The MoFo Top 100 of the 2000s Countdown

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2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Is 28 days going to be the last film to appear that didn't make the millennium list? If not what will appear?

Are 5 of the last 44 to show Pixar films?



Seen both, voted for neither.

I really enjoy most of Charlie Kaufman's work. Hell, he wrote two of my all-time top ten movies. But something about Syecdoche, New York just doesn't work for me. Or at least it didn't the one time I watched it. I probably ought to revisit it, but I can't promise that will ever happen.

I watched 28 Days Later because my best friend wanted to see it. As expected, it wasn't my cup of tea. I only like zombie movies when they're funny (and preferably star Bruce Campbell).

Seen: 32/56

My Ballot:
1. Quills (#67)
6. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (#91)
21. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (#63)
25. Surf's Up (One-Pointer)



Seen 28 Days Later for an HoF. I mostly liked it, but it's a bit too much action-entertainment for me. I like directors who keep it small at a film's end. Two director's working today that don't go for the BIG endings are Kelly Reichhardt and Sofia Coppola.



A system of cells interlinked
No points for me on Moon, Sin City, Synecdoche New York, or 28 Days Later. Really surprised to see that last one on the list, but I guess it has a huge fan following.
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I've seen Synecdoche, New York a while ago, but I felt a lot of it went over my head and don't remember it that well, so I owe it a rewatch.

28 Days Later was #9 on my ballot. Not sure how controversial this opinion is, but this is actually my favorite zombie film of all time. It's a truly brilliant film which succeeds due to the character arcs of the two leads and the haunting political allegories delivered in the final act. Both of those concepts haven't aged at all and they still effect me quite a lot on future viewings, more so even. It also has other impressive qualities to it such as the deserted London shots found near the beginning and the soundtrack (the song "In the House, In a Heartbeat" is one of my favorite horror movie soundtracks of all time). Glad to see it on this list

1. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (#78)
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7. A Serious Man (#66)
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9. 28 Days Later (#45)
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20. Moon (#48)
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23. Sunshine (#88)
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25. The New World (#99)
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Bright light. Bright light. Uh oh.
Synechdoche, New York is where Kaufman can keep his personal vision intact and not worry about others reinterpreting him. Kaufman's creativity has probably never been so apparent before. He has come up with a rich metaphor about how all people live their lives alone and die on their own. I'll admit that this film may actually be profound, but it also makes you feel like a side of meat being punched by Rocky Balboa. One thing I want to take exception with is that the film is actually that funny. I enjoyed the wicked, but subtle, satire of both how the characters see themselves and how amenable they are to play and be played by others, but to me, it's just more intellectually clever than anything to laugh at. I admit I laughed out loud a couple of times, but that was it.

I'll say that it's definitely weird though, so that should automatically appeal to many people. One of the most bizarre scenes to me, and even if it's a throwaway (I doubt it) is the zeppelin scene. I can't for the life of me remember the context. Was the zeppelin in a scene where it appeared there was a riot or martial law declared? I really didn't find the film that confusing, and I was pretty sure I understood what was going on at most any given moment, but I'll admit that there are multiple layers going on which probably will become more meaningful. It's just whether one believes it's worth seeing the first time, let alone all the additional viewings. I'll be rewatching it when it comes out on DVD, but I won't be going back to the theatre to watch it because I wasn't as impressed with the visuals as many were.

One left field comment I'll throw out there is that the film seems to begin and end at about the same time, 7:45. Between the alarm clock at the beginning and the drawn clock on the brick wall at the end, I started to think that maybe the entire two-hour movie was just Philip Seymour Hoffman reliving much of his life at the potential moment of his death. Did anyone notice the thanks to Dustin Hoffman in the end credits? I wonder if that was for Dustin helping to create P.S.



28 Days Later... has an excellent opening but the rest seems more drawn-out to me.

No votes.
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[I'll be rewatching it when it comes out on DVD...
Can't wait for it to come out on DVD!
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Have seen so far: 19 - 28 Days Later - Not one of my favorite movies but not a bad British virus outbreak movie though.
Have not seen so far: 41
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Moviefan1988's Favorite Movies
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...?t=67103<br />

Welcome to the Dance: My Favorite 20 High School Movies
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...02#post2413502



Just going to provide some brief thoughts/opinions on the last few.

