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

Well, here's contrarianism at any rate.

All these arguments have been about its politics = most of this thread

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

I liked it a lot. So beautiful. Some frightening scenes of hunger and madness at the fort, too. I hope Q'Orianka Kilcher makes more of her career than Jim Caviezel. She's equally stunning. Yeah, it's slow, but aren't most people expecting that?

― Arthur

The movie is still simmering in my brain. But I've never found TM to be a great filmmaker, and this one doesn't change my mind. It is visually ravishing, but I think cutting a few of the flying geese shots and the overlong silences between Smith and Pocahontas can only help. (Like Gere in DOH, Colin Farrell has about two facial expressions throughout; he's beautiful and broody, but we need more and don't get it.) Q'Orianka Kilcher is ultimately moving, but it took me two hours to feel that way; she is the heart of the film -- it's about Pocahontas.

The colonists are the most convincingly starving and grotty-looking you've ever seen, which in a couple of instances (religious or rebellious delirium) teeters in the direction of Monty Python.

― Dr Morbius

i saw the new cut yesterday.

having seen both versions, i cant make out much of a difference. it didnt really seem like anything was missing, and i noticed just as many new shots as i remembered shots that were missing. so not really a big change from what i can tell. i hope malick releases the longer version on dvd, since i can watch his movies all day when in the comfort of home.

anyway, it's still glorious.

― ryan

I think more people walked out of this film than any other film I have ever seen (and SOONER too--one girl heard the first voiceover, loudly said "Hell no", grabbed her friend and walked out AND then came back in five minutes later to snatch a soda from her boyfriend who had stayed haha!)

I thought it was fantastic.

― Alex in SF

"the new world" (terrence malick film)

#32

The New World
Terrence Malick
2005
United States
(444.5 points, 15 votes, 1 first place)

Still love that "hell no" story.

Better than the movie.

Hooray for TNW! Shocked it's here.

I didn't like it, but I think I'm wrong.

I don't get Malick: lots of pretty widescreen shots of actors, mouths slightly open, contemplating the Vastness of the Earth. I keep imagining the actors eating grapes.

LOL yeah it was pretty great.

what's wrong with vastness?

I haven't seen this movie but Alfred's post made me think of this:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/126475/saturday-night-live-grapes

otm

This piece made me really want to see this - so great to read such unabashed passion. "As everything else rots away, it will abide." However, I suspect my reaction will be more like Alfred's.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec/10/the-new-world-terrence-malick

Definitely a taste thing. Some people can't deal with, say, Heidegger's navel gazing either. And I don't blame em for it. I have all the time in the world for Malick's POV tho. Glad he's out there and someone's stupid enough to give him the money to make these extraordinary and odd movies.

lots of pretty widescreen shots of actors, mouths slightly open, contemplating the Vastness of the Earth. I keep imagining the actors eating grapes.
this is sort of true but Malick does it so well that it's not actually a bad thing

I didn't vote for The New World btw, but mostly cuz even though I loved it, it's not a patch on The Thin Red Line.

seems like a lot of these movies are just shots of actors and objects either still or in motion - what's the big deal?

Most of these movies aren't 15567 minutes long.

TNW was pretty good - I definitely found its evocation of pre-colonial America pretty beautiful and riveting but it just didn't seem to go anywhere.

thats 259 hours

well they'd already arrived!

I always get the sense in all his movies that the actors stand waiting for direction, and when he forgets to give'em any he layers on the voice-over.

I don't think that's inaccurate at all, but it doesn't really matter to my enjoyment of his movies.

i thought the music after the wedding in 'rachel getting married' was the best part! and at the last wedding i attended i drank a LOT of gin, that's always a good plan.

have not yet seen 'the new world' but am very very interested in it now.

All these arguments have been about its politics = most of this thread

― gotanynewsstory? (Dorianlynskey), Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Yes, which is probably why I've found most of it so infuriatingly dumb.

TNW kind of dragged and didn't really gel up for me (i watched it on a laptop iirc, i know, sacrilege) UNTIL the turn when Pocahontas goes to england and it became flat out amazing.

many xposts

I think it's glib to dismiss BBM as a "tragic homosexual" movie or even as a political movie. It plays like a very deeply personal story about repression and what it does to a person internally. How is that not universal? To see Ennis become slowly diminished and calcified over the course of the events of the movie was profound and heartbreaking. The fact that Heath was able to do that in an almost entirely internal performance was amazing. I also disagree with those who said that the movie lacked passion. What exactly are you talking about? That wasn't my experience of it at all.

