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

MD is a worthy #1, but is anyone else hoping it isn't?

deric w. haircare

― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:43 AM (2 hours ago)

Okay, ha ha ha, I'm completely perplexed at what might've inspired this, but I will pre-emptively spoilerize my ballot this one time by saying that you are as wrong as you could possibly be.

i haven't had a chance to see time of the wolf yet unfortunately, and i love beatrice dalle a lot

remember that haneke is AUSTRIAN. this is nazi guilt not colonial guilt at work.

though i tend to prefer the germans whose "never again" response was to make bad metal albums

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

I loved this movie coming out of the theatre, hated it after about a week's digestion, and after thinking about it some more, am now on the fence. I really need to see it again. ― mark pI liked it, the ending was great. For me, the part where Charlie asks Donald to help with his script is the actual end of the film. The ending that occurs is the ending that Donald would have written, had he existed in the first place.

― jel

I wish the ending had gone all the way by actually including motorcycles chasing horses and that sort of thing. Rather than break down in a ridiculous but exhilarating manner, it just seems to surrender to the mediocrity that is being fought valiantly throughout the previous sequences.

Still, the portrayal of Charlie's agent is hysterical, Chris Cooper gives a phenomenal performance as John Laroche, and there are genuinely funny moments scattered throughout the film. The movie succeeds at documenting the difficulty of the writing process, the complex relationships between writers and their work, writers and other writers, and writers and other writer's work...not to mention their friends families lovers and characters. Despite the conflation of so many storylines, Adaptation still manages to dramatize a flower both by showing the orchid's innate interest, and its value as an ever-shifting metaphor in the lives of various people and cultures involved with it. Easier said than done.

― Ryan McKay

People who hate Adaptation HATE FUN!

Seriously, the accusation that the movie is aimed at pseudo-intellectual poseurs is so asinine. You could say that about any intelligent movie and then retreat to your OWN world of pseudo-intellectual smugness, thinking, "Ha, I'm so clever I saw right through that," and then feel superior over anyone who was stupid enough to enjoy it.

It's a movie about movies. It's a movie you can enjoy on different levels and it's also a movie you don't have to examine on any deep "levels" to enjoy, because it's entertaining. It seems to me that the people who are slamming it are people who, for reasons which elude me but which I think have to do with their own pretentiousness, have consciously talked themselves out of enjoying something that they probably liked, but, you know, liking things isn't hip enough for them or whatever.

― jewelly

adaptation is crapola

#19

Adaptation
Spike Jonze
2002
United States
(545.5 points, 27 votes)

xpost Austro-Hungarian imperial guilt?

Fun fact: Caché was the dullest film made in the last decade!

remember that haneke is AUSTRIAN. this is guilt for keeping his daughter imprisoned in the basement for years and fathering children by her, not colonial guilt at work.

I assume we're done with michelle hanukkah, unless the white ribbon places higher

surprised that stuff like code unknown and time of the wolf didn't make it

i think omar requested we keep speculation to a minimum?

wtf @ adaptation

adaptation kinda curdled for me once i realized i empathized more with donald than charlie

i mean come on it takes a lot more effort to write an interesting serial killer movie these days than a self-conscious meta-movie about a new yorker article

I hate fun

jess otm

adaptation is great. didn't vote for it. voted for caché, just for its mood more than anything. low low placing on my ballot tho.

Oh, ha ha ha. I saw Nicholas Cage and instantly thought it was another joke post for, like, Bangkok Serious or whatever the fuck stupidly-titled movie that was.

Aren't you supposed to empathize more with Donald?

ugh Adaptation. Garbage. Although I remember another thread where I described what I WISHED had happened in that movie and then someone telling me that that WAS what actually happened ... that left me head-scratching.

I hated the last act of Adaptation so much.

meryl & chris cooper are GREAT in adaptation, tho i didnt vote 4 it

prolly your upthread defense of napoleon dynamite and cameron crowe, missed your expressed love of MD tho

xp to deric

Bangkok Serious or whatever the fuck stupidly-titled movie that was.

that movie wasn't just stupidly titled - it was a stupid movie.

i had no idea anyone rated it that highly

I hated the last act of Adaptation so much.

yeah I was kinda with it until the last 3rd or so and then I just turned violently against it, it was the death scene that really annoyed me

also i AM a cripplingly self-conscious, slovenly writer who rewards himself with muffins for getting a few paragraphs written and wishes he was banging catherine keener. don't need a two hour reminder.

Meryl Streep staring at her toes = gross

Don't remember much about it except thinking oh, hey, now Meryl Streep is funny and sexy instead of earnestly truffling for Oscars. And I cling to it as the last evidence that Nicolas Cage had any inclination to do something useful with his talent.

xp strongo: how did you feel about Synecdoche, NY - a three hour reminder was it?

hate fun as well, i'm not sure if there needed to be another movie about writer's block

Saw a preview of Adaptation with Charlie Kaufman taking questions from the audience afterward. Got maybe 3 questions about his dead brother and some condolences before he responded rather angrily that the brother was fiction.

hahaha!

no, see, if i got a macarthur grant i'd just spend the money on beer and old arcade games

"finally, a 'm.e.r.c.' machine to call my own."

prolly your upthread defense of napoleon dynamite and cameron crowe, missed your expressed love of MD tho

What can I say: I contain multitudes, bro.

