Best of Tarantino's Top 20 Movies Since 1992

Boogie Nights v. Lost In Translation v. Dazed & Confused imo.

7 or 8 dope films in this list, the rest i can take or leave

Seen every one of these and the Korean shit is fucking awesome.

D&C for me

tarantino in awful taste shocker

i could be wrong, i certainly couldn't come up with a better list of 20 films since '92 off the top of my head — if any of the film obsessives would like to explain that film in general has actually been this bad for 20 years then ok

I can't imagine tokin up with this fucker and his terrible taste.

The Host vs The Insider for me.

Only one of these would be on my list (BR) but a bunch of these are quite good and only maybe 4 or 5 are crappy.

i try not to imagine his terrible taste :(

where was this list published?

"Fridays"

Friday sticks out on this list like a sore thumb. I like it (and I watched it A LOT - lol college) but its inclusion here is a bit suspect (surely Little Man woulda been a more challopsy choice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz4K-Rxx2Bk

also Fight Club over Zodiac? come on now

Battle Royale With Cheese

"Friday sticks out on this list like a sore thumb."

Compared to Anything Else?!?!?

lol @ anything else
ha xpost

most of these are pretty good movies. I'm gonna say Fight Club, probably that and D&C are the only ones to make my own list. (I think The Thin Red Line, In the Mood for Love, Zodiac would prob fight for top spot...)

This is like the top 20 movie posters from a college dorm + Anything Else.

http://www.cinecultist.com/archives/anythingelse.jpg

I ain't gonna lie, Boogie Nights, Shaun Of The Dead and Friday would be on my top 20 list too

Lost In Translation? Really?

This is not a bad list but there are a few weird anomalies, and it is also a little adrenaline-heavy. Would like to see a few more of the Oriental films before voting. At the moment it's between Boogie Nights/Fight Club/The Matrix.

Off to youtube Police Story 3.

In order, 2-6 are pretty close.

1) Battle Royale
2) Memories of Murder
3) Tsui Hark's Blade
4) Dazed & Confused
5) The Host
6) Joint Security Area
7) Police Story 3
8) Shaun of the Dead
9) Dogville
10) The Insider
11) Boogie Nights
12) Audition
13) Unbreakable
14) Fridays
15) Lost In Translation
16) The Matrix
17) Speed
18) Team America
19) Fight Club
20) Anything Else

oriental films

the host

Yeah it's weird there are these relatively obscure Korean/Japanese/HK greats and then the same Hollywood/Indie garbage that Armond White is probably popping a vein hating on right now.

surely Little Man woulda been a more challopsy choice

Well that's one way of putting it.

I don't know what to go for from these. As I've said this isn't exactly my idea of the best films since '92 (why did he choose this date, because of Reservoir Dogs?), but there's some good stuff in here. I own, or have owned, many of these on DVD. Hearing him talk about Speed makes me want to have another look at that.

No Oldboy, no credibility.

because of Reservoir Dogs?

Yeah

Alex is blaming us for every poll result he doesn't like today.

armond white hates those kinda asian flicks too, though, i think he called HK a "backwards culture" once or something

1992 was when he became a director according to the YouTube thing which I recommend not bothering watching.

"No Oldboy, no credibility."

To be fair, JSA is probably better than Old Boy.

I mean if you are only going to pick one Chan Wook Park movie for some reason.

I still can't quite get behind the resolution of Old Boy, but that's just me, I gues.

"armond white hates those kinda asian flicks too, though, i think he called HK a "backwards culture" once or something"

What doesn't he think is a "backwards culture" though?

also Fight Club over Zodiac? come on now

I know. Or even Fight Club over Seven.

also The Insider over Heat? come on now

JSA is *better*?! Oldboy is in my decade top 3, btw

The resolution deviates from a traditional tragic closure, but I love it for how convincingly cathartic it is

Heat's ruined by the completely stupid final 40 or so minutes and a worse Al Pacino performance.

