Your Top Five Films for This Decade... so far?

[Eddie]

Here is my list of personal favorites. Seems like no features really blew me away this decade, but with the coming of RED I am sure this is gonna change

1. Origins of Aids
2. Grizzly Man
3. Domestic Violence
4. Sicko
5. Darwins Nightmare

Some stills

 

[Eddie]

btw documentaries seem to be a good option if you don´t want to seem neither gay nor childish...

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

I have another, "Guess which film" set of questions...

So two other films I haven't been able to remeber....

Both of them are Asian films, the first I can only recall a snippet of..... There is an Asian boy who lies on the floor stuck in paint he poured on himself after sniffing glue and passing out, he wakes up to the sight of a floundering goldfish puckering for air. His mother walks in and embraces him.

The second film is about a bicycle taxi man, (Vietnamese I believe) who falls in love with a prostitute he regularly taxis about.

Any takers?

Another good foreign film I haven't seen mentioned here is The French film, "The Eighth Day" which deals with a young man with down syndrome and a stressed out business man looking to rekindle a relationship with his ex-wife.

Also, has anyone seen Danny Boyle's Sunshine? If so, how was it?

 

[Eddie]

I can´t really figure out if 300 was gay or manly... hhmmm interesting question. What do you think alexander?

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

A little bit of both.

 

[krd]

I have another, "Guess which film" set of questions... The second film is about a bicycle taxi man, (Vietnamese I believe) who falls in love with a prostitute he regularly taxis about.

That's an easy one: Cyclo, dir. Tran Anh Hung.

 

[krd]

Don't know about anyone else, but it seems harder and harder to judge quality, or even fix long-term preferences: too much flux in the medium, and a destruction of standards and formal understandings, and to quote one of those impenetrable French philosopher/oracles, modern culture has been thoroughly aesthetisized, so is art any longer possible?

Anyway, here are a handful of semi-obscure and very obscure films, all of which either shocked, altered perception for the length of their running time, or elicited what seemed like genuine emotion, and none previously mentioned. Whether they're any good is another question! I'm cheating a little, going back 10 years or so, rather than 7.

Audition -- Takashi Miike
The Orphan of Anyang -- Chao Wang
American Job -- Chris Smith
The Swamp & The Holy Girl -- both Lucretia Martel
L'humanite -- Bruno Dumont
The Power of Kangwong Province - Song-soo Hong
La Promesse - Jean Pierre & Luc Dardennes

 

[PaulClements]

I'm suprised that no one has included The MotorCycle Diaries

 

[Curran Giddens]

I'm suprised that no one has included The MotorCycle Diaries

That is an excellent movie. One of my last rentals from netflix before I cancelled my membership. It would be good to watch it again right before seeing "The Argentine" and "Guerrilla" when they come out.

 

[Jason Murphy]

I have another, "Guess which film" set of questions...

Both of them are Asian films, the first I can only recall a snippet of..... There is an Asian boy who lies on the floor stuck in paint he poured on himself after sniffing glue and passing out, he wakes up to the sight of a floundering goldfish puckering for air. His mother walks in and embraces him.

The second film is about a bicycle taxi man, (Vietnamese I believe) who falls in love with a prostitute he regularly taxis about.

Also, has anyone seen Danny Boyle's Sunshine? If so, how was it?

I actually think you may be describing the same movie, Cyclo. It may not be, of course, but I certainly remember a scene where the boy pours blue paint all over himself and lies on the floor gasping before passing out. Forget whether mom or a goldfish is involved.

Also, saw Sunshine. It's got a really good first half before getting really stupid in the second half. That said, there's something to be said for a movie which has a sense of the vast and the awe-inspiring, no matter how stupid it gets in the second half. And Alwin Kuchler is a fantastic cinematographer (he also shot Morvern Callar, one of my favorite films of the past decade).

 

[Tom Lowe]

I saw Sunshine yesterday and enjoyed it. I like that girl Rose Byrne, who also played in Troy opposite Pitt. Her career really seems to fly under the radar, but her acting seems first rate, plus she's gorgeous.

 

[Sean]

btw documentaries seem to be a good option if you don´t want to seem neither gay nor childish...

What strange comments from a community that includes artists and professionals in film.

 

[Desert Rune]

That's an easy one: Cyclo, dir. Tran Anh Hung.

The second scene also sounds like Three Seasons.

Also, has anyone seen Danny Boyle's Sunshine? If so, how was it?

