►Top 25 of the 00s◄

Started by Stefen, September 23, 2009, 10:26:47 PM

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Stefen

Quote from: A. Yzsaakc on September 25, 2009, 04:56:53 PM
Bad Education

:yabbse-thumbup:

Good to see some Almodovar love. Talk to Her will most likely make my list.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

©brad

Quote from: Stefen on September 25, 2009, 05:18:21 PM
Quote from: A. Yzsaakc on September 25, 2009, 04:56:53 PM
Bad Education

:yabbse-thumbup:

Good to see some Almodovar love. Talk to Her will most likely make my list.

He's my favorite filmmaker. Ever. (I decided this the other day.)

That is all.

pete

"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

I Love a Magician

i need to watch more movies

01. There Will Be Blood
02. All the Real Girls
03. No Country for Old Men
04. In the Bedroom
05. Lake of Fire
06. The Royal Tenenbaums
07. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
08. Punch-Drunk Love
09. Brokeback Mountain
10. Adaptation

11. Little Children
12. Inglourious Basterds
13. Zodiac
14. Borat
15. Friday Night Lights
16. This Is England
17. The Dark Knight
18. The Man Who Wasn't There
19. Wall-E
20. I Heart Huckabees

21. Mullholland Drive
22. Junebug
23. Unbreakable
24. About Schmidt
25. Capturing the Friedmans

Some others: Wonder Boys, Collateral, Capote, The Wrestler, The Assassination of Jesse James, Traffic, Kill Bill (1 & 2), Shotgun Stories, Synecdoche, New York

squints

"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

socketlevel

Quote from: polkablues on September 25, 2009, 04:33:40 AM

The more I think about it, the more I think that Dancer in the Dark may be the best film of the past nine years.

I'm starting to think that more and more myself. I just watched it again tonight and almost lost my shit, it's so good.

what i am also slowly, yet ultimately coming to think, is that von trier is our greatest living director. because ya thinking of how amazing dancer in the dark is, is one thing.  Then you have to remember he did dogville, the five obstructions and other jaw dropping pieces of work.

often i think about eras of cinema, and if the original nature of cinema and how the artists pushed the boundries may have become stale and boring with how the business is handled these days. also with so many movies made it's harder to be original. that is until i see a von trier film. other generations have their masters, and i think lars is ours because he reminds me how great cinema can be. we've got great other guys, like: anderson, kaufman, jonze etc... and they are all brilliant film makers, but von trier is in a class of his own; much like kubrick, kurosawa and tarkovsky before him.

He is constantly redefining the medium and it amazes me. mainly because despite the fact that he pushes the boundries he still keeps it in the realm of narrative. he never fully goes out into experimental cinema, because if he did, it would become a much more subjective experience and harder to critique. His work doesn't take that covertly well traveled road. he keeps story in his films, and because of that he has a much harder task at hand having it make sense.
the one last hit that spent you...

Gold Trumpet

I forgot to add Jiri Menzel's I Served the King of England. Looking back, I think it would place somewhere between 15 and 20.

Also, not only do I disagree with Dancer in the Dark being a great film, but I consider it to be one of the worst films of the last decade. The film is so bad and reprehensible that my distaste for it goes beyond anything the Coens or Tarantino have ever served up. It gets a lot of nice applause, but I think it's a film that deserve an equal slam along with any compliment.

squints

you're crazy. dancer in the dark is a great movie.
"The myth by no means finds its adequate objectification in the spoken word. The structure of the scenes and the visible imagery reveal a deeper wisdom than the poet himself is able to put into words and concepts" – Friedrich Nietzsche

Stefen

Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

pete

I'm in the middle with von trier.  I think he does very interesting things in his films, but sometimes they turn out to be more tedious or more self-serving (he likes doing things to cleanse his system) than meaningful.  however, tedious or not, he seems genuinely concerned with telling a story or creating a convincing melodrama and, regardless of how much the audience is aware of his presence in the films and how they know he might be "torturing" them - they still get engrossed in the suffering of his characters.
"Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot."
- Buster Keaton

socketlevel

Quote from: Gold Trumpet on October 31, 2009, 10:06:44 PM
I forgot to add Jiri Menzel's I Served the King of England. Looking back, I think it would place somewhere between 15 and 20.

Also, not only do I disagree with Dancer in the Dark being a great film, but I consider it to be one of the worst films of the last decade. The film is so bad and reprehensible that my distaste for it goes beyond anything the Coens or Tarantino have ever served up. It gets a lot of nice applause, but I think it's a film that deserve an equal slam along with any compliment.

have you written about this elsewhere on the site? i would like to read it, because i'm amazed you would make such harsh comments. like, not only do you disagree, but you sound down right angry!  now that's an opinion i wanna read, it's got some meat to it. if you got a link please do so.

Lars von trier is famously quoted as saying "A film should be like a rock in a shoe." i personally agree that film should be like that in many cases. it should be something that gets under people's skin to make them re-evaluate their surroundings/beliefs.  now some people don't like that and they want it to be more escapist/cathartic, and i love that too, but i think that type of cinema is the norm and over saturated these days.  clearly GT, dancer in the dark is a rock in your shoe, you exude that so strongly in your reply. i look for that type of reaction rather then a zen like feedback. i want it to affect me.
the one last hit that spent you...

Gold Trumpet

Quote from: Stefen on November 01, 2009, 01:00:00 PM
GT hates Lars Von Trier.

