Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Stylus Ranks Top 50 Movies of the New Millenium, Makes Mistakes

I just got around to reading the Stylus Magazine Top 50 Movies of the New Millenium.

The Kill Bill Vol. 2 review contains the line "Hell hath no fury like a woman shot and left for dead," which is pretty close to my previously-published "Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman shot in the head and left for dead," which I will let slide because any idiot could have come up with that line, as it's pretty much the most obvious blog/web/filmnerd response to either volume of Kill Bill.

My real issues are with some pieces of the list:
- Russian Ark at 14??? Russian Ark is a one-trick pony with just enough muffled historical references to pretend to artistry. I like the formal and visual experience of a single-take movie, but even aware that I missed certain insider Russian-history references, I felt the overpowering hollowness at this film's core. (I might like to remake it, but there's no way it makes my top 50.)
- Elephant doesn't make the top 50??? neither does Morvern Callar? no 28 Days Later?? These are HUGE omissions.
- Underrated: The Pianist, Dancer in the Dark
- Overrated: Far From Heaven, American Splendor (should be closer to the bottom than the top of this list), In The Bedroom, Requiem for a Dream

All that said, most of their Top 10 movies are hard to question as belonging somewhere near the top.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

agreed on most counts - american splendor is overrated, dancer in the dark is underrated - but i have to ask about 28 days later. did you really like it that much?

by the way, nice blog. email me so i can tell you how to MAKE MONEY NOW!

David McDougall said...

I think _28 Days Later_ is pretty much the perfect synthesis of our contemporary fears into a zombie/action/postapocalypse chamber suspense film. the year it came out I had a movie-reviewing gig, and 28DL was #4 on my year-end list, behind only Kill Bill/Elephant (tied for #1) and Lost in Translation at #3. [actually I put Morvern Callar at #4, but this was a cheat; it actually came out the year before]. anyway, yes, 28 Days Later is a spectacular movie. without having done my list yet, my guess is it would probably land somewhere around 15.

by the way, i imagine you'll tell me that the best way to make money is to start a post-shoegaze band or something and sign to your record label. i hear you're making stars over there at Friendly Fire...