Roger Ebert's "Best / Worst Movies of 2004" list! (1 Viewer)

[Craig S]

Some may disagree with this approach, but what really would be the purpose of saying White Chicks or Catwoman is the worst film of the year?? With his picks, Ebert is trying to generate discussion. Nothing wrong with that, IMO.

 

[AlexCremers]

I really hope that's the case here. It would barely make sense otherwise. Some of the performances in Dogville should be enough to make this film a non-contender for anyone's worst movie list. That, and the fact that I didn't have a problem with the absence of realistic sets. Five minutes into this movie and the white lines on the studio floor felt like "Dogville".

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Alex Cremers

 

[Brad E]

I find that I usually agree with Ebert's reviews.
But I stay away from all types of reviews because they usually summarize the whole movie. I prefer not knowing anything about them.

I would like something more detailed than a star rating but nothing that gives away the key scenes.

Are there any critics out there like that?

 

[Craig S]

Alex, have you read Ebert's review of Dogville? You won't agree with it, but it will help you understand where he is coming from.

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

Rottentomatoes.com is great for that with its collection of single quotes from individual critics for each movie.

 

[Joel C]

The only things I find odd about the list are the absence of Eternal Sunshine (Adaptation and Malkovich were high on his lists when they came out), and the nod to Polar Express over The Incredibles. I saw Polar Express in 3-D and even that wasn't very impressive (a monotonous, non-stop rollercoaster ride... now in 3-D).

 

[Ernest Rister]

The Polar Express is a magical film, and is anything but a non-stop roller-coaster ride. I think the film was paced extremely well, with action set pieces mixed in with characters beats, or action sequences that come straight out of character moments. I'm going to treasure my first viewing of the Polar Express - maybe it helss that I saw it in IMAX 3-D first, because I can't imagine seeing it any other way.

 

[AlexCremers]

Yes, I have a feeling that the film damaged his patriotism. Being hurt by the movie, he disagreed with Von Trier. Later those feelings turned into anger, so he placed a film that he initially gave two stars, into his "worst of the year" list. Really, Ebert's becoming more and more the advocate for summer blockbuster movies. He's thinking about the audiences too much. He's the victim of his own popularity.

Of course, in ten years Ebert will reconsider his view on Dogville. I've come to expect it.

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Alex Cremers

 

[Ernest Rister]

Ugh.

Ebert had his "patriotism damaged" by Dogville? So - he just sort of made up his review to cloak his true feelings of damaged patriotism? Is this what you are saying?

 

[Chris]

Yeah, uh, politically speaking, Ebert isn't really a swashbuckling type, but we'll leave it at that.

That having been said, I'll say Ebert's review of Dogville was too giving. It was (IMHO) one of the worst films of the year sa well in that it set an environment with no payoff and the acting (IMHO) was incredibly stilted and unoriginal. I may be alone here, but I would put Dogville into my "way overrated" category; and while I wouldn't say it was one of the 10 worst (not with the likes of Alexander and Catwoman and Scooby Doo 2 out there) it would be in the running.

 

[AlexCremers]

"Ugh"

Yes, he seem to feel the film is anti-American. Maybe if Dogville took place in a small village in Slovakia Roger would talk differently. Could it be that Ebert is biased by the whole issue. Let's see in 10 years.

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Alex Cremers

 

[Ernest Rister]

For the record, Roger Ebert wrote editorials against George W. Bush's position during the 2000 election recount, and even though he criticized Michael Moore for fudging his facts in Bowling for Colombine, he gave F911 four stars. In the spirit of that knowledge, here is Roger Ebert's Review of Dogville. You tell me honestly if this was written by a man who did not like it when others said something bad about America.


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4/9/2004

Lars von Trier exhibits the imagination of an artist and the pedantry of a crank in "Dogville," a film that works as a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong. There is potential in the concept of the film, but the execution had me tapping my wristwatch to see if it had stopped. Few people will enjoy seeing it once and, take it from one who knows, even fewer will want to see it a second time.

