The 2006 Xixax DEKAPENTICON

[ono]

Fight Club needs to be on the list.  It's one of those films that just gets better with each viewing.  It's A Wonderful Life, Do The Right Thing, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Graduate ... pass.  They have no business there.  But still, I'm definitely interested and glad to see the "second fifteen" as it is.  I wonder where Fight Club and Amelie ended up.  Things sure have changed in two years, and it'll be interesting to see where they go in another year.

My list is below.  I'm not entirely happy with it.  There are too many films I've still yet to see, and too many films I don't think fit, but put on anyway in order to fill out the 30 that were at least somewhat meritorious.  Though I nominated Eternal Sunshine, I still think it's out of place in the Top 15.  It won't hold up, and its flaws and coldness will come through in the years to come.

21 Grams
Amelie [5]
American Beauty [6]
Annie Hall [4]
Before Sunrise
Boogie Nights
Big Lebowski, The [8]
Citizen Kane
Clockwork Orange, A
Dancer in the Dark
Dreamers, The
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eyes Wide Shut [2]
Fight Club [7]
George Washington
Ghost World
Ice Storm, The
Magnolia [1]
My Dinner With Andre
My Own Private Idaho
Naked
Persona [3]
Pulp Fiction [9]
Punch-Drunk Love
Red (1994, Kieslowski)
Schizopolis
Sex and Lucia
Singin' in the Rain
Short Cuts [10]
Spirited Away

[MacGuffin]

i'm still waiting to buy it for the SE later this month.

HOLY SHIT! Thanks mod, i had no idea there was a SE coming out..can't seem to find what the special features are though...

http://xixax.com/index.php?topic=33.msg210710#msg210710

[polkablues]

Though I nominated Eternal Sunshine, I still think it's out of place in the Top 15.  It won't hold up, and its flaws and coldness will come through in the years to come.

COLDNESS?!!?!??!

Seriously?

[ono]

Yep.  I do greatly admire the film.  It's technically accomplished.  Very well done.  But it's cold, and that is its key problem.  I've watched it so many times, because at the time, it was the movie I was waiting for, the movie that seemed to be on the tip of everyone's tongues.  And that, in part, was what I think everyone loved about it.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Eternal Sunshine merely points to ideas that everyone has wanted to see expressed in a film for so long.  It doesn't capture them.  Everything seems synthetic, not organic, not natural.  And that results in that cold feeling where I know I'm supposed to feel something because all the elements and ingredients are there, but they don't quite add up.  This is where the direction fails.

I've read the screenplay a couple times, too.  Kaufman did a great job.  The thing starts out, "It's gray," and I think that first little direction is one of the most compelling and telling of all.  Maybe it might be a bit of a language barrier for Gondry, how he, in my opinion, was unable to fully, successfully translate the heart of Kaufman's vision to screen -- I don't know, I haven't seen Gondry's other flicks, so I doubt it.  I think it's more Gondry's technical prowess gets in the way of the emotion behind the material.  I think if Kaufman was able to direct this, we might have had an even more powerful film.  Something was lost in the translation.  The link is not there.  I keep on thinking of all these memorable scenes that I did love.  Hit after hit.  Clem and Joel under the covers.  Joel bashing the bird.  The regression to his childhood, and his (read: Kaufman's) fascination with a woman's crotch.  Kaufman hits on all these key, archetypal elements of relationships.  All these pointers, classic.  But they don't seem to be grounded in anything, and that's where the link fails.  I could go on, but it's been about a month since I've seen it.  Maybe move this to the actual thread.

[picolas]

XIXAX - we thought eternal sunshine pointed to great ideas, but they didn't quite add up because it didn't capture them.

[ono]

XIXAX - We prefer smartassed comments to civilized debate.

[picolas]

i think most of your critisism didn't actually mean anything. for example, you say there was no link between the script and the movie, and then that the link fails because the pointers "[don't] seem to be grounded in anything."

[ono]

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

You say my criticism didn't mean anything and then you go on to recap what it meant.  Heh.

I think I see the problem here.  Your last post seemed to believe it was pointing out a flaw in my logic, when really it points out a flaw in the film. 

for example, you say there was no link between the script and the movie, and then that the link fails because the pointers "[don't] seem to be grounded in anything."

no link = failure to establish a link.  Next paragraph yet again elaborates on why.