Also, I wasn't defending Crowe as much as I was saying that I didn't understand the wildly varying critical response to his films when they're all pretty consistently adequate.

no, see, if i got a macarthur grant i'd just spend the money on beer and old arcade games

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Wednesday, February 10, 2010 11:16 AM (2 minutes ago)

would probably have been a better movie if it was about you, then.

Did King of Kong place?

Time of the Wolf >>> Cache imo

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Wednesday, February 10, 2010 2:03 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

I'd reverse this

enjoyed the mystery elements of cache, time of the wolf really dragged for me (and generally speaking I am a post-apocalypse stan)

nope :(

xp

ILX has no time for docs apparently.

for those wondering (or who like their lists in ascending order)

19. Adaptation
20. Caché
21. The Incredibles
22. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
23. Donnie Darko
24. The Departed
25. Superbad
26. American Psycho
27. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
28. Pan's Labyrinth
29. Shaun of the Dead
30. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
31. Battle Royale
32. The New World
33. Rachel Getting Married
34. The Bourne Supremacy
35. Bad Santa
36. Brokeback Mountain
37. A History of Violence
38. 24 Hour Party People
39. A Serious Man
40. The Bourne Identity
41. The Dark Knight
42. The Hurt Locker
43. Gosford Park
44. Oldboy
45. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
46. Up
47. Best in Show
48. Kill Bill: Vol. 2
49. The 40 Year-Old Virgin
50. I'm Not There
51. Eastern Promises
52. Punch-Drunk Love
53. Before Sunset
54. Miami Vice
55. Munich
56. Yi Yi: A One and a Two
57. Brick
58. You Can Count On Me
59. Sexy Beast
60. The Host
61. Audition
62. Borat
63. Wet Hot American Summer
64. Kings and Queen
65. Kung Fu Hustle
66. A.I. Artificial Intelligence
67. Synecdoche, New York
68. Elephant
69. Far From Heaven
70. Ratatouille
71. 25th Hour
72. Amelie
73. The Triplets of Belleville
74. In Bruges
75. Y tu mamá también
76. In the Loop
77. The Squid & The Whale
78. 28 Days Later
79. Team America: World Police
80. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
81. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
82. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
83. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle
84. Finding Nemo
85. Almost Famous
86. All the Real Girls
87. Minority Report
88. Memories of Murder
89. The Lives of Others
90. Together
91. Talk to Her
92. Tropical Malady
93. Sideways
94. Napoleon Dynamite
95. Capturing the Friedmans
96. High Fidelity
97. Happy-Go-Lucky
98. Dogville
99. The Piano Teacher
100. Movern Callar

we still might see the fog of war

been seeing that all thread amirite

Oh shit, I totally forgot about King of Kong! I should've voted for it, it was very good!

Am I the only one who voted for Dark Days? That was the most moving (and possibly the best) documentary I've ever seen.

Was Dark Days the one about the people that live in the subway tunnels?

Yeah.

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

As far as I can remember the huge plot hole is merely the one of motivation. When he discovers that he killed his wife he is happy to continue killing people as it drives him. However this relelntless and pointless chase of justice is based on a very selfish whim, which does not strictly fit the character we have come to believe.

There are a few similar motivational problems with Memento which can be excused due to the genre of film it is (Teddy is never more than a cypher) - but I really enjoyed it and thought it was virtuoso film- making, and in particular, writing.

― Pete

there was something more basic than that. the conceit of the film revolves around what the character/audience does and doesn't know (like all thrillers, but more so). i seem to recall reconstructing the order of events and realising there was a huge shortcut from the beginning to the end because of some obvious piece of information.

I did enjoy the film BTW -- certainly one of the better films i've seen in the last year or so -- but i'm damn positive there was something that didn't ring right with the plot mechanics. it's bugging me now.

― Alan Trewartha

I don't believe he killed his wife. But either way, biggest prob for me was how Natalie treats Leonard. When she sees him in her boyfriend's car and clothes she's all 'wtf!' but when she learns of his condition it's as though she suddenly doesn't care that her boyfriend is missing and Leonard has apparently nicked all his stuff. Yeah she manipulates him but she still ends up helping him, and never goes "where is my boyfriend you fucking retard!". Maybe she hated her bf but the script gives no indication of that (apart from showing him to be a drug-dealing douche).

Still, dope film, great idea and superbly executed - aside from minor misgivings like above.

― ledge

Memento

#18

Memento
Christopher Nolan
2000
United States
(546 points, 30 votes)

xp - tuomas: I'd almost completely forgotten about it! I really liked it when I saw it - but that was almost a decade ago.

King of Kong got robbed.

Dark Days was good.

every film in 11-20 one world title imo