Best of 2000-present...

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  • 06-18-2007, 09:06 PM
    PeruvianSkies
    Best of 2000-present...
    Here is my compilation of my 10 favorite films from 2000 until now....in no particular order they are:

    1. MEMENTO (2000) Dir. by Christopher Nolan.

    Never has a film caused such a buzz for me afterwards just trying to comtemplate what I just saw. Also, every time that I have seen this film since my first viewing has caused a different opinion to formulate in my mind. This is a well-crafted amazing piece of filmmaking and it's no wonder why Nolan has had such success since. Guy Pierce is also superb as is the supporting cast.

    http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2001/images/memento.jpg

    2. DONNIE DARKO (2001) Dir. by Richard Kelly

    I happened to be one of the few people to see this film early on before it became a cult phenonemon and was recommending it left and right to friends and family. Some of them shared my enthusiasm for this little gem that came out of nowhere. I look forward to seeing more work from Director Richard Kelly. This film also helped put Jake Gyllenhaul on the map as well as his equally talented sister. I prefer the Dir. Cut of the film, but both versions are superb! I honestly believe that this is one of the few modern films to truly understand the working relationship between a films soundtrack and the action on screen. The biggest example of such is the music montage with the use of Tears for Fears Head Over Heals.

    http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0246578/DD05.jpg

    3. THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004) Dir. by Zhang Yimou

    I can't think of too many films that are as beautiful as this film. Colors just leap from the screen, it's poetic, scenic, extravagant, elegant, and masterfully crafted. Some of the best choreography of stylized fighting as well and really outmatched Yimou's 2002 film HERO, which was also quite impressive.

    http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2004/i...ingdaggers.jpg

    4. ALI (2001) Dir. by Michael Mann

    Probably one of the most underrated and most underappreciated films that I can think of over the past decade. Not really sure why people didn't connect with this film, but I was locked in from the first frame. Michael Mann is such a genius when it comes to a biography like this, yet at the same time he focuses on the 'psyche' as well. I found Will Smith's performance to be top notch and after about 5 minutes you completely forget it's the Fresh Prince of Bel-air.

    http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0248667/ALI_Ropes.jpg

    5. FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (2004) Dir. by Michael Moore

    I have rarely seen a film that had me laughing out loud one second and on the verge of true tears the next. This is one rollercoaster of emotions documentary that (despite your personal opinion of Michael Moore) should be seen by everyone. I can't wait for the sequel! Regardless of what you think of the politics you can't deny the incredible amount of work that went into compiling this material and merging it altogether into a coherent work of art. I thought BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE was going to be his best film, but this truly knocked it out of the park as far as I am concerned.

    http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/911_4.jpg

    6. THE HOURS (2002) Dir. by Stephen Daltry

    Some films just resonate with you more than others. I don't know exactly why this film connected well with me, but I was absolutely glued to the big screen when this film was released in theaters. I think part of it has to do with the amazing score by one of my favorite composers Philip Glass. The performances are also steller and the entire package makes for one staggering film!

    http://content.answers.com/main/cont...ole_kidman.jpg

    7. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000) Dir. by Wong Kar-Wai

    The word that comes to mind with this film is 'aching'. There is such longing and desire that is contrained in this films main characters and the cinematography is just brilliant. In American we rarely see films this ingenious or passionate. The soundtrack is reserved, delicate, sweeping, and heartfelt.

    http://www.ocean-films.com/themoodfo...s/img_menu.jpg

    8. KILL BILL VOL 1 and 2 (2003/2004) Dir. by Quentin Tarantino

    When a local theater finally played these two films together as a double feature there was a really cool time of Q&A afterwards with a few local critics. I remember talking about just how brilliant these two films were and one guy kept commenting on what a 'hack' Tarantino was with all of his references. My stance was simple: it takes more skill sometimes to copy & paste than it does to come up with something original. The fact that Tarantino uses his films as a tribute to the films that inspires him only goes to show just how in-tune he is with his directing/writing abilities. To tie all these things together takes some serious skill and achievement.

