MC Yearly Consensus - 2003

[Spinal]

Submit your five favorite films from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten. IMDb dates will be used.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-5 points
2nd Place-4 points
3rd Place-3.5 points
4th Place-3 points
5th Place-2.5 points

There will be no restrictions on short films. A minimum of three films must be listed. You may edit your post freely up until the time that the voting is closed, which will be in about a week. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

You may begin now.

IMDB Power Search (http://www.imdb.com/list)

[Spinal]

1. Dogville
2. Cowards Bend the Knee
3. The Five Obstructions
4. Angels in America
5. The Fog of War


6. Lost in Translation
7. Monster
8. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
9. Kill Bill V.1
10. Good Bye Lenin!

[Raiders]

1. Elephant (Van Sant)
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Jackson)
3. The Company (Altman)
4. All the Real Girls (Green)
5. A Tale of Two Sisters (Kim)

-----------------------------------------------

6. The Agronomist (Demme)
7. Tarnation (Couette)
8. Lost in Translation (Coppola)
9. Mystic River (Eastwood)
10. The Hunted (Friedkin)

[Yxklyx]

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Peter Jackson)
2. The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin)
3. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich)
4. Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
5. Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin)

6. The Forest for the Trees (Maren Ade)
7. Dallas 362 (Scott Caan)
8. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Peter Weir)
9. Capturing the Friedmans (Andrew Jarecki)
10. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-duk Kim)

[Russ]

1. Cowards Bend the Knee
2. Oldboy
3. Gozu
4. The Triplets of Belleville
5. Last Life in the Universe

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

1. Noi Albinoi



2. Saddest Music in the World
3. Lost in Translation
4. Last Life in the Universe
5. The Dreamers




weeeeeeeaaaak year. full of poop.


h/s Dogville, Time of the Wolf

[Sycophant]

Uh, I liked a lot this year:

1. Doppelganger (Kurosawa)
2. Oldboy (Park)
3. The Station Agent (McCarthy)
4. Bad Santa (Zwigoff)
5. Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring (Kim)
----
6. Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman (Kitano)
7. All the Real Girls (Green)
8. Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (Tarantino)
9. Men Suddenly in Black (Pang)
10. Hulk (Lee)


HM: Last Life in the Universe, Tokyo Godfathers, Memories of Murder, Lost in Translation, Mystic River

[Watashi]

1. Finding Nemo
2. Kill Bill Vol 1
3. Big Fish
4. Elephant
5. The Shape of Things

[Silencio]

1. Dogville
2. Lost in Translation
3. Elephant
4. The Station Agent
5. All the Real Girls

[dreamdead]

1. Cowards Bend the Knee
2. Last Life in the Universe
3. All the Real Girls
4. The Company
5. Elephant

HM: Finding Nemo, A Tale of Two Sisters, Dogville

There was a time when von Trier's film dominated my list for this year, but I've become a bit lukewarm to his filmmaking recently. I should return to it to better grasp its quality rather than its reputation.

[origami_mustache]

1. The Saddest Music In The World
2. The Time of the Wolf
3. All The Real Girls
4. Goodbye Dragon Inn
5. Cowards Bend The Knee

6. Café Lumière
7. Dogville
8. Big Fish
9. Finding Nemo
10. Spring Summer Fall Winter... and Spring

HM: Oldboy, Gozu, I'm Not Scared, Elephant, Lost In Translation, Barbarian Invasions, Goodbye Lenin.

[Pop Trash]

1. Capturing the Friedmans
2. Lost in Translation
3. Kill Bill vol.1
4. School of Rock
5. Master and Commander

6. Fog of War
7. All the Real Girls
8. American Splendor
9. Swimming Pool
10.Open Water

I too remember not liking this year all that much at the time. Only three films I found to be unequivocally "great" (Capturing the Friedmans, LiT, and Lilja 4-Ever which debuted in the states that year) Some of the more acclaimed films (Elephant, Mystic River, Return of the King) I found to be decent but flawed. I also really, really don't like Dogville. I'm not a big Guy Maddin fan either. But in retrospect, there were some pretty enjoyable films that came out that year.

[Spinal]

There was a time when von Trier's film dominated my list for this year, but I've become a bit lukewarm to his filmmaking recently.

:sad:

[monolith94]

1. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
2. Hulk
3. The Shape of Things
4. Finding Nemo
5. Elephant

[Stay Puft]

1. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
2. Memories of Murder
3. Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman
4. Tokyo Godfathers
5. Last Life in the Universe

[Boner M]

1. Lost in Translation
2. Memories of Murder
3. The Best of Youth
4. Elephant
5. Love, Actually

HM: Crimson Gold, Mystic River, ROTK, Spring Summer etc, All the Real Girls

Need to see: The Company, Big Fish, The Corporation, Zatoichi

[soitgoes...]

1. Elephant (Gus Van Sant)
2. Oldboy (Chan-wook Park)
3. The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme)
4. The Return (Andrei Zvyagintsev)
5. Big Fish (Tim Burton)
-----------------------------------------------
6. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
7. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino)
8. Cowards Bend the Knee (Guy Maddin)
9. Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang)
10. The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand)

HM: The Fog of War, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Finding Nemo, Monsieur Ibrahim, A Tale of Two Sisters

[Weeping_Guitar]

1. Lost in Translation
2. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
3. Dogville
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
5. Finding Nemo

[MadMan]

2003 gets way too overlooked. Why I donno, since it sports some damn good movies.

1. Finding Nemo
2. Return of the King
3. Master and Commander
4. Open Range
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
6. School of Rock
7. The Triplets of Belleville
8. Elf
9. The Rundown
10. Old School

[Sycophant]

2003 gets way too overlooked. Why I donno, since it sports some damn good movies.
Put them on your list, then.

;) :P :) ;) :lol: :|

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Elephant
2. Master and Commander
3. All the Real Girls
4. 21 Grams
5. The Return

[koji]

Good timing. Ozon's Swimming Pool is available on Netflix IW. Not only does that provide an opportunity for a first or repeat viewing of a 2003 film, it also showcases two of the wonders of the 21st century world. :)

[Lucky]

1. Kill Bill Volume 1
2. 21 Grams
3. Finding Nemo
4. Big Fish
5. Oldboy

This is one of the rare years where I would have an easier time listing movies I didn't like.

[Qrazy]

1. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
2. Cowards Bend the Knee
3. Time of the Wolf
4. Fog of War
5. Angels in America

6. Destino
7. American Splendor
8. Finding Nemo
9. Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring
10. Triplets of Belleville

HMs: Cold Mountain, Dogville, Elephant, Master and Commander, Lost in Translation, The Return, 21 Grams, Saddest Music in the World, Beyond, Tokyo Godfathers, Oldboy

Not a fan: The Corporation, Goodbye Lenin, House of Sand and Fog, The Last Samurai, Mystic River

I don't feel very strongly about the ordering this year. All ten are very good films in my book, but none of them would crack my top 200 I don't think.

[Philosophe_rouge]

1. The Fog of War
2. Memories of Murder
3. Spring, summer, fall winter and spring
4. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
5. Finding Nemo

[ledfloyd]

1. All the Real Girls
2. Lost in Translation
3. The Fog of War
4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1

HM: American Splendor

[Bosco B Thug]

1. Dogville
2. The Company
3. Doppelganger
4. All the Real Girls
5. A Tale of Two Sisters

[MadMan]

Put them on your list, then.

;) :P :) ;) :lol: :|Oh ho, ho, you're a real funny man aren't yah? :|


:lol: :P

[Grouchy]

1. Oldboy
2. The Triplets of Belleville
3. Dogville
4. The Dreamers
5. Finding Nemo

[BirdsAteMyFace]

1. Last Life in the Universe
2. Lost in Translation
3. Dogville
4. All the Real Girls
5. Kill Bill Vol. 1

HMs: The Brown Bunny, The Shape of Things, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi, The Fog of War

Have in my possession to eventually watch: Goodbye Dragon Inn; Café Lumière; I'm Not Scared; Twentynine Palms; Gozu; Capturing the Friedmans; Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring

[Lazlo]

1. All the Real Girls
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
3. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
4. Kill Bill: Vol. 1
5. The Best of Youth

[Epistemophobia]

1. Dogville
2. The Dreamers
3. Lost in Translation
4. Goodbye, Dragon Inn
5. Coffee and Cigarettes

[Spinal]

1. Dogville


I don't know who you are but you are welcome back any time.

[Epistemophobia]

I don't know who you are but you are welcome back any time.
Thanks. I appreciate not being banned before my third post. :)

[TripZone]

Hello Epi :)
So you're new too, eh?

I love the widescreen avatars.

Anyway:

1. LOTR: The Return of the King
2. Kill Bill Volume 1
3. Lost in Translation
4. Dogville
5. Finding Nemo

I also loved Pirates, Elephant, Oldboy, Mystic River, Capturing the Friedmans, among others. Why I haven't seen some of the others mentioned here I don't know.

[soitgoes...]

Thanks. I appreciate not being banned before my third post. :)If you just continue to give praise to Trier or occasionally Haneke, you will be golden in Spinal's eyes. Or you can just save yourself trouble and just repeatedly post this...
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee171/soitgoes22/Asia-Argento-Biography-2-1.jpg

[Spinal]

I am speechless.

[chrisnu]

1. Dogville
2. The Shape of Things
3. Twentynine Palms
4. Finding Nemo
5. The Station Agent

HM: The Fog of War, The Five Obstructions, Baadasssss!

[thefourthwall]

1. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood)
2. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton)
3. American Splendor (Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)
4. School of Rock (Richard Linklater)
5. Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom (Daniel O'Hara)

HM: PotC: TCoBP, The Shape of Things. LotR: RotK, The Company, 21 Grams

Can somebody explain (or point me to a thread if the explanation has already occurred) why a number of people thought Swimming Pool was so good? I was rather disappointed with it.

[Ezee E]

1. Kill Bill: Volume 1
2. Dogville
3. Lost in Translation
4. Mystic River
5. Open Range

6. Old Boy
7. Angels in America
8. The Dreams
9. Love Actually
10. Elephant

[Ezee E]

The lack of Open Range votes is disappointing.

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. The Station Agent
2. Touching the Void
3. A Tale of Two Sisters
4. Elephant
5. Masked and Anonymous

6. Capturing the Freidmans
7. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
8. The Fog of War
9. The Cooler
10. Zero Day

[dreamdead]

Can somebody explain (or point me to a thread if the explanation has already occurred) why a number of people thought Swimming Pool was so good? I was rather disappointed with it.

Well, it's a lesbian neo-noir in some respects, right. Why wouldn't most people find a certain degree of quality in it? Oh, you mean that that quality doesn't immediately guarantee that we should praise the film? It wasn't a bad film, but it certainly wouldn't qualify anywhere near the top for me. That said, it's not a bad exercise in voyeuristic cinema, and in that subgenre (if there is one) it has a few positives. Still, the young girl seemed too one-note for me to really care; and I'd rather watch (Verhoeven alert) Basic Instinct or the 4th Man over this one.

