Best of the Decade

[NickAdams]

I di naht like that film. O, hi Daniel.
I always tell myself that I need to see a film twice before I can give an accurate critique. I've seen Do the Right Thing once. You have convinced me to watch it again. How can I say no to the man that introduced me to Tarr.

I am not sure what you mean on this. It sounds good, but I am confused. Can you explain this better? I doubt I would ever watch that film again...as I said I groan whenever I see it. I liked it for about the first hour, thinking this is something really different; then I the tide turned for me and I got sick of it. I also wanted to throw my DVD player across the room or better yet hail rotten tomatoes at the screen!...but then I would have to clean it up myself.

When you said you really hated it when it came to the ending, I assumed you were referring to the execution of the town.

There is no real justice for what Grace went through, but I would have been devastated if they didn't execute the towns people. Her situation really got under my skin.

Was Tom the character played by Paul Betany? I have always liked his acting and so that was my main reason for venturing to see "Dogville" to begin with.

Yup, that was him. I really responded to his character in the beginning, but my how he revealed himself. I have to give credit to his performence.

Exactly how I felt - it just exhausted itself way before the ending. Von Trier - was that her father? I can't recall now and again I say, I won't watch it again. Patricia Clarkson began to wear on my nerves...sometimes she has that effect on me. I liked her better in "Pharaoh's Army"...thought that was an interesting story which caught my interest. I know she's a fine actress, but she tends to exasperate me...I am not sure exactly why...I am sure that's just personal choice...she so often plays such depressing characters.

Von Trier is the director/writer. I think the style added some much to the tension that was already there. Even though we know that characters see what the chalk lines represent, it always felt like she was being watched, or escape was futile. Like when she was trying to escape and is going behind the house to the truck, we could see how close the towns people were and it felt like she might be caught at any moment. Or when Chuck, the Skarsgard character, was having his way with Grace, we can see the town going about their business and we know there isn't any hope for her and when Tom stops outside of the house and pauses as if he might go in- such tension.

When it came to Patricia Clarkson, I could only think of how attractive she is.

[Babbalanja]

Dogville...ugh...how I suffered...

I feel your pain.

I liked Von Trier's creepy 80's movies like Zentropa and Element of the Crime, but he's really lost it. Dogville was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The conceit is that it's supposed to resemble a filmed stageplay, but the director isn't true to his vision: if the drama itself had power, it wouldn't need the sappy narration. But the movie seems like you're watching the cast of a soap opera improvising trite dialogue. Nothing real is happening here: what Appalachian town in the Depression didn't have an expensive curio shoppe?

Von Trier insists on having no barriers onstage, so the cast has to knock on doors that aren't there. But at the end, when the gangster appears, an important scene takes place inside his enclosed car. This violates the whole dramatic basis of the movie. And James Caan's wacky-wacky style was great in Honeymoon in Vegas, but is painfully out of place in the doom and gloom of Dogville.

The stagy artifice also has people using invisible rakes, for instance. But you can be sure that when Grace has a leash on, dammit, it's gotta be a real chain. The less said about Kidman's whimpering performance the better.

And what better way to wrap up a gritty experimental drama about America in the 1930's than to play David Bowie's disco hit "Young Americans" as the credits roll? It's just the last bad idea in a movie that was a long, long series of them.

Regards,

istvan

[sixsmith]

1970s

1. Apocalypse Now
2. Taxi Driver
3. Badlands
4. The Deer Hunter
5. The Godfather

1980s

1. Amadeus
2. Raging Bull
3. Platoon
4. The Natural
5. Blue Velvet

1990s

1. Goodfellas
2. Princess Mononoke
3. Unforgiven
4. Dances with Wolves
5. Crash

2000s

1. Downfall
2. Brokeback Mountain
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Mulholland Drive
5. The Proposition

[DanielBenoit]

1. Downfall

Very nice choice. I never thought I would ever be able to view that movie again after watching all of the youtube parodies of Hitler reacting to the loss of the war. His performance is by far the greatest portrayal of Hitler in all of cinema. It is a spiteful and unsympathetic portrayal, but still presents him as a human and not some robot. It makes him all the more horrific, the fact that he was in fact able to feel human emotions, and yet could do all of those monstorous things.

I feel your pain.

Oh idk. Von Trier is a director who is strictly not for everyone. He is one of those directors who can be both loved and hated at the same time. He is an aquired taste. The end.

[Janine]

I feel your pain.

I liked Von Trier's creepy 80's movies like Zentropa and Element of the Crime, but he's really lost it. Dogville was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The conceit is that it's supposed to resemble a filmed stageplay, but the director isn't true to his vision: if the drama itself had power, it wouldn't need the sappy narration. But the movie seems like you're watching the cast of a soap opera improvising trite dialogue. Nothing real is happening here: what Appalachian town in the Depression didn't have an expensive curio shoppe?

Von Trier insists on having no barriers onstage, so the cast has to knock on doors that aren't there. But at the end, when the gangster appears, an important scene takes place inside his enclosed car. This violates the whole dramatic basis of the movie. And James Caan's wacky-wacky style was great in Honeymoon in Vegas, but is painfully out of place in the doom and gloom of Dogville.