    http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/movie/kill_bill/09.jpeg

    9. BATMAN BEGINS (2005) Dir. by Christopher Nolan

    Just all-out FUN! I was glad to finally see a comic-book character come to life on the big screen in a really terrific way. Again, Christopher Nolan at this point with a few other films under his belt, demonstrates that he not only has what it takes to make a great film, but can also adapt material in a really authentic and engaging way!

    http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/...b__430x393.jpg

    10. THE FOG OF WAR (2003) Dir. by Errol Morris

    Probably one of the best documentaries EVER made that deal with an authentic viewpoint on war and strategy. I have to rank this up with Peter Davis' HEARTS AND MINDS (1974), which I think should be required in every high school History class. Errol Morris proves again that he is one of the finer documenary filmmakers around ranking this as one of his best alongside GATES OF HEAVEN.

    http://www.24fpsmagazine.com/fogofwar.jpg

    ANYONE ELSE WANNA SHARE SOME FAVS???????
  • 06-18-2007, 10:17 PM
    Gerald Cooperberg
    At first I saw yr post and rolled my eyes. It contains so many of the thread elements that seem to crop up over and over again here: endless restatements of the 'what's yr favorite movie' question... obsessive listmaking... ranking of things that are so recent as to be practically impossible to judge with any perspective... then I remembered that I am working an overnight shift right now with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO, and so I will think for a bit and try to play this game as well.

    Some interesting choices, BTW. In the Mood for Love, Kill Bill, and Ali are all films I have mad appreciation for; I've always thought that Ali in particular was fairly underrated. I don't know that I can agree with you on House of Flying Daggers, though (definitely not my choice for most enjoyable Yimou film, or most enjoyable 2000s film, or even most enjoyable 2000s Yimou film), but I guess that's what personal taste is about. Glad someone got some enjoyment out of it.

    -Coop

    EDIT: Okay, here are a few (although I still refuse to rank them).

    Traffic

    This gets my vote as some of the best popcorn entertainment of the new millenium. It's one of the few remakes that's arguably better than the original (although the UK miniseries does have its particular charms) and its a pleasure to see a lot of the actors working onscreen together (including Don Cheadle and a never-better Benicio Del Toro). This film's aesthetic has been ripped off so many times since it came out that it's hard to even remember where it originated.

    A.I.

    Really, why not? This is at least half of an incredible, incredible film. It loses a little steam in the third act and is a notorious fiasco mostly due to the fourth, but criticism of the ending ignores that for its first half at least, it is creepy and exhilarating. The introductory segment that drops Haley Joel Osment's unsettling, pumpkinheaded android into an awkward family life is perfectly executed, and there are few stretches in any film I've ever seen that are as effectively terror-inducing as the second act, when he is unceremoniously discarded and comes face to face with the dystopian future real world.

    Royal Tenenbaums

    Sometime around the time that I was trying to tell all of my friends why they should go see The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, I hit upon this metaphor: The Life Aquatic is like free jazz, and The Royal Tenenbaums is like a symphony. This is the one where Wes Anderson kept all of his balls in the air and created a dense, funny, touching portrait of dysfunction and ennui in his stylized fantasy world. His troupe of players are all so amazing as well - when I think of Gene Hackman, Danny Glover, Gwyneth Paltrow... I think of their roles in this film first and foremost.

    City of God

    Few moments in film had me grinning from ear to ear as much as the capstone to the opening sequence in City of God, in which a wild chicken chase ends with our protagonist and narrator trapped in a standoff between crazed street thugs and advancing police. This film crackles with a verve that seems to leap off the screen. Everything is perfect... the distinctive color, the suspenseful editing, the natural acting, and the suckerpunch of an ending that plays its trump card after the credits have already started to roll.

    Gerry

    This is one that I can never get anybody else to sit through. I love all three of the installments in Gus Van Sant's doomed-youth-steadicam tryptich (also Elephant and Last Days), but for some reason I never ever get tired of this one. Lyrically beautiful, dialogue-free stretches... amazing time-lapse photography... evocative sound pastiches... so many quotable lines... how can no one else appreciate this??

