2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[The Narrator Returns]

I've been unable to submit lists to the last two decades projects after personal shit got in the way both times, so here's hoping nothing bad happens this coming January.

Steven Soderbergh
Erin Brockovich (2000) R1/A Universal
Traffic (2000) R1/A Criterion
Ocean's Eleven (2001) R1/A Warners
Full Frontal (2002) RA Echo Bridge OOP
Solaris (2002) R1 Fox
Ocean's Twelve (2004) R1/A Warners
Eros: "Equilibrium" (2005) R1 Warners
Bubble (2005) R1/A Magnolia
The Good German (2006) R1 Warners
Ocean's Thirteen (2007) R1/A Warners
Che (2008) R1/A Criterion
The Girlfriend Experience (2009) R1/A Magnolia
The Informant! (2009) R1/A Warners

The 2000s remain the most successful period of Soderbergh's career, commercially and critically. He began by showing that he could make a Hollywood crowd-pleaser like the best of them with Erin Brockovich, whose pleasures reside less in the plot and more in the small details of the title character's blue-collar lifestyle (it's never remarked upon, but Erin still had a few of her ex-husbands' shirts and wears them from time to time) and the charming interplay between Julia Roberts and an especially wonderful Albert Finney, whose reaction shots belong in a museum. And Soderbergh manages to keep his touch visible with Edward Lachman's cinematography (this is his last film shot by a DoP besides himself), which alternates between sticky warm colors and intense blues (one such sequence that's bathed in blue, of a frustrated husband throwing rocks at PG&E's headquarters, might as well have come from The Limey). But where his touch really shows is in his very next film, Traffic, which is nothing less than the ultimate Soderbergh film (not the same as "the best Soderbergh film"), with its interwoven narratives, audience-orienting color schemes, and cast mixing big stars, then-relatively unknown character actors, and Soderbergh friends (look for Schizopolis's Elmo Oxygen and T. Azimuth Schwitters playing a john and a waiter, respectively). The other parts of the movie are alright too, I guess.

Ocean's Eleven has the feeling of a free-spirited victory lap after Soderbergh worked his way back to the top, a chance to let loose with some charismatic actors and an amusingly absurd heist. It's almost too much fun for its own good, which is not a thing anyone has said about its follow-up, Full Frontal, which a sum total of eleven people, including me, like. Certainly not all of it works, but enough of it does (like pretty much anything in the film-within-the-film, or Nicky Katt's hilarious performance as a hot-tempered actor playing Hitler) to make it worth a watch. His next film, Solaris, holds a legitimate claim to being Soderbergh's masterpiece, with some of his his loveliest cinematography, an excellent across-the-board cast, and an adept handling of tone, keeping the film chilly and distant while not muting the emotions at the story's center.

After a break from filmmaking used to direct the ten-part series K Street, he made Ocean's Twelve, whose merits are still up for debate, with most deeming it an exercise in self-indulgence and some calling it an outright masterpiece. I remain stubbornly in-between, as I don't quite buy the argument (stated by many of its fans) of it being a post-modern deconstruction of the heist/studio movie, but I still find it to be quite enjoyable overall (especially a Schizopolisian sequence where Matt Damon's Linus is forced into a nonsense conversation). The same year, Soderbergh shot a short film for the anthology film Eros. The result is a very amusing pisstake which makes the most of its abbreviated length and serves as a nice buffer between the film's stunning opening Wong Kar-wai segment and the unbearably pretentious ending Michelangelo Antonioni segment. From there, Soderbergh returned to the experimental world with the microbudget Bubble and the inexplicably studio-financed The Good German. Of the two, Bubble is the more successful, with striking direction/cinematography, an unsettling atmosphere (aided by the sequences set in a doll factory), and excellent performances by an all-amateur cast (Debby Doebereiner in particular gives one of the best performances in any Soderbergh film ever). Not that Good German is chopped liver, with a wonderful attention to the details of 40s films that jars unnervingly with the very modern profanity and actions of its characters, not to mention an ending which does nothing less than indict the main character for his role in the Holocaust.

From there, it's back to safe ground with Ocean's Thirteen, which is generally better-liked than Twelve, but those who love that film generally don't care for it at all. Me, it's less essential than the first one, but on some days, I'd say I like it more, if just for the utter ridiculousness of some of its scenarios (like a sequence involving a mustachioed Casey Affleck starting a labor dispute at a factory, or the recurring bit about Matt Damon and a prosthetic nose). But it's nothing compared to the mammoth achievement that was Che, a two-part epic comparing the rise and fall of Che Guevara. Both parts are among Soderbergh's best, but I may slightly prefer the ominous "dominoes falling" nature of Part Two, although Part One may be Soderbergh's most beautiful film. In comparison, his next two films, The Girlfriend Experience and The Informant!, can't help but feel minor, but while that description fits the former (which isn't a complaint from me), the latter is second only to Schizopolis in terms of Soderbergh's best work. With the bouncy Marvin Hamlisch score, the hysterically banal voice-over narration, and a cast of every great character actor and comedian Soderbergh could think of, Informant! is a comic delight, especially in its second half, where hilarious incident after incident pile on top of each other until you're not sure if you should be laughing anymore (emphasized in one brilliant scene near the end, where the previously detached narration becomes an active part of the scene).

[domino harvey]

Your list is madness, every feature but the Girlfriend Experience and Ocean's Thirteen should be red!

[knives]

Does this mean no Eros love?

