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

i sometimes think that ppl who are trained to spend time digging deeply into subtexts of art tend to write off purposefully clear uses of allegory/reference/imagery as more obv than they are because their senses for these things are already really heightened. like if u spend all your time trying to parse nabokovian acrostics and only watch art films i guess i can see why the references to the christ story seem "heavy-handed" in com. but i mean - its popular film? i think the echo is clear (as i sd) but for me it was in no way heavy-handed. ymmv.

and emil.y i mentioned some of the reasons why i noticed the parallels to the christ story but im not super familiar w/ it

Okay, thanks. This is what you could have said straight away in answer to my 'were there animals' question. But no, this is fucking ilx, we have to go through a fucking rigmarole. Well done, chaps.

― emil.y, Friday, February 12, 2010 8:57 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hi emil.y seriously no offense but we talked about the girls pregnancy being revealed in the manger upthread--not like 100 posts upthread but like 15

Yeah, but I asked a specific question about animals, and it took a bloody hoopla to get that question answered. Anyway, now that is answered, I'm backing slowly away from you people.

the girls pregnancy is revealed in a cow barn with cows standing around
― max

Okay, thanks. This is what you could have said straight away in answer to my 'were there animals' question. But no, this is fucking ilx, we have to go through a fucking rigmarole. Well done, chaps.

― emil.y, Friday, 12 February 2010 13:57 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

more prominent than the cows are the milking machines fwiw

yeah another way the film 'subverts' the christ parallels

can imagine ilx reaction if the kid was born in a palace how heavy handed would that symbolism be for you?

Should've been Pret a Manger for extra lols.

i sometimes think that ppl who are trained to spend time digging deeply into subtexts of art tend to write off purposefully clear uses of allegory/reference/imagery as more obv than they are because their senses for these things are already really heightened.

this is probably true of me.

im with lamp that some ppl may be more sensitive than others--but i think also ppl are willfully ignoring the way the movie destabilizes and distances itself from the references & creates meaning in those gaps

this is probably true of me.

― sarahel, Friday, February 12, 2010 2:02 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark

yes, you are clearly a uniquely gifted and sensitive close reader

haha i mean - probably repeating myself here - but i think the actual concerns of the movie have a lot more to do w/mans relationship to nature/the environment/'physicality' than the christ story or religion. the movie just appropriates some of those symbols for added weight and to echo the stories mythic nature

i gotta take a nap, not feeling great, but i wanna throw all my chips in with whatever max is saying here. he seems mostly otm. sarahel -- i find most of your readings on this thread totally reductive and not illuminative of the films you're discussing. if you wanted to talk about the heavy-handedness of the scene as broadening the meaning of the film, that would be one thing. but i feel like your critiques are: X film is Y, therefore it's bad. which is really sub-par criticism for any reader. Almost Famous is sexist, therefore it's a bad film. Children of Men is heavy-handed with its Christ imagery, therefore it's a bad film. just super lazy film review stuff.

I guess the thing for me, is that the birth - probably the most powerful reference, because it was the climax - is near the end, so that it felt like it was stabilizing and coming closer to the references, became more "traditional" at that point. I'd like to repeat that I did like the movie, and that I didn't find the Christian symbolism repugnant, but that I had mixed feelings about it - which did make it interesting.

Should've been Pret a Manger for extra lols.

ha

but i feel like your critiques are: X film is Y, therefore it's bad. which is really sub-par criticism for any reader. Almost Famous is sexist, therefore it's a bad film. Children of Men is heavy-handed with its Christ imagery, therefore it's a bad film. just super lazy film review stuff.

Where did I say Children of Men was a bad film? I didn't. I found Almost Famous to be sexist, and that precluded me from liking it. You're a really lazy reader.

this is probably true of me.

― sarahel, Friday, February 12, 2010 2:02 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark

yes, you are clearly a uniquely gifted and sensitive close reader

― V-E-R-Y (history mayne), Friday, February 12, 2010 6:03 AM (7 minutes ago)

You are clearly an insecure asshole.

NO U R

(Protip: If you bitch about the film being a heavy-handed reference to Christ, and mention how it reminded you of Fundementalist Christianity in America -- people are going to assume you didn't like the film.)

TS - CoM miracle birth in squalid circumstances ending vs. alien/angel leads the innocents to heaven in Knowing

xp to Mordy - Except that she stated that she liked it SEVERAL TIMES before the evangelical comment.

You are clearly an insecure asshole.

