28th Hall of Fame

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The Traveling Players (1975)

I treated this film like Ebert suggested watching the Dekalog watch it over a couple weeks let each scene marinate. The Traveling Players is a non-narrative docudrama if I would describe the film it would be like walking through a museum and looking at a series of pretty pictures. What you notice about the film is that you basically have no characters and no story it's just a process of going from scene to scene during WWII. On occasion we get an actor giving a soliloquies straight to the camera.

Every shot in the film is a flat shot or a tracking shot you have no edits, and no closeups. It feels like every scene is done in one shot...it's a gimmick and a good thing when done sparingly...this film does not do that sparingly. This is a near 4 hour film where every 15 minutes feels like an hour because you have to constantly figure out what you are looking at...it's an exhausting watch. You also had all of these distracting shadows on the top of the frame I felt like I was going to see the boom mic drop in at several points.

Experimental film making is something that is normally bottom tier for me when it comes to these halls. But based on what I've seen so far this flawed experiment is at the very least artistic. I see the merit and skill in which Angelopoulos does his work. But not contextualizing any of the scenes we don't get the stories just the images and Angelopoulos does a great job making those images distinct. Ofcourse you have times in which they become self-indulgent of-course we get a rape scene with a coterie of rapists wearing theatrical masks. The movie always moves away from something realistic into something overtly artistic and borderline pretentious. It doesn't go over the line the way other films in this hall did but it's still close to it.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé




The Painted Bird (2017)



These films decimate me

Shot with technical excellence and brilliantly realized machinations thoroughly pinballing the spectrum of the emotional and psychological spectrum with ruthless abandon.

Oh,
How they decimate me

Through a variety of Hof's, I have been pummelled into "awareness" of the cinematic mastery at the cost of a pulpy, ravaged, eviscerated, obscenely violated mass that becomes my heart with every experience of these technically exceptional films.
Some have even achieved an upper average rating in my Vote, it must be noted.

One I continually mention is a Double Title of that specific moment of pummelled awareness along with the title of The Worst Decimation: Nothing Bad Can Happen aka Tore tanzt (2013)

My dear, sweet friend, @MovieGal, ya done pulverized and abducted that Worst Decimation Title and for that, I applaud that accomplishment with every Honour due. And because we ARE friends, my love and respect to say; some small amount of anguish tossed into the experience.

BRAVO my dear

__________________
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







The Paint Bird (2017)



These films decimate me

Shot with technical excellence and brilliantly realized machinations thoroughly pinballing the spectrum of the emotional and psychological spectrum with ruthless abandon.

Oh,
How they decimate me

Through a variety of Hof's, I have been pummelled into "awareness" of the cinematic mastery at the cost of a pulpy, ravaged, eviscerated, obscenely violated mass that becomes my heart with every experience of these technically exceptional films.
Some have even achieved an upper average rating in my Vote, it must be noted.

One I continually mention being a Double Title of that specific moment of pummelled awareness was achieved as well as The Worst Decimation: Nothing Bad Can Happen aka Tore tanzt (2013)

My dear, sweet friend, @MovieGal, ya done pulverized and abducted that Worst Decimation Title and for that, I applaud that accomplishment with every Honour due. And because we ARE friends, my love and respect to say; some small amount of anguish tossed into the experience.

BRAVO my dear

@edarsenal

It is a beautiful, tragic, dark, disturbing film. A type that I enjoy, as you know. But you, along with several other forum members knows there are two sides of my coin.

The hard, rough, jagged edge and the soft, gentle cloudiness as well.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
@edarsenal

It is a beautiful, tragic, dark, disturbing film. A type that I enjoy, as you know. But you, along with several other forum members knows there are two sides of my coin.

The hard, rough, jagged edge and the soft, gentle cloudiness as well.
I know them both and find it an extraordinary combination thereof.

In my late teens and early twenties, I would have had a more callous skin and twisted appreciation for this side of your coin. Though at this time of my life I do appreciate the beauty - just too much of a softie when it comes to the price extracted.



I know them both and find it an extraordinary combination thereof.

In my late teens and early twenties, I would have had a more callous skin and twisted appreciation for this side of your coin. Though at this time of my life I do appreciate the beauty - just too much of a softie when it comes to the price extracted.
Ah, I was a bit opposite. My life has hardened. I enjoy beauty in the darkness and in the light.

Someone once said,

I knew was a very sensitive, intelligent person. Yes she liked extreme horror movies, but in real life, she's a gentle person and wouldn't harm anyone.

