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Thread: Best of 2010-2019

  1. #76
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    I made a list of all the films from this decade I gave five stars to (I'm very stingy giving five stars to newish films -- generally four stars means they would be top fifteen of a respective year).

    Strictly in chronological order.
    https://letterboxd.com/adam_ball/lis...lms-2010-2019/
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  2. #77
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Wow. Nice to see Inside Job on that list. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but hard for me to give it a perfect score.
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  3. #78
    Here till the end MadMan's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    Mustang
    I had no idea that was on Netflix. Cool.
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  4. #79
    An update:

    2013
    The Wolf of Wall Street
    A Touch of Sin
    The Wind Rises
    The Congress
    This is the End
    Before Midnight
    A Very Ordinary Couple
    Resolution
    You're Next
    Last 10 Movies Seen
    (90+ = canonical, 80-89 = brilliant, 70-79 = strongly recommended, 60-69 = good, 50-59 = mixed, 40-49 = below average with some good points, 30-39 = poor, 20-29 = bad, 10-19 = terrible, 0-9 = soul-crushingly inept in every way)

    Run
    (2020) 64
    The Whistlers
    (2019
    ) 55
    Pawn (2020) 62
    Matilda (1996) 37
    The Town that Dreaded Sundown
    (1976) 61
    Moby Dick (2011) 50

    Soul
    (2020) 64

    Heroic Duo
    (2003) 55
    A Moment of Romance (1990) 61
    As Tears Go By (1988) 65

    Stuff at Letterboxd
    Listening Habits at LastFM

  5. #80
    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    Bones Brigade: An Autobiography
    I watched this one last night. It's nothing exceptional as a contribution to the art of the documentary, but its content is fascinating in many ways. First of all, it's interesting how it documents the actual history of the explosion of a huge worldwide sport/activity. Secondly, it's interesting how it documents many of the seeds of an entire set of intertwining subcultures in the surf/skate community. Thirdly, it's interesting how its documentarian is both a hugely biased and hugely integral part of the story and how that perspective enhances the human aspect of the story (which is not primary but comes across strongly enough). Finally, it is fascinating to see an example of a community which fostered and supported high-achieving youths through the tumultuous period of gaining fame and becoming dissilusioned with success while seeing many if not all of them come through without succumbing to the evils associated with that kind of fame and success. Everything described above still seems a bit undercooked, but it is all still an expression of the ragtag ethos employed by the man who was the driving force behind the development of a hugely influential subculture with a ragtag ethos. How fascinating this is to someone with no knowledge of that subculture I don't know, but I enjoyed it.

