The MoFo Top 100 of the 2000s Countdown

Seen both of these recently and found them to be okay. I could vouch for them being listed maybe sooner when we started this countdown, but I don't consider either a bad movie. Crouching Tiger has stayed fresher with me since I watched it last.

The Wrestler is great, though it didn't make my ballot. It's a well-acted, well-choreographed, and emotionally powerful character study that ranks amongst Aronofsky's best films. I watched it a couple months ago and it held up pretty well. A different Aronofsky made my ballot instead though.

I haven't seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I should definitely get to it at some point.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

Seen them both once. Both good.

Critics

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Critics thoughts on our #54, The Wrestler...



It currently has a 98% Certified Fresh Tomatometer score among critics, and a 7.9/10 score on IMDb (with 299,000 votes).

Roger Ebert gave it ★★★★ and said:

"I cared as deeply about Randy the Ram as any movie character I've seen this year. I cared about Mickey Rourke, too. The way this role and this film unfold, that almost amounts to the same thing. Rourke may not win the Oscar for best actor. But it would make me feel good to see him up there. It really would."

Meanwhile Armond White, of New York Press, said:

"Aronofsky inflicts as much pain on the audience as self-flagellating Ram Jam does when brutalizing/mutilating himself in and outside the ring."

As for our MoFo reviewers, @Mr. Boston said:

"The first thing I have to mention here is Mickey Rourke's fantastic performance, which is the highlight of the movie. He gives us a character to care about, a character we want to succeed... Now, the movie itself is great. The wrestling scenes are very well made and are very entertaining... Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood are both strong in their supporting roles. This is one of the best pictures I've seen all year. I don't normally cry during movies, but this movie was a tear-jerker. I highly recommend it."

On the other hand, @hello101 said:

"The Wrestler doesn't revolve around what the title makes you believe, it's actually about Randy Robinson's life AFTER wrestling and how bad it becomes. All of Robinson's personal issues seem to stem from his love and dedication to wrestling, it's a bloated and cliche story of stripper love, a broken father-daughter relationship and drug addiction... I can imagine the screenwriter (whoever he was) dotting down a heap of bad stuff that happens to Randy Robinson and listing his profession afterwards."

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Critics

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Critics thoughts on our #53, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon...



It currently has a 97% Certified Fresh Tomatometer score among critics, and a 7.8/10 score on IMDb (with 263,000 votes).

Roger Ebert gave it ★★★★ and said:

"Like all ambitious movies, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon transcends its origins and becomes one of a kind. It's glorious, unashamed escapism and surprisingly touching at the same time."

Meanwhile Chuck Rudolph, of Matinee Magazine, said:

"The film is a composite of so many genres, techniques, and age-old conceits that it can't help but miss each and every one by a mile."

As for our MoFo reviewers, @TheUsualSuspect said:

"If the overly long flashback was cut down several minutes, it would help with the run time. Some of it is beautiful to see, but it's these moments that drag out. Crouching Tiger paved the way for more asian inspired cinema making its way over here and I thank it for that."

Trailers

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Seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because it was supposedly a big deal. I totally forgot I'd even watched it until just now. You can add martial arts films as another genre I don't care for...But I suppose if one likes that sort of thing then the movie did look beautifully done.

Not seen The Wrestler...you guys sure didn't watch the same 2000s films that I did

Out of the movies I have seen on the list Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is my least favorite. That's not to say that it's bad. It's very nice to look at, well-choreographed and has enjoyable enough melodrama to sit through. I found the romance built up in flashbacks completely unbelievable though with a far too toxic pre-set for me to find any love that blossoms up romantic. If anything it feels like the beginning of an abusive relationship.

Decent overall with good acting from across the board, but I feel just as underwhelmed as Lee's other acclaimed movie Life Of Pi. The only one of his praised works I agree with so far is Brokeback Mountain.

Crouching Tiger was the movie that got me invested in foreign cinema, and a large part of the reason I never minded subtitles (the other was Star Wars Episode 1, but let's not go there). Currently it's my second favorite wuxia film, my first being 2013's Journey to the West. 100.

