The 12th Hall of Fame

maybe something will happen later in the runtime that will actually make me like it (or at least not despise it).

I've given huge props and respect to Vicky for movies in the past for sitting through movies she'd normally wouldn't and with Grand Budapest, like her, I really don't care for Anderson, at all. My nom is just a HUGE, HUGE exemption to the rule and to be honest, if I'd seen Vicky joining BEFORE i sent it in, I'd have happily found another out of courtesy.
For myself, I've reached a point in my life that if I can't enjoy a movie, I'll stop.
So, if Cosmic, or anyone else has a problem trying to watch Budapest and are unable to, that is more than cool with me.

And yes, Vicky, I AM SO SORRY I didn't post this BEFORE you did your review

The Man From Nowhere

Firstly, i had a copy of this which was horribly dubbed i didn't realize it was until i tried to watch it. I actually watched the first ten minutes of it because it was hilarious hearing thesse American-dude voices badly dubbed over the actors was kind of brilliant . It was fine though i already knew where else to watch it.

Man this was great. Action movies are more miss than hit for me these days but i thought the story and performances were really well done. The interactions between Cha and So-Mi in particular, he was a bit of a moody emo type at first but i did buy into him genuinely caring for her despite them only having a few scenes together. The kid was adorable and really funny i loved her "Pawnshop Ghost and Garbage sounds like a good rock band" line. Their relationship wasn't exactly original i mean troubled kid grows attached to loner who turns out to be superhuman sounds like Leon: The Professional (just want to point out that he even had a cactus that meant alot to him like Leon and his flower) with obvious differences, but i honestly felt like their relationship was more believable than Leon and whatever Portmans characters name was even though they were together for a fraction of the time they were; the last scene before she is kidnapped with her "you are more mean but i don't hate you for it because then there would be no one that i like" line broke my heart. I think this is what sets this apart from alot of other Action Movies i don't care for when i watch them now i genuinely cared about the characters. That first half an hour did a much better job of getting me interested in the upcoming action than similar films like say Taken where the acting and dialogue is terrible so i don't really care what is going on. One thing i didn't think was necessery though was his wife being pregnant when she died, it wasn't bad but it was so obvious when you saw the first brief glimpse of her in what was clearly a hospital and also i really don't think they needed this to make Cha and So-Mi's relationship more meaningful. I'd have liked it more if it was from his simple interactions with her. Again though it wasn't a bad thing because it did explain why he was so distant and seemingly empty, would have preferred some other explanation though personally. The scene where they reunited was so beautiful and i actually really liked the twist even though i saw it coming. Ramworan had gave off a sympathetic vibe from his scenes with So-Mi which i thought was well done.

The villains were well developed as well (as a side note i'm terrible at remembering Korean names so i'm using wiki and i might get some of them mixed up); they really did feel like a sinister organization little things like the Oh Myung-gyu brutally slapping basically demeaning Man-Seok who'll later take over the organization himself and will be shown as callously brutal with the axe scene or even showing the lower down guys like Jong-Seoks wealth with the hottub scene gave off the impression of great power and that coupled with their brutality made this helpless young girl in their possession a drastic situation. The organ harvesting angle was also an interesting angle i wasn't expecting; makes it all the more horrifying. Jong Seok was a great villain. He was so campy and crazy loved his voice and facial expressions, he really came across menacing. Him and his brothers relationship was great i think it is a common one seen in movie or tv show villains; the psychotic one and his laidback but equally brutal partner but it was fun to watch anyway. Big Bear or whatever he was called was the man i wish he wasn't killed so soon i mean i understand that he served his purpose and more of him would've became repetitive but god that first fight where the guy runs out of nowhere at him and he picks him up and throws him through the window got one of the biggest laughs of the film from me. The police were great too, they were pretty clueless and funny. Detective Kim was probably my second favourite character after Cha actually. He didn't really even do anything he just somehow managed to be the coolest character in a film full of cool characters.

Anyway sorry for rambling i've barely even mentioned the action mostly because i'm not good at explaining what i liked about it.I thought it was a great idea not to show Cha Tae-sik fight until an hour in, even though when they finally did it was short and against nobodies it was still very effective with it being intercut with the cops reading his background for the first time. His brutality towards Jong-Saek when he found out what was happening to the children was amazing and so was the final wrist-slitting fight, the fight with Ramworan who was the only one that could actually fight him was a bit of a letdown though. The music was another thing that was excellent did a great job of building the tension and excitement.

Anyway great nom Royale . Not sure if it will hold up because action films rarely do with me but i liked this alot. Barbara next for me.

I don't want to join a hall of fame if people are allowed to stop watching my nomination because they aren't enjoying it and still vote on it despite not having seen it all, i've watched all of every film nominated in a hall of fame i've joined. Nobody forced anyone to join, they decided to and they should know that they have to watch all of each nomination.

[...] if people are fine with that happening then these are clearly not for me.

This all did well to create tension and make me curious, early on i could really see why on the poster i posted the other day it said something like "if you liked The Lives of Others you'll love this" i thought it was probably just because it was set in East Germany but it definitely felt similar with the paranoia and secrecy, guess it makes sense since life in East Germany must have been like this for people.

One thing i'd call this film is calm, very calm. All of the characters felt like they were constantly talking in soft and/or hushed voices, that makes sense since alot of it was set in a hospital but even outside it felt like that, the countryside, the woods, etc. It's weird because this made it very relaxing to me while it has a tough subject matter.

Good nom Cosmic i liked this quite a bit. Really like having you in these hall of fames because you seem to always nominate German films and i've barely seen any..