what are the stone cold classic films of the century so far ?

columbine
fellowship and towers
crouching tiger

more to come

Together?

Russian Ark is a landmark, but I'd question its position as a classic.

yep seconded.

ha ha! D'oh!

I <3 you Tom.

*shakes head*

Comedies anyone?

IGBY GOES DOWN!!!
Lizzie McGuire yes. But IGBY GOES DOWN? (For one, see Tadpole for a much better similar kind of thing. If I wanted to spend two hours with someone I wanted to punch constantly I'd go to the pub with Tico Tico.)

Comedies? Well then I suggest, nay I yell at random pedestrians on the street...OLD SCHOOL!!! Classic like a vlassic.

i went in with low expectations but found it highly amusing.

Amores Perros.

Are we talking the Lukas Moodysson Together or the new Chen Kaige Together? I haven't seen the latter, but I'm ALL ABOUT the former.

Let me be the first to mention 25th Hour.

whether you like or not (and compared to some who do, i don't), Ghost World will be remembered

as will Moulin Rouge, obv. maybe for all the wrong reasons (like leading the road to Chicago) but history can't be changed now that it's happened

And Chris V.'s got it there.

I second this, really bad Salinger wannabe. The one dude who was in I Shot Andy Warhol and Requiem For A Dream gives a really good performance though. He's good. The movie is not.

I also heart Gosford Park.

but of course it's like rated #8 on imdb so what do i know

for reference: the most critically lauded films of the relevant years:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt_year.php?year=2000
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt_year.php?year=2001
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt_year.php?year=2002
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt_year.php?year=2003

can't hardly wait is the straight-teenflick that rules all others and Get Over It! ain't bad neither (tho O trumps them both and hey! its even relased past 2k -- yeah add O to my list)

Russian Ark

Almost: Devdas, The Lady and the Duke, Under the Sand (Ozon is a mixed bag so far, but that film was fabulous), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Too bad Rushmore was 1999.

Yi Yi

bring it on was also too hyper-self-aware to work for me as a real flik but too LITTLE self-aware to work properly as a sendup. it was more just this bundle of signifiers riding a cresting cultural wave of one generation so the next-older-one could tap in and feel a vicarious "trash" thrill along with a self-superior-smugness SIMULTANEOUSLY.

but it was still a good movie not least for bringing Daphne and Celeste stateside via its soundtrack.

(oh and justyn check O and Get Over It! for other good Shakespeare films)

Or the only film I've ever walked out of?

Ms. Julia Styles is redolent of a youthful intelligence in all of these Shakespeare adaptations, and comes across quite attractively, but her magnetism has little to do with accuracy in connecting to the potentially anachronistic characterization, anachronistic as far as a modern adaptation is concerned. No, its power is rooted in how she's able to engage a present-day sensibility to age-old themes of maturation, rising above any disparaging "teen" label to convey her developmental dramas as wholly naturalististic occurrence happening within a young woman on the road to adulthood. She moves, she acts, she emotes..in a wholly contemporary manner, yet manages to keep the conflict of the Shakespearean drama intact, due to her ability to respectfully raise the source material out of any disparaging age-based category ("teen version of the Shrew!") that it might have been boxed into. Is it her precociousness? How does she manage this? The way she makes the content more about the Bard's thematic relevance to the present day , rather than molding into a vapid present day's youth-version of the Bard (imo). That is why I thinks she does so well in these films - even though, granted, I did not see Hamlet - and a large part of why 10 Things I Hate About You was so lovingly satisfying for me was due to her performance. Even the freqent dips out of character (table-dancing to the Notorius BIG? flashing a teacher? etc). It's funny then, that I've felt no inclination to see her in the contemporaneously defined dance-schlock dramas like Save the Last Dance. Her appeal was never physical, but cerebral, so it almost seems pointless to cast her as the heroine hoofer who saves the day, dancing away (the racial divide. Right.)

Amateurist, as much as I respect your cinematic opinions, I beg to differ w/ you re: Devdas. Not only a godawfully gaudy atrocity by current Bollywood standards (which are subterranean to start with) and an easy shoo-in for absolute worst remake of all time anywhere, but an embarrassingly virulent attack on the legacy of the original..originalS (the 30s Barua/Saigal AND 50s Bimal Roy/Dilip Kumar versions, even though I haven't seen the former, I trust its reputation)..which possesed a sort of silent ...dignity before all this. Really, the Roy version at least, had an untouchable position to it in Indian cinema. Mythical, maybe. Legendary, definitely -> more than a standard, it's one of the heights in Indian film history.

Sanjay L Bhansali hocked his overproduced filthy phlegm all over that legacy, tarnishing it. Hopefully not indefinitely.

