top 50 films for the half decade; Kalo's list begins! (pg. 45)

[Avatree]

 

Interstellar is the best of the five Nolan films I've seen (TDK trilogy, Inception, Interstellar) I'm planning on watching his older stuff at some point.

Watch The Prestige, I've watched all Nolan films except Memento and it's definitely the best

 

lol, you can't tell me that valid criticisms are invalid and go on to throw out some half-arsed "we wanted Joker" as the real reason.

 

Nope, TDKR was a massive disappointment. The writing was shoddy, Bane was irrelevant, Cotillard wasted. It's one loud and unnecessary mess. Good thing TDK's ending doesn't need TDKR to exist at all because it added absolutely nothing. Most overrated blockbuster in recent memory, I'd argue there isn't enough backlash. As much money and orgasms Marvel gets, DC/Batman fans still rule the Internet, because let's face it, all these Nolan slaves came from TDK. No one cared about Memento or the Prestige. Batman and TDK made him, and besides Inception, he's not done much noteworthy since. 

How was the writing any worse than TDK? I really don't get that. There are some really wonderful scenes particularly between Bruce and Alfred. It's just as quotable as TDK, the dialogue is just as good, etc.

 

Bane was not irrelevant if you mean plot-wise. He was responsible for terrorising and taking hostage the entire city. He is responsible for Batman being 'broken', he is responsible for Bruce's death, and he's another interpretation of the idea that Batman's villains are all versions of himself (they come from the same place, the imagery about them looking up from the bottom of a hole, the mask, the brutality, the idea that they are both trying to do what's best for Gotham but leave a lot of collateral damage). He's a really interesting character in terms of the bigger picture of the film, and in my opinion, Bane in TDKR is better than Joker in TDK.

 

I agree that Cotillard is underused. But look at Eckhart in TDK! The last part of TDK is just rubbish, Nolan crams everything into 15 minutes and as a result screws up Two-Face.

 

Neither TDK nor TDKR is perfect but TDKR gets way too much hate. Even if you think TDK is better (I don't), that doesn't mean TDKR is shit.

 

 

And what's this about Nolan? Since Batman Begins he's done nothing noteworthy except Inception? Really, you're joking right? The Prestige is very widely loved as it's such a fascinating and entertaining film. Interstellar divided people, sure, but it did at least provoke a real reaction, as it connected with people, even if not in the best way. Not to mention that it was a major box office hit. (Even if not as big as Inception)

[Dementeleus]

#26: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

written by: Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin

directed by: Benh Zeitlin

 

 

A lyrical and magical look at the world through the eyes of a six-year-old girl living in a forgotten little chunk of the bayou called the Bathtub, where the human detritus of society end up. Simply wonderful in almost every way, though better appreciated as a parable or a story of magical realism than something rooted in absolute reality.

 

Edited February 9, 2015 by Telemachos

[Avatree]

BotSW looks really good, I wanna watch it.

[Dementeleus]

#25: 12 Years A Slave (2013)

written by: John Ridley

directed by: Steve McQueen

 

 

A clear-eyed look at the arbitrariness and brutality behind slavery. Solomon Northrup, a free man, is kidnapped from his life in the Northern States and sold into slavery in the deep South. The movie is actually fairly straightforward in its narrative construction, and — to some degree — conceptually already understood by almost everyone (“slavery is bad, mmmmkay?”). But where McQueen is really successful is showing how slavery ruins the souls of everyone, up to and including the slaves, the slaveowners… everyone. The slaves themselves become so robbed of humanity that they live in an existence of pure survival, beyond human caring for their fellow slaves. Very powerful.

 

 

[Avatree]

12 Years was really interesting to me - living in Europe, we don't learn anything about slavery in our education system, so it was a quite fascinating insight into the old American slavery culture.

[Dementeleus]

#24: Upstream Color (2013)

written and directed by: Shane Carruth

 

 

Hard to describe — it’s essentially a feature-length tone poem. There’s meaning here, but it’s layered and built on music, sounds, and images and the meaning and interpretation almost certainly varies from viewer to viewer. This is close to pure, narrative-free cinema. Really recommended, but don’t expect any sort of typical moviegoing experience: you have to pay attention and the movie only opens up if you really go with it and let it flow over you.

