Earlier this month the London Times listed
The 100 Best Films of the Decade. "Art house or Blockbuster? Juno or Jason Bourne? Is The Bourne Supremacy really better than Brokeback Mountain? And if Finding Nemo made it, what the hell happened to Shrek?"
I've seen 74 of them and The theme of the list seems to be films that pushed the medium to new areas and that I can respect but it's a really odd list. Wedding Crashers at 90!?! Anchorman at 62!?! I enjoyed The Squid and the Whale but I don't think it makes the list and Bad Santa certainly doesn't (let alone at 54). Syriana three spots above Dark Knight? and Far from Heaven 18 spots above Syriana?!? Borat at 11?!!? Team America at 5!!
I liked Crash, though would have places far above 98 though I know of lot of people that hated it. He's got some very good documentaries on the list like An Inconvenient Truth, Touching the Void and Man on Wire. And I'm glad to see Pixar make the list though I wouldn't have included Monsters Inc. City of God is very well deserving but Children of Men is not. I'm also glad to see United 93 and Let the Right One In at 19 and 18 respectively.
I've seen the top 9 and am not sure any would make my top 10, maybe No Country for Old Men. One thing for certain, their top film of the decade, Hidden (Cache) wouldn't make my list at all.
And yeah I'll have to think my list of top films of the decade. I will be able to do one of the year pretty easily as I've been keeping a list of everything I've seen.
4 comments:
There's a lot to recommend most of the movies I've seen on this list... I just skimmed it briefly after reading your response to it.
I have to say, though, that I think their inclusion of lots of good movies may be a complete accident considering their inclusion and ranking of "Team America." It's all about violence for me there... A movie filled with moronic puppet violence made me violently ill and I'd contemplate violently attacking someone who swore it was the 5th-best movie of the decade.
So 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days made the list and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu did not. Is it because only one Romanian movie is allowed?
And don't even start me on Cache! I quietly hate Juliette Binoche since The Unbearable Lightness of Being. And Amores Perros is at the very end and Crash is in the beginning?! Enough said.
The purpose of these lists is to spark conversation :)
Haven't seen Lazarescu yet.
Yeah, Cache is definitely not for you :) And I also don't understand why people love Binoche. She's fine but I don't get the hype.
I was ok with Team America. I thought some parts were very funny in an unexpectedly over-the-top way. But I also thought much of it dragged on with obvious and boring bits. But 5th best of the decade? No way; not even in top 100.
I thought that the foremost purpose of any list is to be a source of information. I love movie lists, book lists, music lists etc. I'm always afraid of missing something really wonderful that's out there. This is why I may come across as overly indignant when looking at the list so deeply flawed.
Lazarescu is great. It's our saving grace that the GOP people don't seem to watch Romanian movies. This one would supply them with yet another powerful weapon against 'socialized medicine'.
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