I'm not alone here. Innumerable editorials were written castigating this multimillion-dollar mess, which wound up beyond the realm of the enjoyably ridiculous into the land of repugnant overdone offensiveness, despite any attempts by the Indian industry to garner a haha, 2nd Oscar nomination in this post-Lagaan era, despite what the North American version ofTime magazine thinks about the production. Just because a big-budget Indian film has two hummable songs as lithe bare-naveled young women gyrate their colorfully sareed pelvises across the screen in glittering period costumes, does not make it "worth watching," as the whole beast can be seen as a monolithic repudiation of the graceful subtetly of the originals. With even the old-time stars like Vyanjanthimala (against whom there is NO comparison w/ Madhuri Dixit), who starred in the Roy classic, coming out of semi-seclusion just to say that the new one was lacking taste and such, the reception would be somewhat comparable to how Van Sant's Psycho was greeted a few years ago: a wholly unnecessary exercise. Yet at least his Psycho slavishly respected the template, duplicating shot after shot of the original.

If only Bhansali's Devdas would have had that much devotion towards its predecessors, but oh no. It would have only been a minor tragedy then, but he had to totally fuck the plot as well, raising the ire of purists everywhere by actually letting the devoted character of Parvati (Paro) meet with the whore Chandramukhi, a contrivance that would have been *unthinkable* in Saratchandra Chatterjee's novel, upon which these films are based - as well as in the milieu in which this tale is set. Not to mention how all of the period details are distorted, the characters' conduct is anachronistic, and the major plot points lose all pearls of plausibility in an attempt to out-awe the audience with sickening splendor, it really is way too easy to eviscerate this film. Or it would be, if it wasn't so sad, sad that it had been made at all. To cash in on the ever- golden reputation of the original? Or used to be ever-golden...

DID I MENTION THAT NO SERVANTS' QUARTERS LOOK LIKE THAT ???!? LET ME MENTION IT: NO SERVANTS' QUARTERS LOOKS LIKE THE TAJ FUCKING MAHAL, OKAY?

I think the tone of one of the reviews nailed it best: if Chatterjee wasn't already dead, he certainly would be after seeing what had been done to his novel. Taking the most poignant, timeless Indian tale on thwarted love due to class differences (and as much about the role, and power, of the courtesan in a staunchly patriarchal society), and blowing it up into a bombastic behemoth of a soap-operatic ordeal one has to do yoga to get through, is most definitely an evil karmic action that Bhansali will have to do much penance for in his next lifetime as a roach. I would do anything to Raid him to hell, but he's going there anyway so why bother. Let's hope he takes our memory of his nauseating film with him!!

[If you could see the originals frst, you would weep.]

but you'll just have to use ur i-mag-i-nation to complete the sentences :)

A good example might be remaking Gone With The Wind, relocating it to Denver circa Dynasty and changing the ending so Rhett comes back just for one more dance number.

Amelie wasn't that twee to me at all; it had some rather frightening moments, some intense emotions, not to mention it had FUCKING in it, which usually disqualifies a film from tweeness, right?

I wouldn't exactly think of them as "stone cold classics", but both are movies that I'll hold a special place in my heart for for a long time. Now, if City of Lost Children had come out this century...

No, this was excellent.

Has anyone mentioned Together yet? I don't recall seeing it listed.

Crazy/beautiful was great until the last act, which I thought was a real cheat. And Blue Crush was so much worse than I thought it would be. A shame. That Bosworth character is ecch.

Sterling, are you serious about Centre Stage? I liked parts of it fine (especially the motorcycle dance at the end), but it's got nothing on Bring It On.

The thing is, Rotten Tomatoes doesn't give weight to what a reviewer thought of a film beyond a basic thumbs up/thumbs down, so what rises to the top is more "what's undeniably good": Almost Famous rather than "what produces strong reactions (some of which will be negative)": Dancer in the Dark

(not checked my dates, so some might be out of scope)

The dance scene was the best thing ever.

(okay lets try this one s1utsky: what made YOU prefer bring it on, as i've already "put it in its place" [read: given what i thort was a fairly sharp if somewhat compressed take on my views towards it])

(also connecting emotionally with something is probably one of the better criteria for picking films unless you like formalism-for-formalism's-sake [haha who just read the kael essay? i did!])

besides bring it on didnt have that awful whats her name who ruined hamlet in it.

But I'll defend Bring It On as much as I can as I am very tired--this movie has tremendous energy & joy (there's your emotional intensity I guess)--it hits its beats perfectly, the leads are wonderful, Dushku is a wicked bad girl, it's fucking funny as hell.

bring it on was also too hyper-self-aware to work for me as a real flik but too LITTLE self-aware to work properly as a sendup.

This I don't buy. I'm not even sure I understand what your point is--Bring It On doesn't achieve the golden mean of self-awareness? What do you mean? I find it impossible to argue with this.

As for the whole emotional intensity thing--well, I guess I'm not sure what you mean about that either--whether you mean the intensity of the film or the intensity of your reaction to it. And whether you mean just your reaction per se but whether strong emotion is involved. I mean hell (to pick the most obvious example in all of filmdom) how emotionally intense is Citizen Kane?

Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor)
Lista de espera (The Waiting List)
Seom (The Isle)

Other stone cold classics:

Coronación (Coronation)
25 Watts
Amélie
Jump Tomorrow
Moulin Rouge!
La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher)
Dark Days
Flandersui gae (Barking Dogs Never Bite)
Wave Twisters
Bakha Satang (Peppermint Candy)
Tilsammans (Together)
Dark Days
Oodishon (Audition)
Mortel transfert (Mortal Transfer)
Eureka

Worst films released in 2000-2003 I've seen:

Englar alheimsins (Angels of the Universe)
Sé quién eres (I Know Who You Are)
Gladiator
Les Rivières pourpres (The Crimson Rivers)
Dancer in the Dark
La Veuve de Saint-Pierre (The Widow of Saint-Pierre)

anyway though my point about self-awareness is that Bring It On seemed to work as some sort of meta/ironic commentary/parody of the teen film/sports film genre for about a third of the time and as a straightforward one the rest.

[yes whereas it needed to be a straightforward one .618.... of the time]

i mean there were too many knowing winks to immerse myself in the story but TOO FEW to immerse myself in the metacommentary. i mean this was as film that feels like it was made by someone who felt superior to half his audience and wanted to help the OTHER half feel superior too.

I know that Sterling, or wait, maybe I don't. If I was having a really rough day and cried after watching Daddy Day Care I wouldn't neccessarily argue it was an incredibly emotionally intense film. Ach, forget it.

anyway though my point about self-awareness is that Bring It On seemed to work as some sort of meta/ironic commentary/parody of the teen film/sports film genre for about a third of the time and as a straightforward one the rest.

OK but my question is in what way? How does this specifically manifest?

Changing Lanes and Signs are stone cold in my opinion.

why should a film insult and attack high schools in total? they are complex places full of lots of different kinds of people. it's like the country where you live: an unavoidable FACT that permeates every aspect of your life, making it very difficult to love or hate absolutely. ambivalence about school is in the very marrow of the teen movie.

i like this sentence a lot.

"heathers" is the "all about eve" of high school flicks.

"Prosaic" and "straightforward" I will cede to you. I do happen to be a sucker for domestic drama, esp. what Andrew O'Hehir called (in ref. to this film) "Cheerios realism." (I like Raymond Carver lots, too.) But I thought that YCCOM did this genre way better than most American movies, by presenting characters that are contradictory and complex, and offering few easy answers.

this is a damning statement i think!

Whoa. "Life" is in the whole goddamn movie: when Sammy first notices Terry approach the restaurant and waves excitedly, the expression on her face breaks my heart. (This is what I mean by small moments and gestures.) The whole scene on the back porch that flows from hostility and annoyance to nostalgic laughter and goodwill: this is such a rich encapsulation of a sibling relationship.

I'll admit that there's no great visual style to the film. But maybe for me, that's something that's a bonus when it's there (the second time I saw Safe I was awestruck by Haynes' framing shots) -- and no big deal when it's not, esp. when the script is as good as it is here. (Obviously, the fault is with Lonergan coming to directing via playwriting -- which makes me wonder, what's your take on Mamet?)

all those "little gestures" seemed like they were simultaneously telegraphed and sort of papered over in this systematic way so as to suggest deep immersion in character, without actually being at all inspiring or pleasurable. my idiot boss said in the first meeting we had when i got here that it was "the greatest movie of all time." i think its telegraphing of small gestures worked as a sop to a certain idea of realism but didn't function emotionally at all.

the whole thing was so measured and determinedly *small*. it seems afraid of real pleasure or danger. like one of those made-for-showtime period piece movies.

i think laura linney is a really mediocre actress in general. "the house of mirth" which she was in as well, is an example of a movie with bad acting but a very strong visual (and narrative) style as compensation.

Spirited Away
The Wind Will Carry Us
Minority Report
Spellbound
The Royal Tenenbaums
Ghost World
Catch Me If You Can
In the Mood For Love
O Brother Where Art Thou?

Specifically the scenes where the woman and the guy teaching her to run scams are standing on the streets. The way that the background was thrown completely out of focus and the lighting just dies off behind them, it felt amateurish, like I was watching a TV movie-of-the-week.

also Spirited Away and Le Fils (The Son) a belgian movie

updates ?!!

Irreversible
Code Unknown
Donnie Darko

That's a good list, although you're a braver man than I if you can sit through 'Platform' twice. I still haven't heard a coherent argument in its favour, though I'm going to give 'Unknown Pleasures' a go. (Innaresting point: the DP on both films has made an excellent scifi film, 'All Tomorrow's Parties'. Chinese Sixth Generation = rockist bias!!)

george washington
all the real girls
city of god
punch drunk love
amores perros
battle royale

other classics that are not stone cold

mulholland dr.
donnie darko
adaptation
lost in translation
o brother where art thou?
royal tenenbaums

Im Kwon-taek

mulholland drive

in the mood for love

irreversible

I'd say it was better acted, more emotionally complex, and had much much better cinematography.

