Analyzing The Top 10 List of Lists 2011
Laura Rooney and Ray Pride have the List of Lists up to 188 critics. As always the MCN list includes critics of all stripes, from the most profound to the most profane (though I am pleased to see that no one has placed Human Centipede II on their Top 10 as of this time).
So… is there any great insight to glean?
Well, only 4 movies appear on as many as one-third of the lists and only 1 movie appears on more than half the lists (The Tree of Life). So if you are The Tree of Life, The Descendants, The Artist, or Drive… they like you… they really, really like you.
Last year, 3 of the Top 4 List of Listers got Oscar nominations for Best Picture. And right now, it looks like the same thing will be true here. Last year, the BP winner was not amongst that Top 4… but was in the Top 10.
Our Top Ten Chart of Charts was pretty consistent for years. The nominees were always in the Top 18 and above. That changed in the first year of 10 nominees when The Blind Side didn’t even make the Top 30. However, all 9 of the other nominees were in our Top 10, an unusually clear cluster.
Last year, the List of Lists Top 9 matched the Best Picture nominations and the tenth nominee was #12.
So, a different consistency started over the last 2 years. And now, with a new set of rules, it’s impossible to tell whether the chart will be as prescient this year.
So far – and there will be another 20 to 50 lists added before we stop adding – there are more “non-starters” for Oscar in the top group of vote getters than there have been in the last couple of years. So if things were true to form, The Tree of Life, The Descendants, The Artist, Hugo, and Moneyball would be in from our List of Lists Top 10 and Drive, Melancholia, A Separation, and Certified Copy will not.
In the LoL’s 2nd Ten. the only films currently seen as BP contenders are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Midnight in Paris, and Bridesmaids.
Would it shock the world if these were the 8 Oscar BP nominees? Not so much.
But it’s in #20- #40 where other expected nominees now live. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is #25. War Horse is #27. The Help is #32.
Now… let’s take a look at the last four years and consider the winners…
What do you see? #1, #3, #1, #6.
So where would you like to see your movie on this chart? Let’s just say, The Tree of Life, The Descendants, The Artist, and Hugo should feel more comfortable than anyone else… even though, of that group, there seem to be read doubts that ToL will even get nominated.
Personally, my money remains on #3 to win.
I might take some shit for this but, who cares.
Last night on Twitter David, you were “reservedly ranting” about the state of film writing and how basically (if I read between the lines correctly) there’s a TON of writers who don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about yet their opinions and ideas are as equal as those who do. Or, those who have been around long enough that they should know more than these “kids.” Even if I did read that wrong, it’s an opinion I share in wholeheartedly.
So when I see TREE OF LIFE racing up the charts I’m torn. *I* know what’s great about it and I also know where it’s lacking. I’m certainly not tooting my own horn about how smart I am BUT, I’ve been around a while and have 2 degrees in cinema, etc. There’s NO WAY half the people declaring TREE OF LIFE the best film of the year have ANY clue/inclination/idea/intelligence/pedigree/taste…whatever you want to call it, as to what makes it good or bad. I don’t even think many are brave enough to say they thought it sucked and was boring or *gasp* they didn’t get it. It just all seems so arty and fluffed up to me.
Again, not trying to be a dick about it but “I don’t get it, but it’s shot beautifully and has high quality actors therefore it must be great because it’s way over my head so it must be something GREAT” argument seems to be the reason many people are putting the film in these top slots.
On the flipside of that, critics in “the know” can be a bullying bunch so maybe the younger generation feels compelled to put the film on their list so they are considered “professional” and worthy of sitting at the big kids table.
I know how condescending this all sounds and I swear I’m not saying it to be a jerk. But come ON. There’s simply no way TREE OF LIFE is the kind of movie everyone agrees upon as being one of the best of the year.
I still haven’t seen THE TREE OF LIFE. But, Don, it seems to me that your assertion, though it may well be on the money, is pure conjecture. Because I’m assuming none of these critics/reviewers have copped to what you’re suggesting.
I’ve seen reviews that say TREE has an allure similar to that of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I’ve seen the latter many times, and though I can articulate many of the reasons I love it, there are still aspects that I think are somewhat inscrutable, probably intentionally so. Intelligent critics can acknowledge the difficulty of interpreting a work and still find it more than worthy. Maybe that’s happening to some degree with TREE.
ToL fans are also most likely to be SUPER BELLIGERENT about it, way moreso than defenders of any of 2011 film. ToL is real big with the Mexican emo-bullet belt Criterion Nazis who you find en masse on Glenn Kenny’s blog or heckling Wells on H-E. (“You are STUPID and don’t appreciate ART if you don’t get REAL CINEMA like ToL…”)
Lex, such condescension is indeed annoying, but not moreso than ‘regular Joes’ who take the opposite tack: “Only artsy-fartsy FAGS are too good for REAL movies that are FUN like Transformers 3…”
These two strains have been with us forever, but I don’t think either is dominant. I hope most moviegoers fall in the middle, but we probably don’t have any statistics.
Don… seems like a matter of personal taste, no?
I think it is fair to say that The Tree of Life is not likely to win Best Picture with a more mainstream group, like The Academy… or even get nominated. But I don’t think that you have to be in the Top 1% of intelligence or a poseur to say you think it’s a very special movie.
It won’t quite make my top ten, but HUMAN CENTIPEDE 2 gets a lot of (sorry) shit for being so grotesque – as if that in and of itself in a criticism. But HC2 is not just charnal-house bullshit – it’s well-made, and very funny. This is an interesting, sometimes brilliant movie. It WAS gonna make my ten, but that was before the Oscar movies poured in. Point being: it’s been the (sorry) butt of too many jokes for a film with actual artistic intent and creativity going on, however successful. You make it sound like its a video of a peak hour at a slaughterhouse.
TREE OF LIFE will get nominated. It’s clearly – CLEARLY – the best American film of the year, and something Hollywood must assuredly be proud of. I mean, there should be a GAP between my #1 (TREE) and my #2 (who cares?)… that’s how much a momentous mega-masterpiece TREE is. They nominated THIN RED LINE. Even if they don’t “really mean it”, they’ll still nominate TREE.
