2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[zedz]

I'm guessing either Spider or A History of Violence is one of the other two there.

Nope. I've since received a big bunch of lists, so the point is now moot, but for the sake of posterity (and before it sinks like a stone), our very first number one for this round of the Lists Project was The Brown Bunny. Go Gallo!

[puxzkkx]

I voted for it!

[swo17]

...and now people who weren't planning to vote but hate The Brown Bunny will submit lists just to make sure it doesn't place. You're skewing the results, zedz!

[Murdoch]

I've submitted my list and it is Gallo-free, both in front of and behind the camera (although truthfully I've never actually seen any movie he's acted in or directed).

[knives]

Tetro's real good for his acting.

[mikeohhh]

I've submitted my list and it is Gallo-free, both in front of and behind the camera (although truthfully I've never actually seen any movie he's acted in or directed).

Sounds like a shortage of Claire Denis in your life! Trouble Every Day is I think their only collaboration this decade (which I just saw last week and found occasionally fascinating. Like all her films, there are some scenes that burn themselves into your mind, but I didn't find the story fleshed out enough. I loved the use of different film stocks for flashback scenes and lab scenes to give it more of a genre/grindhouse feel at certain points. I think i would have liked it more had I seen it a few years back when I was on a big Cronenberg kick. It reminded me a lot of Rabid, my favorite 70s Cronenberg) but Nenette and Boni is even better.

While I'm still on the subject of Claire Denis, I'd just like to add that Friday Night/Vendredi soir has been the biggest revelation of this listmaking period for me and the only "new" film I've seen for the first time in the past six months or whatever that is currently in my top 10.

[zedz]

...and now people who weren't planning to vote but hate The Brown Bunny will submit lists just to make sure it doesn't place. You're skewing the results, zedz!

So I'm a walking Heisenberg Principle. Deal with it!

[swo17]

...and now you've just reminded everyone to vote for A Serious Man (Coens, 2009).

[domino harvey]

It's times like these that I feel compelled to again call for the option to vote against films instead of for them

[khan0890]

While I'm still on the subject of Claire Denis, I'd just like to add that Friday Night/Vendredi soir has been the biggest revelation of this listmaking period for me and the only "new" film I've seen for the first time in the past six months or whatever that is currently in my top 10.

i second the motion on VENDREDI SOIR. for me, it ranks up with CHOCOLAT, BEAU TRAVAIL and THE INTRUDER has one of her most affecting and sensual films.

[colinr0380]

One film that just fell outside my list this time but which I'd like to make a case for is No Man's Land, which is an extremely black comedy and one of the best recent war satires I've seen. Taking the conflict in Bosnia as its starting point, the film begins with petty feuds between soldiers on each side which ends with trapped in between their respective armies with a third soldier trapped on top of a bomb and unable to move. The scope of the film then steadily expands to show the same problems of misunderstandings, greed, selfish attempts to twist the situation to their own benefit and lack of understanding or care for the human beings involved in the fighting apply not just to the individual soldiers but their wider colleagues on either side, then the UN workers (Simon Callow making an appearance as the British representative feuding with his French counterpart) and then the reporters coming in to cover the story (Katrin Cartlidge as the roving investigative reporter, using footage of the situation taking place behind her in an over emotional manner to add easy gravitas to her pieces to camera in a manner that has only become more common in these days of rolling disasters, man made and natural, on the news covered by reporters on the scene describing the carnage around them in ever more shrill tones, projecting onto the victims rather than just trying to help them, or at the very least trying to make the situation more understandable for their viewers).

The characterisations get rather broad by the end but I like the way that the initial problem is completely overriden once the authorities get involved and bring their own long gestating feuds to the situation. It makes the ending as

Spoiler

the widening out of the scope of the picture suddenly reverses as everyone leaves the scene, eventually leaving the soldier stranded on top of the bomb all alone and left to die. It sometimes makes me think that the film seems a little like an imploding Dr Strangelove, where instead of a finale of worldwide destruction it is the abandoning of just one life that condemns everyone for their stupid blinkered view of the conflict.

[Lemmy Caution]

I've been meaning to tout Facing Ali, an under-the-radar documentary just out -- the dvd premiere was just after Xmas, after it hit a few film festivals last year. The film contains interviews with 10 fighters who got in the ring with Ali. A very bittersweet experience as they are all old enough now to be reflective on their younger selves and the lives they've led.

