Like some sort of creeping eye-fungus in the corner of your vision you may - like me - be suffering from a peripheral but growing awareness of the end-of-decade 'best-of' lists that are starting to appear in the media.
00s? Aughts? Noughties? We never did settle on a label for the decade, did we? A bit remiss, I suppose, but I guess we've had no end of distractions. At any rate, the whole farrago is drawing to a close so it might be as well to take stock.
In particular, I'm aware that - especially since the kids arrived - I've found it more difficult than ever to keep on top of 'the cinema'. Many of the films bandied about as modern classics (eg. There Will Be Blood) I have yet to see, still. That being the case I'd like a quick n dirty top three "essential films of the decade" from everyone, so as to go on a crash course and bring myself bang up to date.
Self-improvement, yah? Very 00s. Call it a tribute.
Anyway - poster first:
Idiocracy (2006) It's got electrolytes! Savage and lol-funny satire on corporate-sponsored, socially sanctioned fuckwittery, which certainly made great advances over the past decade. First time you watch it, the film hits the spot - second and third time, you realise it's the best, most textured satire since RoboCop, with an inexhaustible fund of quotes and scenarios - and also some lovely performances. Barely seen at the cinema, but it was on Film4 recently and - surely? - you tech folk should be able to downfelch it for tuppence-hapenny or less? Worth owning.
Time of the Wolf (2003) In the hangover from y2k - and particularly the reeling aftermath of 9/11 there came a slew of apocalypse pictures - notably featuring zombies or might-as-well-be-zombies. This film taps more into the periodic panics relating to pandemic illness and social breakdown - the catastrophe that frames the film is only hazily sketched but what it conveys with gut-chewing vividness is how it's going to be - how it's really going to be - when civilisation collapses. Although it doesn't aim for the total armageddon of book-of-the-decade The Road it does prefigure that work's bleakness and unwillingness to compromise. Harshtastic.
Mullholland Drive (2001) Lynch back on his game. When I and my two companions emerged from the screening of this we couldn't speak for about an hour - just sat in a bar, cradling our drinks, utterly flabbergasted at what we'd seen, what we'd thought we'd seen and the sickening black chasms that seemed to open up in reality and perception thanks to the reptilian brain of David Lynch.
Among the 'nearlies' are things like Memento, Crouching Tiger and City of God -- but that's pretty much as much as I've seen at the pictures in the past 10 years... what else have I been missing out on?
Your 3 'essential' films of the 2000s, pls! Date. And... "why".
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It seems pointless to recommend obvious stuff like There Will Be Blood, or No Country For Old Men, because they must surely be on your radar already. So these aren't exactly essential, but they are remarkable/ interesting.
Essential Dwarf: The Station Agent probably fits into that emerging genre of quirky indie films that Americans like to disparage by calling them 'intelligent', but thematically the film I always end up connecting it with is Reservoir Dogs. Like that movie, it's about the impossibility of remaining alone, and how - despite your - best efforts, you're doomed to end up making connections to those around you. It's a sweet, undramatic feelgood flick.
Runner Up: In Bruges As a movies goes, I way prefer this to Station Agent, but it's not much of a dwarf movie. The dwarf is good in the scenes that he's in, but the dwarf in The Station Agent is in almost every scene.
Essential Film Dredged Up From Thorn's Subconscious Murderball is a film about a bunch of spastics careering around in armoured wheelchairs bashig the living fuck out of each other while Ministry play on the soundtrack. It's a documentary, but it's got an oddly dislocated feel to it, down to the fact that it plays a lot like something you might idly jot down as a TV series idea when you're bored in a meeting, with "Hosted by Bradley Walsh???" scribbled in the margin.
Runner Up: History of Violence, again a better movie than Murderball, but it's one that's been widely recommended. I came out of this with my brain fizzing at the ideas Cronenberg packs into the film. Not exactly something that could have been pulled from my own brain, but the kind of thing that made me wish i could express ideas this well in fictional stories.
Essential film to remind you just how bad things got in the Noughties Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Not even the supremely idiotic Transformers will prepare you for the onslaught of shit that the sequel disgorges. If you choose to watch it bear in mind that this did nearly a billion dollars at the box office. It's nearly three hours of incomprehensible madness, that continually restarts it's plot - meaning you could enter the film at any point and still have the same idea of what's going on. In an age of WORST FILM EVER hyperbole, it's impossible to explain how utterly, bizzarely awful Transformers 2 really is. You have to see it for yourself. Even then you'll still be wondering whether things like the random cutaways to animals having sex, or John Turturro mooning into the camera for no reason... whether they really happened in a mainstream film, and whether - if they did - Michael Bay was pulling some awesome trick by exposing mainstream audiences to some kind of Lynchian nightmare chanelled from the collective unconscious of a generation of boy-men. Runner Up: Juno Not as bad as Transformers 2, (mainly because it's an hour shorter), but this film won a fucking screenplay Oscar, man! Check it out as an example of what Noughties audiences thought was 'good' and weep for the future of the race.
