TFT 104 – THE FILMS OF THE DECADE
posted by
Jett Loe
TFT 104 / 28 mb MP3 / 58 minutes / DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
THE FOUNTAIN / AMORES PERROS / QUANTUM OF SOLACE
AUSTRALIA / MIAMI VICE / GANGS OF NEW YORK
THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD
THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA
THE VILLAGE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 3:54 pm. It is filed under Action, Actors We Love, Blog, Decade's Best, Directors, Films of the Decade, Films of the Year, Gareth Higgins, Gareth Higgins Reviews, Jett Loe, Jett Loe Reviews, Operation STFT, Podcast, Reviews, Science Fiction.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
The sound balance is a bit off with this recording. I can appreciate the difficulty in making a show when one of the participants is speaking from a tin can with a bit of string in a third world country and the other is inside a subwoofer, but nevertheless I found myself turning up and down the volume a bit more than I like. I listened to the first 20 minutes for now. Will do the rest at a later date. My wrist hurts. Hm, that's not meant to sound rude. I don't think of you guys that way.
(By the way, has the sound in the intro been rejigged? The tune and background effects sounded really good …or did I just listen for the first time? …maybe all the sound issues are to do with my pc.?)
Let me look into it Stanley – maybe something went wrong when it was exported to the mp3 file – the settings are the same as for all the other eps + the sound in the intro is the same as always – but thanks for letting me know.
- – edit later:
any other listeners having problems? it sounds fine on my laptop speakers/headphones, etc. – feedback appreciated :)
[...] This post was Twitted by pattyfantasia [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jett Loe and Patty Fantasia, The Auteurs Daily. The Auteurs Daily said: Listening. @thefilmtalk on the "Films of the Decade" – http://bit.ly/4vODuE [...]
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by pattyfantasia: RT @thefilmtalk: The Film Talk’s latest podcast is online! :) THE FILMS OF THE DECADE http://bit.ly/4vODuE…
I'm over half way through the episode, and I haven't had any issues with the sound. Jett sounds a little bass-y, but I'm not having an issue of one person's levels higher than the other.
More comments to come.
Great show, guys. Sad to say that I think that I missed certain portions – from focussing on other things while I listened – but the gist of what I really got was the more in-depth look at Jett's opinion on The Fountain. I know it's divisive, and it's been well-tread on the site here; but it really shocked me to hear what Jett had to say about the movie. (I do agree that it's silly that Rachel Weisz has the “hollywood disease” in the movie.)
Anyway, to not put focus just on that one film. I think that you guys have a pretty solid, and varied list of movies from this past decade. I have to say I really disagree with Jett on his picks of Miami Vice (a fine movie in it's own right, but not really that much of a stand-out to me), and especially with Righteous Kill. A movie that as soon as I heard about it, I know what the plot and “twist” was going to be – and it all goes back to Michael Mann's Heat. I'll concede that if it were a movie that had been made in the hey-day of film noir, or in the “alright” director Billy Wilder's time, it might be considered a masterpiece. Unfortunately, it's not set in that time (maybe that would have helped), and it wasn't made then. Instead it's a bottom-rung, thriller, IMO.
And maybe it's saying something that I also agree with Gareth about The Village – and I have to admit to liking all of Shyamalan's movies (with the exception of The Happening, which lost me when it has Mark Wahlberg as a science teacher trying to teach us about “the bees”).
Looking forward to the last episode (or is it two) of the year.
It's not that one is higher, but I was listening at night time with other family members asleep elsewhere in the house, so to hear Gareth I had to turn it up, but then Jett's voice made the walls shake at the same level so I had to turn it down. …Anyway -could be my ears were extra sensitive at that time of night. I don't mean to distract from the otherwise-enthralling podcast so I'll shut up about it now. !
Possibly you have the bass on your speakers turned up? John Muth is right re: I'm too 'bass-y' (trying new mic) – as an experiment i played back the ep on some nice speakers i have and turned the bass up and the ep sounded awful – so, i def going to find a way to lower the bass on my end + you might check if your speakers have a bass setting :)
I hear what you're saying re: RIGHTEOUS KILL – it's not that it's a good movie – it just won my “Film cineastes would love if was made in the 50's Award” :)
+ Ah, the Fountain – I'm happy to revisit and try again – one listener suggested watching in black and white which i might do – or, i'll try an old trick of mine which is to switch the audio track to a language i don't know and then put subtitles on – that might do the trick! (in fact i'll put it on my netflix queue right now).
Honestly, I kind of think that a lot of today's movie failures, if they had been made in previous decades (imagine Snakes on a Plane from the more exploitation/grindhouse era of the late 60's/70's.) would be accepted as classics today. But, I think that I'll revisit that, just because I think I was so let down that it was hokey and just bad; and I hadn't actually expected that.
As for The Fountain, first off; how would you even go about seeing it in b&w? Do you have to break out the old console TV your grandmother had? :P Secondly, while I accept that the movie has it's flaws – and hokeyness (there's that word again!) – it was the heartfelt emotion behind it that sucked me in. Maybe instead of a being from the future that has seen every movie; you're actually just a heartless robot. (I'm kidding, of course.) And I promise that's the last I'm saying about The Fountain, on this site…until the next post about it shows up.
I think i can prob. turn down the color saturation on my tv = not quite as good as black and white but then i'll adjust the contrast/brightness etc.
+ re: heartless robot – you may have something there – i think gareth engages much more with the story and the characters than i do – i think he's more empathetic which explains his work in the peace and reconciliation field, whereas i spent the same amount of time directing 5 seasons of prank shows for the beeb! ;)
While I haven't seen The Fountain, just on the basis of sitting through Pi all the way through, I'll pre-emptively say Jett is right. I think I've made a pact with myself that I'll never see another Aranofsky film. Its got every elitist, pretentious, look-at-how-smart-my-movie-is technique imaginable rolled into one 90 minute piece of trash.
