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

I've seen Bad Santa about 3 times all the way through and it just gets better each time. BBT is great, but the show's stolen by that kid.

you should see the birdcage, that was a big happy hit

― da croupier, Tuesday, February 9, 2010 4:01 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

true dat

The best criticism I've still ever read about BBM is that its true radicalism is embodied in its completely reactionary form. In other words, it smuggles radical content into a totally conservative style of filmmaking. I guess I don't buy it 100 percent, but I want to buy it.

Ang Lee is NOT Sirk.

I just wanted to say... THURMOND MERMAN

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

During the toast at the rehearsal dinner I cringed and looked away like I was watching a horror movie or No Country for Old Men. Hathaway is irritating, dramatic and self-absorbed in such a perfect way.

― Spencer Chow

The dishwasher scene might be my favorite moment, where it's so unclear who is being serious and who is funneling their seriousness through levity and who is just joking around in a rough and playful way. I love how the film captured so many moments where the characters themselves weren't aware of their own behavior or intentions.

― Eazy

Really enjoyed this, by the way -- and, reviewing this thread, it's apparently turning out to be the sort of thing where the stuff some people didn't like about it is just mystifying to me: father seems like he's in a comedy? His "leave me alone I am repressing terrible emotions" arm-flapping in that one scene just killed me. (Especially given its similarity to his daughter-is-pregnant girlish arm-flap.)

― nabisco

I don't know what it says about me, but in the last couple years I never settled into a movie as comfortably as I did into this one.

― Eric H.

Any anticipation for "Rachel Getting Married"?

#33

Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme
2008
United States
(442.5 points, 15 votes, 1 first place)

I think In & Out was more radical than Humpback, esp the Spartacus parody at the end fulfilling Cobain's "Everyone is gay"

really loved rachel getting married

Ang Lee is NOT Sirk.

By which I think the critic meant to say "BBM wasn't made for you, but its existence could enlighten a few people you should want enlightened."

That's a pretty surprising (and, obviously, concentrated) RGM voting bloc there.

you should see the birdcage, that was a big happy hit

I wrote an article for my high school paper complaining that Nathan Lane's character was a Harmful Stereotype. </posts very much in character>

Enjoyed this until the interminable music scenes at the wedding itself, which made me feel like I was at the actual wedding, drunk, bored and angry, looking to swipe some wine off the top table while everyone was off looking pleased with themselves on the dancefloor.

Also, I'm sorry, but what a dog-and-pony show (the admittedly entertaining) Victor/Victoria is.

I wrote an article for my high school paper complaining that Nathan Lane's character was a Harmful Stereotype. </posts very much in character>

Repressed Homo me sat through it, glowering. Then I watched it on videotape with friends months later and memorized the Hackman dinner party bits.

BBT is great, but the show's stolen by that kid.

read this as "BBM is great" which baffled me

Nathan Lane's character didn't even acknowledge his option to abort.

Enjoyed this until the interminable music scenes at the wedding itself, which made me feel like I was at the actual wedding, drunk, bored and angry, looking to swipe some wine off the top table while everyone was off looking pleased with themselves on the dancefloor.

...which is how you're supposed to look in a straight wedding, unless you're me, smirking and drinking gin.

Also, do the gays who hate BBM also hate A Single Man?

which is how you're supposed to look in a straight wedding

As opposed to that smugly satisfied look everyone is required to wear at gay weddings?

The best criticism I've still ever read about BBM is that its true radicalism is embodied in its completely reactionary form. In other words, it smuggles radical content into a totally conservative style of filmmaking. I guess I don't buy it 100 percent, but I want to buy it.

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:07 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ang Lee is NOT Sirk.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:07 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is a really, really old argument, the first one, very popular in the 1970s when people decided that sirk was actually a "subversive"; which, of course, he wasn't.

it depends on a nonsensical distinction between "form" and "content" that ends up with people saying, "well, it used the eyeline match! therefore it is reactionary." which is p retarded imho

pic is no more or less radical than sirk.

Never been to one, and I won't unless I can smirk and drink gin. xpost

RGM was my #1 I think? LOVED THAT MOVIE SO MUCH. Perfect comfort film when my drunk mother is pissing me off.

I definitely do NOT rate BBM with Sirk, for the record.

I'd say the gay Hollywood film of this decade was Chuck & Buck, no way HRC & GLAAD were tempted to cheerlead for that.

