EvaGeeks' Most Watched Movies of 2011 [1]

[toe mash]

Watch this

MY BRAIN IS FULL OF FUCK

[Xard]

MY BRAIN IS FULL OF FUCK

That's supposed to be your reaction before, during, and after watching it

[Oz]

That trailer is fairly ordinary next to the enormous mindfuck that the film itself is.

For everyone who have seen Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy: This is an interesting read.

[Trajan]

Meh, I thought Love Exposure was entertaining but I'm still not sure quite what to make of it after seeing it six months ago. Its run time is probably the reason I haven't revisited it.

[schismatics]

Just finished The Lovely Bones. I have really mixed feelings about it though...the first half was fabulous, but somewhere in the process the second half kinda fell apart with an ending that only half-redeemed it. It felt like there was a lot of stuff being cut out, which is also kinda odd considering that the flick moved at a snail's pace. Despite, everything I still really liked the movie.

Other than that, great audio work (which I think is a standard with Jackson), some great special effects and a fitting soundtrack. I'm probably going to end up picking up the Blu-Ray of this though, just for those gorgeous scenescapes.

[Trajan]

Mulholland Drive.

I really don't get what all the praise is about, but then again I've never been a Lynch fan.

[Azathoth]

I don't have any detailed criticism of it, but I found it entertaining throughout and cleverly directed, which is really all you can say about the films of a man who has repeatedly stated that he has no idea what any of his films mean

[Twin Drive Sigma Aquarion]

High Plain Invaders, yet another great movie from Syfy, 'nough said.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Watched Scott's take on Robin Hood last night. Meh.

I thought it was surprisingly good.

The Spy Who Loved Me: With the great hype for it (and having no memories of it) I was expecting more from this flick. Certainly it's a solid Bond film, but fairly unremarkable after the extraordinary bit in Egypt. Pretty much everything from cinematography to writing became more generic right after they left Egypt.

If you're watching Bond for the cinematography then you're doing it wrong. The whole submarine facility part is one of the few things from the Bond series permanently imprinted into my brain.

If I were to rank the best movies of the past decade in no particular order, it'd be something like this:

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Yi Yi
There Will Be Blood
Talk to Her
No Country For Old Men
In the Mood for Love
The Lives of Others

My list (number on the left is its place on my Top 250 film list):

6 Mulholland Drive
21 Yi Yi: A One and a Two
49 Lord of the Rings
54 In Absentia
99 What Time is it There?
102 Lost in Translation
113 Texhnolyze
120 Haibane Renmei
127 Pan's Labyrinth
130 Werckmeister Harmonies
132 The Fountain
139 Flight of the Red Balloon
156 Before Sunset
179 Synechdoche, New York
188 Inland Empire
201 Y Tu Mama Tambien
202 The Heart of the World
213 Persepolis
219 Love Exposure
225 No Country for Old Men
231 Uzak
235 Spirited Away
242 The Piano Teacher
247 Up
249 Inglorious Basterds
253 A Serious Man
257 All About Lily Chou-Chou
259 Sideways

Seriously, what was there to like about There Will Be Blood? I don't get it. I call upon the collective filmnerd posse to explain this bullshit. Or why the Social Network was any good, while you're at it.

I assume you read my TSN review. TWBB is a visual marvel, I think. It's PTA channeling Kubrick, and even the music and the equivocal ending is a giveaway. Firstly, I think it's one of the 5 best character studies of the 20th century. I think if you're looking for sympathetic characters or a lot of plot then neither TSN or TWBB really applies, but they are similar in that they present fascinating, unlikable characters that have quite a bit of depth, certainly more than simply what's on the surface. Both are also very nuanced in its visual language, like the close/distant or framing editing in TSN or the parallels/echoes in TWBB.

Mulholland Drive.

I really don't get what all the praise is about, but then again I've never been a Lynch fan.

It's the greatest film of the 20th century, that's what the hype is about. All I can suggest is to go to Lost on Mulholland Drive and do some reading. That's a brilliant, brilliant, genius, brilliant, mind-bogglingly amazing film. #6 on my all-time list and one of those that, when I'm watching it, I feel I could easily justify it being #1 (well, at least #2 since NGE will likely always be 1).