The underlying vision of the production has the audacity we expect from Von Trier, a daring and inventive filmmaker. He sets his story in a Rocky Mountains town during the Great Depression, but doesn't provide a real town (or a real mountain). The first shot looks straight down on the floor of a large sound stage, where the houses of the residents are marked out with chalk outlines, and there are only a few props -- some doors, desks, chairs, beds. We will never leave this set, and never see beyond it; on all sides in the background there is only blankness.

The idea reminds us of "Our Town," but von Trier's version could be titled "Our Hell." In his town, which I fear works as a parable of America, the citizens are xenophobic, vindictive, jealous, suspicious and capable of rape and murder. His dislike of the United States (which he has never visited, since he is afraid of airplanes) is so palpable that it flies beyond criticism into the realm of derangement. When the film premiered at Cannes 2003, he was accused of not portraying Americans accurately, but how many movies do? Anything by David Spade come to mind? Von Trier could justifiably make a fantasy about America, even an anti-American fantasy, and produce a good film, but here he approaches the ideological subtlety of a raving prophet on a street corner.

The movie stars Nicole Kidman in a rather brave performance: Like all the actors, she has to act within a narrow range of tone, in an allegory that has no reference to realism. She plays a young woman named Grace who arrives in Dogville being pursued by gangsters (who here, as in Brecht, I fear represent native American fascism). She is greeted by Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an earnest young man, who persuades his neighbors to give her a two-week trial run before deciding whether to allow her to stay in town.

Grace meets the townspeople, played by such a large cast of stars that we suspect the original running time must have been even longer than 177 minutes. Tom's dad is the town doctor (Philip Baker Hall); Stellan Skarsgard grows apples and, crucially, owns a truck; Patricia Clarkson is his wife; Ben Gazzara is the all-seeing blind man; Lauren Bacall runs the general store; Bill Raymond and Blair Brown are the parents of Jeremy Davies and Chloe Sevigny. There are assorted other citizens and various children, and James Caan turns up at the end in a long black limousine. He's the gangster.

What von Trier is determined to show is that Americans are not friendly, we are suspicious of outsiders, we cave in to authority, we are inherently violent, etc. All of these things are true, and all of these things are untrue. It's a big country, and it has a lot of different kinds of people. Without stepping too far out on a limb, however, I doubt that we have any villages where the helpless visitor would eventually be chained to a bed and raped by every man in town.

The actors (or maybe it's the characters) seem to be in a kind of trance much of the time. They talk in monotones, they seem to be reciting truisms rather than speaking spontaneously, they seem to sense the film's inevitable end. To say that the film ends in violence is not to give away the ending so much as to wonder how else it could have ended. In the apocalyptic mind-set of von Trier, no less than general destruction could conclude his fable; life in Dogville clearly cannot continue for a number of reasons, one of them perhaps that the Dogvillians would go mad.

Lars von Trier has made some of the best films of recent years ("Europa," "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark"). He was a guiding force behind the Dogme movement, which has generated much heat and some light. He takes chances, and that's rare in a world where most films seem to have been banged together out of other films. But at some point his fierce determination has to confront the reality that a film does not exist without an audience. "Dogville" can be defended and even praised on pure ideological grounds, but most moviegoers, even those who are sophisticated and have open minds, are going to find it a very dry and unsatisfactory slog through conceits masquerading as ideas.

Note No. 1: Although von Trier has never been to the United States, he does have one thing right: In a town, the smashing of a collection of Hummel figurines would count as an atrocity.

Note No. 2: I learn from Variety that "Dogville Confessions," a making-of documentary, was filmed, using a soundproof "confession box" near the soundstage, where actors could unburden themselves. In it, Stellan Skarsgard describes von Trier, who he has worked with many times, as "a hyper-intelligent child who is slightly disturbed, playing with dolls in a doll house, cutting their heads off with nail clippers." Von Trier himself testifies that the cast is conspiring against him. Variety thinks this doc would make a great bell and/or whistle on the eventual DVD.

