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

^^^basically an amazing film, on another day could have been my #1

Guess 'The Ladykillers' isn't going to make it.

The most sympathetic character obv is his son; I should have put in a caveat re: DDL's character is that he isn't all that sympathetic to begin with and gets progressively worse as the movie goes on, but in opposition to the crazy budget-Cilian-Murphy preacher he definitely comes across as the lesser of two evils, pretty much up to the last 20 or so minutes of the movie.

Also I am using "sympathy" as shorthand for "understanding their story/viewpoint", not so much "feeling sorry for" although a little bit of "placing yourself in their shoes"; the entire film invites you into this dude's world, making it unpleasant but not entirely alien right up to that last confrontation, which is like "um okay never mind,you are even crazier than I thought".

xp: No Country was also fucking fantastic

no country is so damn good

xp - it isn't just sympathy, in terms of liking a character or having warm feelings about them, it's a larger concept of caring, finding them interesting. They just seem like cardboard cut-outs or meta references to other things, in a knowing "aren't we all so clever" kinda way that I really don't feel like participating in.

Everyone talks so much about how awesome Bardem was (and he was) that it kind of gets glossed over how awesome Brolin was.

there were things I really liked about no country, and things I didn't

the latter mostly involve latebloomer's chigurh = terminator w/ bad haircut sentiment

Everyone is awesome in NCFOM. Acting is stellar across the board.

No Country had great imagery/atmosphere but I'll cop to being one of the slobs who didn't really get the ending or the subtext and still don't really feel like I understood or particularly like it now no matter how much I read about it and try to catch up

what meta-references? like Dano is supposed to be Billy Sunday? Stuff like that?

Woody Harrelson is underrated in No Country.

Really, really loved the ending.

is this a lot of people's favorite Coen movie or would it still take a backseat to a lot of their earlier work?

I didn't vote for NCFOM btw. For some reason I felt like I only had room for one serious 2007 film and I decided to give the points to TWBB for no good reason.

Suspect I loved No Country that bit more because it came at a point in the Coens' career when I thought they'd completely lost it. Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers were the kind of nadir you don't usually come back from.

xpost Please elaborate on all the knowing references that are supposed to make TWBB so meta? It didn't strike me as that kind of movie at all - it certainly didn't figure into my enjoyment of it.

for a supposedly realistic take on violence, crime, and evil, they relied a lot on a superhuman character's ability to find somebody anywhere no matter what

like if brolin jumped on a rocket to the moon bardem would just be waiting in a crater anyway

I like Paul Dano more for how he seems to be a genuinely odd person rather than for his great acting range (he's kind of like a younger Christopher Walken in that regard), but I do think he was kind of a weak link in TWBB. But some of the blame must go to the director/writer, I think. He was better and just as odd in his smaller role in Taking Woodstock, for example.

CHIGURH
Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.

PROPRIETOR
...Where you want me to put it?

CHIGURH
Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it'll get mixed in with the
others and become just a coin. Which it is.

I love love that "which it is"--makes the movie for me.

"is this a lot of people's favorite Coen movie or would it still take a backseat to a lot of their earlier work?"

My favorite Coen brothers film is the best one I watched recently (so its A Serious Man right now.)

i liked how he was terminator with bad haircut!

it took so many xposts to get that posted damn

Now I'm kinda hoping that out of the 4 movies to come, Children of Men will be the winner. That one felt more fresh and daring and innovative to me than ESotSM or Mulholland Drice (haven't seen No Country for Old Men). MD is a fine film, but there isn't anything in it Lynch hadn't already done (sometimes better) in the 80s/90s, so it doesn't much feel like "best of the 00s" to me.

― Tuomas, Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:05 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

given the high placement of Adaptation and fkn Synechdoche getting in the list i'm starting to get the sinking feeling that Eternal Sunshine is our #1

"for a supposedly realistic take on violence, crime, and evil"

Whuh?

is this a lot of people's favorite Coen movie or would it still take a backseat to a lot of their earlier work?

its not my favorite, I rate their comedies higher than their WE R SERIOUS crime thrillers, pretty much

"Supposedly realistic" is not something you can say about Cormac McCarthy.

"for a supposedly realistic take on violence, crime, and evil,"

sez who? It's pure mythos, just less cartoony than what you guys usu adore (thank Christ).

altho Dorian totally OTM re: it being their "comeback" film. was seriously considering writing them off altogether

meta-references like DD Lewis being like Orson Welles in Citizen Kane - I have only seen TWBB once, and that was shortly after it came out, and it's not fresh in my memory, so rather than make shit up or pound the table about things I vaguely remember, I'll just say that that was my immediate reaction to the film, but I can't back it up too well right now.

lol there's ZERO realism in NCFOM

no country was alright. i'd have cut tommy lee jones monologues out, seemed unnecessary. idk. ambivalent about this story, I think maybe it was short on ideas.

yeah i don't think it was realistic, i didn't treat it that way when i watched it. that's why terminator belongs.

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.

Half Nelson at #6.

The scene where Chigurh is stitching himself up totally gives off such Terminator vibes, it's kinda cool. Otherwise the movie's kinda irritating to me for some reason.

I saw realist nods in no country - lack of non-diegetic music, the refusal to tie ends up neatly

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.

cloverfield, #6

My reaction to TWBB was similar to s1ocki's to IB. Difficult to imagine a premise/setting more intriguing to me, and it didn't disappoint in that sense, although i share a lot of the concern about the whole dano mess and the ending.

its pretty clear from Bardem's very first scene that you're dealing with a mythic/unrealistic figure

starting to worry about michael clayton, #1

"I saw realist nods in no country - lack of non-diegetic music, the refusal to tie ends up neatly"

Okay but those two things have very little to do with "violence, crime, and evil".

mine is The Two Towers at #2

i was completely mesmerized by ncfom, the comment i quoted about it being strangely calming of all things is spot-on.

Fat Girl, #7

the comment i quoted about it being strangely calming of all things is spot-on

yup

the refusal to tie ends up neatly

? ends are pretty well tied up. Brolin is dead, coke dealers have their money, Chigurh is a deathless force of destruction that will just continue on and on, TLJ is old and tired and not really good for anything anymore

its pretty clear from Bardem's very first scene that you're dealing with a mythic/unrealistic figure

everybody else seemed to be playing by pretty quotidian rules though

i was irritated by 'no country'.. it was SO violent, but ultimately, you have.. the west + coin flips + terminator guy with weird haircut who goes around killing everybody, and it adds up to... ??

mine is bourne ultimatum at 5 but since the other two got in i'd say 'fantastic mr. fox' at 10

no country was alright. i'd have cut tommy lee jones monologues out, seemed unnecessary. idk. ambivalent about this story, I think maybe it was short on ideas.

― kicker conspiracy (b. favre ha ha) (daria-g), Thursday, February 11, 2010 4:17 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i kinda agree with this but it being an adaptation makes me second-guess my impression of the story and wonder if the way it was told in the book would resonate with me more. but then, reading The Road left me with no desire to read any other McCarthy books so i'll probably never know.

by "neatly" I mean according to traditional narrative conventions

it adds up to a meditation on mortality and humanity's helplessness before it

x-posts

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.

Mine is Songs from the Second Floor at #1. But only one movie in my top 10 placed here, and that was Happy-Go-Lucky.