Mind-blowingly dumb. First, Boyle respects the audience enough in the first half of the movie to give one of the best sci-fi opening acts with genuine tension and awe-inspiring cinematography. It's preposterous enough to accept the plot of sending a crew of eight with a stellar bomb to re-ignite the sun. But the "guy goes crazy" plot and the ending was so preposterous, I had enough to think we were being jerked around.

 

[Curran Giddens]

What strange comments from a community that includes artists and professionals in film.

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3447

You must have missed the joke....

 

[Curran Giddens]

I saw Sunshine yesterday and enjoyed it. I like that girl Rose Byrne, who also played in Troy opposite Pitt. Her career really seems to fly under the radar, but her acting seems first rate, plus she's gorgeous.

Wow! She is gorgeous! Now, where was that code to get 20% off my first 3 months of netflix....

 

[Jason Murphy]

Beau Travail (dir. Claire Denis, dp. Agnes Godard, 2000)

Loosely based on Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd, Beau Travail details a dispute between two French Legionnaires stationed in Djibouti. Master Sergeant Galoup (played by the great Denis Lavant) finds his position among his unit, and in the eyes of his commander (Michel Subor) increasingly upstaged by a new recruit, Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Jealous, Galoup tries to find a way to destroy Sentain.

The movie is incredibly beautiful and somewhat elliptical. Having grown up in that part of the world (Oman for me), I have to say that it does an exceptional job of capturing the feel of the place, the underlying tension between expats and locals, and the deep sense of cultural displacement by those who find themselves suddenly taken out of that environment. So I'm a bit biased. But it's an amazing movie pretty much anyway you look at it.

It's available on DVD from New Yorker. Warning to Tom, though: since there are a lot of buff shirtless soldiers running around in the movie, and some homoerotic undertones, you may want to keep an eye on your Netflix recommendations after queuing this up. Just sayin'.

 

[Tom Lowe]

LMAO! don't worry I've added a bunch of John Wayne flicks to my queue, so I should be rejoining the hetro ranks on netflix soon.... if all goes according to plan.

Thanks for these writeups. All of your recommendations to me so far have been awesome, so I will check all of these out.

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

That's an easy one: Cyclo, dir. Tran Anh Hung.

Buzz, wrong :bleh:

The second scene also sounds like Three Seasons.

Ding ding ding! thank you, that's an awesome film.

Seems to be some mixed reviews on Sunshine. I love Danny Boyle's work though and the Cinematography alone makes it a must see for me, here's to different strokes for different folks I guess?

So no one remebers a film where there's a scene with a young asian boy with blue paint poured over himself lying on the floor while staring at a goldish flopping around? I remeber the scene to be the exact way I described it.

Also, here's another foreign film I've forgotten the name of.....

The film follows a young indian boy and his gang of homeless glue huffing hoodlums. They regularly hang out by a train station and pee on the tracks for fun. The boy does odd jobs for money and keeps a stash behind some bricks near the railway. One day his stash is stolen. The young boy also kills an Indian pimp to save a young girl he has fallen in love with. Anyone?

Thanks for the help everyone. :biggrin:

 

[Alexander Nikishin]

Audition -- Takashi Miike

Audition's an awesome film as well.

Ever since seeing it, I subconsciously find my Japanese girlfriend to be quite capable of sinister things.

 

[krd]

So no one remebers a film where there's a scene with a young asian boy with blue paint poured over himself lying on the floor while staring at a goldish flopping around? I remeber the scene to be the exact way I described it.

That's Cyclo! If Three Seasons has the same prostitute/driver conceit, it stole it from the earlier and better Cyclo. No buzzers, please.

Also, here's another foreign film I've forgotten the name of..... The film follows a young indian boy and his gang of homeless glue huffing hoodlums. They regularly hang out by a train station and pee on the tracks for fun. The boy does odd jobs for money and keeps a stash behind some bricks near the railway. One day his stash is stolen. The young boy also kills an Indian pimp to save a young girl he has fallen in love with. Anyone?

Salaam Bombay, dir. Mira Nair. She in turn stole the plot from the far better Brazilian film, Pixote. Trust me! Not infallible, but almost.

Audition's an awesome film as well. Ever since seeing it, I subconsciously find my Japanese girlfriend to be quite capable of sinister things.

It was based on a novel of the same name, which in turn was based on the author's affair with the actress Miho Nakaido, who is (or was?) married to the indie filmmaker, Hal Hartley. You see her around in NY. What I wonder is, how many people know??? You'll be pleased to learn that Hal is still alive (and has both feet).