So many movies. Initial thoughts: I like "Mullholland Drive" a lot but I'm surprised so many others rank it so high. This is likely because David Lynch just died.
I love "Synecdoche New York" and I think low hundred is fair. I'm shocked that so many people agree with me.
I just saw "Sinners" last night. I liked it but #52 is clearly a recency effect. Will be a cult favorite.
"Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"-- this is a troll, right? I don't even remember which one of the bad Star Wars movies this is, but I'm confident it sucked.
"The Substance" is super over rated. I understand what it's supposed to be about but the deal the actress makes in it is so obviously stupid from the beginning that I couldn't care about the rest of the consequences.
"Mean Girls" didn't make the original list? Absurd! It's one of the most important movies of the era. It explains the past decade so well. We may be at long last coming out of the mean girls era. Fetch is happening!
My idea is that the mid 1970s through approximately the mid 1990s was the "animal house" era and 2000 through at least 2020 was "mean girls" all the way. Everyone agrees with me about mean girls but insist on suggesting other candidates to replace animal house in my thesis. :)
As a teacher I live Mean Girls every day; not that my students are mean to me per se but I have to be cognizant of the social dynamics of the classroom in order to survive
Yes, THE SUBSTANCE was highly overrated. I liked the premise, but who likes characters who make obvious dumb mistakes, even if they are dumb actresses?
Yep. How does it benefit her that an entirely other actress is getting the parts? Just because the other actress comes out of her in a painful way? It's not like she became temporarily young. It was another woman.
It's precisely *because* it explains the past decade so well that it's not on the list. The people in charge of the NYT and many of our institutions *are* mean girls, and they don't like having their foibles skewered.
I thought Sith was the best of the prequels. Actually has some oomph to it.
Borat is a genuinely offensive film. And genuinely hilarious. It speaks a lot to the cultural tone of the 2000s that the critics who bemoaned the besmirching of Kazakhstan were seen as weenies.
I notice that attitudes have changed a lot of recent years. Partially this is Sacha Baron Cohen showing off his grating real personality more over time, but I think in large part the FSU countries were still hilariously obscure, provincial, poor and backwards in 2006. Not so true these days.
The general public has got more used to abrasive Israeli-style humor since 2006, but not so used to on-the-nose Israeli-style emoting (witness Gal Gadot’s unpopularity during the early days of coronavirus).
Rutgers dropout Larry Charles (Borat's director) cut his teeth being third-in-command on Seinfeld, although he and Larry David eventually had a falling out. LC molded the Kramer character as Jerry and George were expies of Jerry and Larry
SBC is reading his audience--back in the 2000s he was cool because he was doing the edgy comedy that appealed to young men in those days, then he had to pivot to making fun of rural people because they hadn't seen HBO yet and he had to claim he was unmasking racism, then he tried to go woke. and predictably became a lot less funny and had zero credibility as probably the most famous politically incorrect comedian in existence.
Hey, I'll always have that time I showed a guy from India Da Fresh Ali G Show while we were both drunk and we laughed almost continuously for 2 hours.
Two unlisted movies worth your time, Steve: Prairie Home Companion and The Founder. The former is a quirky Robert Altman meditation on mortality, music, and humor that ranks among his best; while the latter is a tightly paced and eminently well crafted rise of a tycoon biopic about Ray Kroc starring Michael Keaton
Yeah it's thoughtful but light fare that doesn't bog itself down with tedious plot. Only now realizing the funny twist that in the movie the show is shut down by heartless FINANCIAL CAPITAL while in real life Kiellor was unpersoned by shrill humorless shitlibs outraged that he committed lese majeste against a woman at NPR
The last set of movies was so bad that some post genX fans have retrofitted the idea that the original sequels didn't suck. I looked it up and it was 2005 and I find that hard to believe. I had those categorized as 1990s movies.
Big Lebowski was made in 1998, so I have no favorite movie to contribute to this list. I did like the new Top Gun though, I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't woke. I did like the new Napoleon too, despite making him an awkward sperg. I like the outfits, historical setting, and battle scenes.