It's really not, for the most part, a happy movie. That alone takes out 75% of the sappy factor.

If you really need to ask why it's better than MBFGW, then maybe you should watch both of them again.

*shakes his head sadly*

tsk, tsk...

thanxx.

I watched it on mushrooms and it ruled.

That's what we in the trade call reportage...

that's all I got right now.

That's what we in the trade call reportage...

-- Jackie Harvey (eber...) (webmail), September 14th, 2004 10:23 AM. (later) (link)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

i couldn't believe this was real for a moment. but it is. real.

i'll add AMERICAN SPLENDOR.

good call on Jump Tomorrow way upthread tho Tuomas

we'll see, probably not:
Waking Life
Dude, Where's My Car
HedwigATAI(!)
Undercover Brother
School of Rock

anyone gonna dare mention Shaun Of The Dead and 24 Hour Party People? Intimacy or Nine Songs?

"Stone cold classics" can't truly be evaluated for decades, which is how we can now tell that only the first half of "The Graduate" is much good.

City of God = Warner Brothers gangster movie - Cagney + ("Pixote" - balls)

Oh yeah...

Far from Heaven
The Saddest Music in the World
What Time Is It There?
Crimson Gold
A.I. (heart attacks?)
The Agronomist
Eternal Sunshine
Stevie
Love & Diane

24 Hr PP is surely better than that Tolkienite juvenilia...

i must have one of the biggest hard-ons for Gondry round these parts but strangely i'm not thinking of ESOTSM as an instant classic, as much as i enjoyed it.

A.I.? not a heart attack, just a thoroughly furrowed brow (i quite enjoyed it in parts but there are too many plain awful bits)

24HPP - funny and reverent but also sensationalised and egocentric, still a big favourite for me

LOTR just spectacularly realised again - nothing wrong with 'juvenilia' is there? as opposed to 'kids films' like Monsters Inc?

i'd have to say the LOTR films so far.

yes, Mulholland Drive, sure (the first Lynch film I'd accuse of any kind of greatness since Eraserhead).

French alternatives to Am*lie & demonlover (too cold and trivial):

Son Frere (Chereau)
Les Destinees Sentimentales (Assayas)

i cant say that undertow is stone cold classic, but i did love it a lot. i thought that control room is the best documentary in the last five years though.

and platform is fucking amazing as amateur!st and slotski (i think) said way back upthread.

Crouching Tiger is a Readers Digest version of Hong Kong movies.

nonfic:

S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
Decasia

The Good Thief is a good call, I suppose. It's a little minor, but then caper movies are so fucking lousy these days.

x-post

2000: You Can Count on Me
2001: Mulholland Dr.
2002: 25th Hour
2003: All the Real Girls
2004: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Stone cold classic new film companies of the century so far = PIXAR.

"Y'ALL BRUTALIZIN ME!"

Finding Nemo (xpost!)
The Bourne Identity
Sweet Sixteen
Ratcatcher

eat a dick, Schindler

City of God was real. brutally real. It also had a good bit of dark humor, wonderful storytelling, and all things considered the most exhilarating style of any movie in the last 5 years.

The Incredibles. defines stone cold classic.

and has nobody yet mentioned Zoolander? who spaced out there?

all of these are films that will seriously probably age really really well (Zoolander excepted)

and now that i think about it ... Primer still has me trying to figure it out, that one was loads of fun

25th Hour is probably still my favorite of this century. Before Sunset and Twilight Samurai are great.

I find Dr. Morbs' exclamations off-putting, really is there any reason to trumpet love of semi-obscure foreign films anymore? With DVD, everybody's a cinephile (or trying).

Before Sunset
Seom (The Isle)
Shrek & Shrek 2
Coronación (Coronation)
25 Watts
Sprited Away
Amélie
Jump Tomorrow
Moulin Rouge!
Bodysong
Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor)
La Pianiste (The Piano Teacher)
Dark Days
Flandersui gae (Barking Dogs Never Bite)
Bakha Satang (Peppermint Candy)
Dark Days
Drive
Drôle de Félix (Funny Félix)
Salmer fra kjøkkenet (Kitchen Stories)
The Royal Tenenbaums
Mortel transfert (Mortal Transfer)
Eureka
American Splendor
Rok dábla (Year of the Devil)
La Chambre des officiers (Officer's Ward)
Lista de espera (Waiting List)

Mulholland Drive
City of God
Punch Drunk Love
Donnie Darko
In The Bedroom
Lantana
Monsoon Wedding
Raising Victor Vargas
Series 7
The Fog of War
Lovely & Amazing

Election was surely earlier than 2000?!? But if not it's on my list too.

Has nobody mentioned Road Trip? excellent teen film!

brilliant film.

Cuz people still don't watch em? Most of the foreign films above are "hits."