Sent-In Ballot:
#13. Million Dollar Baby (57)
#15. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (53)
#20. Iron Man (83)
#22. Pirates of the Caribbean (63)

Post-Ballot:
#12. Snatch (71)
#14. Million Dollar Baby (57)
#16. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (53)
#18. Slumdog Millionaire (not placed but it made my new 25)
#22. Iron Man (83)
#23. Fantastic Mr. Fox (70)
#25. Pirates of the Caribbean (63)

Seen 27/48

I can see the appeal.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Attachments

 

The Wrestler was my #14.

I think it’s brilliant. Wrestling is such a macho showy sport and this film really takes us behind the curtain of it all. Not that every wrestler is like the main character in this film of course, but I love stories about the other side of the coin…

Rourke has been cast in what seems like the best role in forever and he perfectly captures the beaten down struggling man behind the legend. The 16mm cinematography is gritty and filthy in just the right way and the story is very human.

I love Aronofsky and with this movie he got another masterwork on his hands. I remember seeing it a long long time ago and it didn’t quite click. But I kept thinking about it. Something about it stayed with me. And when I rewatched it everything fell into place. It’s a Top 100 movie for me, for sure.

As for Crouching Tiger, I’ve never really been a fan of the fantasy flying martial arts stuff. I’m more into the gritty stuff. Or Chan’s comedy. The poetic dancing stuff has never been my thing. I’ve only seen it once though but I wasn’t a fan.

I only got to Crouching Tiger this year. I liked it enough, but found it a little too studied as an homage to classic kung fu cinema to really breathe. (I'm also not in love with the film's use of wirework, but perhaps that's my problem.) I'd much rather have been watching a classic Shaw Brothers joint, but I suppose that's true in most cases. Still, well made and uses its stars well..


My other big takeaway is that Michelle Yeoh is in her fifth decade of looking great when most of us haven't had even one. Completely unfair.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is beautiful, moving, and epic, and it seems to have come at exactly the right moment to become the breakthrough hit that it was. I saw most of the other similar Chinese kung fu movies that followed in its wake that distributors thought could cross over to a western audience and most were quite good too, but this is the one that I returned to multiple times. I never had a problem accepting the fantasy aspect to it, and I put it at #13.

My List:

13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (#53)
18. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#86)
22. The Man Who Wasn’t There (#84)

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Awards

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Now to the awards received by The Wrestler...

• BAFTA for Best Actor (Mickey Rourke)
• Golden Globe for Best Actor (Rourke)
• Golden Globe for Best Original Song (Bruce Springsteen)
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Lead (Rourke)

Among many others.

As for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it won...

• Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Taiwan)
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Timmy Yip)
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Peter Pau)
• Academy Award for Best Original Score (Tan Dun)
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture and Best Director (Ang Lee)
• Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress (Zhang Ziyi)

Don't be stupid.... It has a sequel, y'know.

I might put together something like the list I would've sent (had I done it in time) at the end of the countdown with the rest of you.

To cover the ones I've missed. I really liked Unbreakable a lot. Prefered it to The Sixth Sense and was one of those films I made others watch (who I thought would like it, naturally), Strangely for me, I liked the first Spider Man. A really good script made all the difference I thought, so I was in for a second helping. The subsequent shot did not hold up and I probably disliked it for all the reasons the fans loved it. I'm not a comicbook or superhero movie fan and a 'realistic' Batman film is about as far from what I want as you could get. I prefered this one to TDK but that's not saying a great deal. Decent film though, I thought, for what it is. I think I probably prefer origin story films as there's usually a lot less of the superhero fight crap.

I don't think I'd even heard of The Secrets In Their Eyes back then and I certainly haven't seen it since. Didn't know how I'd feel about V For Vendetta but a friend wanted it so we saw it. Turned out I really enjoyed it. I think I've seen it couple of times, so I assume that I liked it the second time? I enjoyed Million Dollar Baby until that happened. After that I completely checked out. I didn't think it was a masterpiece of cinema before that, but I was enjoying it.. Saw In Bruges once and was disappointed with it. I don't know if I expected too much or it simply didn't chime with me?

