Blade (1998)

Non-stop noisy action and violence, gun and swordplay, glossy production design, and special effects were the hallmarks of this trashy, gory vampire film about African-American, Marvel Comics book hero Blade (Wesley Snipes), a superstrong half-vampire, half-man vampire (or "suckhead") hunter-killer, with sunglasses and a black leather coat and vest, who battled against his up-and-coming arch enemy, punk biker-style vampire leader Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), intent upon creating a "vampire apocalypse." It was a combination action film, horror film, and superhero fantasy film. Martial arts-skilled Blade sought revenge against all blood-sucking vampires for the death of his vampire-bitten mother at the time of his birth.

"You better wake up. The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping! There is another world beneath it - the real world. And if you wanna survive it, you better learn to pull the trigger!"

"Some motherf--kers are always trying to ice-skate uphill."

"F--k me? No, you f--k this!"

The dance floor nightclub scene (with sprinklers that bathe everyone in blood) in which Blade killed disco-dancing vampires (who then disintegrated), accompanied by pounding techno-music.

The final bloating death scene of Deacon Frost occurred during a climactic sword battle with Blade, when Frost's seemingly invincible body was punctured and injected by blue vials of liquid that came into explosive contact with his vampire blood.

Ronin (1998)

This suspenseful post-Cold War heist thriller, similar to the James Bond or Mission: Impossible films, from director John Frankenheimer, contained two of the best white-knuckle, hair-raising, most realistic car chase sequences ever filmed, on the streets of Paris and Nice. It also featured an assassination plot, explosions, alliances, mistrust and betrayals, a shoot-out near a Seine River bridge, and other male-oriented action. Robert De Niro starred as Sam, a former CIA strategist and aging action hero now hired as a covert mercenary operative in France (along with buddy and hired hitman Vincent (Jean Reno) and others in an international team) to retrieve a mysterious silver metal briefcase (the film's obvious Hitchcockian 'McGuffin') by Irish IRA terrorist Deirdre (Natascha McElhone). The film's title Ronin referred indirectly to failed and shamed Japanese samurai warriors who roamed the countryside after failing to protect their masters and honorably committed ritualistic suicide.

"You got the gun. I'm unarmed. Do something. Go ahead. Do something. Do something!"

The thrilling high-speed car chase between a blue Peugeot 406 driven by Sam chasing a black BMW M5, driven by Deirdre in a high-speed, wrong-way race through Parisian streets and a metro tunnel under the Seine River and continuing into heavy freeway traffic.

The scene of Sam instructing others during surgery to help remove a bullet from his side, claiming: "I once removed a guy's appendix with a grapefruit spoon", urging: "Don't take it out unless you really got it', and finally: "You think you can stitch me up on your own? If you don't mind, I'm gonna pass out.''

Wild Things (1998)

This erotic crime film with a twisting and turning plot revealed that three schemers: high school guidance counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon), rich and sexy vixen student Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) and trashy goth trailer inhabitant Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), as well as a fourth character, the duplicitous police sergeant Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon), had fabricated a rape case to extort money from Kelly's wealthy mother Sandra (Theresa Russell). By film's end, most of the main characters had double-crossed and murdered each other, leaving Suzie as the only survivor.

Besides the complex plot, the film was intended as a sexy, 'guilty pleasure' film-noirish thriller that featured prominent younger stars in sexy/dirty situations in a South Florida Everglades town, including a wet T-shirt car-wash sequence to the tune of Lauren Christy's "I Want What I Want" after which dripping-wet socialite Kelly seduced her guidance counselor Sam in his home. Later, Suze and Kelly had an infamous, highly-publicized menage a trois sequence with Sam, and Kelly also celebrated lesbianism with Suze in a swimming pool (extended in the uncut version).

"So, where's your hose, Mr. Lombardo?"

The liquor-drenched threesome scene, and the lesbian kiss pool scene.

American Pie (1999)

Also the sequel American Pie 2 (2001)

Other films in the series, including: American Wedding (2003), American Pie Presents: Band Camp (2005), American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile (2006), American Pie Presents: Beta House (2007), and American Pie Presents: Book of Love (2009)

See Sex in Cinema entries.