[mfunk9786]

I never end up having the time to contribute lists to these or do much discussing (you guys watch a lot of films in very short windows of time, and it's very impressive). However, I had to go ahead and contribute, and hopefully spark my ability to participate and submit in this one. Starting with this (of course), but I will do a few more in the coming few hours/days:

Paul Thomas Anderson
Punch-Drunk Love (2002) R1 Sony
There Will Be Blood (2007) R1/A Paramount

Quality over quantity, eh? The least productive decade of Anderson's career thusfar in terms of length of time between output, but he followed his two lengthy ensemble-driven films with two very effective character studies. Punch-Drunk Love was an effort to scale back ambition by taking on an interesting challenge (that, at the time, at least seemed realistic, these days it'd likely be impossible) to not only make an "arthouse Adam Sandler" film, but also to wring a remarkably emotional and winning performance from someone who is not known for his acting chops. Sandler manages to channel his inner Jack Lemmon at times, coupling it with some of the anger and darkness that he'd exhibited in his goofy comedies to that point, and with Anderson working with a top-of-his-game Robert Elswit and a lot of fruitful visual ideas, the resulting film's growing reputation is well-earned. Speaking of Elswit at the top of his game, he won the Oscar for his work lensing There Will Be Blood, which came together about as well as anyone could've hoped after a troubled production during which Daniel Day-Lewis injured himself, one of the lead actors was fired after shooting had begun, and five years passed without much of a word on what Anderson had been up to. The resulting film has been hailed as the best of the decade by many critics, a quiet boiling pot of anger and greed and a timeless tale of faith vs. capitalism that fit right into a political climate that was about to run head-first into a recession.

[Tommaso]

Le pont des arts (Eugène Green 2004): I checked this out because several people very much praised it in the second iteration of the 2000s list discussion, though the director wasn't known to me at all. Well, it didn't disappoint. Looking for comparisons while watching it, the films that came to my mind were basically Eustache's "La maman et la putain" and several Rivettes, though Adrien Michaux' Pascal isn't quite as cool as Jean-Pierre Léaud, nor is the camerawork and the blocking quite as elegantly effortless as in Rivette's masterpieces (the steady shot -reverse shot - alternations in the climactic sequence on the bridge didn't feel like the best possible choice to me, even though they work in a way).

Nevertheless, a rather enchanting and beautifully shot film about drifting and then finding one's soulmate (beyond death) through the power of music. In this respect, I was also reminded of Wenders' "Lisbon Story", and certainly the wonderful Monteverdi music is one of the few things that can equal the enchantment of Madredeus. How any self-respecting musician could endure the treatment that the 'Unnameable' lashes out on them for longer than five minutes must remain Green's secret, though. That character is needed as a motor for the proceedings, certainly, but I found him way too exaggerated to be entirely convincing.

Still, a rather unusual film which has good chances to end up on my list. That it's the only film I can think of in which the name of Pierre Boulez is mentioned - in a rather bizarre piece of dialogue - doesn't play a part in this choice

[swo17]

I'd actually recommend all of Green's features from this decade, especially Le monde vivant, which in the budgetary department makes Lancelot du Lac look like Jurassic World.

[zedz]

Le pont des arts (Eugène Green 2004): I checked this out because several people very much praised it in the second iteration of the 2000s list discussion, though the director wasn't known to me at all. Well, it didn't disappoint. Looking for comparisons while watching it, the films that came to my mind were basically Eustache's "La maman et la putain" and several Rivettes, though Adrien Michaux' Pascal isn't quite as cool as Jean-Pierre Léaud, nor is the camerawork and the blocking quite as elegantly effortless as in Rivette's masterpieces (the steady shot -reverse shot - alternations in the climactic sequence on the bridge didn't feel like the best possible choice to me, even though they work in a way).

Nevertheless, a rather enchanting and beautifully shot film about drifting and then finding one's soulmate (beyond death) through the power of music. In this respect, I was also reminded of Wenders' "Lisbon Story", and certainly the wonderful Monteverdi music is one of the few things that can equal the enchantment of Madredeus. How any self-respecting musician could endure the treatment that the 'Unnameable' lashes out on them for longer than five minutes must remain Green's secret, though. That character is needed as a motor for the proceedings, certainly, but I found him way too exaggerated to be entirely convincing.

The Unnameable might seem like a completely contrived over-the-top villain, but he is apparently very closely modelled on an actual figure in Paris's early music scene (of which Green was / is a part), and Podalydes' ridiculously affected accent is firmly based on that of the real figure. It might be the single aspect of the film that's most grounded in reality, oddly enough.

The extremely disciplined and rigid use of shot / reverse shot is a fundamental aspect of Green's style, and he explores its nuances and expressive possibilities intensively in all his subsequent works. La Sapienza could almost be analyzed as a Sonata for Eyelines.

[John Cope]

I couldn't agree more about the exceptional quality of all of Green's work but The Portuguese Nun is the only one I'm sure will make my list and probably even my top 10. It's among the greatest films ever made about love. That film especially comes off like a more emotionally infused but equally rigorous Manoel de Oliveira.

[knives]

My Summer of Love
This isn't the shock to the spine that Ida was, but as a quiet little piece of romance it's great. The big surprise for me was Emily Blunt who I haven't particularly taken a liking to before, but controls the movie perfectly. Everyone is really great though and sells even the odder plot elements like the newly Christian brother who in a lesser movie especially with this level of screentime would come across only as a negative stereotype. That said the film hits a lot of the small town lower class romance cliches making a lot of the plot mechanics dull and unmemorable. It's only through the character interactions that the story comes alive. Though it seems that Pawilkowski is interested in more than the film has to offer showing a visual style, for example, that goes beyond the story's simple miserablism into something beautiful. Every scene is bright focusing on warm colours which clashes well with a lot of the expectations for the story.

As You Like It
This is the only Shakespeare I've seen in theater which probably leaves me with a greater bias then I normally start with (for example it seems to have stolen Molina's hair which endeared me more to the performance than I would even naturally). Though as I suppose is the case with all Shakespeare adaptations, especially as free flowing as this, is if the cast and the stylistic quirks work. For the former the greatest weakness is definitely the ladies which is extra unfortunate considering this is their story. Garai is whiny and unfunny which is a death sentence with this character. At least though she seems at comfort with her character which is more than can be said of Howard who seems uncomfortable speaking and in drag. Every word is reached with a pause as if she's trying to figure out what she has just said. Fortunately everyone else seems right to their role particularly a young David Oyelowo as the play's underwritten romantic interest. He's not given much more to do than look pretty, but he does such with more feeling than any of the other actors. I suppose that also reveals a little bit of the weakness in Brannagh's approach. The plot and romance are the least interesting thing on display here and Brannagh insists that anyone should care beyond how it brings such characters together. It's a party story and such a heavy handed approach undermines the whole affair. I mean, why is Jaques not as amusing as Touchstone? It also reveals a certain lack of trust in the source material. Likewise the choice of setting is utterly bizarre since he doesn't use it to cast Japanese actors or really anything that would make it different from 16th century Britain. Quaintly he seems to suggest that he was aiming for some Japanese theater techniques, but if so Brannagh is more incompetent than I could imagine. Yet despite those pretensions and how strongly they fail, the joy of the play does reach through a fair bit. Too bad the movie is in the way.