Ron Lyle and George Chuvalo are quite engaging and the most interesting about boxing. Chuvalo even details some underworld involvement from back in the day. Lyle working as a trainer now. I was unaware that he served 7+ years for 2nd degree murder in his 20's. Sadly, the producers felt the need to subtitle the Frazier, Norton and Spinks interviews, even though I think they were intelligible without them.

It's great to see their competitive instincts come out and pride in their careers and respect for Ali. There are also stunning moments such as Larry Holmes forthrightly saying "I wish I was smarter than I am." And who knew/remembered that Ernie Terrell went on the Tonight Show and sang a ditty about Ali to the tune of "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey." It makes one pause to hear about their backgrounds and other options before boxing (especially for Ernie Shavers). There are sad moments, including the void of Ali unable to be interviewed which the documentary spars and dances around. We do get classic clips of Ali's clowning and verbal jabs. The 3 other fighters in the film: Henry Cooper, George Foreman, and Earnie Shavers.

The fight clips are worked in beautifully and I loved the music and the look of the interviews. This is a really well put together film. I was pretty taken with the Tyson doc -- basically just Iron Mike talking to the camera -- but Facing Ali is something of a masterpiece. I keep meaning to re-watch this. One of 6 or 7 docs to make my 2000's list.

[zedz]

Okay, we're in business. 12 lists in, 376 films nominated, 117 reaching the two vote threshold.

Our top ten includes only one of the four films that qualified last time (no prizes for guessing which one) and is diverse but reasonably unsurprising. Four American films, two European films, four Asian films. No duplicated directors. Lots of death and destruction.

Those who have voted can find out the provisional line up via PM, as usual.

[colinr0380]

Lots of death and destruction.

Any Atrocity in there?

[life_boy]

If I could throw out a last minute plea for a couple of shorts that made my list (submitted this morning) I would like to put in a word for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's simple yet powerful [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIK3ctC1DP0]Mobile Men[/url] (2008) and Victor Erice's similarly described but nearly opposite [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhBBZOaRqdI]Lifeline[/url] (2002). Given that it takes only 15 minutes to watch two films by masters of the medium, there really is no reason not to (even if it is on YouTube).

[karmajuice]

Lifeline is also available for download here, which is higher quality than youtube (86mb).

[Michael]

While I'm still on the subject of Claire Denis, I'd just like to add that Friday Night/Vendredi soir has been the biggest revelation of this listmaking period for me and the only "new" film I've seen for the first time in the past six months or whatever that is currently in my top 10.

i second the motion on VENDREDI SOIR. for me, it ranks up with CHOCOLAT, BEAU TRAVAIL and THE INTRUDER has one of her most affecting and sensual films.

Well how about 35 RHUMS? That's unquestionably the best Denis film to date.

[Lemmy Caution]

I hadn't realized that zedz'z first post in this thread contains a list of all proposed swapsies. Useful.

I didn't propose anything as a swapsie, as I'm limited to whatever titles turn up in the shops of Shanghai. I now plan on watching knives' pick Boy A between now and turning in my list.

Fwiw, lesser known films I think are worthy for Top 50 consideration: Shadow Kill, Blind Shaft and Kontroll, and 2009 releases people might not have had a chance to see yet -- Mary & Max and Facing Ali. I'm pretty sure that I've posted about most of those in this thread.

[Murdoch]

Fwiw, lesser known films I think are worthy for Top 50 consideration:[...] Kontroll

This one made my list; a really fun film that never loses itself in heavy philosophical brooding, my favorite "action" movie of the decade (although that designation does very little to describe the film with its claustrophobic setting and rather ambiguous ending).

[zedz]

15 lists in, 436 films nominated, and more than two thirds of them have only had a single mention. The current top ten has been very neatly organised by McFate.

Our current number one has pulled ahead of the pack and it sort of announces the interesting pattern of the rest of the list, which seems to have resolved itself into neat pairs.

Two films are tied for second place, and they’d make a brilliant double feature – maybe one of the most natural out of all the possible pairings of the 436 films mentioned so far. Well, I’d pay to see it on the big screen.

The films in fourth and fifth place also make for a great double feature (and an influence between them has in fact been acknowledged). Those at six and seven have got the same word in their title. Hell, they’d probably work as a double feature as well, though it would be a memorably weird one.