    Spirited Away

    I ducked into a random theater on a particularly sweltering summer afternoon some years ago, and the rest, as they say, is history. My love affair with Miyazaki since then has led me to discover film after film of his that enchant and delight, but this remains one of his finest and still one of my favorites.

    Y Tu Mamá También

    Yeah, I'm gonna pick two Cuarón movies. So sue me. I think that everyone remembers this for the erotic content, and that's fine. I'm glad that marketing it as a 'steamy latin romance' will get unsatisfied housewives to sit through some fucking elegaic filmmaking. This is all about transience and loss. Oh yeah, and car sex.

    A Very Long Engagement

    Every once in a while, you walk out of a theater and realize that the film you just watched will be with you forever, and everything you process after that will in some small way be colored by yr appreciation of it. who knows why this film had that particular effect on me? All I know is that the wide-eyed, thrilled, emotional response I had to it is the precise reason why I keep consuming movies so voraciously.

    3-Iron

    My enjoyment of this endearing little picture has only grown in the two years since I first saw it. There's nothing epic or even all that deep going on, just a charmingly quirky romance. Director Ki-Duk Kim can do profound and existential to great effect, as he displayed in Spring Summer Fall Winter... And Spring Again, but I'm glad that he kept this story small and deliberate.

    Children of Men

    What a pile of leftist propaganda... I mean, how can it be a great film when the car wouldn't even start all the way down the hill?
  • 06-18-2007, 10:49 PM
    PeruvianSkies
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gerald Cooperberg
    At first I saw yr post and rolled my eyes. It contains so many of the thread elements that seem to crop up over and over again here: endless restatements of the 'what's yr favorite movie' question... obsessive listmaking... ranking of things that are so recent as to be practically impossible to judge with any perspective... then I remembered that I am working an overnight shift right now with ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO, and so I will think for a bit and try to play this game as well.

    Some interesting choices, BTW. In the Mood for Love, Kill Bill, and Ali are all films I have mad appreciation for; I've always thought that Ali in particular was fairly underrated. I don't know that I can agree with you on House of Flying Daggers, though (definitely not my choice for most enjoyable Yimou film, or most enjoyable 2000s film, or even most enjoyable 2000s Yimou film), but I guess that's what personal taste is about. Glad someone got some enjoyment out of it.

    -Coop

    Coop...thanks for your comments. My fascination and love for HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS really had more to do with the films cinematography and set designs. It's all too rare that we get a visual treat as we do in this film and it harkens back (for me at least) to another filmmaker I really love Seijun Suzuki and in particular his film YOUTH OF THE BEAST and TOKYO DRIFTER. Both have some incredibly use of color and I suppose also my fascination for the films of Douglas Sirk (WRITTEN ON THE WIND comes to mind). I love the use of greens and blues in these films and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS really used a brilliant blend of various hues that we rarely see in films, although the last time I recall seeing some of the aqua colors would in in Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece KAGEMUSHA, but even that was 1980. Sure, we get colorful films these days, but they are unimaginative colors and typically cover such a small range of colors. Yimou really exemplifies the use of bold color schemes as well as dramatic cues with the use of his color and the lighting as well. Some of these dramatic effects were riminiscent of a film called KWAIDAN by a highly underrated and fairly unknown filmmaker in todays world Masaki Kobayashi.

    I think that the storyline of HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS was fairly simplistic, but the craft of that film was more dedicated to the choreography and poetic nature of the lovestory that unfolded. It's certainly not the BEST film perhaps, but it's one of my personal favorites and I look forward to seeing all of his films.
  • 06-19-2007, 07:29 AM
    Troy
    Well Peru, a couple of your choices REALLY leave me flat. I'm no fan of Nolan's work. Memento was fascinating on first view, but the second time, once you get past the gimick it's a snore and that Batman movie was just another unbelievable, corny and predictable superhero movie to me. Donnie Darko? I've seen it 3 times now in the hopes that I seemed to be missing something . . . nope. Dreadful, pretentious claptrap. But that's the beauty of message boards- differing opinions.