[Benny Profane]

1. Capturing the Friedmans
2. Touching the Void
3. All the Real Girls
4. Badasssss!
5. Elephant

[Pop Trash]

Well, it's a lesbian neo-noir in some respects, right. Why wouldn't most people find a certain degree of quality in it? Oh, you mean that that quality doesn't immediately guarantee that we should praise the film? It wasn't a bad film, but it certainly wouldn't qualify anywhere near the top for me. That said, it's not a bad exercise in voyeuristic cinema, and in that subgenre (if there is one) it has a few positives. Still, the young girl seemed too one-note for me to really care; and I'd rather watch (Verhoeven alert) Basic Instinct or the 4th Man over this one.

I had a really good time with it. Sexy, entertaining French "thriller" that isn't so much a thriller as a view of the artistic process of a writer. This and Under the Sand were psychologically interesting to me. I need to see more Ozon. He's an interesting filmmaker. Plus Charlotte Rampling rocks.

[Grouchy]

The lack of Oldboy votes is disappointing.
Exactly.

I didn't like Swimming Pool either, by the way. I'd rather watch Verhoeven movies too.

[Qrazy]

I don't really want to see Swimming Pool because I've been underwhelmed with the other Ozon I"ve seen... His short films DVD and Sitcom.

[Spinal]

Swimming Pool, while merely good, is still superior to dopey films like The Fourth Man and Basic Instinct. The only thing really disappointing about it is the ending.

[Spinal]

And did I miss the lesbianism in Swimming Pool? Don't recall that.

[Grouchy]

Swimming Pool, while merely good, is still superior to dopey films like The Fourth Man and Basic Instinct. The only thing really disappointing about it is the ending.
Strongly disagree. The 4th Man and Basic Instinct are intentionally excessive and pulpy films that become resonant and memorable, maybe as a side result of their own unpretentiousness.

Swimming Pool is a movie that takes itself too seriously and that it's also completely shallow.

Plus, Verhoeven is a God of bold camerawork - just look at the dream sequences in The 4th Man. Ozon has his moments, but in Swimming Pool he's just boring.

[Spinal]

Strongly disagree. The 4th Man and Basic Instinct are intentionally excessive and pulpy films that become resonant and memorable, maybe as a side result of their own unpretentiousness.


If you set out to make crap, I don't give you credit because you succeed.

[Grouchy]

If you set out to make crap, I don't give you credit because you succeed.
Pulp doesn't equal crap. At all.

[Spinal]

I just really, really hate the argument that a film should be penalized for having higher aspirations.

[Pop Trash]

Swimming Pool is a movie that takes itself too seriously and that it's also completely shallow.

Plus, Verhoeven is a God of bold camerawork - just look at the dream sequences in The 4th Man. Ozon has his moments, but in Swimming Pool he's just boring.

See, I didn't think it took itself too seriously at all. I thought a lot of it was very funny. The scene where the gardener realizes he's going to get laid with Rampling is pretty hilarious to me. Also Rampling's expression when the girl's tits are in her face by the pool is priceless.

I like Vehoeven too BTW. Often for his pulpy excessiveness. His DVD commentaries are gold too.

[Grouchy]

I just really, really hate the argument that a film should be penalized for having higher aspirations.
I'd say those two Verhoeven films have aspirations too, just that as a plus, they're not boring.

Pop Trash, I've seen the movie long ago. While I remember laughing at the whole gardener character, the whole thing is too languid for me to keep with the dark humor. It also didn't help that I could see the end coming from miles, having seen similar stuff in Polanski's paranoia trilogy.

[Benny Profane]

Swimming Pool, while merely good, is still superior to dopey films like The Fourth Man and Basic Instinct. The only thing really disappointing about it is the ending.

What didn't you like about the ending?

[Spinal]

What didn't you like about the ending?

It's pretty uninspired. Feels like it should have been a placeholder from an early draft until Ozon came up with something better. It sort of makes the whole thing an inconsequential fizzle.

[Pop Trash]

I'd say those two Verhoeven films have aspirations too, just that as a plus, they're not boring.

Pop Trash, I've seen the movie long ago. While I remember laughing at the whole gardener character, the whole thing is too languid for me to keep with the dark humor. It also didn't help that I could see the end coming from miles, having seen similar stuff in Polanski's paranoia trilogy.
I'm guessing...Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Tenant?

[Grouchy]

I'm guessing...Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, and The Tenant?
Yeah. Or Barton Fink, too. All those movies about people going crazy in one location are more original and thought-provoking than Swimming Pool in my book.

[Benny Profane]

It's pretty uninspired. Feels like it should have been a placeholder from an early draft until Ozon came up with something better. It sort of makes the whole thing an inconsequential fizzle.

I thought it fit the tone. Since the film is about the creative process, I thought it worked really well.

[Pop Trash]

I thought it fit the tone. Since the film is about the creative process, I thought it worked really well.
Bingo!

[Spinal]

It's one step removed from ...

... it was all a dream.

[Pop Trash]

It's one step removed from ...

... it was all a dream.

So is Mullholland Drive. In fact it probably isn't even "one step removed." And people love the shit out of that movie (I quite like it myself)

[Spinal]

So is Mullholland Drive.

But that film doesn't build towards the idea as its climax. It doesn't use it as a plot twist.

[Yum-Yum]

1. Oldboy
2. The Station Agent
3. Party Monster
4. Final Destination 2
5. Bad Santa

6. Graveyard Alive: A Zombie Nurse in Love
7. A Tale of Two Sisters
8. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
9. Love That Boy
10. Tarnation

[MacGuffin]

1. Lost in Translation (Coppola)
2. Dogville (von Trier)
3. Twentynine Palms (Dumont)
4. The School of Rock (Linklater)
5. The Triplets of Belleville (Chomet)

Honorable mentions: Goodbye Dragon Inn (Tsai), Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (Ki-duk), Crimson Gold (Panahi), Last Life in the Universe (Ratanaruang), David Blaine: Above the Below (Korine and Smith)

[Hugh_Grant]

1. Angels in America
2. Big Fish
3. Master and Commander
4. Shattered Glass
5. Girl with a Pearl Earring

[Spinal]

More?

[Spinal]

If there are no more ballots by tomorrow night, I'll start the count. Otherwise, I'll give it an extra night.

[Dead & Messed Up]

1) Finding Nemo
2) Monsieur Ibrahim
3) Touching the Void
4) 28 Days Later
5) Shattered Glass

I implore all of you to give #2 a shot. It's an underseen gem with an intensely likeable performance by Omar Sharif. It's very subdued, but I found that a positive. The film's meditative, reflective, nostalgic, and quite moving by the end.

[MadMan]

I just re-edited my list after recently viewing Master and Commander for a second time.

[MacGuffin]

I just re-edited my list after recently viewing Master and Commander for a second time.

Ew, really? I mean, I don't really remember anything exactly wrong with it, but then, I don't recall anything spectacular about it either. Just kind of bland and safe. A Hollywood Russell Crowe war movie with boats (but enlighten me as you obviously think otherwise).

[Pop Trash]

Ew, really? I mean, I don't really remember anything exactly wrong with it, but then, I don't recall anything spectacular about it either. Just kind of bland and safe. A Hollywood Russell Crowe war movie with boats (but enlighten me as you obviously think otherwise).
I seem to remember it as one of the best seafairing movies I've ever seen with a great attention to detail to what boating was like in that period and some great direction from the stellar Peter Weir.

[MacGuffin]

I seem to remember it as one of the best seafairing movies I've ever seen with a great attention to detail of what boating was like in that period and some great direction from the stellar Peter Weir.

Whoa, I didn't even realize Peter Weir directed it.

[Grouchy]

Whoa, I didn't even realize Peter Weir directed it.
Now I'm guessing it's obviously a masterpiece of stuff.

[MacGuffin]

Now I'm guessing it's obviously a masterpiece of stuff.

Uh, nope.

[trotchky]

1. Lost in Translation
2. Dogville
3. Tarnation
4. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
5. The Station Agent

[Spinal]

Results tomorrow.

[Izzy Black]

1. Maletas de Tulse Luper (Peter Greenaway, Spain)
2. Dogville (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
3. La Meglio gioventù (Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy)
4. Kôhî jikô (Hsiao-hsien Hou, Taiwan)
5. Pas sur la bouche (Alain Resnais, France)
6. Bu jian bu san (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan)
7. La Fleur du mal (Claude Chabrol, France)
8. Histoire de Marie et Julien (Jacques Rivette, France)
9. The Saddest Music In The World (Guy Maddin, Canada)
10. In the Cut (Jane Campion, USA)

Notable: The Company (Robert Altman, USA), Le Temps du loup (Haneke, France), Angels in America (Mike Nichols, USA)

[MacGuffin]

1. Maletas de Tulse Luper (Peter Greenaway, Spain)
2. Dogville (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
3. La Meglio gioventù (Marco Tullio Giordana, Italy)
4. Kôhî jikô (Hsiao-hsien Hou, Taiwan)
5. Pas sur la bouche (Alain Resnais, France)
6. Bu jian bu san (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan)
7. La Fleur du mal (Claude Chabrol, France)
8. Histoire de Marie et Julien (Jacques Rivette, France)
9. The Saddest Music In The World (Guy Maddin, Canada)
10. In the Cut (Jane Campion, USA)

Notable: The Company (Robert Altman, USA), Le Temps du loup (Haneke, France), Angels in America (Mike Nichols, USA)

Spinal is going to give you shit, man.

[Izzy Black]

Spinal is going to give you shit, man.

Hm?

[Sven]

Spinal is going to give you shit, man.

Not with a list that includes Greenaway, von Trier, Campion, Maddin, or (kind of) Haneke, he's not.

[Spinal]

Spinal is going to give you shit, man.

Not with Trier and Greenaway at the top of his list.

[Spinal]

Not with a list that includes Greenaway, von Trier, Campion, Maddin, or (kind of) Haneke, he's not.

I am superfluous.

[MacGuffin]

Not with a list that includes Greenaway, von Trier, Campion, Maddin, or (kind of) Haneke, he's not.

But how will he be able to tell which Greenaway or Haneke movie is which with the, gasp!, original titles?

[Sven]

But how will he be able to tell which Greenaway or Haneke movie is which with the, gasp!, original titles?

That wasn't Spinal, homie.

[Spinal]

In general, I prefer people to use commonly used titles just because counting votes is a tedious enough process without having to look up a bunch of translations. It's just considerate.

[Yxklyx]

...
9. The Saddest Music In The World (Guy Maddin, Canada)
...


Don't you mean?

The Hryggja Tónlist Í The Veröld

[Grouchy]

10. In the Cut (Jane Campion, USA)

Ugh. One of the worst things I've ever seen. Seriously, I always remember how much I hated this.