  6. #81
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    That's a DEEPLY personal five star movie. I totally get why people who don't have much knowledge of the late 80s Powell/Peralta pro skating scene wouldn't understand why I love it so much, but I was a HUGE skater in those years (I was about 8-11 when I skated and Tony Hawk was my hero, with Mike McGill and Steve Caballero not far behind). Along with punk rock and Mad Magazine, pro skating shaped my worldview during those formative years and helped me understand DIY culture and subculture in general. So much of what was pop culture in the late 80s was really terrible and super commercial. I think this is why Nirvana breaking in the mainstream in '91 was such a big deal. ANYWAY it was like watching that part of my childhood all over again. I legit cried during some of the Rodney Mullen interviews. The Gator documentary is really interesting as well (but much more of the dark side of that scene) and the Dogtown + Z Boys doco is great too, even though I wasn't alive during that time.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  7. #82
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    Wow. Nice to see Inside Job on that list. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but hard for me to give it a perfect score.
    That one is kinda iffy for me now. If I dropped a film from that list, it would be that one, but it thoroughly blew my mind when I watched it back in the early years of the Obama administration. It seems like water under the bridge now, but living through the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression was surreal and that film explained it well w/o any Michael Moore bullshit (I should note I still like Michael Moore's early films, but the later ones just wear me down... it doesn't help that I'm not nearly as left leaning as I used to be).
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 02-09-2019 at 02:57 AM.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  8. #83
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    That one is kinda iffy for me now. If I dropped a film from that list, it would be that one, but it thoroughly blew my mind when I watched it back in the early years of the Obama administration. It seems like water under the bridge now, but living through the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression was surreal and that film explained it well w/o any Michael Moore bullshit (I should note I still like Michael Moore's early films, but the later ones just wear me down... it doesn't help that I'm not nearly as left leaning as I used to be).
    The mortgage crisis was the staple of my business law capstone project so I can understand why it would register with people. Many people should have gone to jail that didnt when the dust settled.
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    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
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  9. #84
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    The mortgage crisis was the staple of my business law capstone project so I can understand why it would register with people. Many people should have gone to jail that didnt when the dust settled.
    I enjoyed Charles Ferguson's grilling of a lot of the people involved on Wall Street, since he completely understood what happened, but many of the people he interviewed had a smug attitude like "oh it's complicated, you wouldn't understand since you're just a filmmaker." When it became evident that Ferguson understood what happened -often better than the people he was interviewing- the subjects would get frustrated and some of them even cut the interview.
    Last edited by Pop Trash; 02-09-2019 at 05:32 PM.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  10. #85
    Quote Quoting Pop Trash (view post)
    That's a DEEPLY personal five star movie. I totally get why people who don't have much knowledge of the late 80s Powell/Peralta pro skating scene wouldn't understand why I love it so much, but I was a HUGE skater in those years (I was about 8-11 when I skated and Tony Hawk was my hero, with Mike McGill and Steve Caballero not far behind). Along with punk rock and Mad Magazine, pro skating shaped my worldview during those formative years and helped me understand DIY culture and subculture in general. So much of what was pop culture in the late 80s was really terrible and super commercial. I think this is why Nirvana breaking in the mainstream in '91 was such a big deal. ANYWAY it was like watching that part of my childhood all over again. I legit cried during some of the Rodney Mullen interviews. The Gator documentary is really interesting as well (but much more of the dark side of that scene) and the Dogtown + Z Boys doco is great too, even though I wasn't alive during that time.
    I didn't expect it to be anything other than that kind of film, so it wasn't as if I was shocked when it wasn't a wildly experimental documentary. Any film with Rodney Mullen is going to be fascinating, though.

  11. #86
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    What We Do in the Shadows (transmogrifier)
    The Great Beauty (Grouchy)
    Cloud Atlas (Peng)
    A Separation (Mr. McGibbletts)
    The Immigrant (Pop Trash)
    Green Room (Dead and Messed Up)
    Upstream Color (Neclord)
    The Forbidden Room (baby doll)
    Oslo, August 31st (Ezee)
    Our Little Sister (Purple)
    The Lost City of Z (Watashi)
    Only Lovers Left Alive (dreamdead)
    I Saw the Devil (Duke)
    Prisoners (Ivan)

    The Great Beauty - This one was a blast. I can't say that I was able to absorb everything in the first viewing, but it's poignant and provocative, sexy and surprising. The obvious influence is Fellini, and this film is every bit as rich visually, every bit as imaginative in capturing the bizarre and wonderful journey humans take through life. I liked the humorous commentaries on art and religion, and the party scenes are hypnotic. I suspect I'll be thinking about this one for a while. I wish I had seen it on a big screen.

    EDIT: Holy crap, this only has 50% approval on Match Cut?
    Last edited by Spinal; 02-11-2019 at 04:58 PM.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  12. #87
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    My list of unseen films to still see (that I think I'd like):
    Blue Ruin
    Burning
    Chi-Raq
    Handmaiden
    The Raid 2
    Shoplifters
    The Square

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  13. #88
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Ezee E (view post)
    My list of unseen films to still see (that I think I'd like):
    Blue Ruin
    Burning
    Chi-Raq
    Handmaiden

    The Raid 2
    Shoplifters
    The Square
    These are all awfully damn good. The others might be too. I haven't seen them.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  14. #89
    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    The Great Beauty - This one was a blast. I can't say that I was able to absorb everything in the first viewing, but it's poignant and provocative, sexy and surprising. The obvious influence is Fellini, and this film is every bit as rich visually, every bit as imaginative in capturing the bizarre and wonderful journey humans take through life. I liked the humorous commentaries on art and religion, and the party scenes are hypnotic. I suspect I'll be thinking about this one for a while. I wish I had seen it on a big screen.