[Xard]

Mulholland Drive.

I really don't get what all the praise is about, but then again I've never been a Lynch fan.

First Love Exposure and now MD?

*sigh*

hopeless.

Mulholland Drive is one of the best films of the last decade, ditto for "all time".

Inland Empire is still the champ though

[toe mash]

My list (number on the left is its place on my Top 250 film list):
.....
253 A Serious Man
257 All About Lily Chou-Chou
259 Sideways

Son, I think we need to sit and talk about how "top x" lists work

[Eva Yojimbo]

Son, I think we need to sit and talk about how "top x" lists work

I call it a Top 250 because it hasn't hit 300. Those outside the 250 are those most likely to crack the list whenever I eventually redo it. It's basically a collection of all the films I've rated 9.0 or higher, roughly 5% of the total films I've watched.

[toe mash]

Ah, hehe. Well I suppose calling it a "top 274" list or whatever would be rather weird and annoying to explain each time.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Never Let Me Go {2010; Mark Romanek; 103 min; UK} --- 6.0/10
Dirty Pictures {2000; Frank Pierson; 104 min; US} --- 4.0/10

[Jessemon]

For films of the decade, 3 that immediately popped in my head that haven't been listed were:

Hero - amazing story structure, fantastic visuals, fantastic performances, great love story
Requiem for a Dream - What can I say? Extremely powerful movie, will make you terrified of refrigerators,
Wall-E - I would need a lot more than the 4 minutes I'm putting into this post to describe my love of Wall-E. I think it's utterly brilliant from every angle though.

And tbh, I thought Up was above average at best. The opening sequence is absolutely brilliant and heart breakingly sad, but I can't help but get the feeling every time I see it (which is 4x now) that the entire movie was created because of that single sequence/idea. The movie drags a lot in the middle for me, as if Pixar wasn't sure where to go with the film, and while the ending is alright, it didn't have nearly a big enough pay off to make up for the middle.

[Eva Yojimbo]

Requiem for a Dream - What can I say? Extremely powerful movie, will make you terrified of refrigerators,

The Fountain is SOOOOOOOOO much better (it was Aronofsky's next film).

[symbv]

It's the greatest film of the 20th century, that's what the hype is about. All I can suggest is to go to Lost on Mulholland Drive and do some reading. That's a brilliant, brilliant, genius, brilliant, mind-bogglingly amazing film. #6 on my all-time list and one of those that, when I'm watching it, I feel I could easily justify it being #1 (well, at least #2 since NGE will likely always be 1).

I cannot say I am really a Lynch fan but somehow I ended up watching quite a lot of his films from Eraserhead onwards. And I really think Mulholland Drive has the best balance between coherence of narration and whacky mind-blowing mysterious thrill among Lynch films. His "Blue Velvet" is easier to understand from a story point of view, but the story, the images, the editing, and the music (I even once looped the OST the whole night) of MH left much deeper impression with me.

I cannot say I understand everything about it though. I have read some about this film but not much. Perhaps I can ask fans of this film some quick questions?

SPOILER: Show

Is it a wide consensus that the first 2/3 or so of the film is the flash of reflection of Naomi Watt's character as she died killing herself and lay dying at the bed at the end?

And I have not seen what exactly the blue cube is supposed to be. A mental creation by Naomi Watt's character? But how come some creepy small people would come out to haunt her to her death? If we say those small people are also her illusion, why would they take the form of the nice old couple that she met at the airport (well, actually that belongs to her "dying illusion" so I am not sure how much were really facts she had experienced)

Mulholland Drive is one of the best films of the last decade, ditto for "all time".

Inland Empire is still the champ though

I think Inland Empire lost that balance that I mentioned. It went all the way to the whacky and it could easily get lost in the movie.... MH was borderline sane (same could be argued for Eva) which perhaps contributed to its greatness :)

[Jessemon]

The Fountain is SOOOOOOOOO much better (it was Aronofsky's next film).

Ugh, idk. I am INCREDIBLY torn between the two films. Since I find them about on par, it's safe to assume that you are probably correct about The Fountain being better, since I am naturally attracted to dark, visceral films. I do think that The Fountain is amazing though.