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posted
Busy as fuck over here, so I'll have to add my trio one at a time.
Greatest Film of the Noughties - Death Race - 2008
An unpromising premise (a remake of a shitty 70s splatsploitation movie) turns out to be the greatest movie ever made!
It's not too long, you don't have to concentrate to watch it, you don't have to be sober and it's about 80% explosions and mindless violence. It's got a Lorry of Death in it and some dude gets pureed even better than the melty-guy in Robocop.
The highwater mark of the genius comic coupling of Will Ferrell and the other spudheaded guy. They pretend to be 12 year-old retards! LOL. He puts his nuts on the other guy's drumkit! ROFL.
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Action:- The Bourne series. Music:- U2:3D Comedy:- Brüno Forrin Stuff:- Amélie Epic TV War Mini-series:- Band Of Brothers Animation:- Monsters vs Aliens
That's most of the films I've seen, I think.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day. Stupid commercialised crap
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Kenny - mockumentary about endearing Australian portaloo-workman. Sweet, satirical and generally perfect Sunday-afternoon hangover fare.
Prairie Home Companion - Robert Altman's swansong and a classic piece of cinema. Beautifully shot, with wonderful performances from Streep, Tomlin and others. Well worth a watch.
The Chorus. See the comedy Frenchman from the Transporter trilogy doing what he usually does - bitter villainy.
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The South Koreans prove mental illness is funny in this love story of Young Goon who in reality is starving to death because she believes she is a cyborg who simply can't get enough electricity to consume. It's a slow mover, but the film is shot beautifully. Think: the director Oldboy makes Eternal Sunshine in a lunatic asylum and you're halfway there. Without all the clever optical illusions and with characters you give a shit about. Meaning you're allowed to fancy the older one from The Tale Of Two Sisters now.
Zodiac (2007)
Get spooked to all shit as the cock-hottie of the Gyllenhaals goes ape shit bonkers trying to work out who the Zodiac killer is. Anyone who bothers to look at the synopsis of the Zodiac Killer knows he was never caught, but that doesn't make the film any less freaky as fuck. It's long at 157 minutes but me and the girl indoors watched it a whoppping three times in a week.
[ 01.10.2009, 07:44: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I didn't think Zodiac was very good
It's OK, you may have seen the European version. the American cut ends with Bruce Willis finding the Zodiac killer and punching him off a building to his death and Jake's character marries his daughter and they all go on a fishing trip together.
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I didn't think Zodiac was very good
It's OK, you may have seen the European version. the American cut ends with Bruce Willis finding the Zodiac killer and punching him off a building to his death and Jake's character marries his daughter and they all go on a fishing trip together.
...and they catch a fish and all laugh and then the Zodiac Killer lunges out of the water and grabs the girl but Bruce sticks a salmon fly in his eye and then he's really dead. Phew.
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I didn't think Zodiac was very good
I agree with this. I kept getting distracted by people walking past the living room window, and bits of fluff on the sofa, and trying to work out whether I could notice a difference based on the fact it was a hiDef download. Some good moments, but it really failed to grab me. For dramatisations-of-real-serial-killers I much preferred Summer of Sam.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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I ended up watching the last 15 minutes of it in fast forward because it was due back to Blockbusters. It didn't really feel like this adversely harmed the viewing experience.
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OK, Zodiac haters, I forgot the brilliant and laugh out loud funny:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang(2005)
Robert Downey-Syndrome plays lovable rogue Harry Lockhart who moves to LA to fluke acting and is involved in a cheesey crime caper with razor-sharp dialogue. It has it all. Action, lols, twists, romance for the girls and Michelle Monaghan's tits for the lads.
[ 01.10.2009, 10:07: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
quote:Originally posted by Ringo: I didn't think Zodiac was very good
I agree with this. I kept getting distracted by people walking past the living room window, and bits of fluff on the sofa, and trying to work out whether I could notice a difference based on the fact it was a hiDef download. Some good moments, but it really failed to grab me. For dramatisations-of-real-serial-killers I much preferred Summer of Sam.
I think the trouble with films like Zodiac is that they are based on events with which most people are already going to be pretty familiar. It doesn't help that I saw a documentary a couple of weeks before watching the film, about the Zodiac guy, so the storyline really wasn't revealing anything new to me at all. It just boiled down to a fairly standard 'detective gets a bit obsessed by what he's investigating' drama.
The real problem is that if you're making a film about real life events is that you either have to make up facts or story arcs which are fiction, or rely on the fact that some audience members aren't going to be completely familiar with the events beforehand. I think Zodia relies on the latter approach and is probably poorer for it. Unlike a film like, say, Titanic, where the historical events are used more as a backdrop to a completely original story. Or in a film like From Hell where the unknowns are used as the opportunity to fill in the blanks in a creative way which ties in a lot of the mythos surrounding the events. Except obviously From Hell wasn't actually all that good.