Yancy Berns, what the h?
That aside, these critics list, should we really care? It’s all conjecture anyway and everyone usually makes their top ten in their own heads. I will go back to something Leah stated maybe a week ago, and ask why the same movies are on each critic’s list?
Sure, you occasionally get that wacky critic who throws in some random film he/she dug from over the Summer or they thrown in a couple of foreign language films, but the rest of the list is propagated by the same suspects. It just seems odd that in a year, when something like a 140 to 150 films are seen by professional critics, that they all seem to like only the same 15 to 20 movies. Isn’t that just fucking weird?
If the credits for TREE had read “Written and directed by Brett Ratner” (and was otherwise the exact same film), would everyone be going so apeshit over it?
It would be Ratner’s worst film.
” *I* know what’s great about it and I also know where it’s lacking. I’m certainly not tooting my own horn about how smart I am BUT, I’ve been around a while and have 2 degrees in cinema, etc. There’s NO WAY half the people declaring TREE OF LIFE the best film of the year have ANY clue/inclination/idea/intelligence/pedigree/taste…whatever you want to call it, as to what makes it good or bad.”
lol holy shit don lewis
tree of life (which i need to see again) is cinema esoterica, extremely open to interpretation, and i suspect due its very nature is particularly prone to personal projection, the type of emotional/intellectual response the imagery especially elicits in each individual viewer dependant on personal belief systems/upbringing. what makes it good or bad? how many people have seen it, that’s how many answers there are, as hard as that may be to accept
(this notion here that film degrees somehow make one’s opinion more equal/right about art is consistently amusing tho)
“If the credits for TREE had read “Written and directed by Brett Ratner” (and was otherwise the exact same film), would everyone be going so apeshit over it?”
that sentiment pops up again and again and kinda makes me want to tear a chunk of my hair out because it’s so specious (sorry cadavra)
(eta thanks for having my theory’s back, jf sebastian)
If Ranter had directed that, I would have to question everything I know. And as far as TREE, yes, I’m a major acolyte. I actually think its a very straight-forward film: if you had never seen a movie before, you might understand it no problem. It’s just that it’s so different from what a modern audience expects. (As for HC2, I’m jaded enough to not be put off by the gore, so I found the rest of it very intriguing…)
I do agree with JS Partisan: It does seem odd, considering art is wholly subjective, that most critic top ten lists would be made up of the same 15-20 movies. There should be a LOT more variety. It must just be general laziness.
As a PowerPoint presentation or photography slideshow or a background DVD for my 140 minutes of meditation, I give Tree of Life four stars. As a movie, it’s more like two stars.
Thanks for this commentary, David. I’ve been following MCN’s excellent lists for years….. and have long been making the argument that they have been the best precursor for noms… and they are much more reliable indicators of critical sentiment than MC or RT scores.
The trope of a divide between the Academy and the critics has been wrong for years.
Considering how much vitriol gets thrown at Benjamin Button whenever it’s mention, it’s shocking to be reminded that it placed as high as #6 on that year’s poll.
At least I know I’m not the only one who loved it, even if some of those people might not feel the same way now.
And as far as this Tree of Life argument is concerned, I think it’s safe to say that 50 years from now, when film lovers look back at this past year (or the whole decade, for all we know), they won’t be talking primarily about The Artist. They aren’t going to be talking about The Descendants. They aren’t going to be talking about Melancholia. They’ll talk about War Horse and Hugo just for being part of their respective directors’ oeuvres. But the film that will be discussed the most/obsessed over/reinterpreted/etc. is going to be The Tree of Life.
However one feels Malick delivered or missed the mark, there is no denying that seeing it in theatres was a pretty singular experience, and that there’s a lot for people to chew on both thematically and on an aesthetic level. That’s why its status as the critical favorite of this year is legit.
But laz, (and again, this is conjecture on my part) ARE people *really* chewing it over and reinterpreting it or are they just throwing it in the top 10 because it’s MALICK, maaaaaan. Like Lex said. The BENJAMIN BUTTON ranking is a really great example of a movie people didn’t really like all that much (for the most part) getting ranked high due to aspiration and pedigree. I honestly don’t believe there’s legwork or thought of the work itself going into these top tens and Malick gets a pass because he’s MALICK, maaaaan. I guess my point is people are fucking lazy and saw this film once but don’t want to:
a) Get bullied or called dumb for not including it as one of “the best”
b) admit they didn’t like it and/or get it
c) feel left out of some stupid, arbitrary footrace that OSCAR PREDICTIONS have become
And I love (LOVE) Terrence Malick but I think TREE OF LIFE is just o.k. I think HIS cut of it might be really something special but as it is now, it feels like 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5 pound sack. It’s beautiful to look at and I still reflect back on it fondly AND I’m looking forward to watching it again someday. But I’ve also read 5, maybe 8 pieces of real criticism on it and none of it was gushing or over the top in praising it. The good or great reviews I’ve read are wisely evenhanded. So again, I don’t think people really love the film as much as a #1 status in voting would indicate.
Then again, like David said, it could just be a matter of taste. But I don’t believe that totally.
Praise for high aspiration and pedigree isn’t unfair. It’s like the Olympics…some people execute a flawless routine, but the starting score was lower since it was also an easier routine. Not saying that Malick’s “routine” is more difficult, but there’s only one person who could have made that film and it was Malick. It’s judged on a different scale than other films which may be more “flawless” but didn’t necessarily try anything new.
Why does the 2008 list have an image of ‘Burn After Reading’ accompanying it?
so in other words don lewis, the ‘good’ reviews you’ve read on ToL – 5-8 articles of ‘real criticism’ with nothing gushing or ott – are the only proper reviews because they AGREE WITH YOUR POV. classic.
(that sums up everything silly about film critisism, the stuff that agrees with you is valid, the stuff that doesn’t is defective)
“If the credits for TREE had read ‘Written and directed by Brett Ratner’ (and was otherwise the exact same film), would everyone be going so apeshit over it?”