So, yes, that does sound like me.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Ah, I was a bit opposite. My life has hardened. I enjoy beauty in the darkness and in the light.

Someone once said,

I knew was a very sensitive, intelligent person. Yes she liked extreme horror movies, but in real life, she's a gentle person and wouldn't harm anyone.

So, yes, that does sound like me.
Sounds about right



Women will be your undoing, Pépé




The Travelling Players aka O thiasos (1975)

To explore and, more importantly, genuinely appreciate the continual beauty without being weighed down by the continuous long shots, I opted to break down my several viewings into minor increments. In the beginning, some thirty-plus minutes when an ideal black segue appeared. At times, as short as fifteen minutes to conclude this political history lesson made with a unique, artistic fancy, dancing and singing with off-screen violence. Like, the line of people about to get shot, the would-be execution squad is attacked. The lights go out and (is it wrong that I chuckled and cheered?) as they scattered.
It also caught me bemused, realizing what the man was doing in the rocking chair as the young girl sang. A bottle and her arms concealing her naked torso. That, as he parted and the two shots rang out. I found myself pondering: well, as Last Moments goes, to have a relaxing wank while a pretty girl sings? Not too shabby.

Splitting my sittings to six days, I enjoyed those moments amongst the walking, the walking, and some walking. And the very, very long time before someone eventually, a little bit longer, annnd crumbles to the floor dead.

Another memorable scene for me was the regal woman in the red coat beside the river, having been raped, standing tall with calm reserve, reciting what she saw during the initial conflicts that became the 33-day-long Battle of Athens.
Very powerful. Very, very impressive.

A dirge of a film, but in tiny morsels, is a genuinely exquisite cinematic feast for the eyes and the heart to behold.

EDIT: I forgot to comment, but an excellent example of the artistic fancy was the Sing-Off in the cabaret where one side, hands near guns, scowling at the departing opposing group of singing dancing couples. And then - dance. A wonderfully strange turn of events made me smile AND knit my brow.
Nicely done, Rottooth Jones aka @SpelingError..







The Travelling Players aka O thiasos (1975)

To explore and, more importantly, to truly appreciate the continual beauty without being weighed down by the continuous long shots, I opted to break down my several viewings into minor increments. In the beginning, some thirty-plus minutes when an ideal black segue appeared. At times, as short as fifteen minutes to conclude this political history lesson made with a unique, artistic fancy, dancing and singing with off-screen violence. Like, the line of people about to get shot, the would-be execution squad is attacked. The lights go out and (is it wrong that I chuckled and cheered?) as they scattered.
It also caught me bemused, realizing what the man was doing in the rocking chair as the young girl sang. A bottle and her arms concealing her naked torso. That, as he parted and the two shots rang out. I found myself pondering: well, as Last Moments goes, to have a relaxing wank while a pretty girl sings? Not too shabby.

Splitting my sittings to some six days, I enjoyed those moments amongst the walking, the walking, and some walking. And the very, very long time before someone eventually, a little bit longer, annnd crumbles to the floor dead.

Another memorable scene for me was the regal woman in the red coat beside the river, having been raped, standing tall with calm reserve, reciting what she saw during the initial conflicts that became the 33-day-long Battle of Athens.
Very powerful. Very, very impressive.

A dirge of a film, but in small morsels, a truly exquisite cinematic feast for the eyes and the heart.

Nicely done, Rottooth Jones aka @SpelingError.
Glad you enjoyed it! That makes three of us so far. You, me, and PHOENIX.



I forgot the opening line.


Young Man With a Horn - 1950

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Written by Carl Foreman & Edmund H. North
Based on a novel by Dorothy Baker

Starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day
Hoagy Carmichael & Juano Hernandez

If you die at 28 and leave a lasting musical legacy you're obviously one of those brightly burning flames who are as troubled as you are genius, and are no doubt remembered in some kind of way. 1950 film Young Man With a Horn might be removed from Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke in as much as it has a very regrettable tacked on happy ending, and a main character whose name is Martin, not Beiderbecke, but it's ostensibly about the great musician. Dorothy Baker had written this fictionalized account of his life in 1938 - and 12 years later Warner Brothers arranged a small yet powerful array of talent to bring it to life. Industry giant Michael Curtiz directed, Kirk Douglas starred as Rick Martin, the titular man with his horn, and along with Lauren Bacall a relative newcomer to feature films, recently signed with Warner Brothers and Cutiz himself, Doris Day. All up, it's not bad - whenever it threatens to lag the music cranks up and keeps you invested.

