In The Year 2000
Jesse Walker has just put up his top ten film list for 2000. Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.
https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2020/12/its-end-end-of-century-over-weekend-i.html
Here they are:
1. The Gleaners & I
2. Yi Yi
3. You Can Count On Me
4. Dark Days
5. Rejected
6. High Fidelity
7. Memento
8. Sexy Beast
9. Almost Famous
10. Code Unknown
Unlike the 2010 list, I haven't seen any of these lately.
The Gleaners & I is pretty good, though I don't think #1 good.
Yi Yi is okay, but I like You Can Count On Me better.
Dark Days is also okay, though not top ten.
Rejected is a short. Maybe the best short of the past 20 years, but does it belong on this list?
Loved High Fidelity, would make my top ten.
Memento is flawed but ingenious. Interesting enough in conception to make the top ten, I suppose.
Sexy Beast is minor, if enjoyable, mostly made by Ben Kingsley's performance.
I don't like Almost Famous. Maybe I would have liked it more if it weren't so badly cast.
I'm not much of a fan of Haneke, though Code Unknown is one of his better films.
Here are Jesse's honorable mentions.
11. Panic
12. Wonder Boys
13. Brave New World
14. Amores Perros
15. Buffy The Vampire Slayer 4
16. The Heart Of The World
17. Faithless
18. Gangster No. 1
19. Tragos
20. Unbreakable
Haven't seen 11, 13, 17, 18 and 19.
I wanted to like 12, but it just wasn't there. 14 would make my top ten. 15 is a TV series. You can't put TV series on movie lists--that way anarchy lies. 16 is a short. 20 is okay--not Shyamalan's lost classic, or anything like that.
Here are some other films that would make my top ten:
Battle Royale
Best In Show
Chicken Run
Dancer In The Dark
George Washington
Here are some others I liked to one degree or another:
Bring It On, In The Mood For Love, Italian For Beginners, Me Myself And Irene (though nowhere near as good as There's Something About Mary), The Emperor's New Groove, O Brother Where Are Thou?, Quills, Space Cowboys, The Specials, The Tao Of Steve, Traffic
Here are some others that at least had redeeming parts:
Billy Elliot, Cast Away, Chocolat, Dude Where's My Car?, Duets, Erin Brockovich, The Family Man, Fantasia 2000, Frequency, Pollock, Small Time Crooks, Songcatcher, What Lies Beneath, What Planet Are You From?
I won't list all the films I didn't like, but here are some that made a splash:
Mission: Impossible II, X-Men, Meet The Parents, Gladiator, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, The Perfect Storm, What Women Want, Nurse Betty, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
posted by LAGuy @ 2:55 PM
12 Comments:
Oh, right: Best in Show. Maybe I shoulda put that higher than Unbreakable. Well, let's say it's at #21.
George Washington would be somewhere in my top 25 too. And I like Chicken Run and Battle Royale well enough. I have yet to see Dancer in the Dark.
If you include TV series, the there's too much competition. For instance, where The Sopranos?
Did you see the High Fidelity series? Not bad, but didn't compare to the original.
I think Unbreakable would be remembered better if Bruce Willis hadn't appeared in the sequel.
If you include TV series, the there's too much competition. For instance, where The Sopranos?
The first season of The Sopranos made it onto my 1999 list, and the show will be back next year.
The real trouble with TV is what to do with a series where I can't pretend the season is one long multi-chapter movie. There are years in the '90s where individual Simpsons episodes might take over half the list if I let them.
Did you see the High Fidelity series? Not bad, but didn't compare to the original.
I did not see it and am now trying to remember whether I ever knew it existed.
High Fidelity was a series on Hulu in 2020 starring Zoe Kravitz. It was based on the same novel as the movie. I've never seen it.
The critics liked it, but apparently not the public, and it was canceled after one season. Sounds like it's at least worth checking out.
