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

Haven't seen almost famous, but how problematic is it compared to jerry maguire?

sarahel, I'm also an attentive film watcher and a graduate student in a very critical theory heavy department, so this isn't just a moment where I'm clouded by my fond memories

don't young, teenage boys view their mothers as their mother?

The scene where Zooey gives the kid her vinyl records, and he flips through all the mysterious covers, made me wish really bad that I'd had an older sibling.

It's not. But that's what Almost Famous is... Cameron Crowe writing and directing his own autobiography, and making something of a fantasy out of it to cover up the boring parts.

oh, and sarahel, Manderlay is vastly superior to Dogville. Still kind of shit, but not terrible.

Has this been posted? Best part of Team America:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yC7HwPh6Es

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

Soppy, sappy and lovely in equal effect. Point is that I do not believe in love at first sight, or the idea of soulmates - which the film to a lesser or greater extent panders to. Nevertheless I do find the narrative style and the visual beauty sucks you in far more that the films many shortcomings (overly cute and gamine lead, tweeness) washed over me. Luckily the lead and the film (the two are pretty much intertwined) have a dark side which makes the loveliness of the rest of it bearable.

― Pete

saw the first 20 minutes on tv at christmas and spent the first weekend after christmas looking for the dvd only to fail to find it anywhere (which is odd because it used to be everywhere).

― koogs

I think it's excellent. The only bit I didn't like was the sex shop which I thought was needlessly contrived (even in a very contrived film). But everything is so sparkly and pretty in it. I appreciated it even more after going to Paris and then watching it and realizing what a fantasy view of the city it is.

― anthony kyle monday

It seems like a lot of the criticism of Amelie is directed at the setting and characters and plot and so on. But it makes no claim to be otherwise, and can and should be enjoyed as light, clever fantasy, as a fairy tale romance. The whole arc of the film is watching Amelie's eventual detachment from her twee little fantasy world, and while it may have been more interesting to have city itself grow a bit in turn, it doesn't ruin the film to have the simpler story. The film is only in part about Paris, and not the real Paris, the one that's on your parent's decades-old postcards. If this is not your thing -- it isn't mine, really -- so be it, but I don't understand the level of animosity directed towards it.

― Jacob

Amelie

#72

Amelie
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
2001
France
(259.5 points, 14 votes)

iirc kate hudson's characters problems don't stem from her ho-dom, they stem from the rock dude being a dick and not-that-into-her. reallly don't see how this can be seen as a sexist narrative unless I'm remembering the movie wrong.

omigod

Amelie! Let the games begin!

Like Jules et Jim, this fucking thing defined Foreign Films for a generation.

Yeah, if you take the fame and rock n' roll out of Almost Famous, it's still just a story about a one-sided relationship. I don't see that as inherently sexist at all.

Amelie doesn't deserve a place on any best-of poll, but it's certainly not a bad film. Jacob pretty OTM

Very curious about what animations turn up. I didn't vote for Triplets in the end but it has some great touches and fantastic cartoon Glenn Gould

re: AF rock dude in not-falling-in-love-with-cheap-ho shockah

x-post

finally we can start arguing about racism instead of sexism

xp Mordy: Then, I'm at a loss why the stereotypical female characters aren't obvious to you - I don't know. I don't feel like watching that movie again to better build my argument, and I'm ready to just agree to disagree on this point.

iatee: and why would that be? Why would rock dude be a dick and not-that-into her? Because she's a groupie, she's too easy, impure, etc. This is a really tired narrative trope.

director's cut of AF fleshed out the women more iirc

Any movie with hot chicks that indie boys are going to get a tent in their pants for is going to make it on the list. Also see ATRG.

Sometimes I worry that when I like movies that other people dislike, it's because I wasn't smart enough to dislike them, too.

When that happens I just worry I'm not pretentious enough to dislike them too.

