Best Films of the 2000s: Q1 • Page 5

If the wait is longer than a month or two, I usually restart. It isn’t ideal, but neither is forcing myself to stay half awake for a film in one sitting

 

I have been “watching” Seven Samurai for like 10 years now. At some point it gets good, right?

 

You have to finish that one sooner or later. If we made a list of the most essential films of all time it would probably be in the top ten.

 

We did that, its pinned and you didnt make a list.

 

Stopping the slaughter because they saw an old man’s dick and balls is pretty funny, as horrific as that scene was

 

Narrowing it down to exactly ten would be so hard. Do you pick academic films that no one wants to ait through, like Intolerance? What about problematic movies like The Searchers or The Birth or a Nation? If I had to make a ten, just off the top of my head while I'm sitting in an Uber, would be:

Citizen Kane
The Birth of a Nation
The Godfather
Breathless
2001: A Space Odyssey
Seven Samurai
Tokyo Story
Metropolis
The Seventh Seal
Pulp Fiction

 

Ask your Uber driver his list

 

That was good. Excited to take 25 years to get through Satantango

 

On Saturday night I got into the wrong Uber at the airport and when the real passenger canceled the ride he started yelling at me and drove me back to the airport. It was terrifying.

 

I understand the argument for a film like Birth of a Nation, but I would simply pick a different film lmao

 

Most Essential Films of All Time
1. Jackass 2 (Unrated)

 

It has to be seen sooner or later if you really want to understand the history of film. In terms of techniques and the structure of movies, it has a claim to maybe being the most important movie ever made. It's also in the public domain so you don't have to worry about your money going to the Klan.

It isn't the only time it happens either. Leni Riefenstahl is a hugely influential filmmaker whose subject happens to be the glorification of the Nazis. The Searchers is considered John Ford's best film and is pretty racist toward Native Americans. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are going to show up eventually.

There's a difference between academic viewing and viewing for pleasure. No one is going to invite over their friends and throw on the best remaster of The Birth of a Nation that they can find, but studying anything requires dealing with the unpleasant parts. It would be like learning history but skipping slavery and the Holocaust.

 

Sure to be coming soon to a school curriculum near you.

 

We fight over that stuff every year. A principal got fired in the state not too long ago for sending out waivers for parents who don't want their kids to learn about the Holocaust because "not everyone agrees on all the facts".

When I taught U.S. History I showed Night and Fog every year. It's truly gruesome stuff: heads in buckets, bodies being pushed into graves by bulldozers, piles of hair from shaved victims. Some students would complain that it was too horrific and I would always say that I agree with them, which is why you have to be aware of what happened.