As the saying goes, “An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance.” Tree of Life is both pretentious and facile. Really, a dinosaur stepping on the neck of another? A giant lizard with part of its side bitten out crying on the beach? Just hammy. Critics would mercilessly mock Ratner. The breathy voice-overs. Lesson learned, if you have nothing interesting to say, then try whispering.
Of course the French loved it. What was that book called that came out 20 years ago about post-modernism, “Fashionable Nonsense”? It did have pretty pictures.
you forgot to call it boring.
The reason most lists seem to be culled from the same handful of titles is because most movies that make it to theaters these days are commercial product designed to make money, not win awards. That’s not a criticism; just a fact. Sure, good, award-worthy work can come out of that system, but most list-makers want to honor films that show some ambition. So the vast majority of product is ignored in favor of Oscar bait studio films and notable indie and foreign fare, often seen on screeners sent for awards consideration. It’s not like there are dozens of great films made each year that reach some sort of critical consensus. I think most people would agree that the cream of the crop is usually a relatively small number, though they may disagree on which particular films qualify.
Also: it was boring.
my favorite Tree of Life story came from the theater manager who told me they had a sign at the ticket booth that read
TREE OF LIFE: NO REFUNDS
This was due to the number of walkouts and refund requests on day one.
You can love Mallick, and you can value his work, but can you say that Tree of Life was a movie that was enjoyed by the majority of those who saw it?
That’s why they nominate a movie like Tree of Life, because you celebrate those who take risks and do something different. There are so few of those left in the business. However, if you left it off the list entirely i wouldn’t shed a tear.
Let’s celebrate Mallick for being so unique. But let’s be honest and admit he sometimes makes very boring, very indulgent movies that fail to win over audiences.
On the flip side of that, every year there are lots of movies that the majority enjoyed but I did not. If most of the people who saw it did not enjoy it, does that prove that Tree of Life is not a great film?
I’m not sure I even understand this discussion. Clearly, Malick’s work is not for everyone. But when is a film being “enjoyed by the majority of those who saw it” the criteria for it being of worth? These are personal top ten lists from critics, not the People’s Choice or MTV Movie Awards. I did not find a single moment of TOL boring, whereas there were action movies I saw this year that tested my patience to its limit. It was one of my most memorable, unique, even exciting theatrical film experiences of the year. It’s perfectly fine if it’s not your thing or you think it doesn’t rise to its lofty intentions but I wouldn’t be so sure about assuming every single person on this earth had your exact same opinion.
I think leah is (shockingly) missing my point and anghus got to it better than me. I was saying that most of the reviews I read weren’t clear as to why they like TOL and what they like about it but rather, it seemed like it was long, pretentious and boring so they should like it because saying they didn’t get it might make them look dumb. Kind of the anti-Dan Kois argument from a few months back where he said some movies are boring and pretentious but are considered “cultural vegetables.” You watch them because they’re good for you even though you dislike them.
While I disagree with Kois, I see what he was getting at. But moreover, I think many people don’t know what the fuck they’re watching because they don’t know how to read a film or understand a filmmakers intentions. There’s no depth to their understanding; it’s a thumbs up/thumbs down mentality. Or, to pull a quote from a movie “They’re outta their element, Donny!”
But as t JKill’s point…
Maybe the argument that judging art is in and of itself pointless and maybe the Oscar race should just boil down to the top promoted movies that people paid to get recognized. I just have a hard time believing that a large swath of movie writers were gaga for TOL but it’s still #1 thus far in year end best of lists.
Jkill, I think the distinction comes from the fact that TOL was an art house film that was met with indifference, confusion, and at times outright indignance by the audiences who seek out these kind of movies.
The audience for TOL was propelled by independent film fans and those familiar with art house cinema. And even their reactions were mixed at best. TOL was a polarizing movie.
Every single person on this earth loved Miller’s Crossing. Anyone who denies it has mental problems and needs to be shunned.
Rotten Tomatoes counts 235 reviews for Tree of Life, with 198 of those being positive. Do you really think the majority of those 198 reviews are from people who didn’t get it and only think they should like it? I find that very hard to believe. Seems like one would draw that conclusion because it validates how they feel about the movie.
What’s the rumpus, Krillian?
Okay, I get it better now, Don and Anghus. Thanks.
TREE OF LIFE has an 84 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, which is high but not unanimous. However, couldn’t it just be that those who loved it are more passionate about it, and that the more universally liked films this year films don’t have as ardent and agressive supporters?
my view of tree of life is that its upgraded version of movie of the week on syfy channel.
DP has this 4 times. so he must know what its about.
if they cut the main story out and only used the scifi stuff
they could easily make 30 minute special for discovery channel.
Tree of Life is that similar to Snowmageddon?
http://www.syfy.com/movies/originals/index.php?pageid=166
no tree of life and snomageddon aren’t really the same..
DP should grab movie experts and do a dp/30 tree of life for idiots special ..
Mission 4/GP has a RT rating in the 90s. About the opposite of Tree of Life as a movie.
Certainly, for some, positive reviewing Malick is like having 300 page book you never read on your coffee table.
But Malick, especially in tol, makes emotionally intuitive films. I am no fan of the Penn sequences of the film, but I love the film. I’m good with the Dinos… others are not.
And remember, most of the work of The Coens and Kubrick was not embraced when first released. That doesn’t make the work faulty, necessarily.
I have certainly made the groupthink argument myself. So I am not arguing it can not be a factor just because I am a fan of this film. But unlike some of the films that I feel “got a pass,” there have been plenty of negative swipes at this one from the start. So there really isn’t peer pressure to love it. Almost the opposite… as has been evident in this thread.
While this argument has veered a little into telling people what they really liked or didn’t like or what constitutes a successful movie…I do understand the central point, which I believe IO (!) made on a previous list-related post on another MCN post. There’s such a theoretical diversity of tastes with all of the different film-writing outlets, it is surprising when you can boil down their choices to a relative few that really dominate, especially when some of those start to seem like obligatory choices almost immediately (I had Benjamin Button on my 2008 list, and I did like it a lot, but I do echo the disbelief that it found such a high place on the aggregated list in ’08! It felt like kind of an also-ran by the time the Oscars happened, just a few months later).
