watching expired appliances align

What a fantastic list, Dan - you named a few movies I regret missing and a few I don't even remember hearing about.

Mitch: loved the haikus, as usual. But you are so wrong about one thing: Scrubs is way better than Garden State.

Dan: you made me finally realize why I liked Kill Bill 2 less than 1. The lack of killing bored me. I was much more into 1's frequent executions than 2's anticipation of killing Bill.

I've tried watching "Scrubs" on numerous occasions - to me it seems like the same exact episode each time.

Yo. Movielist time...I love it. I have started to draft mine...I PROMISE this year to get it in!!!!!

Hard Workin Larry

Wow Sujan were you cranky when you wrote your list! And you call me a hater??????

HWL

movies 2004 made me missy cranky pants. but i just tell it like it is!

Classic blog spam......too hysterical

Chris -

I must've deleted the blog spam just as you were posting this comment. Sorry about that.

-Marc

Neeson as young Kinsey -- it's a less distracting option than casting a different actor.

And no, Eternal Sunshine was not like a long music video.

1) casting a younger actor who bore some sort of resemblence to liam neeson would not have been as distracting as having neeson try to pass himself off as a teenager, 20 year old, however old he was supposed to be.

2) ok...

bill,

we're all dying to see your list.

Thanks, Dan. I'll have it before the Oscars. (I'm still renting stuff I missed.)

Since they did have another actor for the teen Kinsey, once he meets his future wife you pretty much have to go with the star. (I also didn't much like the movie.)

"Not casting Rickey Henderson in a small role was a major oversight."

Most insightful sentence of film criticism I've read all year. I would see this movie just for the cameo. Absolutely brilliant, Sujan, the movies need you in casting.

"if I ever see any more of Michael Pitt then I have to ever again, I’m going to throw up."

C'mon Sujan, he looks great with vaginal blood on his lips!

While I didn't love The Dreamers, I think it's misunderstood. When mainstream American movies want to contemplate (or exploit) teen sensuality, they smother it with fake social commentary and always throw in a 'sympathetic' middle-aged male predator, like the embarrassingly lauded American Beauty.

gotta say that Amy and Chris M's lists may have inspired me to actually do a list this year. i especially liked the image of Chris arguing with Dan about Brothels. wait, were they arguing about the movie or just about the concept of whorehouses? either way, good times.

jamie, we'll believe it when we see it! i want to see more movies starring patrick fugit and jena malone. they are adorable together. amy w, what did you think of mandy's duet with stipe during the credits?

bill w,

i didn't misunderstand the dreamers. i just didn't think it was that good. yes, american beauty was overrated and seems even sillier now than it did 5 years ago but what exactly does that have to do with the dreamers?

jamie,

I might just have been in the wrong mood to see born into brothels. chris brings up good points.

amy,
having only seen the end credits of saved, i wouldn't touch it with a fifty foot pole.

I'm glad Chris liked "Friday Night Lights" so much. I'm really disappointed that I missed this in theaters - it was released pretty quietly in late September or October and by the time the World Series was over and I had time to see it around Thanksgiving, it was already gone. I need to rent it for sure - interesting that Billy Bob is the coach here and also in the "Bad News Bears" remake in a few months.

Donovan wrote:
I don’t care what Dan says, I’ll trade 15 subtitled films I’ve never heard of for this movie.

First of all, Mr. Smartypants, all I said was that the Mandy Moore/ Michael Stipe duet over the closing credits was terrible. I have not seen the movie.

Second of all, those 15 movies you've never heard of don't make them bad. But they definitely do not have Mandy Moore in them.

Chris,
I wish I had seen Friday Night Lights. It was only out for a very short time before it disappeared. I look forward to seeing it.

Dan wrote:
But they definitely do not have Mandy Moore in them.

Exactly.

df

after i read donovan's crack about the 15 subtitled films, i thought maybe he and chris l. had done some kind of freaky friday switch. but then i realized that donovan is just getting a little cranky out here in the hinterlands.

for the sake of peace in balgavy-land, let's just clarify that when dan said "having only seen the end credits of saved, i wouldn't touch it with a fifty foot pole," the "it" is supposed to signify the mandy moore/michael stipe duet, right? not the movie itself? the sentence was a little confusing so I'll issue an apology on behalf of the mandy moore lovers who got offended.

i hate it when donovan and dan fight.

btw, happy birthday, dan!!

amy,

i wasn't clear on the issue of what i meant. i actually kind of wanted to see it, but the end credits scared me. then sujan and my sister were both lukewarm on the movie so that pushed me even farther away.

i think chris l has given up on harassing me about movies.

thank you for the birthday wishes.

and don't worry about me and donovan fighting. it will just make the making up part that much sweeter!

I don't think it's fair to judge a movie only by its end credits. We all agree the mandy stipe duet sucks. saved was pretty decent.

I take great umbrage however that amy refers to my hometown as the hinterlands.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know where I could play some poker online?

Dan--

American Beauty and The Dreamers: teenage knockers.

I play online at partypoker and pokerroom (I get bored sometimes). Supposedly partypoker is better, so i just signed up and can't really compare. The characters on pokerroom are cooler looking. Yesteday I came in 370th place out of 2000 people in a tourny, meaning I won nada. Both seem pretty similar to me. I have played online with friends (Erik C. and Jessie) so feel free and get in touch about playing online together.

and yes I play for real money - so far I ahead of my "investment"

CM

Bill,

I find it interesting that for someone who has such a strong opinion on every film, that you didn't bother to give us your thoughts on any of the films on your list. I suppose leaving yourself open to the criticism you inflict on others doesn't work for you? I was curious to actually read your thoughts on some films, rather than just a list.

Jeremy,

Your reviews are always so good. In particular, your review of Before Sunset makes me think I should have ranked it higher.

Dan,

Apologies for the lack of comments. But I don't have a home computer, spent my time at work just compiling the list, and now have received an anonymous complaint thru my boss that I'm "not busy enough." (God bless schadenfreude.)

Here's a few paragraphs I sent to the Film Comment readers poll:

Class did its usual disappearing act from American films, save for curiosities like Clint Eastwood's hillbilly-bashing in Million Dollar Baby and, more felicitously, Mark Wahlberg's career performance in I Heart Huckabees. Which casts into greater relief the long, penultimate sequence in Crimson Gold where Hossain wanders through his young yuppie customer's duplex, a haunting, ambiguous exploration of a social chasm that even adventurous American filmmakers seem less interested in than ever.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's heroic, antic seriousness was in positing romantic love as an act of will, not destiny, often unwise but always beyond words ("Talking constantly is not necessarily communicating").

I await the future CGI reconstruction of Before Sunrise/Sunset, in which Julie Delpy is rewarded with a digital replacement for the irritating Jesse of Ethan Hawke.

damn bill! that is what i wanted!
that is what i wanted. seriously, send that in to balgavy! let's get more of that.
in particular, i want to read your comments on dogville- not that i will rip it or anything. i know that film was pretty divisive and since you hated it, i'd like to read why. just don't pull an armond white on me and somehow reference a new order song or some shit like that.

>just don't pull an armond white on me and somehow reference a new order song or some shit like that.

LOL .. how about Morrissey?

Damn, now the rest of my post vanished...