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

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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

Samantha Morton is basically fantastic in everything

enjoyed the house on fire, shifting roles gags

agree about the unattractiveness/lumpen nature of PSH being a bit much over the course of the film - the self-absorption required to maintain that level of depression is a bit of a distancing factor, you wanna just shake the guy and tell him to snap out of it.

Synecdoche is one of many half-super movies on this list.

Morton never better, also first time I liked PS Hoffman in eons.

But started being painful for the sake of it when all the redundancy began to pile up in the last third. Unwieldy. The structure hid whatever heart was there. (ie, what ppl say about CF's scripts for Malkovich and EtSunshine, where I totally disagree)

otm

wait waht I thought Morbz dug Eternal Sunshine (or am I misreading that post)

you are misreading.

Since foreign films have gone away for awhile, I know we're gonna get something like City of God any minute...

CK not CF

i liked synechdoche but i have a weakness for big movies (and books) that have Important Things to say about Art and Life

how high will Eternal Sunshine place I wonder (if Synechdoche made it than I assume ET - which is definitely superior - will too...)

Oh geez - back to Far From Heaven

Whoever said it was/felt like an academic exercise, I agreed with - though I really appreciated it and this movie was one I voted for. When it came out, the first thing I thought was that it was Haynes' tribute to "MCM 66: Cinematic Coding and Narrativity" - one of the intro classes in the MCM department at Brown (called Semiotics back when Todd Haynes took it), because All that Heaven Allows was on the syllabus and we spent a lot of time discussing it.

It was also really beautiful visually, and I felt the manneredness of the performances worked with the concept of the film.

That is the worst film by miles to appear on this list so far. What is it even doing here?

IIRC ESotSM came in #2 in the 2000-2004 poll.

haha which movie u talking about?

how high will Eternal Sunshine place I wonder (if Synechdoche made it than I assume ET - which is definitely superior - will too...)

― The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, February 5, 2010 2:12 PM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im thinking #2

mcm is the weirdest department <3

I wouldn't be surprised if Eternal Sunshine came in at #1

Above The Transporter 2? No way.

eternal sunshine + mulholland are the inevitable top two imo

no clue about #3-5

Sunshine beating Drive for the #1 slot would be a travesty.

Little Miss Sunshine, I mean.

sarahel did you 'major' in mcm btw?

I know Elephant as the only movie Mike D'Angelo gave a 0 out of 100.

good times

xpost
lol. ES is a movie that I wansn't really into when I saw it, but I'm eager to revisit it

apart from park chan-wook stuff, the only korean movie i can bring to mind from this decade is Take Care of My Cat, which i remember as really charming but don't actually remember too well. besides the green planet, am i missing lots of awesome stuff?

― men lie, women lie, hips don't (zvookster), Friday, 5 February 2010 02:19 (16 hours ago)

someday I'll start my rolling korean film review thread

xp - daria - yes I did - and it was a fellow MCM major and member of Brown Film Society that told me that I had to see Synecdoce, New York which I opined plenty about in the thread about that movie.

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at the end of spielberg's "artificial intelligence," the movie goes from being pretty good or nearly great into being a goddamned masterpiece.

― Eric H.

if the rest of the movie had been as good as the last portions, i think it could've really cleaned some clocks.

the earlier sections were better as the short story the movie was based upon.

― msp

Just because he wasn't breathing behind the camera doesn't mean his vision isn't stamped on the film (in a quite dominant way too). I've said this before millions of times (including somewhere on ILX I'm sure) but there are moments in that film that Spielberg could never have created and moments Kubrick could never have created. Thus I sleep VERY well at night stating that A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is the best film by BOTH directors (unless Spielberg turns into Mizoguchi in his remaining time here).

- Kevin John Bozelka

#66

A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Steven Spielberg
2001
United States
(274 points, 17 votes)

Pro: It is amazing.
Con: My pullquote.

synecdouche is 100% concept, 5-10% execution... would have liked to actually care about i don't know the story or the characters in the 2nd act rather than just introduce a new complicated twist and then waste it by introducing another twist just as forgettable as the one from 5 minutes previous. total rush job by the third act that was convenient as everybody (incl the filmmakers apprently) couldn't wait for it to end. Easily the worst movie on this list that i spent $10 on.

Amazing film.

xpost- oh wicked, i had no idea. i took a grad seminar there, so i know the place. off to read the other thread.

i saw ai as the third leg of a self curated tripple feature following pootietang and the fast and the furious at the battery park cinema on a v hot day - its sucked - who the fuck are you people

had A.I. 26th. Most terrifying Abandoned by Mother scene ever. Maybe Jude Law's best performance. A caliber of imaginative world-making no other pop filmmaker can approach.

Saw 2x in theaters in '01; bought the DVD a few years ago and haven't watched it yet...

and i usually luuuv ott retardo future bullshit

"It’s crap. Science fiction has to be logical, and it’s full of lapses in logic." Dunno if I agree with Aldiss that sci-fi HAS to be logical but all the nonsense in AI is definitely a negative.

One third of the way through, one of my votes shows up. (AI = my #39)

AI is ridiculous. had more endings than The Return of the King iirc.

I don't remember anything about AI, in fact I think it is one of the rare films that sent me to sleep in the cinema. Have no inclination to ever watch it again.

You guys are getting me excited to rescr**n this.