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

xxp I experience it frequently.

seriously sean penn strikes me as one of those liberals who has views on politics with which i mostly agree, and also treats people like shit irl. not that there aren't plenty of liberals who are super nice, but then there are those who are working for good causes and yet, treat other people working for good causes.. like shit.

sorry for going on so much abt this, but yeah my personal experience would also tell me that a very high % of political players are kind of awful, and don't get why that is a problem.

Not with In Bruges though. I remember that movie too well sadly.

xp - I am Sam seriously made me wonder whether Hollywood chose to produce films about retarted people so that they could cram in more product placement without looking pandering and gratuitous.

daria did Sean Penn karate chop you in a bar or something

"I am Sam rivalled Minority Report for huge quanitities of product placement"

Double Team has my favorite movie product placement ever.

the wrong penn died imo

Yeah - Robert Penn Warren's death was a horrible tragedy.

i was thinking
http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/penn.jpg

and William Penn - damn, he would have made Fast Times at Ridgemont High rival Citizen Kane in terms of bravura performances!

I'm glad Penn Jillete is dead.

There I said it.

^^^another libertarian asshole

(Don't expect anyone to slog through this, but...)

Reactions to what I've seen of the movies so far:

Capturing the Friedmans: Wasn't it the film's view that the son and father were probably innocent of this particular crime? (And that the father was probably guilty of others?) Love that it's subtle enough so that we disagree about that, bnw. (I thought the defense lawyer was lying to the camera.) I think it also has a lot to "say," between the lines, about how repression nourishes pedophilia. I left it off my ballot because its most compelling raw material (the homemade video) seemed a bit off center from what it was about.

The Piano Teacher: Worst piano teacher ever. Beautifully acted, but I rejected both the reality of this movie and what I've come to see as its category. A frigid, sadistic person rises to prominence in the instruction of music? And none of her students calls her on it? And the only halfway decent human being is the kid from the porn store who says, "I'm sorry"? Mental illnesses can be compelling in movies, but only if either the character or the illness speaks to something wider, like, I don't know, the world as we actually experience it, or our sympathy, or the pleasure of movies. The rape scene is horribly convincing, but I'm left wondering, why am I watching this? Another movie bravely telling us the world is shit and people are weak?

Dogville: Same theme (and more rape), but with the twist of attacking those who rationalize evil (our establishment intellectual) or put themselves above others by forgiving it (our Christ figure as condescending Christian, turned wrathful Dirty Harry), which is a lot more interesting and provocative. Tipsy, how are we not supposed to side emotionally with Nicole Kidman in the end? What do you think the montage of poor people under the credits meant? I took it as a parade of the potentially wicked. Again, how brave. As I said on another thread, it's like watching a movie made by Carrie or Travis Bickle.

But at least that's something I don't physically want to unwatch. Dogville is partly an attempt to explore how slavery could happen in the United States, how ostensibly conscientious people could be implicated in its evil, and how innocents might then be sacrificed to the hellfire that evil inevitably summons, like the children killed in a slave uprising. But a more honest fable would have shown truly innocent or sympathetic people being killed, where in Dogville, even the little kid who wants to be spanked is a jerk.

High Fidelity: Can't remember a millisecond of this thing I enjoyed at the time, but the "memorable quotes" page on imdb is cringe-inducing--John Cusack must go a long way. Morbius, I liked Martian Child (which deals well with the helplessness of some parents), Runaway Jury (enjoyably bad), and Grace Is Gone (interesting anti-Cusack).

Minority Report: Nothing but the eye-scan advertising thing sticks, but that was prophetic.

Sideways: Jaymc OTM. Great laughs from satiric sympathy rather than spite, with credible characters, relationships, situations all around leading to memorable reckonings, desserts, nudity. (First of two films I have voted for so far.)

Almost Famous: In which the kid listens to Lester Bangs's sound advice about not looking for validation from artists, in the best scene, then proceeds to ignore it, then makes a movie-long unwitting monument to his wrongness seeking validation from the audience.

Finding Nemo: The Ellen DeGeneres amnesiac has some funny moments, but even that becomes as grating as everything else: Albert Brooks's anxiousness, the surfer-dude turtles, the sharks-in-carnivore-AA conceit, the "isn't this funny?" music. It's not funny.