"i watched it on a laptop iirc, i know, sacrilege"

Okay I'm not a big OHMIGOD YOU'VE GOT TO SEE X IN THE THEATER person, but still I can't imagine enjoying this movie on a tiny laptop screen at all.

the new world is a bit of a mess and inconsistent. almost treading on noble savage territory, v. little depth, not really illuminating at all but I love it. pretty hard to praise it properly though. it is superficial and its also crazy alive.

well i had it really close to my face, give me a break

LOL

I think it's glib to dismiss BBM... as a political movie.

the marketing and aggressive politicking around this movie don't do it any favors tbf

I think it's glib to dismiss BBM... as a political movie.

the marketing and aggressive politicking around this movie don't do it any favors tbf

― mark kerfuffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, February 9, 2010 10:37 PM

yeah, well homosexuality is implicitly political these days, it seems. I don't remember and marketing that suggested a political angle. That may have been the public perception/reaction when it came out, though...

I guess I need to rewatch The New World. All I can remember is not understanding a single goddamn word anyone was saying.

My ambivalence towards BBM these days, btw, does NOT extend to the performances. Ledger is fantastic, and should have won THAT Oscar.

I think one reason i prefer TTRL to TNW is that the war setting sort of "heightens the contradictions" of malick's style. Filming a situation of absolute fear and desperation in that manner makes it pretty unique.

Probably also why, for me: TTRL/Badlands > TNW/Days of Heaven. But I love them all.

"I think one reason i prefer TTRL to TNW is that the war setting sort of "heightens the contradictions" of malick's style. Filming a situation of absolute fear and desperation in that manner makes it pretty unique.

Probably also why, for me: TTRL/Badlands > TNW/Days of Heaven. But I love them all."

I think the combination of "first experience of an alien world" and Malick's elegiac/mythic style is pretty awesome, too.

"TTRL/Badlands > TNW/Days of Heaven"

This is basically the exact order of preference for me.

I voted TNW pretty high, but I didn't even think it was gonna place. very excited about the new one.

ps days of heaven >> ttrl >>>> badlands / tnw

ttrl? i cannot keep track of all the abbreviations anymore!

oh, the thin red line.

ttrl = Talk To Reverend Later

15 votes...that must be among highest point ratios yet

It's weird. I think TTRL is a masterpiece and all, but I'd probably rather watch TNW, which I definitely don't love, just about any given day.

Oh, man, was out trying to get a job today, and I come back and my #1 (Rachel Getting Married), which I at this point thought had no shot, has placed! Love that fucking movie.

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

I saw this and loved it and everyone missed the point!

I think the real context is resurgent japanese militarism, the revival of imperial traditions, etc. and BR isn't to "punish" youth so much as toughen them up and teach them to be STRONG and the sweet flashback/death thing gets used all the time in Japanese stuff esp. w/r/t WWII and the whole thing is about the impending sense of moral tragedy and defeat and pure cruelty of the imperial mindset.

I mean... kids sent out to die? It's like a crude crude metaphor for a draft!

The uncle who was the 60s radical shoulda been another clue.

― Sterling Clover

not nearly as squeamish as i'd thought, i'm sorta surprised anybody could take this one seriously because once takeshi lets them go 90% of it is standard slasher movie / gangster movie setups and payoffs. well, except everybody is a slasher.

― moonship journey to baja

I felt the pacing at the beginning was spot-on, actually, I thought you were talking about the later stages of the film, like the scenes in the lighthouse and back inside the school.

The speed with which everything is executed at the exposition, I felt, was to give the viewer the same disoriented and panicked feeling of the students. From the introduction of Beat's character to the moment they started handing out the equipment bags I was nervous almost to the point of nausea. I didn't get comfortable again until after the first couple of deaths outside, after which I fell into a kind of pessimistic rhythm.

― Millar

thought BR wasn't as good as the portrayal i had in my head of what it was going to be like but then some of it i loved - the two transfer students were brilliant and the fat kid at the start and the technical kids

i was lucky enuff to get 1 of the limited t-shirt prints tho

― james

i am a big fan of japanese women i think they either fall in to the catagory of "foxy as hell" or "hmmm nope no way" and there dress sense is amazing

― james

Battle Royale
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=18077
'Battle Royale' vs 'Massacre at Central High'

#31

Battle Royale
Kinji Fukasaku
2000
Japan
(450 points, 19 votes)

lol james

a+ quote hunting there

odd that that placed so high... I mean I liked it okay but basically forgot most of it, whereas the book has def stayed with me in an intense way.

I haven't forgotten that movie at all.