Decadetrius of the Oughties: the thread for critical lists/musings of the best films of the 2000s

AO Scott offers Movies of Quality, and Movies of Influence, and an overview:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15FOB-WWLN-sidebars-2.html?ref=magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15FOB-WWLN-sidebars-t.html?ref=magazine

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15FOB-wwln-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Whatever else was going on, a handful of great filmmakers made a handful of great films, just as in other decades. Steven Spielberg, freed in the ’90s by the successes of “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” from the burden of importance, made a series of bracingly imaginative entertainments — “Minority Report,” “Catch Me if You Can,” “War of the Worlds,” “Munich” and “The Terminal” in addition to “A.I.” — that were both nimble and deeply resonant.

I must really be missing something with 00s Spielberg. 'Minority Report' and 'Catch Me If You Can' were the only ones I really liked.

The first hour or so of "War of the Worlds" frankly blows away both "Jurassic Park" movies.

Truth

yeah it's pretty dope imo

It's pretty brutal, which is how that story should be told, and gives the lie to the old cuddly wuddly Spielberg cliche.

has anyone seen Darwin's Nightmare?

i saw it under another name

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-OLG0KyR4

Was so going to start this a couple days ago.

and, yes, WotW is so ridiculously good early on; sitting through 2012 only reminded me of that

The Terminal though?

The only Spielberg I skipped all decade.

This goes here too:

http://enchantedmitten.blogspot.com/2009/11/skandies-decade-recap.html

The Terminal though?

Hah, that's why i pulled Scott's Spielberg quote! I don't like Hanks much, esp in this role, but I think the America-as-airport allegory is a rich one.

E, have you watched Eureka yet? I'm not looking forward to downloading it for hours and hours...

DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE is great. I really wish A.O. Scott had the opportunity to see other poetic docs like THE MOTHER and BECAUSE WE WERE BORN. :/

Are you sure he didn't see em?

The proposals of Dogville as the best film of the '00s are making me way sicker than Safe did for the '90s.

I hope that doesn't become a trend as these lists come out. I quite like a lot of that list, though. I'm glad to see 25th Hour getting love, even though I'm not sure I would put it on my list.

I still haven't seen Spike Lee's N.O. doc, but since it debuted on HBO it's in the TV bin.

Yeah, unfortunately I'm pretty confident he missed both of those (neither received North American distribution and BWWB only played twice in the US: once in C0lumbia, MO and once in C4mden, Maine)

btw, NYers, please see LOOT: http://www.ifccenter.com/films/loot/

It's one of the strongest films of the year, such a great atmosphere (also don't be turned off by spurlock's recommendation lol)

i really liked the Spike Lee Katrina doc, nice to see Scott rep for them both. (As well as A.I.)

E, have you watched Eureka yet?

No, but do you have multi-region DVD capabilities? I can send you my R2 when I'm done.

And Dogville seems more and more to me like decade-top-10 material, especially after seeing Antichrist.

What about My Dog Skip?

Antichrist is better than Dogville, though I wouldn't recommend either. xpost

alas no Eric, but I have to check with a friend who may have multiregion player... we both loved Eureka 9 years ago.

Scott says of Clint, "Late masterpieces from the last great classical American filmmaker" -- weird, since I think the descriptor applies equally to Spielberg.

Nice bit on Almodovar in there too.

how does david lynch get left out of the discussion? not a very prolific decade for him, granted, but a good one. and for someone complaining about the marginalization of women, scott might have at least mentioned sofia coppola.

marie antoinette is at least decade top-20 for me.

The Virgin Suicides for me.

I'd have Mulholland top 3, Inland Empire top 25. I guess Scott may not be a Lynch believer. (As I wasn't til this decade, save for maybe Eraserhead and Twin Peaks.)

marie antoinette is at least decade top-20 for me.

Yep.

Pretty sure Mulholland Drive will top more decade-end lists and compiled lists than Dogville, fwiw.

i loved dogville, it great skateboard movie

neither received North American distribution

I admire your enthusiasm and all, but aside from personal listmaking you do realize they don't "count," right? Why write about stuff literally NO ONE can see?

This is the last decade distribution as such will be used as a qualifier in lists of this type.

The Exploding Kinetoscope begins

Wow:

The Professor films take their critical lumps for being a string of fat jokes and fart gags. But the villain is a parody of body perfection, and the fart jokes are the best possible sort: of happy people, delighted to be passing gas because it says their bodies are alive and hilarious.

One zero G setpiece alone sees the director pushing the cinematic apparatus’ ability to organize space and time to a new plane: it is a De Palma Future. As the is about to enter orbit around Mars, a micrometeorite barrage perforates the hull, one space suit helmet, and one astronaut’s hand: bam, bam, bam, these are the crises in poetic simplicity, tiny rocks hurtling through infinity just to fuck up four heroes. The ensuing repair effort is a suspense scene of elaborate construction without parallel... except in the De Palma canon. Beginning with the image of atomized blood globules swirling lazily about the pristine ship, the sequence expands and flows into airless abstract 3D museum diorama. As four crewmembers undertake separate tasks in different locations and the atmosphere rapidly suctions out of the craft, their work unites the action, a seamless vignette about punctured seams. The source of the first leak is detected via the floating blood droplets, the second by a serendipitous packet of Dr. Pepper. The pieces and particles flocking in one direction to create a whole, the scene snakes through space, inside and outside, perfectly oriented in a place where up and down do not apply and time is the crucial dimension. Linked in purpose, discrete no longer, like the chromosomes sent to a blue planet from a red one, like the astronaut’s DNA model built of M&M’s, like the Dr. Pepper and the blood, like the clouds of Martian dust. Like pictures threaded in sequence, moving in time together to tell a story.

That's not how I remember Mission to Mars at all.

Least cuckoo passage of the whole article and the best movie out of those ten.

(excepting maybe the Guy Maddin one)

Coming thick and fast now.

Michael J. Anderson

Jim Emerson

Actually, a bunch listed at the Auteurs.

Jeez, lots of crap on that Emerson list.

Might as well straight link shit here even if it's all on that Auteurs page:

Paste's Top 25 Documentaries

Paste's 50 Best Movies

i like the michael j. anderson round-up, but

Tony Scott, who released the surprising Domino (2005) before providing one of the best American films of the decade, Déjà Vu (2006)

...

was that just to make sure we hadn't fallen asleep or something?

That's not really Emerson's list, though, is it? I think he's just blogging about another list that was published somewhere.

Anxiously awaiting Tape Store's assessment of the Paste doc list.

I think Man on Wire is ridiculously overrated.

the paste features list is a weird mish-mash. it's like they took village voice poll toppers and randomly mingled them with sundance audience favorites, best-picture nominees and jean teasdale's dvd collection.

I find Anderson's ten at least defensible (except for the Hou and Eastwood), but he's particularly otm here:

The past ten years have not been the strongest internationally in the history of the art form.... with the exception of Tsai, none of the (auteurs who emerged in the '90s) has done their greatest work during the past ten years.

(however, I just saw the latest Tsai -- which will be lucky to get US distrib by 2010 -- and it's a protracted puzzler.)

of the 6 on his top 10 that i've seen, i love 3 (dragon inn, mulholland dr., yi yi), like 2 (red balloon, russian ark) and don't understand why anyone likes mystic river.

the more i think about the possible parameters of a personal list, the more i think dragon inn is a likely #1 for me. that movie has done nothing but expand in my mind since i saw it. (tho i probably need to see it again to make sure it hasn't over-expanded.)

I saw it at Tornto '03 (and at least once since), but I'd have to pick What Time Is It There? ahead of it.

i like what time is it a lot, but dragon inn is so ... i don't know. mystical? but in a very concrete, banal-detail way.

also, i haven't seen the most recent lucrecia martel, but depending on the day, either the holy girl or la cienaga could inch into the top 10 for me. they could both make top 20.

reading that Anderson list, i just have nfi how I'm actually gonna see even like 1/5 of the films i want to see, and it is sad.

i will not be formulating a favourite films list for this reason.

jean teasdale's dvd collection

Hahaha!

I saw What Time Is It There? again a few weekends ago; it certainly demanded a second viewing.

Have any of Jia Zhang-Ke films made these lists?

As far as the Jia goes that I've seen, Platform > 24 City > The World, and I haven't seen Unknown Pleasures or Still Life yet.

And Tsai is by FAR my biggest blind spot this decade but one which will be rectified in the coming weeks.

of jia, i've only seen unknown pleasures and the world. the world is a completely gorgeous movie but maybe a little too much so -- its compositions and ideas ended up seeming sort of superficial to me (even though i think it's well worth seeing). unknown pleasures is rougher all around and better -- it's aiming to be a chinese breathless, kind of, and pretty much succeeds.