Director Paul Weitz's wildly popular, raucous teen-sex comedy was typical of the late 90s and brought back raunch to this genre of comedy film. It was an extreme 'guilty pleasure' film about losing one's virginity on prom night - in its tale of a sex-obsessed, awkward, coming-of-age high school senior named Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs). In one scene, he masturbated himself with a long athletic sock while watching scrambled porn on TV - when his parents interrupted.

Its most notorious scene was the one of horny Levenstein humping the family's fresh-baked hot apple pie on the kitchen counter (viewed from behind, his bare buttocks thrust into the pie) and being caught by his father (Eugene Levy) (Dad: "Jim?!" Jim: "It's not what it looks like"), and then later deciding not to tell Jim's mother: "Well, we'll just tell your mother that uh, that uh, we ate it all"). In a widely-publicized scene, Jim also spied through the Internet with a web-cam on frisky, busty Czech exchange student Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), and then when he joined her in person, he prematurely climaxed twice - not realizing that his escapades were being broadcast to the entire student body.

"I never did it with baked goods, but you know your uncle Mort, he pets the one-eyed snake 5-6 times a day."

"No longer will our penises remain flaccid and unused! From now on, we fight for every man out there who isn't getting laid when he should be! This is our day! This is our time! And, by God, we're not gonna let history condemn us to celibacy! We will make a stand! We will succeed! We will get laid!"

The scene of watching foreign exchange student Nadia undress, via a digital camera and the Internet, and then recline topless on Jim's bed to look at his girlie magazines.

Fight Club (1999)

David Fincher's daring, feverish and dark non-linear satire on manhood in crisis found a large (and sometimes controversy-invoking) audience with its compelling, grim and twisting story about the glorification of self-destructive violence by a men's fight club, with voice-over narration provided by Edward Norton. The nameless Narrator, a 29 year-old yuppie corporate worker who was increasingly bored, self-help addicted, disillusioned and dissatisfied with his emasculated life, joined a macho subcultural group known as "Fight Club," led by charismatic, anarchic punk and soap salesman Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt). Their first encounter was marked by violence - an aggressive bare-knuckle fight. His anti-capitalistic philosophy could be summed up in his own words: "You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your f--king khakis."

By the film's end, it was revealed that Durden was actually one side of the split personality-psyche of the Narrator's own imagination. During the explosive finale as terrorist violence escalated through activities called "Project Mayhem," Durden threatened to blow up the buildings of various major credit card companies and couldn't be subdued by the Narrator. The only way he could destroy, stop or kill "Durden" in his mind was by shooting himself in the jaw/face - barely surviving and watching the exploding buildings collapse with his nihilistic girlfriend Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) at his side.

"The First rule of Fight Club is You do not talk about Fight Club. The Second rule of Fight Club is You do not talk about Fight Club..."

"All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I f--k like you wanna f--k, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not."

"We are consumers. We are byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty: these things don't concern me. What concerns me is celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear, Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.... Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man....The things you own end up owning you."

"I want you to hit me as hard as you can."

The pullback shot from the Narrator's "Fear Center" inside his brain, during the opening credits.

The IKEA set-piece ("I'd flip through catalogues and wonder, what kind of dining set defines me as a person.")

The many bare-fisted, brutal fights in dark underground basements.

The climactic scene of buildings being blown up during Project Mayhem as the wounded Narrator watched after unsuccessfully trying to blow his brains out.

The Matrix (1999)

See also The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Writers-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski's second feature film (following the lesbian-tinged gangster film Bound (1996)) was the ambitious and inventive, kinetic, action-oriented virtual-reality flick. It told about slacker hacker Thomas Anderson / dubbed Neo (Keanu Reeves) who was called as a messianic figure to save the world (of approximately the year 2199) from virtually indestructible Sentient Agents.

The blockbuster's wild popularity among audiences was due to its combination of comic-bookish plot, mysticism, philosophical complexity, computer-enhanced digital effects of its unbelievable action scenes, flying bullet-dodging ("bullet-time") and intriguing virtual worlds in which reality was redefined as a computer simulation. It helped to illustrate what the future would be of futuristic sci-fi action films with slick and smart plots, and jaw-dropping action. Tremendous visual effects were combined with Eastern world-denying philosophy, metaphysical Zen statements, Japanese anime, Greek mythology, cyberpunk chic, neo-Cartesian plot twists, film noir, and Biblical and Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) references.

"There is no spoon."

The airborne kung-fu fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith, and the dodging bullets scene.