[Ezee E]

But how will he be able to tell which Greenaway or Haneke movie is which with the, gasp!, original titles?
For Spinal's case, he probably knows the years that match with the directors that were listed. :)

[Melville]

Is voting closed?

1. Capturing the Friedmans
2. Lost in Translation
3. Dogville
4. Monster
5. The School of Rock

HMs: The Triplets of Belleville, The Saddest Music in the World, Owning Mahoney

[Raiders]

Is voting closed?
.
.
.

3. Dogville

I'm sure Spinal will have no trouble allowing it even if it is.

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/spring.jpg

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring

Director: Kim Ki-Duk

Country: South Korea

A young boy lives in a small floating temple on a beautiful lake together with an elderly master who teaches him the ways of the Buddha. Years later the boy, now a young man, experiences his sexual awakening with a girl who has come to the temple to be healed.

The inscription on the floor is The Heart Sutra, one of the most important Sutra of Mahayana Buddhism, written in literary Chinese. None of the main characters in the film have names. Kim plays the adult monk at the end of the film.

"Much of [the film] is wordless, but Kim stacks the film with visual symbols of faith ... The seasons that follow bring a chill of extreme spiritual challenge, then the warmth of nature's constant opportunities for renewal. Transcendence, as this picture so ably demonstrates, is only truly impressive when there's something difficult to transcend. " - Carla Meyer

[Spinal]

I'm sure Spinal will have no trouble allowing it even if it is.

Sassypants.

[Spinal]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/cowardsbendtheknee.jpg

Cowards Bend the Knee

Director: Guy Maddin

Country: Canada

The Winnipeg Maroons' star (hockey) player Guy becomes embroiled in the twisted lives of Meta, a vengeful Chinoise, and her hairdresser/abortionist mother Liliom. Innocent Veronica, caught in the middle, is treated to both services!

Originally presented as a gallery installation at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in which viewers watched the movie through ten peepholes lining a wall, each one revealing a different six-minute chapter. Earned a special mention at that festival for "its perversely witty fusing of the silent cinema tradition and contemporary installation art."

"What does it all add up to? If your name isn't Guy Maddin, then your guess is probably as good as mine (which would be, to boot: a series of shuddering histoire(s) du cinema orgasms). But the rest of us can all wade in his intoxicating, confounding surplus of cinematic theory remixes." - Eric Henderson

[dreamdead]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/cowardsbendtheknee.jpg

Cowards Bend the Knee


:sad:

One of the most enjoyable film experiences I've had this year. Needs to be seen more, methinks.

[Izzy Black]

Two entries in the same day. Excellent.

[Spinal]

#8

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/oldboy.jpg

Oldboy

Director: Park Chan-wook

Country: South Korea

A man is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives for revenge, he soon finds out that his kidnapper still has plans for him.

Won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Four live octopodes were eaten for the scene with Dae-su in the sushi bar. When the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the director thanked the octopodes along with the cast and crew.

"More than any single Korean film as yet released stateside, Park Chanwook's Oldboy crystallizes the reigning characteristic of its national new wave: narratives driven by unbound emotionalism, and often driven like kamikaze stock cars. You can practically hear the cinephiliac sigh of satisfaction—here, finally, is an importable cinema that is neither Miramax-homogeneous nor benumbed by desolate art-film torpor." - Michael Atkinson

[Spinal]

Two entries in the same day. Excellent.

What?

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/KillBillVol11.jpg

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Country: USA

A pregnant assassin is shot by her boss, Bill, on her wedding day, leaving herself and the wedding guests for dead. She survives and after being in a coma for five years, wakes to seek revenge on her co-workers and boss who attacked her.

Somewhat ironically, Tarantino delayed the start of the production because Uma Thurman was pregnant. This became the first feature-length film directed by Tarantino to feature fewer than 100 uses of the word 'fuck'. It is used 'only' 17 times. The shot where the Bride splits a baseball in two with a samurai sword was done for real on the set by Zoe Bell, Uma Thurman's stunt double.

"Fascinating and almost tactile, Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is marked by, above all things, a sense of vertiginous joy, a spirit of risk-taking mirrored by its two-part release that is not only not particularly distracting given Tarantino's built-in chapter-stops, but demonstrates a marvellous courage in the value of his product." - Walter Chaw

[Sycophant]

Damn. I should've known Doppelganger wouldn't make it.

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/frodo_sam2.jpg

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Director: Peter Jackson

Country: USA/New Zealand

While Frodo and Sam continue to approach Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring, unaware of the path Gollum is leading them, the former Fellowship aid in a great battle as Sauron wages his last war against Middle-Earth.

Won 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Won Best Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Named Best Film by the New York Film Critics Circle. Shelob's shriek is actually the sound of a Tasmanian devil. Contains 1488 special effects shots.

"This movie will make you forget that if you stick a knife in your belly you’ll bleed to death so do not bring a knife to this movie. It’s also, thank fucking God, LOUD. Even if you bring an iPod so you can listen to VH during the Elf parts you’ll take it off because I swear to fucking Roth you do NOT know where the next big bang is going to come from, or when something big is going to crunch someone’s skull while you picture that person getting their skull crushed is really your neighbor upstairs that plays Dido all day or that dude at the Starbucks who’s always reading and looking all smart." - Neill Cumpston

[Raiders]

:| for the choice of critical capsule.

[Spinal]

:| for the choice of critical capsule.

It's enthusiastic ...

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/01-1.jpg

All the Real Girls

Director: David Gordon Green

Country: USA

In a small Southern American town, Paul, who is known for having sexual relations with every girl in town, falls in love with his best friend's younger sister who is a virgin. He must try to prove to everyone that this time he is in love rather than in lust.

Nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead (Zooey Deschanel). Won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Matt Chapman plays Strong Bad, who is also one of the characters that Chapman performs the voice of for the Web animation Homestar Runner.

"A film in which irony is replaced by earnestness, cynicism by heartfelt resilience, All the Real Girls is the kind of drama that sways so far from the overstated pretentiousness of most high-concept indie conceits that it teeters just on the verge of sentimental triviality ... Thankfully it remains rooted atop that precipice, shying away almost entirely from overworked plot devices and useless incidental characterizations to forge not just a story or a mood, but an entire universe in which all roads lead back to the heart at the center of Paul and Noel's fate." - Chuck Rudolph

[Raiders]

Wow. A happy surprise to see that one so high.

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/tn2_elephant_3.jpg

Elephant

Director: Gus Van Sant

Country: USA

A film about what seems to be a normal day in high school. We become observers of the events that happen throughout the day, as students go in and out of classes, the cafeteria, the gym, or the library. Elsewhere, a horrific act of cruelty is being planned.

Won three awards at Cannes inculding the Golden Palm and Best Director. Won Best Cinematography from the New York Film Critics Circle. Almost all the kids are non-actors, and their real first names are used. Van Sant borrowed the title from Alan Clarke's film of the same name, and thought that it referred to the Chinese proverb about five blind men who were led to a different part of an elephant, with each concluding it was a different thing. What Clarke's title actually referred to was the idea of the 'elephant in the room'.

"Truffaut said it was hard to make an anti-war film because war was exciting even if you were against it. Van Sant has made an anti-violence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamor, reward and social context. It just happens." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/finding-nemo-wallpapers.jpg

Finding Nemo

Director: Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich

Country: USA

Marlin,a clown fish, is a widower who only has his son Nemo left of his family after a predator attack. Years later, on Nemo's first day of school, he's captured by a scuba diver and taken to live in a dentist office's fish tank. Marlin must set off across the ocean to find Nemo.

Won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Also nominated for Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing and Best Original Screenplay. For the jellyfish sequence, Pixar's Ocean Unit created an entire new system of shading which they called 'transblurrency' - see-through but blurred, much like a frosted bathroom window.

"The humor bubbling through Finding Nemo is so fresh, sure of itself and devoid of the cutesy, saccharine condescension that drips through so many family comedies that you have to wonder what it is about the Pixar technology that inspires the creators to be so endlessly inventive. The capacity of computer-animation to evoke a three-dimensional sense of detail obviously has something to do with it. But the enterprise still wouldn't amount to much without the formidable storytelling talents driving it." - Stephen Holden

[Watashi]

Damn LiT at #1

[MacGuffin]

Good to see Finding Nemo not at number one, since it doesn't deserve it in a year of so many much better movies (some of which aren't even on this list).

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/2003_lost_in_translation_005.j pg

Lost in Translation

Director: Sofia Coppola

Country: USA/Japan

An American film actor, far past his prime, visits Tokyo to appear in commercials, and meets the young wife of a visiting photographer. Bored and weary, they make ideal if improbable traveling companions. As the relationship deepens, they come to the realization that their visits to Japan, and one another, must soon end.

Won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (Bill Murray). Won four Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Male Lead and Best Screenplay. Won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival (Scarlet Johansson). Scarlett Johansson said that she was reluctant to be filmed in panties until Sofia Coppola modeled the panties herself to show her how they would look. David Lynch then put the panties in his mouth.

"Nothing is overstated in Lost in Translation, nothing imposed, and as [a] result the viewer finds a sense of slow discovery. Like many of the best female filmmakers, Coppola has an eye for the quiet, surprising details that build character and mood ... As a film lover, one despairs of finding movies like this, particularly from American directors." - Edward Guthmann

[MacGuffin]

Dogville.

[thefourthwall]

I think LiT is ridiculously overrated*. I don't think it's meaning is subtle; it's non-existent. When Bob and Charlotte are out with their Japanese "friends" is a terribly uncomfortable moment for me. I don't see them as engaging in the culture so much as almost laughing at it. Their singing is just for each other; they practically ignore everyone else.

Not that it doesn't have it's good points, but I doubt that people would have much more to critique if Coppola wasn't directing.


*Of course, Bill Murray's as good as good can be.

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/dogville-grundriss2.jpg

Dogville

Director: Lars von Trier

Country: Denmark

A beautiful fugitive arrives in the isolated township of Dogville on the run from a team of gangsters. With some encouragement from the self-appointed town spokesman, the little community agrees to hide her and in return, she agrees to work for them.

Inspired by Bertolt Brecht's "Pirate Jenny" in the Threepenny Opera. The introductory scene was generated by a computer from 156 individual shots. The ceiling of the filming studio was not tall enough to make one single, wide shot from above possible.

"Few other directors would risk career suicide by mounting a three-hour opus on a barely appointed stage, but the incendiary Dogville confirms the director's sadistic knack for locating his characters' (and his audience's) soft spots and prodding them for a singular emotional experience ... But tagging Dogville as strictly anti-American is missing the larger picture, because it's pliant enough to accommodate several readings—as Christian allegory, as comment on the immigrant experience, or as one of von Trier's pessimistic studies of female martyrdom." - Scott Tobias

[Pop Trash]

I think LiT is ridiculously overrated*. I don't think it's meaning is subtle; it's non-existent. When Bob and Charlotte are out with their Japanese "friends" is a terribly uncomfortable moment for me. I don't see them as engaging in the culture so much as almost laughing at it. Their singing is just for each other; they practically ignore everyone else.