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
I mean this in the best way possible but this is less an adaptation of Stoker than a pornographic romance and everything Careful tried to be. I've had a lukewarm enjoyment of Maddin so far not disliking anything terribly much, but not falling head over heals either, but this hit the spot just perfectly. I assume a lot of that has to do with the film being a ballet at least in part tempering some of Maddin's worst editing tics. Telling the story from Mina's point of view is a brilliant touch even beyond the excuses it gives Maddin for his sexuality play. It seems genuinely fresh and unique despite hitting many of the familiar points.

Last Life in the Universe
This isn't the film that is going to make me a fan of Thailand's art cinema, but at least it has the common decency of hiring Doyle who is exactly the right sort of DP for this kind of doodle. Sometimes it feels like it's under-utilizing him, but that often creates something more interesting then if Ratanaruang had just let him go absolutely wild. Though that seems appropriate for a film so much about the need for quiet and how the reaction to society's force is just as bad. The themes and how they tie into the images are excellent even if the story they're sown to doesn't always match up in quality. A lot of credit has to also go to Asano who gives a performance far removed from what I'm used to even if it, as the film so coyly points out, shares a lot with his most explosive performance. Just his improperly slacked posture speaks volumes on the particulars for his death obsession. I think I may have accidentally convinced myself to like this flawed film much more then I initially had. By the way I see reported everywhere that this film is supposed to be 112 minutes. Does anyone know where the missing eight minutes come in?

Yatterman
Saying a Miike film is weird is a bit like saying Tuesday is a day of the week, but this is definitely near the top if just because for a generic kids film it feels a lot like a CGI induced seizure as told by a madlibs page and then all of the scenes were cut up into a random order. For example of the last bit the proper introduction is the second scene, technically third, of the film placed just as when it doesn't matter as anyone who would care has left by now. The film constantly does this especially for emotional notes. Unfortunately the wackiness begins to fall under a pattern allowing for a greater mundane feeling than a pig and rat man with penis guns utilizing a playboy bunny mecha in a children's film should have. Meaningful criticism seems almost besides the point which is really the biggest problem of Miike's especially since now he can go so lazy with CGI. I fear none of these acid trips will achieve the sublime subtext of Gozu again but at least it's a consistently entertaining regressive Power Rangers musical.

[TMDaines]

Alaska.de (2000 - Esther Gronenborn):

Shoddy shaky camerawork from the get go points to this being a frustrating experience throughout. The plot is wafer-thin. Girl moves to new area, falls in with the wrong crowd, happens to come across something she shouldn’t, and is forced to keep quiet.

The characters all come across as cliches of teenage angst. There’s the bad egg, the good guy at heart who has fallen in with the wrong crowd, the big fat oaf and the girl who feels as if the whole world is crumbling in on her. The scene at the bookshop where books and reading is made out to be the antithesis of teenage cool is cringeworthy beyond belief. There’s nothing to recommend this on.

[Tommaso]

A Talking Picture (Manoel de Oliveira 2003): at first glance this is deceptively simple, a road movie/travelogue in which a woman shows her daughter all the important sites of antiquity around the Mediterranean. On board of the ocean liner on which she travels, she is invited by the ship's captain to join his dinner table alongside three famous ladies from different European countries who all speak in their own language but nevertheless understand each other perfectly. As always in Oliveira, the fascination lies in the details, and I guess the director's aim was to pose the question what Europe means now and historically/mythically, what its common culture is and where it is heading. In this respect it's wonderfully relevant especially in these days and weeks now.

Unfortunately, the film is only partly successful in exploring its themes, and again - like with "The Convent" - I think this has to do with its too short running time. You might argue that 90 minutes are more than enough for a film in which - apart from the surprise ending - nothing much actually happens apart from the talking, but I'd say that with this modest running time there's not enough chance to dig really deep into the subject, and so the film has a slightly didactic character - actually not that much dissimilar to Capra's "Mindwalk" - if you can understand the not so difficult to understand subtexts of the talking. As to the ending: I didn't like its deus ex machina quality (and basically I don't think that the film is among the best written of Oliveira's), but that very last shot must be among the most iconic in Oliveira's work (wow!), and the film in general is also very beautifully filmed. But that's not exactly news when it comes to Oliveira.

[knives]

I think I just entered a ghost town. I guess the site has some real decade fatigue.

My Country, My Country
This film, by Citizenfour's Laura Poitras, features a few typical elements from documentaries of the period, but the subject matter (Iraqi elections) and the method (direct cinema as Altman ensemble) cause it to remain unique and be of a higher quality than the norm. The film gets in a few political knocks to help out the Americans through various foreigners strategizing and hoping for a legitimate election, but much of the film focuses in on locals dealing with everyday life after Sadam and the normalcy they've carved from it. It is a very casual portrayal of a people that, especially in '06, had a lot of their humanity stripped from portrayals for political reasons.The effect is practically the opposite of Citizenfour's and I might argue it as the better movie even if it is more roughly structured. As a part of that the only real weakness in the film is the aforementioned American friendly scenes which are variations of comments regarding the importance of voting, how terrible Sadam was, and the ethnic complexities of the region. Maybe at the time with more ignorance among Americans these scenes were important to have, but now they seem a distraction from the core of the film.

Silmido
Pretty average Dirty Dozen knock-off that differentiates itself through crudeness and violence though considering the films that were making a splash out of Korea at the time the effect is very small for what's ultimately a very conventional movie.

