Our top 10's of 2000 - Time to throw down - Page 11

Well, I'm going to try and knock out 4 AFI films, along with plowing through that Ken Burns Baseball set (now somewhere around the 14th hour of the 24 or so in the set - whew).

But maybe I will be able to sneak in a viewing of Before Night Falls.

And that trailer for Amores Perros caught my eye.

Man, after Yi Yi I will have seen just about every good film that I wanted to try and see.

Jason, I don't know how you manage to see so much stuff. I mean I've heard you explain it, but still, that's a shitload of flicks at the theater.

Cool, this thread wasn't a total wipeout at least.

Guess I need to go through and see what changes occurred lately.

Well, I just watched Best in Show. A lot of fun, especially Fred Willard who steals the film with so many great one liners. Perhaps because I had already seen Guffman or something, but I didn't find this film to be top 10 material.

It was funny and a bit insightful on characters, but still somehow not as ambitious possibly. Anyway I found New Groove to be a bit more fun, so as comedies go Best in Show has to go on the list a bit down from there. A great film none-the-less.

And then I stayed up extra late to get Tigerland in as well. One question, how did hack Schumacher get this film out the door? If I were a teacher I'd doing an investigation of plagerism or cheating because I don't think he did the work.

Somehow a truly great film came out of his hands, maybe simply by having a good script, good young actors, and most certainly in no small part thanks to having Matthew Libatique (Pi, Requiem) do the cinematography. However it happened, I'm glad it did. It's a great story of an interesting non-conformist hero that somehow manages to glorify him without getting sappy about it, even in the end.

Instead, the characters are allowed to fall into who they are. Not only that but the film establishes early on how things are going to go down

Spoiler:

that the guy who is trying to get out of the war will end up getting every guy who wants to be in out instead and will wind up being the only one who will go

and yet it was a joy to watch it unfold.

For some reason the hero here (Bozz) reminded me of Crudup's character (Fuckhead) in Jesus' Son. Bozz is more of a hero at heart, maybe it was just their quirkiness or maybe it was the style or flow of the films.

Anyway, I thought it was damn good, almost a top 10 film.

Also, I rearranged my list a bit with Snatch improving the most on reconsideration of everything for now.

And one final note here, is 2000 just the year of the quirky misanthrope hero (ala Cool Hand Luke)? I see at least You Can Count on Me, Jesus Son, Tigerland, Wonder Boys, and even a bit of Virgin Suicides to strongly feature such characters/philosophies.

Well, Memento will probably make your list so that's trouble. You can put it over here all you want, but when I tabulate it comes off. If you can live with that, then so can I.

FWIW, I have Memento on my NY/LA 2001 list (#1) and not on Jason's public release 2001 list. This is why Memento is not here for me.

And to clarify even more, Amores Perros falls in as a 2001 by MY standards because it only became eligible for Best Picture Oscar in 2001, despite the fact that it qualified as a 2000 Best FOREIGN Picture Oscar nominee.

My standard is quite easy to understand actually, the year that you COULD win the Best Picture Oscar, that's your year on my NY/LA list including this thread. Jason's is clear as well, simply the first time you open anywhere BESIDES film festivals.

Oh dear, looks like I created some confusion with the Amores Perros stuff.

OK, maybe I'm crazy here so if I have this part wrong please set it straight before I do more damage. But I don't believe that Amores Perros was eligible for a BEST PICTURE Oscar. It was up for Best FOREIGN film, but since it did NOT play NY/LA (America) publicly till 2001, then as I understand the rules, it is eligible in 2001 for a Best Picture nomination.

If I am right about that, then by my standards it's 2001. Even if it's not eligible for an Oscar it still basically follows my 2001 NY/LA rule anyway. All of this means that to me, if it had NOT been nominated for a Foreign Film Oscar, then it would look just like Memento or In the Mood For Love to us.

That is, that it played outside the US in 2000, but didn't publicaly appear in the US till 2001. So I would say that IF you put Memento and In the Mood for Love on your 2001 list, then that's where Amores Perros goes. If you have Memento and ItMfL on your 2000 list, then put AP there as well.