Note No. 3. We should not be too quick to condemn Von Trier, a Dane, for not filming in the United States, when "The Prince and Me," a new Hollywood film about a Wisconsin farm girl who falls in love with the prince of Denmark, was filmed in Toronto and Prague.

 

[AlexCremers]

Yes. In this case it is possible that he did take offence. He starts accusing Von Trier of raving like a street corner prophet. Why make an issue out of that? Again, what would Ebert have written if the village was NOT in America? Honestly, would he have written: "What von Trier is determined to show is that Slovakians are not friendly, they are suspicious of outsiders, they cave in to authority, they are inherently violent, etc. All of these things are true, and all of these things are untrue. It's a big country, and it has a lot of different kinds of people. Without stepping too far out on a limb, however, I doubt that they have any villages where the helpless visitor would eventually be chained to a bed and raped by every man in town."?

I don't think so.

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Alex Cremers

 

[Ernest Rister]

So, it is your informed opinion that Roger Ebert made up the rest of his criticisms of Dogville because he was upset that Lars Von Trier was making a criticism of America? Yes?

 

[Ocean Phoenix]

I think that can be explained by his answer to people asking why "Return of The King" wasn't on his top ten last year. He said that "four stars is the cut off point", meaning films that he didn't give four stars to wouldn't make the list when he's given four stars to ten or more. In my opinion, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind was not worthy of the list anyways.

I adored Adaptation. It made me a fan of Kaufman's writing and I was really excited about his follow-up but I found it disappointing and now I also find it overrated because of all the praise being thrown at it. To offer a simple explanation of why it was a letdown for me- I got sick of the special effects and the characters got boring to me. But I don't think it's a bad film. It was good, just not the masterpiece so many people call it.

 

[AlexCremers]

"So, it is your informed opinion that Roger Ebert made up the rest of his criticisms of Dogville because he was upset that Lars Von Trier was making a criticism of America? Yes?"

No, not necessarily, but he did give it two stars, initially. Afterwards he suddenly thought 'Dogville' was bad enough to be admitted in his "Worst of the Year" list. I'm sorry, but that is uncalled for, and please spare me the "Ebert was soooo disappointed" theory. Let's call a spade a spade, it's not the worst film and there's a good chance that Roger will revise his opinion.

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Alex Cremers

 

[TheLongshot]

Maybe that explains it for me. I personally thought Adaptation was overrated and Eternal Sunshine was pretty darn good. It could be that I just didn't grok Adaptation, but the whole thing just seemed a rather self-serving excersice by Charlie Kaufman. Eternal Sunshine at least had something to say, and asks some good questions about relationships and if one would want to relive a failed relationship.

It is in my top ten, but toward the bottom of that list.

Jason

 

[Joel C]

Now, I've only seen the film in 3-D too, and I admit it was cool, but I totally disagree with you here. I didn't see anything resembling character from anyone but the main kid. The other two "hero children" (as they were billed) had exactly one personality trait (black girl is caught up in the magic, nerd wants toys). The lead, at least, had a few nice scenes (especially when he went on top of the train with the hobo), but I would hardly say the resulting action scenes resulted from those character moments (i.e. the chase for the ticket, since the kid running for it seemed a little arbitrary, anyway). Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I saw it, but aside from a thin story about the magic of believing (and really, if he needs to not only ride on a magic train, see elves, and see Santa, but actually TALK to Santa before he believes, well.... let's just say that religion wouldn't last too long), it was just a lot of (admittedly well-animated and thrilling, especially in 3-D) chase scenes.

 

[Ernest Rister]

"I didn't see anything resembling character from anyone but the main kid."

And it is his story, and that's who I am talking about. If not for his character which motivates him to try and do the decent thing for those around him, we wouldn't see many of these action sequences, he would have just been another kid on the train sitting in his seat. But from his empathy and concern for others, he is motivated to take these huge risks, hence, many of the action sequences come from his character.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Me?