21st Hall of Fame

Gladiator rises on my favorites list every time I see it.

Pretty Baby (Louis Malle, 1978)
Imdb

Date Watched: 01/03/2020
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: 21st MoFo Hall of Fame, nominated by pahaK
Rewatch: No.

Well that was icky. And sad. And kind of confusing. But mostly icky.

The cause of the icky-ness and sadness is pretty obvious, but what makes it confusing is that I have really conflicting thoughts on both the events of the film and certain casting choices. Or rather, one casting choice. It's not often that I'm bothered by watching sexual content, but this bothered me quite a bit - which I suppose is a testament to the film. It's full of sex and yet is not at all sexy - and in the middle of this you have a character (and an actress) who is only a child. I was not okay with watching a 12 year old Brooke Shields doing what she was doing.

But despite my discomfort, there were things I appreciated about the film. It's beautifully shot with wonderful lighting and sumptuous colors. It also offers up a group of characters that, for the most part, are many shades of gray. They're complicated and full of contradictions and the cast all do well to bring them to life.

Overall I think it's a pretty solidly crafted film but - though I admire its boldness in its storytelling - I can't get over my hangups with it and simply didn't like it.

__________________

I enjoy his films, and I’ve seen a decent amount of his, but largely I’m leaning towards the opinion that Phoenix is a decent actor, but he never “wows” me.
I liked him in Gladiator, The Master, Joker, Clay Pigeons, 8mm and maybe one or two I’m forgetting, but I didn’t like him much in Quills, The Village, Signs or Walk the Line (a movie I felt was terribly overrated. I felt no chemistry between him and Reese)
I really can’t wait to rewatch Quills and pay closer attention to his scenes, as it’s been about quite awhile since I first saw it. Maybe he will surprise me here. 🤷

Have you seen Her?

I haven’t yet, but it’s definitely one I aim to. I hear he’s particularly excellent in it. Definitely need to remedy that.
It’s on Netflix, so I should be able to soon

It's my favorite performance from any actor. Absolutely amazing and a really great film, too. Top ten favorite for me and it won the 11th Hall of Fame.

I’ll definitely get around to watching it soon.
When I say he doesn’t “wow” me, I realize that’s coming off overly critical of him more so then I meant it to be. He *is* a decent actor, after all. And I thought he was great in Joker. He was really good in Gladiator, although he did tend to over act on occasion.
I remember liking him a lot in Clay Pigeons, but that has been over 20years since I’ve seen it.
I’ll give his scenes some extra attention when I watch Quills, and maybe I’ll change my mind some. Definitely need to see Her soon though

It's not exactly fair to put the Master there. Even Adam Sandler becomes a good actor when working with Paul Thomas Anderson, imagine someone actually talented like Phoenix

Her it's a great film! Phoenix looks amazing, the script is beautiful and Scarlett's voice makes you fall in love with her! Definitely one of the best films of the decade

I'm surprised there are no movies pre-1978. There seems to be a lot of recentcy bias to the HOFs lately

I think Phoenix is one of the best actors working today but I don't think his performance in Quills was one of his best. It was good but not a stand out.

Obviously I like sick stuff but this is the one thing that bothers me. I don't care if a character is underage, but get an of age actress to play that character. I saw that Ebert defended and liked the film. IMO the movie should be banned.

Obviously, I disagree. Though I must admit that I'm ever-so-slightly biased by a certain other factor.

Dark City (1998)


Truman Show goes dark.

I liked the overall concept of the film, though the execution is not exactly my cup of tea. I know this film and The Crow, by the same director and with a similar atmosphere, are appreciated around here but there's something about it that feels tacky.
The whole looking for what makes us human in our memories is a theme some films try to tackle and that I really like, but here they fell into the cheap and easy way out. The whole "you've been looking in the wrong place" thing at the end made me roll my eyes till I could see my brain.
What I really liked about this was Jennifer Connely as the clueless femme fatale, especially when she was singing, but I feel those scenes could have been applied to any other neo-noir and actually work better cause at least they could be inside some context. There's no need in using a femme fatale if she's there only to convey useless romanticism to the whole thing. The actress has the power to be game changing and I feel the director didn't use her the best way possible.

+

Omg that emoji! Love it.

Definitely give that one a shot. Seen 14 of his movies and he's not somebody I even look for. He's just always seems to be in interesting movies. The Master, imo, is his best performance so far. Even though I don't think the movie is one of PTA's best I thought Joaquin gave one of the best performances ever and he should have won the Oscar that year.You Were Never Really Here is my favorite film of his. Love that one. Also, while not the best movie, it's a bit of an entertaining mess, I really liked him in Inherent Vice.

Moonstruck (1987)

I suppose any movie that uses La Boheme as the soundtrack has that as redeeming factor, but that's pretty much the only good thing about it.
The script goes from primary school theatre piece to mediocre to primary school theatre piece again, and when that happens no matter how good the actors are. Cher doesn't look too bad but she repeatedly falls victim of the poor writing and ends up looking like a caricature far too often. Nicholas Cage... Well, Nicholas Cage just seems to be overacting on purpose, as if he was mocking the script for being so bad. I wish that was the case, at least I could respect something about his performance.
The secondary characters are actually more interesting than the main roles but they are still too forgetable.
There's a couple of interesting lines in here but overall, this was a mess.



Sorry edarsenal :/

Done a binge this last couple of days cause I know I'll be away for the next 3 weeks cause there's an intense period of study coming. I might write my thoughts about Tree of Life this weekend, and I'll watch the remaining 4 films by the beggining of February.

I was going to go with an older American film or an older foreign film. Well, maybe next time.

I haven't seen Pretty Baby yet, but I'm surprised at the reactions so far....I wonder what I'm going to think???

I almost nominated Seven Samurai, but decided it may have been too long to watch for everyone. Next one I join may be an older film. I definitely try to mix it up some since I’ve first joined.
If I join the Best Picture and Musical ones that’s been tossed around, I will definitely nominate older films, as I have a few ideas already for them.