The Film Thread: Page 325 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

The Film Thread

Jens

est wrote:
I do like Damian Lewis as an actor for some reason though.

Might be because he's talented.

Burnwinter

Utter shite is rather strong Est. 🙂 It was only a bit shit.

Ewan McGregor was more fun playing that character in The Ghost Writer.

Asterix

BBC has compiled a list of the top 100 films so far of the 21st century. I don't have much time to comment right now except to say there's not much in the way of comedy. When top films of all time are rated there are usually a fair few comedies thrown in, but this list doesn't feature any recognisable English language ones. The Pixar films, Grand Budapest Hotel and Amelie and a few others certainly raise a laugh, but I thought there might be something like The Hangover on the list. I think that film will be loved more down the years than say Inside Llewellyn Davis, which was a pretty boring film where not much happened. Perhaps because the list was compiled by film critics and they're a notoriously difficult bunch from which to raise a chuckle.

It's also possible there just haven't been that many great comedies.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films

Burnwinter

Saw that the other day, my thought was that there were probably twenty films on it that really had no place being there. It's a critics' list that I think was produced by aggregating critical top tens, so it's got a long tail of highbrow top picks.

Thought Inside Llewellyn Davis was good myself, one of the Coens' best.

Grand Budapest Hotel shouldn't be anywhere near that list, it's one of Anderson's worst and a mediocre film in my opinion.

Winter's Bone and Drive were two big surprise omissions.

As for comedies, I think there are some great ones out there but comedy's so much more artistically difficult than drama, and finds a more specific audience. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch was really, really funny for example but in that Beckettian way ...

Cannon

Burnwinter wrote:
Saw that the other day, my thought was that there were probably twenty films on it that really had no place being there. It's a critics' list that I think was produced by aggregating critical top tens, so it's got a long tail of highbrow top picks.

Thought Inside Llewellyn Davis was good myself, one of the Coens' best.

Grand Budapest Hotel shouldn't be anywhere near that list, it's one of Anderson's worst and a mediocre film in my opinion.

Winter's Bone and Drive were two big surprise omissions.

As for comedies, I think there are some great ones out there but comedy's so much more artistically difficult than drama, and finds a more specific audience. A Pigeon Sat on a Branch was really, really funny for example but in that Beckettian way ...

That or Blue Ruin?

Cannon

Asterix wrote:
BBC has compiled a list of the top 100 films so far of the 21st century. I don't have much time to comment right now except to say there's not much in the way of comedy. When top films of all time are rated there are usually a fair few comedies thrown in, but this list doesn't feature any recognisable English language ones. The Pixar films, Grand Budapest Hotel and Amelie and a few others certainly raise a laugh, but I thought there might be something like The Hangover on the list. I think that film will be loved more down the years than say Inside Llewellyn Davis, which was a pretty boring film where not much happened. Perhaps because the list was compiled by film critics and they're a notoriously difficult bunch from which to raise a chuckle.

It's also possible there just haven't been that many great comedies.

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films

Just glanced through it

No Sideways? I think that is a big omission. Mullholland Drive was good but personally left me unsatisfied

Also Mad Max Fury road? 😆

Klaus

Spontaneous reaction is that it's a very white list. Only five east asian films too, one of which is animated. A few obvious names like Malick, Anderson and Zvyagintsev are represented more than once but it's hard to argue against their inclusion. Wong ranks high, and rightly so, but it's the wrong film...

I dunno. I think the list lacks a playful and colourful element. Too many safe titles. These attempts to assemble a modern canon are always very unappealing to me. I'm of the opinion that critics, especially those with wide accessibility, have a responsibility to promote more beauty in cinema in general.

Cannon

Klaus wrote:
Spontaneous reaction is that it's a very white list. Only five east asian films too, one of which is animated. A few obvious names like Malick, Anderson and Zvyagintsev are represented more than once but it's hard to argue against their inclusion. Wong ranks high, and rightly so, but it's the wrong film...

