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Film picks of ’99

Bringing Out the Dead, director Martin Scorcese’s frenetic examination of three days in the life of a paramedic, is easily my choice for the best film of 1999. Most critics have compared this picture to Taxi Driver, Scorcese’s earlier venture into the mean streets of New York City, but a better comparison is with his film The Last Temptation of Christ, in which another healer and savior begs to be relieved of an impossible assignment thrust upon him by a demanding supervisor.