As for RIGHTEOUS KILL, I'll have to completely disagree with you Jett, that movie is shit today, and it would still be shit if it came out in the 70's. Its possibly the clumsiest and most badly put-together movie I've seen this year, almost like a student film.
I do appreciate a lot of the picks though. Miami Vice is very solid, although Collateral is probably a better Mann movie to pick for “best of the decade”. Quantum of Solace is a lot better than critics give it credit for, but I think overall Casino Royale is still the better movie. The problem with Solace is it never breathes, you don't get any down-time with the characters outside of the action, which is what made Casino Royale work so well. I prefer to just think of them as one long, great bond movie.
I actually felt similarly to Aronofsky's two first movies (Pi and Requiem for a Dream), and it was the visuals that first drew me in to wanting to see The Fountain. But, the story is completely opposite of his previous movies – at least in tone; if not, possibly in pretentiousness – so, it really turned me around. I'm still not completely in love with his first two movies, but I feel like after having seen the heart that was also placed in The Fountain, it let me in to another way of seeing those first two. (Not that they're still not trying films.)
Yeah i hear ya re: RIGHTEOUS KILL being s**t if it came out in the 70's – but if it came out in the 50's – in black and white and with ralph meeker and robert ryan – man i'd love that!
Hmm…I don't know if trying to see it in black and white will do anything – especially with the lush and beautiful photography on display (c'mon, you can't hate that too, can you?). I do think that maybe trying it in another language with subtitles might help though. It's strange the disconnect – or maybe it's a deeper connection – you get from having to watch the film and read the words.
And I'll concede that I can see how if this movie just doesn't engross you, then you're probably just going to see the silliness of Hugh Jackman blubbering to himself, and the crazy clouds/snow/stars repeating itself is hokey. Along with Gareth – and really, he's just about the only person I “know” that seems to like it as much as I do. My roommate, falls asleep every time we've tried to watch it. Literally, 10 minutes in, she'll be sleeping…Because of the score. Something about Clint Mansell, I guess. (I'm afraid to show her Moon, when it comes out.) :)
The thing is I love Hugh Jackman, (re: Australia being the most underrated film of the decade); i'm always happy to give it another chance – i feel bad though criticizing a film that Gareth so obviously cherishes – but… we get different things out of cinema, and see different things – in the title sequence of TFT he professes his love for FIELD OF DREAMS – i'd never seen it so i netflixed it last month – i couldn't make it through 15minutes.
what am i missing about A.I.?? There's gotta be a theme or a viewpoint or something that has slipped past me! i'm open to any suggestions! i watched it again and i'm just left with the most disturbing, unsatisfied and almost completely angry feeling i've ever felt in regards to a movie – passionately angry, you could say! I really would like to change this view and see what everyone else is seeing, honestly! :D
(BTW, LUVIN' Belfast right now! it's cold tho – and i think that more foods should come baked in pastry! ;) )
Hi Kiley – I think Jonathan Rosenbaum puts it nicely in his article about AI:
http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6306
Hi Kiley – I think Jonathan Rosenbaum puts it nicely in his article about AI:
http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6306
[...] TFT 104 – THE FILMS OF THE DECADE [...]
I can't tell you how pleased that neither of you listed a single Lars Von Trier movie as best of the decade.
Thanks for the tip regarding Australia, since I totally passed on it when it was in theaters. Probably because it has one of the dullest titles of any “epic love story” ever made.
I'll give it a look-see. Same with Quantum of Solace. Casino Royale was so unbelievably terrible (despite the presence of the luminous Eva Green), I had washed my hands of the entire Bond franchise forever. But maybe QoS is worth a rental…
Permit me to mention a few that I was surprised didn't make the list: Munich, The Aviator, Letter from Iwo Jima.
In order to put The Fountain in the proper framing which I think people often fail to do:
The Fountain is an adaptation of a fictional book written by the fictional character in the film, including that part in the ‘present’ (which you can infer that he wrote into the book out of common sense). The film’s tone is somewhat soap-operatic, but I fail to see how or why the book, and thus the film, would portray her in any less angelic way. When it comes to the film’s espoused philosophy and the rather flat characterizations – this should serve not as a mouthpiece from the director but as a method of informing the audience of the character. The scientist is not Chekhov (himself a doctor), he is not writing this book to start his second career as a writer, he is doing it purely out of love. Just as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is not about the philosophies of Yukio Mishima, this film is not a philosophical treatise. If you expect rigorous philosophy from a film… I’m not sure you’re looking in the right place. What you will find is poetry, and the film’s aesthetics line up most closely with short poetry as opposed to the techniques used to adapt novelizations or epic poetry. I studied philosophy in college, I continue to read philosophy, I have seen films by Tarkovsky and Malick and Antonioni and Sokurov et al and there is nothing in the film to shake one’s head at – largely because it is irrelevant. If one wants to join the ‘school of nit-picking and actively ensuring that one misses the point and the context which would allow oneself to appreciate film’ by constructing erroneous schema which serve only to highlight the narrowness of one’s own mind then I will fully support everyone in this endeavor as it provides a great deal of humor to passive observers, but I can see where it could derail an involved conversation and thus I can empathize with the unlucky interlocutor in this hapless pairing. I myself side with Bazin in his belief that only positive criticism has any merit, most especially because of my numerous experiences in narrow-mindedly ‘missing the point entirely’ which I found myself doing all too frequently as a younger person and which he who shall remain nameless may someday find himself doing, although perhaps not. There tends to be a yin for every yang, and he hates everything on principle.