1) Battle Royale
2) Memories of Murder
3) Tsui Hark's Blade
4) Dazed & Confused
5) The Host
6) Joint Security Area
7) Police Story 3

I mean I really want to see every single one of these, plus Audition, before voting

How can you hate a movie in which Pacino makes these expressions?

http://www.tatteredcoat.com/images/heat-pacino-great-ass.jpg

"JSA is *better*?!"

Well it's substantially different (by virtue of having a plot that actually sort of makes sense) but yeah I like it a little more. I prefer both the Sympathy movies to Old Boy though so I might not be a reliable of Wook Park quality.

reliable barometer, ahem

Oldboy was okay but the story was a bit lolsome and took forever, I never really got into it.

I still can't quite get behind the resolution of Old Boy, but that's just me, I gues.

it's me too.

if we're just throwing out random Asian films I woulda expected Kung Fu Hustle to be on here

Can't wait for Morbs to find this thread.

Battle Royale

Oldboy's plot, as I always say, is pure Jacobean revenge-tragedy. Mr Vengeance I found to be compelling but too nihilistic and brutal in its all-consuming destruction of life. Oldboy is a much more nuanced, expressive and ingeniously-paced movie, plus it has some truly astonishing set-pieces, which use human drama rather than action as their primary hook. Am yet to see Lady Vengeance. Will rectify that right now.

"as I always say"

did he stop liking non-english spoken movies?

Friday sticks out on this list like a sore thumb. I like it (and I watched it A LOT - lol college) but its inclusion here is a bit suspect (surely Little Man woulda been a more challopsy choice)

― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, August 17, 2009 1:32 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Friday holds up, you're a nutter

Pretty much Dogville in a walk. Only Fight Club and Dazed/Confused compete.

Do any of these films have a scene where the camera itself is used to bludgeon one of the actors until he or she is either dead or crippled? If so, that would seem to me to be the logical winner.

http://static.open.salon.com/files/peepingtom.jpg

2) Memories of Murder
3) Tsui Hark's Blade

^ can someone tell me about these two, actually - ?

youtube thing — wowie, he looks old

Memories of Murder is a police procedural about a famous unsolved Korean serial killer in the 80s. Blade is a Tsui Hark sword opera. Very Ashes of Time influenced in the cinematography IIRC and great fight scenes.

MofM is a lot better than Zodiac btw.

Which is probably the closest comparison I can think of.

also Memories of Murder is directed by the guy who made The Host

And unless you are Steve Shasta or live in cave you should know that Tsui Hark (the guy who directed Blade) is fucking awesome.

Unless he's directing a movie with Dennis Rodman in it, in which case well he's still awesome. . .

i actually liked that indie movie about the reality show where people have to run around and kill each other as much as i liked battle royale. can't remember the title. it was even filmed in my hometown!

series 7 or something?

The one where the one guy has cancer? Bah.

i was bummed out by lost in translation. it looked great and it had bill murray in it, but i kept wishing the movie itself were better.

series 7, that's it! i love the woman in that. the one from silence of the lambs.

she's on greys anatomy. or was. but i don't watch that. she's cool looking.

Series 7 > Battle Royale. I think I would have liked Battle Royale more if I hadn't read the book first (or at all, really). I kept thinking, "this was better in the book." The movie was fine, but not special.

No Color of Night, no credibility.

Friday holds up, you're a nutter

nah I think Friday's great. Tarantino's weirdo race fixation makes this pick stick out, is all I'm sayin

No Destiny Turns On The Radio, no credibility.

Never read the book. Find it hard to believe it's really an improvement though.

Read it and find out the truth.

Read a book that you imply you shouldn't have read at all, really? Why would I want to do that?

dazed and confushed for me, but i haven't seen a lot of these.

Alex - I think you completely misread what I worte.

I implied I would have liked the movie if I hadn't read the book. The book was great; the movie, not so much. So maybe if I hadn't read the book, I would have thought more of the movie. Instead, it is a pale facsimile of greatness.

worte = wrote

Boogie Nights, no question. Dazed and Shaun are the only ones (of those I've seen) that would even come close.