But maybe that’s the nature of trying to arrive at a consensus. It’s certainly my usual problem with the Oscars: it feels like nominees are selected from a group of 15 or 20 vetted movies, not the full spectrum of what comes out even in the U.S., nevermind the whole world (which, as I’ve written before, I can understand simply by virtue of not always having the time to seek out every notable movie that comes out every year all around the world). If a movie like, say, Minority Report isn’t part of the bigger conversation for Picture/Director/Actor (which it should’ve been, but that’s yet another story), it seems like it’s summarily dismissed from consideration for cinematography, editing, art direction, etc., because even those tech nominees are often (not always, but often) selected from the list of Approved Best Picture Candidates, not all of the movies of the year. This year, something like Hanna almost certainly won’t be considered for editing or cinematography because it’s not a Prestige Movie That Happens to Have Decent Cinematography.
So, anyway, while Tree of Life did appear on my top ten list, I am also surprised to see it doing so well on everyone’s to the tune of placing first. But you know, compared to the usual beneficiaries of an attempt to find consensus, that’s pretty awesome… so I’m also surprised a lot of you are bitching about that, of all movies. I mean, look at those recent aggregated lists: you have The Kids Are All Right and The King’s Speech and Frost/Nixon on there… NONE of those are bad movies, but they are the kind of choices that make me think, OK, are you guys looking at all of the movies you saw, or are you looking at the pool of 20 that you’re “voting” for? If that happens in service of an actually bizarre, divisive movie like TOL, hey, I’m all for it.
In response to Don Lewis’s initial post in this comment thread:
I think this has been a year of many “pretty good” films, but few great ones. Granted, I haven’t seen enough to say for certain, but from what I’ve gathered from reading countless reviews and articles, it seems like my summation is fairly accurate.
I feel my attitute toward Tree of Life is similar to many other viewers/critics: it is unbelievably powerful, intriguing, and moving in many parts, but certainly lacking in others. The central story in the 1950s is amazingly rendered, but most of the Sean Penn sequences seem too weak and/or incomplete to hold their own against everything else in the films. In truth, I feel they should have been fleshed out further or excised altogether. Nevertheless, the ending remains somewhat transcendent, though I think seeing more of Penn’s experiences later in life would have made the finale truly remarkable. I, for one, would actually relish the idea of seeing a 6-hour cut, though it could prove to be too much. Would that be better than what we have now? I can’t say.
This is a rare year when I don’t have an obvious #1 pick, though I must stress again that I still need to see quite a few films. Nevertheless, I find myself returning to Tree of Life when I try to draft my Top 10, because even though I am well aware of its flaws, it more than makes up for them with all its other stunning attributes. Therefore, I find myself listing it as a tentative #1 until I have seen more movies. I don’t think it’s a matter of weakness or cowardice on my part, but merely a natural reaction to the uniqueness of the film and the relatively mediocre year for cinema in which it was released.
I was mainly trying to spark a conversation and I feel better kind of venting it out there and I honestly agree with everyone’s point of view on it. I too like TOL alot and look forward to revisiting it. I’m just incredibly tired of groupthink and lack of real diversity amongst SO many voices. I’ve become overly sensitive to the white noise of the movie fans on the internets.
You can tell its an off year due to the lack of passion. There are few films anyone is truly passionate about.
The only film that really seemed to get people juiced up was Drive. There was real love for the movie from a diverse group of people.
TOL stirred more intellectual curiosity than passion.
Please Academy, nominate Drive.
I posted a top ten list, somewhere here in a comment, of movies I wished were ending up on more of these lists as a way to combat the repetition of titles, which I agree is odd. Also, is it just me or are there less foreign language films being discussed this year? Other than LE HAVRE, which is very good and has popped up on a few lists, I haven’t read about and/or seen that many “best of” titles from abroad this year, which seems unusual.
I do think people who have only seen ToL once, especially a while back, need to revisit it. Once you’ve been exposed to its more unusual (and in some people’s opinion, flawed) elements, it should be easier to bask in the wealth of positives the movie possesses. I found the film to be teeming with passion, and was unexpectedly moved during several sequences. It’s too easy to look at the evolution segment and label the entire movie pretentious, but no amount of dinosaurs can detract from the abundance of breathtaking images and perfectly captured moments that populate the majority of the film’s surprisingly brief running time.
@JKill: A Separation is a foreign film that’s near the top of many lists, as well as Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (though some consider it a 2010 release).
I’m not sure where to write this, but whatever happened to Linklater’s Bernie? I really want to see it.
Anghus, the passion and arguements about Drive and Life were almost identical. There were plenty of people that shrugged their shoulders at Drive prompting the ‘you don’t get why its great’ ‘you’re just a pretentious hipster’ arguement others had months ago on TOL.
As for myself, I loved Tree of Life, top of my list so far (though i am massivly behind). But I can honestly see why others didn’t like it. Though I don’t see how it can be hard to understand (perhaps audibly), I can see not liking the structure or style but the narrative was amazingly simple and straight forward. As I wrote a month or so ago I recommend Tree to everyone I talk about movies with but with a disclaimer that they will probably either love it or think its a 2 1/2 hour Springsteen video without the music.
Its entirely possible to love or dismiss Life and Drive without it reflecting on you as a person or moviefan. As IO said above subjectivity SHOULD create variety of opinion.
Yeah, I’ve seen Certified Copy, A Separation, and Mysteries of Lisbon bandied about pretty frequently. But on the other hand, most years I see at least a handful of foreign-language film due to deafening buzz/praise/etc., and this year I was surprised to go over my mvoies-seen list and not find any. I may catch up with Certified Copy now that it’s on Netflix Streaming, and I may yet go see A Separation (although it’s one of those movies where rapturous review after rapturous review hasn’t made it sound like a movie I’d want to see, or could picture myself loving. I know I should give it a chance, but at this point part of me just wants to hear a takedown of it, or deliver it myself if I don’t like it, because it sounds SO medicine-y. You ever read a negative review of a movie and think “but what this review describes sounds awesome to me”? I get the reverse for A Separation. Crazy praise that to me still reads like it’s describing a slog)… Uncle Boonme is turning up on a lot of the artier/alt-weekly style critic lists too, so maybe I should see that… but there isn’t the kind of excitement that got me out to see Reprise as soon as it came out, or Let the Right One In, or even Cache, a movie I didn’t like nearly as much as many.