― sarahel, Friday, February 12, 2010 2:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

actually im a pretty self-confident asshole, but you do have a way with ruining threads with yr headbanging

it's a big thread. i must've missed that part. tbh, i'm not doing a critical analysis on sarahel's positions on films. i don't really care.

but you do have a way with ruining threads with yr headbanging

this is otm, btw. sarahel has a very distinctive posting style and it's kinda frustrating

regret not voting for this movie now tbh - gwana do like 100 hail marys

If you bitch about the film being a heavy-handed reference to Christ, and mention how it reminded you of Fundementalist Christianity in America

Uh, I didn't say it reminded me of fundamentalist christianity - I said it made me think about hippies converting to Christianity and how if evangelical christians wanted to convert today's counterculture, i wondered how they would go about it. It was a total tangent.

tbh I find this kind of funny - sarahel and mordy are both very levelheaded posters, so to watch them butt heads is like..hmm I shouldn't post the analogy

I don't even know what movie you guys are talking about anymore.

actually im a pretty self-confident asshole, but you do have a way with ruining threads with yr headbanging

― V-E-R-Y (history mayne), Friday, February 12, 2010 6:14 AM (4 minutes ago)

You have a way of ruining threads with willful ignorance that I can only assume is trolling, so I really don't give a shit if you think I ruin threads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3dUfykR-_g

this thread needs some divine intervention

http://religiousphotoshops.thesheppardway.com/christian/Jesus/Photoshopped/funny_jesus_7.gif

I guess the thing for me, is that the birth - probably the most powerful reference, because it was the climax - is near the end, so that it felt like it was stabilizing and coming closer to the references, became more "traditional" at that point. I'd like to repeat that I did like the movie, and that I didn't find the Christian symbolism repugnant, but that I had mixed feelings about it - which did make it interesting.

i dont think theres any qn that the child is a messiah figure esp in that moment and i think the prior references build to that but i think its simply a way of communicating the weight of affect this moment has to a western audience - its almost an inevitable conflation. and the child does feel like a sacrifice - a living atonement for the world's sins (and the hints that the disease = apple) but there are just as many gaps and inconsistencies cf. mordy's post.

and really idk u can read that moment just as clearly as a reemergence/reassertion of the natural world over the 'technological' one. its an incredibly rich moment imo and just beautifully shot. its p visceral in a way that allows multiple readings i think

Ha! Mayne, yr making me regret leaving Anchorman off my ballot something bad.

xp lamp - but does ilx allow multiple readings?

ilx asks ppl to defend their readings

just rented anchorman thanks to history mayne's (and others) stanning. better be good!

Not too late to return it and get credit for it by tomorrow morning.

the outtakes at the end make you like the film more

also lol the soldiers stop fighting coz of the baby but then are fighting again within about 30 seconds, all this about 5 minutes before the carpet bomb the asylum seekers. xposts

where the story gets traditional is the redemption journey of clive owen, but it works and i'm fine with that.

three things to change about CoM:
1.) clunky dubbed exposition by michael caine about the bus of asylum seekers needs to go
2.) midwife speech at the school amended...it was a bit much
3.) don't show the ship turning up at the end bcz lolambiguity

love the film though and in my top 20. for technical achievement alone it deserves its place.

Not too late to return it and get credit for it by tomorrow morning.

― Inculcate a spirit of serfdom in children (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 12, 2010 2:29 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark

haaaaa

the title children of men is xian myth gone humanistic - which is as many have pointed out how in general the movie deploys said stuff

ilx asks ppl to defend their readings

― max, Friday, February 12, 2010 6:27 AM (3 minutes ago)

and then spends over 100 posts deriding readings they disagree with whether or not they were defended.

btw being a big fan of recent-era Doctor Who all other Christ imagery is super-subtle to me.

btw the book was very good but I think I enjoyed the movie more

"ilx asks ppl to defend their readings"

More like ILX sticks fingers in ears and says LA LA LA LA.

the Abu Ghraib shot in CoM was more heavyhanded than Jesus moments, but immune from criticism bcz that's back when it was all the Bushies' fault. Ah, remember when.

wait what?

people should have criticized this 2006 film becoz future-obama (who hadn't even left his kenyan training camp iirc) didn't close gitmo?

I was about to say, if you want heavy-handed, that shot of Pam Ferris getting a back put over her head. Despite the heavy-handedness, it was still terrifying.

Not going to complain about War of the Worlds greatest hits comp of atrocities either, cuz that's kind of the point is it not?

(don't take the bait Mayne...sift through Morbz post to find the real meaning and ignore the troll)

the Abu Ghraib shot in CoM was more heavyhanded than Jesus moments, but immune from criticism bcz that's back when it was all the Bushies' fault. Ah, remember when.

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Friday, February 12, 2010 9:36 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

have NO CLUE what this has to do with obama but morbs is right--the abu ghraib thing is the kind of thing id call 'heavy-handed'

tell you what's 'heavy handed' is piling on so much over the use of 'heavy handed'

even if it is a direct reference to whatever current political situation the bag over the head etc isnt heavyhanded because thats how it really happens - oppressive governments tend to put bags over peoples heads and brutalize them irl - handwringing over subtext w/o considering the texttext is where all this close reading gets too heavyhanded

Yeah, NRQ is an asshole and I hate him about 97 percent of the time on ILX, but he is definitely not insecure.