Rick Martin is introduced as a young boy who lost his father very early, and his mother by the time he turned 10. Something of a reckloose, he's never seen at school, but he does loiter a lot - and it's this loitering that first sees him fascinated by a piano in a church and a group of jazz musicians headed by Art Hazzard (Juano Hernández) - who becomes the boy's mentor, and buys him the trumpet he's been eyeing at the local pawn shop. Move on quickly to adult life, the young man (now portrayed by Douglas) heads off to make it on his own, finding a musical home with Jack Chandler's big band and forging new friendships with Willie 'Smoke' Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael) and Jo Jordan (Doris Day). Chandler's lot are too constrictive though, wanting the free-wheeling jazz-happy Martin to simply play the music that's written. It isn't long before he's fired for encouraging impromptu jam sessions. Martin stays close with Smoke (who was fired with him) and Jo, playing dives and riding his luck - an easy-going kind of guy with nothing to lose.

Into the picture lopes Amy North (Lauren Bacall) - a person with deeply complex psychological problems who talks with something of an intellectual air - which attracts Martin very much. Despite her lack of emotional mannerisms, he falls in love with her and marries her as soon as he possibly can - Jo warns him too late. Amy ends up inadvertently torturing the young Martin, and all signs point to her being gay and obviously conflicted - avoiding Martin as much as she can. He starts to drink heavily and more often, ending his marriage and fobbing off his beloved father-figure Art, who ends up getting run over by a car and dying before Martin can express to him what he meant to the young trumpet player. Now an alcoholic, he attempts to play some kind of mythical high note for one of Jo's recordings and finds he's lost it - soon destroying his own trumpet, which to Martin is akin to destroying his own soul. He languishes in a treatment center, dying of pneumonia before Warner Bros executives decide to intervene.

This frustrating insistence of a happy ending was fought by Kirk Douglas and director Michael Curtiz - it fits neither the story nor the true life figure the story is representing. The book doesn't end that way either. Endings like that are easy to ignore I guess - and with the control of a pause and/or stop button these days you can end Young Man With a Horn before Martin is happily playing (approaching that high note) with Jo - ever after. More understandable, in 1950, is the way the film avoids explicitly telling us that Amy North is gay, although Rick Martin insisting she's sick and needs to see a doctor wouldn't play too well today. I think Lauren Bacall's performance might be the best in the entire film - though she had the one part (other than Martin) that was most complex and interesting. Hoagy Carmichael surprises though, as Smoke Willoughby. The accomplished musician actually knew the real Bix Beiderbecke, and helped Douglas transform into something approximating his real-life inspiration for this film.

Carmichael's Willoughby narrates the film, telling us the story from the very beginning, which makes it all the more odd that Martin isn't dead and as such doesn't merit that kind of absent testimonial. In the meantime Harry James is who we're listening to every time Rick/Douglas puts a trumpet to his lips - in a way that makes him feel like one of the actors, albiet one who is never seen. The Young Man With a Horn LP, with Doris Day singing and Harry James playing, actually hit the number 1 spot on the Billboards chart and spent 11 non-consequetive weeks there. The strength of the music is what really cements the film as very watchable and entertaining. Something always comes along that strikes up a renewed interest in what's going on just through the sounds these people are conjuring, and you have no trouble at all understanding why they're so passionate about the music they're playing/singing. If the music hadn't of been as good, it would have really hurt the finished product - but it's an aspect of the film that really succeeded without doubt.



The LP that was a huge success in 1950

The illustrious Carl Foreman helped adapt the screenplay with Edmund H. North. Both would be eventual Oscar winners (Foreman already had his first of 7 nominations in the bag for writing the screenplay for Champion the previous year.) North would win one for writing the screenplay for Patton in 1971, and Foreman won for adapting The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1958. A great, and very talented, team, although as a whole the screenplay isn't overly ambitious and challenging, but kept very simple. Director of Photography was Ted D. McCord, nominated 3 times himself. During the studio era it's much more common to see a lot of talent concentrated in one place. The cinematography itself was nothing remarkable, to my memory at least - I don't know if those older films with the box-like aspect ratio of 1.37 : 1 really gave filmmakers less options with what they could cover and do cinematically. I often find myself imagining that I'm in a small theatre, with the unusual (for today) experience of an old-time ratio.

