23rd MoFo Hall of Fame

This is Louis, my wife's younger and only brother and my best friend. He never used drugs in his life until he was injured at work and prescribed oxys (hillbilly heroin). He quickly became addicted and within 6 months he was a different person that we did not recognize. When he could no longer afford the pills, heroin was an effective and cheaper alternative. A year after getting hurt he was gone. He never hurt anybody but himself.



I've talked about my addictions to alcohol and gambling. These are legal things that I never planned on being addicted to. If I had amnesia, I wouldn't believe anyone who could tell me all the crazy things I did. It's as if it was a completely different life and I'm very lucky to be alive. Some people are more susceptible to addiction and I'm one of them. I never hurt anybody but myself. It's a living hell of terrible suffering that's not easy to get out of.

There are many reasons why people get into drugs. Many are suffering from depression or past trauma and they can't cope with life. Some people make poor choices that are not malicious in any way. For some people it runs in the family and some people just didn't have good parents. Anybody who would compare these poor people to others who are willfully harming others and not themselves, either know nothing about addiction or are insensitive. For anyone in this thread I believe it's the former. It's understandable because I lived through it and I can't even believe it myself. Of course some addicts do hurt others, but if you've never been there you have no idea how powerless you become.

Just to be clear, it's more of the latter in my case. I'm not kidding when I'm saying I have empathy issues.

Out of four uncles, I have (or had) three have been alcoholics. Two of them (as far as I know, I haven't seen or heard of the one from my father's side in over a decade) got dry after finding Jesus. The third expanded his repertoire to (at least) pills and died a few years ago (possibly suicide, not really sure of the specifics).

Few of my junior high classmates (I wouldn't call them friends but I did occasionally hang with some of them) got addicted to alcohol and drugs in their teens and I'm pretty sure all of them have been dead for a while now. So I'm no stranger to the effects of addiction even though my personal experience is limited to caffeine (and maybe internet). I just believe that in the majority of the cases the fault is in the addict (note, majority, not all).

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It can be hard to be sympathetic because addicts are terrible to be around.

Story of O is a BSDM novel... I read it long ago...

I have read deSade as well. Love his work....

Read Venus in Furs.. didnt like it as much.. he just wanted her to beat him...

Yeah. I think I was 12 or 13 when I read Story of O and de Sade's Justine for the first time. I guess I've been into some weird stuff for a long time now

Join the club... Im the weird one too..

For some reason "O" sounds sillier than "H". Maybe because Oxy's already a nickname (from oxycodone/oxycontin). If you don't know what it is, it has a high potential for abuse and dependence, but like opium itself and morphine, it has medical value so it's available (though regulated) in regular pharmacies.

I haven't seen Christiane F. in years so I don't recall if the kids say "heroin" or simply "H". I'll let you know once I rewatch it.

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Since my feelings regarding this film is pretty much the same, I'm pasting my original review from the 80s Teen Movie Hall of Fame where, I do believe, it was disqualified. So --

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

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The air conditioner is still not working and hasn't been replaced, but all the smoke from the wildfires blocked enough sunlight to keep it from getting hot today so... gotta look on the bright side, I guess? Anyway, got my last first time watch done for this HOF:



The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam, 1991)
Imdb

Date Watched: 08/21/2020
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: The 23rd MoFo Hall of Fame, nominated by edarsenal
Rewatch: No

Things I tend not to be overly fond of: live-action comedies, Terry Gilliam movies, Robin Williams, and edarsenal's Hall of Fame nominations. I do, however, tend to like Jeff Bridges and stories of redemption and I was hoping that those two things would tip the balance in my favor. They did not.

Throughout the movie, I kept being distracted by the nagging thought that the pony-tailed douche Jack would be better played by Val Kilmer (though I suppose the ten year age difference between him and Bridges meant Kilmer was too young for the part) and by the vague familiarity of the actress playing Lydia (she was also "Honey Bunny" in Pulp Fiction). And that's about as engaged with the film as I ever got.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is a bad film. In fact, it might just be a very good film but my cold little bitchy heart just wasn't feeling it. Had the movie not been a comedy and had it gone a more dramatic route, I might have been more invested in the goings on. If Jack had been less of a douche - or at least had lost his douche-iness a little sooner - I might have been more invested in it. But neither of those things happened and I just don't really like the majority of live-action comedies, I don't like Terry Gilliam films (except 12 Monkeys), I don't really care for Robin Williams, and somehow, as much as edarsenal usually loves my picks, I just can't get into the vast majority of his nominations (sorry, ed! Love you!) and The Fisher King is no exception to any of that. I do suspect that it won't be at the bottom of my ballot, at least.

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Did you mean to say that you don't like the majority of live-action films in the second paragraph or did you mean live-action comedies in the second paragraph?

I'm currently on holiday but have brought 'Stand by me' and 'Gangs of New York' with me.

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"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me" (Frank Costello)

Comedies. Fixed.

Ah, that's what I thought...I'm hit or miss with comedies too. I'm glad people nominate comedies but often they don't work for me.

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I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one haha.

I was hoping the redemption aspect might have worked for ya to get past the Terry Gilliam, Robin Williams aspects.
Sorry, sweety, love you too!

Now that you mention it, Val Kilmer could have really pulled off that role.

I actually managed to watch Stand by Me earlier today, because we finished our inventory count 4 whole hours earlier than planned and didn't have to stay behind for any arbitrary reasons.

I don't really have much to say about the film though, so I might just sleep on it instead of trying to write something this evening. I liked it more than I did when I was a kid, but I absolutely hated it then, so I guess that's not saying much haha.

Hunger (2008)

Well that was a fine 90 minutes...Hunger is barely a film rather a collection of several short films tied together to cover the 1981 Hunger Strike. Mcqueen chooses this narrative because it's both artistic and it allows him not to go through with the difficult levels of exposition you need for a story like this to be cohesive.

This is the second time watching this film for me and I'm not sure I actually like the film. We get the one good scene with Sands and the Priest that covers almost a 1/4 of the film but everything else is almost to vague. To be frank it's the scenes outside the prison that were more compelling to me you feel almost ripped off that we don't get to know Lohan as his life is somewhat of a living hell yet we only get glimpses. The tonal shift of tension with the guards outside the prison would have improved the film in my eyes. The brutality of the guards should make sense but they are just a nebulous blob a consortium of pain and vengeance when they have their own issues and problems that might be considered greater than the inmates.

McQueen also only focuses on the one hunger striker...Sands it would have been nice to see the scope of the strike as once again we only really get to know a singular character. Still it's a great film...just something I don't plan on watching for a third time.

@Miss Vicky

Your current count has me at #3 that's what I am at now


Hunger
Late Spring
Le Samurai