Cuz folks still ascribe greatness to Ethan Hawke "acting" like a dick for 90 minutes? (tho Julie Delpy came even closer to saving this one) ... I found his post-divorce men's mag interview much funnier and more truthful. "Politicians who sleep around are better leaders!"

Ten is good, Crimson Gold is better Kiarostami.

SPOILERS AHEAD

it was not another chance meeting. delphy saw that he was going to be in town. this bothered me.

the constant america bashing got old really quickly for me. ok, america has bad things going on, i dont need to hear about it.

i hate hippies and julie delphy was so lame as one. ethan hawke lost all of his charm. sure, this is like 10 years later, but they are nothing like what they used to be.

this was not nearly as good as before sunrise. there were not as many heartbreakingly sweet moments. no real awkwardness except for in the car near the end. it did not seem as real to me.

doing it in real time was annoying. seemed almost to be a kiarostami rip-off.

thats all i suppose. i just liked before sunrise a lot more.

I don't get the chance meeting thing - a second random connection would have been pretty silly. This is the planned meeting they were supposed to have delayed by nine years.

I thought this was much more 'real' than Sunrise overall - Hawke's earnest American-in-Europe tics were mostly gone (the phone scene in the first), fewer 'deep' awkward pauses. Their interaction in Sunset was much closer to how real people act.

I've never liked Sunrise as much as I could because of Hawke's performance and the forced quality of a lot of the moments and interaction, I found the sequel to be more laidback and accepting.

one of these (upcoming, winter) weekends i'm going to stay in and watch 20 new films opn dvd back 2 back 2 back to revive my interest in the whole idea of movies.

(all to be added to my list way above)

but euro trip fucking sucked.

I liked Cellular, Shanghai Noon and The Bourne Supremacy (NOT Identity) tho.

Batman Begins and Spanglish would rank pretty high for me.

and there should be a Stephen Chow flick in here somewhere...

2004

Comme une image (Look at Me)
Spider-Man 2
Million Dollar Baby
Saved!
Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement)
Coffee And Cigarettes
Oldboy
The Hours
Sibha kham doan sib ed (Mekhong Full Moon Party)

If I were to choose list the ten best films of the decade thus far, it would probably be these:

The Isle
Shrek
25 Watts
Songs from the Second Floor
Barking Dogs Never Bite
Kitchen Stories
Year of the Devil
Look at Me
Amélie
Waiting List

Light is Calling
Femme Fatale
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
The Company
Kaïro
Wet Hot American Summer
Crimson Gold
Tropical Malady
Kings and Queen
and the video to the Chemical Brothers' "Star Guitar"

I'm forgetting some (like, oops, Elephant).

http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/coverv/07/106207.jpg

another year's worth of updates?

Cache

The Condemned

Brokeback Mountain
Me and You and Everyone We Know
The Departed

Children of Men

amelie??!!

'children of men'
'miami vice'

'knocked up'

INLAND EMPIRE
Anchorman

Miami Vice?

for real.

can't believe this thread is so long when there's only 3 films to pick from

my top 10:

City Of God
The Fellowship Of The Ring
Bring It On
Election
Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
Spirited Away
Children Of Men
Kill Bill
Jump Tomorrow
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (generous as ever)
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 2

but of course there are many I haven't seen

Zodiac.

the host

superbad

If anybody figures out the scoring system here, yell "bingo."

http://stylusmagazine.com/articles/movie_review/stylus-magazines-top-films-of-the-millennium.htm

Man, I hate some of those films.

superbad for real.

rat race - seriously!

i went in with low expectations but found it highly amusing.

-- Chris Radford (Chris Radford), Tuesday, 8 July 2003 15:08 (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

WAHT

jesus no not zodiac, xposts.

kung fu hustle is the standout, tenenbaums, city of god.

knocked up

MORE SITCOMS ON DA BIG SCREEN, PLZ

change DA record, please.

The one with Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins as a mismatched cop combo, and at the end Anthony goes "We want you to hunt down Carlos Guttierez, the world's greatest hitman", and Rock goes "I don't care if you want me to kill Carlos Santana the world's greatest guitarist". That one.

Casino Royale

LOL

at dom not you ailsa,

MORE SITCOMS ON DA BIG SCREEN, PLZ

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 10:23 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

you are complaining about a film you have not seen
you are complaining about a film you have not seen
you are complaining about a film you have not seen

the departed

kill bill

From that STYLUS piece:

Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
To begin with the ending: yes, this has the greatest closing line since Some Like It Hot.

give. me. a. break.

Before ppl just can't help themselves

Why didn't you vote, Dr. M?

