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

wow. I knew cusack had a bad decade, but I didn't realize just how bad until I looked at the IMDB list. Putting them all in a row like that really hurts.

did he marry sara gilbert??? xpost

oh no wait

sara gilbert was not in attendance iirc

Todd Louiso is in an upcoming movie penned by ILX's own Shakey Mo Collier:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1509787/

Eric seeing a comedy about indie-rock geeks in which Jack Black eviscerates a guy shopping for a Stevie Wonder record is blowin' my mind

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

I just watched it yesterday. I wonder how many "victims" turned down the interview requests. It's hard to feel like you are getting all sides of the story until you hear from more of them. The most damning thing towards the police seemed to be the coerced testimonials of the victims. The most damning thing towards the Friedmans, and what convinced me of their guilt, was what their lawyer had to say.

I also felt like the bond between the brothers and their father, their relationship, was obviously strong but seemed to require or only exist in a superficial form. See: their constant need to be performing while being recorded on tape and film. Were I to be all Freudian in examining their possible dysfunction, they seem to put up quite a front of happiness i.e. their need to perform really magnifies the tip of the ice-berg. Makes you think they could very easily absorb lies into their family and continue functioning/performing, and that perhaps they try so hard to have fun because were they to stop making silly jokes for 5 minutes, the ensuing silence would be horrible.

― bnw (bnw)

I slightly resent the film putting me in the position of viewer/juror because the information presented to me was inadequate to make me feel confident in any kind of decision I made about the guys' guilt - the heavy bias on all sides means you can't trust anyone's story completely (or at all). I'm wrestling with whether a responsible film maker leaves a case like that as open as he did, or if he should have helped viewers to come to a decision. I just feel like something's been left out and wonder if he deliberately interviewed victims or 'victims' who were a bit nutty to up the entertainment and/or intrigue.

― Madchen (Madchen)

Capturing the Friedmans
Andrew Jarecki
2003
United States
(215 points, 13 votes, 1 first place)

Yay, I'm glad Happy-Go-Lucky made it! It was my #2 vote. My comment up there is a bit one-sided, it's not a total anti-cynic manifesto (the Eddie Marsan character being one of the biggest reasons for that), but I can't imagine a cynic liking it. I had to put it at number #2, as I can't remember ever seeing a movie that was so perfectly suited for a person like me. It's optimistic and full of joie de vivre, yet it never feels dishonest or sugar-coated. And I think even the viewers who might disagree with the message would agree that Sally Hawkins as Poppy is incredible in it, one of the performances of the decade.

fantastic! should have been higher, but im just happy to see it place xpost

lol @ jaymc

high fidelity is fun the first time around but mostly unwatchable after that.

high fidelity the movie is way better than the shitty book

calling: apichatpong, 2 lynchs and coens in top 10

Eric seeing a comedy about indie-rock geeks in which Jack Black eviscerates a guy shopping for a Stevie Wonder record is blowin' my mind

Not "a Stevie Wonder record." "I Just Called To Say I Love You."

optimistic with respect to Apichatpong, I think xp

tuomas i know we already had this discussion and it is reprinted upthread but i really didnt see the film as an endorsement of poppys worldview - it wasnt any sort of manifesto - it was however a story w/some v well rendered characters

If you treat High Fidelity (the book) and High Fidelity (the film) as entirely separate entities, one doesn't color the other. It took me a while to get to that place, though.

Yeah, I see Tropical Malady landing somewhere in the 70s, maybe, and that's it.

high fidelity the movie is way better than the shitty book

― max, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 6:48 PM (1 minute ago)

don't see apichatpong making the top 10

xpsssss

I also own but have never watched dogville, bought DVD for I also own but have never watched dogville, bought DVD for $2 at ocean state job lot lol
lol @ job lot! i never thought to look at dvds (but would not want to own von trier film tbh)

don't see apichatpong making the top 100

capturing the friedmans, major bummer

don't see apichatpong

srsly the lowest polled got 204 points brah

two of his film will make the top 100 but won't place highly.

i'm guessing

tuomas i know we already had this discussion and it is reprinted upthread but i really didnt see the film as an endorsement of poppys worldview - it wasnt any sort of manifesto - it was however a story w/some v well rendered characters

― ice cr?m, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tuomas sees every movie as either for or against something or another

guys i see apichatpong as getting all three top spots

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/napoleon-dynamite-8-1.jpg

I checked it out last night with some friends and thought it was pretty great. I was a little confused about how to take it since despite it being hilarious, the characters are pretty one dimensional and basically wear the same expressions on their faces for the entire movie. You can also tell the movie was made by a bunch of kids from byu because there was no swearing, no sex humor, no raunch.

― bill stevens (bscrubbins)

No wonder Fox Pictures snapped this Sundance crowd-pleaser up!