However, for my tabulations only, I will NOT be including it.

Please keep in mind that my tabulations are from an American perspective and represent what films were being made public in America for the first time in 2000. If you want to add up the lists based on Jason's standard you can, but keep in mind that some of us have not considered stuff like Memento for our lists, and also that many of us will not have seen some of these 2000 foreign films that you Europeons, Asians, even Canadians sometimes have already had play in your town.

Therefore, something like Amores Perros has a real hard time getting it's just reward as a 2000 film here at HTF, while on the other hand, by the end of 2001 a lot more members will have seen it (that want to see it). I mean if Requiem and Dancer got lowballed on the 2000 list because of low distribution, what chance does AP have when it doesn't even hit America till well into 2001 and has even more limited distribution.

That's the sort of problems I consider when "arbitrarily" going with a NY/LA, or America release, or Oscar Best Picture standard. I'm trying to give the films a fair shot on our lists, not trying to exclude the more priviledged members who get to see these films first.

Sorry to sound mad at the end. I am not and no one has ragged on how we are doing this list again. I just threw a monkeywrench into the works with my AP comment and in clarify that I'm trying to keep the lid on the can of worms this time, which is why I explained my reasoning again.

No need to argue about it again, as long as my reasoning is clear to all. Feel free to ask me to explain further, either via messages or here or email.

BTW, when I updated my list...Forrester, you ARE the weakest link. Goodbye!

Man, I need to see some more 100 minute films instead of these 150-180 marathons. whew.

Ok, you guys know that I'm putting Amores Perros on my 2001 US list, but for obvious reasons I mention it here as well. I'm not sure if it would make my top 10 or not. I think maybe it was just too much film for one sitting, and I ended up feeling a bit burned out. I think I could have used a bit more music as some of my favorite scenes were the musical montage-type scenes.

All the hand-held, minimalist stuff is starting to make me crazy I think. It's enough to send me running to a Mummy Returns or Pearl Harbor, but not quite. AP felt like a bit of Yi Yi with a bit of Requiem. I think I would have preferred the 3 stories to be a little more balanced in their interweaving. Story 2 damn near falls off the map during story 3, for example. Kinda made it a bit uneven and distracting as I had to shift gears between characters I was getting involved with. I was so not involved with them that when I came back to them it was like starting over.

Call AP somewhere between 7-13 on my list if I put it there.

Tonight I saw Sunshine which will go on my 2000 list, although it did have 2 weeks in Canada for 1999 and I know Jason will be pissed on my American ideology. Kinda ironic considering the story and philosophy of Sunshine that I would stand by my political affiliation.

Anyway, here was another all-day picture. Was Lean involved with this, is this Dr. Z Part 2 meets Fiddler? Fiennes does a great job with the various characters and the story in certainly interesting, if not mostly depressing. But the truth behind it comes through loud and clear. The film is well-shot as well. I just couldn't get over feeling like I was watching Dr. Z without the catchy tune.

This sort of had the same effect as AP did on me, in that I had to keep restarting with new characters which I found a bit draining, or more accurately it killed the film's momentum with me. I can't really fault it for that because it's just being true to itself, but it did keep my "I gotta see that again" excitement down.

However, I can see this one growing on me and I think I enjoyed it more than AP. In between AP and Sunshine, I watched Erin Brockovich with my mom and I noticed one thing, that Soderberg is able to keep the tempo up without sacrificing the humanity. With AP and Sunshine I don't think they are as successful. And it's not just the length because Ben-Hur never loses me like that. These are more like Giant, good story, broad in scope, nice performances, but just not quite smooth enough to be "gripping".

But maybe I just don't have the taste for longer low-key films. I will watch both films again though for sure, I'm just not jonesing to see them again like I am with Memento or was with CTHD.

BTW - Gladiator just officially fell off my top 30 for what it's worth. I still am amazed that it got the best picture Oscar. I don't mind when a film other than my favorite wins it, but I like them to at least be in the running for my personal favorite. Like Titanic which was in my top 5 for that year. Sheesh. I know, I know, lots of people loved it, guess it just didn't work for me.