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle: I liked both H&Ks, and I think the way they were kind of junkily made helps: It feels like anything can happen in this overlit raunchy-movie plane of reality. But they're still hit-and-miss.

Master and Commander: Best costume adventure with a great star, but I think the story got muddled by adapting too much into one movie.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: I'm anti-war and anti-CG, so there's not a lot for me here.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Darin LOL. The basic device--the camera as a single blinking eye--didn't work for me, mostly because that's not how eyes see, and I felt the character self-romanticized a bit. But I love my wife for loving this.

Team America: World Police: Can we all just agree that the sex scene belongs to the ages?

28 Days Later: Worst-case-scenario for humanity as persuasive as its speedy zombies, but yeah, eclipsed in both departments by better films IMO.

The Squid and the Whale: Best movie about neglect in a decade with competition (and plenty of bad ones), helped by Jeff Daniels and a great ending. (Second film I voted for.)

In Bruges: Wow is this bad. Just to take the scene I can find on YouTube, of Colin Farrell getting a date with the actress: He tells her it's his job to get past security, and she says, "You're a shoplifter?" And for this line to be funny, he would have to be irritated. But no, he chuckles and says, "Good joke," because this movie is really about how cool this guy is. Multiply that lameness by a whole movie and you get the idea. Plus fat jokes, stupid meta-action conceits, gruesome violence, etc. And I'm a sucker for both meta-action conceits and these particular actors.

All the Real Girls, The Lives of Others, Napoleon Dynamite: Couldn't get through the first 15 minutes of any of these, but will try again.

"And that the father was probably guilty of others?"

The view of the film was that the father was a pedophile. I don't believe there was any evidence that he actually molested any children, but I don't recall.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: I'm anti-war and anti-CG, so there's not a lot for me here.

this is a fairly inexplicable (mis)reading of this film

Barbie doll sex wasn't really mind-blowing comedy, IMO

Man, I am the first to recognize that I can have horrible taste sometimes (perhaps often) and in no way do I consider myself an expert on film, but some of you ppl have unbelievably shitty taste in movies.

this

Napoleon Dynamite: Couldn't get through the first 15 minutes ... but will try again.

don't bother. an excruciatingly bad movie

you stupid stupid ppl

which movies did you think were shitty, E? Just curious, not trying to bait you or anything.

well, it's all a matter of taste. i am just a bit disappointed that discussion thread that i anticipated would be about some films i like.. isn't.

maybe we're all yuppie dbags ; )

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: I'm anti-war and anti-CG, so there's not a lot for me here.

this is a fairly inexplicable (mis)reading of this film"

Yeah all the war is in part two. Part one is just a bunch of yammering.

school of rock > the good girl, gtfooh

chuck and buck maybe i'll grant you, looked like absolute shit but very good

maybe we should have a worst 100 films poll, and then we can be annoyed when someone actually likes something we think is shitty.

Dan I'd actually like you to talk more about this because I found 100% the opposite - the remembered pleasure of LOTR was it's "scope and wonder" absolutely - it had a map! It had long bits that were kind of boring, in which you could think about interesting things, like what sort of kings the ringwraiths had been! The movies seemed to want you to feel excited basically the whole time, which for me is a feeling that never co-exists with wonder?

To me, the books dragged quite a bit whenever Tom Bombadil appeared and when the kings/elves started pontificating. I didn't care about any of that stuff; I wanted to follow the journey of the Ring primarily and secondarily I wanted to follow Pippen and Merry. Most of the story told by the three movies was narrowed down to those competing threads, shot in some of the most gorgeous landscape caught on film on a scope that did much more to express the scope of the armies and the savagery of the fighting than the prose in the book could. The Ringwraith chases and the dash through Moria were far more breathtaking in the movie than in the books. The siege battle was far more terrifying. The various mad kings and how they defeated or succumbed to their conditions was infinitely more interesting; specifically the dude who tried to burn his son alive made way more sense in the movie. Saruman was a credible threat in and of himself as opposed to being Sauron's lackey and his battle with Gandalf was riveting. And Gollum was a triumph, coming across exactly as cunning, lost, conflicted, evil, hopeful and pathetic as he did in the book.