Also: I'm slowly making my way through Woody Allen's entire filmography chronologically, and this is the first indication I've ever gotten that Anything Else is something to look forward to. Mildly intriguing, that. Although the comments in this thread seem to support everything I've read/heard previously...

I like Battle Royale the movie a lot, but it doesn't even come close to the greatness of the book.

Shakey succinctly summarizes.

man speed was a truly great movie huh

It's better than Anything Else.

i thought Battle Royale was shitty, i mean there were reality shows on tv (in the mid nineties) without killing that were more exciting.

this list could've included some great Takeshi Kitano work (as a director)

i feel D&C would be the indiesnob vote but i guess i'll vote for it anyway

I thought Tarantino loved Kieslowski. Where is he?

sum1 was reppin for memories of murder upthread and i can get behind that too - idk i like most of these movies w/o having "strong opinions" about them or their place in history except dogville which i tht was pretty vile and *trails off and makes grunch face*

man speed was a truly great movie huh

― You Only Blog When You're Winning (Lamp), Monday, August 17, 2009 2:29 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

'oh darn'

Dogville might be the worst.

Kieslowski wouldn't help w/ horror fanboy cred. also, shocking absence of Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady

I think you mean the shocking abcess which is Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady.

i chose the one that has stuck with me the longest...and though i quote from Dazed all the time, it really is Audition. that movie is so fucked and crazy good.

"Kieslowski wouldn't help w/ horror fanboy cred."

Hmmn one thing I will say about a list with Anything Else on it, is that it's not exactly trying for any type of cred, horror fanboy or otherwise.

also, am i the only person here who thought The Insider, both when it came out and even now, is one of the most snooze-worthy films evah?

<3 dazed and confused

i-wanna-get-in-Christina-Ricci's-panties cred

yes, The Insider is a respectably boring trophy horse.

xp I think there are probably easier ways of doing this.

PARTY AT THE MOON TOWER!
http://tormentedfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/audition.jpg

The Insider of Christina Ricci's Panties is a great movie

Was fridays the one where ice cube beats up a man 10x his size? that's takeshi miike territory there in terms of snubbing plausibility.

Dr Morbius, are you serious abt THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY? I read the James this year and then, v. recently, watched the movie, and I know David Denby is considered a total feeb by some US ilxor(he is not know here in the UK much at all), but in this review he demonstrates a far finer knowledge of James and his novel than Jane Campion ever does:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/reviews/4608/

A cpl of the choices that Campion makes are gd and clever - basically dispensing entirely with the book's first 150 pages or so, the boiling down of numerous travelogues into a herky-jerky silent film pastiche - but oh dear, so much of it is misguided, naff, vulgar where James is subtle - that 'contemporary' prologue, the wholly invented dream sequence where Isobel gets it on with her three suitors, the obviousness of Malkovich as the 'villain'.

The Wings of the Dove is a much better James adaptation – with all the sex and pre-Freudinism that modern directors love.

Dogville, but The Host and Fight Club are respectable choices. However, there are at least three films on this list of the "my friends love it, but I find it crappy and annoying" variety.

also, am i the only person here who thought The Insider, both when it came out and even now, is one of the most snooze-worthy films evah?

total agreement, though admittedly I'm not too big on Michael Mann in general

favorite to least:

Speed
Unbreakable
Fight Club
Audition
The Matrix
The Insider
The Host
Dazed & Confused
Boogie Nights
Team America
Shaun of the Dead
Lost In Translation
Dogville
Battle Royale

I cannot believe how many people like BR. It's little kids killing each other and nothing else.

The book is fantastic, though.

They aren't little. They're high school age.

sorry Ward F, I like the way Campion departs from the novel. It ain't Cliff Notes.

It's funny that there is so much love for the book cuz everything I've read indicated that the translation was terrible and its poorly written even by normally pulpy standards. I'll have to look for it, I guess.