Not that it doesn't have it's good points, but I doubt that people would have much more to critique if Coppola wasn't directing.


*Of course, Bill Murray's as good as good can be.

Nah, it's the best film on this list.

[Spinal]

1. Dogville (58)
2. Lost in Translation (54)
3. Finding Nemo (42)
4. Elephant (38)
5. All the Real Girls (35.5)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (33)
7. Kill Bill V.1 (29.5)
8. Oldboy (24.5)
9. Cowards Bend the Knee (23)
10. Spring Summer Fall Winter … and Spring (22)

Not quite:
Master and Commander (21)
The Station Agent (20.5)
Last Life in the Universe (17)

[MacGuffin]

Dogville rules! Anybody seen Dogville Confessions (it didn't come with my DVD)?

[Spinal]

I love this list. Nine very good to great films and one I look forward to seeing.

[D_Davis]

I like these 2:

Master and Commander (21)
The Station Agent (20.5)

much better than these 2:

2. Lost in Translation (54)
3. Finding Nemo (42)

[Pop Trash]

"Few other directors would risk career suicide by mounting a three-hour opus on a barely appointed stage, but the incendiary Dogville confirms the director's sadistic knack for locating his characters' (and his audience's) soft spots and prodding them for a singular emotional experience ... But tagging Dogville as strictly anti-American is missing the larger picture, because it's pliant enough to accommodate several readings—as Christian allegory, as comment on the immigrant experience, or as one of von Trier's pessimistic studies of female martyrdom." - Scott Tobias
This here sums up quite well why I don't like Dogville.

[Spinal]

Dogville rules! Anybody seen Dogville Confessions (it didn't come with my DVD)?

I've seen it, but I have the Korean DVD, so the non-English speakers don't have English subtitles. Kind of fun from the stuff I was able to understand.

[Spinal]

This here sums up quite well why I don't like Dogville.

You don't like singular emotional experiences?

[D_Davis]

Oh, and Spinal, I am going to be doing some serious Lars von Trier movie watching soon.

[Spinal]

Oh, and Spinal, I am going to be doing some serious Lars von Trier movie watching soon.

Doesn't seem like your kind of guy, but good luck with that. :)

[Pop Trash]

You don't like singular emotional experiences?
Not when they are as manipulative as Von Triers latest films.

[Spinal]

Not when they are as manipulative as Von Triers latest films.

Oh well. Scoreboard.

[Philosophe_rouge]

I will probably get around to seeing Dogville sometime, though Trier and I don't seem to be very compatible.

[D_Davis]

Doesn't seem like your kind of guy, but good luck with that. :)

I am interested in his views on Christianity and how this has shaped his films.

My dad and I were talking about Breaking the Waves the other day, and it made me want to revisit that film, as well as the others I have not seen.

I like more than kung fu films you know!

;)

I need some "deeper" films to compliment all the great fiction I am reading. Getting kind of tired of all the fluffy movies I usually watch.

I need a cinematic equivalent of Ballard, Dick, Sturgeon, and Bester.

[Pop Trash]

Oh well. Scoreboard.
Wha?

I do like Von Trier's 90s output. I think somewhere around Dancer in the Dark I started to see through his schtick (plus his 'I haven't been to America, but I'll criticize it anyways' annoyed me) I will concede he is great with actors (or at least getting great performances out of actors...apparently the actors don't like him much though since both Bjork and Nicole Kidman haven't worked with him since)

[Watashi]

Did you see Kung Fu Panda, Davis?

[Spinal]

My dad and I were talking about Breaking the Waves the other day, and it made me want to revisit that film, as well as the others I have not seen.


You know who really liked this film? Father Barry. That was always one of my favorite reviews because it made me see one of my favorite films from a perspective I never would have considered.

[D_Davis]

You know who really liked this film? Father Barry. That was always one of my favorite reviews because it made me see one of my favorite films from a perspective I never would have considered.

Cool. My dad studied the film in one of the divinity classes he just took.

I never even thought about this aspect when I first struggled to watch the film years ago.

I was probably just a little too young in mind and spirit.

[D_Davis]

Did you see Kung Fu Panda, Davis?

No. The "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting" turned me off.

From the trailers it seemed like another imperialistic, western take on the genre with a mocking tone.

I've heard people like it though.

Why do you ask?

[Watashi]

No. The "Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting" turned me off.

From the trailers it seemed like another imperialistic, western take on the genre with a mocking tone.

I've heard people like it though.

Why do you ask?

It's completely the opposite. It's actually a full-on homage to the genre that doesn't have any pop references or crazy music-filled montages. You'd love it.

Because you like... kung fu... and stuff.

[D_Davis]

It's completely the opposite. It's actually a full-on homage to the genre that doesn't have any pop references or crazy music-filled montages. You'd love it.

Because you like... kung fu... and stuff.


That's cool. Maybe I'll check it out on DVD.

Glad to hear the mocking tone of the trailers didn't properly convey the tone of the actual film.

[Spinal]

I think somewhere around Dancer in the Dark I started to see through his schtick

What is his schtick?



(plus his 'I haven't been to America, but I'll criticize it anyways' annoyed me)


What if you found out that Shakespeare had never been to Verona? At any rate, the film is about the mythologized version of America that is pushed on people around the globe. Hence, the abstract setting. Clearly, Trier knows enough about America to make the film. I've lived here my whole life and find it to be pretty insightful. It's funny that the quote I used refutes your argument and yet you used it to support your views anyway.



I will concede he is great with actors (or at least getting great performances out of actors...apparently the actors don't like him much though since both Bjork and Nicole Kidman haven't worked with him since)

Gossip. Has nothing to do with the film. Unless you are a big-time actor, I don't know why you should care. Incidentally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Bjork was an equal, if not greater, antagonist in that situation. Incidentally, what future projects did you imagine Bjork and Trier working on together? Incidentally, Bryce Dallas Howard said she would love to work with him again. Incidentally, many, many actors appear repeatedly in Trier's films. Go look at the cast lists.

[D_Davis]

I've never been to China but I feel confident in criticizing their human rights violations and extreme censorship.

Sometimes, having a far-removed perspective allows for the best kind of criticism.

[Pop Trash]

What is his schtick?



What if you found out that Shakespeare had never been to Verona? At any rate, the film is about the mythologized version of America that is pushed on people around the globe. Hence, the abstract setting. Clearly, Trier knows enough about America to make the film. I've lived here my whole life and find it to be pretty insightful. It's funny that the quote I used refutes your argument and yet you used it to support your views anyway.



Gossip. Has nothing to do with the film. Unless you are a big-time actor, I don't know why you should care. Incidentally, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Bjork was an equal, if not greater, antagonist in that situation. Incidentally, what future projects did you imagine Bjork and Trier working on together? Incidentally, Bryce Dallas Howard said she would love to work with him again. Incidentally, many, many actors appear repeatedly in Trier's films. Go look at the cast lists.

*sigh*...I've had so many conversations with people, both in real life and on the interweb, about why I don't like Dogville and it always turns into some point/counterpoint thing that goes nowhere. It just comes down to: all of the reasons you (or the critic you sited) like the film are probably the reasons why I don't like the film.

[Spinal]

*sigh*...I've had so many conversations with people, both in real life and on the interweb, about why I don't like Dogville and it always turns into some point/counterpoint thing that goes nowhere.

Well, if you don't accept counterpoints to your points, then of course it's going to go nowhere. It seems to me that you're still stuck on criticisms of the film and the director that have long since been blasted out of the water.

[Pop Trash]

Well, if you don't accept counterpoints to your points, then of course it's going to go nowhere. It seems to me that you're still stuck on criticisms of the film and the director that have long since been blasted out of the water.
Except they haven't. Me and plenty of other prof. critics have slagged on Dogville (and Manderlay even more so) But you are a bigtime Von Trier fanboy right? It would be like trying to convince me that Kill Bill or Grindhouse sucks. It's just not going to happen so why even bother?

[Sven]

Except they haven't. Me and plenty of other prof. critics have slagged on Dogville (and Manderlay even more so) But you are a bigtime Von Trier fanboy right? It would be like trying to convince me that Kill Bill or Grindhouse sucks. It's just not going to happen so why even bother?

So much for constructive discourse.

[Qrazy]

I like these 2:

Master and Commander (21)
The Station Agent (20.5)

much better than these 2:

2. Lost in Translation (54)
3. Finding Nemo (42)

The Station Agent felt very pedestrian and been there done that to me. I prefer MC to LiT but Nemo to both.

[Pop Trash]

So much for constructive discourse.
It's not that I'm against constructive discourse. It's just that...like I said...I've had so much discourse re: Dogville that I'm a little tired of it. Some people like it. I don't. That's that.

[Qrazy]

So much for constructive discourse.

Constructive discourse being a point/counter-point for 3 pages of things everyone who has ever ventured into a Von Trier thread has heard numerous times over? I'm sure Spinal has already heard the criticisms from Pop Trash, myself, Rouge and many many others. Von Trier creates his films in a highly manipulative/constructed (depending on whether or not you're a fan) manner and people are either turned off by it or enjoy the prodding and/or parable-like approach and feel Trier creates a potent emotional experience.

[Sven]

Constructive discourse being a point/counter-point for 3 pages of things everyone who has ever ventured into a Von Trier thread has heard numerous times over? I'm sure Spinal has already heard the criticisms from Pop Trash, myself, Rouge and many many others. Von Trier creates his films in a highly manipulative/constructed (depending on whether or not you're a fan) manner and people are either turned off by it or enjoy the prodding and/or parable-like approach and feel Trier creates a potent emotional experience.

I was speaking of Pop Trash's implications that Spinal's defenses are the product of fanboyism as opposed to intelligent analysis.

[Qrazy]

I was speaking of Pop Trash's implications that Spinal's defenses are the product of fanboyism as opposed to intelligent analysis.

Ah, well from that angle yeah you have a point. But I don't think he meant it that way, I think he meant more that as a die hard fan he knew which side of the argument Spinal would fall on, an argument he'd had many times before and didn't wish to have again.

[Sven]

I think it very unfortunate (although I admit that I'm guilty of this more often than I ought to be) that the goal of many contentious dialogues is to change the listener to your point of view. Ideally, the goal should be to reach a mutual understanding of the others opinion, and maybe learn a few things, about perspective or aesthetics or otherwise, along the way.

[Pop Trash]

Ah, well from that angle yeah you have a point. But I don't think he meant it that way, I think he meant more that as a die hard fan he knew which side of the argument Spinal would fall on, an argument he'd had many times before and didn't wish to have again.
Exactly. I've seriously had beers with some of my more cinephile friends and discussed Dogville for an hour. It became clear that we weren't going anywhere because the things I didn't like about it were the things they loved about it. So you just wind up in a stalemate. I don't think a discourse is going to change someones views on something if they really don't like it or really love something. I've read the critiques on Lost in Translation but it doesn't change the fact that I love it.