So I guess I’m still reading plenty about foreign-language films this year, but they seem increasingly to stay in the three-week rep-house-run type of art semi-ghetto rather than really breaking out. Film Forum more than AMC Lincoln Square, if you will.
In fact, if I can half-imitate Lex for a minute here: be honest… who in their right minds reads the description of A SEPARATION and thinks YES! THAT SOUNDS COMPLETELY AMAZING! I CANNOT WAIT TO WATCH THAT! FINALLY A MOVIE WHERE EVERYONE IS EQUALLY RIGHT, WRONG, AND MISERABLE!
New Year’s Eve is roughly 50 times better than Tree of Douche. And I saw ToL *four* times. I liked it less each time.
You guys really get to that SUMMER’S EVE COMMERCIAL ENDING with Penn and WHITE-ROBED WHATEVERS holding hands on a beach at sunset and weren’t fighting off the giggles harder than Cheech and Chong riding a purple kush high? And that bit where CHASTAIN in her WHITE ROBES “lets go” with those two ethereal Margaret Atwood types swarming her?
Ludacris.
there are 3 kids in tree of life right ? so how come
they aren’t everywhere in the media talking about the movie.
they forced those kids from slumdog millionaire to do press.
maybe the kids liked the movie or not .. maybe they thought
playing some xbox or ps3 was more entertaining then the movie they were in ..
ftr, i didn’t (shockingly!) miss your point don lewis, i understood it perfectly and further thought your point was silly and arrogant wherein you have the nerve to practically insist that most reviewers of tree of life are essentially LYING for one reason or another because they don’t mirror your own thoughts on the movie (but thanks for having a dig at my comprehension skills – hey, at least you didn’t call me crazy, that’s always nice – maybe i won’t be so restrained about having a dig at your cringe-worthy lex-ass-licking skills in future, don’t know, i’ll have to think about it)
oh and the point about the same exact movies on all the lists was made by me, shockingly, io/js even made the point in his post above, but god forbid something i say here should be deemed valid and not some wild miscomprehension.
Leah From N-Z starring in “Persecution Complex,” coming this fall to CBS.
OH LORDY IT’S A DOG’S LIFE (DOG’S LIFE.)
no i’m starring in ‘female white jesus’ you jerkweed
Keil, Bernie is scheduled for a March release.
And this is how I felt about Tree of Life:
http://jermsguy.blogspot.com/2011/12/worst-ten-movies-of-2011.html
Keli Shults, good call on both of those. I haven’t had an opportunity to see A SEPARATION yet but CERTIFIED COPY has been in my Netflix queue for a day or two now. Maybe I felt that way because, like Jesse, I feel like I’ve seen so few 2011 foreign releases so far. LE HAVRE is the only one I can even think of at the moment. Well, guess this means I’ve got more good, or at least interesting, movies from this year still to look forward to. My local arthouse has several of the possible foreign film nominees scheduled for the coming months.
This is the reason why I never feel comfortable whittling what I saw down to ten films at this time. It’s much easier with perspective for me to rattle off, say, my top tens of 2010 and 2009 now.
True, JKill. I never feel like I can have my actual top ten until the next summer. (Part of it’s becuz the limited-release December flicks might not open near me and I have to wait for DVD.)
It’s not just the kids from ToL who are MIA. Malick himself hasn’t done any press for this movie. Is he too busy with his xbox?
“2001 is boring” – Film Critics, 1968
Whatever you think of TOL, we should be grateful we live in a film era where this kind of personal abstract vision is even released on a wide scale. I thought DRIVE was a shiny dud but I see why folks respond. Populist number-crunching-first-art-second conversations (and the attendant infantilism) keeps me away from most film blogs these days.
Get More Out Of Life – Go Out To A Movie!
I swear to God, when leah posts I hear the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher when I try to read them.
yeah christian. after reading all this i think i agree.
shouldn’t the awards celebrate the boundary pushers? Why not nominate Tree of Life, Melancholia, and The Artist for being able to be released and gain notice in a time where most films released in the same year don’t have a tenth of their ambition.
David:
Let me turn this around. Before it was online at MCN, this compilation of Top Ten Lists from working critics was a magazine centerfold. For my part (and pre-Internet), I enjoyed making out my own Top Ten list, along with several friends, to share and discuss. And while a serious moviegoer — a hundred first-run films per year in this circle — in or near a big city might see a fair number of films for the year including many indies/documentaries/foreign films, there were always really good ones that might come and go without being seen. Or there were always worthy contenders for your list that hadn’t opened yet (especially true in smaller markets).
Well, we’d use this compilation to know how we were doing for a given year and to make out a ‘hit list’ of films yet to be seen. We felt we needed to see the top twenty on this compilation — every one — to say the year was complete for us. While we all had our own criteria and personal preferences, it was a centerpiece of our movie year.
The MCN list is absolutely the best list for anyone wanting to know what needs to be seen to complete and sort of ‘close out’ the year. The amazing thing about this list of lists is, while you can love or hate this critic or that one, when the lists accumulate and the scores mount, it is just a great guide for those who love movies.
I do understand in some quarters, ignorance is the new intelligence. So see what you want, like it or don’t, but here we are at Movie City News and these lists, both of the individual critics and the 2011 lists of lists is just a terrific way to look at the year in movies… in addition to this claim, I think: the sun revolves around a nearly round Earth, Darwin was right, and the US President is a citizen.