Oh wait, you did, never mind. I didn't see your name when I read the article a couple hours ago.

zodiac otm

why is Zodiac so overrated? bcz 2 of the 3 leads are essentially obsessed-fanboy creative types, heretofore unseen in superficially entertaining serial killer movies?

away from her

Also, Morbs, if the scoring system was done in a #1=10 points, #2=9 points, etc. fashion, then it works out pretty well for #1-#10 on the final list, the only head-scratcher being what was used for the tie-breaker between Tenenbaums and New World and between The Son and Y Tu Mama Tambien (it's not total votes, or even #1 votes). However, after A.I., there should be a three-way tie between Best of Youth, Munich, and Yi Yi, and Eternal Sunshine and Kings and Queen should both place before Cruel Winter Blues, which is actually one of four films that a lone writer picked as #1 (e.g., it should be tied with Hedwig, Time Out, and In the Bedroom). So I don't know what happened there, except perhaps the desire to include two more foreign-language films instead of a Spielberg.

(Also NB: I'm counting Nancy Keefe Rhodes's votes as worth 5 points each. Maybe Mr. Foote used a different approach for her.)

"instead of *another* Spielberg," I mean.

I'm not sure why I didn't participate.

Most criminally underseen:

Eureka by Shinji Aoyama

That's because it hasn't been released on DVD yet. I'm still kicking myself for missing it in the theater.

omg morbius.. "The Saddest Music in the World" was dreadful, interminable rubbish!!

^^Mark McKinney was good in that

Your mom was good in that.

(Your mom = Isabella Rossellini, right?)

* In the Bedroom
* Shaun of the Dead
* Yi Yi (A One and a Two)
* Sur mes lèvres
* Dirty Pretty Things
* Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows)

lol i wish

queen of the damned is better than anything mentioned so far
-- mark s (mark s), Tuesday, July 8, 2003 2:43 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

Tracer, I'd love to give ya the Ludovico treatment w/ Maddin's Twilight of the Ice Nymphs if you thought Saddest Music was interminable. c'mon, glass legs full of beer! Mark McKinney doing James Cagney crossed with Bob Hope!

(actually I'd have voted for Maddin's great The Heart of the World but I knew no one else would vote for shorts)

Charlie Bronson + NPR = In the Bedroom

one great image doth not a movie make. and i really really wanted to love it!

United 93 and Miami Vice.

Together
Yi Yi
Nobody Knows
Spirited Away
You Can Count on Me
In the Mood for Love
Best of Youth
Ratatouille or Finding Nemo
Talk To Her
Eternal Sunshine (though I didn't like it as much as most)
Mulholland Drive (ditto)
Kill Bill (ditto ditto)

Mine would probably contain the following:

Oldboy
Spirited Away
Superbad
A Scanner Darkly (for the animation, mostly)
Children Of Men
The Princess And The Warrior
The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum

...but I need to see a LOT more.

omg morbius.. "The Saddest Music in the World" "Decasia" was dreadful, interminable rubbish!!

really? that one's on my queue and i keep moving it down when it comes up

I wanna see Miami Vice so bad!!

really? that one's on my queue and i keep moving it down when it comes up

I found it sort of airless and ponderous (the opressive score on the dvd is part of this though, it might be better w/the live orchestra). It's pretty and some of the footage is interesting, but it never really gets beyond the intial premise.

Don't do it again, Jordan! Decasia is a marvelous sort of horror film. Besides, you can see the wealth of experimental film that's represented in the poll; people who profess to be cineastes still tend to ignore it. I might as well have voted for The Joy of Life too.

Best docs/essays of the 00s:

Love & Diane (no DVD)
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
Stevie
The Gleaners & I
The White Diamond

(all under the radar thx to classics like Anchorman)

The Good Thief

For the record, Paolo Cabrelli, who voted for Anchorman, put The New World at the top of his list and followed it with three foreign-language films, one a Russian film I'd never heard of.

Better 00s experimental/non-narrative films than Decasia(Cineastes, plz ignore):
An Injury to One
Untitled (For David Gatten)
Une visite au louvre
The Last Communist
Star Spangled to Death
Operation Double Trouble
Confederation Park
Hostage: The Bachar Tapes

is Learned Foote a real name?

I believe so.

xp

well, I haven't seen any of those, CB.

(I've never doubted you are a genuine cineaste obv)

What Time Is It There? would make my list.

Others:

Mulholland Drive
Grizzly Man
The House of Mirth
My Mother's Smile
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Knocked Up
Before Night Falls
Tropical Malady
Yi Yi

(I've never doubted you are a genuine cineaste obv)

Haha, I wasn't really trying to defend my cinephilia, Decasia is just my Anchorman, I guess.

well, I'd like to see Will Ferrell in full decay

I wish I could go back and watch Yi Yi again. It seemed so tailor-made for me, but for some reason it left me kind of cold.

It's still slightly overrated, and I'm suspicious of any film where little kids are fonts of wisdom.

me too.

xpost

the new world
city of god
mulholland dr
inland empire
royal tenenbaums
dancer upstairs
departed
superbad
the host
white diamond/grizzly man
shaolin soccer
mr. vengeance /old boy/lady vengeance
punch drunk love
election
ghost dog
audition
dancer in the dark
mean girls
spartan
eastern promises
battle royale
the jason bournes
jackass
borat
before night falls

My final cuts from the list included The Virgin Suicides, Kung Fu Hustle, 2046, Inland Empire, Spider and Gosford Park.

and as far as "stone cold classics" go, maybe the top 7 on my Stylus list would qualify. Worst decade yet, so far. Even international commercial cinema is dicier than ever, at least the portion of it we get to see.