[Spinal]

We're not even really talking about a substantial critique of the film. We're talking about whether it is manipulative (duh), anti-American (as if this negates the film's quality ... as if this isn't a valid perspective for a foreigner making a film during the Bush administration), whether Trier has the right to even make the film based on his travel history (an argument as absurd today as it was five years ago) and whether or not Trier is nice to the people he works with (do you like the films of David O. Russell? Dreyer? Kubrick?). I am willing to listen and respond to criticism of the film, but you gotta do better than this.

Also, I am not a blind devotee of Trier's films. I was the first on this site to declare his last film a major disappointment. I also was harshly critical of Dear Wendy, for which he wrote the screenplay. He just happens to have made some of the best films of this decade. If Baz Luhrmann had done that, I'd be kissing his ass instead.

[Sven]

I always love it when Spinal whips it out. Great times.

[Raiders]

Also, I am not a blind devotee of Trier's films. I was the first on this site to declare his last film a major disappointment. I also was harshly critical of Dear Wendy, for which he wrote the screenplay.

Don't forget Epidemic. What an awful film.

[Spinal]

Don't forget Epidemic. What an awful film.

His worst. Yes. Not good.

[Qrazy]

I think it very unfortunate (although I admit that I'm guilty of this more often than I ought to be) that the goal of many contentious dialogues is to change the listener to your point of view. Ideally, the goal should be to reach a mutual understanding of the others opinion, and maybe learn a few things, about perspective or aesthetics or otherwise, along the way.

And often understanding will not be reached because the two people have a disagreement on a very fundamental ideological level. Sometimes it's worth peeling away the 'this is good'/'this is bad' label to reveal the ideological level, other times it's not... for instance when the ideological/aesthetic disagreement is fairly surface apparent.

[Qrazy]

We're not even really talking about a substantial critique of the film. We're talking about whether it is manipulative (duh), anti-American (as if this negates the film's quality ... as if this isn't a valid perspective for a foreigner making a film during the Bush administration), whether Trier has the right to even make the film based on his travel history (an argument as absurd today as it was five years ago) and whether or not Trier is nice to the people he works with (do you like the films of David O. Russell? Dreyer? Kubrick?). I am willing to listen and respond to criticism of the film, but you gotta do better than this.

Also, I am not a blind devotee of Trier's films. I was the first on this site to declare his last film a major disappointment. I also was harshly critical of Dear Wendy, for which he wrote the screenplay. He just happens to have made some of the best films of this decade. If Baz Luhrmann had done that, I'd be kissing his ass instead.

Well given the manipulative nature of his work you should be able to recognize how subjective your 'best films of the decade' comment is. Personally I don't believe he has even yet made a good film (thematically/ideologically... he has formally) let alone a great one.

[Spinal]

Well given the manipulative nature of his work you should be able to recognize how subjective your 'best films of the decade' comment is. Personally I don't believe he has even yet made a good film (thematically/ideologically... he has formally) let alone a great one.

Of course it's subjective. The point of that statement was that my opinion of the filmmaker comes based on my evaluation of his work. I don't decide ahead of time that I will support the film no matter what the content, which is what had been implied.

[Ezee E]

When is Lars going to do Washington? I hear that an actress who said she'd never work with him again, would actually come back and finish it... Nicole Kidman.

It was John C. Reilly who walked off one of his movies because he didn't like the horse killing.

Anyways, back to the films, Dogville is great, made my top five. Scriptwise, I think it's one of the best written films ever. And I like Manderlay even more. Von Trier begins to use the advantages of that stage well, and the result is a masterpiece.

[Spinal]

When is Lars going to do Washington? I hear that an actress who said she'd never work with him again, would actually come back and finish it... Nicole Kidman.

Did she ever actually say that? I know that she has turned down Trier projects and told stories about her difficulties on Dogville, but I don't recall ever coming across her saying that. She has always been more coy in the interviews I have read. Would like to see a link if one exists just so I stay informed.

[Ezee E]

Years ago, so it may never even happen:

Article (http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/news/451/nicole-kidman-to-reunite-with-von-trier.html)

[Spinal]

Years ago, so it may never even happen:

Article (http://www.timeout.com/film/newyork/news/451/nicole-kidman-to-reunite-with-von-trier.html)

Oh, I meant the part about "never working with him again".

[Grouchy]

I think LiT is ridiculously overrated*. I don't think it's meaning is subtle; it's non-existent. When Bob and Charlotte are out with their Japanese "friends" is a terribly uncomfortable moment for me. I don't see them as engaging in the culture so much as almost laughing at it. Their singing is just for each other; they practically ignore everyone else.

Not that it doesn't have it's good points, but I doubt that people would have much more to critique if Coppola wasn't directing.


*Of course, Bill Murray's as good as good can be.
Exactly. The whole comedy of the film is based on deliberate alienation from foreign culture, both from the two insipid protagonists and from Sofia Coppola, who should spare us her stupid genetic desires to make films and to act in them. If her narrow-minded and self-centered approach wasn't enough to condemn Lost in Translation for the piece of shit it is, there's also the fact that the character dynamics between the lovers are forced upon by pretty framing while the acting, both from Murray and Johansonn, is as phony and cold as it gets. Terrible film, and I'm glad it didn't top the list.

Heh, I'm just offering a counter-point to the whole Dogville discussion. Oldboy is the genuine #1 here, but the Von Trier film is, by contrast, an intelligent, worthy movie about culture clash and idiosincracy.

[Pop Trash]

Exactly. The whole comedy of the film is based on deliberate alienation from foreign culture, both from the two insipid protagonists and from Sofia Coppola, who should spare us her stupid genetic desires to make films and to act in them. If her narrow-minded and self-centered approach wasn't enough to condemn Lost in Translation for the piece of shit it is, there's also the fact that the character dynamics between the lovers are forced upon by pretty framing while the acting, both from Murray and Johansonn, is as phony and cold as it gets. Terrible film, and I'm glad it didn't top the list.

Heh, I'm just offering a counter-point to the whole Dogville discussion. Oldboy is the genuine #1 here, but the Von Trier film is, by contrast, an intelligent, worthy movie about culture clash and idiosincracy.
*barf*

[transmogrifier]

Exactly. The whole comedy of the film is based on deliberate alienation from foreign culture.....

Which is inherently bad because....?


If her narrow-minded and self-centered approach wasn't enough to condemn Lost in Translation for the piece of shit it is,

Have you met many of the people who come to Asia to live and work?


...there's also the fact that the character dynamics between the lovers are forced upon by pretty framing

This makes absolutely no sense as either criticism or a sentence.


...while the acting, both from Murray and Johansonn, is as phony and cold as it gets.

Phony how? In that they are not, in fact, an aging celebrity and a curvy, kind-of-not-all-there nymph?

And I don't even love LiT all that much.

[Melville]

there's also the fact that the character dynamics between the lovers are forced upon by pretty framing
This makes absolutely no sense as either criticism or a sentence.
I think he dropped the phrase "the audience" after "forced upon." In other words, the character dynamics are evoked through the visual style of the film—which is a good thing and one of the film's greatest strengths. The film crafts the characters' states of mind and their relationship principally through its use of visuals and music, rather than through their dialogue. I can't imagine why that should be criticized.

Also, Murray's performance rocks. Hard. The forlorn look in his eyes when he leaves the hotel for the last time is understated gold.

[Boner M]

I too, am on the pro-LiT bandwagon, and it kinda disappoints me that it's so frequently used by cinephiles as the 'whipping boy(/girl?)' to praise their favorite likeminded Asian art films. As much as I like Wong, I don't think he's ever come close to realising the mood that Coppola creates in this film.

And I can't imagine how someone could find the two lead performances 'phony' or 'cold'. Murray is obviously phenomenal, and compare Johansson's work here with most of her other roles, and it becomes clear what a canny director of actors Coppola is.

[Grouchy]

Ok, let me rephrase my criticisms. I find Lost in Translation has a great visual style (and great use of focus too), but it lacks in the human elements - Bill Murray's blank slate performance is the best thing in the film, but he's totally disconnected from Scarlett, who's a sucky actress and has a range of about 10 pretty faces. They're two actors not hearing each other, and their scenes together are boring and contrived.

A movie has no obligation to be politically correct, but I don't like the fact that all of the jokes about Japanese culture could be made by a burgeois (sp?) fratpack family on holiday. I understand the film is about alienation, but the scenes with the prostitute and the karaoke are disturbingly narrow-minded for me. Admittedly, I'm not one for ennui, since I'm not big on most Antonioni either despite recognizing the quality of his work, but the whole point of the movie being about these two unlikeable people not having much to do gives me a pain in the ass.

Saying WKW hasn't realised the mood Sofia Coppola achieves here is like saying Aliens and the first two Terminator movies never reach the heights of action and excitement of Transformers.

[transmogrifier]

As much as I like Wong, I don't think he's ever come close to realising the mood that Coppola creates in this film..

+Right<--->Wrong-+You <---> Me-+Right<--->Wrong

[Melville]

Ok, let me rephrase my criticisms. I find Lost in Translation has a great visual style (and great use of focus too), but it lacks in the human elements - Bill Murray's blank slate performance is the best thing in the film, but he's totally disconnected from Scarlett, who's a sucky actress and has a range of about 10 pretty faces. They're two actors not hearing each other, and their scenes together are boring and contrived.

A movie has no obligation to be politically correct, but I don't like the fact that all of the jokes about Japanese culture could be made by a burgeois (sp?) fratpack family on holiday. I understand the film is about alienation, but the scenes with the prostitute and the karaoke are disturbingly narrow-minded for me. Admittedly, I'm not one for ennui, since I'm not big on most Antonioni either despite recognizing the quality of his work, but the whole point of the movie being about these two unlikeable people not having much to do gives me a pain in the ass.

Saying WKW hasn't realised the mood Sofia Coppola achieves here is like saying Aliens and the first two Terminator movies never reach the heights of action and excitement of Transformers.

I agree that Johansson's performance could be better, and I think the film's major flaw is its narcissistic embrace of its central characters at the expense of everybody else. (Though I find the ridicule of Anna Faris' character to be more offensively narcissistic than the jokes about Japanese culture.) But neither of those things negate Coppola's brilliant capture of a mood—which I think is actually at its best in the karaoke scene, when the connection between the characters is most strikingly evoked through the music, editing, focus, and so on. Murray singing "More Than This" to a smiling Johansson is as good as bittersweet romance can get.

[Spinal]

All three films I've seen from Coppola > All films I have seen from Wong

[Melville]

In the Mood for Love > Lost in Translation > Marie Antoinette > 2046 > Chungking Express > Happy Together > Days of Being Wild > Fallen Angels

[origami_mustache]

I agree with much of Grouchy's sentiments...I haven't seen Marie Antoinette, and Lost In Translation deserves another watch, but as of now I consider the two Sofia Coppola films I've seen good, not great.

