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AV Club - The 100 best films of the decade (so far)
- Thread starter C-Drive
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Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
I thought it was a career low for Tarantino, who's been on a pretty precipitous downslide since he peaked with the truly excellent Jackie Brown.
FreshCakes
Banned
SaggyMonkey
Member
Man, Moonrise Kingdom invalidates the list. That movie was so bad that I realized I must had just been pretending to like Wes Anderson movies in the past.
lol whoops I meant to delete Bernie before posting that. The other examples still stand though.
why "even" School of Rock, which is widely recognized as a great crowd-pleasing comedy?
Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight are incredible
Don't think so. The movie that will happen with (it's already happening) is Birdman, which is a mediocre film that'll go down as 2014's The Artist or Crash or Oliver! or American Beauty or Driving Mrs. Daisy. remembered for being a best picture winner but acknowledged as not a particularly good movie
Then again, I'm lying about being unaffected by Birdman and about my taste in general, as everyone in list threads is so certain everyone else is doing
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Birdman is closer to American Beauty in that it's more in line with AB's "groanworthy philosophical utterances" style of dialogue, but Boyhood is more alike in terms of white suburbia holding up a middling representation of itself as an artistic pinnacle, though there's nothing in it anywhere near the plastic bag shit or the reveal of Cooper's homosexuality.
I feel that way about 12 years a slave. Boyhood was excellent, to me, and has lasted far longer.
DeathoftheEndless
Crashing this plane... with no survivors!
The Master and Under the Skin are boring slogs to watch.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
OOOOH. Nice. Really good call there. Well, I mean the reminder to watch Blue Valentine, not the idea of the whole list being invalidated. But yeah - Blue Valentine is a really solid pick. Kinda surprised it's not on the lower half of this list.
Seems a smidge hyperbolic. I think Jackie Brown is his 2nd or 3rd best film, but "precipitous downslide" seems to run counter to the much firmer grasp he's gotten on filmmaking as he's gone on - missteps like Death Proof notwithstanding.
I don't think the Artist will even be remembered as a "WTF were we thinking" pick, if it's even remembered at all. It's already kinda like the movie never even existed. When I think Hanavicius, I think his spot-on Bond parodies, and not the Artist. It always takes me a little bit to remember he made The Artist, and then it's like "OH YEAH. It won Best Picture, too."
Not to cast wide-net assumptions but why anyone thinks anything, but I assume the reason a lot of people like Boyhood was because it resonated with their own childhoods* -- something that, spare the invention of time travel, probably will not change in the future.
*projecting
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
12 Years a Slave was a great, deep, elegant depiction of the nature of power and selfhood as they twist and warp to mold themselves to the circumstances of a particular man's life. It's forgettable if watched as "Schindler's List"-style historical horror porn, which is how it was sold, but it's quite a bit more than that and has not gotten its due as a work philosophical and sociological depth.
And_Gignac
Member
i loved Frances Ha but nope, not top 5 material. The rankings are kind of all over the place but the selection is strong.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I don't think he was a fumbling neophyte at the beginning of his career, either, but he's definitely improved as he's gone on. There's stuff he's doing in Kill Bill and Inglorious Basterds that he couldn't do in Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown. It feels to me like he's refining his skillset, making it sharper.
But you're right in that ever since Kill Bill, his genre mixtape methodology is starting to get a little staid. But so long as the mixtapes are still good, there's a lot to dig into, even if it's a bunch of Kirby-dotted comics schlock.
Arthr2ShdsJcksn
Banned
Because I usually don't like mainstream crowd-pleasing comedies, but I did like that one.
Also Boyhood already became that next easily forgotten award winner by not winning the Academy Award.
Soulscribe
Member
I think Life of Pi would be in my top 5 for the decade
Joining the ranks of other forgotten losers like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Taxi Driver, Jaws, and Pulp Fiction.
Django is overrated by a general audience, but I still think it deserves to be in a list of top 100 best films of the decade. I also think Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's best *shrug*
Birdman will be remembered if only because it's a weird pick that stands out, it's not really typical Oscar fare. Meanwhile, films like King's Speech or Artist had already been forgotten. Especially the former which is as "Best Picture winner" as it can get.