50. Yi Yi (127 points) - Made my list, pretty high too.
49. Dancer in the Dark (129 points) - Lars is divisive, both among filmgoers and within his filmography. Put this in the win column, in my opinion, would have made my top 100 of the decade.
48. Moon (129 points) - As a sci-fi fan who has sat through many expensive yet terrible films it's great to have a smaller budget film like this one come in and be so good. Hm...I wonder if Primer's making a showing in the top 100...
47. Sin City (131 points) - I liked it quite a bit when it first came out but caught a bit of it somewhere on TV (not sure where since I don't have cable or whatever it's called now) and I was kind of annoyed with it. Not sure if that style works for me anymore.
46. Synecdoche, New York (133 points) - Thought it was excellent on release but I've never gotten around to watching it again. Odd for a movie that I liked this much.
45. 28 Days Later (139 points) - Feel the same way Mark does, "has an excellent opening but the rest seems more drawn-out."



28 Days Later made zombies feel like a real threat. Instead of just a virus collecting a bunch of slow-moving people wanting brains, we got real monsters hunting you down like the prey you are. This type of zombie is only topped by Train to Busan. But it's another case where Danny Boyle values cinematography and atmosphere above character development. The third act was a little generic.



I absolutely HATE Synecdoche New York, watching it was one of the most difficult movie watching experience in my life. It's been a while so I don't remember specific things about the film so my argument isn't very strong haha. I remember finding Philip Seymour Hoffman's character so unbearable to watch it made me physically cringe. Maybe it's not only the movie's fault, Seymour Hoffman is by far the actor I hate the most in general (I'm not saying he's bad, it's just my personal sensibility).

28 days later is fun, but nothing that incredible to me.

I haven't seen Moon.

Sin City is an excellent movie, I considered it for my list. Had I made this list 5 years ago it would be in my top 10. It's a movie a like less as a grow older, but it's still a very beautiful movie, super entertaining with a great style that makes it enjoyable to watch. One of the best action movies of the 2000's for sure!
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Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
28 Days Later... was my #2. I really love it. I don't always enjoy horror movies, but I do like zombie movies. I like the characters in this, the way they form relationships and that they don't only exist to be killed off. I like that, similar to The Stand, the real horror is as much in how human beings behave as in any kind of monster or plague. I like Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris. The music is awesome.

Synecdoche New York is probably the most depressing film I have ever watched. I didn't enjoy the experience of watching it but I think there was a lot in there that was cleverly put together and thought provoking.



There was a time when I preferred 28 Weeks Later until I watched 28 Days Later again for a HoF thanks to Thursday and my feelings completely flipped.

I've only seen the other movie 1 time several years ago. I don't remember it well, but I do remember thinking it was very odd, and I don't generally care for odd movies. I'd be happy to try it again just for that amazing cast.

1. The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) (#59)
6. The Devil's Rejects (2005) (#94)
8. 28 Days Later (2002) (#45)
10. The Wrestler (2008) (#54)
11. Mystic River (2003) (#65)
15. Amores Perros (2000) (#81)
17. Y tu mamá también (2001) (#95)



The Wrestler: I like thinking of this movie most as a companion piece to Black Swan. The two seemed obviously intended to compliment eachother as they are both about the toll that is taken physically and psychically when one is subsumed by their occupation/art/obsession. How ones sense of identity blurs and the real body begins to decay. Where Black Swan seems to take its influences from horror film (making it naturally appeal to me more), The Wrestler's more clasical, realistically depicted charcter study is just as affecting an allegory. But since Aronofsky tones down his technical flourishes here, the power of this movie mostly centres around Rourke's performance, which is equal parts grotesque, charming and sad. I liked the directors choice in realizing no accoutrements were needed to add to this film, and he allows its story to unfold naturally and obviously. However predictable the whole affair is, it always feels honest. I've only seen it once, when it was released in the theater, and the images of this man in the ring, or wandering the streets, still haunt me. Not on my list, but would rightfully appear on anyone elses.


Crouching Tiger- I think I've talked recently about this film, so not so keen on doing so again at any length. While some images in the film are spectacular, the movie that surrounds it has always been a little damp for my tastes. And, when compared to the classic martial arts films by the Shaw Brothers, even the show stopping fight sequences come up short. There is an elegance to the camera work and editing in something like Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, that allows its sweat and grit and blood to float dream like into the frame. Crouching Tiger, on the other hand, feels much too deliberate in its poetry. It is clearly trying to make its violence dream like and untouched by gravity. What I prefer about the Shaw Brothers appproach is that its beauty is a result of a collage of images and camera movements swirling around the actors athleticism. Its poetry is built out of almost pure cinematic techniques, where Crouching Tiger's balletic images seem pulled from a spectacle. Trained performers you might pay to see doing incredible feats in real life. Ang Lee's direction isn't irrelevant in this, but I like the unexpected beauty that comes out from what the SB do.



