WITH 1998 top 10 lists in mothballs, here are the top 10 movies I’d like to see in 1999:*”HURLYGURLY”: Penny Marshall, Carrie Fisher and Rosie O’Donnell recline on Marshall’s Hollywood terrace, getting massages and pedicures. They dish on 12-step programs, Roseanne, Kmart, child-rearing and oral sex. The ladies who lounge overdose on Diet Cokes and Mint Milano cookies. They harass pool boy Brendan Fraser: “Shake that funky loincloth, white boy.” It’s the end of civilization as we know it.
*”THE THICKER RED LINE”: I adored Terrence Malick’s war movie “The Thin Red Line,” but I can’t wait 10 years to see the director’s cut at Film Forum. What was George Clooney doing on Guadalcanal without a stethescope? Why did Bill Pullman’s character disappear entirely? Did I blink and miss fright-eyed newcomer Adrian Brody’s moment of courage as touted in the press notes?
*”TIM BURTON’S BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE APES”: Civilized chimps take over suburban Encino. Then, horror of horrors, Charlton Heston and his brood of Homo sapiens integrate the neighborhood. Think “Edward Scissorhands” with flying fur when vigilante apes burn a 6-foot banana peel on Heston’s lawn and lynch Heston’s son for monkeying around with a local female. Dedicated to Roddy McDowall.
*”BOSOM BUDDIES: THE MOVIE”: Tom Hanks reunites with sitcom co-star Peter Scolari, after the “Newhart” regular begs the Oscar winner to salvage his failing career. The actors re-create their roles as admen-in-drag Hildegarde and Buffy on the short-lived ’80s series about two guys on the make, bunking in a strict Manhattan women’s hotel. “We were ahead of our time,” Hanks tells the press, saving Private Peter by waxing his legs, donning a curly wig and recruiting RuPaul. Do we have any Doubtfire Hanks will win an Oscar?
*”JAMES CAMERON’S JANE AUSTEN”: Kate Winslet stars as a sharp but dowry-shy English rose torn between dashing but sadistic Lord Knownothing (Billy Zane) and stuttering country preacher Mr. Trueheart (Leo DiCaprio in his first post-“Titanic” role). Meanwhile, the countryside is beset by Mad Cow disease, floods, frogs, boils and the arrival of a maniacal Puritan from the future, intent on snuffing Episcopalian Trueheart.
*”PRETTY WOMEN”: Forget about cancer and conflict. Divas Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts waltz around Manhattan from Serendipity 3 to Nobu, Prada to Armani, gorgeous loft to pre-war co-op. The big-eyed best friends have the most fab time beauty and bucks can buy with Tim Robbins, Benjamin Bratt and assorted beautiful Sarandon-Robbins kids in tow. So money can’t buy happiness, but as the twangy real estate mogul said in “Psycho,” it can buy away a lot of unhappiness.
*”THE CRUISE: BASED ON A TRUE STORY”: Robin Williams plays Speed Levitch, Manhattan tour guide, brilliant funnyman, borderline psychotic and documentary subject. The current king of the cuckoo’s nest brings his own brand of earnest humanitarianism and fuzzy self-righteous charm to the scuzzy Gray Line monologist notable for such comments as: “The sun, another great New York City landmark, above you on the left.” Relocated to Hollywood by director Tom Shadyac, the fictional Levitch gets the girl, a steady gig at Universal Studios and a Laurel Canyon cottage.
*”OF MICE AND BOYS”: Following in the footsteps of Williams and Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler demands that Hollywood take him seriously. Reviving John Steinbeck’s classic, Sandler stretches out in the role of weak-minded wisecracker Lenny, while John Malkovich adds heft, reprising his role as George. Drew Barrymore co-stars as the mouse.
*”SHAKESPEARE IN REHAB”: Robert Downey Jr. plays the Bard of Avon. The scribe starts seeing ghosts in the middle of writing “Macbeth,” leading to the hallucinogenic “Out, out damned spot” speech. Twelve months and 12 steps later, the production is stalled when Natasha Gregson Wagner’s Lady Macbeth stabs Christopher Walken’s Banquo after seeing the specter of mom Natalie Wood floating in front of her.
*”REPENTENCE”: Woody Allen is back in fine form, playing a stand-up comic on the Florida Geritol circuit. He shares a Boca condo with wife Louise Lasser, bordered on the right by his parents and by hers on the left. They dabble in canasta, shuffleboard and the Kabalah. The climax: what to do at a condo key party when the Woodman gets his mother’s set? Subtext: impotence can be funny in the right hands.