Birdman will be remembered if only because it's a weird pick that stands out, it's not really typical Oscar fare. Meanwhile, films like King's Speech or Artist had already been forgotten. Especially the former which is as "Best Picture winner" as it can get.
equippedwithtowel
Member
And yet film blogs are tripping over themselves to put it at the top of lists. You don't have to like it but you're not really building a compelling case it'll be reviled in 5 years.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Where the heck is The Godfather? One of the best movies of all time IMO
Trying to think of what this list is lacking. Not many animated films or films film the East. There's no This is Not a Film or Don't go breaking my Heart. Glad that The Artist didn't make it though. Pretty sure everyone forgot about that one.
Trying to think of what this list is lacking. Not many animated films or films film the East. There's no This is Not a Film or Don't go breaking my Heart. Glad that The Artist didn't make it though. Pretty sure everyone forgot about that one.
Corpsepyre
Banned
Room 237?!?! Seriously, now? What an awful documentary and a complete waste of time.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
Jackie Brown has better-written and more complex characters, less showoffy dialogue, a more novel resolution, and a more clever interweaving of its cinematic allusions than any Tarantino film before or since. The process of adaptation forced him to curb his own excesses as a writer, which he's since doubled-down on. He may have gotten better at some of the technical aspects of filmmaking, but he's gotten steadily more puerile as time has gone on. I've described him in the past as a pretty good adapter of graphic novels, with the caveat that his movies were never technically graphic novels in the first place, because they sure feel like it.
Very few works "hold themselves up" as great works of art. Some are self-reflexive in that way, like Bergman's Persona, but Boyhood is just a straightforward tale of a kid's life. It's "profound because it's not profound", which is a pretty shallow artistry.
...did you skip the title of the thread and just barrel in here?
The latter is certainly how I took the film, but I'm willing to be corrected.
Similarly, Boyhood is enormously complex and it seems that many people may have missed that.
I think he's just joking with that first sentence.
Heebie Jeebies
Banned
I'm flabberghasted The Raid 2 isn't even on the list.
Yeah I would've swapped the first out for 2.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
Tryhard.
What's try hard about it?
radioactivez0r
Member
The only thing I learned from this is that I really really need to watch Scott Pilgrim, but have continually avoided it because I hate Michael Cera so much. It's such an internal struggle.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
He's miscast, and he's not great in it on top of that. But it's really, really fucking good in spite of that. The editing alone...
Delta Assault
Member
That ending though. They fucked up on the ending. The movie's leading to one conclusion, but then they go for a different conclusion and it's weird.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
The alternate ending is on the blu/dvd, yeah? I swear I've seen it before. And you're right - it does work better.
Frank Serpico
Banned
Master 1?
I love that director and cast but no way. It was a solid B+ though
I love that director and cast but no way. It was a solid B+ though
TheKaeptain
Banned
No way is The Master better than A Separation.
I agree. 12 Years a Slave is a masterpiece and belongs in the canon of great historical films.
What I really appreciate about it is that it doesn't draw any big, satisfied conclusions. It captures the humiliation, cruelty, and absurdity of slavery with no sentimentality whatsoever.
It's awesome.
Cera might not have been the best casting, but he still does a good job in my opinion.
Snowman Prophet of Doom
Member
The Master's not better than a lot of things on the list.
Androidsleeps
Member
Glad to see Under the Skin there, it's a fucking masterpiece. Dogtooth is also a great film. But The Master? I couldn't finish it, it was boring and uninteresting.
I guess I should really watch Francis Ha and Holly Motors.
I guess I should really watch Francis Ha and Holly Motors.
I'm biased because I enjoy Michael Cera, but it's a great movie nonetheless. They did a great job with the cast, too. Mary Elizabeth Winstead <3
nope. like others said, it'll probably be held in even higher regard. Which is cool, but Before Midnight deserves more recognition. a literally perfect movie.
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