Well played, Snowy Owl. And I agree. Also- condolences on Hedwig, your fallen brethren.
i see all these twitter posts about people at the village voice losing their jobs and all. i understand that it has an impact and it’s unfortunate, but if we’re going to freak out every time a major publication starts laying people off it’s going to be a very surly decade.
print isn’t dying. it’s dead. the new york times just sold the newspaper in my town for a sum of money 5 times less than what they paid for it 20 years ago. And that’s not even accounting for inflation.
mourn the loss of the printed word, but stop acting so surprised.
oooooh burn don lewis! (embarrassed for you, that’s the best you can come up with. originality! skillz bro)
(i won’t say what i picture/hear when you post, such descriptions offend my delicate sensibilities and my mum taught me not to pop balloons)
The printed word may be dead but it will live on via tablets, Ipads, and the like for years to come! THE FUTURE: GUARANTEED TO FUCK YOU OVER AT SOME POINT, EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
By the way, I do love the List of Lists. It’s one of my favorite MCN features and guides some of my rental choices in the March-April area which is the first chance I have to catch some of them.
My blabber in this post ties into the Hoberman firing, I think. Why don’t guys like him, Ebert, Glenn (Kenny, before he went troll style) and others who are well thought of as writers, start a GOOD fucking blog. One that has INSIGHT and critical analysis and makes fun of these bloggers who know html and have seen E.T., Raiders and Titanic and think they know film? I mean, it’s all fine to sit back and judge and gripe and shake your head about “these kids and their misinformed tastes!” but where IS the site to go for for insight and critical analysis? Why not become that site when it’s so easy to try and do that?
With guys like the ones I mentioned (and that’s JUST a start), I don’t see how it can miss. I mean, look at Hammer to Nail. I was unsure what it’s point or angle was when it started but they got great, smart people involved who knew cinema and appreciated indie film and now it’s a very solid go-to site for indie film. Why not have these older, well trained and SMART crits band together? Surely they aren’t so old that none of them knows how to start a website. It’ll be like “Statler and Waldorf At the Movies!”
But seriously. These are important, intelligent voices that were silenced by big media cutting costs. Why don’t they band together and create something instead of walking away shaking their heads?
Actually, Don, you could make the case that Ebert’s already doing something very much like what you describe. Go to rogerebert.com, and you’ll be able to access not only his reviews of recent movies but his longer, more in-depth essays on classic films. Indeed, I have used his site more or less as an on-line supplemental text for various film studies courses I have taught.
Yeah but Ebert is crying poor and saying his TV show will die unless someone swoops in and saves it. I say, fuck that. Do an affordable site or an iTunes subscription and keep that money and PAY your critics and keep the rest. If people really cared about Ebert and his “At the Movies” in it’s current form, they’d gladly pay $10 a month for a weekly video podcast. If they won’t, well, sorry. The show isn’t a charity case.
It’s frankly shocking that crits who have been knee deep in the multi-platform revolution don’t grasp how it can work for them. Look at DP, our humble host? The DP:30 is genius and way ahead of it’s time.
Don – unless all those critics know how to go out and sell ads, they’ll be writing for free.
Also, DO 60yo sadsack critics know how to do CODE and HTML and shit like that? I actually sort of like the minimalist look of Glenn Kenny’s blog, but every once in a while someone will pipe up to me, “You need to START YOUR OWN BLOG, Lex!” I’m 39 and work at a computer all day, and have to admit I have NO IDEA how to create a professional looking blog like, say, Wells’ or Nikki’s site or Awards Daily… Don’t you have to pay a tech guy to do all that shit for you and fend off bugs and hiccups and get the layout right?
All I’ve ever been able to figure out is BLOGSPOT or WORDPRESS, and those kind of free softwares don’t engender a lot of enthusiasm for commenting, just ’cause they’re kind of clunky unless someone has tinkered with it to make it a handsome, accessible site. If I don’t have the faintest clue how to do that, how’s some 65 year old warhorse gonna WRITE CODE LIKE ZUCKERBERG to whip up some top-quality commercial blog with advertisers and banners and colors and shit?
That kind of thing is like SUPERNATURAL, and as Lou says, I think you’d have to have at least one dude running the tech, plus an INSTANT influx of studio ads to make any money from it. Quite frankly, this is cynical, but don’t the studios value “hip” youth-based sites that get lots of hits as places to plaster their ads, as opposed to esoteric criticism by Jonathan Rosenbaum or whoever?
I just want to see a muppet song get nominated. That would guarantee some laughs seeing the muppets perform.
I have mixed feelings about the Hoberman situation.
I’ve always considered him to be one of the few remaining film critics genuinely worth reading, but wasn’t he instrumental in getting Andrew Sarris canned back in the ’80s? If so, karma’s a bitch, no?
That said, I’m sure he’ll find another venue PDQ. The “Smart Critics Mafia”
always protects their own.
Yeah, not to be too much of an asshole and I repeat this point CONSTANTLY, but any time one of you MOVIE BLOGGERS goes all SOBBING over some fired old-fuck movie critic, I NEVER hear that the guy in question ended up unloading trucks at Walmart or working at a subtitle job typing in the dialogue to THE VOW 6 weeks before release…
Usually they write some book or do some web writing and still get freelance newspaper assignments; Not like any of these dudes EVER HAS WORKED IN THEIR FUCKING LIFE– I’m sorry, I see 6 movies a week and ramble all over the goddamn web about them, AND STILL SIT IN A BUZZING FLORESCENT OFFICE SIX DAYS A WEEK FROM 12P-1AM doing something I DESPISE just to make rent, so sorry if I’m not blubbering that some tweedy intellectual DORK got to live to the age of 65 having his SOLE JOB being to do the shit I do as a hobby.
FUCK MOVIE CRITICS. Fire em all. When KENNETH TURAN finally gets fired, I’m gonna celebrate like it was fucking Free Pussy Day. That dude should be fired a THOUSAND TIMES OVER, he’s the laziest movie critic in the UNIVERSE, he sucks balls, he’s old, he’s irrelevant, NOBODY reads him, he watches sixteen movies a year, he’s stuffy, he’s a dork, he’s a TERRIBLE WRITER, I SO HOPE they fire him.
And even when they do, YOU KNOW he won’t have to get an actual “job.”
Don’t know if it helps, Jesse, but, to me, “A Separation” feels a lot like a Mike Leigh film.
