Jackson's LR and critics: Decadal edition

[N.E. Brigand]

Metacritic's "Best of the Decade" is pretty interesting IMO, if you'd be interested in the less populist opinions:
http://features.metacritic.com/features ... he-decade/
Some great stuff on there, IMO, including, of course, LOTR in the top 10.

Thanks for that link -- hadn't seen that before.
But notice how that list is largely in agreement with the Salon article that inspired this thread. That piece was mostly responding to a group of critics and filmmakers' choices for the single best film of the decade, where LOTR didn't appear. And now here, of the 37 critics whose individual lists were tabulated, only 2 picked the LOTR trilogy as their very favorite work of the past ten years.

On another note: any proper list of great films should be dominated by foreign-language fare. The overwhelming majority of movies are not made in English, after all. But there are only two foreign-language films in this top ten: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days and Spirited Away.

[N.E. Brigand]

It would have been much more interesting had Andrew called up some of the major critics and asked, "Hey, you loved these movies back then. So why aren't they on your list now?"

The truth is that they didn't love LOTR back then. Or even if it was on their top ten lists for 2001, 2002, and 2003, or even their number one film for those years, they didn't love it so much to name it as their favorite film for the entire decade -- and what inspired O'Hehir's inadequate essay was a reader's (somewhat mistaken) response to a series of blog posts by critics and filmmakers in which they were asked to name just one film.

[N.E. Brigand]

Country was just mediocre and -- for me -- far from likable with very little redeeming about it.

I much preferred No Country, the first time the Coens have really stared into the Abyss they merely joked around with in films like Fargo.

I would love to hear more about the opposing views in these posts. Need a film be likeable to be great? Can a great film not take a light tone with a dark theme?

[Primula Baggins]

I know that I have seen a lot of inarguably great films with the feeling, "Now I can check that one off and never watch it again." Sometimes the excellence of a film lies precisely in its ability to get so far under your skin that the experience is nearly unbearable. Or to portray a despicable character so brilliantly that you don't regret the time you spent with him, yet know you will never want to do it again.

[sauronsfinger]

Brigand ... I will answer your question this way. The older I get - and i am now sixty - I find that I no longer want to watch films that are simply disturbing for the sake of being disturbing or avant garde. I used to love the David Lynch ERASERHEAD and thought it was just an amazing piece of film. I still do think it is amazing but "love it" would no longer apply. I like to enjoy what I watch and feel a bit better for the experience.

A film like NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN just had me saying many times during it "what is the point here?" Why spend tens and tens of millions of dollars on stuff like that?

Now to be honest, I also have no like for the big budget garbage film like TRANSFORMERS or INDEPENDENCE DAY or anything else which requires very few brain cells.

Does a film have to be likable to be great? I am sure it does not. I simply have no desire to spend two or three hours out of the time that is left for me to find out.

[solicitr]

I know that I have seen a lot of inarguably great films with the feeling, "Now I can check that one off and never watch it again."

Exactly. I've seen Schindler's List once- I don't think I could handle it a second time.