Two Lovers
Gray's insistence on having his cake and eating it too is a big frustration for me getting into his films. He tries to suggest one type of story (look they're Chabadniks with family in Israel) while presenting a different one (look at this perfectly normal American family in normal dress and speech) and it just renders the characters cheap. That cheapness doesn't help with a kind of hokey plot either. The characters are great with the actors doing wonderful jobs sketching them into real people, even Paltrow is absolutely amazing in this, but their interactions constantly ring false with Phoenix at the center of all the whys the film presents. It's just unbelievable that Paltrow or Shaw would be interested in him with what we're given let alone at the same time. A best this seems like Gray self inserting himself as a totally lovable loser. The film probably would have worked better without its Marty presumptions and cast the characters as a good decade younger at least. So much of the film does do the right thing that this little niggle of badness just expands and expands and expands until it covers the whole picture. I can't wait for the day when I see Gray materialize a film as good as his talents, but this isn't it.

Path to War
Frankenheimer's last film is easily one of his best. An epic dissertation on the failure guaranteed for Vietnam from the first moment that equally paints the ravages of the office on one of the most complicated of presidents. That's a lot of tough air to live up to yet the film does so swimmingly presenting this tough project in a clear fashion without dumbing down things. It's probably the best Vietnam film I've seen, but in addition to that it is one of the best character studies out there and probably the last purely classic American film. All of the personalities as presented are essential and not just showing off a personage because they were famous or there. This is most clear with McNamara and Clifford working as the angels on LBJ's shoulders (though even they need and receive their own angels), but even functions well with minor people like Valenti and in the film's most shocking intersection of history and drama Morrison. I'd go on, but then that would prevent you from checking this out which is a must do.

Lady Chatterley
The only thing worse than Miramax prestige pics are failed attempts at being a Miramax prestige pic. This overlong and lifeless rendering of Lawrence screams of the most lame commercialism that French cinema can muster. If one would cut the fat significantly there is the seed of a good film in here. Marina Hands isn't given much to do beyond starring vacantly, but when she is permitted to emote like with the bird sequence (which quickly devolves into nonsense) she's fabulous at it suggesting a character with more personality than the style of the film allows. That actually leads into the film's most confusing aspect. Its lightly done appeals to sex. Most of the time like with the rest of the film it just flaps there as nothing, but occasionally Ferran seems to be aiming for something and I can't tell what. I'd assume creepy because there's no eroticism, but the characters push it off as nothing so that doesn't sell entirely. Perhaps comedic, and that bird sex scene I mentioned is nearly a remake of Fast Times' sex scene (though that is a comparison which shows how lifeless this film is), but the rest of the film doesn't really have the joking tone to match. They ultimately just serve as a perfunctory pause between staring sessions. The film livens up a bit in the back half, but that only begs the question of why not cut out the first 40 minutes or so then? After all two hours is a fairly respectable run time and apparently this is already cut down from a four hour cut. It wouldn't rescue the film from mediocrity, but would lift it to an enjoyable variation.

Songs from the Second Floor
It's an amazing joy to watch this just for the confusing factor of connecting it to Andersson's A Swedish Love Story which this basically has nothing in common with. Those differences just highlight and magnify the effect of the bizarre touches he fuses into this film. For example why are so many people painted white. Not everyone is indicting it isn't an absolute touch meant to solely register visually, but I can't think of any other reason. All the vignettes tie together in fairly obvious ways critiquing this and that about society, but never in more than an ironic winking sort of way. The film lacks punch there, but then that goes back to the visuals which are stunning and amusing making the quaint quality of the themes seem just right.

The Fast and the Furious
This plays out exactly like it is. An out of touch 50 something year old Jew's idea of what cool is for young people circa 1997. It's out of touch, lame, and comically racist in parts. The culture that Cohen suggests for these characters is an odd mixture of lower class loving (the grace thing is weirdly pronounced) and disgust. It seems to be aiming for family and achieves plastic artifice. I essentially only watched this due to the cult this series has produced and this leaves a lot to want. The surprisingly good soundtrack and the homoerotic tension between Walker and Diesel though make it a perfectly okay waste of 100 minutes.

[zedz]

I was prepared to include Nobuhiro Yamashita's A Gentle Breeze in the Village on this list, but discovered it was available on Japanese BluRay with English subs (supposedly). I've ordered it and will report back if it turns out to indeed be subbed.

The Japanese BluRay does indeed carry English subs for the feature. There's quite a bit of unsubbed bonus content, but I don't think it's much of a loss. The one-hour 'making of' is your standard junky Asian EPK: totally unedifying onset video diary punctuated by unctuous, vapid star interviews ("This is, like, the nicest, happiest set I've ever worked on, and it's such an honour to work with Ex, Wye and Zee, and I had trouble understanding my character at first but with Mr. Director's support I think it came out all right!"), and there's more of those interviews included as well. The BluRay seems to be a bargain line reissue, given the discount store blurbs plastered all over the artwork, but fortunately the cover insert is reversible with a less desperate version.

Actual viewing:

Iron Island (Mohammad Rasoulof) - Grim and intriguing allegory in which Iran (or society in general) is a decrepit oil tanker slowly falling apart, or being cannibalized inexorably into oblivion, out at sea. It's inhabited by a community of the indigent and lorded over by a dubiously upbeat and authoritarian captain, who has some fantastic plans for your future, if you'll just sign this insignificant power of attorney. The film works because the drama is immediate on its surface level, and the allegory never gets too schematic. We're perpetually primed for the allegory to somehow shed its burka and get reductively specific, but it never does. Rasoulof seems to be the last great filmmaker to emerge from the Iranian New Wave, along with Bahman Ghobadi (Asgar Farhadi emerged at the same time, but his work seems to me to have much more in common with modern European drama), and this is a stylistic step forward from his debut Twilight (also well worth seeing for this project). But his real masterpiece for the decade is The White Meadows, which delves even further into allegory and ultimately has a much sharper political bite. All three films are, surprisingly, available on US DVD, though not necessarily in great transfers.