    Not in order:
    Kill Bill 1&2. Good call there. Hilarious, cheeky and vastly entertaining. Movies for people that love movies.

    Off the Map. Perfectly savvy depiction of the stillness and solitude of the American desert and the wild-eyed uncontrollable fear of discovering you are an artist.

    Team America. Genius on every level. Best musical of the decade.

    Bowling for Columbine. Biased? Compromised by creative editing? Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I admire Moore's films immensely. Rent "Roger and Me" if you haven't seen it.

    Children of Men. Finally saw it again recently (after seeing it on xmas in the theater, how festive and cheery) and it holds up great. Certain to be a midnight movie cult classic. Curon's Y Tu Mama Tambien was truly excellent too.

    Spirited Away. Another great call. Miyazaki's anime is unlike anyone else's. Organic, pastoral and humane. Boundless artistry.

    Jackass 1 & 2. Makes the list just for "The fart mask" sequence alone. Easy to blow these movies off as juvenile fluff, but it's so far over the top that it's a stroke of genius.

    United 93. unsentimental, claustrophobic and exhausting. Not at all like you think it's going to be.

    The Aristocrats. Hilarious on the surface, but I found it surprisingly insightful on the nuts and bolts of how comedy works, and how comedians think. It's deeper than you think it will be.

    The Incredibles. The high point of a very strong run of films from Pixar. I relate to this one best because it has human characters (as opposed to talking toys, animals or inanimate objects), has that great mid-century-modern design sense and a killer ersatz James Bond soundtrack. In fact, this beats any James Bond movies of the last 30 years at it's own game. I dearly loved the Route 66 aspect of "Cars" too.

    bonus:
    Deadwood. Is it a movie? It certainly scratches my movie itch, not my TV show itch. Redefined the western genre and happily reinserted the term "cocksucker" into my lexicon.
  • 06-19-2007, 08:04 AM
    kexodusc
    Kill Bill - yeah, it was great
    Donnie Darko - %#@*&ing awesome
    LOTR - duh
    A Beautiful Mind - underappreciated
    Grindhouse - Machete...nuff said.
    Shawn of the Dead - hehehe
    The Bourne Identity/Supremacy - ok, cheesy, but I loved the books and like the movies.
    Dawn of the Dead - them zombies were nasty
    The Ring - that movie really spooked me...first time that's happened since I saw Hellraiser 2 in theaters as a kid.
    X-Men movies - how superhero/comic movies should be done.
    Catch Me If You Can - awesome
    Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - surprsingly good.
    The Departed
    Crash
    Gladiator - obvious, but c'mon
    U-571
    Wedding Crashers
    The Incredibles - the best Pixar movie ever.
    Harry Potter - never read the books but these are fun.

    Just a few...Momento was hard for me - I'm with Troy on that - I really didn't care for it watching it the 2nd time. It's a one shot ride I guess, though I was impressed originally. All these others I could watch over and over again. I own all of them.
  • 06-19-2007, 03:33 PM
    Smokey
    Thanks for movie suggestions guys. I see if I can track some of movies haven’t seen.

    The only ones I had trouble connecting with were Batman Begin and Harry Potter movies. Although good story, but HP seem to be geared toward younger audience. So one time viewing will suffice.

    Heard alot good things about Batman Begin, but found that movie too dark and not engaging.
  • 06-20-2007, 07:24 PM
    PeruvianSkies
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Smokey
    Thanks for movie suggestions guys. I see if I can track some of movies haven’t seen.

    The only ones I had trouble connecting with were Batman Begin and Harry Potter movies. Although good story, but HP seem to be geared toward younger audience. So one time viewing will suffice.

    Heard alot good things about Batman Begin, but found that movie too dark and not engaging.

    BATMAN BEGINS was not a high-octane type of film, it was Batman's "Beginning" thus the name of the film, which is to help establish the characters and this film is helping to set up what will follow with the sequels. In many ways you have to forget what we have seen before with the other 4 Batman films.