My criticism meant just what it said.  Kaufman and Gondry had ideas they wanted to express.  Kaufman got on it, wrote a killer script, but Gondry is a technical director first and foremost, and when it comes to emotion he's lacking, and so is the film.  If you'll go back and read the Eternal Sunshine thread, you'll find many people saying they were wowed technically, but it left them breathless but a little detached.  That's exactly the point here.  Gondry didn't have the chops to connect emotionally with the material, and that there is the missing link.  What we get here are, again, pointers to emotions, moments in relationships, rather than the actual heart that makes these moments so significant.  The material needed a more emotional director than Gondry is capable of being, and that's why I feel the film is overrated.  GT once made the criticism for a certain movie that the script is a blueprint for a better movie than the one that was actually made.  That's a perfect criticism for this one here.

[picolas]

i gave an example of what i thought was meaningless and i didn't explain what it meant.

i also think it's meaningless to say there are lots of "pointers to emotions ... rather than the actual heart that makes those moments so significant." if something would've made a moment much more significant, it wouldn't be so hard to describe/vague.

[tpfkabi]

i'm still dumbfounded as to how the Graduate doesn't at least make the top 10 here.
for those that dislike the film, tell me what it is you don't like.

[ono]

Plastics.

Seriously though, the Graduate was the 60s expression of anomie (maybe nihilism), just like some say Coming Home was that for the 70s (an opinion I don't share, but merely refer to because it popped into my head).  Skip the 80s, that expression is found in Fight Club for the 90s, and in the present day, I have yet to see a film to fit the bill, though I'm sure there are many (maybe Ghost World -- I'd have to think on it more).  The difference is, Fight Club remained true to its message to its bitter, ironic end.

Benjamin is an everyman unhappy with his life and unsure of where it's going.  He finds love with this older woman, and lives throughout the film as a rebel.  Yet, when all is said and done, he settles for security in the arms of a girl who really isn't all that interesting.  This film preaches to do your own thing and then betrays that message with an ending that has the most likely, conventional pairing heading off into the sunset.  While there are plenty of memorable scenes, they are betrayed by an ultimate message of conformity.  It's been a few years since I've seen the flick -- and I've seen it twice -- so I can't comment any deeper than that right now, but one thing that makes a film great for me is if it holds up to repeated viewings.  Three decent films that don't are Goodfellas, Do the Right Thing, and The Graduate, and those are a couple reasons why.

[tpfkabi]

i disagree on the repeated viewings part.
everytime i watch it, i love it more.
the editing, cinematography, music, sound design, etc x infinity is top notch.
i love the long contemplative non-dialog sequences set to music.

you have your chance to watch it again.
tonight (saturday) at 7pm Central time on Turner Classic Movies.

(they're playing 2001, Dr Strangelove and Lolita all in a row right now as part of 31 days of Oscar)

[w/o horse]

Au hasard Balthazar
Bad Lieutenant
Badlands
Barry Lyndon
Boogie Nights
Breathless
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Claim, The
Dolce Vita, La
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Edward Scissorhands
Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, The
Escape from New York
Faces
Frankenstein (1931)
General, The
Grave of the Fireflies
Jules and Jim
Kiss Me Deadly
McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Mean Streets
Melvin and Howard
Night of the Hunter, The
Paris, Texas
Psycho
Simple Men
Sunset Boulevard
Taxi Driver
Vertigo
Wild Bunch, The

I like my list.  I go back and forth on if I like La Dolce Vita as much as I think I do.  I was rereading Scorsese on Scorsese and he made this really valid remark about the melodrama.  You know how when you hear a really valid critique it holds you back.  Well it holds me back.  I could probably keep ten of these and switch out twenty of them for twenty more I really like but whatever because like I said:  I like my list.

[killafilm]

I'd def. re-watch the ending to The Graduate.

I don't know what is happy about it.

[Pubrick]

my top 10
1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. Shining, The
3. Barry Lyndon
4. Annie Hall
5. Network
6. Graduate, The
7. Singin In The Rain
8. 8 1/2
9. Mulholland Drive
10. Big Lebowski, The

my top 30
Annie Hall
barry lyndon
Big Lebowski
Breaking the Waves
Casino
City of God
Eraserhead
eyes wide shut
Fanny and Alexander
full metal jacket
Citizen Kane
Graduate
Groundhog Day
Idiots
Iron Giant
MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
Mulholland Drive
NAKED
nashville
Network
Night of the Hunter
People Vs Larry Flynt
Shining, the
Singin' in the rain
Sunrise
Superman
Thin Red Line
Umberto D
Unbearable Lightness of Being
WALKABOUT

my top 10 if my top 30 had made the shortlist
1. Eyes Wide Shut
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. Shining, the
4. Barry Lyndon
5. NAKED
6. Casino
7. MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
8. Fanny and Alexander
9. Breaking the Waves
10. Night of the Hunter
10. Unbearable Lightness of Being
10. WALKABOUT