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

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It's definitely the film's intention to be controversial, and watching Heath Ledger ride Jake Gyllenhaal bareback will likely cause some people to squirm, but the film unconsciously reassures their prejudices: two queers can't live together cuz they ain't normal and their lives are sad, so let's watch this movie as our good deed of the year.

A more legitimately controversial film would have shown Ennis and Jack having fun fooling around whenever they got away to Brokeback Mountain, but perhaps Lee thought this would have violated Proulx's intentions.

― Alfred Soto

Yup, I saw it last Friday, right after I finished my Christmas shopping. Yeah, you're right, Jack is probably gay: the Mexico scene of courses reinforces this. But I was the one who argued against Chris Cooper's character being gay in American Beauty long after it became apparent that he obviously was (but that was just me wishing the film was more ambiguous than it actually was).

― jaymc

Lotsa dull dull domestic melodrama, and there's hardly any carnality (or eroticism) in it after the spit-lube. The way the next-to-last scene with the daughter panders to the hetero 'mainstream' made me kinda ill. Bet the Best Picture Oscar, and I wonder if Heath will keep up the Novocaine Mouth in his acceptance speech.

Boys with that brand of bizarre, oversized features can crawl in my tent too.

― Dr Morbius

I don't think this was a gay film at all. It was a conventional "women's picture". It has the same appeal to the same audience as A River Runs Through It, The Horse Whisperer etc etc. It's all about hunky, tough yet sensitive guys who don't say much. The buttsex angle is something of a red herring.

Compare/contrast slash fiction, written and read almost exclusively by heterosexual women.

― dream logic

Come Anticipate "Brokeback Mountain" With Me

#36

Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee
2005
United States
(425.5 points, 20 votes)

loved HoV until Hurt showed up - can't say i felt the terror or wanted to applaud the comedy of his "ham-on-rye"

never saw BBM lolz

The fact that I voted for so few of the movies that've placed so far makes me feel like I probably voted for, like, everything in the top 25. Because there's a lot of my nominees that I know are still going to place.

i think BBM is a pretty good melodrama

I have to agree with the quoted comments about Brokeback Mountain. It looked beautiful, had fine actors, and it made me cry when I saw it, but it was also a very typical "gayness as tragedy" story, and even as a more universal drama about unattainable love it didn't have anything particularly original to say. A good tear-jerker and a good movie, but not great in any sense.

it might not be want u want it to be, but it's good at being what it is.

i mean, i agree that a truly adventurous movie would show a happy gay couple that nothing bad happens to, but it wouldnt make for a good weepie

it's funny that nobody really makes big hetero forbidden love movies anymore except for maybe titanic

it might not be want u want it to be, but it's good at being what it is.

Well yeah, that's what I was trying to say. But what it is has been done so many times that, even though it was good at it, BBM didn't leave a particularly strong impression on me.

if morbs likes bizarre, oversized features so much then why hasn't he seen Inglorious Basterds yet?

yeah History of Violence totally fell apart at the end for me

xpist

i mean, i agree that a truly adventurous movie would show a happy gay couple that nothing bad happens to, but it wouldnt make for a good weepie

Well yeah, but it's not only that it's a weepie. It's true that being gay in that era and in a place like that was often tragic, and I have no problem if a movie want to depict this, but it also seems to oddly lack any anger and fury towards that tragedy. The movie kinda makes it seem like it's the fate of these noble but oh-so-tragic men to suffer in silence, and to me that doesn't feel right in a movie made in the 00s.

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Amazing. Like a comedic version of Bad Lieutenant - as in, the plot of the movie is right there in the title, and seldom veers from said plot (or lack therof) - BillyBob is terrific (tho I must admit I have sat through each of his movies, including the abhorrent Pushing Tin - I'm a big fan) and the movie is definitely worth seeing. I'm already psyched for the DVD!

― roger adultery

This is one of the best movies ever, certainly one of the best of the last 5 years. Those sequences with Bernie Mac and John Ritter are pure genius. I can't believe all these "eh its pretty funny I guess" nonsense. Easily better than Ghost World. There is not a wasted line in the film, all the acting is top notch, story is from the Coen bros. so you know its good.

― deej

i watched bad santa again this year, on christmas eve. so many great funny details, esp. all the jokes about the stuff thurman murman is picking up from billy bob. like when he identifies lauren graham as "mrs. santa's sister"

― s1ocki

the only funny "hit in the nuts" gag that I can think of, like, in all of history.

― kenan

BAD. SANTA.

#35

Bad Santa
Terry Zwigoff
2003
United States
(433 points, 20 votes)

Morbs first charmed me when we tousled endlessly on that BBM thread.

sorry the BBM abbreviation keeps making me lol

tousled? I never touched your hair.

I don't think BBM is a great film, but I don't agree with "The movie kinda makes it seem like it's the fate of these noble but oh-so-tragic men to suffer in silence" at all.

It wouldn't necessarily be a problem if it were true either, just because it's a film made in the 2000s.

I'm on a very slow connection, and the reveal of that BAD. SANTA. still as it loaded was hilarious

I'm very, very...ambivalent about BBM now. Maybe now we can watch it as a movie instead of as a Cultural Phenomenon About Spit-Lube.