You missed 'Hidden' from that list!

I don't miss it at all

miami motherfucking vice

worst decade yet, yeah though it was just me that thought so. without question on the popular-and/or-mainstream-but-still-a-great-movie front.

all in, i think it's fuckin pointless to divide tv from 'cinema' at this point. so it's the best decade ever, too.

dr. morbius hates arrested development, though ;_;

tv and cinema are already "divided" so i guess i agree with you, it is pointless to "divide" them

they are divided more in cultural criticism etc etc than aesthetically, business-wise, in people's homes, etc. 'aesthetically' is probably the most important there for me. if you were writing a history of american cinema since the fifties, you'd have to look at television business-wise, and as a source of talent (since lumet, altman, frankenheimer, penn). star studies also has to look across both media. as does auteur studies (mann, levinson, stone, lynch... whedon). and if you were looking at how people 'use' film too -- ie in the home environment.

or you could go the essentialist road, i guess.

Most criminally underseen:

Eureka by Shinji Aoyama

Wow, for once I agree with Morbius! It was a bit overlong, but otherwise a magnificent film. And Yakusho Koji rules!

"aesthetically, business-wise, in people's homes"

aesthetically: have you ever seen an hour and a half TV show with no breaks? TV shows (especially American ones) are written with an multi-"act" structure that is divided by ad breaks. even shows written for the BBC and therefore "free" of this constraint are heavily influenced by the decades of television writing on every other network.

business-wise: television is much cheaper and much easier to trial (pilot) so lends itself to more risk-taking, creativity, and unknown actors/directors

in people's homes: some convergence here with DVDs and the new breed of long-form cinematic television which started with Miami Vice -- i will give you this

aesthetically: have you ever seen an hour and a half TV show with no breaks? TV shows (especially American ones) are written with an multi-"act" structure that is divided by ad breaks. even shows written for the BBC and therefore "free" of this constraint are heavily influenced by the decades of television writing on every other network.

what's your model of "cinema" here? cinema was based on the unit of the reel for a hefty chunk of its history -- arguably modern mckee-type screenwriting imposes itself on film structure almost as much!

part of what i mean here is that the notion of "cinema" as comprising just 90-120 (or whatever) long features is plain wrong. and, of course, i have seen many 90-min films with ad breaks inserted.

business-wise: television is much cheaper and much easier to trial (pilot) so lends itself to more risk-taking, creativity, and unknown actors/directors

yes and no: really i meant just that the tv and film industries are well integrated, share the same physical capital (LA), have a kind of calendar mapped out (to have X-talent we can only shoot in the summer hiatus, etc.); and not really separate practices. technicians go from one to the other, as well as top-line talent. it's partly because TV is cheaper that it has been -- for fifty years -- one training ground for directors particularly.

cinema was based on the unit of the reel for a hefty chunk of its history -- arguably modern mckee-type screenwriting imposes itself on film structure almost as much!

and theatre productions were based on how long it took people's butts to get tired! this is different from ad breaks every 15 minutes! which is different from reel-changing (which stopped being an issue about 80 years ago!) D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T.

the notion of "cinema" as comprising just 90-120 (or whatever) long features is plain wrong.

o rly

i have seen many 90-min films with ad breaks inserted.

yes, and it is annoying. with television shows it is NOT annoying (as long as the ads are actually inserted in the "right" places) -- in fact, i tend to get antsy when watching long dramas like heroes or 24 on DVD or on the BBC -- there's no time to cactch your breath! the pace and editing of these shows is relentless and depends upon the breathing space supplied by the ad breaks. this is a huge difference in style and execution that is irretrievably enmeshed into the fabric of the medium.

HBO THO

i would like to add the wire to my list now

tuomas, you mentioned 'dark days' upthread, and i totally agree with you there. also: 'unknown white male'.

80 years ago still gives you 1/4 of the history of the moving image! if you watch most films on dvd, and most tv shows on dvd or torrent (as i do), the convention of an annoying musical cue + exterior shot remains, but it's not enough to distinguish it from movies -- which also use the exterior-shot-reminder-thing oftentimes.

i don't think it makes for a 'huge difference' anyway when the thing 'film' has changed such an incredible amount over time, and when most of the basic rules of construction -- devised when it was silent -- have been mostly adopted by TV. that is where TV hasn't gone back to, effectively, the 'theatrical' multi-camera steez of early sound cinema.

