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

"i don't think it would place that high if this poll were done in 5 years time. i guess it picked up a lot of votes form people for whom it was the last film they really enjoyed in the cinema."

I think this is true, and a good thing. There's a tendency to disadvantage more recent releases in any kind of poll - witness most of the "albums of the 00s" lists in various publications - because it feels too early to take the plunge on something that hasn't had time to bed in, and it's refreshing to get "yay, fuck it, I loved this" instead.

One think I love about Miyazaki, and which seems to be kinda rare in Western animation (or animation in general), is how much he obviously loves the nature and how beautiful and enchanting he can make it look like without doing much cartoonish exaggeration at all. I could spend hours just watching him depict trees, grass, rain, wind, the ocean...

So what are the surprise films to not place in the top 100?

Well, for a start, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that ILX doesn't heart Huckabees as much as I thought they might.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/therewillbeblood.png

i thought characters made little sense, psychologically, historically, whatever. pta didn't seem to care whether a particular span of the film made sense with regard to the rest (i'm speaking in terms of character). for an historical film it didn't seem too invested in any sense of history, except as a challenge for mise en scene--there were all these other people around plainview and sunday and pta didn't seem to want to do anything with them, even in the background.

i suppose an evident and developing formal pattern might have deflected some of my attention from this but i didn't find the film all that remarkable (except for a few brilliant set pieces) from this standpoint either. i just didn't get it. i'd have to see it again for this to be anything but a tentative assessment, but my experience was such that i'm not sure i want to see it again.

don't get me wrong, it was interesting, and i wasn't bored. but i felt completely emotionally uninvested in it, in part b/c the film never seemed to know what it's attitude toward its characters was.

― amateurist

that's PTA's MO throughout the whole movie. he's obsessively focused on plainview alone, really, to the point of not even bothering to include the expository material amateurist was asking about. it's a very strange but imo effective approach.and i think the key thing about plainview's character is his total alone-ness. the important line for me was "i want to make enough money to get away from everyone."

― s1ocki

i think the plainview character is all that american frontierist self-invention, daniel boone via ayn rand. he's not interested in religion except as a power system and has contempt for the idea of it as anything else. (in a way the last scene could be grover norquist vs. mike huckabee.) but of course eli mostly sees religion as a means to power too, so they're not really at odds, which is the point of plainview's humiliation of him.

― tipsy mothra

i guess the narrative on the film is pta leavin' his comfort zone, but that was kind of the narrative for the last film, and 'hard eight' is pretty unlike the others too... i liked the comfort zone and wish he had spent more time in it, because i think he understands miserable los angelenos and coked-up young idiots better than he does turn-of-the-century oilmen.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it

Certainly the first hour and a half is the best thing PTA has done (no, I'm not a fan). That said, I think I was only thrilled by the 2 big oilstrike scenes, and the DDL/Kevin J O'Connor fireside talk (the way Plainview snorts about people, then laughs).

And what is "the Third Revelation," biblically? cuz in terms of this films it might be:

THE LAST SCENE SUCKS!!!

― Dr Morbius

So wait, those identical twins weren't the same guy? That confusion,
and the lame helplessness of the preacher before the now-mythical
milkshake speech, blat out in an otherwise sweeping symphony. Or maybe
they "make" the movie--I honestly don't know.

- Pete Scholtes

Daniel Day-Lewis is gonna win the surprisingly heavy statue next year. His characterization is fascinating. It's all-consuming and oversized, and it's such a "performance" that it blocks you from fully transporting into the story, but it's its own work of art.

― Cosmo Vitelli

anticiapte "There Will Be Blood" by paul thomas anderson

#5

There Will Be Blood
Paul Thomas Anderson
2007
United States
(1187 points, 42 votes, 3 first place)

Here's a fun, non-spoilerizing question: what are everyone's highest ranking movies that they're positive aren't going to make it into the top ten? Mine is To Be And To Have at #4.

― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Thursday, February 11, 2010 5:48 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

blades of glory

i'm late for the party...

I think this is true, and a good thing. There's a tendency to disadvantage more recent releases in any kind of poll - witness most of the "albums of the 00s" lists in various publications - because it feels too early to take the plunge on something that hasn't had time to bed in, and it's refreshing to get "yay, fuck it, I loved this" instead.

― gotanynewsstory? (Dorianlynskey), Thursday, February 11, 2010 8:37 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yep, wouldn't be surprised to see people being a bit more confident about putting the blind side in their top 10 in 2050

never saw #6 or #5 myself - not really interested in TWBB but Miyazaki seems like a safe director to take a chance on

TWBB is really fucking great.

i think IB has the sort of things in it that morbius might actually enjoy

Enough to wipe out "The powerrr of the ssssssssinema is going to BRING DOWN THE THIRD REICH!" (hatchet-faced geek on promo tour smiles smugly)? Doubtful.

i can't believe people think of TWBB as some decade classic with paul dano's completely embarrassing performance

i liked DDL as bill the butcher better anyway

I'm willing to hate spirited away for hate's sake! hm... this is tough. i guess i don't like how they demonized pigs when they are so tasty.