You're crazy! You're fuckin' crazy!

though the shitty sequels ruined the whole thing for me, I watched and loved The Matrix more than anything on this list. Might not be the "best" of these, but it would have to be my favorite. Also, Tarantino has shit taste in movies.

In the book, I am pretty sure they're junior high-aged.

The book is structured really, really well, IMO. I like pulpy fiction so it may well have been terrible and I didn't notice; I do know that the story was engaging and managed to make the kids all stand out in ways appropriate to their importance to the core story.

I thought the contemptible thing about Battle Royale wasn't kids killing each other but that it was supposed to be some grand statement about society beyond kids killing each other. Jisatsu Circle has a much better moral re: kids and death: THE #1 CAUSE OF SUICIDE IS JPOP.

I guess they're supposed to be 14-15 according to wikipedia.

Dear Wendy had similar problems vis a vis kids killing each other and statements about violence in society.

I thought the contemptible thing about Battle Royale wasn't kids killing each other but that it was supposed to be some grand statement about society beyond kids killing each other.

I don't know how well the movie handles this because I haven't seen it yet (it is on my list, though) but the book is pretty explicit about the whole thing being part of the government's tactics to retain control over the population.

Dear Wendy's main problem is that it's pretty lame.

Dan totally OTM re: BR the book, especially about its engaging structure, depth of character, and the political subtext. This is really the only Japanese novel I've ever read that has such an explicitly anti-authoritarian political angle, it was kinda refreshing in that respect (among others).

hey so lady vengeance is pretty good. second half is fucked in quite a good way

"This is really the only Japanese novel I've ever read that has such an explicitly anti-authoritarian political angle, it was kinda refreshing in that respect (among others)."

you need to read some kobo abe! if you like your anti-authoritarian stuff in a kafka vein.

Heat's ruined by the completely stupid final 40 or so minutes and a worse Al Pacino performance.

The JPEG wasn't enough. Here's the scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlXpX3o3W2Q

i still want david cronenberg to do a movie of kobo abe's kangaroo notebook. best plot ever!!!!

"The unnamed narrator is a low-level employee at an office-supply firm who, in jest, proposes a new product called a Kangaroo Notebook. His assignment to produce a rough sketch of the notebook is interrupted, however, when he discovers, while eating breakfast, that radish sprouts are growing where his leg hair used to be. At a dermatology clinic, he meets a disturbingly seductive nurse, after which he is then strapped to a bed in an operating room and tranquilized. From this point, the narrator's experiences grow increasingly hallucinatory as he is released into the world with nothing more than a blanket and a hospital bed, which turns out to be a remarkable machine with its own agenda. Buffeted about, seemingly deprived of free will, the narrator lands in a corner of hell, where he takes a sulfur-spring cure and meets child-demons who perform for tourists and the villainous specter of his own mother. More than once, he is rescued by the nurse from the clinic, who, it turns out, collects blood for her own mysterious purposes and has a strange American boyfriend named Master Hammer Killer, who conducts research into sudden deaths. As events propel the narrator toward the Japanese Euthanasia Club, Abe (The Woman in the Dunes; The Ark Sakura) deftly blends antic comedy with metaphysical dread while maintaining the internal logic of a narrative which, in its lighthearted obsession with death, feels less like a whistling past the graveyard than a winking message from beyond."

uh battle royale is garbage, sorry guys. my vote was split between Speed and Supercop imo

D&C

i haven't seen all of these, but lost in translation is definitely my least favorite of the ones i've seen. then maybe fight club next. then maybe unbreakable.

the insider WAS really boring.

