The MoFo Millenium Top 100 Countdown

To each his own cinema. I find the way American cinema to be way too neat and tidy to be boring. To each his own cinema.

It's not intended to be arty (and, again, I'm not sure why that has such a negative connotation for you). Just as American cinema tends to be more absolute while Japanese open-ended, or without closure, it stems from their culture.

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Mubi

Am I too late to the Japanese list? European / Asian cinema would be worth my time composing a list.

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I don't think a top 100 of Japanese movies is something many people could contribute to, but perhaps those who have seen a lot could start a thread discussing some of their favourites which could give the rest of us some suggestions to watch.

Some weird changes from this list compared to the Movie Forums Top 100 Films of All Time list: The Departed was 12th on this list, but 7th on that one. Gladiator was 31st on the all-time list but 69th on the millennium list. Both went down despite dramatically narrowing the eligible time frame.

More striking: three post-2000 films were on the all-time list but completely missed the cut on the millennium list. They are In the Mood for Love, which was 62nd, Black Hawk Down, which was 93rd, and Mystic River, which was 99th.

Not a huge deal; tastes change and, more importantly, we probably have a very different cross-section of members voting this time. Still thought it was interesting, though.

Long may they tumble.

Wow. So, despite appearances, the site is actually getting better taste in films?

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I just watched an utterly fabulous silent Japanese film called Blue Flowers for the Crying Dragon.

Take a look, it's very short:



I think I see the point about these films now, guys.

Not even Takeshi Kitano could make that less retarded

So the British who watch American films is obsessed with Americana (i.e. American culture?). Also, do you live in LA, because if you don't, you are not connected with the "people" who actually makes the movies you watch.

I began watching films beyond Brazilian and US made films when I "discovered" that people in other countries are also capable of creating art. Since the US has 4.5% of the world's population, the US has only a tiny fraction of the number of potential artists, and hence, of the total supply of art in the world.

Since 95% of everything is thrash, I have already watched most of the top 5% quality American films, but I still haven't explored the top 5% of Japanese or French cinema. Therefore, my priorities currently are in watching only foreign language stuff. That's because there are more unexplored stuff and they also feel fresh: Japanese movies are different from typical Western films and hence feel more fresh: I am tired of the usual hamburger so I began diversifying my died with sushi.

Anime is pretty much the most accessible type of audiovisual art produced in non-English. It is the easiest type of foreign language stuff for an american to watch, I think.

If you were born in Brazil you would probably watch only Brazilian soup operas?

Art is universal, people are people everywhere. You don't have to restrict yourself to the stuff produced inside your country's borders. You will only impoverish yourself by doing so.

Well, I think that Japanese films tend to be more powerful, on average, than American films. Though, in terms of average quality I don't know since I haven't watched enough Japanese films to get an accurate idea of their typical films.

Overall, foreign films are fresh because they tend to be different. Restricting yourself to only US films is like restricting your diet to hamburger and never tryind Arab, French or Japanese cuisine.

Interesting that you mention food, because the cool thing about living in a melting pot is that we borrow traditions from all over the world, be it in food or cinema. I can buy Italian food, or I can watch something by a Mexican filmmaker, from right here in Pennsylvania. That's one of the nice things about art: it's portable, and it's epidemic. Even people who don't watch Japanese cinema are going to run into its influences, especially when so many foreign talents decide to try their hand at creating films produced here.

I'm all for broadening one's taste, but I think the analogies used to make this particular point are a bit of a force fit most of the time. Either way, I think the evangelizing about its virtues is pretty counterproductive, whether right or wrong. Not everyone is on a quest to find the best of every medium at all costs. I daresay the people on a site like this are disproportionately likely to be that type of person, but it's not a prerequisite.

Actually, that depends on the size of the industry you are analyzing. Japan, which has a film industry that is almost comparable to the US in the number of films produced (600-700 for the US, 350-450 for Japan), has a huge diversity in film. In fact, their degree of diversity may be greater than those of the US film industry.

Also, the fact that the US film industry targets the international market tends to reduce its diversity and make its films more homogeneous and less sophisticated, as to please the greatest possible number of cultures.

American blockbusters tend to be all alike one another. In fact, Akira Kurosawa, for example, has produced massive diversity in his portfolio of films and his range exceeds the typical range of Hollywood blockbusters. If you get the top 30 highest grossing films in the US over the last 10 years and compare with the 30 films Kurosawa has done (many among the most popular films in Japan), you will notice in fact less diversity in the American films made by many different directors than the work of a single Japanese director.

Also, in a certain sub-field, animation, the Japanese output has a million times more diversity than US's.

Some have cited Ozu as an example of the lack of diversity in the work of a Japanese director. I can easily reply with Kurosawa (or Miyazaki). The only US director which had similar variety of work to Kurosawa would be Kubrick.

And in terms of recent popular directors, Miyazaki certainly has a much greater variety of his body of work than Cameron, Tarantino or Spielberg (though all his work has his personal touch of extreme humanism, the execution can vary greatly).

However, I notice always a certain american flavor in american films. That's something that for an american may not be as easy to notice but it is there and is very apparent for me.

While the US is a melting pot, the various influenced have melted already and produced a certain characteristic flavor.

I am just explaining why I am watching many foreign language films lately. Thanks to the internet for that, since in Brazil we have pretty much only US or Brazilian films at the theater.

I think we had nearly this same discussion before, no? And just as before, you're trying to answer a broad, all-else-being-equal statement with a couple of specific examples. All else being equal, films contained within a single culture, and largely made for that culture, are going to be more homogeneous. This doesn't have to be an ironclad law of nature, or without some exceptions, to hold as a general principle.

I'm also quite skeptical of using a couple of hand-picked masters of foreign cinema as illustrative of an entire industry. That selection bias is a huge issue in matters like this. Anyone who lives in America is exposed to enough advertising to be quite aware of films they don't intend to see. They know far more about the mediocre offerings in their own country than overseas. So, unless they've made some significant effort to watch the less heralded work from other countries, just how would they really judge the overall diversity? The uninspired crap is already getting filtered by the ocean between us.

There's also a bit of a problem in referring to diversity as if it were quantifiable, when figuring out how to define it is probably a huge part of the disagreement to begin with.

I still have to watch many more Japanese films, but the impression that I get is that Ozu was the one of the great Japanese directors with the least variation in his work.

You've explained it. I think we all very clear at this point.

This may ramble and not be too relevant, sorry, but...

There are plenty of bad and meh films made all over the world. I can't really buy into any argument that one country/culture somehow produces superior movies than another by virtue of being that country/culture.

That said, I do much prefer anime to any other animated style, such as french or american. It's an aesthetic choice, yes, but there also is a greater variety and willingness to push the artform, seems to me.

Yet I'll be the first to admit there's LOTS of crap anime. I just think that when it's done very well, nothing else quite compares IMO.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Just finished Good Night And Good Luck. Solid film. Well crafted and well acted, but my near total disinterest in the subject matter means I probably won't be revisiting it.

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I feel the same way. I saw it in theatres and never seen it since, don't need to either.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Same here. I bought it on DVD. Engrossing and well-made but not really a favorite.

Same, but a film that certainly has its worth.

I concur!