[Izzy Black]

As much as I like Wong, I don't think he's ever come close to realising the mood that Coppola creates in this film.

Absurd!


All three films I've seen from Coppola > All films I have seen from Wong

What's going on here? Am I going crazy?

[Spinal]

What's going on here? Am I going crazy?

Never been a fan.

[Sycophant]

I like Lost in Translation as much as the next guy, presuming the next guy is neither Grouchy nor Boner (or anyone of their ilks), but I can name at least three Wong films that easily surpass it.

Though I haven't seen LiT since the theater.

[Izzy Black]

As for Nicole Kidman, interesting tidbit from an interview she had circa Margot at the Wedding release - she talks about turning down Lars. The entire interview is a really interesting read if you are a fan of the actress. She goes into detail her experience with working with Lars von Trier, and perhaps we can gather from this her reluctance to work with him again, but I would not say she would completely rule out working with him again in the future.


Julie Rigg: There is, yes. When I think about the choices that you've made of roles in your career, the films that I've most responded to and admired are the tough films in which you're not necessarily playing likable characters. I thought Grace in Dogville was fantastic, and it's a very tough film for people to watch because she's a kind of metaphor for well-meaning do-gooders but, again, with not a huge amount of kindness.

Nicole Kidman: Lars used to always challenge me on that because I think she thinks she has an enormous amount of kindness but because of the extreme compassion, it's actually unkind. I think that is Lars exploring through Brechtian techniques philosophies on life. I'm drawn to directors that I consider to be philosophers and you can't always make films like that because they don't get the money a lot of the times and you've got to do them for almost nothing, and there's not very many scripts that are written with big ideas. Obviously Kubrick was one of the forerunners in that realm where his films are philosophical ideas. I think Lars runs in that vein as well.

Julie Rigg: I've talked to Lars a couple of times and he's a handful. What sort of things did he have you doing when you were making...I mean, we see you wearing a dog collar and chain on screen, but are his methods unconventional?

Nicole Kidman: No, not at all, which is what I'm drawn to because I think my whole quest as an actor is the adventure of it, is the experimentation and a lot of the times when I fail in films is when I try to conform, so part of me gives over to the idea that I just can't conform. A lot of the times the people around you want you to do commercial films because that somehow guarantees longevity, but ultimately I think you have to be true to what your nature is, and my nature is non-conformist. So with something like Dogville I'm very drawn to going and living in Sweden in a guest house with ten other actors and it's dark all the time and you're working with Lars von Trier and you work 10:00am until 4:00pm and that's it, but he keeps the camera running the whole time from the minute you step on the set.

Julie Rigg: I read an interview with Paul Bettany around the time it came out in which he said you two were introduced, Lars left you alone, and you started to talk and then you heard a noise on the balcony and he was crouched there eavesdropping.

Nicole Kidman: Shocking. And that was just the beginning. I think I tried to quit the film three times because he said, 'I want to tie you up and whip you, and that's not to be kind.' I was, like, what do mean? I've come all this way to rehearse with you, to work with you, and now you're telling me you want to tie me up and whip me? But that's Lars, and Lars takes his clothes off and stands there naked and you're like, 'Oh put your clothes back on Lars, please, let's just shoot the film.' but he's very, very raw and he's almost like a child in that he'll say and do anything. And we would have to eat dinner every night and most of the time that would end with me in tears because Lars would sit next to me and drink peach schnapps and get drunk and get abusive and I'd leave and...anyway, then we'd go to work the next morning. But I say this laughing...

Julie Rigg: I do now understand why you didn't do the sequel.

Nicole Kidman: I didn't do the sequel but I'm still very good friends with him, strangely enough, because I admire his honesty and I see him as an artist, and I say, my gosh, it's such a hard world now to have a unique voice, and he certainly has that, and he hasn't bent over to any of the mainstream approaches to filmmaking or money, and I admire it.

Julie Rigg: You've said you're drawn to the adventurous and the kind of outsider movies, why is it do you think that your best work is really very dark characters, neurotic often, and not very likeable?

Nicole Kidman: I hope not, I hope it's not that way. I still love Cold Mountain and I love Moulin Rouge and I don't think those are dark themes at all. I think it's easy to...that's how I've been tagged, but at the same time I can come up with an argument, which I'd prefer a critic or a journalist to do, as to that not being the case. So it's more difficult for me to dissect my work, but I still love working with Baz who brings out my joy, he really does, and I hope that's what comes out in Australia and it certainly came out in Moulin Rouge. Those roles are my balance because they're about love and love in its purest, finest form rather than love in its darkest form.

Julie Rigg: Perhaps you could say to Lars that you'll make a film if he'll come to Australia.

Nicole Kidman: He just offered me a film called Antichrist which I passed on. Somebody will make it but it's not going to be me.

Other interesting comments:


I read most of the Russians then and I was really young and I was reading Crime and Punishment and War and Peace and dreaming that I was Natasha and becoming Madame Bovary. That's what unleashed, I think, my imagination and subsequently drew me to getting lost in characters and taking on different skins and I continue to read now.

Julie Rigg: What are you reading at the moment?

Nicole Kidman: I just finished The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and I read Eat, Pray, Love, and I'm now tossing up between whether I go and read a classic again or...I've never read Remembrance of Things Past, so I'm possibly going to tackle that.

Julie Rigg: I got stuck on volume one, I have to say...

Nicole Kidman: But it's sort of a nice balance; you read some contemporary literature and then you go, okay, let me go back. I was also going to read The Road which I heard was very good.


Julie Rigg: Yes, I thought The Squid and the Whale was also a very fine film, but then to turn to sisters...did he consciously have Bergman in mind? I was thinking Eric Rohmer.

Nicole Kidman: That's his main...that's who they always reference in relation to this film, but he got us to watch a number of Bergman films and I think he's just a mishmash of European cinema, and then given his New York sensibility...

It is nice to know Hollywood's greatest actress takes art seriously.

[Grouchy]

(Though I find the ridicule of Anna Faris' character to be more offensively narcissistic than the jokes about Japanese culture.)
Ugh, I'd forgotten about that. That narcissistic mocking of a stereotype of blonde bombshell, while the main female character is equally stupid and shallow. Plus, while I know this is all gossip and probably not worth mentioning, I've heard someone arguing that the Anna Faris character stood for Cameron Diaz and the photographer dude for Spike Jonze, which just makes all of it more irritating and juvenile. If every late teenager in the world had a father like Coppola, I bet we'd be filled with Lost in Translations. I admit the movie is very visually striking, but I wonder how much of that merit goes to the DP.

The comparisons to WKW are completely out of place here.

Everything WKW has ever done >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Virgin Suicides > Lost in Translation > Marie-Antoniette

[Izzy Black]

Besides, what Wong does is nothing like what Coppola did with this film. Kar Wai's framing is cluttered but capacious. Coppola's is flattened and dreamy. The semblance lies only in the pacing, the color palette, and perhaps the claustrophobic styles - though it is achieved differently. A much better comparison would be Hsiao-hsien Hou - his telephoto lens and dreamy metropolitan aesthetic comes closer to Coppola's. Not to mention that Coppola's house and postpunk music leanings comes closer to Hou's soundtracks than Wong's. Inasmuch as this comparison apt, I would take Hou's city-aestheticism of Millennium Mambo and Three Times over Lost in Translation - but the latter is nonetheless a good film.

[Melville]

Everything WKW has ever done >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Virgin Suicides > Lost in Translation > Marie-Antoniette
Oh, yeah, I forgot about The Virgin Suicides.

In the Mood for Love > Lost in Translation > Marie Antoinette > 2046 > Chungking Express > Happy Together > Days of Being Wild > Fallen Angels > The Virgin Suicides

[Pop Trash]

And here I thought this thread would derail into a neverending Dogville debate...

[Izzy Black]

Another aesthetic postmodernist down Coppola's alley is Michael Mann. Still a better comparison than Wong Kar Wai.

[Spinal]

I don't see much similarity between Coppola and Wong either, but every time you praise the former, some Wong fan gets all twitchy.

[Izzy Black]

I don't see much similarity between Coppola and Wong either, but every time you praise the former, some Wong fan gets all twitchy.

Seems a bit like a non-sequitur to me. I have no problem liking them both. Sofia Coppola is a fascinating artist. She is very fun to deconstruct.

[Melville]

I admit the movie is very visually striking, but I wonder how much of that merit goes to the DP.
That seems a bit silly. Coppola worked as a designer and photographer before becoming a director, and each of her films has a unified aesthetic that encompasses not just cinematography but art direction, music and sound, costumes, and editing. Anyway, I don't really care who gets the credit as long as the end product is good.


Besides, what Wong does is nothing like what Coppola did with this film. Kar Wai's framing is cluttered but capacious. Coppola's is flattened and dreamy. The semblance lies only in the pacing, the color palette, and perhaps the claustrophobic styles - though it is achieved differently.
Yeah, I don't think their aesthetics (or even the moods they strive for) are all that similar. Wong's films are notable for dramatic lighting and the use of large objects in the foreground to frame or obstruct part of the image, neither of which appear in Coppola's films. However, Coppola has said that she was influenced by WKW.

I have yet to see a Hou Hsiao-hsien film, unfortunately.

[Pop Trash]

Didn't Coppola thank WKW when she won her Oscar? I think she also thanked Godard and possibly Antonioni or Fellini or something. Or did I imagine that? I thought that was really cool of her.

[Pop Trash]

I have yet to see a Hou Hsiao-hsien film, unfortunately.
I rented Three Times, but I couldn't get the damn subtitiles to work so I turned it off. I liked the visuals that I saw and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is a pretty song.

[Rowland]

The only Hou Hsiao-hsien film that has really clicked with me is Millennium Mambo, though I do admire his other movies that I've seen to varying degrees, particularly Goodbye South, Goodbye. Three Times lost me after the first segment, and Flowers of Shanghai's form serves its function too acutely for its own good, so that the atrophied milieu grows suffocating and for me nearly sleep-inducing.

[Izzy Black]

That seems a bit silly. Coppola worked as a designer and photographer before becoming a director, and each of her films has a unified aesthetic that encompasses not just cinematography but art direction, music and sound, costumes, and editing. Anyway, I don't really care who gets the credit as long as the end product is good.


Yeah, I don't think their aesthetics (or even the moods they strive for) are all that similar. Wong's films are notable for dramatic lighting and the use of large objects in the foreground to frame or obstruct part of the image, neither of which appear in Coppola's films. However, Coppola has said that she was influenced by WKW.

I have yet to see a Hou Hsiao-hsien film.