I've read a bunch of Kobo Abe - Kafkaesque yes, but he buries his politics pretty deep I think. There's a lot of stuff about the frustration of forced conformity and insanity and obsessions with death and whatnot, but I don't remember him ever really putting it in an explicitly political context (haven't read anything of his in at least 10 years, basing most of this on my memories of Woman in the Dunes and the one about the guy who wears a box, the Ruined Map, some others). Abe's a pretty elliptical writer in general imho.

but i do like a lot of these! i don't think any of them would make any list of mine though. maybe dazed & confused.

i just always figured pretty much everything abe wrote was about how insane modern (japanese) life is.

yeah that's true - but BR doesn't really have his tone, its more of a youthful insurrectionary sorta underpinning, and the gov't is explicitly the "bad guy", the institution that is identified as running the game, as using it as a tool to cow the populace, and it has this open-ended "will they get away and make a better world for themselves?" ending (which is kinda more hopeful than anything Abe ever wrote)

lost in translation looks pretty good to me compared to fight club and unbreakable (unbreakable is so tedious and glum and slow it makes me angry just thinking about it), but it's still not something i'd want to see again. it probably wouldnt have occurred to me to put speed on my list but now that it's in the discussion i cant think of any reason to disqualify it imo.

sandra bullock is in it

i don't love every movie on this list but i love this list

sandra bullock was a piece of ass back in the day (still is tbqh)

my only beef with qt involving this controversial youtube is his decision to call shyamalan "shamalama ding dong." like he'd do that to a korean director.

sandra bullock is infarad in speed fuk u shakey

cankles otm about everything

" "shamalama ding dong." like he'd do that to a korean director."
don't underestimate tarantino...

Doesn't everyone do that with Shamalamadingdong's name though?

seriously -- maybe they wouldn't do it if his movies didn't suck so much.

racists itt

Too many boring Asian flicks. At least he didn't include Ichii or Oldboy.
Lost in Translation is a piece (did he learn to appreciate it when he was sleeping with Sofia)
I kind of want to go back and see Anything Else again. All I remember is Christina Ricci's forehead looking particularly large.

Winner is Dazed & Confused in a walk.

i'm telling you, he's been reading my threads:

You Would Like To Be The Next M. Night Shamalamadingdong, But Your Blues Aren't Blue Enough And Sarah Michelle Won't Return Your Calls. Quick! What Nursery Rhyme Will You Use In Your Next Highly Deri

Dear Wendy

What Your Friends Thought

3.0 Stars Alexander ***** liked it.

plus, it's catchy once you start doing it. kinda hard to go back to calling him by his real name. plus, i kinda hate him.

seriously -- maybe they wouldn't do it if his movies didn't suck so much.

i get that (and often follow the ralph fiennes law myself - "if i like your acting you're RAFE, if I don't, you're RALPH") but it's a moot point when you're including his work in your top 20 movies of all time. plus it's not actually hard to pronounce. just ignore the damn y.

why the shlalamadong hate? he seems like a hilarious affable dude.

what are Trantino's to movies EVER?

top

from wikipedia

In the 2002 Sight and Sound Directors' poll, Tarantino revealed his top-twelve films: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Rio Bravo; Taxi Driver; His Girl Friday; Rolling Thunder; They All Laughed; The Great Escape; Carrie; Coffy; Dazed and Confused; Five Fingers of Death; and Hi Diddle Diddle.

"3.0 Stars Alexander ***** liked it."

Hah I just knew someone was going to check my Netflix rating.

I actually don't understand why Shyamalan's name gets mangled so often. it's pretty obvious phonetically: shy-AH-muh-lahn.

is the 'y' faint or actually silent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Skw-rKYsXOY

m. night shamwow is better than Shamalamadingdong.

changing my vote to speed

Fight Club is likely the funniest film on this list (not having seen, y'know, Anything Else). I realize a lot of you love to throw stones at it cuz college sophomores humorlessly dissect it, much like [Mad Men joke].

Even Dogville is funnier than Fight Club.

Fight Club is likely the funniest film on this list (not having seen, y'know, Anything Else Or Dazed and Confused or Friday or Shaun of the Dead or Audition.)

yo mama is funnier than Dogville. xp

very unsurprised that he went for LiT instead of what is sadly looking like the only great film Sofia C will make, The Virgin Suicides.