 

 

[Dementeleus]

#23: A Most Violent Year (2014)

written and directed by: J.C. Chandor

 

 

A very classical and old-fashioned movie, straight from the Scorsese and Coppola and Friedkin 70s. It’s a slow-burn, inverted-gangster movie…. the main character is constantly under pressure to take up a life of crime (and in fact even under investigation for crimes he didn’t commit). So it’s both a character study of a man ruthlessly determined to follow the letter of the law and a metaphor about capitalism as crime. J.C. Chandor swings for the fences… his only stumble is a moment near the end that’s very on-the-nose and awkward. But the rest is fantastic. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are excellent, as expected.

 

[Dementeleus]

#22: Carlos (2010)

written by: Olivier Assayas, Dan Franck, Daniel Leconte

directed by: Olivier Assayas

 

 

Damn, what an amazing movie this is. Huge, sprawling — 300+ minutes! — it’s the definitive telling of Carlos the Jackal, the hitman/assassin/terrorist who dominated political headlines in the 1970s. Edgar Ramirez is a revelation as Carlos; he just dominates the screen (speaking five languages, no less!). It’s ultimately a searing indictment about these self-proclaimed revolutionaries and how their puffed-up political language about freedom for the repressed and common people masked a lust for money, power, prestige, women, the usual things. It’s a long movie to commit to, but well worth it (it actually was released in mini-series form and it’s probably a bit easier to watch in that format, since there are breaks every 90-100 minutes).

 

 

[Dementeleus]

#21: Under the Skin (2014)

written by: Walter Campbell, Jonathan Glazer

directed by: Jonathan Glazer

 

 

Beautiful, enigmatic, and deeply, deeply unsettling. Scarlett Johansson is something Other (presumably alien, but it’s never exactly spelled out), who appears in Scotland and begins preying on young men by posing as this seductive, beautiful women. And yet, over time, she develops curiosity and begins to experiment with what it actually means to be human. The film really illustrates the many masks we hear as human beings living in society, what those masks actually mean, what they hide, what they reveal… and what, in fact, does being human mean? There are moments in this movie that are seared into my brain.

 

 

[MrPink]

lol, you can't tell me that valid criticisms are invalid and go on to throw out some half-arsed "we wanted Joker" as the real reason.

 

Nope, TDKR was a massive disappointment. The writing was shoddy, Bane was irrelevant, Cotillard wasted. It's one loud and unnecessary mess. Good thing TDK's ending doesn't need TDKR to exist at all because it added absolutely nothing. Most overrated blockbuster in recent memory, I'd argue there isn't enough backlash. As much money and orgasms Marvel gets, DC/Batman fans still rule the Internet, because let's face it, all these Nolan slaves came from TDK. No one cared about Memento or the Prestige. Batman and TDK made him, and besides Inception, he's not done much noteworthy since. 

 

What a bizarre criticism. I would like to think this is something we apply to a man's career over a longer period of time, not 4-5 years since the last 'noteworthy' film he did. Like...Ridley Scott. I'd get that. Or M. Night Shyamalan. But there's still a couple more films we gotta wait for I feel before we get to that stage. And even then, he's not going into freefall like Shyamalan just yet.

 

But TDKR aside, he did Interstellar which was positively received and was among the top 10 highest grossing films of the year. Landmark achievement in cinema? No. But surely it's enough to keep him in the conversation over most directors in Hollywood. Aside from Cameron and Spielberg, pretty much no one else gets the budget to make an original property like Nolan does. Which is why many will keep an eye on his next project, success or failure until a clear decline is in order. TDK may have shot him into the stratosphere and Inception may have cemented his status in Hollywood, but Memento, the Prestige, etc are all works that highlighted another aspect of him that has made him desirable to audiences...his general consistency thus far. Sure there's a case to be made for TDKR and Interstellar, but in general, I'd say audiences are still warm to his films and enjoy them

Edited February 9, 2015 by MrPink

[Avatree]

Urgh I want to see A Most Violent Year so badly. Anywhere Oscar Isaac goes, I follow.