Fantastic Mr. Fox isn't gonna place, is it

j0rdan otm

I saw this again last week, and have mellowed. The first three-quarters are terrific, as long as you don't pay attention. This is the rare movie that needed six or seven hours to understand the character's arc.

TWBB that is.

TWBB stands up far better than In the country of old men.

disagree with this. twbb is more visceral but i think there's less to it ultimately.

in a country

of old men

there is a place

where there will be blood

how the hell can you hate on Paul Dano in TWBB

Hey, did you know Mulholland Drive might be one of the movies surprisingly left off? It's still closed, according to authorities.

http://laist.com/2010/02/11/what_happened_to_mulholland_drive.php

Soundtrack is the best thing about TWBB, Jonny Greenwood was shafted by the academy.

I bet he liked it

how the hell can you love Paul Dano in TWBB

That soundtrack took me out of the movie to be honest. no country didn't have a soudntrack did it?

J0rdan OTM about DDL as Bill the Butcher.

xp - Alfred: the problem is that I was paying attention, and it just seemed structured and edited incompetently, and the ending just seemed like a piss-take, almost cowardly. I don't think it "needed" six or seven hours to understand the character's arc, it wasn't that complex, but getting that feeling shows the flaws of the filmmaker more than anything.

yeah i hated the overbearing score, i'm sure he was trying to blow minds by sidestepping film score cliche on purpose and all but the random horror movie string stabs over scenes that didn't call for them at all really ruined a lot of the movie for me

i posted this in the TWBB thread i think, but he wasn't originally cast for that role, and i think it's obvious that he wasn't able to handle it. i just find his shrieking canned & unbelievable.

disagree with this. twbb is more visceral but i think there's less to it ultimately.

my take is that NCFOM is the interesting but annoyingly arsey person who turns up to a party, the sense of self-importance is too pervasive.

TWBB is the interesting and slightly alarming person in the kitchen at the same party who doesn't talk to people that much.

no country didn't have a soudntrack did it?

I was completely oblivious to it in the theater but re-watched recently and there are a handful of (very, verrrrry quietly) scored scenes

re: bad editing, are you talking about when she's learning sign language and 10 seconds later they're getting married?

TWBB was my #1. ^_^

I thought Dano was fine as Eli. He's such a smug, shrill unlikeable little pipsqueak, the perfect foil for Plainview IMO.

Just had a(nother) long argument with my wife about TWBB. She wants everybody who had anything to do with it to spontaneously combust into a pile of ash.

"Enough to wipe out "The powerrr of the ssssssssinema is going to BRING DOWN THE THIRD REICH!" (hatchet-faced geek on promo tour smiles smugly)? Doubtful."

For a guy who likes to pretend everyone else is a mental midget you sure do pop off with the most juvenile reductionist film interpretations.

i was THIS close to putting Magnolia on my ballot just as a challopy way to thumb my nose at Blood

xp - Philip - that, and the way it jumps around and doesn't seem to invest enough in character development or exploration of the social context/issues. It just felt like the people making the movie were bored and impatient.

why wd you watch a pta movie for 'exploration of the social context/issues'

TWBB was at its finest before DDL started talking

(that was a direct quote from "QT," Yakuza Fanboy)

Tarantino only used five S's though

No Country For Old Men is well made I guess but it's ultimately kinda glib and doesn't really say or do anything that interesting except for the villain, who is basically the Terminator with a funny haircut.

ya, I kind of thought that the point of the character was that he was an irredeemable creepy whose storytelling function was to distract you from the level of pathological awfulness inherent in DDL's character until the confrontation at the end of the movie, where your sympathies are fully and rudely inverted

I liked this movie so much more than "Magnolia", it was kind of amazing.

(btw: "the character" = Paul Dano in TWBB)

xp nakhcivan - because it was an adaptation of an Upton Sinclair novel.

TWBB was my #1

(that was a direct quote from "QT," Yakuza Fanboy)

You sure do a lot of research into a movie you never plan on seeing, then.

ya, I kind of thought that the point of the character was that he was an irredeemable creepy whose storytelling function was to distract you from the level of pathological awfulness inherent in DDL's character until the confrontation at the end of the movie, where your sympathies are fully and rudely inverted

that's probably right, if anything the oddity of the performance adds something to what is basically a cipher for 'organised religion!'

"(that was a direct quote from "QT," Yakuza Fanboy)"

Oh so let him do your thinking for you now. That explains a lot.

i don't have a very idealized vision of what ilx's demographic or sensibility is to be actually disappointed or shocked by any of these placements, but somehow i really hoped y'all movie buffs would find a lot more stuff to champion than these Gritty Epics of the '08 Oscars

You sure do a lot of research into a movie you never plan on seeing

guy being unavoidably in the media for 2 weeks in October = "research"