I was happily surprised that the first page of google results for Shamalamadingdong does not contain any refs to M. Night Shyamalan.

It does contain a political cartoon about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, though.

yeah that's true - but BR doesn't really have his tone, its more of a youthful insurrectionary sorta underpinning, and the gov't is explicitly the "bad guy", the institution that is identified as running the game, as using it as a tool to cow the populace, and it has this open-ended "will they get away and make a better world for themselves?" ending (which is kinda more hopeful than anything Abe ever wrote)

Fukusaku was always interested in this. It's a shame that he's mostly known for his 70's yakuza work, I think, because his 60's work is a lot more interesting to me. Blackmail Is My Life and If You Were Young: Rage are totally about how society is fucked and youth gets exploited. According to wikipedia this can be traced back to one particular event in his teens:

When he was 15 years old, Fukasaku's class was drafted, and he worked as a munitions worker during World War II. In July 1945, the class was caught in artillery fire. Since the children could not escape artillery fire, they had to dive under each other in order to survive. The surviving members of the class had to dispose of the corpses. Fukasaku realized that the Japanese government lied about World War II at that point; Fukasaku had a burning hatred of adults in general for a long time.

As for Anything Else, well, it's the only movie I've ever seen where Woody Allen plays something different from his usual persona. He's this paranoid elderly gun nut, and at one point he wrecks a car. So no big mystery why Tarantino would approve.

What I find disappointing about this list is that if you look at those Film Fests the guy used to organize, or even his S&S top10, there's always plenty of movies that no one's ever heard of - obscure asian genre flicks and grindhouse stuff mostly, yeah, but also classic Hollywood b-movies, Disney films, comedies, all sorts of stuff really. I've heard of every single movie on this list - I don't know if it's because we live in an era of EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT EVERYTHING and you really can't make actual cult cinema anymore, or if it's that Tarantino just stopped caring.

I don't think it's at all inconsistent to like obscurities/rarities and still have your favorites be things that many people have heard of.

I always like when directors and other artists talk about their contemporaries and which movies by their peers blew them away, like those end-of-year lists when Lou Reed lists five favorite records of the past year.

i realize now the difference between my taste and Tarantino's is that he's really really into genre and im really really not.

hat being said Matrix 2 may not be great but it's still the closest attempt to dramatize Godel's incompleteness theorem we've ever had and that deserves some credit!

Well, no, it isn't. But I'm sorta with Ebert on this (this was posted on another forum, about the same subject):

To be useful to me, a list should contain titles I'm not familiar with, suggest directors I should be looking at, and inspire me to give some films another look. That's what I mean by its function as "propaganda." When any of us makes a list, aren't we really telling other people what they should like? A title that has frequently appeared in my S&S voting has been Errol Morris's "Gates of Heaven." Is it really one of the ten greatest films ever made? I have no idea, because such a list is so limited and arbitrary anyway. That it is a great film I have no doubt. It fascinates me on every viewing, and I've seen it at least 20 times. When I put on my S&S list, it wasn't available on home video in any form, and I wanted to call attention to it.

You can look over the individual lists of the S&S voters and find a lot of titles that are flares sent up on behalf of a personal passion. Other voting might be strategic. I am convinced, for example, that Yasujiro Ozu should be on the list. His films have a remarkable uniformity of excellence. Which should I select? My personal favorite is the sound version of "Floating Weeds," but I voted for "Tokyo Story" because it is also fully deserving, and I sensed it would find wider support. I guessed correctly, and "Tokyo Story" is now on the list.

(This was posted on http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009...ever_made.html )

So yeah, even taking into account that Tarantino isn't a critic, I'd have prefered a list that featured more unknown (or at least critically underappreciated) movies, even if they weren't his actual favouritest movies. Even moreso because the list isn't commented/annotated, so it's not like Tarantino is throwing new light on something like Fight Club or Lost In Translation.

I mean, I realise it's just a list and there's no shame in being honest, but I dunno, what does it add to the discussion?

id rather people embrace the silliness of making lists of anything by just putting their favorites on it instead of strategizing as if the outcome of the list is supposed to matter.

