Re: The 2000 Mini-List
Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2026 6:03 pm
Good call, I will likely vote for this despite all its issues because its strengths are so impressive
Good call, I will likely vote for this despite all its issues because its strengths are so impressive
All added, thanks!the preacher wrote: Wed Feb 18, 2026 5:26 pm Please add: Krámpack (Nico and Dani), Howaitoauto (Whiteout), Mandei (Monday), Aïe (Ouch). Additionally, Garri Bardin's Adagio, only 10 minutes long...
domino harvey wrote: Sun Apr 20, 2014 1:22 am This thread's been on my mind during the 80s list and I thought it would be a good time to revisit a film that like Modern Vampires has come to exemplify what I think of when I think of the unique and short-lived lifespan of premium cable programming. There's really no modern equivalent anymore, as even streaming services require someone to seek out a given title as opposed to just flipping through channels and stopping for a few minutes and then staying with something til the end. An imperfect method of digesting a film in whole, but an excellent form of accidental exposure. However, I'm pretty sure I saw all of BlackMale (George and Mike Beluzy 2000) on my one and only HBO viewing ~14 years ago, and it's always stuck in my head as a prime example of a film I would never have sought out and one for all its flaws I was and am glad to have seen. I'm not sure why I put off seeing it again-- maybe I didn't want to spoil my memories of it being a pleasant surprise-- but revisiting it I see it's an uneven film that nevertheless possesses a certain charm and a carefree ambition within its constraints.
It's impossible to talk about the movie without spoiling its novel twist a third of the way through, so you've been warned, but also no one is going to seek this movie out without a little reasoning why, so here we are. Ostensibly the film is yet another post-Tarantino goof concerning Bokeem Woodbine and Justin Pierce from Kids kidnapping/blackmailing Roger Rees' hoity-toity British doctor in order to pay off gambling debts to a crippled kingpin played with real zest by Erik Dellums of Homicide / the Wire, only to discover… the blackmail victim is actually a serial killer who, thanks to the criminals' theft of his car and attempts to gain "his" money from the bank, has all of the guilt shifted from himself to the two "innocents." There are two reasons to see the film, one being Dellums, who at one point shakes the walker he uses in a futile attempt at being menacing, with the other and primary reason being Rees. BlackMale knows something basic about Americans: we are easily dazzled by a British accent, and many of the film's best jokes arrive after the movie starts to slowly abandon Woodbine and Pierce to follow Rees and his encounters with smiling upper middle class idiots who nod their head and believe everything he says because he sounds so charming, dresses like he won the Masters, and smokes a pipe. Never mind that the pipe is filled with crack rocks or that he at one point attempts to participate in a threeway with two corpses, he's British, he's got to be sophisticated!
I was surprised to see George Pelecanos listed amongst the film's producers, but if that gets some people to check it out thanks to his association with the Wire and Treme, all the better. In contrast, the hilariously incorrect DVD cover trying to sell this as a tough urban crime flick probably won't
Done!
Reminder that lists are due todayswo17 wrote: Thu Jan 01, 2026 7:07 pm ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 2000
VOTE THROUGH FEBRUARY 28
Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles.
Yep it is, I'd wondered that too and then found it on the 2001 eligible films list

domino harvey wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:15 am
Le Goût des autres (Agnès Jaoui 2000)
Ensemble piece exploring a gaggle of characters surrounding Jean-Pierre Bacri’s crude factory owner. Bacri falls for an aging actress and poorly tries to inundate himself into her BoHo lifestyle. Though the film has a light comic touch throughout, this isn’t played for laughs— but I kept thinking it should be. The message here is pretty lame (people with bad taste aren’t necessarily bad people— ie “no shit” to everyone who isn’t Rob Gordon), so why not amp up the comic possibilities? The film is too fond of Bacri to really make him uncomfortably boorish, and the kid gloves approach undercuts the message this movie wants to sell. Had the film been more in the vein of the Collector-as-romantic comedy, this might really have been something! I was mildly horrified that the film eventually asked us to buy into the actress falling for the lout, because all I saw in the film was this being the result of her pitying him. Not a good foundation for a relationship! Speaking of relationships, we also get some La ronde antics with Bacri’s bodyguard and driver and a drug-dealing barmaid played by the director. These b-story strands are infinitely less interesting than the more directly Bacri-related material, though I did enjoy the weird running gag about Alain Chabat learning how to play the flute. This won the top Cesar Award and was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar (albeit aided by Miramax's acquisition), so I guess the tastes of others truly are unknowable.