"cinema" was for a long time -- perhaps half its history -- a programme of films of different lengths and kinds which you could walk into at any point in their duration.

it was exactly the need to differentiate it from TV that led to the idea of a separable cinema. and obviously TV took away much of the programme-filler, e.g. news.

xpost

Each episode of the Wire only makes sense in terms of the whole show, another gigantic difference between even the most cinematic TV and movies. Every James Bond is self-contained.

it was exactly the need to differentiate it from TV that led to the idea of a separable cinema.

yes, and we live NOW.

that is where TV hasn't gone back to, effectively, the 'theatrical' multi-camera steez of early sound cinema.

what do you mean by this?

the wire is just a really loooong movie

Each episode of the Wire only makes sense in terms of the whole show, another gigantic difference between even the most cinematic TV and movies. Every James Bond is self-contained.

self-contained in its theatrical release. and then less so on the dvd. with films like the new j j abrams thing, or lord of the rings, the films are anything but self-contained. greenaway threatened to do a "film" on 97 dvds or some shit, but with a lot of sf/fantasy stuff it's kind of happening.

i think cinema is even less separable from tv now than in the 50s, when the break happened. i am only talking about drama and comedy really -- but on a basic level the move toward single-camera sitcoms and the production values on cable shows + the (post-dogme) move toward low production values in a lot of even mainstream-y films is another kind of convergence.

xpost

"that is where TV hasn't gone back to, effectively, the 'theatrical' multi-camera steez of early sound cinema."

what do you mean by this?

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

the rules of space-construction in narrative cinema were developed by the end of the 20s, based on editing together master, medium close-up, close-up, inserts, etc. when sound came this system was briefly interrupted and for a while films were shot with three cameras and edited just as US sitcoms were, with the equivalent poor production value (ie flat lighting).

mind you this

http://www.adrants.com/2007/10/nbc-bitchslaps-heroes-viewers-with-inprog.php

is really becoming a problem.

and will just drive viewers to the torrents

another huge difference: even when watched in orgiastic marathon DVD sessions, television shows LIVE with you in the way that novels do. movies are pretty one and done, regardless of how many extras they include on the DVD for you to nerd out over later. you carry television shows around with you, in your head, usually for weeks at a time.

the banners are in the torrents too! or they are in mine :/

i agree mostly with second par... it's kind of why i prefer tv now. otoh i am projecting, maybe, but i think maybe sf movie fans do live with their movies more. and i know when i was younger and more obssessive i lived with them, via repeated video watching.

so i guess it is meant to make viewers to wait until the official DVDs come out. those will be torrented too, but at that point it will be very tempting (for the fan) to just snaffle the real version rather than wait hours for the download to finish. it is pretty clever actually.

TV and cinema...they are divided more in cultural criticism etc etc than aesthetically, business-wise, in people's homes

which, of course, is why ppl can't shut the fuck up in theaters, now more than ever.

TV: still works when you talk all the way through it.

Totally!!!

no one ever get shit for putting best of youth on their list

morbo's "now more than ever" comment -- again, bullshit, even for the sound era.

i wouldn't let someone talk over 'the shield' or 'lost'.

you wouldn't be missing anything

plz let me know what theaters you attend, quitit. They must be in some magical throwback zone.

do you shhhsh people morbs? are you a shhhsher?

I had to wake up a sleeping/snoring dude next to me the other night, at a Robert Bresson movie. I think it was Morbius.

If I say The Heartbreak Kid, no one is going to believe me, are they?

plz let me know what theaters you attend, quitit. They must be in some magical throwback zone.

-- Dr Morbius, Wednesday, October 31, 2007 2:21 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'm saying theatres are still noisy, that they used to be too. wonder what the noise levels were like in rural audiences of the 1920s or grindhouses of the 70s...

did he refer to it is "carpei]ng the proverbial post-prandial siesta"?

the audience reaction to everyone getting shot in the head in the departed was one of my all time favorite cinema experiences

it was better in the theater-in-the-round version

the audience reaction to everyone getting shot in the head in the departed was one of my all time favorite cinema experiences

Which was "It's about time"?

I'm not talking about Times Square or grindhouse audiences from the '70s, I'm talking about bourgeois Manhattan arthouse patrons (a male-female couple under 35, most often) who talk during the entire fucking film. Or check their Blackberrys every 15 minutes.

The problem is straight people.

the problem is bourgeois Manhattan arthouse patrons with blackberries yuppies.

Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" or "Zwartboek," about the Dutch Resistance in WWII

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389557/

It's interesting to see the answers on this thread:

your favorite films of this decade (so far)

and this one:

ILX Top Films of 2000-04 RESULTS (yes, really)

in light of the time that's passed.

there's been a lot of talk of greats this year and i haven't liked any all that much. but i'm keen to see what others think.

I'd say the Hostel movies and Cloverfield, not as the great movies of the decade but as some of the most representative.

Me and You and Everyone We Know in a similar way, as far as what art and technology mean in daily American life in this decade.

(Then again, Fear, with Marky Mark and Reese Witherspoon, is the movie that to me is best at encapsulating American life in the 1990s.)