Still Life almost topped my list last year – an ideal companion piece to Up the Yangtze.

yeah, that's in my netflix queue. so many of these are. maybe i'll actually see them someday.

yeah seriously the issue here is not how good these films are but whether it is possible to see them all if you are not a critic

Platform and Still Life are both Top 30 contenders for me, with Unknown Pleasures not far behind. 24 City and particularly The World seemed a little too conceptual without as much to say.

(Still Life was my #1 last year, but it was a weak year)

The NY Public Library holds a fair number of internat'l obscurities, tipz.

London Times went to 100, Cache #1 and a Bourne film 2nd (Mulholland Dr 38th). Worthless.

But you can find it, and many other new list links, here:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1266

This top ten is distinguished by having 4 I haven't seen (the other 6 are quite defensible choices), w/ Godard on top:

http://grunes.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/the-ten-best-films-of-the-past-decade/

new economy blog begging

Please, please consider mailing me a check or money order in U.S. currency—to help pay rent, food, electricity, medicine—at the following address

yeah, I noticed that.

An intriguing individual top-100 list (Birth fan):

http://mainlymovies.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

Why write about stuff literally NO ONE can see?

because if enough people rave about an unseen film, it might actually be seen? I appreciate that distribution models have gotten wacky in the past decade but critics shouldn't cede their bully pulpit role in raising the profile of un- or under-distributed films.

OK, I agree with that from a journalistic-ideal POV, but it's unrealistic to expect NYT critics to have seen/written about more than a small number of undistributed films, since thir paper doesn't even let em do full reviews of NY Film Fest movies anymore!

I'm a fan of La Commune and other similarly indomitable chunks of agitprop, but a best-of lists that don't balance those out with, um, humor ... oy.

re the TONY list jaymc mis-posted to 2009 detrius:

the only thing pleasant about putting Femme Fatale as high as 18th (and I like it) is some of the shit that surrounds it (ie, The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein).

A Claire Denis fan friend was listing some of her underwhelming films to me last week -- and they both made the TONY top 20.

Glad to see the utterly "unavailable" Eureka at 32nd. (I guess what jaymc would call "small," though it's massive.)

http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/80947/the-tony-top-50-movies-of-the-decade/6.html

Assayas >> Denis for what it's worth

re the TONY list jaymc mis-posted to 2009 detrius:

I didn't mis-post it, Alfred did!

whoops, sorry.

Alfred, it depends... I like Les Destinees a bit more than any '00s Denis, but her average is a little higher.

I have that eureka dvd and saw it at the cinema. twice.

no DVD in the States (distrib is defunct).

Snubbing of Spielberg (and Gondry) is offensive:

"Syndromes and a Century by Apichatpong Weerasethakul heads the tally of more than 50 films chosen as the best of the 2000s by TIFF Cinematheque, the year-round screening program of the Toronto International Film Festival," reads yesterday's release. "Joe" has another film in the top ten, too, Tropical Malady at #6. Syndromes is followed by not one but two films by Jia Zhang-ke, Platform and Still Life (#s 2 and 3, respectively).

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/11/23/tiff-list.html

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1284

btw, from some site called Popdose:

94. Night at the Museum

96. Yi Yi

Spielberg vote is obviously being split, but it's completely beyond me why Dave Chappelle's Block Party isn't breaking into the upper reaches of these lists.

This top ten is distinguished by having 4 I haven't seen (the other 6 are quite defensible choices), w/ Godard on top:

http://grunes.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/the-ten-best-films-of-the-past-decade/

― Feingold/Kaptur 2012 (Dr Morbius), Friday, November 20, 2009 7:27 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

the kiarostami thing he lists there i saw as an installation at moma. it was pretty cool. can't quite imagine watching it on dvd, or even really in a theater.

"Syndromes and a Century by Apichatpong Weerasethakul heads the tally of more than 50 films chosen as the best of the 2000s by TIFF Cinematheque, the year-round screening program of the Toronto International Film Festival," reads yesterday's release. "Joe" has another film in the top ten, too, Tropical Malady at #6. Syndromes is followed by not one but two films by Jia Zhang-ke, Platform and Still Life (#s 2 and 3, respectively).

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2009/11/23/tiff-list.html

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1284

― Feingold/Kaptur 2012 (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, November 24, 2009 10:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i had a chance to vote in that but i didn't bother cuz it seemed so... i dunno... the criteria just seemed weird.

still haven't decided whether i'm gonna do a top 10 of the '00s myself. man if i do it it is gonna be HARD. thought of about 25 off the top of my head this morning already.

Was the criteria to pick the best films of the decade?

it was like "best of world cinema," phrased in a vague way, and no explanation of what "world cinema" was supposed to be

I get it. I'd have steered clear too.

Love that most of the complaints on the TONY article are about the inclusion of Femme Fatale.

bastards

thanks for the reminder too

Femme Fatale is no contest top 5 of the decade material for me.

I love you for that! It'd be in my top 100 no doubt.

"Wait. You're not actually trying to defend this film, are you?!?"
Said to me by an assistant film prof after a screening of Femme Fatale

ya it's definitely on my short/longlist.

My prelim list counts about a dozen "great" films from the '00s. Everything else is putting the very good in order.

Assayas >> Denis for what it's worth

Among the French, I might put Chereau and Techine ahead of both.

no explanation of what "world cinema" was supposed to be

I'd go w/ "films that were seen somewhere in the world."

ya it just rubbed me the wrong way like "world music" and i think i'd just woken up and so i ignored the email :D

Looking at the results, it wasn't too hard for many to read between the lines and come to the understanding that "world cinema" = "not Hollywood"

I'm going to petition my university department chair to change the name of the film class to Not Hollywood Cinema.

hurray for not hollywood

because I posted part one up there, I'll keep checking for the rest of them, so you don't have to:

Exploding Kinetoscope - Part 2

god, man who wasn't there feels like it was 20 yrs ago to me

Glenn Kenny Top 70 of the Decade

Apologies if this has been posted already. I saw The Silence of Lorna the other night, and wasn't terribly impressed. Not to say it was downright bad, but it had a lot of problems. I also watched Red Cliff a few nights ago, and didn't think much of it either. It was the UK 140 minute cut, so I can't comment on the full 4 hour version, but from what I saw it didn't look like a longer running time could get past the caricature characters. Spent most of the time unfavourably comparing it to Troy.

Definitely prefer Lorna's Silence to The Child, but am still hoping The Son proves to be their one incontestable masterpiece of the decade.

am intrigued by GK listing Invictus, but then he likes Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino too.

I guess I'm going to watch Looney Tunes, and Trouble Every Day.

Girish and commenters on the TIFF Cinematheque list:

http://www.girishshambu.com/blog/2009/11/best-of-decade.html

There's a TimeOut UK list (In the Mood for Love #1), but I keep getting virus alerts when I click on it.

Not giving me any warnings fwiw.

http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/9250/time-outs-101-films-of-the-decade-introduction.html

Didn't realize to what extent Cache was deified over there.

http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2009/12/perspective-on-aughts-culture.html

I’m reluctant to look at Mulholland again because I don’t want to let go of the ecstatic experience it was for me in 2001. I was not a particular Lynch fan and had no expectations when I first saw it at a screening, but I remember that I felt from its first shots that it was leading me to a place where the idea of the movie past would be sensuously analyzed, raked over and irradiated in a new way, without ever losing sight of the human emotions and hopes that went into this art form of the twentieth century.
...
American cinema reached some kind of bottoming out with Little Children (2006), which is hands-down the worst and most insultingly ugly new release I saw during this decade

I really loved Little Children. :/

How can one call a film "insultingly ugly" when Patrick Wilson is semi-nude through three-quarters of it?

hard to think it could stir such strong feelings. there were real low-points of this decade that were characteristically 2000s in style - spun, the rules of attraction etc. little children maybe has a hand in that scene of emotional drama, laura linney shit, but it's not the genre at its most offensive.

Ugly ideas delivered via blossoming pecs.

sounds like the motto for a right-wing gym

Left-wing gym too flabby for a motto

"left-wing gym" = yoga center

TS: right-wing pecs vs. left-wing obliques

American cinema reached some kind of bottoming out with Little Children (2006), which is hands-down the worst and most insultingly ugly new release I saw during this decade

Eric, I assumed you wrote this yourself until I clicked.

an odd list from richard brody. now there's some serious wes anderson fanboying for you -- "best new american director of the last 20 years." and the knocked up placement is, uh... otoh, i haven't seen most of the things on his list, so i can't comment.

It's just the worst movie I saw in 2006. You know I think Crash is the worst movie ever.

ha! challop par excellence by putting eloge de l'amour at no.1

I'd agree with that honourable mention spot for Payne's Paris segment. Still, Cassandra's Dream?

I guess I don't know what a challop is -- I've already seen another list that had eloge de l'amour on top.

Who IS the best new American director of the last 20 years? Nobody's consistent enough to earn my worship.