'Napoleon Dynamite' is a hysterical comedy about and awkward teen growing up in Idaho. With a chatroom-addicted older brother, a dune buggying grandmother, an uncle trying to recapture his past, a Mexico-born new (and only) best friend Pedro, and a llama, first-time director/writer Jared Hess has created a gem!

Did I forget to mention a great 80s soundtrack featuring Alphaville and When In Rome? Don't miss this film if you enjoy offbeat, quirky comedies... And don't forget to Vote For Pedro.

― deanomgwtf!!!p%3Fmsgid%3D4581997 (deangulberry)

#94
Napoleon Dynamite
Jared Hess
2004
United States
(215.5 points, 10 votes)

Friedmans is one of many I mean to rescr**n someday. The compulsive self-documenting was amazing.

nappy dynamite? fuk u ilx

don't see apichatpong

You meant this as a command, right ice?

haha that deangulberry quote.

awful, awful, awful film btw.

given the best years of my life to this shitheap and it votes napoleon dynamite the xth best film of the aughts.

dean gulberry was so effusive in his praise of napoleon dynamite

Plz, let Miami Vice creep up into the top 20 to make up for some of these low-ranking choices.

Fuck Napoleon Dynamite!

tuomas i know we already had this discussion and it is reprinted upthread but i really didnt see the film as an endorsement of poppys worldview - it wasnt any sort of manifesto - it was however a story w/some v well rendered characters

― ice cr?m, Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:50 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

tuomas sees every movie as either for or against something or another

in this case he's right

don't see apichatpong

You meant this as a command, right ice?

― queen frostine (Eric H.), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:58 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah yall better heed me

I tried watching Happy-Go-Lucky with two different friends on separate occasions. Both times we had to stop the movie after 20-30 minutes because they found the lead character so repellant. I still haven't seen the whole thing...must give it a chance

xpost Where were you when I needed you last 2004?

It's hard to believe there are more wretched wastes of celluloid than ND to come

Both times we had to stop the movie after 20-30 minutes because they found the lead character so repellant.

What I like about HGL even more now after reading some of these reactions is how many people react to Poppy as though she actually just interacted with them in some form.

a day late and a baht short once again xp

And I think even the viewers who might disagree with the message would agree that Sally Hawkins as Poppy is incredible in it, one of the performances of the decade.

I agree that Hawkins was the best perf in the movie. The movie maybe doesn't explicitly advocate her brand of optimism, but it at least portrays it in a favorable light. A great accomplishment of the movie is that her resolute chirpy cheerfulness is shown to be neither shallow, false nor air-headed. Over the course of the movie, as we see Hawkins' character deal with various difficult situations, we begin to see it increasingly as a wise and almost heroic choice.

tuomas i know we already had this discussion and it is reprinted upthread but i really didnt see the film as an endorsement of poppys worldview - it wasnt any sort of manifesto - it was however a story w/some v well rendered characters

I think I said this in the OG thread, but I think the idea that it presents Poppy's lifestyle as perfectly valid way of existing in the world makes it some sort of "endorsement". In a more cynical movie someone so optimistic and naive would eventually be put down in a dramatic way for her foolishness, but the fact this never happens in Happy-Go-Lucky - even though you kinda expect it to happen with the driving instructor - certainly means the movie has a particular message. I don't think the message is "everybody should be this way, why can't the cynics see it?", rather than "this too a valid way of living, even if the cynics disagree".

(many x-posts)

what about 15-15-15-15-15-15-10?

nice weeklong format, 5 days is too short, 10 days is too long?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v212/etienne_saint/sideways-4.jpg

I liked it a lot. Note that I was not a big fan of About Schmidt at all -- I felt like it never found the right tone, that its reliance on such farcical elements (the waterbed, Dermot Mulroney's hair, Kathy Bates's boobs) meant that when it came time to milk the pathos (OMG Jack is so lonely), it didn't feel like it was earned. But Sideways strikes just the right balance between funny and sad/poignant because Giamatti's character is always both at once: what shifts in tone there are never seem abrupt. And some nice subtle choices, indeed. Even when things aren't going smoothly for Giamatti w/r/t Virginia Madsen's character, you always see a connection between the two, something that draws them to each other, that complicates any impulse we may have to think, "har har, wotta loser."

― jaymc (jaymc)

he piled it on a little thick with that whole "wine is a metaphor for life" crap

― s1ocki (slutsky)

But you always tell me that wine is a metaphor for life!

― adam... (nordicskilla)

A movie about wine snobs where wine was talked about the entire time - and it wasn't annoying! That's a feat unto itself. The masterpiece talk is strong, but this was much better than last year's critical darling.

― milozauckerman (miloaukerman)

Sideways
Alexander Payne
2004
United States
(216 points, 12 votes)