The stagy artifice also has people using invisible rakes, for instance. But you can be sure that when Grace has a leash on, dammit, it's gotta be a real chain. The less said about Kidman's whimpering performance the better.

And what better way to wrap up a gritty experimental drama about America in the 1930's than to play David Bowie's disco hit "Young Americans" as the credits roll? It's just the last bad idea in a movie that was a long, long series of them.

Regards,

istvan

I am afraid I have to completely agree with this. I thought Kidman whimpering, even whining just too much to take. It was grueling getting through the movie. I never turn one off and abandon a film, without seeing it through to the end. I suffered till the end of this one for certain. I started out liking it and thinking - how incredibly innovative it was...then the longer I had to endure it, the worse I felt. It was so drawn out and when she was given the ball and chain, they then lost me...I was like...no way, this has gone too far. When Cain entered the picture I think began my total hatred of the film. I thought the same thing about the car and invisible boundries...I didn't like his performance at all and I felt like it really plummeted by that point. The ending was totally disturbing and insane....but then again maybe that was the idea of it. I certainly was squirming in my seat by that point....but it may have been from my legs going numb and my back aching...

Sorry, Daniel, I am definitely on the side of the 'haters' on this one!

[DanielBenoit]

Another one! What films do you find to be terribly overrated? I know I am bound to cringe because some people are bound to list Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey

me:
Chicago
Titanic
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (great movie though)
The Blindside (mainly because this has captured the general public)
Wild Strawberries (believe me I was moved by this film and it is a great film with great peformances, but to call it Bergman's best is overrating it)
High Noon
Million Dollar Baby
Braveheart
Scarface (just didn't work for me, felt like a cheap 80's film untin the final act)
Gladiator (wtf, the most overrated movie of the decade)
Dirty Dancing
Wild at Heart (very good film, but the fact that this one won the Palme d'Or is enough to call it overrated)

How about some underrated?

Werckmeister Harmonies (most neglected great movie of the decade)
Satantango
Shoah (most depressing film ever made)
Synecdoche, New York (why all the hate?)
The Thin Red Line
Gummo
Man Push Cart
Chop Shop
Tarnation
My Man Godfrey
Chimes at Midnight (this low-budget gem directed and starring Orson Welles in an adaptation of Henry IV is a forgotten gem from the 60's, starving for a restoration)
October
F for Fake (most complex and interesting documentary film ever made)
The Brown Bunny
Clockers
Songs from the Second Floor
We, the Living
Even Dwarfs Started Small
Broken Blossoms
Wings of Desire
Inland Empire
The Mission (yes this won the Palme d'Or, was nominated at the Oscars, but that was in 1986, who has ever heard of it today? I mean, it stars Robert DeNero)
The Grey Zone

[sixsmith]

Very nice choice. I never thought I would ever be able to view that movie again after watching all of the youtube parodies of Hitler reacting to the loss of the war. His performance is by far the greatest portrayal of Hitler in all of cinema. It is a spiteful and unsympathetic portrayal, but still presents him as a human and not some robot. It makes him all the more horrific, the fact that he was in fact able to feel human emotions, and yet could do all of those monstorous things.

A remarkable film and a truly remarkable performance from Ganz.

[Janine]

Daniel, I love "The Thin Red Line"...saw it in your list. Who's performance of Hitler are you speaking of? Sorry, I seem to have lost track here and also not really listing in decades as you started this thread doing.

Anyway, I just had to throw this out there; I just saw Powell's film: "A Matter of Life and Death" (1946) ...pretty amazing and incredibly creative and ahead of it's time. Interesting how Heaven is perceived in b/w/graytones and life is vibrant color. I loved the film, especially the staircase/escalator scene.

[Babbalanja]

Just so I don't come off as a hater...

I think Bruce Robinson's early films are underrated. Withnail and I is a cult classic about struggling actors in the 60's, but the surreal comedy deserves to be on the cultural radar. His follow-up How to Get Ahead in Advertising was a bizarre satire that sums up the 80's: greed and madness. Both benefit from maniacal performances by Richard E. Grant.

Hal Hartley also made some significant films in the early part of his career. Movies like The Unbelievable Truth and Trust were droll, wordy comedies that made him seem like a Long Island Beckett. Henry Fool is probably his best film, humane and sardonic at the same time.

Julio Medem is the Hal Hartley of Spain, with his deadpan sense of humor and quirky imagination. He's known on these shores for his surreal, sexy romances Lovers of the Arctic Circle and Sex and Lucia.

I already mentioned that I loved Lars von Trier's out-there films of the 80's, the frightening post-WWII fantasy Zentropa and the thriller Element of the Crime.

I still say Heathers was the best teen comedy ever made. And Clueless was a lot smarter than it let on.

It seems too obvious to list works by Wes Anderson, Jim Jarmusch, and the Coen Brothers, but their work always appeals to me.

