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

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)

didn't know men did it for you at all, nrq

im just sayin its been published and peer reviewed - matt damon is the sexiest man alive - its actually impossible for casey or any affleck to be sexier

I wrote a bunch about Synechdoche on the thread - not quite up there with Eternal Sunshine or BJM but points for being totally unpredictable and absorbing the first time through. seems to lose some of its impact upon subsequent viewings.

x-post

I'm sure some kid has been born in the last couple years who Van Sant and the rest of us can agree is sexier.

pretty much still feel the same as those comments, in re synecdoche. if anything i feel more negative about it, it's just too much of a sadsacky drag. there is great stuff in it, but i really don't want to see it again.

Samantha Morton is fantastic in it - love her

didn't know men did it for you at all, nrq

well true but i can "see why" with some widely reputed man-hotties, not so much w. damon.

i liked 'synecdoche, ny' to a extent -- v surprised it charted.

xpost
she is, and so are most of the women in it. and psh is fine, i just sort of hate his character. if we have to be trapped in someone's existential daydream, i'd rather it was someone more interesting.

i liked synecdoche kinda, slept through part of it, surprised anyone voted for it