I agree that the difficulty w tv is what to do with non-serial shows. With serial narrative the limiting factor is that serialization itself usually kills off anything worthwile about a show after a season or two (or about 10 volumes/issues of manga/american comics).
1. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon;
2. Time and Tide;
3. Mission to Mars;
4. Hamlet;
5. High Fidelity;
6. The Claim;
7. In the Mood For Love;
8. Battle Royale;
9. Brother;
10. State and Main;
I also liked The Heart of the World, O Brother, Sexy Beast and several others.
I like Unbreakable, and still watch it again every few years. I don't recall LA Guy's thoughts on Split and Glass (the sequels). I think Split was quite good (of course introducing me to the star of Queen's Gambit, Anna Taylor Joy). And I thought Glass was a reasonable conclusion to the trilogy, but then I like Bruce Willis, despite the excessive haminess.
My favorite for 2010 is Memento, and It's in my top 5 of all time. The rest of my top 6 for 2010 would be: Best in Show, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Cast Away, and The Emperor's New Groove.
Not that I think it's super great, but why the dislike for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Tiger? I don't watch Bruce Li movies (mainly because the plots are dull and repetitive, as far as I can tell). Crouching Tiger has the martial arts but I thought with a pretty good story.
A few days ago I tried to watch Jim Carrey's "Grinch" for the first time. I couldn't get past the first 10 minutes - it is horrible, even for a children's film, though I imagine it did well when it came out.
How about Jesse's list of best holiday films of all time (does that exist?). #1 - Bruce Willis in Die Hard ;-)
I can't speak for LAGuy but I found Crouching Tiger kind of ponderous. And some of the action scenes seemed to have been shot in the dark, which struck me as a not-great choice. (Ang Lee did the same thing again in Hulk.)
A list of favorite holiday films might be fun. I haven't seen Grinch, but I remember the day I picked up my daughter at day care while they were showing that movie. She was terrified by it, and was crying in the back of the room, with no one tending to her. Gave me a bit of a grudge against the movie (not to mention the caregivers on duty).
Unbreakable is okay, but some of it--for instance, Bruce Willis's kryptonite is water. On a rainy planet covered with oceans, that would put him at a serious disadvantage. (I think Shyamalan's unacknowledged masterpiece is The Village, and I can't convince anyone of that.)
I'm a huge fan of HK films, and CTHD seemed a weak pastiche of that style. I suppose I was extra annoyed, then, when it hit big since it meant to most people this would represent the genre to them.
By the way, my favorite holiday film, though it's more than that, may be showing up on one of Jesse's lists pretty soon. Though I'm pretty sure he won't rank it high enough.
I really like Memento, don't know why it's not on my list but it would be near the bottom (or just off it).
Skeptical that Shyamalan has a masterpiece (acknowledged or otherwise) but I liked The Village alright, probably my favorite of the 4 I've seen (of which Unbreakable isn't one).
Maybe it's because ca 2000 I wasn't yet a HK fan, but when it came out CTHD was something of a revelation for me. Others I saw later, especially those peak-Film Workshop Tsui Hark/Ching Siu-tung movies, were better. Possibly Time and Tide is better, but Crouching Tiger still feels special to me. It's funny Jesse mentions the night scenes as a flaw, I think those early fight/chase scenes are my favorites, the night setting slightly enhancing the sudden shift into unreality as they start flying up the walls.
Somehow missed Best in Show even though it's been mentioned a few times now. Would also be just outside my top ten or maybe towards the bottom.
I'm a huge fan of HK films, and CTHD seemed a weak pastiche of that style. I suppose I was extra annoyed, then, when it hit big since it meant to most people this would represent the genre to them.
That too!
So re: 1990 xmas movies: looking forward to looking slightly askance at Home Alone making everyone else's top ten.
Oh, and yes: There is a Christmas movie on my 1940 list, and LAGuy will complain that it should be higher. (I haven't rewatched it since my last cycle through that year, so its place hasn't shifted since the last time we did this.)
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