>I count several factors: Technical skill, innovation,
>influence on the artform. I tend to lean more towards the
>artistic aspects: the performances, story, the director's
>work.
>One thing I don't give much credence is enjoyment, because
>it's too arbitrary a factor. People used to call silent movies
>"the most fun you can have in the dark with a room full of
>strangers." Now you can't find 5 people who enjoy silent
>movies. Plus, "enjoyment of the movie experience" tends to be
>equated with "movies that look familiar to me." And if that's
>the case, what's more enjoyable, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO or THE
>EXPENDABLES? You see what I mean? If that's the case, DIE HARD
>should be in the top five and no one would ever watch an
>Ingmar Bergman movie.
>What people called "enjoyment of the movie experience" 40
>years ago bores people today, the same way people 40 years
>from now will be bored with what we say has "enjoyment of the
>movie experience."

we agree on many of the points you are making. Personally I move towards the type of story that's told (Do The Right Thing), how it's told (Amores Perros), and how it looks (Royal Tenenbaums): acting, originality and enjoyment snugly come in right after. I do love to be challenged by films i watch (Mulholland Dr. being an example), but really how valuable are Lynch's visual enigma's to the language of film. Does it not say something about the film when 7 out of 10 people are not going to enjoy watching it?

this focus on the aesthetics and technical aspects of films are good for nerds like you and I, but it's also rather bourgeois and non-inclusive. I'm speaking of enjoyment more in terms of how truthful a 35 year old is being with himself when he has a top 10 list with 7 films that were made 15-30 years before he was even alive. It's a debate I've had with Lesson heads who are in their early 20s with music lists that mirror that of 40 yr olds. It's more about being lock and step with the norm/gate keepers than reevaluating the steps the art form has taken since the inception


>They said the same thing about acting in the 1800s, music 100
>years after the birth of the phonograph, shit - they claim
>painting's dead every 50 years since the Renaissance. Arts
>much older than film continually improve. And when you
>consider what you can do with film today, stuff you couldn't
>do just 20 years ago, the "they invented everything already"
>excuse becomes a poor one.

that's the thing though, when list like this don't reflect the innovations of the recent past, it kind of reifies the idea that "everythings been done", so the oldies are the default goats

>
>Again, "enjoyment" is arbitrary. Some people find Bergman's
>movies enjoyable (I have no clue how or why, but they do).
>Culturally, we're bred to be bored in seconds. People bitch
>when a movie's longer than 2 hours, they can't listen to a
>song that's longer than 4 minutes, and won't cook a meal that
>takes longer than 30 minutes. You see how such factors
>determine what one finds "enjoyable?"
>Enjoyable has a limited factor on quality. Steven Seagal
>movies are enjoyable. No one's ever bored watching Jason
>Statham driving a car. But they are far from quality films.
>And that's what this S&S list is supposed to be about.

I mean sure they're enjoyable, but they fall apart when we look at the fragile plot line, poor acting, stories rife with stereo types and cliches, ect, but this type of criticism, where there is FILM! and than movies, is rather arbitrary and serves more the interest of high-snobiety society, than the progression of the art form and a critical pedagogy of film practices. and on a day with more time i'd argue for the greatness of a film like Crank

>I don't think MALCOLM X is one of the best films ever, but I'm
>hard pressed to think of many films in the past 30 years that
>are better. The production quality is very high; the story is
>well told, even if it's heavy-handed in parts; it's some of
>the best acting Denzel has ever performed (outside of Daniel
>Day-Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD, has there been a better
>performance in the past 30 years?)

so here are some I'd add to the canon, just off the top post-2000: Amores Perros, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Crouching Tiger, The Assassination of Jesse James, Pan's Labrynth, Eternal Sunshine of..., Royal Tenenbaums, 13 Assassins, A Prophet, and Raising Victor Vargas

some post 85: Full Metal Jacket, Do The Right Thing, La Haine, The Matrix, and Casino or Goodfellas