The Lovely Bones should earn a spot in the "insultingly ugly" sweepstakes -- I'm talking about the ideas [sic] and the execution.

Props to Brody for listing A Talking Picture, but Regular Lovers was a sleepwalk.

Who IS the best new American director of the last 20 years? Nobody's consistent enough to earn my worship.

it's a good question. maybe thread-worthy. i'd probably say todd haynes. i don't hate anything he's done, and i love some of it.

and i'd short-list linklater, tho the consistency issue definitely comes in there.

linklater's pretty consistent imo

consistency is kinda overrated anyway, most of the directors i love have made some questionable choices

Haynes was my first name too, haven't disliked any of his since the second half of Safe.

(I think Superstar was more than 20 years ago, but we'll exempt banned films.)

I don't disagree s1ocki, but few recent US directors seem able to ever string together 3 real good ones.

James Gray, people.

I thought the accepted consensus was that eloge de lamour was crap. I liked it so iunno

with linklater i think there's a big difference between movies he writes and movies he doesn't. i only really think of the ones he writes as his.

every time people stan for james gray i feel like i've entered an alternate universe

an odd list from richard brody

lol i really like a lot of the movies itl

every time people stan for james gray i feel like i've entered an alternate universe

^^^this

Only seen We Own the Night, but the way Callahan was praising it in that Aughties article up there I think I'm missing something.

Gray's first two movies are stolid and solid, and while We Own the NIght and Two Lovers have their problems he understands families and couples.

but he doesn't understand how to make a movie that isn't clunky and stupid and i just don't see at all how 'we own the night' understood families. everything was a cliche (and it couldn't even get the music right for the period.)

you know i read a good interview with gray where he said he didnt WANT to get the music "right for the period"—that dude's character was in his 30s and still listening to stuff he liked when he was younger

lodge kerrigan

which is the same way he approaches production design and costumes and stuff too - not everything is like, exactly what was new that year. i think that's great. xp

ugh he sucks : /

but he doesn't understand how to make a movie that isn't clunky and stupid

I can't agree with you, even if WOTN is his worst. Two Lovers will likely make my top ten.

btw fuck directors.

I thought we'd stopped the auteurism contagion years ago.

i mean, i dont love everything james gray does (still not sure why needs to have a crying joaquin phoenix scene in every movie he makes) but i think he's on to... something.

i kinda like his style but he needs direct someone else's screenplays

now you're just shilling for yourself

are you james gray???? : D

email me

still not sure why needs to have a crying joaquin phoenix scene in every movie he makes

Phoenix is good at it!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-films-of-the-00s,35931/

some real dross on tht^^ list

yeah a lot of random shit (moulin rouge?) and not a single film from 2009 either.

dunno, that onion one looks pretty standard to me

The Film Talk

lol at The Village at #5

i only really think of the ones (Linklater) writes as his.

yeah, that's why I haven't quite forgiven him for that Hawke-Delpy shit.

It's funny to see all the Oscarshit of the '00s acclaimed as "masterpieces" then getting mostly blackballed on these lists -- Crouching Tiger, In the Bedroom, Moulin Rouge, etc.

James Gray: I've only seen The Yards (great promise but too derivative) and Two Lovers (Phoenix should be getting some Best Actor votes), I hope he continues to refine his method, it beats nearly all of the garbage out there.

btw I have just taken Miami Vice out of the library

It's funny to see all the Oscarshit of the '00s acclaimed as "masterpieces" then getting mostly blackballed on these lists -- Crouching Tiger, In the Bedroom, Moulin Rouge, etc.

Were they acclaimed as masterpieces by these same critics? Half of them probably weren't even reviewing films in 2000-01, when all those came out. (Or maybe they just have short memories.)

You mean, since new film critics don't get paid?

The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions: I know saying this puts my reputation at stake (if I even have one by now): but these sequels were deeply misunderstood. Evidence? Can you name another big budget action film series that ends with the opposing parties being reconciled through a non-violent negotiation? Doesn’t this make The Matrix trilogy one that at least has a compelling central idea, and vast imagination compared with its reputation?

: /

Surprised by all the love for Two Lovers, which looked pretty dire based on the trailer. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

consistency is kinda overrated anyway, most of the directors i love have made some questionable choices

― ankles (s1ocki), Tuesday, December 1, 2009 6:13 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

"admire in it what is admirable, i.e. not only the talent of this or that film-maker, but the genius of the system".

– andbro bazin

"Can you name another big budget action film series that ends with the opposing parties being reconciled through a non-violent negotiation?"

Never saw II or III but Rambo gets talked down by Troutman in I after they share feelings.
Star Trek VI, Shatner makes the golf clap speech at the peace conference instead of killing every Klingon like he originally wanted.
In Dune, OK the guy fights Sting, but it's otherwise a peaceful coup d'etat.
Each Jurassic Park ends in a kind of "live and let live" detente.

"Can you name another big budget action film series that ends with the opposing parties being reconciled through a non-violent negotiation?"

Aliens Vs. Predator, don't the humans and the Predators make nice?

"25: Junebug: A most delicately observed story of culture clash; the nice surprise is that the conservative family folks end up being the most attractive of all."

glad to see this get some love. one of my faves of the decade.

Doesn’t this make The Matrix trilogy one that at least has a compelling central idea, fully explored in the first film and from then on regurgitated repeatedly to the point of incoherence?

haha is that Zizek?

posts v.much in character

code unknown
time of the wolf
the piano teacher

It's funny to see all the Oscarshit of the '00s acclaimed as "masterpieces" then getting mostly blackballed on these lists -- Crouching Tiger, In the Bedroom, Moulin Rouge, etc.

pretty much the same in cred-world too.

kind of doubt that all those dardennes brothers films are going to be anywhere near atop anyone's 2000–2025 list, for examp.

who gives a shit?

you do? dont you? you were the one who brought up the oscars?

haha

I mean I don't care what dopes like enrique (is he history mayne? again, who cares?) will think of the Dardenne brothers when they're 60 years old.

HAHA

ah i see you meant "who gives a shit [what you think]?"

lolz

did you screen miami vice yet, morbs?

no, that's Decade, my first deadline is Year.

how are you generally disposed to the work of michael mann?

Morbs: theatrical, not extended cut.

library DVD doesn't say anything about Extended.

In return, you can all watch Hunger and The Son.

i watched Hunger yesterday! did not think it was all that special! (also am not a miami vice stan, its just ok imo)

respect to you.

i will watch hunger for you morbs. i will let you know how i get on.

don't like hunger.

morbs being a counterpunch-readin' kinda dude, i can kind of see why he might like it.

(i'd forgotten i'd commented on morbs's epochal oscarshit post already. i'm still right anyway.)

i have avoided so far because its politics feel a bit paul mccartney, yeah. we shall see.

away from her

meant that for the noms thread

lots of good in Hunger, but ending is a letdown

fassbender has a six pack

the dardenne borers

imo

Very borers.

Morbs, the reason I keep mentioning these films is because I want people to become interested in them, so maybe they can get distribution instead of, y'know, totally falling by the wayside.

What's the most embarrassing inclusion on the Paste list? The fucking insufferable SUPER SIZE ME? The, um, competent! slideshow AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH? The annoying, shitty liberal guilt porn that is BORN INTO BROTHELS?

Completely shocked that DARKO didn't make the AV Club's list, as Tobias wrote the greatest essay ever about it (and used it to kickstart the new cult canon series)

We just watched STRANGER THAN FICTION in this completely horrible Religion and Film class (next week is SEVEN POUNDS). It was well-done, I guess, but it also, um, felt like Charlie Kaufman for stupid people?

yes, Will Ferrell was in it

oh very well observed!!!

how dumb does a movie have to be to be charlie kaufman for STUPID people

Peter Bradshaw weighs in

I literally wanna throw up whenever i am reminded of the terror-porn of United 93.

in that case, i hope you actually throw up when you are reminded of the hokey schlock-porn of World Trade Center. (incidentally, I almost agree with you, but it is very well made)

oh, I never saw Stone-Cage-WTC. People who should know better forced me to see U93.

more links from The Auteurs:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1313

didn't realise U93 was... rated. straight-to-torrent schlock imo

(crossposting with the '09 detrius thread)

Ballots still appear to be filtering in, but those that have been submitted are live.

http://www.indiewire.com/critic/

Results are still obviously fluid, but fwiw:

http://www.indiewire.com/survey/best_of_the_decade_critics_survey_2000s/best_of_the_decade

http://www.indiewire.com/article/for_your_consideration_25_things_the_academy_did_right_in_the_2000s/

http://www.indiewire.com/survey/best_of_the_decade_critics_survey_2000s/best_of_the_decade

Results are being treated as, more or less, complete.

