What are the great films from the last fifteen years? - Page 3

Re: Saving Private Ryan

There's always tons of praise thrown towards the Normandy invasion (and rightly so), but its Spielberg's big finale that really solidifies SPR as a legitimately great action movie.  I think its one of the most tightly directed battle sequences in recent memory, and everything from the pacing to the sense of geography is damn near flawless.  

Also want to second the love for these, all of which I think absolutely belong on this list:

There Will Be Blood, Inglorious Basterds, No Country For Old Men, Social Network, Moulin Rouge

I love that Brick has been mentioned a bunch too.  While I don't think it will ever be universally regarded as a classic, its definitely on my list.

What do you guys think of "Pleasantville"? I was just reminded of it and I wish I'd mentioned it earlier. I believe it's definitely one of the overlooked greats. I wish it had been nominated for best picture and I think it would have been more worthy of a win than "Shakespeare in Love".

Whenever people talk about "Saving Private Ryan", it seems like they all just think the battle scenes are pretty much the only thing the movie has going for it. Doesn't anyone appreciate the characters? I love those opening and closing battle scenes too, but I also thought there were some really powerful conversations between Hanks and his men that contributed to the movie's effectiveness. I really appreciated the character arc of the Jeremy Davies character. The Hanks character is supposedly the lead, but this guy really was the heart of the movie. The only parts that really didn't work for me were the overly sentimental bookends with the old man.

I agree about "Up". I had problems with "Finding Nemo", "The Incredibles", "Wall-E", and "Ratatouille"...mostly that I didn't care about the characters very much. I found "Up" to be the most mature, human, moving, and accessible Pixar flick, and it's my favourite after "Monsters Inc." and the "Toy Story" movies.

Pleasantville IS a great film & it has a brilliantly executed subtext but it has never connected with a wide audience over the years like Shawshank. Historically speaking, Pleasantville  will likely be remembered as a stellar, underseen curio not unlike Wilder's Ace In The Hole.

While Ridley Scott, Cronenberg, Verhoeven, and Carpenter have taken extended breaks from the dark and heady scifi-horror genres (and Romero has sort of lost his touch IMO), guys like Darabont, Boyle, and Natali have stepped up with raw and probing takes. THE MIST/WALKING DEAD, 28 DAYS LATER/SUNSHINE, and CUBE/SPLICE respectively.

Execution of theme and quality of end product may vary, but I would say that THE MIST and SPLICE rise above others and especially capture that "science VS nature, man VS the unknown" film core that I love so much and have loved since THE THING and THE FLY debuted in the 80s (and catching Universal's FRANKENSTEIN on tv). Not only are THE MIST and SPLICE great explorations into horror/scifi, but great explorations into humanity's varied reaction to the fantastic and terrible paradigms set up within the films.

Plus those films both push the envelope and dare the audience to go places they probably wouldn't on their own.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Naisu Baddi 

Whenever people talk about "Saving Private Ryan", it seems like they all just think the battle scenes are pretty much the only thing the movie has going for it. Doesn't anyone appreciate the characters? I love those opening and closing battle scenes too, but I also thought there were some really powerful conversations between Hanks and his men that contributed to the movie's effectiveness. I really appreciated the character arc of the Jeremy Davies character. The Hanks character is supposedly the lead, but this guy really was the heart of the movie. The only parts that really didn't work for me were the overly sentimental bookends with the old man.

Hanks and Co are uniformly solid.  There are some nicely nuanced performances from guys like Davies, Pepper, etc, who really flesh out the supporting characters, but SPR is an action movie first and foremost, and I think thats where it truly excels.    

The Thin Red Line, another movie that could be up for discussion in this thread, is arguably much more successful in terms of being a character driven war film.  

Saving Private Ryan is an amazingly directed and acted film, but I still kind of hate the script. It's the main reason I prefer the Thin Red Line from the same year. I realize I'm in the minority on that one.

SPR will certainly stand the test of time though. As for Thin Red Line, hard to say. May end up being a footnote in the book of Malick, his return to filmmaking after a long hiatus, with an amazing(and occasionally distracting) cast. 

I'm still trying to mentally work out a list of some sort. I hope my posts so far don't come off as me just taking potshots at people's choices from the sidelines. The vast majority of films mentioned so far are very good or indeed great, so it's mostly me being a nitpicking asshole.