Well, actually, if you watch this clip (http://youtube.com/watch?v=B0nPSy1-UXE), you can see that Coppola does a lot of the blocking effect Wong Kar Wai does.1 This is why I said they are similar in terms of their claustrophobia, but they they do it differently. For example, Wong Kar Wai's camera is static and unmoving. It sits behind the inanimate objects that block the field of view, peering behind them, or through them at the actor. He usually uses a wide-angle lens so as to capture the deep background and foreground in the same shot. Coppola is more like Hou - her camera pans and is almost always moving, and is blurred by objects that seem to get in the way of the camera. The effect is quite different than Kar Wai's. It is as though the camera is its own character moving in a crowded room of individuals trying to breath from all the congestion. This puts more emphasis on staging and blocking of actors than Kar Wai's cinema, which is more about set design. His isolation is depicted literally with individuals trapped in closed spaces. Hou's and Coppola's isolation/alienation is depicted in the postmodern style a la Ridley Scott's Blade Runner - where crowded spaces leads to and/or signifies isolation, discomfort, and even disaffection. We can see some influence of Wong Kar Wai in Coppola, but I find that is more just in the aesthetic idea of a visual language and atmosphere than the actual technique that he used, which, is either an advent of her own, or influence from other filmmakers, arguably Paul Thomas Anderson, who uses this technique/style in Magnolia.

1. You can see it first in the beginning with the entire highway sequence how the beams block the camera's line of sight in her flattened field of view. There is also a lot of blurring and out-of-focus shots, which again, is a result of the telephoto lens, and puts her in the camp of Hou over Wong. Go to 1:20, 3:33, and 3:52 for other obvious examples - you can specifically see how the flattened space alone causes this type of blocking.

[Izzy Black]

Didn't Coppola thank WKW when she won her Oscar? I think she also thanked Godard and possibly Antonioni or Fellini or something. Or did I imagine that? I thought that was really cool of her.

If she thanked several directors that would make much more sense. Her aesthetic is to mature to be directly influenced by WKW. I see a synthesis of Wai, Antonioni, and possibly PTA.

[Izzy Black]

I rented Three Times, but I couldn't get the damn subtitiles to work so I turned it off. I liked the visuals that I saw and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is a pretty song.

Too bad. I consider Three Times Hou's masterpiece. It is possibly the best film released in the past two decades.

[Izzy Black]

The only Hou Hsiao-hsien film that has really clicked with me is Millennium Mambo, though I do admire his other movies that I've seen, particularly Goodbye South, Goodbye.

Both are good, you might also like Three Times and Good Men, Good Women. If you are patient for a slightly different style, I think City of Sadness is also quite accessible.

[Spinal]

Millennium Mambo has one good shot at the beginning of the film and that's about it. Probably the most static stasiscore film I've seen. No humor, no passion, no ideas. I have difficulty understanding what people see in films like that.

[Rowland]

Millennium Mambo is one of the more lyrical and soulful "stasiscore" films I've seen, but I do sympathize with your perspective, given how bored I was by Flowers of Shanghai, which is generally cited as one of his stronger works. I suspect his style is more effective when viewed in a theater.

[Izzy Black]

Millennium Mambo has one good shot at the beginning of the film and that's about it. Probably the most static stasiscore film I've seen. No humor, no passion, no ideas. I have difficulty understanding what people see in films like that.

No humor? The following scene after the opening tracking-shot sequence shows individuals celebrating the new millennium with one guy playing faux-magic tricks and telling jokes as the others laugh. Perhaps you do not click with the language-culture here, but there is definitely humor to be had in this scene, and this scene, for example, reminds of the Karaoke scene in Lost in Translation. In general, however, the film is very somber, bleak, and forlorn - but this is because the film is about a girl whose entire generation is lost and confused. It reflects Hou's meditation on how time and society change and affect the individual in the vein of Ozu and Antonioni. I think the suggestion that the film has no ideas is terribly inaccurate, at least, from where I am sitting. He is wrestling with, almost from a conservative mindset, or perhaps, indeed a conservative mindset, the loss of morals and identity as generations and time progresses, and this is most expertly captured in Three Times. He uses an unpretentious aesthetic language rather than obvious plot machinations and didactic dialogue to articulate, in a very nuanced manner, the nature of this sentiment. By doing this, he creates his own world in a singular visual language, whether fictional or not, where this decline, should we call it that, or transition rather, is undeniably eminent and in effect. This is all reflected by his relationship to Taiwan and its changing sociopolitical standing in the world. Hou is a fascinating filmmaker. I think his films are cinematic tone poems, and I wonder even if Wong Kar Wai has been influenced by him with his latest film My Blueberry Nights - which moves more into Hou's direction than anywhere else. (I had previously been highly reluctant to compare the two for which they often were so superficially lunged together due mostly to their regional proximity.)

[Melville]

Well, actually, if you watch this clip (http://youtube.com/watch?v=B0nPSy1-UXE), you can see that Coppola does a lot of the blocking effect Wong Kar Wai does.1 This is why I said they are similar in terms of their claustrophobia, but they they do it differently. For example, Wong Kar Wai's camera is static and unmoving. It sits behind the inanimate objects that block the field of view, peering behind them, or through them at the actor. He usually uses a wide-angle lens so as to capture the deep background and foreground in the same shot. Coppola is more like Hou - her camera pans and is almost always moving, and is blurred by objects that seem to get in the way of the camera. The effect is quite different than Kar Wai's. It is as though the camera is its own character moving in a crowded room of individuals trying to breath from all the congestion. This puts more emphasis on staging and blocking of actors than Kar Wai's cinema, which is more about set design. His isolation is depicted literally with individuals trapped in closed spaces. Hou's and Coppola's isolation/alienation is depicted in the postmodern style a la Ridley Scott's Blade Runner - where crowded spaces leads to and/or signifies isolation, discomfort, and even disaffection. We can see some influence of Wong Kar Wai in Coppola, but I find that is more just in the aesthetic idea of a visual language and atmosphere than the actual technique that he used, which, is either an advent of her own, or influence from other filmmakers, arguably Paul Thomas Anderson, who uses this technique/style in Magnolia.

1. You can see it first in the beginning with the entire highway sequence how the beams block the camera's line of sight in her flattened field of view. There is also a lot of blurring and out-of-focus shots, which again, is a result of the telephoto lens, and puts her in the camp of Hou over Wong. Go to 1:20, 3:33, and 3:52 for other obvious examples - you can specifically see how the flattened space alone causes this type of blocking.

Hm.. I still don't see a strong similarity. There's nothing in those clips that really resembles the dramatic framing of shots like these:

http://www.brown.edu/Students/INDY/archives/2005-11-10/images/2046.jpg

http://www.adelynlee.com/fun/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mood_love_bars.jpg

http://parkbenchsociety.blogs.friends ter.com/photos/uncategorized/bookpg2.jpg

Also, as you say, Coppola's images are filled with soft-focus, translucence, and soft colors (which together evoke a very particular feeling of a city at night), while WKW's images are usually filled with saturated colors and dramatic shadows. And you make a good point with the constant motion of the camera in LiT; the camera doesn't pan dramatically as with a steadicam, nor does it have the violent jitters of a Greengrass film: it just kind of lilts around. That lends a kind of soft instability to the images that works very well with the soft focus and shoegazer music.


And I just realized that I have seen one Hou film, Three Times, which I loved.

[Izzy Black]

Hm.. I still don't see a strong similarity. There's nothing in those clips that really resembles the dramatic framing of shots like these:

You must have misread my post. I was not disagreeing with the point that there is not a strong similarity. In fact, I have been arguing that the entire thread, and was the first to present the argument. I was just shamelessly quibbling on your point about objects blocking the camera view. Hou's cinema does do this, but very differently, and to a different effect. Although, it does share the sense of claustrophobia or isolation with Wong Kar Wai's cinema, but this is a very loose association, as many artist's share this technique. I was merely interested in starting with something similar to illustrate a point of their actual difference.




Also, as you say, Coppola's images are filled with soft-focus, translucence, and soft colors (which together evoke a very particular feeling of a city at night), while WKW's images are usually filled with saturated colors and dramatic shadows. And you make a good point with the constant motion of the camera in LiT; the camera doesn't pan dramatically as with a steadicam, nor does it have the violent jitters of a Greengrass film: it just kind of lilts around. That lends a kind of soft instability to the images that works very well with the soft focus and shoegazer music.

Indeed.


And I just realized that I have seen one Hou film, Three Times, which I loved.

:)

[Melville]

You must have misread my post.
No, I read it just fine. I was just disagreeing with your first sentence (quibbling with your quibbling), since I don't see the kind of dramatic blocking or framing I'm talking about in the youtube clip you posted.

[Izzy Black]

No, I read it just fine. I was just disagreeing with your first sentence (quibbling with your quibbling), since I don't see the kind of dramatic blocking or framing I'm talking about in the youtube clip you posted.

I am not sure what you mean by "dramatic blocking" but the entire film is populated by objects that block the camera's line-of-sight to the actor. This is not something you see in cinema atypical to either long lens shooting or
intentional staging. One moment - I'll extract an image.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

I can't believe Noi Albinoi didn't receive a single vote besides myself. Bummer.

[Izzy Black]

http://www.adelynlee.com/fun/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mood_love_bars.jpg


This is not too far cry from:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/2944/litqb1.jpg

And here:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9758/lit2hq9.jpg

The effect is achieved differently, and is not implemented precisely the same, but Coppola's film is a particularly fine example of such blocking of the camera's line-of-sight to the actor.

[Spinal]

No humor? The following scene after the opening tracking-shot sequence shows individuals celebrating the new millennium with one guy playing faux-magic tricks and telling jokes as the others laugh.

I don't get it.

I honestly don't believe that much of what you wrote about is actually explored in the film. I think this is the sort of film that film critics like because it is a blank slate from which they can wander off in whatever direction they please. Not buying it.

[Izzy Black]

I don't get it.

I honestly don't believe that much of what you wrote about is actually explored in the film. I think this is the sort of film that film critics like because it is a blank slate from which they can wander off in whatever direction they please. Not buying it.

This is not only an extreme reduction and evasion of my points, but it is also a criticism that I do not think holds on its own. I have actually never gathered such an impression from critics. There is a decided consensus that Hsiao-Hsien Hou's cinema is largely about the effect that time and change has on society and individuals. This is not some blanket statement that I am just throwing out there based on my own personal musings. You can find any decent article on the man from Senses of Cinema, Rogue, or even capsule reviews that will tread along the same lines. I have a spin on the interpretation, but I am working with the same themes most acknowledge is consistent in his work. He is particularly noted for his fixation on time. It is his thematic bridge.

It is not necessary that you like the filmmaker. He is not for everyone, and there are many people who do not like him, but there is a largely strong consensus on his thematic interests, and not just him, but most the directors of the Taiwanese New Wave cinema.

[Izzy Black]

I must depart for some errands, therefore I may be a bit belated in my replies to any coming responses. I shall return shortly, however.