It's worth mentioning, that in the book Martin's close friends Willie 'Smoke' Willoughby and Jo Jordan were black. Apparently acknowledging one of the characters is gay wasn't the only thing filmmakers were uncomfortable with at the time. Who knows, perhaps one day there will be another take on the novel which can finally not only be more explicit when it comes to race and sexual orientation, but also stick with the ending. These aren't the kind of complaints that bring the entire film crashing down though, it's still a pretty good faux-biography. I'm always grateful to be shown my way around the film landscape of this era - one I'm particularly ignorant about, where there seem to be great rediscoveries around every corner. The actors here are all so young, with brilliant careers ahead of them, and really give their roles everything - it's just that Bacall got the best role.

I enjoyed this movie. It's one you can sit back and enjoy in it's simplicity and straightforward telling, with some really great music and enthusiasm that's infectious. Everything is straight to the point, and it has a really complex character in Amy North and a figure of historical interest in the jazzman Bix Beiderbecke getting a film based on him to the big screen. Doris Day sings really well, and the filmmakers here don't really push her beyond her comfort zones in an emotional sense, which was a really astute move. Kirk Douglas gives his tragic character a real sense of happiness in his music, which is infringed upon when outside emotional influences begin to poison that soulful place the music comes from. He doesn't really let himself go all the way - not the way an actor might do these days - but it helps to keep the film from becoming too weighed down with drama. Around the time his marriage is failing, his mentor also dies - just as he's becoming an alcoholic. Sometimes it's a tightrope walk just keeping things from becoming too dark and dire.

I'm not really a massive fan of jazz or trumpet music in particular, and I'd hate to be Rick Martin's neighbour (it's said that Bix Beiderbecke had frustrated ones) - nevertheless, on the whole, this is a good film, and would have been rated ever so slightly higher if they hadn't of ended the film with Martin suddenly getting much better and happily blowing his horn next to Jo. I'm not saying that I love happy or sad endings, but whatever ending a film does have should at least match the tone of where it's going. The ending was one note that, if this were a trumpet tune, was a bum note - and so bad that it's glaringly obvious it's a bum note. I wanted to really emphasize that. Otherwise, it's probably exactly the kind of film I'd be going to see if I was a film-going adult in 1950. It came from a great director, great writers and was performed by great actors - and it was based on a great musician. It flows forward at a steady pace, and the music we hear compliments what we see every single step of the way.



Here in Australia, the film is known as Young Man With a Trumpet - the real title actually being censored - and if you are Australian the title, and film poster, look a little odd. I wasn't sure whether to include that little factoid - I simply don't think anyone else could really see it the way I do. The IMDb explains why. I'll just leave this down here in small print.
__________________
Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma

Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Glad you enjoyed it! That makes three of us so far. You, me, and PHOENIX.
I could see a revisit due to the scenes above and others not mentioned, but it would be in vignette style. The long wait time of -- well, every shot, would diminish the enjoyment of a number of sequences, I'm afraid.
But, yeah, count me in



Women will be your undoing, Pépé


Young Man With a Horn - 1950

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Written by Carl Foreman & Edmund H. North
Based on a novel by Dorothy Baker

Starring Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day
Hoagy Carmichael & Juano Hernandez

If you die at 28 and leave a lasting musical legacy you're obviously one of those brightly burning flames who are as troubled as you are genius, and are no doubt remembered in some kind of way. 1950 film Young Man With a Horn might be removed from Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke in as much as it has a very regrettable tacked on happy ending, and a main character whose name is Martin, not Beiderbecke, but it's ostensibly about the great musician. Dorothy Baker had written this fictionalized account of his life in 1938 - and 12 years later Warner Brothers arranged a small yet powerful array of talent to bring it to life. Industry giant Michael Curtiz directed, Kirk Douglas starred as Rick Martin, the titular man with his horn, and along with Lauren Bacall a relative newcomer to feature films, recently signed with Warner Brothers and Cutiz himself, Doris Day. All up, it's not bad - whenever it threatens to lag the music cranks up and keeps you invested.

Rick Martin is introduced as a young boy who lost his father very early, and his mother by the time he turned 10. Something of a reckloose, he's never seen at school, but he does loiter a lot - and it's this loitering that first sees him fascinated by a piano in a church and a group of jazz musicians headed by Art Hazzard (Juano Hernández) - who becomes the boy's mentor, and buys him the trumpet he's been eyeing at the local pawn shop. Move on quickly to adult life, the young man (now portrayed by Douglas) heads off to make it on his own, finding a musical home with Jack Chandler's big band and forging new friendships with Willie 'Smoke' Willoughby (Hoagy Carmichael) and Jo Jordan (Doris Day). Chandler's lot are too constrictive though, wanting the free-wheeling jazz-happy Martin to simply play the music that's written. It isn't long before he's fired for encouraging impromptu jam sessions. Martin stays close with Smoke (who was fired with him) and Jo, playing dives and riding his luck - an easy-going kind of guy with nothing to lose.