What a great read for a list thread. Nicely done, all.

I really liked Pleasantville when I was younger, but upon a recent revisit I didn't enjoy it at all. It's one of the treacliest things you've ever seen. It seems mean to pick on it, because it's so earnest, but that earnestness makes it feel like it's over-sharing, and if you don't completely invest in it from the start, it gets twee and maudlin and irritating. A lot of people disagree with me on that, but they may not have seen it in a while.

So what are the movies that seemed big and important at the time but have slid into irrelevance? The Green Mile? Hustle and Flow?

Quote:

Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 

While Ridley Scott, Cronenberg, Verhoeven, and Carpenter have taken extended breaks from the dark and heady scifi-horror genres (and Romero has sort of lost his touch IMO), guys like Darabont, Boyle, and Natali have stepped up with raw and probing takes. THE MIST/WALKING DEAD, 28 DAYS LATER/SUNSHINE, and CUBE/SPLICE respectively.

 

Execution of theme and quality of end product may vary, but I would say that THE MIST and SPLICE rise above others and especially capture that "science VS nature, man VS the unknown" film core that I love so much and have loved since THE THING and THE FLY debuted in the 80s (and catching Universal's FRANKENSTEIN on tv). Not only are THE MIST and SPLICE great explorations into horror/scifi, but great explorations into humanity's varied reaction to the fantastic and terrible paradigms set up within the films.

 

Plus those films both push the envelope and dare the audience to go places they probably wouldn't on their own.

In regards to The Mist, it seemed like Darabont had a lot of anger towards our government with how it handled the war in the Middle East and especially Hurricane Katrina. Very reminiscent of something Rod Serling would do on The Twilight Zone when The Cold War and McCarthy. This especially felt obvious to me when I watched the black and white version recently(which does wonders for the film). The ending is very ballsy, but it's not nihilistic for the sake of it. There's a point- one that renders the film a chilling parable- to it that makes me catalog it in MY personal "new classics" inventory.

The Mist is going to be a classic along the lines of The Thing, I bet. Even if it's not on everyone's list, it'll be something special for horror fans.

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Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

 

 

So what are the movies that seemed big and important at the time but have slid into irrelevance? The Green Mile? Hustle and Flow?

A cursory review of Oscar winners will pay off there, but Crash probably wins for the steepest fall. And for good or ill, nobody's dared to mention the Star Wars prequels yet. 
 

Cold Mountain was supposed to be a big, important, film but it never connected with the audience. I assumed that Minghella's death in 2008 might give it a little more attention, but it never came to be. I think Brokeback Mountain seems to have been forgotten by the masses as well. 

Brokeback is still used as a gay shorthand these days, but then, that movie NEVER got the mainstream acclaim for being just an all-time great love story it deserves.

Brokeback is a really affecting doomed love story, and a great recontexualization of the cowboy archetype from a laconic man of nature to one who is held in check by social expectations, whose deep silences reflect fear rather than courage, and inaction rather than "actions speak louder than words."  I think its place is secure despite the jokes, (not to mention Proulx expressing regret she ever wrote it.)

After all the hype leading to its release and all the praise for its originality after it came out, "The Blair Witch Project" seems to have fallen quite far reputation-wise. It's barely ever mentioned anymore, and when it is, only as a punchline. The zinger from "Family Guy" comes to mind - ("Nothing's happening, nothing's happening, something about a map, I wasn't really paying attention, nothing's happening...it's over, people look pissed.")

Continuing on the subject of horror: "28 Days Later" is an excellent choice. I didn't think about if any great horror movies have come out in the last 15 years, I guess because I feel like the genre has taken a huge dive from its 70s and 80s highs, but in my opinion "28 Days Later" is about as classy and sophisticated as horror gets. It's one of the few recent releases I'd put in the same league as "Halloween" '78 or "The Exorcist". I like a lot of Danny Boyle's movies from the last 15 years, but I'd venture to say that's the best of them. "Let the Right One In" might qualify for "great" status too.

I was really close to listing "Let The Right One In". If there's any film that epitomizes the term "hauntingly beautiful", that one is it.

Despite my ten-year rule, I'm inclined to agree on Let the Right One In. It's plainly a great film.