[Tommaso]

Iron Island (Mohammad Rasoulof) - Grim and intriguing allegory in which Iran (or society in general) is a decrepit oil tanker slowly falling apart, or being cannibalized inexorably into oblivion, out at sea. It's inhabited by a community of the indigent and lorded over by a dubiously upbeat and authoritarian captain, who has some fantastic plans for your future, if you'll just sign this insignificant power of attorney. The film works because the drama is immediate on its surface level, and the allegory never gets too schematic.

Watched this not too long ago via a transmission on arte TV. For some reason I wasn't too impressed. Very well filmed and acted, and of course the political allegory was obvious (a bit too much so, for my taste), but plotwise I somehow thought this was something like an Iranian version of "Satantango" (especially in its final scenes), but much less compelling. Certainly worth seeing, though.

[The Narrator Returns]

Picking Up the Pieces (Alfonso Arau, 2000) Cheech Marin called this the worst film he's ever worked on. I can't say I've exposed myself to much of Mr. Marin's work, but I can believe him in that I don't think there are many worse movies than this out there. A supposed comedy about a murdered woman's hand granting people miracles (like restoring a blind woman's sight, curing a teenager's acne, and giving a midget a penis the size of a sausage link), I estimate that I laughed every 32 minutes, and even that seems like it's giving it too much credit. I wasn't a fan of Arau's Like Water for Chocolate or A Walk in the Clouds, but at least those films had a sheen of classiness, while this is just agonizingly unfunny toilet humor and juvenile "satire" (hey guys, did you know that, get this, religion is all about money???) from beginning to end. There may be entertainment value suggested by the bizarre cast, which includes David Schwimmer, Woody Allen, Eddie Griffin, Sharon Stone, Marin, Kiefer Sutherland, Andy Dick, Richard Edson, Fran Drescher, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but the only things of value here are Allen, who gets every one of the film's three laughs, and Vittorio Storaro(!!!)'s expectedly gorgeous photography. And you can both of those things elsewhere in much, much better films.

Hearts in Atlantis (Scott Hicks, 2001) The consummate definition of mediocrity, a movie of, at most, minor pleasures which don't last beyond the final frame. Based on a Stephen King short story (although not the Stephen King short story called "Hearts in Atlantis"), it feels like a short story unsuccessfully stretched to feature-length, with the main story of a young boy discovering that the man who lives in the room above his (a bored Anthony Hopkins) is psychic taking a back seat to mostly unengaging adventures between him and his friends (there's a particularly awful bit where we discover that the neighborhood bully is only picking on him and his girlfriend because the bully is gay) set to a predictable soundtrack of golden oldies. Any goodwill I had toward this (mostly because of Piotr Sobocinski's lovely sun-kissed photography, with uncredited assists by Emmanuel Lubezki and Allen Daviaiu) evaporated by the time the boy's mother (a horribly-used Hope Davis) gets raped essentially for trying to climb the corporate ladder.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion/Hollywood Ending (Woody Allen, 2001/2002) As a massive Woody Allen fan/apologist (the only film of his that I've found I couldn't defend is September), I was expecting to get something more out of these two than the American public or critics did. I was half-right. I remember thinking that, for every line that didn't land in Jade Scorpion, there was one that made me laugh, but damned if I can remember any of those lines that made me laugh, or anything besides the parts I absolutely did not like (like Charlize Theron's embarrassing character, or Helen Hunt having no chemistry with Allen and no feel for how to deliver his dialogue). But I actually enjoyed Hollywood Ending a lot, and even if the jokes were easy ones (and ones you'd expect from a movie where a director goes blind), at least they made me laugh for the most part. What really brings the movie down is the pacing (there's no reason this needs to be upwards of 110 minutes) and the cinematography, which renders the warm colors Allen so loves to use in his films more garish than beautiful (the opening sequence could be the worst-shot thing in any Allen film ever), but even with those caveats, it's on much firmer groud than Scorpion was.

Levity (Ed Solomon, 2003) A sluggish, lifeless redemption story of a man reentering society after being in prison for murdering a convenience story clerk as a teenager. Almost everyone in the cast, besides Kirsten Dunst as the film's sole source of, whaddya know, levity, is deathly afraid of using their outdoor voice, and you'd be shocked to learn that Solomon was an in-demand comedy writer based on his dour script, which doesn't appear to have heard of the term "humor", let alone indulged in it. It's a very well-made movie technically, with excellent photography by Roger Deakins and an excellent score by Eels' Mark Oliver Everett, but this is dull, dull stuff.

Walk the Line (James Mangold, 2005) I was shocked watching the first half of this movie, because I had no idea how many sequences and gags in Walk Hard are taken directly from this (I was struck by how little that movie changed the scenes of Johnny Cash performing for Sam Phillips and meeting Elvis here). I was even more shocked when I realized that I was much more interested in those scenes that Walk Hard so mercilessly mocked than I was in the entire second half of the movie. Even if the first half was entirely predictable "rise to the top" stuff, I'll take that any day of the week over the maudlin, repetitive scenes of Cash fucking up and then trying again and fucking up again. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are great as Johnny and June Carter Cash, and Mangold excels at staging the music sequences, but this tried my patience.

The Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006) Surprisingly, I actually found myself moderately enjoying this movie despite it being cloying as all hell (the twinkling music-box of a score doesn't help). I was even entertained by the banter between Big Smith and Little Smith. Then again, I saw this immediately after I saw The Help, which I absolutely hated, so maybe this is just a case of "at least it's not that", and if that's the case, you can take my exceedingly minor recommendation with a grain of salt.

My Blueberry Nights (Wong Kar-wai, 2007) Oh, how I should have listened. This is just as bad of a self-parody as everyone said it was, although I didn't hate it like some did. I was surprised to find that, aside from the blank-faced Norah Jones and a distractingly hammy performance by Rachel Weisz, I thought the performances were good, and Darius Khondji's photography was lovely, so the blame for this one rests solely on Wong, who's doing his regular schtick but with the easily distracted mind of someone on a Pixie Stix binge. The stories here resemble dinner-theater Raymond Carver, and while some of the performers almost make it work (namely David Strathairn and Natalie Portman), the rest go down with the ship. I still have yet to see 2046, but I have a hard time believing it will be as bad as this.