    EDIT: Holy crap, this only has 50% approval on Match Cut?
    This film represents basically everything I hate about contemporary cinema. Sorrentino's style is monotonously hyperactive, he doesn't know how to tell a story, the film's pot shots at the art world are facile and misogynistic (female performance artists are pretentious, Marxist women writers just need to get fucked), it presents platitudes unironically as profound insights ("Roots are important"), and the damn thing goes on forever.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
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    The (New) World

  15. #90
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    This film represents basically everything I hate about contemporary cinema.
    Always a pleasure!
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  16. #91
    Administrator Ezee E's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    Always a pleasure!
    lol.

    I've been meaning to check this out after seeing episodes of the Young Pope. But I never did finish that season, so....

    Barbarian - ***
    Bones and All - ***
    Tar - **


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  17. #92
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    Mm. You might dislike baby doll's tone, but his post is a legit criticism of that film.

  18. #93
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    Mm. You might dislike baby doll's tone, but his post is a legit criticism of that film.
    You act like I don't have years of experience knowing that a discussion with this poster is much more likely to result in multiple lengthy paragraphs insinuating I'm an idiot rather than anything productive. Not interested.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

  19. #94
    Guttenbergian Pop Trash's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    Marxist women writers just need to get fucked
    Accurate.
    Ratings on a 1-10 scale for your pleasure:

    Top Gun: Maverick - 8
    Top Gun - 7
    McCabe & Mrs. Miller - 8
    Crimes of the Future - 8
    Videodrome - 9
    Valley Girl - 8
    Summer of '42 - 7
    In the Line of Fire - 8
    Passenger 57 - 7
    Everything Everywhere All at Once - 6



  20. #95
    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    You act like I don't have years of experience knowing that a discussion with this poster is much more likely to result in multiple lengthy paragraphs insinuating I'm an idiot rather than anything productive. Not interested.
    It is quite a skill.

  21. #96
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    Quote Quoting Spinal (view post)
    You act like I don't have years of experience knowing that a discussion with this poster is much more likely to result in multiple lengthy paragraphs insinuating I'm an idiot rather than anything productive. Not interested.
    Hey, man. I'm the undisputed King of Writing Multiple Paragraphs Implying Someone is An Idiot. Don't take my crown away and give to baby doll just offand like that.

    Anyway, you'll have to excuse me. I shouldn't have jumped in the middle. I was trying to defend what I saw as a legit criticism without realizing you felt attacked by it.

  22. #97
    Quote Quoting Irish (view post)
    Anyway, you'll have to excuse me. I shouldn't have jumped in the middle. I was trying to defend what I saw as a legit criticism without realizing you felt attacked by it.
    Nor did I mean my comment as an attack. Spinal expressed surprise at the film's mixed reception on this forum, and I offered some reasons why I find the film so objectionable.

    That said, I was a little surprised myself at the film's low standing around these parts, given--and I'm trying to phrase this in such a way that it doesn't come off as a Pauline Kael-esque critique of the film's admirers--it's the kind of film that goes out of its way to flatter its audience. Not only is there the compulsive busyness of Sorrentino's style, which injects every sequence with an artificial "energy" (e.g., the mechanical cross-cutting between a static conversation and an unrelated striptease occurring adjacent to it), as if to mask the utter lack of inspiration in the direction (Scorsese, Wong Kar-wai, and the early Paul Thomas Anderson have all done far more inventive work in a similar register). There's also the way Sorrentino allows the viewer to feel superior and knowing without having to actually know anything, which betrays his underlying conservatism: Viewers who don't know anything about art and literature won't feel intimidated by the film because the women artists it ridicules are all such obvious phonies that no specialized knowledge, or even thought, is required to arrive at the correct verdict on them. According to the film, only men can be real artists and women exist solely to inspire them by flashing their tits next to a picturesque body of water.