I would say that top ten or twenty lists are entertaining, top fifty lists are stretching it a bit, and top one hundred lists are too much. But top five hundred lists are like reading the phone book.
That for the most part, the divide between commercially successful films vs art house films tend to between the public and the experts. The experts wouldn't be caught dead nominating the LOTR trilogy even on a bad day for anything other than special affects, makeup etc. Certainly not for actual acting performances.
It will be interesting how many of these films make the cut when the poll is taken again at midcentury, 2050.
"Not as good as the 1933 black & white version with Katharine Hepburn"
VERY telling. That Hepburn played the tomboy Jo. In other words, as she was starting out in her film career, the word on the street was that she wasn't perceived as a girly feminine actress. This would change in later years in order for her to make the Alist.
"because Saoirse Ronan is too much of a girly girl to play tomboy Jo"
Hepburn did make a fine Jo.
"e.g., she can’t throw a baseball through a glass window."
I saw "Casino Royale" and "Master and Commander." "Casino Royale" was a confusing, politically correct mess. M as a woman. Bull shit. You may as well make Moneypenny a transgender. "Master and Commander" was a stew of about five Patrick O'Brian novels. It was very good but not great. Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin were excellent as was Max Pirkis as Midshipman Lord William Blakeney.
I had better quit reading and start watching movies, I am behind by the hundreds.
Makes me feel out of touch, but maybe everybody does, at least I hope so.
So many movies. Initial thoughts: I like "Mullholland Drive" a lot but I'm surprised so many others rank it so high. This is likely because David Lynch just died.
I love "Synecdoche New York" and I think low hundred is fair. I'm shocked that so many people agree with me.
I just saw "Sinners" last night. I liked it but #52 is clearly a recency effect. Will be a cult favorite.
"Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith"-- this is a troll, right? I don't even remember which one of the bad Star Wars movies this is, but I'm confident it sucked.
"The Substance" is super over rated. I understand what it's supposed to be about but the deal the actress makes in it is so obviously stupid from the beginning that I couldn't care about the rest of the consequences.
"Mean Girls" didn't make the original list? Absurd! It's one of the most important movies of the era. It explains the past decade so well. We may be at long last coming out of the mean girls era. Fetch is happening!
Right. "Mean Girls" would seem like a clear cut candidate for a top comedy of the century.
My idea is that the mid 1970s through approximately the mid 1990s was the "animal house" era and 2000 through at least 2020 was "mean girls" all the way. Everyone agrees with me about mean girls but insist on suggesting other candidates to replace animal house in my thesis. :)
As a teacher I live Mean Girls every day; not that my students are mean to me per se but I have to be cognizant of the social dynamics of the classroom in order to survive
Indeed. I've avoided any contact with young people for precisely this reason.
Too true to life. Give it 20 years to be recognized.
Yes, THE SUBSTANCE was highly overrated. I liked the premise, but who likes characters who make obvious dumb mistakes, even if they are dumb actresses?
Yep. How does it benefit her that an entirely other actress is getting the parts? Just because the other actress comes out of her in a painful way? It's not like she became temporarily young. It was another woman.
It's precisely *because* it explains the past decade so well that it's not on the list. The people in charge of the NYT and many of our institutions *are* mean girls, and they don't like having their foibles skewered.
I thought Sith was the best of the prequels. Actually has some oomph to it.
I'm unsure they are sophisticated enough to understand that. More likely they remember themselves as victims of mean girls from high school.
It's a good point! Perhaps both!
Borat is a genuinely offensive film. And genuinely hilarious. It speaks a lot to the cultural tone of the 2000s that the critics who bemoaned the besmirching of Kazakhstan were seen as weenies.
I notice that attitudes have changed a lot of recent years. Partially this is Sacha Baron Cohen showing off his grating real personality more over time, but I think in large part the FSU countries were still hilariously obscure, provincial, poor and backwards in 2006. Not so true these days.
The general public has got more used to abrasive Israeli-style humor since 2006, but not so used to on-the-nose Israeli-style emoting (witness Gal Gadot’s unpopularity during the early days of coronavirus).
SB Cohen is a mix of Larry David and Don Rickles.