ATRG?

more like cause he can and will sleep with lots of girls / whoever he wants cause he's a rock dude.

xp

(Btw, this never happens to me when it comes to music, because I recognize that my enjoyment of music exists almost entirely on an aesthetic level, and aesthetic disagreements are understandable. But movies are more complicated: all sorts of politics and meta-narratives get mixed up with aesthetic appreciation. With movies I can no longer say "oh, I don't pay attention to the lyrics.")

All the Real Girls xxp

end times signifier- there is a director's cut of Almost Famous

this poll would be great if i don't know... ONE of the films I voted for shows up eventually? Damn I feel like Morbs on Oscar night.

I have to apologise here: I voted Amelie pretty high. I really wasn't expecting to like it (too sappy! too twee!), and put off watching it for quite a while, but it hooked me, and it would have been dishonest of me not to vote for it.

i didn't vote for amelie (my fiancee did, she submitted a ballot despite not being an ilxor), but i have always liked it. i recognize that maybe how much you like it comes down to how twee you are or how tolerant you are of tweeness, and it's basically a ridiculous modern fantasy, but it's really well-made. pales greatly in comparison to its more realistic semi-counterpart 'happy-go-lucky' imo.

With movies I can no longer say "oh, I don't pay attention to the lyrics.")

"I just sit back with a j and soak in the images."

Amelie?! OK, what I was once construing as unpredictability is quickly becoming something else entirely.

xxp i disagree jaymc- just because a director puts something in there don't mean you have to pick it out from your viewing. essentially, 'i don't read the lyrics' is as valid an option for movies.

Like Jules et Jim, this fucking thing defined Foreign Films for a generation

^^ this
k i strongly dislike Amelie. a lot

jaymc, you just described my spot exactly. I'm much more forgiving with cinema than I am with music, because I honestly don't enjoy digging too deep in film and uncovering things that may not even be there.

I'm really glad I didn't see Amelie, and you all should be too, because I refrain from posting vitriolic rants about movies I've never seen.

best part of team america is the extended vomiting sequence - just extraordinary. man from window: "YOU GAVE UP ON LIFE, DIDN'T YA!?" friends and i still quote that at any opportunity

my take on the southpark dudes is basically ebert's iirc, that it's an empty nihilism

my 2nd vote targeted against the hater state :D

I also like Jules et Jim. I didn't realise this made me some sort of disgusting savage.

xposts

Almost voted for Amelie because it was relatively high on the 2000-04 list that I made five years ago (I think #22 or so), but then I realized I don't remember a single thing about it.

ONE of the films I voted for shows up eventually? Damn I feel like Morbs on Oscar night.

Mullholland or Inland Empire will place, I'd be amazed if they don't

I love J+J! I meant that Amelie's that kind of touchstone.

xxpost I remember it puking creme brulee up right through the screen and all over my lap.

amelie, it was a bit personal at the time, i was in paris when that thing came out and it was a HUGE hit and all the american students i was friends with went to see it & were all <3<3<3<3. i was mystified (and annoyed) because it's like YOU LIVE HERE, PARIS IS NOT LIKE THIS, why do you enjoy this twee fantasy in which idealized paris = no immigrants?

Amelie is twee I can handle. Didn't vote for it, but not bad.

idealized paris = no immigrants

See, this is a bullshit reading of the film.

Amelie is the Notting Hill of Paris. Still fine though.

really tho, fantasy, idealized paris in the movie = basically no people at all, not just no immigrants

i disagree jaymc- just because a director puts something in there don't mean you have to pick it out from your viewing. essentially, 'i don't read the lyrics' is as valid an option for movies.

Sure, but it's more difficult to "tune out" elements of a movie. Maybe this has to do with how movies and music are used (or at least, how I use them): it's rare that I'm listening to music and not doing something else at the same time, whereas I'm pretty much always watching a movie in the dark with my eyes glued to the screen or TV set.

And, sorry, the expression on this face is the kind of horror no human being should mimic:

http://diaryofahalfandhalf.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/amelie.jpg