I dunno. I think the list lacks a playful and colourful element. Too many safe titles. These attempts to assemble a modern canon are always very unappealing to me. I'm of the opinion that critics, especially those with wide accessibility, have a responsibility to promote more beauty in cinema in general.

Great post.

Also it gives me confidence to say that i got more out of say 'A bittersweet life' than at least 10 movies in this list. So yes i would say its 'white/western list'

Burnwinter

It's the way the list is constructed that leads to the representation—they based it on sixty critics' top tens, so they got that aggregate of safe and white choices and not much diversity in the outside ranks, because no one's favourites beyond their top ten are considered.

They presented the data on this linked page, as you can see it's sort of every critic's Sight and Sound style top tier:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160819-the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films-who-voted

GaelForce

Which Wong Kar Wai film did you think it should be Klaus? 2046?

Also, Burnsey's right, that a list like that, built the way it is, is always going to struggle to give surprises. If they've asked almost 200 critics, you're pretty much guaranteed a top list of WKW, Malick, PTA, and other high-brow directors who appeal to film critics. If one person/ committee built the list themselves it would be easier to have some fun or diversity with it, but that's not how it's been put together.

Ranking such different films against each other is stupid anyway.

GaelForce

And;

[size=small][font=Arial, Helvetica, freesans, sans-serif]Communicating with 177 film critics is a time-consuming process. But for every critic who participated – and many more were invited – it wasn’t just a matter of lending their expertise; it was about sharing their passion. The critics who participated hail from 36 countries: 81 from the US, 19 from the UK, five each from Canada, Cuba, France, and Germany, and four each from Australia, Colombia, India, Israel and Italy. Lebanon, the UAE, China, Bangladesh, Chile, Namibia, Kazakhstan and many others are represented too. Of the 177 critics, 55 are women and 122 are men. We present their votes here in alphabetical order.[/font][/size]

US bias pretty much guaranteed. Not that there's anything too wrong with that, I'll be surprised if many of us watch more non-American films than American.

Burnwinter

Think I do to be honest, well at least films that are acted by non-Americans and filmed outside America.

GaelForce

I was careful with my words, I didn't mean all of us. 🙂

Klaus

GaelForce wrote:
Which Wong Kar Wai film did you think it should be Klaus? 2046?

Yeah I would have taken 2046, or put both of them in there in tandem maybe. It's big, flawed, abrasive, visually and creatively brilliant... I think it's a more interesting film, especially built against the Chinese/Hong Kong backdrop. The year 2046 itself is the 'endpoint' for HK society after the Chinese government promised them 50 years without change once Hong Kong was reunited with the mainland back in the mid-90s. Plenty of Wong's films are about the emotional conflict built into that reunification. The plot is eluding in a way similar to Manuel Puig's writing, which was a huge influence on Wong's filmmaking where he started to put events out of order as early as Happy Together.

I found it a really transformative experience the more I watched it. It's about a perpetual state or loneliness and isolation and a will to change that keeps getting compromised. It's the inescapable past catching up with his vision of the future, and the memories dance across the screen. It's not necessarily an easy film to watch, but I haven't seen anything quite like it.

QuincyAbeyie

GaelForce wrote:
I was careful with my words, I didn't mean all of us. 🙂

And you're definitely right.

Mirth

Infernal Affairs not making the top 100 movies? Bizarre

Burnwinter

Well it's because it's not in anyone's top ten innit.

Klaus

I'd like to meet whoever put The Dark Knight and The Wolf of Wall Street in their top ten so I can punch them in the face. It has to be the same person.

banduan

I'd definitely put Dark Knight as top superhero movie. I have no idea why Wolf of Wall Street would rank highly in anything.

Burnwinter

Klaus wrote:
I'd like to meet whoever put The Dark Knight and The Wolf of Wall Street in their top ten so I can punch them in the face. It has to be the same person.

The Wolf of Wall Street is utter shit, but I think I've already written a mini-essay on that here. Rubbish film.

Looking forward to Scorsese's Japanese Jesuits thing though.

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