Don is sort of right about the internet groupthink regarding Malick…it’s like if you ever criticize the guy for anything hordes of angry nerds try to knock down the door and basically make accusations of idiocy. And on the other side, Ratner was a pretty good example to throw out, because there’s a guy who’s hated WAY more than he should be. The guy’s a douchebag to be sure, and he’s basically made a string of safe but generally decent movies…and he’s treated like the worst piece of shit ever to make a movie. Why? Why is he so horrible?
chris, that’s funny, because I have somehow managed to avoid EVER seeing a Mike Leigh film. I’ve intended to, many times, but it just… never… happened.Pretty much anything else out at the same time would get priority on the to-see list. A Netflixed Happy Go Lucky even sat on my coffee table for a month. So maybe that’s why I’m dragging my feet on A Separation… there’s just a certain kind of mostly-humorless, dry, intelligent, miserable domestic movie that I cannot convince myself to go see.
Big Perm, Ratner is horrible because he takes movies that should be fun romps and makes them utterly mediocre, or even occasionally material that should be great and stultifies it into that same mediocrity. I’ve said this on this blog before, I’m sure, but I can abide a lot of sequels that most people seem to think are horrible (Spider-Man 3! Totally like it. Iron Man 2! Totally like it), but X-Men: The Last Stand pretty much is my achilles heel as far as talking about a sequel to movies I love that just SUCKS HORRIBLY. And I’m sure there were lots of elements that went into it sucking that bad, but at the end of the day, Ratner was in charge (and Singer faced similar challenges on the first movie, under a smaller budget, and it came out fine). Red Dragon has the most AMAZING ensemble cast of actors who get NOTHING to do in the history of movies. Hell, Tower Heist, which I found amusing enough, is so lazy about its own story that it stops making sense about 40 minutes before it ends.
He’s not as incompetent as some, though he does have plenty of movies that look cheaper, cheesier, and clumsier than they should given the money and talent involved. But he’s more frustrating to me than someone truly incompetent, because he’s given bigger movies. Imagine if Adam Shankman was given like, The Avengers, or Prometheus, or even a Denzel Washington action movie.
Rush Hour is OK. That’s about his level.
“(and Singer faced similar challenges on the first movie, under a smaller budget, and it came out fine).”
Well, except for having developed the movie himself, and having more than 2 weeks prep between being hired and shooting.
Which I think are rather important distinctions.
And now, I must take a shower for having defended the Rat.
Yeah, Ratner just got thrown into X-Men 3. And honestly, I don’t see the huge distinction between the third and the first one. Does anyone ever say boy, I gotta throw on X-Men. It’s mediocre, dull…saved by some great actors.
I do agree though, Ratner shouldn’t have been let ten miles near Red Dragon. The simple scene that shows Ratner is just kind of lam is the flaming wheelchair bit…look at Manhunter, how Mann lets us wait for…something, and it’s moody and then you hear something and the guard turns and it’s this huge shock cut to a flaming wheelchair hitting us in the face!
With Ratner, it’s a weak-ass side shot of a rickety wheelchair pathetically squeaking ten feet.
Still, Ratner is hated in the way that Malick is loved…sometimes beyond all common sense.
BP, it’s the whole thing where people don’t like Ratner. It’s not his movies as much as it’s him. There’s enough knowledge out there about him, that people feel like they can judge him. Thus, people hate the motherfucker, and no it’s not entirely fair.
I don’t know, I mostly love the first X-Men movie. In some ways I even prefer it to the second, because it has a bit more in the way of character moments. I can’t speak for people in general, but I have a fair number of friends who definitely would just throw on X-Men, or get caught up in watching it on cable. I’d say a side-by-side screening of the first and third X-Men movies would offer pretty much a textbook case of the subtle ways in which Ratner is lousy (being inferior to Bryan Singer, a very good but not exactly top-ten-of-the-decade type of director).
Honestly, I go into Ratner’s movies wanting to like them. I wanted to like X-Men 3 more than I wanted to knock Ratner (or whoever else) for fucking it up. I was excited for Red Dragon. I wanted to have fun at Tower Heist and After the Sunset. Whereas other directors at Ratner’s talent level simply don’t make many movies that get me excited.
I think that’s reasonable. Just as I think loving Tree of Life is a pretty reasonable response. And I don’t think of Malick as one of those directors that you’ll get NAILED for hating.
Jesse, you’re wrong. Look around and see the virtriol that gets thrown at someone who think Malick’s movies are pompous or don’t work or God forbid boring. I think Malick is kind of Ed Woodsian with a great cinematographer, sometimes. I swear some of his shit would be laughed off screen if it wasn’t MALICK. The whispered, serious voiceovers about leaves and shit. It reminds me of Dune…”the spice!”
I’d never make the mistake of going to a Ratner movie hoping to love it, because I know it ain’t going to happen. And I actually think Singer to a degree is kind of Ratnerish. Usual Suspects…it was okay, I didn’t love it, good. Apt Pupil…weak. X-Men movies…decent, good, don’t really care. Superman Returns…awful.
I don’t know, Singer just has as mediocre of a batting average to me. Although I’m sure his version of Red Dragon would have been better.
I’m actually with you on Usual Suspects being only okay. But Apt Pupil is underrated, LOVE the first two X-movies (and First Class, but he only half-produced it), really like Superman Returns (another movie where, viewing it not long after X3, I was able to see all the more that’s right with it even though ti’s flawed), really like Valkyrie… he’s a solid genre director. Even when his movies aren’t great, they never have the abject laziness of even the better Ratner movies. Superman Returns has better laughs in it than a lot of Ratner’s semi-comedies (and I don’t mean unintentional laughs; I mean warm actual humor rather than shticky comic relief).
I’m also sort of with you on the whisper-y voiceovers in Malick’s movies. I didn’t flat-out love Thin Red Line or New World, in part because of that stuff. But it was easy for me to overlook in Tree of Life because it was looped over such stunning images and evocations of real feeling. The thing about “it would be laughed offscreen” if it weren’t MALICK, well, I don’t know, that’s a silly argument to some extent. If it weren’t MALICK (or if it were a weaker director, as Malick obviously isn’t the only person in the world who could get away with it), the images probably wouldn’t be as strong and the whispery stuff would seem more pretentious and out of place.
