The 12th Hall of Fame

Glad you liked it.

I think this reasoning is solid but i personally found the TNT parts really funny so i was happy they were included.

I thought it was pretty damn powerful.

Man i love that film

This. I think he's hilarious. Claire Danes is pretty hysterical too.

I also think it would kind of weird if the only people Bobby really interacted with were Darryl, Grace, Jake, the blind man and the Sheriff. It's a tiny town where everybody knows everybody, so it stands to reason that some others would take an interest in an outsider.

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Just finished watching Y Tú Mama Tambien, and really enjoyed it. I will do a write up tomorrow on my review thread, and can't wait to get into spoiler talk here.

I just finished Hiroshima Mon Amour. I am struggling to put my feelings into words. I want to gush on and on about this beautiful, devastating, poetic masterpiece of a film. It managed to tell multiple stories at the same time, and somehow they were all the same story. The way montages were used as flashbacks, both in the form of the documentary sequence of the effects of Hiroshima and the back story of the female character, is just tremendous. The documentary sequence was frequently hard to stomach and reminiscent of Resnais' other masterpiece: Night and Fog. The imagery used was striking and hard to stomach, the eyeball scene was mentioned by both of the other reviewers, so it clearly stands out. Now all three of us have mentioned it. While that sequence was unbelievably good, I was wondering how the film would transition into something else. I would have been happy with 90 minutes of documentary footage with voice-over conversation of the two unnamed characters in the background, but I knew something else was coming; I just didn't know what. The narration was sensational the whole film. The montage flashbacks were sublimely filmed and mesmerizing; coupled with the narration, those sequences were frequently hypnotic. I still can't get over how well the story was told in the form of those flashbacks. I can handle linear stories, but I think a story told in a nonlinear way that is not just used as a gimmick is akin to the way the greatest authors would tell their stories. I feel like I have so much more to say, but I don't know how to put in order. I don't know how to organize my rambling thoughts. I know I have just seen one of the most profound and beautiful films I will probably ever see, so I think I will just conclude with that.

Thank you, PG.

I thought there was something naggingly familiar about this all through the movie, and then as the last scene was taking place I realized that I'd watched this before. It must've been in school, something along the lines of a movie put on during the last spanish class for the term. Which would tell you something about the guy who taught me spanish, I guess, showing this movie to a group of 17 yos on school time. Anyway...

Don't really know what to say about this. The two guys are @ssholes, yet I found them sympathetic at the same time. Maybe sympathetic is the wrong word...they're human. Flawed. Luisa was the one who stood out to me. Maribel Verdú was very good in her part, acting as friend, mother, therapist and temoprary lover to the two boys. Her outburst at them over being emotionally stunted and seemingly genetically coded to mark their turf was the best bit of acting in the movie. And while her story is dark, something that is set up in the beginning and then just left to stew until it boils over in the very last scene, isn't something that seems to stand in her way, rather it seems to be what gets her on her way.

Although they argue about their girlfriends, I feel that the only thing that really matered to Julio and Tenoch were their friendship. They seemed to patch up things fairly quickly, but there still was something stiff about them after the fact. It took a heavy dose of alcohol to get them to a place where they could talk like they used to, and then they were sober. Adding Luisa into that mix didn't make things better, but I do believe she was good for them both in the end. If nothing else, they got some perspective on how life can turn unexpectantly.

The narration style threw me at first. The way he waits a few seconds after the sound dies to speak led me to believe my speakers had craped out on me the first time. Also, the wierd facts he spouted seemed to be grabbed from nowhere at times. The line about the bloody chicken and the accident coming right after a somewhat jovial conversation and just hurling the mood into a minor key felt like the creators just wanted to mess with the viewer. It had no relevance to what was on the screen and just resulted in a emotional left turn that took me out of the movie.

Great acting, a wierd, sometimes dark story set as a road movie. I liked it fine, but I can't help but to feel that the narration could've done with some editing. This became kina short, but I'll read the other reviews and then I'll probably have something more to ask about/discuss. For now, I'm done.

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Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?

Glad you liked it somewhat.

It was more than somewhat, even if the narration was a bit wierd at times. Also:

Oh...Ok, yeah. Point. Absolutely point.

Romper Stomper

Saw this when i was younger, all i remembered was that i didn't like it much. I liked it more than i remembered last time but i'm still not crazy about it.

