starred in Expect the Unexpected, A Hero Never Dies and two other films in 1998 that I haven’t seen yet, Wong Jing’s Step into the Dark and Lee Chi-ngai’s Doctor Mack. He’ll be nominated for Best Actor in 1999 and 2007 and for Supporting Actor in 2002 and 2011. But John Goodman in Lebowski is unbeatable.

Original Screenplay:

1. Joel & Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski
2. Jean-Luc Godard, Histoire(s) du cinema
3. Whit Stillman, The Last Days of Disco
4. Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson, Rushmore
5. Peter & Bobby Farrelly, Ed Decter & John Strauss, There’s Something About Mary

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Chu T’ien-wen & Eileen Chang, Flowers of Shanghai
2. Abel Ferrara & Christ Zoist, New Rose Hotel
3. Scott Frank, Out of Sight
4. Elaine May, Primary Colors
5. Terrence Malick, The Thin Red Line

Non-English Language Film:

1. April Story (Shunji Iwai)
2. Expect the Unexpected (Patrick Yau)
3. Flowers of Shanghai (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
4. Histoire(s) du cinema (Jean-Luc Godard)
5. The Longest Summer (Fruit Chan)

Expect the Unexpected was one of the early Milkyway Image films contentiously produced by Johnnie To for other directors. After four films in two years (The Longest Nite, The Odd One Dies and Where a Good Man Goes are the others), Yau and To never worked together again. Since breaking with Milkyway, Yau has apparently mostly been working in television.

Documentary Film:

1. Histoire(s) du cinema (Jean-Luc Godard)
2. Meeting People is Easy (Grant Gee)

Animated Film:

1. A Bug’s Life (John Lasseter)
2. Mulan (Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook)

Unseen Film:

1. Autumn Tale (Eric Rohmer)
2. Bird People in China (Takashi Miike)
3. Eternity and a Day (Theo Angelopoulos)
4. The Hole (Tsai Ming-liang)
5. Late August, Early September (Olivier Assayas)

Todd Haynes’s Velvet Goldmine just missed, mostly because I just feel bad that I’ve never seen any Angelopoulos.

Film Editing:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. He Got Game
3. Histoire(s) du cinema
4. The Longest Summer
5. New Rose Hotel

Cinematography:

1. April Story
2. Flowers of Shanghai
3. New Rose Hotel
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. The Thin Red Line

Could have gone a lot of different directions with my fourth-place pick here, like He Got Game or Out of Sight or Pi or A Hero Never Dies or even Meet Joe Black or What Dreams May Come, but April Story is just about the prettiest-looking movie ever. And as disastrous as the impact of Saving Private Ryan has been on the action cinema of the last decade, it is an exceptionally well-shot film.

Art Direction:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
3. Flowers of Shanghai
4. The Last Days of Disco
5. Pleasantville

Those lamps.

Costume Design:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
3. Flowers of Shanghai
4. The Last Days of Disco
5. Rushmore

Make-up:

1. Elizabeth
2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
3. A Hero Never Dies
4. The Last Days of Disco
5. There’s Something About Mary

Original Score:

1. Flowers of Shanghai
2. Meet Joe Black
3. New Rose Hotel
4. There’s Something About Mary
5. The Thin Red Line

Adapted Score:

1. The Big Lebowski
2. He Got Game
3. The Last Days of Disco
4. There’s Something About Mary
5. The Thin Red Line

Sound:

1. Armageddon
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Histoire(s) du cinema
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. The Thin Red Line

Sound Editing:

1. Armageddon
2. Enemy of the State
3. A Hero Never Dies
4. Saving Private Ryan
5. The Thin Red Line

Visual Effects:

1. Armageddon
2. Dark City
3. A Hero Never Dies
4. Pleasantville
5. What Dreams May Come