Brokeback Mountain - I sometimes think I don't really like Ang Lee very much. This is probably his best movie, but I'm not completely in love with it. I think it is very good, but when I think of it, most of my affection comes from Ledger's performance, which is even better than what he would eventually do with the Joker. There is so much going inside of his character, hidden yet warping every element of his physicality, that you can't take your eyes off of him. Over all, it's a worthwhile movie, and I think there is a lot of value that comes with its inversion of rugged male stereotypes (and making a cultural hit out of it). But as a whole, it doesn't all come together, like I feel towards most of Lee's movies.


Assassination of Jesse James - I don't remember this very well, but I know I liked it alot. People already talk enough about how great it looks, so I won't go over that again. But I'm not sure if people give Pitt enough credit here. As an actor, Pitt is generally pretty piss-poor a lot of the time, but occassionally he nails a part. He did so in Kalifornia, and in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but also here. I can't remember much of what made what he did stick out so much to me, but I just get an eerie sense of him whenever I think of him in the movie. Like I watched a ghost. Still alive but moving helplessly towards his fate.



YiYi - Another one I don't remember very well, but I know I gave a 10/10 when I saw it years ago. I remember it being very human. I remember it making me feel like I've seen life on the screen. Real life. Not something that had just been put together for my amusement. Like others have stated, I think I prefer other Wang's, but this is obviously a great film on its own. Even if I remember almost nothing.


Dancer in the Dark - this may be the movie that cemented the hatred some people have for Von Trier (I'm sure there are lots of candidates for this moment, but this film is certainly one). It is where his intent as a director begins to really take shape, that what he is to do here most of all is troll his audience. Manipulate them into feeling whatever negative feelings he wants to slap them in the face with. And he does it by acting with such hostility to his character we should be rolling our eyes at what a pointlessly sadistic bastard he is. But for me, every minute of it worked. Even as I realized he was just going to keep twisting the screw tighter and tighter in to my heart, I was so dumbfounded with the emotions he pulls out of me with this one that I was more than willing to let him. This movie destroyed me. Would be in my top five most profoundly visceral moments I've ever had with a movie. And because of this, it is where the legend of Von Trier grew only greater in my mind. And how I will always keep the door open for him to toy with me like some mouse he is slowly torturing to death. Also....Bjork is a genius and one of the greatest things to happen to music in fifty years.


Moon - A really well executed Sci-fi film with the kind of premise that I like. Which with a handful of narrative details, make us recalibrate how we think of existence. I liked this a lot, but did not include it on my list. I did briefly consider it though.


Sin City - A movie I think I liked a good chunk of when I first saw it, at least visually, but when I think back on it, feels like the exact kind of thing I would avoid like the plague now. The kind of movie I dread being stuck in a conversation about. I've never been impressed with Rodriguez. Maybe this is the best thing he's done, but that isn't very impressive.



Synecdoche, New York - This was probably pretty high on my list. I really disliked it the first time I saw it. It felt overstuffed, but with a so many seems that seemed interchangeably similar in function, that it also felt kind of empty. Then I watched it a couple of years later, and immediately watched it again as soon as it ended. And then again the next morning. Sure, the film is overstuffed with both the bizarre and the mundane. But almost in the exact proportions of the life I was living, which started to seem more and more similar to that of Hoffman's character with each viewing. Very few movies I've ever seem seemed to capture what the horror and wonder of life is to me as clearly as this one. Very few movies have ever been as illuminated about the creative process to so perfectly capture it as the existential nightmare that it is. And few films this unbearably sad and almost impossibly depressing, also glean just how funny this hopeless thing called life is.



I could never blame anyone for not liking this movie. It's a brutal and uncompromising thing. It is deliberately pretentious (whatever that means). It has big questions to ask and none of its answers are good. But for those who want their art to break open the way they think of their own lives, as well as make us question the value of coming to places like the theater to sit and watch such a thing, this is the perfect balm for your broken brain. As surely a masterpiece of Fellini's 8 1/2.


28 Days Later - This movie did not create fast zombies. This also would not be much of a legacy if that's all it did. What 28 Days Later does is offers a zombie film filled with humanity, when only a handful of humanity can still be found. These characters make the film. Yes, the zombie attacks are brilliantly done. But don't forget about the moments between these survivors. And the ending, while in many ways kind of obvious and on the nose, works really well on rewatched. A very good movie. A rare Boyle success.



I love Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, and as much as I love several other of his penned movies, this is the one where he has total control and makes the most of it, and thus creates his magnum opus. The film looks amazing for its $20 million budget, and I thought prior to his death that Philip Seymour Hoffman was one of the best American actors still in his prime and this might be his best performance as far as plumbing the depths of the human experience. I didn't figure it had a chance of making it at this point but I'm so glad it did. I had it at #3.

My List:
3. Synecdoche, New York (#46)
8. Sin City (#47)
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (#53)
18. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (#86)
22. The Man Who Wasn’t There (#84)
24. Moon (#48)
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28 Days Later was not in my top 25. But it's probably in my top 100. I agree that there's some impressive shots here as well as being grounded by the characters. If I remember correctly, Naomie Harris is kind of a badass here? Solid zombie film with enough bite to make it worth a second/third view.