This poll was done for a 'Tarantino Weekend' on SKY TV (prop. R Murdoch), w/ Tarantino introducing some of his own movies plus other faves (inc MACABE AND MRS MILLER!), so I'm guessing he didn't want to (or was told not to) be too obscure - I think all of the above movies have had a UK cinema release.

huh didn't know any of that about Fukusaku - thx Daniel!

When any of us makes a list, aren't we really telling other people what they should like?

not if we're comfortable in our subjectivity

I mean, I realise it's just a list and there's no shame in being honest, but I dunno, what does it add to the discussion?

It adds QT's belief that these movies are worth your time. Whether or not everyone's heard of them (which I'd question), not everyone agrees they're great. If someone wants to know what obscurities he's into these days, they can ask THAT.

also filling his best-of list with movies so unheralded that even his fanbase has no idea they exist is a political move I can't see him getting behind. Why would we want to imply that the best films are inherently not in your multiplex? He's probably miserable at indie film festivals! Why wouldn't he want to praise it when popular genre directors get it fabulously right in his estimation?

oh man i am so bummed out that obv very few people on this thread have seen JSA, it is nearly perfect and def gets my #1 vote.

I'm actually surprised the entire list wasn't Korean/HK/Japanese stuff actually.

id rather people embrace the silliness of making lists of anything by just putting their favorites on it instead of strategizing as if the outcome of the list is supposed to matter.

Well, "matter" = some people might go rent a movie. It's not exactly of world importance.

Anthony, "It adds QT's belief that these movies are worth your time" = " telling other people what they should like", pretty much, the only differences lie in semantics. I really can't see how a best of list would have any other motivation than "hey, check these out", and I don't think that implies discomfort in subjectivity - we all have people whose taste we know alings more or less frequently with our own. I wouldn't argue that "hey check out these multiplex movies!" listing is inherently inferior to "check out these obscurities", but I can only really see the usefullness of the former if it is in some way annotated - so Tarantino can point out something about the movie that might shine a new light on it.

also filling his best-of list with movies so unheralded that even his fanbase has no idea they exist is a political move I can't see him getting behind.

I've learned about the existence of previously unkown movies each and every time he's made a list/discussed cinema previously, is the thing.

Someone should sort this list by appearances of bare female feet.

"Matrix 2 may not be great but it's still the closest attempt to dramatize Godel's incompleteness theorem we've ever had and that deserves some credit!"

???? How so? If it really tried to do that then it is a crime against math!
I like it when movies are ambitious, but when depth is tacked on in this cynical way what it is really saying is that it is above the trash it is wallowing in. Like if Speed was some intended allegory for technological change moving faster and killing us, it would be saying it's too good to be JUST a movie about a bus that explodes when it slows down, like you couldn't be great on those terms alone.

Like if Speed was some intended allegory for technological change moving faster and killing us

lolz Grant Morrison

choosing Anything Else from Woody Allen's filmography since 1992 is making me suspicious about the greatness of the films i didnt see.

That is the weirdest pick, I'll admit but there are a lot of gems on this list.

I do wonder what he liked about Anything Else, though.

bar none the worst acting in a Woody Allen film. He must've really enjoyed Ricci in her underwear, is all I can come up with

Or he's a huge Jason Biggs fan.

Speed
Lost in Translation
Audition

very unsurprised that he went for LiT instead of what is sadly looking like the only great film Sofia C will make, The Virgin Suicides.

She hasn't made a great film, but I'd say Antoinette is my favorite at this point.

I like Roman Coppola's one movie better than any of her three, but I don't see anything that indicates she's incapable of making anything better than the Virgin Suicides.

"What have you liked lately?