I really feel like Brokeback's virtues are being taken for granted. It made gay romance safe for straight audiences, but wasn't neutered like something like Will & Grace, and featured two huge stars in the lead roles. That is a big deal, and it's a damned good movie on top of all that.

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^^^haven't even seen BBM and I'm 99% positive My Own Private Idaho is the better film, shakespeare soliloquies and all. love that movie.

Brokezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Box office:

Idaho: $6,401,336
BBM: $178,062,759

Well yeah, but it's not only that it's a weepie. It's true that being gay in that era and in a place like that was often tragic, and I have no problem if a movie want to depict this, but it also seems to oddly lack any anger and fury towards that tragedy. The movie kinda makes it seem like it's the fate of these noble but oh-so-tragic men to suffer in silence, and to me that doesn't feel right in a movie made in the 00s.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 3:20 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i disagree, there is so obviously a simmering anger beneath the surface, what else do you want, a rage against the machine song over the end credits? seems like you always want your politics to be super-overt in movies you like. i don't think that makes for good movies.

Nothing wrong with super-overt politics in movies.

loved the super 8 stuff, the salmon & the road and all that, and the portrayal of the hustler lifestyle and the riotous funeral, but surely keanu was too wooden and the whole Henry IV thing didn't come off.

but BBM is the wrong movie to condemn, Tuomas. I mean, the short story on which it's based is no polemic.

glad to see 'a serious man' and 'bad santa' -- the best things the coens were involved in all decade.

'24HPP' is great, kind of surprised to see it so high, but no complaints.

'brokeback mountain' is mediocre and oscary imo, don't hate it but ehh; 'history of violence' just generally mediocre, and i doubt the superior 'spider' will beat it.

Nothing wrong with super-overt politics in movies.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 3:37 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

not always. but i don't need movies to reassure me we're on the same page either.

ugh fuck brokeback mountain.

Ha ha. Bad Santa! I was begining to wonder whether it was gonna show. I'm glad that it did. It's one of the few solid comedies from the past decade that still delivers after multiple viewings.

bbm, which I like, should really be measured against The Notebook instead of Idaho

bad santa is a coen bro movie? cool.

bbm was aiight. Anne Hathaway and Jen were the best things in it though and I feel like I don't need to see again for another 20 years.

bbm, which I like, should really be measured against The Notebook instead of Idaho

Yeah, and that's how I think it'll be regarded in the future.

Idaho: $6,401,336
BBM: $178,062,759

I don't give a shit; by that standard "Will & Grace" is more important.

Never bought Jake & Heath as anything more than fuckbuddies, and the funny mustaches didn't help.

That's where the movie cheapens the story.

I really feel like Brokeback's virtues are being taken for granted. It made gay romance death and tragedy safe for straight audiences, but wasn't and was neutered pandering like something like Will & Grace, and featured two huge stars in the lead roles. That is a big deal, and it's a damned good movie on top of all that. fucking shame.

no, philadelphia made gay death and tragedy safe for straight audiences

I prefer the gay romance btwn Julie Andrews & James Garner in Victor/Victoria. LE JAZZ HOT!

hasnt gay death and tragedy always been safe for straight audiences

nothing breeders like more than a couple sad and/or dying homos

however, Philadelphia also showed a healthy, loving relationship between two men, one of whom happened to be dying and fighting a major court battle.

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Let’s mangle Pauline Kael: No one else can lend each quick glancing scene its proper weight before cutting away like Paul Greengrass can, but if anyone else should learn to, kill him.

- Alfred Soto

damon plays it lean, comes a helluva lot closer to being delon here than he did in ripley, joan allen is good, brian cox actually somewhat disappointing - less interesting replay of william stryker, i kept waiting for anna paquin and iceman to pop up during the confrontation scene. julia stiles gorgeous per usual, but when she was terrified (and that scene was kinda harrowing cuz it did seem very possible bourne would off her) she looked like an angry baby. the deaths actually felt like they mattered, i'd rathered it'd ended with him walking away in the snow in moscow after asking the girl to forgive him instead to the relatively glib ending that tacked on, but i guess they felt this made the better dooropener for the sequel (which i will see).

― James Blount

YES! Everything was wonderful except the handheld camera. We got seats close to the screen, and the camera made it impossible to follow the action at times, because it was impossible to focus on anything. Buy a Stedicam, goddamnit!

That said, I loved this one like I loved the first one; cold, european locations, no CGI jizz, and reality(Bourne hurts his leg, and he limps the rest of the way!). Yay for a real spy movie without superhuman heroics!

― derrick

the tussle w/the other former assassin was definitely in the "tussle" mode as opposed to the intricate fight choreography mode, but i think it was really good example of the tussle mode. that fight was fucking mean.

― amateurist

you need to see the bourne supremecy right now...like right fucking now

#34

The Bourne Supremacy
Paul Greengrass
2004
United States
(437 points, 17 votes, 1 first place)

max, you're right, that doesn't make it something that people shld accept.

Guys, A Single Man is far more offensive than BBM.

i didnt see brokeback mountain anyway, i hate sad movies

bourne supremacy is my favorite of the 3. everything an action movie should be.

Is "sad homo" a film trope on par with "magic nigger"? This is a genuine question; I pay more attention when the latter appears because it has a non-negligible impact on my interactions with people who don't know me so I have no idea if the former is as prevalent.