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.)

with no individual top 10s

You are seriously disturbed by this. Seriously.

"Cahiers du Cinema declared Carlito's Way the movie of the 1990s"

This I did not know.

Didn't see it upthread, but their picks for the '00s, for the record

1. Mulholland Drive, David Lynch
2. Elephant, Gus Van Sant
3. Tropical Malady, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2. The Host, Bong Joon-ho
3. A History of Violence, David Cronenberg
4. La Graine et le mulet, Abdellatif Kechiche
5. A l’ouest des rails, Wang Bing
4. War of the Worlds, Steven Spielberg
5. The New World, Terrence Malick
6. Ten, Abbas Kiarostami

Seems there really was no other choice for this decade's #1 film, outside of the TIFF Cinematheque.

cahiers du cinema has always been kind of wack

wack > boring > Anchorman

truly bizarre list. is that based on critics votes?

I like its bizarreness, especially the War of the Worlds inclusion.

what's really bizarre is they mised out clint eastwood

i just got paid for an article i wrote taking down cahiers (the legend of cahiers), but it won't get published because the man doesn't want the truth to come out

Missing out Clint Eastwood is the ILX poll's finest achievement imo

yeah no

but cahiers likes him a bunch iirc

i h8 the man

Shame about the article. As someone who only knows about Cahiers in its Hawks-and-Hitchcock-loving heyday, I'd like to read it.

well, the truth will out (via embrace) because the man can't hold it down forever, aka working on gettin' paid 2ce.

i just got paid for an article i wrote taking down cahiers (the legend of cahiers), but it won't get published because the man doesn't want the truth to come out

― Stephen Glass, Friday, February 12, 2010 8:13 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You are seriously disturbed by this. Seriously.

Mildly. Mildly.

I mean, the VV poll used to have that essay section where ppl would write about films only they voted for; a nice touch.

I mean, we did it for '09 so it just seems to follow.

No. We are a collective and we said Femme Fatale is the 9th best movie of the last 10 years.

haha, that's not even one I'm going to warn ppl about!

Struggling to see the point of warning people about movies that rank 38th, 39th and 40th.

Seriously struggling to see the point of warning people about a list they probably won't even be looking at in the first place.

One of my friends professed love for the list and said she would be Netflixing much of it.

ie, plz give up miserablilism for Lent. xo

True. Skip L'enfant.

Le fils is the essential one, Scroogey

Also the one I like. Also, not miserablism.

thank GOD we had no clint in our poll

Yes.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/02/17/magazine/1247467035861/the-best-performances-of-the-decade.html?ref=movies

various actors talking abt the best performances of the 00s. best part is that the dude who plays avatar reps 4 eddie murphy

major, major lols @ woody harrelson's bit

Jake G once again wins yummiest actor of the decade.

major, major lols @ woody harrelson's bit

"The guy from The Lives of Others. That guy. (off-camera shout). Ulrich. Yeah. That guy."

fuckin love jeff bridges

major, major lols @ woody harrelson's hat

how do you get to jeff bridges?

go straight down cleo lane then take a first left along kirsty ally til you get to meryl streep. you can't miss it.

someone shd introduce Mike White to Jeff.

Not only is Vera Farmiga the best thing about the Reitman piffle, she's OTM on Fassbender.

hey y'all, this is probably a more appropriate place for this shameless post--a few of my favorite docs, including the incredibly difficult to find LA MERE, are streaming for free on The Auteurs through next week...

link?

http://www.theauteurs.com/programs/50

cool

so is this where i can say what movies i liked? my favorite by far is platform, but i also liked happiness (the korean one), the uncertainty principle, perhaps love (hong kong romance/musical), the living world, our beloved month of august, the cat leaves home, djomeh, linda linda linda, west of the tracks (big long documentary on chinese industrialization and deindustrialization), the new world (really problematic but hard to leave off a list like this since so much of it is really good), elegy of a voyage (also really liked the sun), far from heaven, the headless woman, in the dark (and tulpan), princess raccoon (which it seems about five people in america saw), um...before sunset, a.i., darjeeling limited (and wes anderson's credit card commercial and fantastic mr. fox, still have a hard time w/the other ones he made this decade), a history of violence (and eastern promises though i didn't like the denouement), triple agent, bamako, the prestige, inglourious basterds, morvern callar, am i forgetting anything now? i'll thin of something else.

really hated elephant (and to a lesser extent last days), control, away we go, keep a knocking or whatever that wenders film was called (amazed i sat through the whole thing)...

oh and of jia zhangke's other stuff i can't say i really got into still life, and in general i'm sort of suspecting he's become kind of privileged and boring. but his short film in public (made around 2001? 2002?) is amazing.

oh yeah and obligatory mention of pixar

and this will sound pretentious but i liked paraguayan hammock (sp?) and the forsaken land and syndromes and a century, all really arty films made by people from small countries where nobody ever sees their movies

maybe not _small_ countries but countries w/o internationally prominent film cultures. or something.

what dyou like abt 'platform'?

everything! sorry totally horrible answer but i don't know that i have the time to explain at length. maybe will get back to this.

Well, they picked the right Pedro Costa film for #2.

http://cinema-scope.com/wordpress/2010/03/cinema-scope-top-ten-films-of-the-decade/

BEST AVANT-GARDE FILMS & VIDEO 2000-2009

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/mj10/agpoll.htm

continuing to update this online community with the exploding kinetoscope's infrequent countdown

really tedious choices there

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

Genius observation save for the fact that "Two to Make It Right" is already really gay.