Perhaps we can both agree that Clint Mansell is one of the best movie composers in the business. Lux Aeterna is one of my favorite pieces of all time, but The Fountain's overall ST was simply beautiful. He did an amazing job with the movie Moon too (which is an incredibly underrated film).

[NemZ]

No Jimbo, I didn't read your review. The idea that TSN had deep characters is hilarious though.

[Eva Yojimbo]

I really think Mulholland Drive has the best balance between coherence of narration and whacky mind-blowing mysterious thrill among Lynch films.

I first saw MD at 16. It was my first experience with Lynch and it blew my adolescent mind. I mean, I had seen some rather weird cinema up to then, but never anything quite like that. I devoured Lynch's filmography soon after, but I always come back to MD as having the exactly quality you describe, that mix between classic narrative and his more surrealistic, WTF, Lynchisms. It helps that Club Silencio is one of the 2 or 3 best scenes EVER.

Answers  SPOILER: Show

Is it a wide consensus that the first 2/3 or so of the film is the flash of reflection of Naomi Watt's character as she died killing herself and lay dying at the bed at the end?

--The general consensus is that the first 2 hours is some kind of orgasmic fever dream of Diane's where she imagines a happy version of her life that's completely the opposite of her actual life. The last 20 minutes is a mix of Diane's waking life and memories of what happened that lead to her suicide.

And I have not seen what exactly the blue cube is supposed to be. A mental creation by Naomi Watt's character? But how come some creepy small people would come out to haunt her to her death? If we say those small people are also her illusion, why would they take the form of the nice old couple that she met at the airport (well, actually that belongs to her "dying illusion" so I am not sure how much were really facts she had experienced)

--The blue cube seems to be a kind of Pandora's Box, holding the buried secrets of Diane's psyche as well as being her gateway back to reality. There's actually a strong blue/red color symbolism in the film that Lynch used again in IE, and in MD it especially seems associated with the dream world. It's interesting to note that the blue key that opens the box in the dream is basically a mutation of the blue key she gets from the hitman. So if you associate the key with her action/choice, then it's basically the "key" that unlocked her unconsciousness as well as all her guilt, frustration, anger, etc.

I've always interpreted the old/small couple to represent her innocent past that's come back to haunt her. It's a correlative to the dumpster demon that happens to just be a poor bum. Both are potent symbols of a motif in the film about how the psyche distorts our perceptions of reality, and how things that are actually innocent (the old couple, the bum) can turn into demons that haunt us if we hold on to our cognitive distortions. Diane does this even in her memories, like imagining the blond girl kissing Camilla on the lips at the party, which certainly didn't happen the way she "remembers" it.

Some say the old couple are actually her grandparents, but I don't think that's really important. I think it's more likely they're actually the old couple she met after she won the jitterbug competition and came to Hollywood. It's basically a perversion of the most innocent time in her life, that all of her resentment has turned into just another mental demon.

I think Inland Empire lost that balance that I mentioned.

Yeah, I rather agree. I've always said MD was an Ulysses to IE's Finnegans Wake. I mean, I love IE, but I agree it goes too far off the deep-end and doesn't have even close to the pristine construction of MD.

Ugh, idk. I am INCREDIBLY torn between the two films. Since I find them about on par, it's safe to assume that you are probably correct about The Fountain being better, since I am naturally attracted to dark, visceral films. I do think that The Fountain is amazing though.

Perhaps we can both agree that Clint Mansell is one of the best movie composers in the business. Lux Aeterna is one of my favorite pieces of all time, but The Fountain's overall ST was simply beautiful. He did an amazing job with the movie Moon too (which is an incredibly underrated film).

I certainly agree about The Fountain's OST. Probably the best of the 21st century and it's certainly one of the major reasons why that film never fails to make me cry. That ending is just incredibly poignant. As for Requiem, I just never have liked it much. The best reason I can give is that it's so darn predictable, even right from the beginning. I didn't care a lot for Moon either, honestly.

No Jimbo, I didn't read your review. The idea that TSN had deep characters is hilarious though.

You can read my review on either FPS or Cinelogue. Jesse Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is at least a pretty ambiguous and provocative character, one that I think is quite a bit deeper than most give him credit for. It's hard to pull of playing an "asshole", and I think he does it with a pathos that's really overlooked by most reviews.