And in the so-bad-it's-good category, I have to nominate The Wicker Man. Hypnotically bad. It has everything: atrocious acting, nonsensical plot, strange musical numbers, and a laughable finale. I'd watch it again in a second.

Regards,

Istvan

[kilted exile]

6 pages and still no mention of the greatest film ever made: On the waterfront. Excellence from both Malden & Brando together again with Kazan, whose abilities as a director are seen so clearly in the scene where Brando tells Saint's character how he was responsible for the death of her brother - you dont need to hear the dialogue to understand how tortured both of them are - something scorsese later makes use of in his own way in taxi diver where the camera pans away from de niro's character while he is on the phone - we dont need to see de niro's face it is all in the voice.

[DanielBenoit]

6 pages and still no mention of the greatest film ever made: On the waterfront. Excellence from both Malden & Brando together again with Kazan, whose abilities as a director are seen so clearly in the scene where Brando tells Saint's character how he was responsible for the death of her brother - you dont need to hear the dialogue to understand how tortured both of them are - something scorsese later makes use of in his own way in taxi diver where the camera pans away from de niro's character while he is on the phone - we dont need to see de niro's face it is all in the voice.

You know some people are going to be suprised, me being such a movie buff: I have never seen On the Waterfront. It's one of those films that has been on my "Must See" list for quite a while but I never got around to watching it. That along with Rashomon, Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Sunrise, etc.

[Janine]

You know some people are going to be suprised, me being such a movie buff: I have never seen On the Waterfront. It's one of those films that has been on my "Must See" list for quite a while but I never got around to watching it. That along with Rashomon, Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Sunrise, etc.

I am one who is totally surprised, Daniel. It's such a classic film...one of my alltime favorites! Kilted, everything you said about it is exactly correct. The acting is superb. One can hardly top the film. I am about due to see it again. It only gets better with time.

And Daniel, you have never seen "A Streetcar Named Desire" ? I am again stunned. It's a great film...'method acting', intense and really amazingly engaging...they don't make films like this anymore.

Speaking of 'method acting', I recently saw the James Dean film, "East of Eden"...I totally loved the film. I may rewatch that one tonight. I also loved "Rebel Without a Cause". A shame the gifted Dean died so young and so tragically.

[NickAdams]

I don't know if it's so bad it's good (I don't know if I consider it bad), but I love The Man Who Knew Too Little with Bill Murray.

Gladiator, lol. If it wasn't for Joaquin Phoenix, I wouldn't have sat through it a second time.

I am afraid I have to completely agree with this. I thought Kidman whimpering, even whining just too much to take. It was grueling getting through the movie. I never turn one off and abandon a film, without seeing it through to the end. I suffered till the end of this one for certain. I started out liking it and thinking - how incredibly innovative it was...then the longer I had to endure it, the worse I felt. It was so drawn out and when she was given the ball and chain, they then lost me...I was like...no way, this has gone too far. When Cain entered the picture I think began my total hatred of the film. I thought the same thing about the car and invisible boundries...I didn't like his performance at all and I felt like it really plummeted by that point. The ending was totally disturbing and insane....but then again maybe that was the idea of it. I certainly was squirming in my seat by that point....but it may have been from my legs going numb and my back aching...

Sorry, Daniel, I am definitely on the side of the 'haters' on this one!

I'm not a fan of Cain either, but in regards to the car it's established that vehicles (that which is able to leave the town of Dogville) are concrete. It's interesting to note the when Grace attempts to escape from Dogville in the truck we can see through the tarp and we discover that she hasn't left the town, but it doesn't happen to Cain's car and it is in this vehicle that she leaves successfully.

I can understand why someone wouldn't like the film. I wouldn't want to spend time with someone who whimpers in life, but when it comes to cinema it seems as if it's more of a fact than criticism. There are certain behaviors that aren't enjoyed on screen, but I don't think they should be excluded.

I find Brando's early films too odd to totally enjoy. His performances expose the staginess of the actors around him:

a scene from On The Waterfront

You know some people are going to be suprised, me being such a movie buff: I have never seen On the Waterfront. It's one of those films that has been on my "Must See" list for quite a while but I never got around to watching it. That along with Rashomon, Fight Club, A Streetcar Named Desire, Sunrise, etc.

I'm surprised that you get in as many films as you do.

[DanielBenoit]

I am one who is totally surprised, Daniel. It's such a classic film...one of my alltime favorites! Kilted, everything you said about it is exactly correct. The acting is superb. One can hardly top the film. I am about due to see it again. It only gets better with time.

I must also be ashamed to admit that I never even knew of Luis Bunuel until a couple of months ago. Though I am suprised I've never seen On the Waterfront. I usually know my classics top from bottom

I'm surprised that you get in as many films as you do.

Lol, so am I.

[DanielBenoit]

It's official, the general consensious is that Mulholland Drive is the best film of the decade. Yays! It truly is David Lynch's masterpiece and probably, IMHO, the most immersive dream-film since Bunuel's L'Age D'or. Now that may be somewhat of an overstatment, but it certainly is the greatest work of cinematic surrealism since the likes of Fellini and Bunuel.