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) Judging by the amount of bile and vitriol directed towards this in its dedicated thread, I feel a bit awkward saying that I absolutely loved this (I gave it five stars on Letterboxd). Actually, that didn't feel too awkward after all.

Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008) A solid, well-acted movie that's only let down by Howard's, at best, hesitant stylistic choices (no one has ever said about a Ron Howard movie that it was really saved by its direction).

[dustybooks]

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) Judging by the amount of bile and vitriol directed towards this in its dedicated thread, I feel a bit awkward saying that I absolutely loved this (I gave it five stars on Letterboxd). Actually, that didn't feel too awkward after all.

You're certainly not alone here. This was the first film my soon-to-be-wife and I watched together, on her recommendation, and like you I feel inarticulate defending it because it feels like it's tied so much to my own sensibility and what I want out of a film that it's almost impossible to define. I was enormously moved by it, the first time and thereafter. (Everyone I've recommended it to -- only people fairly close to me, obviously -- has really hated it, though.)

[thirtyframesasecond]

Recent viewing:

Memories of Murder (Bong Joon-Ho) - excellent South Korean police procedural movie, with a bunch of detectives on the trail of a serial killer.

SpoilerShow

The detectives play roughhouse with their suspects, but find themselves no closer to solving the crime. The only 'clue' is revealed at the end, though too late for the true perpetrator to be found.

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis) - a very strange twist on the vampire movie, a very blank-looking Vincent Gallo plays an unlikely American doctor, who visits Paris with his new wife, though his motives are obviously more intriguing that first though. Chalk this one down as 'odd'.

We Own The Night (James Gray) - another examination of the family bonds of Russian-Americans in neighbourhoods where crime is a way of life. Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg are father and son cops, Joaquin Phoenix is the manager of a nightclub that's a front for Russian gangsters. A conflict of interest is inevitable. Gray's one of the finer auteurs in American cinema and he really nails the emotional complexities within families. He's loved by the French more than American audiences and critics, but they've got it right. I'm a big fan of Two Lovers, a film that's really grown on me more since the last time we did this poll. Still got The Yards in my viewing pile.

[Tommaso]

Offside (Jafar Panahi 2006): probably Panahi's 'lightest' film, and while it may appear very simple at first glance, it's still as substantial as anything else by the director. Some young Iranian women, all soccer fans, want to see the decisive match for the qualifying for the World Cup 2006 in the stadium, and thus they dress up as men (as women aren't allowed to watch male football matches in the stadium, as they need to be 'protected' from the male audience...). They are caught by the security guards, unsurprisingly, and from then on more and more funny-serious discussions and situations ensue. For instance, one of the girls needs to go to the rest room, and the sequence unfolding from this is at once completely hilarious (in a good way, and I won't give away any details!) and unbelievably revelatory of what appears as an absurd concept of gender relations. That the girls are all far brighter, more individual and more modern than their watchmen - who however aren't shown as caricatures, and whose function as small wheels in a greater system is made clear all the time - only heightens the comical effect, and probably also contradicts some too easy conceptions about women in Iran held by westerners (I'm fully guilty of such too easy ideas myself, but watching some of Panahi's films has taught me better).

Very fine acting by everyone involved, and Panahi's direction is unobtrusive, but very effective.The great thing, though, is that in the end all the problems give way to a real feeling of communality when it transpires that the Iranian team has indeed won the decisive match. A film that equally transports anger and joy, even though it was clearly too much for the Iranian conservatives. We all know what happened to the director afterwards. But it's great that Panahi not only hasn't given up so far, and equally great to see that he managed to express his dissent in such a light-footed and engaging way as in this film here. Even if you hate soccer, this is a film that needs to be seen.

[zedz]

Offside (Jafar Panahi 2006): probably Panahi's 'lightest' film, and while it may appear very simple at first glance, it's still as substantial as anything else by the director. Some young Iranian women, all soccer fans, want to see the decisive match for the qualifying for the World Cup 2006 in the stadium, and thus they dress up as men (as women aren't allowed to watch male football matches in the stadium, as they need to be 'protected' from the male audience...). They are caught by the security guards, unsurprisingly, and from then on more and more funny-serious discussions and situations ensue. For instance, one of the girls needs to go to the rest room, and the sequence unfolding from this is at once completely hilarious (in a good way, and I won't give away any details!) and unbelievably revelatory of what appears as an absurd concept of gender relations. That the girls are all far brighter, more individual and more modern than their watchmen - who however aren't shown as caricatures, and whose function as small wheels in a greater system is made clear all the time - only heightens the comical effect, and probably also contradicts some too easy conceptions about women in Iran held by westerners (I'm fully guilty of such too easy ideas myself, but watching some of Panahi's films has taught me better).

Very fine acting by everyone involved, and Panahi's direction is unobtrusive, but very effective.The great thing, though, is that in the end all the problems give way to a real feeling of communality when it transpires that the Iranian team has indeed won the decisive match. A film that equally transports anger and joy, even though it was clearly too much for the Iranian conservatives. We all know what happened to the director afterwards. But it's great that Panahi not only hasn't given up so far, and equally great to see that he managed to express his dissent in such a light-footed and engaging way as in this film here. Even if you hate soccer, this is a film that needs to be seen.

As I recall, this film also unfolds in real time (during the soccer match) - adding another level of difficulty to what was already a subtly challenging project. AND it was shot during an actual match, with the ending of the film determined by the outcome of the real-life match.

[knives]

You recall correctly. The film was shot pretty closely to the circumstances of the actual match with even much of the framing being dependent on it (though not entirely as the bus scene at the start makes clear). It's almost more impressive that he makes these scenes outside the stadium just as real time feeling as the scenes actually shot as such. My favorite Panahi of the decade is the Kiarostami scripted (something which I'll likely have more of on my list than directed) Crimson Gold, but even here he shows how he could have been the genius who taught how to fuse the most experimental and mainstream aspects of Iranian cinema just right. It's nice having Farhadi around, but I wish someone could pick up where Panahi unfortunately had to leave off.