At eight and nine we’ve got another potential double feature, at least if you consider one part of the ninth film and squint a little through the underbrush.

Number ten is the odd one out, though its title – at a stretch – could subtitle part of number one and thus bring us full circle.

Four American, two European and four Asian titles. Two countries and no directors are represented more than once.

If I were doing wacky animal clues, numbers 2 (one of them, anyway), 4, 5 and 9 would be sitters.

[domino harvey]

This is like the time I missed a Joyce class and tried to read someone's lecture notes

[Michael Kerpan]

Finally got to see Wendy and Lucy -- it won't figure into my list. Not even close to the level of the (somewhat) similar films of LEE Yoon-ki (This Charming Girl and Ad Lib Night).

[Camera Obscura]

Fwiw, lesser known films I think are worthy for Top 50 consideration:[...] Kontroll

This one made my list; a really fun film that never loses itself in heavy philosophical brooding, my favorite "action" movie of the decade (although that designation does very little to describe the film with its claustrophobic setting and rather ambiguous ending).

I was pretty sure Kontroll was gonna make my list, but it failed to get in after a recent reviewing. Thought the first 40 minutes had a little too much humorous banter, which didn't work as well as the first time I saw it, but still a remarkable effort. It's is an action movie all right, partly, but perhaps the term 'existential slasher film' is even more appropiate, if it's at all possible to put a lable on this film. Great kinetic camerawork, brilliant use of the underground locations (the film never comes above ground), a pulsating technotrack and a briliantly understated lead performance by Sándor Csányi.
Too bad the UK r2 DVD has such lousy picture quality, but the Hungarian release (I think it's out on BD now as well), is supposed to be excellent, but hard to find outside Hungarian webshops. Bit of a shame Nimród Antal is settling for rather uninteresting Hollywood fare, but well, his choices might be limited and I suppose there's little potential in Hungary for him. At least Vacancy was a brilliant minimalist genre exercise.

I already submitted my list two weeks ago (kind of tired of all the listmaking for the 2000s), but I managed to see Ce jour-là (Raul Ruiz, 2003) and can't really see why this Buñulesque piece of folly got so much praise around here. Lots of obvious and tiresome political references, and the cast seemed to have a lot of fun, but at best an mildly enjoyable lightweight piece of fluff by a director who did all this so much better before.

Expected some bite or at least some older man's wisdom, but was rather disappointed by Manoel de Oliveira's A Talking Picture (2003), which is basically an extended travelogue of Lisbon, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, with some of the most painfully clichéd chitchat about Euro-American cultural relations I have ever seen. John Malkovich seems to enjoy himself, though, showing of his French skills and making 'sophisticated' dinner conversation with Catherine Deneuve and Stefania Sandrelli.

Oh yeah, and Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty (2004) must be his best film of the past two decades by a country mile. He never goes overboard in this excellent commentary, never needlessly dismissive, but just a loving and subtle examination of obsessions and paranoia in post 9/11 America. And a great soundtrack (as usual). I might sqeeze it in on my next 2000s list in 2020.

And don't forget Harry he's here to stay (2000) from Dominik Moll, which I watched for the first time in 8 years and instantly made into my top 20. Don't think it was mentioned earlier (but this thread had become a bit long, so I couldn't read it back in its entirety). Pretty well-known film, I suppose, this sophisticated 'mainstream' French thriller with Sergi Lopez breakthrough role as a devilishly funny and charismatic psychopath. It's sort of (*sort of*) of a Hitchcockian French counterpart to Shadow of a Doubt or Strangers on a Train, with a bit of a Lynchian Twist. yes, I know it's an often used description, and it sounds a bit obvious, just a rare example of a kind of intelligent literate genre-filmmaking the last decade was so sorely missing. I will give Lemming another shot as well.

[domino harvey]

Oh yeah, and Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty (2004) must be his best film of the past two decades by a country mile. He never goes overboard in this excellent commentary, never needlessly dismissive, but just a loving and subtle examination of obsessions and paranoia in post 9/11 America. And a great soundtrack (as usual). I might sqeeze it in on my next 2000s list in 2020.

It's in my Top Ten for the 00s and, as I've said too many times, it's definitely his second-best behind Wrong Move. And the music is indeed wonderful, I found a copy of the German OST CD on eBay a couple years ago and it's one of the few soundtracks I ever listen to.

[zedz]

Reminder: one week to go.