The (Now-Overrated) ILX Top 100 Films of the 2000s Poll Results

the production design on both minority report and AI are rabishing. minority report platform game cgi jump sequence aside, i think they are two of the prettiest, most visually interesting recent studio films.

also Farrell looked daaaaaamn fine.

i think CF rates as my movie star of the decade: miami vice, the new world, in bruges. untouchable really.

It's even clearer in Breaking the Waves (which is quite similar to DitD) that von Trier thinks there's something noble in all this female suffering, so I don't really think his point is to dissect professional victims.

Actually, I think that is his point - I don't think he really sees nobility in anything.

only if you listen to lyrics?

xxxp

Colin Farrell? Wasn't he in that excruciatingly awful Alexander movie? Or am I confusing him with Will Farrell - or someone else - Alexander should have been a comedy.

How do you explain the ending of BtW then? It's made pretty clear that the protagonist's husband miraculously gets better because of her suffering.

lol @ rabishing

you can't see what the top 10 ilm singles are w/out loading all their wankin' JUST FROM TODAY.

the only wacky Korean movie I much liked was Save the Green Planet!

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:29 PM (6 minutes ago)

The top 3 were Taylor Swift, Bat for Lashes, and Lady Gaga. Let's hope the film poll fares better

The guy who directed Save the Green Planet! hasn't made anything in 7 years either, what's with all this Malick Syndrome?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/alltherealgirls.jpg

On one hand, I found All the Real Girls to be somewhat uneven. The older characters -- Leland and Elvira -- seem underdeveloped, more like sketches. And though I appreciate Green's impulse toward a loose, documentary style of filmmaking, I think his films could benefit from more judicious editing. There's an early scene with Feng-Shui on Leland's shoulders as they walk silently through a field -- the cut to the scene is oddly abrupt, and the camera lingers on them for way too long. These moments add up.

On the other hand, the movie had a profound impact on me, like almost nothing else I've seen. I dwelled on it all last week, writing about it several times in my journal, and coming to new understandings each time. And I saw it again the other day. I'm still thinking about it.

I think it affected me so strongly because it worked on two levels. As a movie fan, I absolutely love anything that's naturalistic and episodic. I smiled at scenes like the conversation between Noel and Bust-Ass about food expanding in the stomach -- it's such a goofy dialogue, but so right on with its small-talk awkwardness. And, as Green says, moments like these are nothing that a "witty screenwriter" could've come up with, or else it'd feel contrived.

― jaymc (jaymc)

ok, i saw this movie on a complete fluke occurance. i was supposed to see irreversible at the gene siskel, but it was sold out. so my friend and i walked down to the esquire and hit all the real girls. i had never heard of david gordon green but my friend said that his influences were quite impressive. after i got out, alls i could do is say wow. i didnt know what hit me and i couldnt really express it in words.

i never got another chance to see it in the theaters, but it haunted me no other movie has.

― todd swiss

#86

All the Real Girls
David Gordon Green
2003
United States
(224.5 points, 12 votes)

Colin Farrell? Wasn't he in that excruciatingly awful Alexander movie? Or am I confusing him with Will Farrell...

― sarahel, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:39 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

But, as someone who studied film academically...

― sarahel, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:14 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

no offence like, but what the fuck were they teaching you?

Not even Morb. SD's musicality dances around pop conventions just like LVT movies construct their own false fronts and faux catharses.

all the real girls basically sucks but danny mcbride is in it and zooey deschanel is bonertime for reals.

only if you listen to lyrics?

Yeah. I was mostly thinking of Alex in NYC's explicit association of Steely Dan with wine bars (frequented by people wearing corduroy blazers with patches on the elbows).

haha, rabishing = ravishing. i was trying to type quickly to get us off LvT.

don't disagree with nrq re: farrell (ha!). miami vice is going to be top 10 here, i think.

fitting that the first movie in the thread from my ballot is memories of murder

Only two films from the second half of the decade so far.

I'm almost ready to call Miami Vice for #2.

wondering how many more korean films we'll get... besides oldboy and the host

xp history mayne - I graduated in 1996 - before Colin Farrell's started and Will Ferrell's roles consisted of "Construction Worker," "Roommate from Hell #1," "Man at Meeting," and "Young Man."

re LvT, I guess there's only so much faux/false I can take before it seems hateful.

Wanted to like ATRG. It's... committed. D G Green's whelming post-breakthrough stuff even had me re-evaluating George Washington.

that's all for today, see you all here tomorrow......

thanks omar!

re LvT, I guess there's only so much faux/false I can take before it seems hateful.

