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

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.

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.

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Monday, February 8, 2010 1:20 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

spoken like rahm himself ;)

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

It's either good on its own terms or it isn't. I'd argue it's not, but defending it by saying "look at how bad most stuff coming from Dreamworks is" is a weak ass dodge.

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

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Monday, February 8, 2010 2:22 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

that's not what i'm saying. i don't think it's what morbs is saying either. what are you saying, besides "it's full of cliches"? what cliches? why are they bad cliches?

Unless you're Ozu, I don't know how else to render moral quandaries in film – a kinetic medium – without resorting to taut, well-edited action scenes.

i thought PDL was okay when i first saw it, but i think the only thing i liked about it was emily watson and sandler stalking to vegas with his phone in hand to confront philip seymour hoffman.

Deric: Vice is one of those films that a small but vocal minority of critics have been praising for a while on the internet. Little to no mainstream crit-cred when it was released.

I liked PDL fine, but there wasn't much recontextualizing going on. Dude is all pudding pudding pudding, straight up.

by saying "look at how bad most stuff coming from Dreamworks is" is

Find where I said that, xxxp. I don't even fucking know what studio puts out what mosdt of the time, that's a bad habit music obsessives carry over from labels.

I wan't saying "b-b-but for a studio movie"... I was just pandering to the lowered cultural standards which Armond White frequently points out; I won't make that mistake again.

lolz but wrong re: sandler xpost

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

this movie was so fucking sweet btw

― jhøshea

I liked the "verticality" of this (for lack of a better word) -- lots of scenes with the actors (esp. Viggo, with his hair tightly slicked back) standing ramrod straight, shots bookended by walls or slyly-framed architecture. I'm thinking especially of the scene between Mueller-Stahl & the barber behind the restaurant -- AM-S standing on the platform in the background, barber in the foreground, both framed by the lines of the buildings and the walls -- and especially the scene in the bathhouse. It infused everything a sense of tension and enclosure that gave the movie most of its juice.

I'm a softie, tho -- thinking about the plot might make me sad, and the ending was a bit of a whoopie cushion, but I liked everyone in it (even Watts, tho she didn't have much to do after the 1st 30 minutes), liked that the treachery was mostly left unexplained until the aftermath, and had no problem w/ the voiceover (it lent the scene w/ the girl singing right before Viggo paid her a little after-the-fact oomph) or the TWIST.

― David R.

i loved this

when i watch movies i'm not comparing them to other movies on a scale of one to fucking ten, although if i had to choose a grade i'd give this one a V for VIGGO

i agree with all of lauren's posts and i think the fact that it's even possible to observe what she observed shows what a fully imagined world cronenberg creates. the loose ends aren't in the plot, they're in little provocations and niggles that are just irreducibly there, and set my imagination off. he draws my attention to things that other directors don't - the sound of a tattoo needle; jumping up to get the balloon in the netting; the unsatisfying physicality of a useless motorcycle kickstarter - even if the story itself is no great shakes on paper. i like that he decided to do a genre piece and bring that sensibility, rather than do another freakazoid gristle gun hallucination.

- Tracer Hand

Cronenberg's Eastern Promises Spoiler Thread

#51

Eastern Promises
David Cronenberg
2007
Canada/United Kingdom
(348 points, 16 votes)

don't read that thread if you don't want to get spoiled. it just happens to be the only 'eastern promises' thread i could find.

u know i liked a lot about eastern promises but now it's time for me to roll my damn eyes

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

lol auteur theory

although if i had to choose a grade i'd give this one a V for VIGGO

<3<3<3

is 'a history of violence' going to place?

Okay that was unexpected.

if Promises did, then History must do. I imagine it will be really high up as well.

is 'a history of violence' going to place?

― vincent gallogina (J0rdan S.), Monday, February 8, 2010 11:29 AM (11 seconds ago)

I hope so, because i thought it was better than eastern promises.

yeah 'a history of violence' was in my top 10

this film was a top ten for me, i thought viggo was pretty amazing. vincent cassel was almost equally as good. much, much better than a history of violence imo (which i also really liked.)

I couldn't finish History of Violence, but loved Eastern Promises.

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

well i just think munich is too successful as an exciting revenge thriller to be successful as a moral contemplation of vengeance. to work, the audience has to feel the moral conflict, not just have it embodied by bana getting sweaty or brow-furrowed. the scene where they're trying to disarm the bomb is tense, but so are all the action scenes. they're tense for the same reasons any well-made bomb-disarming or assassination scenes are tense. nothing about the film seemed very deeply felt to me (including the sense of israel's perennial insecurity). i felt told, but not shown. culminating in the closing shot of the world trade center, which i thought was unbelievably cheap and manipulative.