Top 10:

01 Mulholland Dr.
02 In the Mood for Love
03 The New World
04 There Will Be Blood
05 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
06 Yi Yi
07 Syndromes and a Century
08 A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
(tie) The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
10 Zodiac

oh good. some people can bitch about there will be blood and i can bitch about the new world (and A.I., to a lesser degree), and everybody's happy.

i like that before sunset tied with 2046 -- they're kind of the same movie.

I'm not bitching. That top ten looks pretty solid imo. I'm not a fan of New World, but I've accepted it as a blind spot.

lol, loving the indiewire list. legally blonde!!

Not sure if it's been linked yet, but here's Reverse Shot counting down one a day.

I like all the films in the Indiewire top 10, but probably only 1 and 5 wd make mine. (I'd switch in Munich and 2046 for their makers' more esteemed works.)

i like that before sunset tied with 2046 -- they're kind of the same movie.

There was endless mundane prattle in 2046??

At exactly what point did critical consensus mass around Syndromes and a Century over Tropical Malady? What's the argument? I musta been asleep. I don't completely get (Joe), anyhoo.

I'm not a fan of New World, but I've accepted it as a blind spot.

Yup, alas.

There was endless mundane prattle in 2046??

Would've been preferable to truly endless, sci-fi spiked deck-shuffling.

no.

The Indiewire results show that Femme Fatale may now be both De Palma's best AND most overrated film. (And I can sleep easier about it being squeezed out of my Decade 100.)

Some mornings, I wish I didn't use ILX bookmarks.

Take a better One-A-Day! (Take me with a grain of something plz.)

Eureka getting one Indiewire mention = critics fail. Eric, have you watched it? I found a NYC video store that still has the VHS, very excited.

No, and I can't imagine I'll have time now.

boo.

I like The New World fine, but probably somewhere around 50th-60th for the '00s. Also, I'd have to decide which version we are rating.

i don't think The New World is a blind spot, it's more a case of a few critics who admire Malick pretending it's much better than it actually is.

I think it goes far beyond admiration.

true!

There was endless mundane prattle in 2046??

there was the visual equivalent. (i like both 2046 and before sunset, btw.) but both are world-weary sequels to earlier sagas of unfulfilled romance. and both end ambiguously, suspended between possibility and heartbreak. or something like that.

i don't think The New World is a blind spot, it's more a case of a few critics who admire Malick pretending it's much better than it actually is.

― jed_, Saturday, December 12, 2009 3:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

or... people disagree.

i don't think it's a perfect film, but it is an extraordinary one, and it'd be in my top twenty or thirty.

http://www.hitfix.com/galleries/2009-12-13-10-worst-oscar-winners-of-the-decade

The picks for poor winners aren't bad, but it's when they plead the case for a different nominee that this one gets pretty idiotic. (Translation: When Crash won, it was a shame because, among the nominees, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck and Capote were better.)

yi yi wouldn't make urs morbius?

and I like eternal sunshine fine enough (jim carrey as underrated by serious types as sigourney weaver imo) but adaptation soured me on anything tht guys involved w/

will see again this month. Was more a 3-1/2-star film for me (and I've seen most of Yang's features -- it's not clearly a masterpiece of his, just one of the few that any Westerners have seen).

xp

they have a bunch of his up on karagarga, yi yi's my favourite of his but I'm no connoisseur

ah, kg ... i once had an account there, stopped in once, never did anything, let my account lapse, just tried to restart it, was told it was disabled, moved on with my life

it's quite a resource

I was just never one to watch ratios. Plus there's enough stuff that's available in the officially-released sectors that I haven't seen yet.

frankly, much of Yang is far more like watching paint dry than any Rohmer

house of mirth!

Yeah, that would make my top twenty.

how was 'timecode'? I remember it getting talked up at the time but I never got round to seeing it

too much of a gimmick to be really engaging iirc.

wow I forgot all about that one. cool technical feat but the story was not much more than "neurotic Hollywood people are neurotic"

ya figgis always has these neat ideas and then wastes them on making boring movies about moviemaking

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/18/100-best-films-of-noughties

zodiac at 100? fu feebs.

that's charitable

fu, feeb.

are they going to put adaptation in the top 10?

haven't read it close enough to see what's missing. i should stop reading these lists, the bland broadsheet ones anyway. i don't see the point or meanings of judgements like 'robocop 2' is four places better than 'true lies'.

can't believe that mediocre Vincent Chase thriller is at 94

haha

"dig!" at #12??

http://www.pajiba.com/guides/the-best-films-of-the-decade.php

oh hey look mulholland dr the tenenbaums eternal sunshine there will be blood

so disappointed in pajiba.com

much worse, dreck like Dirty Batman and Almost Cameron Crowe

http://gawker.com/5428998/there-will-be-blood-wins-the-decade

http://zeroforconduct.com/

a lot more MOR than i would have expected. i've seen (some of) 'la commune'. basically fails to advance on 'culloden' (1964). it's a peter watkins joint so it's as hectoring as all hell. it's an interesting pick though, ie it isn't 'almost famous'.

Slate has put up a best-of-decade poll aggregator:

http://www.slate.com/id/2238714/

Currently "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is in first place.

I admired La Commune, but yes, didn't do anything new.

i think gawker is right that 'eternal sunshine' had relatively little critical love, compared with, say, wes anderson's films. but iirc it was released like any other jim carrey film: no festival buzz, etc.: and it disappeared from cinemas right quick.

i've seen tons and tons of <3 for it... but maybe the fact that every other gondry film is a total POS has dampened ppl's enthusiasm

maybe Gawker should've waited until entities that aren't in a huge Me First fucking rush had run their decade lists...

that movie is alright but i really don't understand how it's ending up as this fairly common #1 pick

It's clearly the best American comedy of the decade by consensus, and dramas are too divisive.

i've seen tons and tons of <3 for it... but maybe the fact that every other gondry film is a total POS has dampened ppl's enthusiasm

― akira goldsman (s1ocki), Friday, December 18, 2009 6:16 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

i've seen tones of ====D-- for it too, but at the time -- iirc -- it didn't get magazine covers etc. it would be in my top ten if i did top tens.

how is it some big sleeper when it won a screenplay Oscar?

idk i don't pay attention to oscarshit.

(alright, fair point. the oscar came a year after the film came out, so it wasn't part of the oscbuzz i guess.)

Just bcz it wasn't a big hit doesnt mean it wasn't lauded by the media and industry. To get any Oscar for a film thta came out in APRIL (I recall?) indicates an unusual amount of affection.

Momento, heh

i've seen (some of) 'la commune'. basically fails to advance on 'culloden' (1964)
― Dean Gaffney's December (history mayne)

I admired La Commune, but yes, didn't do anything new.
― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius)

Ya, clearly this movie sucks and why would anyone ever pick it over There Will Be Blood?!

Not what I said, tho TWBB would be the class of PTA's career if it wasnt for that idiotic last 20 minutes.

id pick it over 'there will be blood'. but not over...

...

pineapple express

BOOM

Would pay serious coin to hear Peter Watkins introduce Pineapple Express.

wd take huckabees over sunshine

same here

would take anything over pineapple express

xp no

Voice w/ Mulholland leading the way (one vote for Revenge of the Sith):

http://www.villagevoice.com/filmpoll/index/best_of_decade/2009

did this on the other thread but the 25th hour?!

well, it'd make my top 100, maybe 50. When you give everybody just one vote that'll happen; I find it far more digestible than motherfucking Dogville.

the 25th hour love must be a new york thing? it's not terrible or anything but really?

i like the gaullist propaganda of 'army of the shadows' a whole bunch but picking it for best of the 00s is a cop-out move.

rad movie tho

inglourious basterds was better

would like to see a crossover frankly

shadowy basterds

Army of Shadows ridiculously overrated

so was the French Resistance.

touche!

http://www.movieline.com/2009/12/7-masterpieces-of-the-00s-youve-likely-never-seen.php?page=all

Wow, Musician!

meh

http://blogsimages.skynet.be/images_v2/000/000/000/20090715/dyn002_original_330_332_pjpeg__3aaf6c1346b5710fd69cf337ac9fcf56.jpg
PUISQUE NOUS SOMMES NES, an amazing documentary barely anyone in the US has seen

(The "wow" was mostly "hey I know the guy who directed that.")

new yorker list still the best

Reverse Shot into the top 4 now.

Also enjoying Matt Zoller Seitz counting down the directors of the decade over at The Salon. Bunch of other retrospective stuff there as well.

Definitely don't agree with everything on this, but Hammer To Nail's list is pretty much the only interesting list i've seen (and it has more right than wrong)

Happy to see George Washington and Shotgun Stories getting some love, and Junebug is better than your average American Indie. Half Nelson is one of those films that doesn't have much going for it other than the two central performances though.

it's the 25 best US indies rather than the 25 best period... i hope.

Eligible films include:

AMERICAN NARRATIVES THAT WERE PRODUCED FOR ONE MILLION DOLLARS OR LESS.