Yeah, it's a fine line - I can generally appreciate Lars von Trier because there are interesting formal and structural parallels, but Todd Solondz just seems really hateful and too misanthropic/nihilistic.

see, I (generally) feel the oppoaite.

me too, like solondz, can't stand von trier

i don't like either!

solondz isn't completely terrible, lvt is. can live w.o. both.

with solondz I get a sense the director is expressing his own self-loathing in funny/painful ways, von trier is like "I'm zed, you're marsellus wallace, let's do this"

I don't blame omar little for only including the first three paragraphs of my 2004 post on All the Real Girls, but here's the rest:

So I can champion the film in a "more movies like this, please!" way. But it also emotionally devastated me, which I think has to do with the psychological complexity of the characters. You can see how genuinely Paul and Noel love each other, how well they get along -- but they are in totally different places in their lives, and they can't understand how significantly that affects their relationship. The tragedy of their story is that they are the "best boy and girl for each other" at that moment, and that they do still have feelings for each other, despite everything that happens.

Where these two levels come together is in remarkable scenes like the motel room -- from the tension-diffusing pillow fight to Noel's soul-baring story about her scar. If that's not among the most remarkable performances I've seen from an actress, I don't know what is -- in ten minutes, she goes from nervousness (about being there) to playfulness (the pillow fight) to pain (the scar story) and then joyful love (at being able to share it with Paul). She cries and laughs at the same time. She expresses volumes with just the way her mouth moves. She says lines like, "Tip doesn't even know about this" in an off-handed way, as if she just thought to bring it up.

Now, I'll admit to finding parts of the film uniquely resonant because a) their relationship bears similarities to relationships I've had, and so certain scenes were more poignant than they otherwise might be, and b) Noel is totally my kinda gal (particularly since Zooey is so beautiful), and so I felt like I loved her, too. In other words, there's surely a subjective component to my feelings about the movie. Just so you know. But I can defend it all, too."

Solondz is okay. At least his misanthropy is kinda straightforward and heartfelt, whereas von Trier seems to think there's something deeper beneath his. Also, Solondz' gender politics are less dubious.

see, I don't think Solondz is funny - it's just painful - and it's even more painful because it is trying to be funny and hide the self-loathing behind what I see as failed attempts at humor. Von Trier's sadism is more honest.

(xxx-post)

Also, Solondz' gender politics are less dubious.

I wouldn't say that. + his politics on everything else are more risible.

But I like him too, on the whole.

if I have to spend two hours in a dark room with somebody I'm gonna pick george costanza over the BTK killer, even if the BTK killer is more honest about his sadism

I must just have a bottomless reserve of goodwill for mean directors. It's the boring ones I want to murder.

I'd rather watch a movie about the BTK killer than some annoying dude from Seinfeld.

I thought like that when I was younger, but not anymore. It's directors like von Trier who made me realize shock tactics can be way more irritating than subtle annoyingness.

take it to the fetishes thread, sarahel

lol

to recap for all of you reading this thread on your fucking telephone

86. All the Real Girls
87. Minority Report
88. Memories of Murder
89. The Lives of Others
90. Together
91. Talk to Her
92. Tropical Malady
93. Sideways
94. Napoleon Dynamite
95. Capturing the Friedmans
96. High Fidelity
97. Happy-Go-Lucky
98. Dogville
99. The Piano Teacher
100. Movern Callar

boring is awful, i hear you, i'll usually stick it out w/a boring film if it's been appreciated by others & might be worth discussing. they don't mean to be boring, do they? as for some of the mean ones.. i feel like it's a valid response to just walk out/turn the film off, in fact, it might be the best response. such as gaspar noe.

didn't know anything about All The Real Girls, but jaymc's blurb (and the fact that it showed up on this list) makes me want to check it out

just noticing how tight these are points wise. Minority Report and ATRG were on my ballot, though neither were very high up.

i think lvt is pretty uneven (dancer in the dark kind of annoyed me, except for the musical bits) and is undoubtedly full of shit in general and way too in love with his provocateur shtick. but a.) he is also kind of virtuosic, his movies are really inventive visually and technically and i think he's fun to watch on that level, and b.) dogville is just one where i think he pulled it all together, the form suits the content, the tone is right, it's all the most coherent version of his whole coldblooded-humanist thing.

dogville still the only thing on my ballot that's shown. which means the other 39 must all be still to come! (can't wait to see how high princess raccoon places.)

who knows, maybe dogville will redeem lvt for me

cache did for haneke

it will get less tight toward into the top 50. zipf's law.

all the real girls is dull as fuck and badly made.

yeah - only a 20 point difference btw 100 and 86. whats interesting is that most of the films that have placed so far seem to be the result of a bunch of ppl liking them tropical malady (one of the few films w/ a #1 vote so far) had the highest points per vote and that only averages to around a #14 ranking

so yah i think we may see a huge point difference btw the top ten or so and the rest

There's not enough in All the Real Girls and yet there are too many "meaningful" moments.