(w/ talent from American Pie & Freaks and Geeks)

(the admittedly entertaining) Victor/Victoria

oh, the shame!

I don't hate BBM or A Single Man, but they weren't made for me. (Both books way better, ASM moreso)

this is a really, really old argument, the first one, very popular in the 1970s when people decided that sirk was actually a "subversive"; which, of course, he wasn't.

it depends on a nonsensical distinction between "form" and "content" that ends up with people saying, "well, it used the eyeline match! therefore it is reactionary." which is p retarded imho

No one has said this.

So, NRQ, you're saying there is absolutely NO value to the concept of smuggling in content into a genre/for an audience that would not normally bottom for it willingly?

Ugh, Chuck & Buck. I tricked myself into thinking that was good back then. Quickly came to the conclusion I was dead wrong.

I think I forgot to vote for RGM but it was my just about my favorite post-2006 movie.

that's where the argument ends, is what im saying.

how is the "form" reactionary?

xp to alfred

So, NRQ, you're saying there is absolutely NO value to the concept of smuggling in content into a genre/for an audience that would not normally bottom for it willingly?

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 9:18 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

im saying sirk didn't smuggle in anything and nor did ang lee. im fine with the idea, but audiences aren't stupid, and i can't think of a time when it's happened.

The form isn't reactionary. That's the point. It's made for granny knows-no-gay-relatives.

(Which, I guess I hasten to add, is the fault of the gay relatives not speaking up.)

smuggles radical content into a totally conservative style of filmmaking.

By which I think the critic meant to say "BBM wasn't made for you, but its existence could enlighten a few people you should want enlightened."

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 3:10 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's Got Problems but it'll Do Good. they say the same things about harry potter getting kids to read novels. i dunno, seems like the kind of argument you'd want to put some numbers on rather than return to as a defense. "could enlighten"? yeah well maybe not. did it or didn't it?

http://didisin.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/another_gay_movie.jpg

audiences aren't stupid

hahaha

the discouse this all belongs to says the individualistic ("psychological") narrative, and the filmmaking techniques devised to tell it, are bourgeois-reactionary. it's not what i think, j./s, tho, that's where the argument comes from.

xp

So, NRQ, you're saying there is absolutely NO value to the concept of smuggling in content into a genre/for an audience that would not normally bottom for it willingly?

Perhaps, but even if you manahe to smuggle the content it won't automatically make the movie great. Also, as has been pointed out, the content here isn't that subversive, it's basically the good ol' Tragic Homosexual, which had already been smuggled to mainstream cinema a decade earlier in Philadelphia.

I'd say the gay Hollywood film of this decade was Chuck & Buck, no way HRC & GLAAD were tempted to cheerlead for that.

the weird thing about C&B for me is that its sexual politics are really kinda inscrutable. it ends up being a moderately positive portrayal of two adults (one ostensibly straight and the other, um, developmentally arrested at best) engaging in some kind of intensely eroticized nostalgia routine... its just so inexplicable. on the one hand it seems wildly unrealistic and idealized (i.e, Chuck's fantasy is fulfilled and he is happy!), and you have to wonder what kind of political position it is that recommends adults getting together with their childhood playmates to indulge in sexual hijinks as therepeutic...

x-posts

Rachel Getting Ignored

ANT

i'd say 'the informant!' did s.thing p cool re smuggling in radical content, and it did it by completely fucking itself as a story... and no1 saw it ne way lol

Chuck and Buck almost made my ballot. Owen Gleiberman's #5 of the decade!

what is this, the straits of hormuz? there is no smuggling of anything going on here

I think Chuck & Buck being 2 sides of the same person is a plausible reading.

(that said, I didn't vote for C&B. All the real good gay movies are foreign. TWO DRIFTERS)

"bourne ultimatum" is gonna be pretty high huh?

"supremacy" is truly amazing, the apartment fight scene is mesmerizing

i love "rachel getting married" so much -- probably my favorite use of digital handheld that i can remember

those are two of my... top 8 i think

i am finally going to watch RGM tonight, i think. after this poll is over i will have 20 films i liked enough to vote for, just 2 weeks too late ; )

Calling Chuck & Buck a Hollywood film is bizarre. You joking about it being set in LA?

/smuggles radical content into a totally conservative style of filmmaking./
--pro bono publico (history mayne)