Granola flix.

Reverse Shot already has 3 stinkers in their top 10.

on behalf of Eric, I giggled at Zacharek listing Femme Fatale and I'm Not There consecutively.

L'Intrus was the only one of the Reverse Shot movies I could. not. finish.

Other than that, the weakest of the bunch are The Son and maybe Eternal Sunshine. So that's not bad.

You'll love my top ten.

What's your #1 comedy?

Haven't finalized yet, will probably end up being Jackass: Number Two.

Suspected so! The '00s equivalent of '70s Waters: comedy w/out comedy chops.

Comedy that's funny.

More like performance art that's funny (admittedly rare enough).

if you don't think the jackass guys have comedy chops i'm not sure you know what comedy chops are.

i mean, they ain't like... jack benny. but they from setup, payoff, timing.

I was more thinking along the lines of Eric hating written plotty comedies.

('30s comedians like Benny and Groucho doing Jackass stunts would be the kind of sketch I'd write for my TV show if I had one.)

haha.

Now that would be funny.

well if you think so, I am filled w/ doubt! :D

I don't think anybody linked this timeline, which has some trivia i wasn't aware of (last studio film to hit VHS?):

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-12-22/film/the-decade-in-film-a-timeline/

did u know terminator 2 was the last film to be released in 16mm for the home market? true fact

5/24: Fahrenheit 9/11 snags the Palme d'or at Cannes, sets the record for documentary grosses, and wins John Kerry the 2004 election.

hi-yo!

Brakhage being on the Oscar necrology was my biggest OH SHIT moment in front of the TV this decade

(was in the train, streets and office on Sept 11)

so it was basically your 9/11?

the art of seeing through one's own blinders

no, that would be "The winner is Crash." (in a packed gay bar)

xp

Nick's Flicks has posted a cinematic diary of the '00s. Some excellent contrarian stuff.

xp I would've laughed. (But that was shocking, f'realz.)

Lots of great writing on that blog; thanks for the tip, Alfred.

I'm putting my own list together today; was pleased to see him repping for The House of Mirth and We Own the Night

two more Hail Mary viewings before I "nominate" tom'w: Me and Orson Welles & Burma VJ.

(obv that's for '09 only)

Those Salon decade directors lookin OK.

http://www.filmlinc.com/b/?p=1490

My top ten.

Mine, of a sort.

Love or at least really like all of the movies I've seen on your list, Alfred. (Still have to knock the two '09 titles down.) Only exception: the Cronenberg, but you knew that.

think it's interesting you both rate tropical malady so highly. i still haven't seen syndromes (soon, it's in the next netflix batch), but of his other movies i like both blissfully yours and mysterious object more than malady. maybe i need to see malady again -- i liked it but did not love it, thought it was a sort of failed experiment. (blissfully yours otoh i think is great.)

You're not wrong; since I haven't rewatched Malady I'm prepared to think it's a failed experiment too -- a lapse in textual as opposed to visual invention.

I'm about to watch Syndromes right now. It's the highest ranking movie in the FC poll I haven't seen yet.

Malady is absolute hotness in every sense, tho. I could not stay awake through Mysterious Object. Found it ponderous, ugly and dull.

Blissfully Yours is absolutely a great movie, but it's been understandably eclipsed, it seems.

I could not stay awake through Mysterious Object. Found it ponderous, ugly and dull.

i understand this reaction and i'm not sure why i didn't have it. something in it worked for me. another failed experiment, but i think i was sort of caught up in trying to figure out what exactly the experiment was. never really decided, because i think maybe he never quite decided either.

Tropical Malady is like a really somnambulistic, really incandescent, really gay version of Seduction's "Two to Make It Right."

Ooh. I got hard instantly. But TM is closest to Expose's "Let Me Be the One." Think about it.

my favorite gay phantasmagoria of the decade is broken sky, but maybe that's because i'm not gay. i know morbz was bored by it.

Haven't taken the Julian H. plunge yet. The enthusiasm of Armond White, in this case, acted as a deterrent.

syndromes is just so great... i am surprised to see how strong a rep it's gotten tho, i guess i didn't realize it had penetrated that far. happy tho

alfred i like your list, tho not everything on it.

man i wish y tu mama hadn't had that horrible VO ending.

This is the list of the films Ebert likes. This list is the films he likes.

1. "Synecdoche, New York"
2. "The Hurt Locker"
3. "Monster"
4. "Juno"
5. "Me and You and Everyone We Know"
6. "Chop Shop"
7. "The Son"
8. "The 25th Hour"
9. "Almost Famous"
10. "My Winnipeg"

i gotta give it to him for putting my winnipeg on there

intrigued by high placing of 'l'intrus' in film comment's list. was it actually released in the US? i don't think it was in the UK: i saw it at the edinburgh festival. don't recall it making lists at the time, or having read a defence of it. of the three denis films i've seen from the 00s i wouldn't even place it higher than the so-so 'vendredi soir' -- but iirc some mag or other put the mediocre 'trouble every day' in their top twenty so i guess she is rising high.

time for a re-screen of mulholland drive, I think; haven't seen it since the cinema

still haven't seen an assayas either :/

yeah... i saw 'mulholland dr' in the cinema. it wasn't bad. nor was 'in the mood for love'. but neither of them stayed with me. but yadda yadda not only do these lists promote the lowest common denominator but also people seem to want to be on the winning team so vote for impersonal and accredited films that everyone seems to agree on. interesting that david thomson is a voter given that 1) film comment tore him a new one this decade 2) he doesn't actually watch new non-hollywood films.

L'Intrus had a brief theatrical run in NY, at least.

Wish I liked Weerasethakul more. Syndromes just a bit too opaque for me.

my favorite gay phantasmagoria of the decade is broken sky

Thousand Clouds of Peace, dammit, another film I have to rewatch in the next 72 hours...

FC: wtf Eureka all the way down at 121st?

l'intrus played in the uk, i saw it at the cornerhouse. i would probably take vendredi soir over it but can see the case for it being a bolder take on her style, which i think some of these lists are trying to take into account - to me syndromes and a century is a staple on some lists as an embodiment of some of the slow juxtaposition movies of the last ten years.

have not really been following these since the hilarious NYer one but the film comment looks pretty good .

I think the highest FC film I haven't seen is La Captive. Can't believe Warm Water under a Red Bridge doesn't rank at all, and maybe the best post-'70s Altman film shows up at 146th.

One of the few lists I've seen that has all 3 Reygadas features (Silent Light is the one I'd omit):

http://filmmakermagazine.com/webexclusives/2009/12/it-was-aughts-and-i-went-to-movies-by.php

Hunger, Silent Light and Dogville queued up on my laptop for tomorrow's flights.

If it's a bad day I will just watch bullshit on the seatback though.

your neighbour is sure to be peering over your shoulder to see those.

i know!

czn reviews: dogville is crap, silent light is ok but boring, japon is reygadas' best, eureka is ok don't understand morbs' stanning

well, 3/4 ain't bad.

caek, I would almost never watch three that solemn/abusive in a row. You need a Kung Fu Hustle in there.

or perhaps an apatow film amirite

ho ha hee. also, Miami Vice's #119 in FC tempts me to blow it off yet again in favor of oh, The 40-Year Old Virgin.

wonder how many votes u need to get to #119. can't tell how many voted, just that i know of at least one two-time contributor who wasn't polled chiz chiz.

these lists need a KJBozelka to shake em up

more shyamalan?

Eric, I like all those features you picked, tho am only passionate about 2 or 3. What happened to von Trier's Our Vicious Town?

Alfred, those are good (esp #1) except I'm lukewarm on Davies and Croney, and ugh to On the Road with a Dying Hot Chick.

thanks. I'm working on 11-20 now.

Also: I had to stop myself from including three Assayas films.

I'm an Ebert stan but hated "Synecdoche, New York."

the only Assayas that really got to me in '00s was Les Destinees.

That one almost made it!

btw you'll hate my #12, one of your bete noirs.

vote for impersonal and accredited films that everyone seems to agree on

"impersonal" is a very strange way to describe mulholland drive. (and in the mood for love for that matter, tho that one is obviously pretty formalist.)

caek, I would almost never watch three that solemn/abusive in a row.

and dogville is not "solemn and abusive," what the hell? it's funny!

(funny and abusive, but still funny.)

Abusively unfunny.

I'm finding that a disproportionate number of my choices come from 2000-05. Getting old and harder to please, maybe?

NAHHHHHHHHHHH

What happened to von Trier's Our Vicious Town?

TBH, I just used the list I drafted about six months back. The blog had to go up in a matter of minutes, as is usually the case with the stuff I write for that particular site.

so this is why canses don't get classeled very often?

we're not in canses anymore

Thousand Clouds of Peace, dammit, another film I have to rewatch in the next 72 hours...

yeah i haven't seen it, i should. if i liked his boring one, i'll probably like his non-boring one.

canses are permanently classeled imo

btw you'll hate my #12, one of your bete noirs.

