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

xp ok, dire is a bit much (although the accent bothered me). just trying to find a place for ruffalo.

fuck this being ahead of miami vice.

fuck this being on the list at all tbh

the perfect michael mann movie would be just boats and planes and cars and sex, with lots of urban landscapes and synth-rock and no talking at all.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, February 8, 2010 2:03 PM (1 second ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

come on michael mann movies are totally about talking too! and yelling! see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5vlco4yvSc

Blech.

the only disappointing thing about this poll so far was omar's decision to not use a helicopter shot of nighttime miami for the 'miami vice' blurb -- i think the screen cap he used is actually from 'austin powers' >:(

called it: how is punch drunk love better than miami vice

I much prefer this PTA movie to the other one from this decade.

sean's capsule review up there is wonderful but honestly i can barely remember PDL.

it achieves what I think Collateral was going for (in terms of theme and look) but integrates it into the story much more seamlessly, so that there's really no big philosophical speeches or anything. they're just livin it bro.

ure probably right idk i really liked collateral - felt like some of the stilted/static moments made the whole thing more charming whereas miami vice is so seamless felt unimpressive my attn drifted i think

wonderin where zodiac will place atp

i voted for all of the last four.

sign me up for "loved PDL, but need to see it again"

i liked Collateral a lot too. but I tend to not mind long-winded philosophically minded characters in movies, because hey who am i to judge.

I wish the Grizzly Man bear had eaten Ethan Hawke.

PDL was torture.

"I wish the Grizzly Man bear had eaten Ethan Hawke."

Too skinny.

i walked out of #52 for the record, one of only 2 movies I've done so.

Maybe 25-30 minutes in iirc.

yeah, we're reeling off my top ten all in a row here.

PDL is great.

I wish the Grizzly Man bear had eaten Paul Thomas Anderson before he had a chance to make any movies.

backtracking to munich for a sec, what bothered me wasn't the sex scene (tho it's dumb) so much as the action scenes. spielberg shoots and paces them exactly like really good, taut thriller episodes -- because that's how he knows to stage action scenes. they're exciting. but that excitement works against his moral ideas, because unless he intends it as a critique of thrillers themselves (which is not how i think he intends them and is certainly not how they strike me in the context of the movie), then they serve to deflect rather than magnify or examine the movie's central moral conflict. i think he filmed them like that because he doesn't know how to do it any differently, and he doesn't grasp his subject fully enough to understand how implicated he himself is in it.

PDL is just appalling

I'd still rather watch it than Magnolia again.

I thought PDL was okay when I saw it in the theater but I can't even imagine wasting a vote on it.

every single thing abt pdl is replusive 2 me

I think those taut, thriller action scenes get decidedly less taut and..er..thrillery as the movie goes on. The thrill of the beginning (and the joy at the outdoor cafe of the success) gives way to darker, less Hollywood action as the film goes on.

re-watched PDL a few weeks ago and it's stunning.

that first part was re: munich and there are some xposts to be had

Spielberg is like an earnest Tarantino in that something like Munich inevitably becomes a commentary on Movies as History (and more interesting as such) than any real life political stakes. which is why the comment in Knocked Up struck me as deceptively insightful!

xpost to tipsy re: Munich

tipsy, if you were any more otm, then the exactitude of your statement would materialize as an cloud-formed edict in the sky.

Will have to check out Miami Vice next time it's on TV, I gave up after half an hour the only time I saw it.

I saw PDL w/my brother and we got into a big argument afterwards because he thought it was super-annoying and pointless and I found it surprisingly poignant.

PDL my least favourite PTA film by a long way

tipsy, I don't think Spielberg is arguing against the cathartic appeal of vengeance, really. I think the movie may be a critique, but it's not blind to the seductiveness of what it critiques.

xpost Kev, haha

spielberg shoots and paces them exactly like really good, taut thriller episodes -- because that's how he knows to stage action scenes. they're exciting. but that excitement works against his moral ideas, because unless he intends it as a critique of thrillers themselves (which is not how i think he intends them and is certainly not how they strike me in the context of the movie), then they serve to deflect rather than magnify or examine the movie's central moral conflict. i think he filmed them like that because he doesn't know how to do it any differently, and he doesn't grasp his subject fully enough to understand how implicated he himself is in it.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Monday, February 8, 2010 2:10 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's nuts to think that spielberg isn't aware that he's constructing these sequences in a way that could be read as exciting. i mean, how could he miss that? do you think he's like an idiot savant and this stuff just pops out of his head w/o conscious intervention? dude clearly thought a LOT about what he was doing in munich.

I don't think Spielberg is arguing against the cathartic appeal of vengeance, really. I think the movie may be a critique, but it's not blind to the seductiveness of what it critiques.

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Monday, February 8, 2010 2:16 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya, this.

my problem with Punch-Drunk Love wasn't with the movie itself so much as the choice of Adam Sandler to play the lead. I couldn't ever let go of my skepticism about his dramatic acting capabilities and it cast a pall over the movie. This is the same problem I have with movies starring Jim Carrey.

tipz & Kev, how do Munich's taut thriller episodes work against/deflect the moral ideas? In the case of the Hitchcockian scene where they struggle to abort the bombing cuz the target's child is in the apartment, it kind of goes to the heart of the moral issues in the team's mission. This is how I think Kushner and Spielberg shore up each other's weaknesses.

munich would have been a lot less effective if he'd reeled it in and made it grim-faced and intentionally difficult. it works BECAUSE it's a spielberg thriller, not in spite of it.

Munich was pretty grim-faced and "intentionally difficult" for a Dreamworks movie. I'm not sure what you're asking for! Something that could never exist as a $70 million studio film, I think.

It'd have been less-watched, maybe. But Fog of War was fine, right?

It would have been a lot more effective if it hadn't been rife with lame cliches.

the phone chat b/w PSH and Sandler is awfully acted.

"I'm not sure what you're asking for! Something that could never exist as a $70 million studio film, I think."

DING DING DING

(s1ocki i'm sorry, i misread yr post and was confirming yr point)

Yeah, tipsy, come back: we need you to clarify.

Seriously the defense of b-b-b-but for a big budget studio pic it's great is so lame.

fine let's just limit studio films to garbage like PTA & Mann.

I'm frankly shocked to see Miami Vice here, and rating so highly. Not that I've seen it or have any opinion of it whatsoever. I just must've missed something. Apparently. I only ever heard middling reviews of it. But, yeah, sure, I'll check it out.

the phone chat b/w PSH and Sandler is awfully acted.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 8, 2010 1:21 PM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark

they put up a pretty good struggle against a stupid scenario imo

my problem with Punch-Drunk Love wasn't with the movie itself so much as the choice of Adam Sandler to play the lead.

But isn't part of the idea behind PDL to recontextualize Sandler's emotionally stunted man-child character from Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, etc.?

Sandler an inspired choice for PDL, but only if you'd seen and hated Sandler's previous work.

he's applying hollywood thriller logic and style to actual history and actual issues, which makes it pretty potent imo. it's not perfect, but i think the style of the film is ace, the tension is pretty unbelievable, and the violence is vv difficult to watch.