I've tried with Synecdoche, New York. I did give it a second go years ago (and a couple of years after the first try). It just isn't the sort of thing that appeals to me at all.

Now I can like films that are depressing (see Biutiful, for example).

WARNING: "Spoilers" spoilers below
But Biutiful had a protagonist who was doing things to make the lives of others better such as trying to find a replacement parent for them when he dies and trying to take care of the workers he was supervising. In contrast, Synecdoche is about a director who runs off his family and employs hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a vain attempt to create a play that would seemingly take decades and justify the MacArthur scholarship he received. I get that he lost his family and is dying of something terminal. But it's very hard to sit through a dark, depressing journey of someone who's pretty much selfish and is worried more about himself than his cast of thousands or his family of two. I mean PSH is fine and I didn't mind Dianne Wiest in this one, but the film took its own sweet time telling a tale I didn't care about.


I mean, if SNY is your type of jam, that's fine. But I just don't think it's something I'm going to ever get into.



Have seen 10 of the films from 58-47 with two making my ballot - Moon at number 12 and a big one - Sin City at number 2.

I love sci-fi and Moon was the second best sci-fi of the decade (the best is sure to appear later). I admit to being suckered in by great performances and Sam Rockwell always gives a solid performance but being asked to carry an entire movie? That's a tall order and Rockwell pulls it off as Sam the Moon Miner, nearing the end of his three year stint when all of a sudden another Sam the Moon Miner shows up creating all kinds of wtf is going on here moments. Really good stuff.

Sin City...Marv, as he's patiently trying to get answers from a tight lipped baddie by dragging him face down outside his car, sums it up best for me:



"I don't know about you but I'm having a ball."

And that's how I feel about Sin City. It's so nasty and wrong yet it's so much fun. It's bad people doing bad things to even worse people for all the right reasons. In Sin City we have hitman doing his thing, a brute killing everybody in his way "to the top" over a dead hooker, a guy, looking to protect his new girlfriend, killing her ex-boyfriend cop and his crew with the help of some badass hookers and a detective, with a bad ticker, doing whatever he can to protect a young girl from that yellow bastard - and these are the good guys. Mickey Rourke was born to play Marv and Marv is the f'n best. Creatively killing his way to the top ("That's a damn fine coat you're wearing"), he's one of my favorite characters ever. The level of violence in this movie is insane but it doesn't seem that bad because of the style it was filmed. That and it's so over the top that the violence becomes comical. Like Bugs Bunny cartoons. This is another movie I can watch anytime to pass the time and have a good time.

Had a couple from my ballot hit in the 101-110. The Aviator (24) and Little Miss Sunshine (25). Neither would have made my top 25 had I paid a little more attention when filling out my ballot as I found two more movies that should have been included.



I love Kaufman. A very fascinating and exciting filmmaker. I have yet to see this one by him though. I’ve actually seen some of it and liked it okay but never got back to it for some reason…

28 Days Later I don’t really care for. It’s fine.



Critics




Critics thoughts on our #46, Synecdoche, New York...



It currently has a 69% Fresh Tomatometer score among critics, and a 7.6/10 score on IMDb (with 88,000 votes).

Roger Ebert gave it ★★★★ and said:
"This is a film with the richness of great fiction. Like Suttree, the Cormac McCarthy novel I'm always mentioning, it's not that you have to return to understand it. It's that you have to return to realize how fine it really is. The surface may daunt you. The depths enfold you. The whole reveals itself, and then you may return to it like a talisman."
While Jonathan Romney, of The Independent, said:
"Synecdoche, New York finally feels bitter, hollow and adolescent: like a gargantuan music video conceived for an emo band with a penchant for Pirandello."
As for our MoFo reviewers, @Holden Pike said:
"This is an exceedingly clever and often hysterical hodgepodge of Existentialism, Theatre of the Absurd, homonyms, doubles, constructs, facades, pustules, desire, regret, memory, chaos and order...life and death... I'm sure I'll have to watch it many multiple times for the rest of my life to get everything that is crammed into this movie, but on first pass...wow. Intricate, funny, touching, indescribable and unforgettable."
On the other hand, @mark f said:
"I'll admit that this film may actually be profound, but it also makes you feel like a side of meat being punched by Rocky Balboa. One thing I want to take exception with is that the film is actually that funny. I enjoyed the wicked, but subtle, satire of both how the characters see themselves and how amenable they are to play and be played by others, but to me, it's just more intellectually clever than anything to laugh at. I admit I laughed out loud a couple of times, but that was it."
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