I actually hate your 11 and 13 more!

I purportedly loved the movie, but at this point, I'm glad if I never have to hear of Eternal Sunshine ever again for the rest of my life.

One great Hollywood comedy per decade; the '90s was Groundhog Day.

That's a dumb rule.

re Eric, Alfred's lists, nice to see some love for Flight of the Red Balloon, Crimson Gold, and Spielberg. Also Best of Youth was probably my #1 of the decade.

i liked red balloon, maybe not quite at that level, but juliette really is great in it. i think she somehow ends up being underappreciated by virtue of her ubiquity, we tend to take her for granted. the french meryl streep i guess.

Best of Youth is, like, a good TV show.

EH, I hope you learn to love comedy in this decade, you lug!

My flight is already delayed, and I sense a long day, so I'm going to start off with Hunger (for the Thatcher lols) and then change to inflight bullshit around Greenland. The other two can wait. I should have saved Crank 1 & 2 for today (watched them both earlier this week).

Not that this years Oscarbait looks good, but I have decided to postpone my film lists until award season is over and everything is out in Europe.

Oh jesus, I've just seen the in-flight programming. My options are: Fame (w/ Hannah Montana), Love Happens, and All About Steve ("From The Producer Of Miss Congeniality"). Guess I don't have to worry about these creeping into my decade list. American carriers are the most disgusting savages. Never again.

What about Marie Antoinette, Alfred?

That's coming up!

off with your head!

One great Hollywood comedy per decade; the '90s was Groundhog Day.

That's a dumb rule.

dude, it's not a rule, it's what happened.

Like the daughter in All That Heaven Allows said, "Your values are confused."

about to put on Eureka, perhaps followed by What Time Is It There? and The Witnesses.

I ejected Looney Tunes: Back in Action after 35 minutes.

Eureka, the Aoyama film? I thought it was great at the time but that nine years ago. am I crazy or is it how I remember, the Tokyo guy became more and more annoying until they kicked him out, and that was it? he just disappeared from the film and we never found out what became of him? i liked that.

this thread is overwhelming to me because i've hardly seen anything the past 3 years and can't decide where to start with catching up. have had haynes 'i'm not there' out from netflix for like 6 months.

Send it back.

Oh, yeah. Syndromes obviously pretty phenomenal, but never quite wormed its way into my heart/soul/etc as did Tropical Malady.

And now I'm Not There is the highest FC poll film you haven't seen, right?

nah there's a TON of them i haven't seen, i am kind of embarrassed. including 'mulholland drive'! i had an irrational hate for david lynch for a long time. i think 'wild at heart' caused it.

And now I'm Not There is the highest FC poll film you haven't seen, right?

Nah, there are seven others higher than that, Zodiac being the highest up, sadly.

belated lol at the only list with all three regaydas films being by filmmaker magazine.

i saw that guy's kiarostami rip... (japon?) back in the day, knowing nothing about him. has he improved because that was one terrible film.

that was not an AK rip. I am least crazy about his recent Dreyer "hommage."

Am I to presume you don't much like Ordet, then, either?

no, I liked the climax of Ordet the FIRST time!
Best things about Silent Light was the goofy stuff like watching the entire TV variety number.

excellent daria, you remembered that detail far better than I. Eureka still looking top-10, too bad it's almost impossible to see.

2-part clip party:

http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/we-love-the-aughties-an-end-of-decade-clip-party-part-one/Content?oid=1485536

shocked to see he didn't include Miami Vice. the Waking Life monologue is great.

of all the missing films....

well mostly because of Zoller Seitz's Miami Vice obsession.

Can't decide if it's just that the first half is more well thought out or if it's just that movies were, in general, much better in the first half of the decade ...

think he stopped caring around The New World

Maybe; at some point it does seem to just become one-clip-after-another without the layering, et al.

Really love the part where Eternal Sunshine melts into Harry Potter.

middle "silent" section of Three Times is maybe best Hou ever.

for now, I think I've got my tops settled, though the order is tenuous after the first 7 or so (US theatrical releases in the '00s):

1. Mulholland Dr.
2. The Wind Will Carry Us
3. Munich
4. The Son
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
6. The Saddest Music in the World
7. Far from Heaven
8. Eureka
9. Pulse
10. Hunger
11. The Virgin Suicides
12. Gosford Park
13. Fantastic Mr. Fox
14. What Time Is It There?
15. The White Diamond

Don't forget The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

very snarky! it's in the top 30 somewhere.

The sci-fi story in 2046 now looks kind of insufferable, so I knocked it down a few notches.

ehh, he already has 'hunger' -- WE GET THE POINT, BRITISH PEOPLE R EVIL.

xpost

I had forgotten I owned Pulse, and watching it for the first time in years I found a couple of the scenes -- a suicide leap and a burning airplane -- had stuck in my head like few others. I think Eric and I agree it's the best horror film of the 2000s?

Wow Munich, huh? So don't get it. Haven't seen 8 and 10. But dig the rest (though not a fan of how Eternal Sunshine just sputters out by the end).

Eric H, Soto, did u do top tens?

The rest of your top ten, I mean.

I've got the top thirty here: http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/

More today and tomorrow.

Oh yeah, you too, history mayne. I have a feeling that your top ten will serve as a kind of cinematic super ego to me.

i did it somewhere else and can't remember.

it was nine american films, one french (demonlover); 'zodiac' was number one. don't really "do" lists though (so them sincerely i mean).

I can't vouch for the exactitude of my judgment of Eureka, as I watched it for the second time ever last week on an OOP 7- or 8-year old videocassette that wobbled a lot.

Found the last 5 minutes of Eternal Sunshine the most moving thing in Kaufman's entire oeuvre.

do them sincerely i mean.

from 9/10 American plus Assayas' worst film, we can tell!

of the ones i've seen (only since irma vep), assayas's worst film is 'les destinees sentimentale'. 'boarding pass' is kind of lame but i'd rather he did more of that kind (only better) than more trad euro stuff.

just haven't much liked many non-english-language films this decade -- can't help it. it's partly because i can't relate them to the culture i inhabit -- i guess i could with 'yi yi' or 'unknown pleasures' but i didn't like them enough. the big euro-auteurs like tarr, haneke, and (cough) von trier, i just straight up do not like. (nor almodovar, the dardennes, ozon...)

assayas's worst film is 'les destinees sentimentale'.

In my top 40!

Another high-ranking Irish rebel title: Breakfast on Pluto.

I think I said upthread that Assayas has made, unexpectedly, three of my favorite films this decade.

can't help it. it's partly because i can't relate them to the culture i inhabit

Not surprised OI OI OI OI

(whereas i can do that with 'southland tales' and 'miami vice' lol)

history mayne, you were extremely keen on Code Unknown at one point.

i've mostly lost interest (actually walked out of two of the four or five films i saw in the cinema this year) but my list would probaby look something like:

1. Code Unknown
2. Gabrielle
3. Caché
4. Syndromes and a Century
5. Entre les Murs (aka The Class)

and, in any order,

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Beau Travail
Mulholland Dr.
Boy A
Magnolia (yes, srsly)

I don't get ozon at all. Britishers line up to praise the man and I've yet to see a single interesting thing he's done aside from Swimming Pool, which is really just passable schlock on par with something like Cellular. I'm really pleased he's not populating these lists as much as I thought he would. That said, I'm probably just basing this critical-love on reading the Guardian through the decade.

Ozon's new one is a weirdie, but has some hilarious flying-baby scenes.

I gotta say that the post-Antonioni ennui/malaise in which the Ozon of Under the Sand and The Headless Woman traffic leaves me cold. Neither filmmaker has the visual sense to mitigate the script holes.

in the case of The Headless Woman, I'm not sure the script is fabriclike enough to be accused of having holes.

history mayne, you were extremely keen on Code Unknown at one point

i know, i know.

i did like that one film -- 'heading south'? actually i've liked all of cantet's films a lot, hell of a lot. so maybe i'd have two token french films.

nothing wrong with 'magnolia' imo, though i prefer 'punch-drunk love'.

i think 'under the sand' was maybe the one not-terrible ozon film. but he's mediocre.

i liked 'red lights', that was a pretty good film and the guy who directed it (also did 'roberto succo') is very talented, in need of better material. forgotten his name.

xpost Yeah I don't think those films could even have holes. They ARE holes.

I'll finalize my list later today (being that it's due and all), but I'm sorry about all the movies I didn't get around to.

You did all you could. It's not your fault. You mustn't blame yourself.

I sense you are being facetious.

all these lists are, or imo should be, so personal and subjective anyway that there's no reason to fret about missing movies. it's YOUR list of YOUR decade yo! shouldn't be batting for definitiveness.