Character likability is absolutely not a neccessity for me, plenty of my favourite films and tv shows are full of completely deplorable people. And i love some very unpleasant films, but this is just one that really annoys me, right from the opening scene where they beat the Asians in the tunnel i'm put in a very bad mood and it's weird because the punching and kicking look very fake. It was a combination of the agression, terror that the skinheads tried to impart, the fact that the asians were having fun before they turned a corner into the path of these animals and how Hondo treated the male asian. Thing is this makes the film a success; it made me completely despise these people right away which was obviously the intent but that doesn't mean i enjoy that. It's annoying because i do think this is well made there's some great scenes and acting but it just puts me in such a bad mood that i really don't end up enjoying it much. It was somewhat satisfying seeing the Asians terrorizing them and the skinheads cornered like the rats they are, but then again it was mostly the kid and the girls who were terrified in the situation and i don't hate them nearly as much and Hando or Davey or any of the other adults. Plus i know this wasn't the intention at all this is more my problem than the films but the way i felt during that scene was that the Asians were portrayed as just as barbaric as the skinheads; as if there was some weird justification for their actions. Again i know that wasn't the intention it was just my personal feeling, it's obviously supposed to be that the asians aren't going to take it anymore, you have to fight fire with fire, yadda yadda. I thought the best part of the film was the best 20 minutes when everything started crumbling for Hando. One thing that definitely deserves praise is Russell Crowes performance. I hate his character but i can't deny that he is excellent, i think it may be the best i've seen from him. I also thought the love triangle was interesting. I'm not usually that into them as i said earlier with Never Let Me Go but this felt a bit unique mostly because of how agressive yet close Hando and Davey were and how Gabrielle was essentialy a stranger who wandered into this life by accident upsetting the dynamic they had. One last thing i didn't find the film funny and i know it wasn't supposed to be but one scene unintentionally cracked me up; the part where they take over the old guys house when he asks who they are one of the skinheads says "we came to wreck everything and ruin your life. God sent us" the deliver of that god sent us was hilarious haha.

So yeah, glad you nominated it MV because i now know i don't hate it but i also don't love it either. One thing i will say is that i think this is ten times better than the similarly themed American History X. This is what a skinhead film should be; showing them for the sub human trash that they are rather than using AHX's ridiculous approach of attempting to make Derek come across as a badass in the first three quarters of the film before telling us in the last 15 minutes that "no guys, racism is bad actually not cool!". Just The City of Lost Children left for me, sometime in the next three days or so.

I laughed at that too actually.

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Obviously you're not supposed to actually like these people, well maybe Davey, but in a weird way I do like Hando. A lot, actually. I mean, if I met someone like him in person I wouldn't want anything to do with them, but I find him incredibly charismatic and utterly fascinating.

I agree, definitely one of his greatest performances.

Was it unintentional? Despite its barbarity I don't think the film is completely humorless. But maybe I'm misreading the filmmaker's intentions.

I can't really comment on that. I've seen AHX and have it on DVD, but I can't recall the last time I actually watched it.

i can understand that with Hando i've definitely got attached to horrible characters in the past. And yeah maybe it was intentional i wasn't really sure.

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Glad you liked it . It's really underseen and i can understand why, it doesn't really do much to set itself apart from the other comedies of the time. I don't care though i love it.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

The first 15 minutes were powerful with the archival film footage of Hiroshima's aftermath. I mean how could it not be powerful? The director shows you a kid with his lips burnt off and a close up of a woman with her eye melted away! That was gross. I found the scenes of the destroyed city interesting, in a somber way.

But what followed in the next hour, I found to be ineffective. Any feelings about the war and the atomic bomb that I had, were washed away by watching the inane French actress do nothing but bemoan her wartime experience in Nevers. It's hard to believe that a movie about Hiroshima that was actually filmed there could have next to zero impact on me. I've been much more moved by History Channel documentaries about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I get what the director is trying to do...much of what the French woman and the Japanese man are saying is metaphorical, and her insanity is the insanity of war...and his relative calm is society forgetting about the horrors of war. Metaphors work in small doses. I could have cared less about the plight of the French actress, so I ended up not caring about the film.

This movie did nothing for me, sorry not my cup of Sake.

Man, you aren't enjoying this Citizen haha. Too bad you didn't connect with it, i did and i loved it.