best films of the 21st century

Hey man I did my best

But seriously I "f/w" am's list tbh all these lists are making me feel pretty good about films of the last whenever, even the bbc one. My eyes just skip over the terrible Nolan &c stuff

what the comparison says to me is you group your directors by geography and phenotype and nothing more xp

― 龜, Thursday, 25 August 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It can look like that - as I haven't watched it alongside Ozu for a long-time I wouldn't feel like expanding but this particular film (unlike all other films by Yang I've seen) is very clearly a take on some of those Ozu dramas, and a build-upon them. There is plenty of other Asian cinema you wouldn't discuss alongside Ozu (that isn't just horror or animation) but this is a unique case to me.

I look at Taiwanese cinema sometimes as part of a 'slow-cinema' ecosystem that is very international but I can see why it might be annoying to you to talk of Yi Yi in terms of Ozu.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days maybe the most tense and visceral experience I've had in the cinema, partially because it was unexpected - we'd gone to see something else that was sold out and picked it instead as I vaguely recalled someone here saying something positive about it, but had no idea what it was about.

I have a terrible idea of intercutting it with a Dardenne bros film to make the social realist epic 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and 1 night.

if i took a Romanian entry it might be Death of Mr Lazarescu

Yes, was just thinking that this was another notable absence - it made the BFI/Sight and Sound Top 250 a few years ago. I had to spend a couple of days in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary hospital last year, and many parts of the film rang very true, sadly - that mixture of expertise and incompetence, care and indifference.

Dardenne Bros also seem to be falling out of favour - L'Enfant at least deserves a spot, imho - has some of the same tension and surprise as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

4 Days... is easily one of the best experiences I've ever had with a new release on the big screen. This and Hidden.

Only watched Lazarescu on TV.

There's enough in Yi Yi to make the Ozu comparison valid. The ending is similar to Tokyo Story, and there are a few other moments which I think are explicitly inviting the comparison. It might actually be more prominent during the sequence in Japan, where there are some shots that use the classic Ozu framing (static, low camera height), and even a location in common with Tokyo Story, the seaside in Atami. But on a deeper level I'm not sure I could say what the connection is. I don't think it's the key to understanding that movie or anything.

The most overt Ozu homage in the last decade or so is Hou's Café Lumière; it was practically a summoning of his ghost.

Looks cool. I haven't seen that yet. I only started getting into Hou Hsiao-Hsien films this year after being mystified by The Assassin (in a good way - I want to watch it again soon).

I think the biggest Ozu homage I've seen recently is Liu Shumin's The Family. It's basically Tokyo Story, except 4 hours long, and in China. Kinda a masterpiece.

Just saw this today: http://www.filmcomment.com/blog/film-week-happy-hour/

Ozu and Yi Yi, its like the plague!

Happy Hour is less like Ozu than The Family :) I watched them a couple days apart.

I think Yi Yi is also far enough away from Ozu. Thought it used it as a template but veered significantly from it, which is why I was excited about it at the time beyond the execution being all-round amazing too!

Hou's Cafe Lumiere and Kiarostami's Five were both dedicated to Ozu and released in the centenary year of Ozu's birth (2003) - the Kiarostami especially is quite an oblique response to Ozu

i think the way yang contemplates the tension between individual will and the pressures of family is oz-like

er, ozU-like

Jonathan Rosenbaum's list:

https://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2017/06/my-25-favorite-films-of-this-millennium-so-far/

JR counting on another 983 years of cinema

FIN DE ROSENBAUM

FIN DE ROSENBAUM

nice list, tho Bernie & Fernanda Hussein, ai yi yi

no cloudy with a chance of meatballs no credibility

MacGruber

When in doubt, the answer to most questions is MacGruber, I find.

I remain mystified by his affection for Down with Love.

This never made its way into the thread: https://www.filmcomment.com/article/film-comments-end-of-the-decade-critics-poll/

I like this list because There Will Be Blood is all the way down at #5.

Loads I need to see on the Rosenbaum list

what the FUCK do critics see in Million Dollar Baby?

Down with Love also a fave of the erstwhile ilxor KJB

Data point: I saw Alexander Payne do a Q&A last month, and he said the only masterpiece of the 21st century so far was Amour.

He's half right in that Alexander Payne has directed no masterpieces this century.

he's half right in that Amour is the closest thing to a great movie directed by Haneke.

noooooooooo

Time of the Wolf, maybe

Code Unknown. This isn't hard, people.

I know. Yet you insist on making it so.

So long as we all know it's not Benny's Video.

Code Unknown.

Cache

i've seen 6, none w/in shouting distance of great

but looks good next to Gaspar Noe

You've between you named all the postmillennial Haneke besides the best one

His 90s stuff is better anyway.

His 90s stuff is without merit.

besides the best one

Funny Games 2.0! Oh, wait.

(haven't seen The White Ribbon tbh)

Haneke sucks.

No eye for composition! Couldn't work his way around a camera with two hands and a map!

I like a couple of Haneke films but hus superior/hectoring tone is a real liability when it takes over

speaking of beloved movies I loathe, down with The Turin Horse beyond the opening shot

Force Majeure!

speaking of beloved movies I loathe, down with The Turin Horse beyond the opening shot

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.),

isn't The Turin Horse a long opening shot

Hoberman's

http://j-hoberman.com/2017/06/25-for-21/

The Clock would definitely be on mine, but i saw maybe 30% of it.