One of the best movies this year is Observe and Report. That's a real movie. Somebody said it's Seth Rogen's Punch-Drunk Love. Well, fuck Punch-Drunk Love—it's Taxi Driver. That's fucking Travis Bickle. I find it hard to believe there's going to be another moment as cathartic as him shooting the flasher."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-08-18/film/quentin-tarantino-the-inglourious-basterds-interview/4

He just loves cool shootings, and being filmdom's Honorary Black Man (cleaned up the terminology).

also filling his best-of list with movies so unheralded that even his fanbase has no idea they exist is a political move I can't see him getting behind.

I'm not sure how much sarcasm is in this, da croupier, but "my top movies" has no qualification attached to it. And I really think even Tarantino's fan base (most of it, obv) has no idea who, say, Pedro Costa and Roy Andersson are, to name two guys whose films are "heralded" yet barely seen in America. (Though I have no idea if he likes em.) I think you mean "movies so undistributed."

also, where the fuck is Kiyoshi Kurosawa instead of half-crazy shit like The Host that kills a little kid at the end?

Kiyoshi Kurosawa = zzzzzz

That's kind of unfair, but honestly I wouldn't put one of his films in my top 20 either.

Pulse is easily in my top 10 of the '00s.

Doesn't shock me at all.

Might be in mine too! I keep forgetting it qualifies. As does, in an utterly different vein, Jia Zhangke's Platform. xp

I do like Memories of Murder very much.

xp Not sure why that dude's excessively slow version of j-horror is any better than anyone elses, but I'll leave that for another thread.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Watched Lady Vengeance last night. It was pretty good. The scene with the parents was really the only part of the movie that really impressed me.

Battle Royale is really awesome, but if Speed doesn't win this it'll be all of your faults.

I take full responsibility.

Memories of Murder is the bst film on this list.

Battle Royale is a typical best film choice for Tarantino:
genius in the technical category - shallow in almost everything else.

Of the 15 or so movies I've seen on this list, I think the only one I liked less than Basterds or Death Proof was Fight Club.

For me, it came down to Boogie Nights v. Lost In Translation, maybe my favorite film of last decade and maybe my favorite film of this decade. I figure Boogie Nights may get a few votes, so I voted for Lost In Translation, for which I assume I'm casting the only vote.

boogie nights v battle royale v dazed & confused

although now that i think abt it even though theres a number of great movies here boogie nights is the clear winner

hav not seen:

Anything Else
Joint Security Area
Police Story 3

Yup, definitely Dogville.

i had jsa on my dvr but erased it without watching, regret it now. also haven't seen blade, anything else and dogville. saw police story 3 as supercop way back in the day but feel like i should resee it, as at the time i was bummed it wasn't as goofy as rumble in the bronx.

audition or dogville.

caught unbreakable on cable the other night for the first time in eons and wtf q.t.

oh wait, i didn't see the host there. nevermind.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Heat's ruined by the completely stupid final 40 or so minutes and a worse Al Pacino performance.

― Alex in SF, Monday, 17 August 2009 bookmarkflaglink

I was watching Heat for the first time last night. Am half an hour from the end. Will watch the rest in a bit but lol @ reading this before I get to do so.

Ok this was fine.

I was at a rep screening last night (scheduled weeks before Val Kilmer's death). I like the film, but I'd agree that some of Pacino's performance--the very lines that are most famous--is embarrassing. When he's quiet, like at the restaurant with De Niro, he's very good.

Thankfully, the quiet part accounts for 90-95% of his performance.

Yeah its like v little, just a tad eyerolly. You almost always get this crap from Al Pacino after the late 70s.

The bank robbery scene and shoot out is an amazing sequence.

And I really liked just how well drawn out all the women were. All of whom were such an active part of the plot, which you never get in action films. That's what makes the film for me.

Every scene with Ashley Judd.

I'm also taken with De Niro at the bookstore.

I rewatched Heat a few weeks ago and skipped the early domestic scenes up until the two simultaneous dinners between cops and robbers. Nothing wrong with domestic scenes in general, but those were good ones to skip on a rewatch.

Pacino notably is, per Doylism, specifically supposed to be on coke in the scenes where he bugs out and yells silly things.