Anton Ego otm

Oh mnm, I feel no guilt that Jackass Number Two is probably going to be in my top 25.

i mean, ebert's list is insane, but at least it's guaranteed to not be like anybody else's fwiw

I really intended to watch Jackass #2 but ran out of time, ditto Eric Rohmer's last film, lol

Yeah, for that I sort of dig it. It takes some real force of personality to do a list like that which snubs Mulholland, In the Mood for Love, Eternal Sunshine, et al, and finds room for Miranda July and Monster.

He may have been singlehandedly responsible for pimping Monster so assiduously during its pre-Oscar crit award period.

Remembered at the last minute to put Nick Broomfield's doc on Aileen Wuornos on my list. (someone alert Tape Store)

I enjoyed ranking Dude, Where's My Car right behind Notre Musique. Didn't have the balls of steel to flip them.

Is Notre Musique good? Like, if Alphaville and Pierrot Le Fou are among my favourites, will I like that one?

I definitely prefer Notre to In Praise of Love. Not sure if either will end up listed by me, tho.

I think Eric and I agree it's the best horror film of the 2000s?

Absolutely, excepting maybe War of the Worlds.

not sure, 'leuth, but NM was the first new Godard I'd liked since maybe JLG/JLG.

how much other Kiyoshi Kurosawa do you like, Eric? Charisma might've made my list if it had gotten a US theater run, and I liked the non-horrors Bright Future and Tokyo Sonata OK.

re: NM, well my best friend has it so I'll push for a viewing next time I'm round! as for my own top movies of the decade, well...hmm. they're a bit dull. i need to see more. he's lent me mulholland dr, maybe i'll watch that one today, see whether morbs has a point

Totally forgot about Bright Future. Thanks.

Magnolia (yes, srsly)

'99, though I wouldn't be surprised if it had been released in the UK in 2000.

i'll go for punch drunk love then. i couldn't decide between the two.

Liked Doppelganger moderately when I watched it some time back, but haven't seen Bright Future or Charisma. Age old story, et al.

'magnolia' was 00 in the UK. like 'beau travail'.

'demonlover' i had to watch twice to figure out wth was happening. way too long, and as far as much of the crazy stuff that went down being primarily generated by some kind of corporate rivalry, all i could think was 'i don't believe you.' 'boarding gate' i gave up on, though i really like asia argento (despite/because of the way she seems to act exactly the same in every film?)

ozon 'swimming pool' was so disappointing, the end of it was just cheap.

man i don't get some people, history mayne wtf. i thought demonlover was pretty stupid, magnolia is pretty bad and punch drunk love was way worse.

really helpful post i know.

hey but you guys both hated inglorious basterds!

i know, i thought i'd made a friend at last

i'm not even a "film guy" i shdn't be mucking up the thread anyway

sorry, you dont have any friends :(

u havent even prestiged yet

yes i have!!!

this one time i completely steeged

see i didn't even notice...

i will never be a 'film guy' ;_;
i've come to terms with it though.

'inglourious basterds' is bad huh? what a surprise. i don't like tarantino at all.

'inglourious basterds' is bad huh?

Only according to goole, history mayne, and Dr. Morbius, and the latter hasn't even seen it.

yes, ONLY us.

well also david denby

so you guys are in p good company

and the souls of nazis

ya much like morbius, hitler's ghost probably hasn't seen the movie but hates it already

i bet the cinemas in hell show a lot of QT tho amirite

they also have ILX access in the lobby

you can log in but you can never sign out

"Simply another testament to his movie love. The problem is that by making the star attraction of his latest film a most delightful Nazi, one whose smooth talk is as lovingly presented as his murderous violence, Mr. Tarantino has polluted that love." - goole, history mayne, David Denby or Dr. Morbius writing under the name of Manohla Dargis

does armond do year end lists?