 

It played in like 10 cinemas in the entire country, and now it's gone. Which is kinda odd - my local cinema played a trailer for it in front of every film I've seen recently, despite it not being released in said cinema. Bizarre...

[Kalo]

BotSW looks really good, I wanna watch it.

I need to watch it as well.

[Kalo]

 

#24: Upstream Color (2013)

written and directed by: Shane Carruth

 

 

Hard to describe — it’s essentially a feature-length tone poem. There’s meaning here, but it’s layered and built on music, sounds, and images and the meaning and interpretation almost certainly varies from viewer to viewer. This is close to pure, narrative-free cinema. Really recommended, but don’t expect any sort of typical moviegoing experience: you have to pay attention and the movie only opens up if you really go with it and let it flow over you.

 

 

this movie sounds really intriguing, I will have to check it out.

[The Stingray]

Been meaning to see Carlos for some time. Really interesting subject matter, but the runtime scares me.

[Dementeleus]

Been meaning to see Carlos for some time. Really interesting subject matter, but the runtime scares me.

 

It goes down easier than you think, especially with the mini-series breaks.

[Dementeleus]

#20: Ida (2014)

written by: Pawel Pawlikowski, Rebecca Lenkiewicz

directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski

 

 

Deceptively simple, this is a story set in the 1960s about Anna, a young Polish novice living in a monastery. She’s told that before she takes her final vows and become a nun, she must visit her aunt (her sole surviving relative)… and this visit reveals layers of her unknown family history and a terrible secret leading back years to the Nazi occupation in WWII. This is a beautifully shot film, with two stunning performances by Agata Kulesza and Agata Trhebuchowska. 

 

[Dementeleus]

#19: The Master (2012)

written and directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

 

 

A fascinating, fierce, and compelling portrait of two men struggling to find themselves in different ways. Not really a clever parody of Scientology (as commonly assumed); it’s really a look at the mid-century American dream — both the good and negative aspects — and the desire to remake yourself into a better, more powerful person. Towering performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

 

 

[The Futurist]

#19: The Master (2012)

written and directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

 

 

A fascinating, fierce, and compelling portrait of two men struggling to find themselves in different ways. Not really a clever parody of Scientology (as commonly assumed); it’s really a look at the mid-century American dream — both the good and negative aspects — and the desire to remake yourself into a better, more powerful person. Towering performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

 

 

Void in 70 mm looks beautiful.

Still void though.

[Dementeleus]

#18: The Tree of Life (2011)

written and directed by: Terrence Malick

 

 

Sublime work by Malick, who manages to go impossibly big (you can’t get vaster and greater than the creation of the universe) and personally small (the moment-to-moment pieces of a child’s life). It’s a luscious, beautiful movie about very Malick-ian concepts: the process of grief, love, and acceptance; our place in the world; the dueling aspects of human nature. The only area where it stumbles (IMO) is the very end, which gets fairly esoteric and in a way is “a bridge too far”. We’ll see if future viewings change my opinion, but right now it’d be one of the all-time greats if it wasn’t for the ending. Even with that, it's still an absolutely tremendous, towering movie.

 

Edited February 9, 2015 by Telemachos

[baumer]

#46: We Are the Best! (2014)

written and directed by: Lukas Moodysson

 

 

A great, universal movie about coming of age. Two girls in 1980s Sweden decide to form a punk band at school, despite having no musical training whatsoever. Moodysson taps perfectly into that moment in time when, as a teenager, you rebel against the establishment, your parents are complete dumbasses, anyone who doesn’t embrace their dreams and ideals is a total sellout, etc. It’s completely adorable. I didn’t grow up in Sweden, I never was a musician or that much into punk rock, and I’m not a girl, and yet I completely identified with everything these three girls went through.

 

 

Did Lisa lobotomize you?