I'm only posting to be a film snob, clearly. AND TO AVOID HOMEWORK?

[devidarkwolf]

OKAY, SO. Someone posted this link at ontd_startrek, and it's this list some moron wrote of the 100 most defining films of the decade. Basically, a bunch of films that defined the decade, infleunced careers/filmmaking/the industry, etc. I MEAN, CLEARLY YOU CAN TELL I'M ANNOYED. But check this, this is the top 10:

10) Slumdog Millionaire

Comments

[doubtful_salmon]

Crap, this is a two-parter comment.

I would agree that There Will Be Blood deserves to be up there. It's kind of surprising the sort of cult that has arisen around it. It's a hugely atypical movie that somehow succeeded on a strange level despite the fact that pretty much anybody who just read the movie's synopsis wouldn't give a shit about it if they didn't already know that it was good. I just kind of think it redefined the way that cults form around movies. It didn't attract the usual cult crowd because it wasn't the usual cult movie, and yet the crowd reacted to it as if it were a crazy sci-fi movie to which nerds flock. But it wasn't, and yet there are droves of people who can recite that movie. Fuck, I read a newspaper article about Bruce Willis shouting a line of it really loudly in some trendy New York hot spot because that line deserves to be shouted. It's weird that a movie can arise from that particular text and be of such high quality and at the same time, attract people who memorize entire scenes because they're fucking classic. I know an entire crowd of people who can be put into fits by mentioning the Peachtree Dance at an appropriate moment.

In fact, watching this movie actually makes me feel a little bit empty inside because I can't actually compare it to anything else. It is so different from everything else that I've seen that when it's over, I want to watch something that is the same but different, but I can't, because it's an island. It isn't my favorite movie, though it would probably hit the top ten if I were a masochist who decided to make a top ten list just to torture myself, but I can see why this movie was important. It was funny, it was ridiculous, it was strange, it was dramatic, and it somehow had an air of both horror and the supernatural, and yet somehow, it never went overboard. I'd say chalk this up to Daniel Day-Lewis and the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson is unafraid of the left unsaid, and also the last minute replacement that was Paul Dano.

I'm not sure I'd say Borat's presence on that list is undeserved, either. This one's not nearly as great a movie as Star Trek or as There Will Be Blood is, but it also represented an interesting new direction in movies in the same way that I'd say The Office did for TV. I just think that if you can come up with a character who, in only a couple of months, can go from an unknown to a household name, then you've done something big enough to count.

Star Trek, I think, deserves to be a lot higher on the list because it took a text with which everyone was familiar but of which the outsider was fearful and made it accessible. Not only did it do that, but it made it GOOD. And the fact is, you and I are clearly movie nerds. We may have known who most if not all of that cast was when they were announced--but my dad, who I'd say has about an average pop culture IQ, only recognized John Cho because of Harold and Kumar. The cast certainly wasn't plucked from the void, but it would have been easy to pepper Star Trek with a legion of A-listers but instead JJ Abrams chose to pick actors who were actually gonna be the best at those parts. I think to the general society of non-nerds, these people really were a lot of unknowns, or, "Hey, don't I recognize that guy from something?" sort of situations.

I think the large majority of this list is bullshit myself, but I do wanna represent a bit. I think Star Trek would've placed higher if it had brought back something forgotten or something unknown or something that had never been onscreen before...but, you know. I also think that, in ten years, if you made a list of the 100 most influential movies of this decade, it would place a lot higher. I mean I obviously can't guarantee, but it's hard to judge exactly how influential a movie that came out six months ago is going to be in the long run. Star Trek is also the third major franchise renewal this decade, which also probably accounts for why the listmaking d-bag didn't put it up higher.