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

what else could they have called it?

"the great mouse-steak"?

extreme nachos, kayaking

con: i don't like sirk, fassbinder, or 'far from heaven'

pro: i like julianne moore

btw Shakey, Eric was referring to one specific Fassbinder film, Fear Eats the Soul, which is a tonal 180-degrees-different remake of All That Heaven Allows, which FFH also somewhat is.

Kubrick sorta remade Max Ophuls a couple times (or at least for a reel or two).

should have been about french fries imo

Kubrick never remade Ozu remaking McCarey, iirc.

must...not...mention...De Paaaaaaaaallll.....

yeah man, ratatouille was the shit i was brought up on.

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

the cinema is not real life. versimilitude is only that: an approximation. a shadow. stylization is one way "around" this concern but it is really not a way around it at all, just a different way of approaching it.

the massacre happened, it was awful, some victims are now disabled or spent years recovering...not to mention the friends and relatives of those killed. the film in reenacting much of the event (van sant says it isn't strictly columbine-aspired but that's b.s.) raises a moral question for me.... it inevitably (despite all attempts) somewhat reduces the event, cartoonizes it. that's what art does, i think, most of the time. which can be useful and didactic (not in the pejorative sense)...it can clear unnecessary things away. b ut in this case it seemed to take an event with a lot of real pain and then declare, "all glory to aesthetics!"

obv. i didn't HATE the film...i liked much in it...but would that van sant could have just made a portrait of an american high school w/o the massacre stuff.

― amateurist

what i disliked mainly was the actual school violence. i found it somewhat trite. i never felt like i was being offered anything to think about and just something to look at. the idea of the maladjusted, misunderstood youth was (for me) exhibited much more strongly in the beginning of the film. plus, if you know anything of the film (which presumably, everyone going to see it does) you are just waiting for the shooting to begin and it becomes a lame eventuality.

― Dean Gulberry

I thought it was great, despite the silly parts that were already mentioned by many (bulimia, video game, and shower scenes). It did seem a little consciously contrarian, like it was trying to be exactly the opposite of what anyone would expect from a Columbine movie. And as others said, it might have been a better movie without the actual killings. But then I usually feel that way about teen horror movies too (which are nice sub-Dazed and Confused slices of teenage life until the slasher comes along).

I loved how positive the killers were. The little pep speech about "staying focused" was amazing.

― Chris H.

Come anticipate Elephant with me

#68

Elephant
Gus Van Sant
2003
United States
(267 points, 12 votes, 1 first place)

Haynes remaking Ratatouille.

Pro: Everything!
Con: The comments to follow.

after Safe and Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven was a little bit of a letdown for me. I think I would enjoy it now more, having lower expectations

Paranoid Park >>>>> Elephant (though distinctions not cost-effective, as Christgau used to say)

If I'd seen Elephant at any other time of day than 3 in the morning, I'd probably have not liked much about it. It strikes a real chord in the middle of the night, though.

btw Shakey, Eric was referring to one specific Fassbinder film, Fear Eats the Soul,

ah - I have been curious about that one (cf. primal scream ref lolz)

pro: it's named after a really awesome animal
con: it sucks

hmmm never saw Elephant, gave up on Van Sant so so long ago

only saw bits of elephant, but what was that about it having cross-promotional ties with an elephant video game or something?

elephant, not fantastic mr fox i mean

xpost to self

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2008/12/happy-elephant-01.jpg

A Gerry video game, iirc.

xxposts

It's named after the Clarke flick right? And I don't think the title works properly in its new context.

pro: it's named after a really awesome animal
con: it sucks

haha otm

A Gerry video game would be even more perverse than an Elephant video game!

pro: 360-degree shot in Gay-Straight Alliance meeting (tho then he used it in a better film, Milk), gliding Steadicam

con: aura of significance, typically unreadable pretty skaterboy at center, kiss of killers

digging omar's selection of comments.

'sucks' is maybe harsh on 'elephant', but i can think of way better ways to pass 90 minutes -- hanging out on ilx, for example. it's just kind of meh, to use a word from 2004. also the alan clarke original pisses all over it.

sort of ok, not great overall

Elephant_ The "In" Animal Crush of 2003

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418tNZ7nksL._SS500_.jpg

hmmm never saw Elephant, gave up on Van Sant so so long ago

― The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, February 5, 2010 1:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's basically "finding forrester 2"

haven't seen either but how does this fake columbine movie compare with that fake kurt cobain movie?

theyre pretty simillar

shakey, that is probably one of the better fassbinder films to start with...

i liked elephant!!!