    But then, maybe I'm missing something. If anyone wants to explain to me why this movie is so special, I'd be glad to hear their arguments.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  23. #98
    A Platypus Grouchy's Avatar
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    Quote Quoting baby doll (view post)
    According to the film, only men can be real artists and women exist solely to inspire them by flashing their tits next to a picturesque body of water.
    Where are you guys getting off on this load of shit? The reason the performance artist is a woman is that the character is sort of a parody of Marina Abramovic.

  24. #99
    Quote Quoting Grouchy (view post)
    Where are you guys getting off on this load of shit? The reason the performance artist is a woman is that the character is sort of a parody of Marina Abramovic.
    Don't forget also the woman Marxist writer and the girl abstract painter. And in any case, why parody Abramović rather than any contemporary male artist? Of course, she's famous and it's easy to make performance art look silly, but I don't think her gender and her feminism are irrelevant here, especially given the overall context.

    Since we don't learn anything about the protagonist's writing beyond title of his early novel, in order for us to accept him as a Man of Sensibility, the film needs to furnish a series of phonies for him to see through, thereby demonstrating an intuitive feeling for art that all the women artists in the film lack. Yet, when a literary groupie remarks that he must've been in love when he wrote his first novel, neither the character nor Sorrentino realize what a cliché this is.

    To clarify, I'm less offended by the film's conservatism and misogyny per se than the script's lack of imagination. I'd be more than happy to see a conservative and/or misogynist film about the art world if it offered a fresh and interesting take on its subject.
    Just because...
    The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg, 2022) mild
    Petite maman (Céline Sciamma, 2021) mild
    The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) mild

    The last book I read was...
    The Complete Short Stories by Mark Twain


    The (New) World

  25. #100
    The Pan Spinal's Avatar
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    We all have our flaws. Mine is flippancy. Well, at least one of them. I'll try again:

    This film moved me because I felt that the observations it made about intellectuals and high culture and art were pointed and often funny. I do not think it's a misogynistic film in the least. I think it's fair it in its targets and it's even-handed in wondering if anybody really has a clue what they're talking about. There's power in the scene with the young girl flinging paint on canvas because it creates a dichotomy. On the one hand, it seems utterly absurd that serious people could call it art in the strictest sense. On the other hand, her passion and anger are real, the process of watching her is captivating and the result is indeed quite beautiful.

    In the earlier scene, I don't feel like the performance artist's gender is something that is important. What's important is that she is hiding behind a bluff, using pain, nudity and iconography to mask something substantial to say. Whether or not she's based on Abramovic, the difference is that, unlike Abramovic, she lacks the ability to answer follow-up questions about the significance of her work. There are many great performance artists. And there are also those who ape the extreme indulgences of their predecessors without it being genuinely felt expression. That, to me, was the target of ridicule, not her gender.

    I was likewise moved by the party scene in which he asks his friend to drop her facade and simply be human. I feel like there's truth in that. I think that humility is an attractive quality, both in artistic expression and in artistic critique. Being human is challenging and life is too short for us not to cut others a little bit of slack.

    Is the protagonist likable? Or any more insightful than anybody else? I don't know that he is and I don't think he needs to be. I think it's enough for us to understand that he's reached a point in his life where he's reached the unsettling conclusion that, although he's lived in the midst of high society and culture, nobody around him really knows what they're talking about. Life seems absurd and frustrating, but also joyous and much too brief.

    It sounds like it felt blunt and obvious to you. It didn't to me. I was caught up in the music and the visual surprises. I thought it was an effective expression of one man's journey and his attempt to make sense of it.
    Coming to America (Landis, 1988) **
    The Beach Bum (Korine, 2019) *1/2
    Us (Peele, 2019) ***1/2
    Fugue (Smoczynska, 2018) ***1/2
    Prisoners (Villeneuve, 2013) ***1/2
    Shadow (Zhang, 2018) ***
    Oslo, August 31st (J. Trier, 2011) ****
    Climax (Noé, 2018) **1/2
    Fighting With My Family (Merchant, 2019) **
    Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013) ***

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