Rutgers dropout Larry Charles (Borat's director) cut his teeth being third-in-command on Seinfeld, although he and Larry David eventually had a falling out. LC molded the Kramer character as Jerry and George were expies of Jerry and Larry
SBC is reading his audience--back in the 2000s he was cool because he was doing the edgy comedy that appealed to young men in those days, then he had to pivot to making fun of rural people because they hadn't seen HBO yet and he had to claim he was unmasking racism, then he tried to go woke. and predictably became a lot less funny and had zero credibility as probably the most famous politically incorrect comedian in existence.
Hey, I'll always have that time I showed a guy from India Da Fresh Ali G Show while we were both drunk and we laughed almost continuously for 2 hours.
Two unlisted movies worth your time, Steve: Prairie Home Companion and The Founder. The former is a quirky Robert Altman meditation on mortality, music, and humor that ranks among his best; while the latter is a tightly paced and eminently well crafted rise of a tycoon biopic about Ray Kroc starring Michael Keaton
Agree on “Prairie Home Companion”! Plus it’s one of the few movies that genuinely seems to express what it’s like to be an old man.
Yeah it's thoughtful but light fare that doesn't bog itself down with tedious plot. Only now realizing the funny twist that in the movie the show is shut down by heartless FINANCIAL CAPITAL while in real life Kiellor was unpersoned by shrill humorless shitlibs outraged that he committed lese majeste against a woman at NPR
Revenge of the Sith?! The education crisis is way worse than I thought!
The last set of movies was so bad that some post genX fans have retrofitted the idea that the original sequels didn't suck. I looked it up and it was 2005 and I find that hard to believe. I had those categorized as 1990s movies.
"Top Gun: Maverick. Perhaps the great Hollywood movie post-covid and post-George Floyd."
The Air Force knew that only Maverick could drop a MOPS down the chute at Fordo, and kudos to Cruise for stepping up.
Moonlight drops from #6 to #18 on the reader list. I don’t think it would have made the reader top 50 had the NYT not included it on their list first.
I'm glad to see THE PRESTIGE made the top 100. It's Nolan's best film.
I really liked prestige. The one of his thinkers that most made me think.
Big Lebowski was made in 1998, so I have no favorite movie to contribute to this list. I did like the new Top Gun though, I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't woke. I did like the new Napoleon too, despite making him an awkward sperg. I like the outfits, historical setting, and battle scenes.
I wanted to like the new Napoleon but I failed.
LOT of crappy movies on that list
“Ponyo” was probably my favorite animated movie of the last 25 years.
I would say that top ten or twenty lists are entertaining, top fifty lists are stretching it a bit, and top one hundred lists are too much. But top five hundred lists are like reading the phone book.
"What do you think?"
That for the most part, the divide between commercially successful films vs art house films tend to between the public and the experts. The experts wouldn't be caught dead nominating the LOTR trilogy even on a bad day for anything other than special affects, makeup etc. Certainly not for actual acting performances.
It will be interesting how many of these films make the cut when the poll is taken again at midcentury, 2050.
"Not as good as the 1933 black & white version with Katharine Hepburn"
VERY telling. That Hepburn played the tomboy Jo. In other words, as she was starting out in her film career, the word on the street was that she wasn't perceived as a girly feminine actress. This would change in later years in order for her to make the Alist.
"because Saoirse Ronan is too much of a girly girl to play tomboy Jo"
Hepburn did make a fine Jo.
"e.g., she can’t throw a baseball through a glass window."
Hepburn was a pretty good golfer.
Hepburn's Jo throws baseballs twice (and very well), June Allyson throws one baseball, and Soarsie Ronan, a girl's girl, throwns none.
I saw "Casino Royale" and "Master and Commander." "Casino Royale" was a confusing, politically correct mess. M as a woman. Bull shit. You may as well make Moneypenny a transgender. "Master and Commander" was a stew of about five Patrick O'Brian novels. It was very good but not great. Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey and Paul Bettany as Dr. Stephen Maturin were excellent as was Max Pirkis as Midshipman Lord William Blakeney.
Did Ridley Scott's Hannibal make the list? I enjoy that film. It is delightfully absurd.
No, it made neither list