The thing about horror, though, is that it's largely ephemeral, created on the cheap with quick profit in mind. After all, most jump-scares only work once. I maintain that the last genuinely scary movie was Candyman.

Hah, Candyman. You're right. It's not even a very good movie, but it's definitely scary.

Hammerhead mentioned this in his earlier list, but I just want to add:

Yes, yes, a thousand time's yes to The Woman Chaser. That movie, more than perhaps any other (American) of the last fifteen years needs a Criterion release so that people can see it and bask in it's manic, deranged, highly original glory.

I almost didn't include it because a film should probably be somewhat known in order to be 'great'. But it's so damn great.

Have we talked about In The Loop yet?

I think we'll talk about it years later like the way we do Fish Called Wanda today.

Welles didn't intentionally mislead people with the WotW broadcast. Only listeners who tuned in halfway through missed the context of the 'live reporting' segments. Blair Witch built up awareness through an online campaign that deliberately obscured its fictional origin.

Speaking of viral website promotions, when's the last time anyone thought about A.I.: Artificial Intelligence?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

Welles didn't intentionally mislead people with the WotW broadcast. Only listeners who tuned in halfway through missed the context of the 'live reporting' segments. Blair Witch built up awareness through an online campaign that deliberately obscured its fictional origin.

 

And that's the one and only reason why Blair Witch project was as successful as it is. It should be respected for that, not derided. And seriously, if people were dumb enough to believe that the footage was real, they have noone to blame but themselves.

Anyway, I watched it again recently. Still really effective.

Not that it's great, but am I the only one that really likes Tim Blake Nelson's O? He transplants Othello to a snooty prep school.

A few: ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU, CERTIFIED COPY, EUREKA, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and OLDBOY.

I don't know what this means, but these are the only films over the last fifteen years that I've rated a 9 or better (out of ten):

Mulholland Dr.

Henry Fool

The Departed

No Country for Old Men

Knocked Up

Downfall

Rushmore

Happiness

Inglorious Basterds

A Very Long Engagement

Jackie Brown

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Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 

No better than BOONDOCK SAINTS? KILLING ZOE? 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY? Seriously? I think the script, direction, and performances all elevate this one. It's not just a typical neo-crime drama IMO.

The Usual Suspects' story just feels completely arbitrary to me. Verbal improvised his story on the spot so not only do we not know what happened but there's no significant insight into the truth value of anything being said. It's not a statement about the subjectivity of truth or a mystery with clues and implications about what actually happened. It's just "BAM! Everything you knew is wrong!" and that's it. And it doesn't play fair with the audience in order to have that twist.
 

Wasn't it 28 Days Later that jump started the current zombie oversaturation? I remember around the turn of the century lamenting that nothing decent had been done with the genre since Dellamorte Dellamore but damned if they haven't been everywhere in the past few years.
 

I've seen a lot of critics of Usual Suspects complain about the story being completely made up, but I always thought it played out exactly the way Verbal told it. The fact that Postlethwaite picks him up at the end, or Gabriel Byrne's death scene at the beginning, suggest that Verbal Kint was present in the exact same context throughout the entire story, just secretly manipulating the events. There may not even be a 'real' Keyser Soze, it's just a name Verbal used because everyone was familiar with it. In the end, he was the vaguely supernatural mastermind, but the story presented was pretty much how it went down anyway.

Which is not to say it's a Great Movie, like Pulp Fiction, but yeah, I think it's a lot better than other similar films. And it remains my favorite twist ending too (I figured it out about two minutes before the reveal).

Quote:

Originally Posted by PMR 

Wasn't it 28 Days Later that jump started the current zombie oversaturation? I remember around the turn of the century lamenting that nothing decent had been done with the genre since Dellamorte Dellamore but damned if they haven't been everywhere in the past few years.

 

Perhaps, but so what? Are you implying that this taints the movie, or are you just making an observation? I don't think it should detract from the movie's greatness. In the wake of "Pulp Fiction", there was a string of crime pictures with ensemble casts and multiple parallel story lines, none of which were as good. This trend does not change the fact that the movie stands on its own as a masterpiece. 

I'm implying the opposite: it helped kick off the big zombie cash-in because the movie was done so well.