FYI

~~~~The Top 75 films/movies of the 2000s/oughties VOTING THREAD~~~~

Armond generally does a Better Than year-end list, where he contrasts an acclaimed POS with one of his favorites that succeeds where the other film fails. Haven't seen it yet, or one for the decade.

Obv the movie has plenty more dissenters than the people I named. Even restricted to ILX, I forgot jjusten, call all destroyer, and a couple other people. I was just trying to correct what I read to be Daria's misconception about the ILX consensus on the film, which I think is generally pretty positive.

manohla dargis, definitely a good one to have in your camp

Vadim Rizov riffs on that concept here, xpost:
http://www.ifc.com/blogs/indie-eye/2009/12/christmas.php

camp=pants?

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thelostboy/archives/the_25_sexiest_performances_of_the_2000s/

Lior Ashkenazi and Ronit Elkabetz @ #12 = robbed.

my thoughts on tarantino's 'movie love,' is.. well, what does it mean if you testify to this by riffing on sergio leone in a way that sucks and is boring?

i'm sorry to say i didn't get to Late Marriage, either. :(

Don't worry. I got it covered.

late marriage is so great. i wish i'd put it on my list.

great movie! the scene where the father and all the beefy relatives home invade the woman's place, and then he explains that each of the men is older than each of the wives, one after the other, so terrific

manohla dargis, definitely a good one to have in your camp

― max, Monday, January 4, 2010 9:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

pauline kael contacted me from the spirit world to say it teabagged sweaty nazi balls.

thats ok, i talked to ORSON WELLES, he said, it was AWESOME

EW critix love them some Sideways:

Owen Gleiberman:
http://movie-critics.ew.com/2009/12/25/owens-ten-best-of-the-decade/

1. Far From Heaven (2002)
2. Sideways (2004)
3. The Century of the Self (2005)
4. Gladiator (2000)
5. Chuck & Buck (2000)
6. Moulin Rouge! (2001)
7. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
8. Munich (2005)
9. Lilya 4-Ever (2003)
10. Casino Royale (2006)

Lisa Schwarzbaum:
http://movie-critics.ew.com/2009/12/30/lisas-10-best-movies-of-the-decade/

1. There Will Be Blood (2007)
2. Sideways (2004)
3. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
4. Yi Yi (2000)
5. The New World (2005)
6. Zodiac (2007)
7. The Dark Knight (2008)
8. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)
9. Moolaade (2005)
10. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005)

Not too long after Alexander Payne’s movie was released, a joke started to make the rounds: that film critics all loved it because all film critics look like Paul Giamatti.

makes me think of the 30 rock quote

aw, happy to see zodiac, i thought lisa's list would have more pop film

4. Gladiator (2000)
5. Chuck & Buck (2000)
6. Moulin Rouge! (2001)
7. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

For fuck's sake -- GROSS.

Alright, these ended up being my top 20 for the decade.

01. Tropical Malady
02. Inland Empire
03. Femme Fatale
04. Pulse
05. Kings and Queen
06. Dogville
07. Munich
08. Miami Vice
09. Crimson Gold
10. The Case of the Grinning Cat
11. Children of Men
12. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
13. Esther Kahn
14. Decasia
15. Elephant
16. Mulholland Drive
17. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
18. Good Bye, Dragon Inn
19. Yi Yi
20. Bad Education

zzzzzzzz, i know, et al

Not at all! I love that list! Two very difficult films at the top and a brave, wacky choice for #3. Esther Kahn might end up on my top ten but both Desplechins are unassailable classics. I saw Dogville before Breaking the Waves and the latter made the former's sadism a bit too delectable. Still, conceptually brilliant. And not boring for whatever that's worth. Munich again, huh? Well, at least A.I. Artificial Intelligence is up there. I've had no luck defending Miami Vice. Might as well have been a hand-painted Brakhage short for all my efforts. Can I bring you along the next time I have to defend it (and there WILL be a next time)? The only thing I recall about Dave Chappelle's Block Party was wondering how someone could own such a cavernous building in Brooklyn and not be a millionaire.

For fun, here's J.R. Jones' capsule review of Pulse from Chicago Reader.

Desplechin's generally OK (except for Esther Kahn, yuck) but doesn't move me much. At all. But at least a dozen of Eric's are somewhere in my top 40.

I value Mulholland Dr over Inland Empire just because I understand it. I'm old-fashioned that way.

OK, i'm checking out Pulse, I assume it's the Japanese one

hai

I guess I should go to 20:

16. Crimson Gold
17. Decasia
18. Kung Fu Hustle
19. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
20. Les Destinees Sentimentales

decasia is definitely the stoner film buff movie of the decade

in a good way

That would be a terrifying trip. I'd just loop "Light is Calling" over and over and over instead.

... a short film that would actually probably rank #2 or #3 on my list above if I was including shorts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvbULcqSPC8

I will add Decasia to my list of stoner clasics I've loved unimpaired.

Eric, you DO like The Wind Will Carry Us, don't you?

Yep, it ranked somewhere in the 30s or 40s.

I value Mulholland Dr over Inland Empire just because I understand it. I'm old-fashioned that way.

i think of them more like a painting and a frenzied sketch pad. love them both, but preferring inland empire is to some degree a preference for process over product. (not that there's anything wrong with that...)

and i liked pulse for its generalized dread, but i was never sure what the dread was all about. (one of those movies that made me feel like i lacked the specific cultural reference points to make sense of it.)

I think the movie is a pretty clear-cut metaphor for the alienating effects of Internet socializing.

well right, but it feels tied to some much deeper cultural undercurrents, things like this -- alienation is alienation, on a certain level, but it can have very different contours. japanese alienation, at least in pulse, feels different to me from american alienation. which, as an american watching pulse, just adds a layer of alien-ness -- double the alienation. it makes it more mysterious. i was just very aware that the movie probably meant something to a japanese audience that i couldn't quite get a grasp on.

(which is obviously true of lots of "foreign" films, it's part of what makes them foreign. but as a viewer i'm more aware of it in some movies than in others.)

All very true, but I'm certainly not above solipsitically gleaning what works about foreign movies within a context I understand.

Either way, some terrifying sequences in that flick.

yeah the experience of it is very unsettling.

I think the movie is a pretty clear-cut metaphor for the alienating effects of Internet socializing.

or of the electronic age in general. And the kid who shouts that "death isn't real" to him discovers otherwise.

yet more:

http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/1371

The extremely slow roll-out at The exploding kinetoscope continues. Not even sure why I'm keeping up as I'm hardly an avid read of the blog, but his yearly choices are amusing me for whatever reason.

scott foundas's remarks are, um, something.

by "something" i mean facile, pretentious, lightweight.

Leafing thru my new Film Comment's individual critic lists/comments, an awful lotta ppl overrating Eastwood and Haneke and underrating Spielberg.

man it just drives me nuts that a friend of the worker like yourself can tolerate spielberg for five minutes

jeez man, best practitioner of the classical Hollywood style still standing. The critical consensus is around A.I., but did you see Munich?

i didn't, it was terrible

;-)

Guiltily mentioned by several of the FC-polled: Pootie Tang

Leafing thru my new Film Comment's individual critic lists/comments, an awful lotta ppl overrating Eastwood and Haneke and underrating Spielberg.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 15, 2010 8:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

god eastwood is so terrible

Michael Koresky of Criterion Collection/Reverse Shot very close to otm w/ his best filmmakers of the decade: Joe, Dardennes, Spielberg -- and then calls Innaritu the "filmmaker of the decade" for his pernicious influence in creating "the New Phony."

Cheshire and Edelstein both put Munich in their top ten.

Do you have a subscription, Morbs? Still haven't seen my new issue.

deliberate morbs baiting, but dogville is at least 5x smarter and more morally interesting than munich. (i will grant that it has fewer exciting action scenes.)

Both Munich and Dogville are fantastic. No need to pit the two against eachother. Let's, instead, pause for a moment to remember how wrong everyone who praised Mystic River, Flags of Our Fathers and Space Cowboys were.

i haven't seen the latter two (did people actually watch space cowboys?), but i'm ok with the sentiment. mystic river is terrible.

my parents have space cowboys on dvd

Honestly, I haven't seen Cowboys yet either. But the only people I ever saw praising it were the same ones now defending Invictus. People, stop.

Let's, instead, pause for a moment to remember how wrong everyone who praised Mystic River, Flags of Our Fathers and Space Cowboys were.

these people exist?

(outside the academy)

Both Munich and Dogville are fantastic. No need to pit the two against eachother. Let's, instead, pause for a moment to remember how wrong everyone who praised Mystic River, Flags of Our Fathers and Space Cowboys were.

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Friday, January 15, 2010 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i haven't seen the latter two (did people actually watch space cowboys?), but i'm ok with the sentiment. mystic river is terrible.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Friday, January 15, 2010 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fight the real enemy - million dollar baby

space cowboys was ok!

havent seen it in 7 or 8 years but it was a hell of a lot better than invictus or million $ baby

Dogville is neither smart nor morally interesting.

Dogville is only smart if YOU HATE AMERICA!

Space Cowboys was my favorite Eastwood film of the '00s (maybe except for Letters from Iwo Jima) and I hated Invictus, so there goes that theory. They are at opposite ends of the pretentiousness scale.

Only people who haven't seen boxing films of the '30s and '40s (eg, Eric) have an excuse for loving Million Dollar Baby.

The FC poll's best directors (Almodovar was 11th, Tsai 13th!):

Jia
Weerasethakul
Denis
Van Sant
Dardenne bros
Eastwood
Haneke
Lynch
Desplechin
Wong

richard kelly was robbed.

god eastwood is so terrible

for some reason the french crix REALLY LOVE HIM and i guess that's what leads to his overration in the anglosphere.

who's Jia?

Suggest Ban Permalink

Dogville is neither smart nor morally interesting.

― Freddy 'The Wonder Chicken' (Gukbe)

OTM

'platform' guy.

ok ta.

i haven't even seen antichrist, i know i'll hate the shit out of it.

Jia:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0422605/

Unknown Pleasures and Still Life made much more of an impact on me than Platform, did ppl just love it bcz it was long?

antichrist is half-good! also it looks great. xpost

would definitely sub von trier for haneke there. if you can only have one moralizing euro-sadist on your list, take the funny one.

Haneke is funnier, just unintentionally.

I hate that director's list

well, imagine how much more you'd hate it if Spielberg was on it.

Clint and Haneke are the two stickouts as overcelebrated.

and where is todd haynes huh huh huh?

(i'd take him over van sant, even tho i like van sant)

I hate that director's list

I love Alfred's screen name.

Todd Haynes couldn't be further out of fashion in a Tarantino culture.

In pastiche mode, neither Tarantino nor Haynes make movies that eclipse/exceed their source material. But at least Tarantino's movies are fun.

i think what haynes does is more complicated and interesting than pastiche. (tarantino not so much, but when he's good he's a really great pasticher.)

If you think semiotics is the apex of cinema, sure.

anti-semiotism

semiotics > postliterate bottom-feeders

and Jackie Brown was certainly superior to nearly all blaxploitation, one of the most racist horseshit genres ever perpetrated.

(echoing Armond here)

It also doesn't get more fun than Dennis Quaid entering the bar in FFH. "ID?" Or any of Patricia Clarkson's scenes.

Which scene in I'm Not There did you think was the least fun, Eric?

Who's talking about I'm Not There?

and then calls Innaritu the "filmmaker of the decade" for his pernicious influence in creating "the New Phony."

I don't like Innaritu's movies, but what does "the New Phony" mean exactly.

You know, the relatively plotless, multi-scenario, stream-of-humanity genre that reached its nadir in Crash.

Isn't that just Short Cuts, though?

I'm cool with calling Altman the filmmaker of the decade.

neither Tarantino nor Haynes make movies that eclipse/exceed their source material

see pal, you just admitted Don't Look Back > I'm Not There!

<3

I thought Crash's obvious debt was to Traffic.

you just admitted Don't Look Back > I'm Not There

No I didn't, but feel free to do an end zone dance anyway.

Liked Altman's last three, but Jia, Spielberg and Guy Maddin have better cases.

Denis and Chereau not far behind, despite a misstep or two.

I thought Crash's obvious debt was to Traffic.

lols!

i know i wanted lots of coke while watching Crash.

All those filmmakers had missteps. Doesn't mean I love them any less.

Excepting Chereau, maybe. Didn't see any of his.

you're not crazy about the French besides Chris Marker, are you?

Nope.

Except for Desplechin.

And Bresson.

Oh, and Tati.

And Resnais, and Renoir, and Akerman, Varda, Godard, Vigo, Cocteau, Breillat, Gondry, Noe, Jacquot, Rouch, Genet and what the hell throw the best films of Buñuel in there too.

But, you know, beyond that ...

And beyond Epstein.

And beyond Truffaut, too.

And Dumont.

And Les Vampires.

But I can see where the confusion might stem.

ugh, Dumont.

Desplechin too chilly for me.

That was not actually me opening the door for you to cherry pick. More of an invitation to fuck off.

But I can see where the confusion might stem.

ooooooooooooooooook.

I've been fucking off for years. Fucking on, I really fry people's nerves.

Have you considered the possibility that it's become a bad habit?

Hi, guys! Welcome to l'inferne!

I've considered the possibility that I meant "guitar music" instead of "the French."

Love to stay and chat, but I'm on my way to a midnight screening of The Room.

I hear it's terrible, and you like that sort of thing.

L'inferne?

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/1236862295_black_guy_dancing.gif

Yep, pretty much.

chereau's mis-step was Intimacy. i'm really looking forward to seeing Persécution.

Eric, you should check out Gabrielle (i think it's an unqualified masterpiece, definitely one of my top whatever of the decade) or "Those Who Love Me Can Take The Train." the latter kind of falls apart in the second half, imo, but since you like Desplechin so much you might actually think it falls together, who knows. i should see it again.