I really liked Collateral though. Again, just seen it the once, I think, but thought it was a great ride and a thoroughly good film. Another fan of Cruise here. Or I was back then. It looks great too, but then, it's Mann at night, so it would. The Wrestler is just relentlessly depressing and horrible to look at. A really uncomfortable watch for me, though I will say this was a terrible year for me and the last time I purposely sought out all the Oscar nominees. I was a big fan of Lee and was looking forward to CTHD but, other than looking gorgeous, I don't remember being too taken with it and hardly remeber a thing about it now. I've never been hugely into martial arts films and the whole wire fu crap has always left me cold, at best, and annoyed at worst so I was a bit underwhelmed by it.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Like I had said before, The Wrestler is the third and last film in the backend 50 to be on 10 or more ballots (after Spider-Man 2 and Catch Me If You Can). Remember that this will obviously be the norm later on the countdown (after we hit the mid-mark), but this serves to show how popular these three films are among the MoFo community. However, none of them were ranked 1st on any ballot.

I'm a bit behind here so instead of going through it all I'm just going to check the first page and ignore the last 10 or so?

58. V for Vendetta (104 points)
57. Million Dollar Baby (110 points)
56. In Bruges (111 points)
55. Collateral (115 points)
54. The Wrestler (115 points)
53. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (117 points)

They're all thumbs up from me, even V for Vendetta which is a bit of fun in the that traditional 1984-dystopian-fun way. I don't think it's great or anything, wonder how I would feel if I watched it now, many years later, as we are so close to so many possible dystopias! Kidding I don't believe that anymore, which is the real reason I would be curious on a rewatch. Those ideas (dreams) have passed with age. Million Dollar Baby is a quality film. Eastwood's second best of the decade. I think/hope Letters from Iwo Jima makes it. I didn't vote for it but could have.

Kinda surprised to see Collateral this high up or even on the list at all, but it's a pleasant surprise. I know In Bruges has a following and I'm cool with that.

The Wrestler is excellent and likely the one I would rank the highest out of this random collection of six movies. I haven't seen anything by Aronofsky for years. Is he still working? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a big hit when it came out but I wasn't all in the hype at the time...just thought it was good.

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Trivia

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The Wrestler



Did you know that...

• Nicolas Cage was originally cast in the lead role? According to Darren Aronofsky, he asked Cage to step down cause he wanted Mickey Rourke, and Cage graciously complied. Cage, however, has said that he felt he didn't have the physique for the role.
• Rourke wasn't initially interested in the script because he wasn't a fan of pro-wrestling? However, he accepted when Aronofsky let him rewrite most of his lines.
• Rourke actually worked at a deli in New Jersey in preparation for the role?
• just like Randy "The Ram" Robinson, Rourke used Guns n' Roses "Sweet Child o' Mine" as his entrance song during his boxing career?

It's nice to see what I consider to be a great film appear, but IMO The Wrestler ought to be much higher that #54. As I always say, I'll be curious to see which 52 films are better than it... I had it #2 on my list of 10.

It's hard to imagine anyone anywhere giving a better performance than did Micky Rourke in this picture. He's always been an intense actor, but here he is perfectly believable as a WWE type pro wrestler who is on the back end of his career. Rourke's performance at times seems almost like a documentary of the real guy.

The story was well written by Robert Siegel, directed by Darren Aronofsky, and photographed by Maryse Alberti. This is a film that will last through the decades.

I enjoyed "Crouching", but mostly for it's clever special effects. It was very well done, but it's not my type of film.

Trivia

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon



Did you know that...

• most of the actors performed their own stunts? According to director Ang Lee, computers were only used to remove safety wires from the shots.
• the three main actors all come from different places with different languages and accents? This made the filming more difficult.
• Ang Lee has referred to the experience of filming in the Gobi desert as "miserable"? According to him, it rained almost every day, he didn't take a break for eight months and thought he was about to have a stroke near the end.
• there was a sequel released in 2016 called Sword of Destiny? It was directed by Yuen Woo-ping, who was the action choreographer for the first film, and features only Michelle Yeoh from the original cast. Zhang Ziyi was approached but she refused to appear, unless Ang Lee directed it.