28 Days Later definitely made zombies relevant again, but the lazy uninspired cash-ins didn't really start until after Shaun of the Dead.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3nnui 

disco, I know better than to try and explain why I think something is great, but I think No Country is so outstanding I will try anyway.

 

This film is not only beautifully shot, well acted and superbly written. There are pieces of true originality that make it transcendant.

 

Yes Bardem's villian is wonderful, from friendo to the bowl cut, you simply cannot hope to top the character or the performance.

 

The tension of the traditional thriller that inhabits the majority of the film was exquisite.

 

But what truly makes this film great in my eyes are the three things people take most issue with. The off camera inevitable resolution of the bardem, brolin conflict, having bardem's character get hit by a car, and tommy lee jones quiet resignation at the end.

 

These 3 elements showed me that the coens truly respected McCarthy's work and would not cheat the audience of the true impact of the material.  Having Brolin win the conflict, or Bardem be a supernatural killing machine or Tommy Lee Jones as the wise old law man saving the day would of betrayed what to me was the core concept of the work.

 

That being drugs, the border, violence and their impact on both societies. Of course I may be completely misinterpreting the film (on first viewing I felt that Bardem's character was meant to be a symbol, not flesh and blood), but this movie approaches perfection in my eyes.

And a large part of not showing Brolin die is simply playing with the audiences expectations.  The cowboy hero archtype isn't suppossed to die in a western, and certainly not off camera.  And the main character is not Josh Brolin's but its Tommy Lee Jones' character.  This is why seeing Tommy Lee Jones learn about Josh Brolins death is important, since this is a tale of his own mortality, and how he views the changing landscape of east Texas.  It's also why Tommy Lee Jones is the only narrator in this story.

And yes, this film comes the closest to being a perfect film out of any I can think of.  In fact, it's the only time the word came to mind after I saw it.  But that may be because I read the novel, and somehow the film perfectly recreates it through an adaptation.  It's a surprisingly faithful adaptation. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arjen Rudd 

I've seen a lot of critics of Usual Suspects complain about the story being completely made up, but I always thought it played out exactly the way Verbal told it. The fact that Postlethwaite picks him up at the end, or Gabriel Byrne's death scene at the beginning, suggest that Verbal Kint was present in the exact same context throughout the entire story, just secretly manipulating the events. There may not even be a 'real' Keyser Soze, it's just a name Verbal used because everyone was familiar with it. In the end, he was the vaguely supernatural mastermind, but the story presented was pretty much how it went down anyway.

 

Which is not to say it's a Great Movie, like Pulp Fiction, but yeah, I think it's a lot better than other similar films. And it remains my favorite twist ending too (I figured it out about two minutes before the reveal).

I picked it about 2 minutes before the reveal too! It was at that moment I realised that most of what we were seeing wasn't what actually happened it's what the speaker is telling us what he claims to have happened. It's how the medium fools us, we're seeing actual actions on screen, what's actually happening is one guy is hearing another guy talk and what he's saying may or may not be true to varying degrees.

I don't think it's made up, it's really hard to completely fabricate a story that complicated, the closer it is to the truth, the easier it is to keep the facts straight. I think it's 90-95% true. Especially since so many of the situations contain events that the characters being told the story are either in or can verify independently (they would known about the burned out police car and the arrested corrupted police and the dead bodies in the car park). The stuff that was least likely to be true was the least verifiable like the meeting with Redfoot. He's just tweaked it enough to greatly misdirect everyone listening and he nearly got away with it too if he hadn't tried to be too clever, especially with using the names off the board. That plus the eyewitness surviving through sheer luck (good for him, bad for Keyser). I guess that was another element of his character, he seemed to get a vicarious thrill in seeing how much he could push his luck. Right at the end, by showing us Pete Postlethwaite in the car was to show he was real, just that his name obviously wasn't Kobayashi (and he probably wasn't Japanese either).

Exactly like you said, he did mostly what he said he did, hiding in plain sight and manipulating the events to get him on the boat to kill the one person who could identify him. Ultimately irony of ironies, he actually fails and the information gets out even more widely than it would have beforehand.

What I like is every time I see it, there's some new detail I didn't notice before. Right at the start when they get him into the office, there's the briefest glimpse of a box with some kind of byzantine scene on it, or something like a stained glass window. I think he concocted that whole Keyser Soze origin story from seeing that image.