[Rowland]

I thought Millennium Mambo very precisely explored a specific theme, being the obstructions one faces in breaking out of a self-erected stasis when moving on from a past phase of life into a new one. His use of voice-over and its disconnect with the narrative is artfully evocative of this, for example.

[Qrazy]

Of course it's subjective. The point of that statement was that my opinion of the filmmaker comes based on my evaluation of his work. I don't decide ahead of time that I will support the film no matter what the content, which is what had been implied.

Reasonable.

[Qrazy]

I too, am on the pro-LiT bandwagon, and it kinda disappoints me that it's so frequently used by cinephiles as the 'whipping boy(/girl?)' to praise their favorite likeminded Asian art films. As much as I like Wong, I don't think he's ever come close to realising the mood that Coppola creates in this film.

And I can't imagine how someone could find the two lead performances 'phony' or 'cold'. Murray is obviously phenomenal, and compare Johansson's work here with most of her other roles, and it becomes clear what a canny director of actors Coppola is.

Hrm, I find the mood Wong realizes in Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and even Chungking Express and Fallen Angels almost infinitely more potent than anything Coppola has ever done... and I like LiT.

[MacGuffin]

What people are forgetting about the Wong flick and Coppola's flick is that one is arguably not even a love movie, but a movie that examines a) a relationship between two people and b) the relationship of those two people with a country that is completely foreign to them.

[Qrazy]

Besides, what Wong does is nothing like what Coppola did with this film. Kar Wai's framing is cluttered but capacious. Coppola's is flattened and dreamy. The semblance lies only in the pacing, the color palette, and perhaps the claustrophobic styles - though it is achieved differently. A much better comparison would be Hsiao-hsien Hou - his telephoto lens and dreamy metropolitan aesthetic comes closer to Coppola's. Not to mention that Coppola's house and postpunk music leanings comes closer to Hou's soundtracks than Wong's. Inasmuch as this comparison apt, I would take Hou's city-aestheticism of Millennium Mambo and Three Times over Lost in Translation - but the latter is nonetheless a good film.

It's not unreasonable to compare directors when one director cites the other as a major influence... Tarr with Tarkovsky, Coppola with Kar Wai.

Visual comparisons aside, each two groupings share quite similar (yet distinct) tonal associations.

[Qrazy]

Millennium Mambo has one good shot at the beginning of the film and that's about it. Probably the most static stasiscore film I've seen. No humor, no passion, no ideas. I have difficulty understanding what people see in films like that.

I"m not as harsh with my response as you but yeah I largely agree.

[MadMan]

Damn I forgot to give The Station Agent some love, although I don't know if really stood a chance of making my list. Too many favorites from this year I suppose.

Something tells me I wouldn't like Dogville, but I'm willing to give it a chance I guess.

[Ezee E]

LiT may have a few coincidental comparions. But what about Virgin Suicides or Marie-Antoinette?

It's been too long for me for VS, but Marie-Antoinette seems to be a far cry from anything Wong Kar-Wai.

[Izzy Black]

It's not unreasonable to compare directors when one director cites the other as a major influence... Tarr with Tarkovsky, Coppola with Kar Wai.

Visual comparisons aside, each two groupings share quite similar (yet distinct) tonal associations.

If you noted in my post, I acknowledge there are stylistic similarities. I am not arguing that there is nothing to be compared with in Tarr and Tarkovsky, or Coppola and Kar Wai. My stance is more of an anti-reductionist one, and calling for more accuracy in our comparisons that looks exclusively at technique and content rather than loose associations underscored by citations and/or region. I am arguing that if we are looking at their films analytically, there is not a whole lot in common between their visuals aesthetics. What they share is more an attitude about cinema that is manifested in certain stylistic approaches to filmmaking. Analytically, however, it seems incorrect to say something like Lost in Translation trumps In The Mood for Love, or that Coppola does what Wong does better, because it implies that the general technique is so comparable as to be easily compared. I put forth the suggestion that Coppola is closer kin to several other filmmakers such as Hsiao-Hsien Hou and Paul Thomas Anderson, and even Antonioni, but simply because she cites Wong Kar Wai as an influence (and if what Pop Trash says is true - she cites other filmmakers as an influence too, which further complicates the already vague connection) we are quicker to compare them, even when there are other filmmakers out there much more in her class, if not, completely in her class.

[Izzy Black]

I thought Millennium Mambo very precisely explored a specific theme, being the obstructions one faces in breaking out of a self-erected stasis when moving on from a past phase of life into a new one. His use of voice-over and its disconnect with the narrative is artfully evocative of this, for example.

Indeed. Did you watch the deleted scenes on the DVD (I believe on the Region 1 Palm Pictures version)? There is one scene with her crying in a single-take for nearly 4 minutes, I believe, as she looks out a window after she moved. It is a startlingly poignant scene of melancholy and fear, possibly of the transition into a new found liberation from her past life to a new beginning. I hate that it was cut. (Then again, I have not seen the extended theatrical version which is apparently longer. It seems Wong Kar Wai has a bit of a Bruckner-syndrome when it comes to his final products.) It really showcased her acting skill.

[Spinal]

This is not only an extreme reduction and evasion of my points, but it is also a criticism that I do not think holds on its own. I have actually never gathered such an impression from critics. There is a decided consensus that Hsiao-Hsien Hou's cinema is largely about the effect that time and change has on society and individuals. This is not some blanket statement that I am just throwing out there based on my own personal musings. You can find any decent article on the man from Senses of Cinema, Rogue, or even capsule reviews that will tread along the same lines. I have a spin on the interpretation, but I am working with the same themes most acknowledge is consistent in his work. He is particularly noted for his fixation on time. It is his thematic bridge.



I don't see it in the film. That is what I am saying. It's a fine interpretation, but the interpretation is better than the film is. I don't think the film does the work. I think the reviewers are.

[Izzy Black]

I don't see it in the film. That is what I am saying. It's a fine interpretation, but the interpretation is better than the film is. I don't think the film does the work. I think the reviewers are.

Fair enough.

[Qrazy]

If you noted in my post, I acknowledge there are stylistic similarities. I am not arguing that there is nothing to be compared with in Tarr and Tarkovsky, or Coppola and Kar Wai. My stance is more of an anti-reductionist one, and calling for more accuracy in our comparisons that looks exclusively at technique and content rather than loose associations underscored by citations and/or region. I am arguing that if we are looking at their films analytically, there is not a whole lot in common between their visuals aesthetics. What they share is more an attitude about cinema that is manifested in certain stylistic approaches to filmmaking. Analytically, however, it seems incorrect to say something like Lost in Translation trumps In The Mood for Love, or that Coppola does what Wong does better, because it implies that the general technique is so comparable as to be easily compared. I put forth the suggestion that Coppola is closer kin to several other filmmakers such as Hsiao-Hsien Hou and Paul Thomas Anderson, and even Antonioni, but simply because she cites Wong Kar Wai as an influence (and if what Pop Trash says is true - she cites other filmmakers as an influence too, which further complicates the already vague connection) we are quicker to compare them, even when there are other filmmakers out there much more in her class, if not, completely in her class.

I haven't seen enough Hsien to judge but based on the one I have your comparisons seem reasonable. With the other two though I find her to have much more in common tonally (which I find more far reaching than a purely visual analysis, there is more than one analytic) with Kar Wai than with PTA or Antonioni so I don't find a comparison that unreasonable. Of course the inequality sign is in the wrong direction as In the Mood for Love is the infinitely superior film... in tone, rendering of a cityscape, the central relationships dealt with, etc.

[Spinal]

Fair enough.

I agree that my other post was poorly worded. Should have spent more time with it.

[Izzy Black]

I haven't seen enough Hsien to judge but based on the one I have your comparisons seem reasonable. With the other two though I find her to have much more in common tonally (which I find more far reaching than a purely visual analysis, there is more than one analytic) with Kar Wai than with PTA or Antonioni so I don't find a comparison that unreasonable. Of course the inequality sign is in the wrong direction as In the Mood for Love is the infinitely superior film... in tone, rendering of a cityscape, the central relationships dealt with, etc.

Well I was not making a qualitative assessment either way, I was merely using it is an example. I think In The Mood for Love is a better film, but I do not think it has that much in common with Coppola. Moreover, I cite Paul Thomas Anderson only based on my previous mentions of him elsewhere in my posts, which I assume you probably missed, so I will explain that point again. Paul Thomas Anderson is a polystylist - his films change in technique from film to film. The reference I made was specifically to Magnolia. It uses almost precisely the same long lens/blocking/isolation technique as Coppola uses in Lost In Translation (And to be accurate, Coppola is a polystylist too. She has yet to make another film that is visually like Lost in Translation. Marie Antoinette is about capacious and open spaces, lush pastel colors, and vintage ornamentation, standing almost in opposition to Lost In Translation.) It is still correct to say Paul Thomas Anderson could be a possible influence on the basis of Magnolia. As for Antonioni - same philosophy - something of a polystylist - but Il Deserto rosso is of this breed of cinema. The only filmmaker that I can think of that consistently films with this technique is Hou, and possibly, some other Taiwanese filmmakers.

[Izzy Black]

I agree that my other post was poorly worded. Should have spent more time with it.

Ah, no problem. I generally respect your perceptive insights, so you get a pass.

[Qrazy]

Well I was not making a qualitative assessment either way, I was merely using it is an example. I think In The Mood for Love is a better film, but I do not think it has that much in common with Coppola. Moreover, I cite Paul Thomas Anderson only based on my previous mentions of him elsewhere in my posts, which I assume you probably missed, so I will explain that point again. Paul Thomas Anderson is a polystylist - his films change in technique from film to film. The reference I made was specifically to Magnolia. It uses almost precisely the same long lens/blocking/isolation technique as Coppola uses in Lost In Translation (And to be accurate, Coppola is a polystylist too. She has yet to make another film that is visually like Lost in Translation. Marie Antoinette is about capacious and open spaces, lush pastel colors, and vintage ornamentation, standing almost in opposition to Lost In Translation.) It is still correct to say Paul Thomas Anderson could be a possible influence on the basis of Magnolia. As for Antonioni - same philosophy - something of a polystylist - but Il Deserto rosso is of this breed of cinema. The only filmmaker that I can think of that consistently films with this technique is Hou, and possibly, some other Taiwanese filmmakers.

Ah yeah I missed the polystylist comment.

[Melville]

The effect is achieved differently, and is not implemented precisely the same, but Coppola's film is a particularly fine example of such blocking of the camera's line-of-sight to the actor.
The blocking in In the Mood for Love breaks up the image, while the blocking in Lost in Translation further softens it. The blocking in Wong's films usually frames the image or pushes characters to one side, while in Lost in Translation the blocking isn't so much framing, segregating, or obstructing as blurring the line between the characters and their surroundings. I guess I should have made my original description of Wong's technique more precise. Anyway, excellent points on your part throughout the thread.