[jorencain]

Woody Allen

Small Time Crooks (2000)
At the time, I remember this movie being heralded as a return to the style of Allen’s “early, funny ones.” This does have plenty of funny moments, but it doesn’t add up to much more than that. I guess it’s fun to see Woody playing an imbecile, but it certainly feels less authentic than his usual persona. It’s also pretty unimpressive, visually speaking. On the other hand, Elaine May is fantastic, and it’s really nice to see Elaine Stritch in another Allen film.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)
As a massive Woody Allen fan, I have, regrettably, found myself singling this movie out as the bottom of the barrel. Having just watched it again after several years, I am forced to reevaluate that position. It's certainly better than I had ever given it credit for.

There ARE some problems in the movie, to be sure. For every joke that lands, there is another that falls flat. I believe the love story with Helen Hunt gets in the way of what DOES work, and it could have been cut way down or omitted altogether. I don't know if it's her acting or the unfunny insults that she has to sling at Woody for the entire movie, but her role becomes irritating. Also, Aykroyd delivers his lines as if he's onstage, practically shouting them. Finally, the tip that Woody gets near the end, with the magician's name, comes from out of thin air. That feels pretty lazy; giving it no explanation whatsoever.

On the other hand, the premise is quite clever. Woody has a lot of great lines, and I was laughing out loud quite a bit. I wish Charlize Theron had more screen time. She seems to be one of the few actors on the same page as Allen in this film. I have much more of an appreciation of "Double Indemnity" and film noir than I did when I first saw this film, so I enjoyed the references as well.

In the end, I think that this movie suffers from the same thing as many of Allen's later films: the execution is a bit lazy. It seems that certain scenes could have used a few more takes, or perhaps some actors could have used some more guidance. And there are bits in the film that probably should have ended up on the cutting room floor. So, it's not "bad," as I have previously labelled it; however, its inconsistency keeps it from being an upper-tier Allen film.

Hollywood Ending (2002)
Each time I see this, I flop back and forth about whether I dislike it or if I find it charming. Yes, it’s pretty silly, but several scenes (such as the meeting with Treat Williams when Allen is hiding his blindness) are really funny. I also find the relationship plotline slightly more convincing than that of “Jade Scorpion.” The final punchline about the French is kind of a groaner, though. It also commits the sin of having a blind character looking everywhere except towards the source of the voice/sound that they are listening to.

Anything Else (2003)
For me, this is somewhat of a return to form for Allen. It’s funny, the Ricci and Biggs’ relationship is compelling, New York looks beautiful, and it’s nice to see Allen focus on a younger couple. There is also a darker edge, which is lurking under the surface of Allen’s character. Unfortunately, there are some dud moments - like Danny DeVito’s restaurant scene and Ricci’s panic attack in the hotel room. Overall, though, it feels more like 70’s or 80’s Woody – despite how it embraces the possibilities of L.A.

Melinda and Melinda (2004)
Clever concept, but uneven. I very much prefer the dramatic storyline to the comic one (despite some wooden acting from a few supporting players), and I like that the two stories don’t follow each other beat-by-beat. They share the basic plot outline and develop in different ways. Much of the fun in watching the film comes from noting where they diverge. Allen gets another fantastic performance from his lead actress – Radha Mitchell. She nails the neurotic character and never becomes too goofy in the comedic storyline.

Match Point (2005)
A story about the man who wanted - and got - everything. Although the first half could have been tightened up a little, and maybe a few of the scenes could have used a couple more takes, the second half is gripping and tense. The Bergman-like conversation in the kitchen very near the end is quite effective. I am one of the few people that prefer "Cassandra’s Dream" to this, but both show that Woody Allen is very much capable of making existential thrillers.

Scoop (2006)
Although it's frivolous, this is a great companion piece to "Match Point." It's also Allen's funniest movie of the decade. These two could almost be seen as a (more) successful version of what he attempted in "Melinda and Melinda." I remember seeing it in the theater and being surprised by how many genuine laughs Allen was getting from the teenage girls in the audience.

Cassandra’s Dream (2007)
I remember someone pointing out on this forum how often the characters are constantly saying the name of the character that they are talking too. And that has become pretty distracting when I watch the movie, I admit. Other than that, the film creates tension and suspense so much more effectively than I would have anticipated. It also deals with the ramifications of murder more deeply than “Match Point” or “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (where characters essentially just go on living their life and get over it). It’s nice to have an Allen film where the romantic relationship is very much of secondary importance. This feels like a more focused study of existential questions than he typically deals with.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
This has some of the best acting in any Woody Allen film. His dialogue coming out of Bardem's mouth, or Rebecca Hall's, sounds so much more natural than most actors are able to convey. His typical warm cinematography in this setting is gorgeous. This is also one of his most insightful films dealing with the human heart and relationships. This is probably his best, and freshest, film of the decade. Scarlet Johansson is only improved with each of the three films she made with Allen.

Whatever Works (2009)
The moral of the story is in the title. And, in the end, there is little more to it than that. There is a shift in the film midway through, when Evan Rachel Wood’s parents show up. Prior to that, the focus is largely on the relationship between Larry David and Wood. And after that, the story splinters in a few directions (one of which involves Patricia Clarkson in a relationship similar to Johansson, Cruz, and Bardem’s in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”). I can imagine plenty of people enjoying the second half more than the first, but it’s the opposite for me. I think Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood are great together in the first half, and then characters start to appear that are drawn too broadly…yes, Wood’s character is very broad, but she pulls it off more convincingly than Michael McKean or Clarkson. So, this is a little patchy, but still better than some of his efforts at the beginning of the decade.

(Edited after I re-watched "Curse of the Jade Scorpion.")

[domino harvey]

I'm starting to believe I'm the only one who likes the Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Not even tolerates or makes excuses for, but actually enjoys!

[jorencain]

Well, to be honest, I didn't revisit it for this little write-up, and it's probably been about 3 years since I've seen it. (I watched almost all of the others in recent weeks). I'll check it out soon, and maybe I'll be more sympathetic next time....