Actually, I don't. While I would argue I also don't hate the Coens or Tarantino, I would admit I have a general distaste for them, but I've just really disliked every Von Trier film I've ever seen. That doesn't mean I have a dislike or hatred for him in general because I've only seen five of his films. I've ignored a lot of his work so I don't believe I'm qualified to give an opinion on the man overall. Life's too short to try see a majority of films by someone when even a small sample hasn't inspired you in the least. Anti- Christ does fascinate me, but because it seems like Von Trier isn't going to try to hedge the content in that film the way he does in Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. Anti-Christ looks like a different beast.

Dancer in the Dark is highly problematic because of its attempt to make thematic meaning between dogme 95 and the musical. It's not that Von Trier isn't right to attempt to combine structural approaches, but he finds the dumbest and most obvious contrast to dogme 95 in exploring a musical tone. The musical tone is even more ridiculous because the story is dreary and bleak from the get go. Bjork's situation looks seemingly helpess, but gets even sadder when her accidental misfortunes allows her to be arrested and executed. Von Trier tries to find positive things about her life to counterbalance the dismal reality she occupies, but a musical imagination is just a stagnant opposite of her world. It would be fine for one sequence in the film, but it doesn't develop the story or elaborate on her situation much at all. It just occupies time and space and repeats in the same manner through out the film. It's use becomes so heavy handed that it's blatant repitition just thuddens any true context that can be given to Bjork's personality in the film.

Also, the musical numbers are horribly done. All the musical numbers are song and dances with a number of people involved, but Von Trier continually films each one with millions of edits and quick cuts between a lot of different camera angles. There is little progression with how the musical numbers develop in Bjork's brain over the course of the film. They do not start out seemingly pleasant and get more chaotic and disturbed as her situation plummets even more, but just remain relatively the same through out. Also, the quick cuts and edits do not elicit a cognitive style. Von Trier never tries to change camera angles, mix in different type of shots or even change the tone at all. All he does is set up a million camera from coverage points of view and just films the numbers. The only distinction Von Trier has is with the quick cuts, but they become bland and boring immediately.

The whole film reminds me of a high school kid's idea of experimentation. Only in high school do we think it's a good idea to take a devastingly sad story and think it would be interesting to mix it with the lightest of things: a musical. Von Trier finds a barely passable reason to explore the idea, but even the execution is horrible.

Stefen

Lars Von Trier >>>> Oliver Stone  8)
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ

Quote from: Stefen on November 01, 2009, 04:11:50 PM
Lars Von Trier >>>> Oliver Stone

This is a pretty safe statement when only considering the top 25 of this decade.

"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

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GT your observations are astute; i agree especially with your view on how the musical numbers were handled. And while they're good points, upon my three different viewings (in various times of my life) i never once thought of any of them.  This happened not because I'm incapable, but because i was enthralled in all the other great stuff it had to offer. the originality overshadowed how it could be improved upon. besides, every great pioneer is improved upon. i think I'd be more inclined to look at these elements you suggest if I had more options from this obscure sub-genre to pick from. like, are there any other verite style musicals out there?

maybe if this had become a popular way to make musicals, then someday I'd point out how the original (dancer in the dark) lacked the vision of the subsequent incarnations.  Kinda feels like you're barking up the wrong tree, and I'm amazed you even thought of this stuff quite frankly. for myself, it was the tone changes that impressed me. the attempt to mix dogma 95 and musicals is quite amazing.  however it's not that it's just dogma 95, more so it's the film's intensity and realism despite the musical interludes. that is unheard of, and in my opinion delivered well.

Also, most importantly, i hate musicals. I despise 99.999% of them. mainly because the music is horrible and cliched in virtually every musical i've ever seen. i know i know people say that's the endearing nature of them, but fuck it, i don't care. I also hate musicals because it's like a freeze frame on the plot. I'm always waiting for the horrible fucking song to be over so the story can continue. dancer didn't quite progress the plot with the musical interludes (well one or two kinda does, but generally this is another thing that could be improved upon in the future), but the musical breaks did have story based precedence; she is going blind, loves music and day dreams. it created a reason for itself, and in turn i appreciated it. And also, the music is sung through a beautifully unique voice in bjork.  the music hints at the classic genre, yet deviates on it's own to create something unlike it.

How music affects what the audience thinks of a character (especially when they're singing) is something that is never analyzed, and it should be. most musicals fall short in their ability to create true peril; something i think heavily has to do with the often idiotic let's-stop-and-sing element. think about any other musical, is the villain really all that bad? nope, because he starts singing and everyone including the soccer moms in the crowd learn to love his semi-badness. the whole musical experience is taken with a grain of salt. Sweeney Todd is the only other example of a deviation from this trap, and despite the achievements it makes, it still never looses that playful tone.  

Dancer in the Dark fucking destroys this overly entrenched style.  The cherry on the icing is the fact that von trier doesn't stop there, he doesn't make the villians totally ruthless, he makes them fully realized and three dimensional. They echo the badness of Dogville but are shown to have more of their own dilemmas.  These type of characters are another genre breaking triumph.  once again usually the bad guy in a musical is so transparently rich with ill intentions. And Bjork keeps true to her word and defends him in court. very rich characterization in a melodrama in my opinion.

for all the things going for it, I'm surprised you had time to stop and think something like: this editing and choreography is poor.
the one last hit that spent you...