Regarding story 2, what I meant was that the characters from story 2 are damn near gone in story 3, this is unlike story 1 where all characters have cameos and snippits getting us thinking about their storyline.

We see the poster thing and of course the crash, but no new resolution. At the end of story 2, those charactes are done, they are at resolution. I think I would have preferred if there had been a bit of their story left to tell as there was with story 1.

Also, I can see it as a breather, but AP really had me with that high tempo and I wasn't ready to stop yet. Again, each storyline was good and had value, but I didn't feel a good flow in mood between them. Not horrible, just not as fluid as something like Pulp Fiction (another film that abruptly halts and changes directions).

In fact, I think I just was left wanting the 3 storylines to be more interwoven in the film, like in Yi Yi. Not in the sense that there is more interaction, but in the sense that all 3 stories be referred to more often, even as the focus shifts. In fact, shifting the focus worked for me, but how often the other stories were peppered in was certainly uneven. When you establish with the audiance that you will be coming back to bits of these other stories at a certain rate and then without warning that rate slows way down (basically to zero for story 2), that can throw you.

For example, the way story 2 ends felt like the ending, BUT by the film's technique standards I still expected it to dip back into story 2 down the stretch. Sort of mixed signals. Now if the 3 stories hadn't touched at all in terms of scenes (just storylines) where each came totally in order and ended before the next one was started, then the way things went with 2 would have been more comfortable to me.

But of course now we are talking about the real art of it all and personal tastes for such things. This is far removed from production values, acting, etc.

I can see why both AP and Sunshine grabbed people. And maybe I am doing it to myself by spending so much time with certain types of films. I seriously could probably stand for a Star Wars marathon about now, something to go on autopilot with and have fun.

Hopefully I will have my hands on Little China this week which should do the trick before I get into rewatching Requiem with my friends who haven't seen it.

Brook, as I indicated I actually thought the 1 at a time thing was good, and I think I was most bothered by the fact that the film implies that there will be some intercutting done early on, but then backs off that process as the film goes along.

I think zero intercutting would actually have been most effective.

But hey, that's taste at that point, as I said.

You will probably like Tigerland if you liked Jesus Son and enjoy Dogme methods.

Rob, Yi Yi is another long film but I think you will find the personal journeys interesting. It's sort of a "story of a family" kind of picture and not everyone enjoys family pix. The kid has got screen charm. In fact I think most of the cast is good quality.

Hey, Requiem and Before Night Falls are next TUE
House of Mirth and Shadow of the Vampire on the 29th
CTHD and Cast Away a week after that.
And on the 4th week in a row, Traffic and Oh Brother.

The excuses are ending for some people. A lot of these lists are going to get close to final after those 8 get out on DVD, only a few others will be left by that point.

Before Night Falls is just beautiful filmmaking. It feels...tender. The touch of the filmmaking is tender and soft, even if the story isn't. One of the great scores from any film last year, maybe the best IMHO.

The script jumps right along and even without knowing this man's life, you will have some ideas of what is going to happen to him simply because his stories are matches for the stereotypes. And at times I felt like the story didn't spend enough time exploring what made him the poet he became, but by the end I think I felt a bit more satisfied with it.

For some reason the film reminded me of Traffic, at least the del Toro storyline (and not just the Spanish either). That last shot of Traffic, the music and mood, would fit well into any point in Before Night Falls.

I still have to see the other 2 leading actor nominees (Pollock, Cast Away), but already I would consider Bardem's effort to be in the top 5 for the year. And Penn and Depp, well, they just continue to prove what I have always felt about both of them. They are two of the finest actors working today, and the fact that they each take bit parts in this film below even a supporting actor role shows their love of craft and desire to push their own boundries.

This film goes to #9 on my list and I bump Elliot off. High Fidelity holds a strong place in my heart so I move it ahead of Elliot.

2 major ones to go - Cast Away and Pollock.

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