Fake Cobain movie is the worst Van Sant I've seen so far except that Matt Damon one.

Have you seen Finding Forrester though?

hey 2 in a row i voted for. elephant is one of those that i thought was "good" the first time i saw it but took some time to sort of gel for me afterward. by the time i saw it again it seemed really pretty great. there's so much tension between how little he lets you into the characters but how close he forces you to them physically and p.o.v.-wise.

u d man now dg

I know Eric means Goodwill Dumpster, not Gerry

Elephant is one of my favorite Van Sant movies. Columbine resonated with me in a way that few other recent social calamities have, and this movie seems like an intensely personal reaction to it. it's not-there-ness is part of the point I think, a numbing in response to a media culture that glorifies violence. It was beautiful to look at, always in motion with multiple different perspectives

'elephant' is a difficult title to morbsify.

xpost

dats a good post

Paranoid Park >>>>> Elephant

otm

i shouldn't even say how little "he lets you" into the characters, because really it's how little he himself is able to go into them. it's like he's filming a brick wall.

Gus should shoot grownup boys more often. Casey Affleck is sexier than Matt Damon in Gerry.

it's beautifully made and totally idiotic.
(paranoid park otoh isn't even well made)

Yeah, skipped YTMND: The Movie.

its like hes filming a brick wall of hawt teen ass

yeah but C. Affleck is sexier than Damon IRL too, morbs

yoo guys http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:1njbBQa3eRtz0M:http://a11news.com/images/matt-damon-sexiest-man-alive-people.jpg

matty doesn't do it for me :/

Had to google YTMND

well, Gerry was pretty much the first time I found Damon sexy, certainly with clothes on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/synecdocheny_15_44000c41906e4fe4b_4.jpg

This was - is - ASTOUNDING. Like all his other films on acid + steroids. And much more so than any film since "Malkovich" - HILARIOUS, for long stretches. I was seriously so disoriented as soon as I stumbled out of the theater that my friend had to help navigate me to my car...

Initial reaction of initial viewing - as I'm still digesting - (and as this is a thing to be seen at least 3 times before fully swallowing): flawed but dense masterpiece of sorts, and far more powerful - and personal - than anything he's done before. Even if it's just of the narrative technique, that of uncovering, endlessly, Russian dolls of different shapes out of each other, as the viewer is transposed from one world of self-observation to the next, while still seamlessly returning to modified, meta-versions of the "original world" in context. I guess you could simplify it as "looping," but that implies circularity, while I'm more predisposed to note the "progression" of the loops, as a steady distance from the observed, hypothetical original world, increases via each turn. The genius remains in how the internal logic never breaks.

― Vichitravirya_XI

i liked this a lot. sure shoots for the moon. might be a bit in the admired-more-than-enjoyed category, but i enjoyed it plenty. the one thing that restrained my enthusiasm a little was wishing the protagonist was just a little less lumpen and self-loathing. kaufman's characters tend to be bigger losers than they really need to be for narrative purposes, it's like some kind of neurotic woody allen reflex. (one reason i think eternal sunshine works so well is that the jim carrey character isn't as immediately dislikable as kaufman's other leads.)

― tipsy mothra

Saw this last night, liked it a lot although it has its flaws. The overall emotional effect of the movie really resonates, especially the scenes when his daughter is dying and when the priest makes his speech at the funeral. I thought a lot of the reoccuring surreal and claustrophobic images were also pretty awesome.

But my friend who saw it with me made a good point that there is some lack of development/exploration to make you initially care for Caden and Adele, Caden and Claire, Caden and Hazel, etc. As in the movie just skips over stuff like the whole Adele divorce/exile to Berlin and his whole courtship of Claire (he's married her and had a kid with her within 2 minutes of movie time) to just focus on Caden's downwards spiral and obsession. I mean, its hard not to get sucked into the movie's tidal wave of despair, but it might have even more effect if we had some more context and time to know these characters.

Samantha Morton was really terrific though.

― Michael F Gill

imo c-kauf's contempt for himself is only surpassed by his contempt for the audience, i would only see this if i bought a ticket for High School Musical 3 and decided to sneak in

― ಥ﹏ಥ (cankles)

this is the thread to anticipate "Synecdoche, New York" - written and directed by Charlie Kaufman

#67

Synecdoche, New York
Charlie Kaufman
2008
United States
(267.5 points, 13 votes)