Cut the Cord: 1998
March 2025. Volume 4, Issue 2.
Welcome back to Cut the Cord.
Yesterday, we celebrated the movies of 1998 with our latest edition of Haiku Reviews. Today, Cut the Cord, our newsletter all about recommending great movies on free streaming services, is following suit with eight more suggestions from '98.
Picture it, it's 1998, Bill Clinton has been impeached, Seinfeld airs the finale episodes, David Beckham and Posh Spice get engaged, and these movies hit the theaters...
The Truman Show (1998)
Every second of every day, from the moment he was born, for the last thirty years, Truman Burbank has been the unwitting star of the longest running, most popular documentary-soap opera in history. The picture-perfect town of Seahaven that he calls home is actually a gigantic soundstage. Truman's friends and family - everyone he meets, in fact - are actors. He lives every moment under the unblinking gaze of thousands of hidden TV cameras.
Let's start with a film that feels distinctly '98 because it was unfortunately prescient and completely accurate. When this Jim Carrey vehicle came out, it was shocking to think about someone being filmed every second of every day - now, we all are! There have been "Truman babies" and the lines between reality and entertainment have only continued to blur.
Rewatching the film recently (I bought the 4K disc and the quality upgrade didn't really illuminate anything - I feel comfortable recommending it on these streaming sites which will occasionally stream in SD), I couldn't help but think that so much of this works so well, that it’s thematically perfect, and that it’s (obviously) conceptually brilliant…but…so much about it just doesn’t work and feels overlooked. You can decide how it's aged!
Krippendorf’s Tribe (1998)
After squandering his grant money, despondent and recently widowed anthropologist James Krippendorf must produce hard evidence of the existence of a heretofore undiscovered New Guinea tribe. Grass skirts, makeup, and staged rituals transform his three troubled children into the Shelmikedmu, a primitive culture whose habits enthrall scholars. But when a spiteful rival threatens to blow the whistle on Krippendorf's ruse, he gets into the act as well.
Krippendorf's Tribe is an absolutely vile piece of work, a contender for #4 on WatchMojo’s list of Top 10 Most Racist Movies of All Time. For that reason alone, I cannot recommend this film. And yes, I am aware that this is a newsletter about recommending movies that are good. But you kinda have to see this to believe it. I mean, just look at that picture of Richard Dreyfuss. Uh-huh, that's Richard Dreyfuss in the middle. Surely, your interest has been piqued, no? What if I told you it was from the director of Firehouse Dog - would that sweeten the deal?
Godzilla (1998)
French nuclear tests irradiate an iguana into a giant monster that viciously attacks freighter ships in the Pacific Ocean. A team of experts, including Niko Tatopoulos, conclude that the oversized reptile is the culprit. Before long, the giant lizard is loose in Manhattan as the US military races to destroy the monster before it reproduces and it's spawn takes over the world.
Alright, I promise this will be the last movie on this list that isn't very good. But I was at a bar recently, you know the type, the kind of place where the stools are too short, the chef's specialty is tater tots, and they show movies on VHS, and they were playing this Godzilla on the tube tv. Watching it, with the sound off, I thought to myself maybe we're being too hard on this movie. I've been hard on it. But it's kinda silly and kinda fun and very very '98.
But maybe that's just because I couldn't hear anything that they were saying...
Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows (1998)
Documentary focusing on the career of pro wrestler Bret Hart & his controversial exit from the WWF. (IMDB)
After watching the Netflix docu-series Mr. McMahon last year, I've fallen down a bit of a WWF/WWE rabbit hole. I've tried to get into the actual wrestling, but it's just not my thing. But the history, the characters and personalities, and the behind-the-scenes drama - that's totally my thing. I'm halfway through Abraham Josephine Riesman's excellent biography Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America and I've been making my way through the documentaries. This one, all about Bret "The Hitman" Hart, the Montreal Screwjob, and how much people want to punch McMahon in the face, is essential viewing for wrestling fans. If you already are one, you've probably seen it before. If you're not, I won't say this will convince you, but it will definitely make it all make sense.
Dead Man’s Curve (1998)
Two roommates plan to kill a third to take advantage of college policy giving a 4.0 grade to a suicide's roommates.
The following previously appeared in my ‘90s Genre Sampler.
The ‘90s were full of copycat movies. When Speed was such a big hit, we got a load of Speed movies on planes and trains. When Tarantino dropped Pulp Fiction, the next decade was full of bad imitations. And when Scream revitalized the horror genre, the scary movie landscape was full of self-aware, obnoxious, teenager-crammed, soft parodies.
Dead Man’s Curve (also known as The Curve on some streaming sites) was one of those movies (it even features Scream alum Matthew Lillard) and has sort of faded into obscurity, but I think it’s better than most of that crop and deserves a shoutout. It’s total ‘90s schlock. Lillard gives another one of his unhinged performances, the ladies in the cast are splendid, and much of it was filmed right down the street from where I live. It was kind of the perfect movie for me to discover and pass on to you.
Hard Rain (1998)
An armored car driver tries to elude a gang of thieves while a flood ravages the countryside.
Let's do this one Stefon style...
Hard Rain has everything: Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman, practical flooding effects, Randy Quaid being serious, Morgan Freeman as a bad guy, jet-ski stunts, Minnie Driver, Morgan Freeman in a cowboy hat, heist sequences, disaster sequences, the one and only Betty White, and Randy Quaid somehow seriously saying the line, "For twenty years, I've been eatin' shit; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So now I'm changing the menu. From here on, everything I eat is gonna be shit-free."
Small Soldiers (1998)
When missile technology is used to enhance toy action figures, the toys soon begin to take their battle programming too seriously.
When I was a kid, Small Soldiers was in my rotation at Hollywood Video, along with The Great Mouse Detective and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Batmunk. I liked the Toy Story on 'roids angle, even if I couldn't have put it in those words. I know we all did this, but I really thought my toys were alive.
This past Christmas, I went to a rep screening of director Joe Dante's Gremlins, which I hadn't seen, if ever in full, in a long time. Upon my recent rewatch of Small Soldiers, all I could think was Ohhhhhhhhh, he's just doing another Gremlins. Throw in another Dante, 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action, to complete the trifecta.
Snake Eyes (1998)
All bets are off when shady homicide cop Rick Santoro witnesses a murder during a boxing match. It's up to him and lifelong friend, Naval intelligence agent Kevin Dunne, to uncover the conspiracy behind the killing. At every turn, Santoro makes increasingly shocking discoveries that even he can't turn a blind eye to.
I've been on a Brian De Palma kick recently, as every good practicing cinephile must do from time to time. I've been reading Laurent Bouzereau's fantastic book The De Palma Decade (I also want to shout out his excellent documentary Music by John Williams - he had a great 2024) and I've only got two movies left before I can finish the book.
Snake Eyes is De Palma’s bottle episode, doing all of his signature stuff (it's horny and full of split-screens/diopters, first person povs, and an extended one-shot opening sequence), but it would be wrong to say that he goes nuts cause really he’s just doing him - it would be nuts for anybody else.
Credit: Each plot synopsis comes from Letterboxd via TMDb.