For what it's worth though, Zodiac did manage to hold my attention more or less all the way through and I didn't feel like it was really dragging at any point. I don't really remember much about it to be honest, in fact I couldn't even tell you who was in it without double checking. But I don't remember coming away wishing I could have that bit of my life back like when I saw Crystal Skull so it can't have been that bad I suppose.
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posted
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004) Utterly brilliant road-trip/biopic of the early years of Che Guevara, one of my favourite films of all time.
Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005) A magnificently acted story about two groups of North and South Korean soldiers winding up in the same village full of innocents who know nothing of the war - sweet, funny and heart-wrenching all in one, if you aren't a little choked by the end you'd have to be one cold bastard..
Taken (2008) I wasn't at all sure about the selection of Liam Neeson as the father before I saw this but he excels, classic revenge thriller action.
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quote:Originally posted by Physic: Taken (2008) I wasn't at all sure about the selection of Liam Neeson as the father before I saw this but he excels, classic revenge thriller action.
I liked this film. One of my all favourite moments is 'well who the fuck is driving the boat then?'
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Not much time, but here's three worth noting.
Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
Although it has a few small holes, this is a well-constructed story that captures the stark and grey soullessness of the former GDR. A captivating performance by the late Ulrich Mühe.
In Bruges (2008)
Worth watching just for the architecture and atmosphere alone. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were both excellent, but the show was stolen by Ralph Fiennes. Plenty of very black comic relief, topped by the dwarf.
Der Untergang (2004)
At last, a proper take on this subject. Atmospheric and compelling, and more than worth the damage done to a number of Sankt Petersburg streets during filming.
quote:Originally posted by Octavia: Snorton, have you ever seen Der Wannseekonferenz?
Yes, quite a few years ago now - I might hunt it down to compare it with the more recent Conspiracy which was also very well made.
I don't think I can watch it again though after seeing Stanley Tucci (who plays Adolf Eichmann) in The Devil Wears Prada - I would be half expecting him to start talking about the cut of his colleagues' uniforms, or something.
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I can't think of any other famous directors that I've touched, unless you count Jake West, which you shouldn't if you do.
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actually that's not true. I penetrated Katherine Bigelow during a drinking marathon San Jose. She was there to visit an archive, I was there for a conference. It was all work, no play. San Jose was a one horse town, before that horse was ground up one night for burrito meat. It was bad luck all round - a real bum ride. The bosses knew it, I knew it. They knew that I knew it. But that's how it works. On the first night I ditched the squares and toured the local dive bars looking for some thrills. I'd have taken anything - a dust up in an alley over a fixed 8-ball game, clouds of amyl with one of the dancers from the Pink Poodle, or a hot minute with a latino good-time girl. It was a cool night in California, but I needed to feel the burning blood that swelled in the city's sewers. I'd hit all the bars and drawn a blank - nothing but some skateboard punks who couldn't deliver, and a business casual Scot who'd taken one too many gimlets. It was looking like I'd be going to bed with my soul on ice. But my luck changed in the last joint of the night, not even a dive bar, but some sushi restuarant that looked like it couldn't serve a fresh fish if it had just rained tuna. I was paying the check after a fifth of grey goose when Katherine rolls up, all hair and eyes, starts talking about an accent that's driving her wild, and a hotel room sitting thirty storeys closer to the sky than my own. What can I say? The lady had class and the lady had money. Where the two meet, you find guys like me, looking to get lucky and catch some of the sweet life. I helped her out good, in a deluxe sized bath, whirlpool mechanism screaming, but no water. She didn't give me her number, and a man shouldn't ask. But I know she won't be forgetting that night. And neither will I. Because while few men admit it, its hard to walk away from a good thing like that. Those memories stalk you through the streets, like a cheap tail from fat eddy. All you can do is tuck them in close, find a place where they can't escape. When I woke alone the next morning, head rattling louder than the AC, I shut that broad up with the others, fastened up in the box I call the hurt locker. Some men need to do this, just to keep on living in this black hearted bitch of a town.
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I wanted to watch La polizia chiede aiuto last night, but oh no, we had to watch two episodes of c s fucking i instead. Posts: 3821
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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I watched Let The Right One In last night. It's proper stuck in my head today.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: Mullholland Drive (2001) Lynch back on his game. When I and my two companions emerged from the screening of this we couldn't speak for about an hour - just sat in a bar, cradling our drinks, utterly flabbergasted at what we'd seen, what we'd thought we'd seen and the sickening black chasms that seemed to open up in reality and perception thanks to the reptilian brain of David Lynch.
A friend and I managed to watch that film 3 times in one night just trying to wrap our heads around it.
Great movie.
More recently however i was disapointed with Lynch's latest offering "Inland Empire". Where as i was gripped with interest in the not knowing what was going on in Muholland Drive i was just bored with Inland Empire
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