[The Narrator Returns]

I like Jade Scorpion more than September. Of course, given how bored I was by September, that's a low bar to clear, and Jade Scorpion just barely tumbles over it for me. And this is a good segue into my recent viewings...

Anything Else (Woody Allen, 2003) My second viewing of this has allowed me to appreciate how curdled the film is even more than I did previously. People talk about this being a rip-off of Annie Hall, but that's not the half of it, partially because it diverges from Hall in every way besides the very basic story of "joke-writer guy falls for quirky girl" and also because it's not just Hall, it seems devoted to taking the most iconic tropes and characters from many of Allen's films and taking them to new, uncomfortable heights. Danny DeVito is basically playing Danny Rose with all the tact and lovability of Frank Reynolds, Ricci isn't doing coke with her friends, she's doing coke with her mom, Allen's character isn't content to think someone said "Did Jew eat?", he's thinking people are saying "Jews start all wars" and is arming himself against these people, and the widescreen compositions of Manhattan return (alongside gorgeous warm colors and lighting from Darius Khondji) absent of the nostalgia or love of any kind that drove their use in that film. This was Allen's first film shot entirely after 9/11, and while I can't say for sure that the movie's sourness is a result of 9/11, it does distinctly feel like a post-9/11 movie; Woody Allen wants out of this city and away from these people and himself.

Wimbledon (Richard Loncraine, 2004) This tennis rom-com doesn't have the sting of Anything Else, or really any discernible flavor whatsoever. It's okay as a comedy, passable as a sports movie, and entirely uninvolving as a romance, with the only notable attribute being Darius Khondji's typically lovely cinematography, which makes even the shittiest areas of London glow. As far as Darius Khondji-shot slight romances where a British man woos a younger American woman go, I'll take Magic in the Moonlight over this any day of the week.

[knives]

Decasia
More than a little speechless on this film which seems like if Joseph Cornell was interested in film preservation. There's more to Morrison than that, but it is clearly at the heart of the matter when the film opens with a long chemical bath that quickly dissolves into bubbles, bad dye jobs, and other acts of destruction. The organization of the clips is also fairly interesting. There seems to be a set of themes such as ethnographic clips or work (which cheekily goes into amusement parks), but the specific nature of the damage doesn't even really matter with barely noticeable damage mixed in with unviewable monstrosities of white. I doubt it is a truly random collection within each section, but how they are developed individually isn't as compelling as how one section goes to the next at times suggesting a rebirth. That said sometimes the sections make difficult exactly what their theme is with a set seemingly dedicated to childhood actually suggesting transportation and close-ups through the inclusion of a stagecoach and adults. If there is one piece I wish to criticize of this marvelous film it is Michael Gordon's score which leans too hard on the action side of the destruction theme winding up sounding like a disorganized series of percussions that are just boring and repetitive after a while. There's no sense of the gradual or time that Morrison works so hard at conveying throughout and it winds up making parts of the film a chore.

Vincere
This was a very silly film which I guess works well for such a silly person, but I get the feeling that when Bellocchio does stuff like the little animations that occasionally run through the film he means it dead seriously which is unfortunate. Certain basic elements of the film are enjoyable and I'd love to see this style approached a bit less po faced (or at least something deserving of such stern dramatics), but this is not the film for it.

The Sun
As I guess should have been expected from Sokurov this film on Emperor Hirohito is more fiction than fact. I'm no Sokurov expert so apologizes on the rather surface level appreciation. Using Kamen as my main jumping off point this film seems most interested in expressing ideas of the lead character on his support. Hirohito is presented a bit as a hallow cliche with which his support can put their hopes, fears, and dreams upon. No matter how he protests his status it is an unmovable rock leaving the film as something of an existential nightmare (I wonder if No Exit or Nausea played on influence on the writing process). It's a sad process like a new The Taking of Power played in such a cathartic, and dare I say heartening, reversal.

It is very interesting then that Sokurov attempts to connect this catch-22 to a prevention of immigration, something which doesn't usually come across as a positive to a nation let alone one known as nationalistic as Japan. This fundamental contradiction almost forces it into being a non-sequitur despite being the only vocalized motivator for his own colonialism. In general the American stuff is what leaves me at the biggest loss though it seems to be some of the most important to Sokurov as he lingers upon certain frames and words relating to it.

This was nevertheless my easiest experience with Sokurov and probably the closest I can identify with an ordinary piece of mainstream cinema. It is relatively talkative with a straightforward presentation with even the flight (literally) of fancy being some obvious and clear cut symbolism. The only serious connection on the surface level to my other experiences is through the cinematography which keeps the earlier ghostly film like a satin curtain. It's a beautiful look all the more powerful in colour. As a side note did Sokurov go out of his way to hire a deformed person for MacArthur or was that just luck?

How to Fix the World
The Charles Peirce loving side of me just died of overwhelming happiness. This is the greatest film discovery for me since Hollis Frampton. At first the movie threatens to be poorly rendered kitsch, but slowly reveals a philosophical and political point of view that just is not given in cinema. Rent the Wendy and Lucy disc now to see this.

At Sea
This is a film that could have as easily been named the uncertainty principal as the prevention of actuality by the camera seems the center theme of this tale. The film, about the building and voyages of a Korean cargo ship, is extremely similar to the work of Wang Bing with two major differences. The first and most obvious is the lack of sound leaving the film haunting and dispassionate like a ghost story. The second and less immediately obvious is the lack of political theme.

Really there's a lack of any human theme with the movie scored entirely toward observation without obstruction; something that the humans just prevent. In the early portion of the film where people are present Hutton keeps his distance never allowing them to be of the center of the action and always with their faces obscured. When finally they do take center stage it is as a goodbye leaving the story seemingly forever. Of course though the humans aren't the only things preventing an invisible camera. There's also the elements and in one amusing shot insects. Hutton can't win and as symbolized by a destroyed ship we return to man this time distanced out of embarrassment for a humbled conclusion knowing that Kiarostami was right that there is no true documentary.

Here's the surprisingly decent youtube copy I watched off of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4V7lAy74M" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;