The third movie overdid the hobbit love and they didn't really handle the book's multiple endings as well as they could have (if they were going to keep that much of the end, they should have gone whole hog and let Saruman fuck up the Shire) but the ride all the way from Frodo's discovery of the Ring through Aragorn's honoring of the hobbits' contributions to their fight against Sauron was magnificent, thrilling and wonderful. I don't see how you can automatically divorce "wonder" from "thrilling"; your clarification seems to be saying "I liked the books better because there were more boring sections for my mind to wander."

I liked the books better cuz I was nine.

I liked the books better cuz I was nine.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Thursday, February 4, 2010 4:01 PM (13 seconds ago)

^^ this

i only saw one of the LOTRs (don't remember which) and will not watch another

Where's omar?

Sarahel - I know that if I make comments like that I should be prepared to back them up but I feel like crap right now and don't have the energy or desire to get into it. I didn't even get my act together enough to vote so I should just shut up now. Daria is, of course, right in saying that it's all a matter of taste. It's just interesting to read people's take on certain movies and wonder how in the world we could possibly think/feel so wildly differently about the same film

but i think that's why these polls are not my thing, even though i'm reading the thread and appreciate omar's work of course, i just can't account for taste or explain to anyone why i don't 'get' fantasy xposts2me

it's ok i didn't vote either!

It's just interesting to read people's take on certain movies and wonder how in the world we could possibly think/feel so wildly differently about the same film

I hear ya - and agree.

i like the books better because being a genius with language and storytelling >>>>>>> being a genius at pixels

I just assume everything else is a yuppie dbag. It gets me through the day.

I've read Joyce, Musil, Mann, Pynchon, taken a crack at Gaddis, and so fucking help me, those LOTR books are impenetrable.

i think i'm gonna watch capturing the friedmans tonight

Tipsy, how are we not supposed to side emotionally with Nicole Kidman in the end?

oh, we do. or i did. i actually laughed out loud.

but it's a cautionary story -- giving people uncontested power over other people will produce abuse and exploitation pretty much anywhere, and "civilized" people can find high-minded rationalizations for the worst kinds of behavior. all of which in turn sets the stage for anger and cycles of revenge.

which is why you don't structure a society to allow those kinds of things. if you want to protect yourself against the massacre, you build a social infrastructure that protects everyone. it's basically a case for social democracy in the form of a fable.

tbh, i hesitated to vote because i started the decade being a big cinema geek, but if i watched the same obscure/foreign/arty/whatever films at the end of the decade, many of them i see differently and don't like any more. and there are a lot of films where i recognize they have a style and are well crafted and of interest to a lot of people whose POV i respect, and yet my personal taste is, i hate them! (MULHOLLAND DRIVE)

I dunno if she was being polite, but Terry Gross seemed to be impressed by Team America.

I watched some South Park episodes with commentary on. One of the dudes had bought his mom a Prius, and the other was very concerned with indulgent child-rearing. They are apparently pals with Penn Jillete, who convinced them to be atheists or something, but it was after the Dawkins episode was finished.

I agree they are self-satisfied jerks but I found it hard to detect a proper libertarian lean other than their being self-satisfied jerks.

oops but excuse me, we can start a thing about david lynch later, not now. sorry. let's wait.

and there are a lot of films where i recognize they have a style and are well crafted and of interest to a lot of people whose POV i respect, and yet my personal taste is, i hate them! (MULHOLLAND DRIVE)

Daria otm!

I've read Joyce, Musil, Mann, Pynchon, taken a crack at Gaddis, and so fucking help me, those LOTR books are impenetrable.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 5, 2010 12:07 AM

I really think you need to be a kid. or more accurately, a kid 20 or 30 years ago

Kids these days with their Harry Potters and shit.

I am also prepared to hate on mulholland drive when the time comes

tbh, i hesitated to vote because i started the decade being a big cinema geek, but if i watched the same obscure/foreign/arty/whatever films at the end of the decade, many of them i see differently and don't like any more. and there are a lot of films where i recognize they have a style and are well crafted and of interest to a lot of people whose POV i respect, and yet my personal taste is, i hate them! (MULHOLLAND DRIVE)

― kicker conspiracy (b. favre ha ha) (daria-g), Friday, February 5, 2010 12:08 AM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark

haha yeah this is s.thing like my trajectory.

peter jackson's finnegan's wake