But I don’t know, maybe I don’t read enough internet crap, but I feel like I’ve heard just as many jokes or mild slams about Tree of Life being pretentious/overlong/nonsense as being a total masterpiece, and they aren’t all chased with a thousand angry dudes with pitchforks saying HOW DARE YOU. Maybe it’s because when the movie first came out, there were some mixed-to-negative reviews in there with the raves, so it didn’t ever strike me as weird that someone wouldn’t care for the movie.
The best thing about the two X-MEN is the chemistry between Hugh Jackman and his LITTLE GIRLFRIEND Rogue; The whole time you’re like DO IT WOLVERINE DO IT, SHE IS HOT, so it keeps all their scenes exciting.
Because every guy in the world wishes he had a teenage girlfriend, and if you tell me otherwise I am calling you a liar.
How many of you know that Red Dragon directed by Brett Ratner has a higher tomato score than Hannibal, directed by the beloved Ridley Scott? They are 68% and 39% respectively.
You know, I can’t really get a bead on Ratner. Is he really lazy, or just sort of clueless and untalented? I could believe either. I haven’t actually sen Valkyrie…I even have a copy, it’s just nothing compells me to see a Singer movie any more. I’d probably think it was okay to good though.
A good number of people don’t like Malick, but then that seems to start a war. I think his whispery stuff seems PLENTY pretentious. And here’s the thing about the guy…he seems to get a lot of love because his movies look great. Which is fine…but lots of movies look great. Did you ever see the link where they compared Malick’s movies to nature documentaries and you got to guess which was which? I only was right most of the time because of the music in the clips. Watch them with the sound off and it’s a lot harder.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2011/05/26/name_that_thistle_terrence_malick_cutaway_or_nature_documentary.html
So, Malick does indeed make a great looking movie…but I thought there were stunning images in that nature documentary Life too.
bulldog, THAT be crazy.
To me, it’s less about the shots of the wind blowing through grass (again, not something I loooooved in the previous two) but those kid-level shots that feel like they’ve appeared directly from someone’s memory or dream, and Pitt and Chastain giving beautiful performances, and a whole lot of other stuff.
bulldog, I didn’t know that offhand, but it kind of makes sense. Hannibal is crazy and off-putting. Red Dragon does that thing where nothing in it is horribly wrong, and it sort of SEEMS like a good movie because of the cast and it looks pretty professional and all that… and there’s just nothing there. It’s just a serial killer TV movie with better production values and some very famous faces doing nothing much of interest. And at the time, the prevailing tone was more “hey, this Ratner guy does OK by this material!” I guess because it didn’t have Chris Tucker screaming? I have no idea. (No knock on Tucker. I’d take either of the first two Rush Hours over Red Dragon.) Not that I’m a huge fan of Hannibal either. I’ve always found Ridley Scott pretty overrated(in a pinch, I probably like Tony Scott’s movies more on average, or I would if it weren’t for Alien and Blade Runner, and EVEN Blade Runner isn’t really my favorite).
I haven’t actually seen Tree of Life yet…so who knows, maybe that will be the one that blows my shorts off.
The main problem with those other Hannibal movies is none of them got close to the first…but at the same time, the material wasn’t there for Hannibal. It was for Red Dragon but Ratner fucked it.
Perm, aren’t you Latino?
Yeah, I’ll go out on a limb and say you won’t like Tree of Life.
Loved Tree of Life, was bored through New World, Loved Thin Red Line. Sometimes he can make it work, sometimes he whiffs. Just like any other filmmaker. If Midnight in Paris was from Shawn Levy would it have gotten the acclaim it did?
and on a different note, 2/3rds of the way through The Guard (and all the way through a bottle of wine) and laughing my ass off.
Malick suffers from Lucas Disease: an excellent director but a dreadful writer. It is surely no coincidence that (to me, at least) his one indisputable masterpiece, THE THIN RED LINE, is his only film to date that was not an original screenplay.
“indisputable (to me, at least) masterpiece”
Is that like “In Poland he’s world famous”
Not Latino, Lex. 100% white, like my women.
Having recently finished the Steve Jobs biography, when I think of Ratner, I think of what Jobs said of Bill Gates- he simply has no taste.
well malick wrote ‘days of heaven’, his ‘masterpiece’ in my book
(this whole “malick’s work would be laughed off the screen if it weren’t malick” notion is so bizarre; i mean only malick does malick, who else does malick? he makes his malick odes to nature and doesn’t give much of a shit what anyone thinks, clearly — his actors recount stuff like how he’ll see some bird and film IT all day and then cut their part out altogether, nature is malick’s main character/canvas and humans just happen to inhabit that realm playing out some ultimately insignificant drama while the wind still blows and nature buzzes and the earth turns. some people revere his style, others revere kubrick’s, or hitchcock’s, etc etc… being an admirer of an artist’s particular sensibility is a normal, natural response to art and doesn’t disqualify said admirers from expressing a valid opinion on the art. [if they express it badly, well that’s another kettle of fish.] so if people rush to defend him en masse – which i haven’t seen myself but i’m willing to accept – then he obviously has passionate fans, which is a good thing and should be applauded considering he’s a fairly non-commercial artist doing his own weirdo thing, which is what everyone claims they want to see in film-making, regardless if he’s your cup of tea. for me malick is more hit than miss, but that he’s marching to his own drummer is all good)
also, how does one quantify that ratner is hated ‘way more than he should be’? he’s hated precisely the amount he is for whatever reasons he’s disliked. my guess is because he’s the poster boy for pervasive, seeping MEDIOCRITY, for which he seems to get opportunity after opportunity. i suspect for many, seeing people being rewarded for mediocrity is the devil.
if Mallick as super serious about getting an oscar he should
have done a dp/30 by now.
wonder if a tree of life the musical would make more sense
than a movie.
Haven’t seen Days of Heaven yet, so to me, Malick’s masterpiece is Badlands. Thin Red Line had a great middle but the first half-hour and last half-hour….. no.
I’ve seen DAYS OF HEAVEN four or five times over the years, and I’ve finally given up. Yes, the photography is astounding, but it’s a movie about nothing. Just unmotivated people wandering around. When Richard Libertini is your comedy relief and even he has been given nothing to do, it’s clear the problem is the script.