Into the picture lopes Amy North (Lauren Bacall) - a person with deeply complex psychological problems who talks with something of an intellectual air - which attracts Martin very much. Despite her lack of emotional mannerisms, he falls in love with her and marries her as soon as he possibly can - Jo warns him too late. Amy ends up inadvertently torturing the young Martin, and all signs point to her being gay and obviously conflicted - avoiding Martin as much as she can. He starts to drink heavily and more often, ending his marriage and fobbing off his beloved father-figure Art, who ends up getting run over by a car and dying before Martin can express to him what he meant to the young trumpet player. Now an alcoholic, he attempts to play some kind of mythical high note for one of Jo's recordings and finds he's lost it - soon destroying his own trumpet, which to Martin is akin to destroying his own soul. He languishes in a treatment center, dying of pneumonia before Warner Bros executives decide to intervene.

This frustrating insistence of a happy ending was fought by Kirk Douglas and director Michael Curtiz - it fits neither the story nor the true life figure the story is representing. The book doesn't end that way either. Endings like that are easy to ignore I guess - and with the control of a pause and/or stop button these days you can end Young Man With a Horn before Martin is happily playing (approaching that high note) with Jo - ever after. More understandable, in 1950, is the way the film avoids explicitly telling us that Amy North is gay, although Rick Martin insisting she's sick and needs to see a doctor wouldn't play too well today. I think Lauren Bacall's performance might be the best in the entire film - though she had the one part (other than Martin) that was most complex and interesting. Hoagy Carmichael surprises though, as Smoke Willoughby. The accomplished musician actually knew the real Bix Beiderbecke, and helped Douglas transform into something approximating his real-life inspiration for this film.

Carmichael's Willoughby narrates the film, telling us the story from the very beginning, which makes it all the more odd that Martin isn't dead and as such doesn't merit that kind of absent testimonial. In the meantime Harry James is who we're listening to every time Rick/Douglas puts a trumpet to his lips - in a way that makes him feel like one of the actors, albiet one who is never seen. The Young Man With a Horn LP, with Doris Day singing and Harry James playing, actually hit the number 1 spot on the Billboards chart and spent 11 non-consequetive weeks there. The strength of the music is what really cements the film as very watchable and entertaining. Something always comes along that strikes up a renewed interest in what's going on just through the sounds these people are conjuring, and you have no trouble at all understanding why they're so passionate about the music they're playing/singing. If the music hadn't of been as good, it would have really hurt the finished product - but it's an aspect of the film that really succeeded without doubt.



The LP that was a huge success in 1950

The illustrious Carl Foreman helped adapt the screenplay with Edmund H. North. Both would be eventual Oscar winners (Foreman already had his first of 7 nominations in the bag for writing the screenplay for Champion the previous year.) North would win one for writing the screenplay for Patton in 1971, and Foreman won for adapting The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1958. A great, and very talented, team, although as a whole the screenplay isn't overly ambitious and challenging, but kept very simple. Director of Photography was Ted D. McCord, nominated 3 times himself. During the studio era it's much more common to see a lot of talent concentrated in one place. The cinematography itself was nothing remarkable, to my memory at least - I don't know if those older films with the box-like aspect ratio of 1.37 : 1 really gave filmmakers less options with what they could cover and do cinematically. I often find myself imagining that I'm in a small theatre, with the unusual (for today) experience of an old-time ratio.

It's worth mentioning, that in the book Martin's close friends Willie 'Smoke' Willoughby and Jo Jordan were black. Apparently acknowledging one of the characters is gay wasn't the only thing filmmakers were uncomfortable with at the time. Who knows, perhaps one day there will be another take on the novel which can finally not only be more explicit when it comes to race and sexual orientation, but also stick with the ending. These aren't the kind of complaints that bring the entire film crashing down though, it's still a pretty good faux-biography. I'm always grateful to be shown my way around the film landscape of this era - one I'm particularly ignorant about, where there seem to be great rediscoveries around every corner. The actors here are all so young, with brilliant careers ahead of them, and really give their roles everything - it's just that Bacall got the best role.

I enjoyed this movie. It's one you can sit back and enjoy in it's simplicity and straightforward telling, with some really great music and enthusiasm that's infectious. Everything is straight to the point, and it has a really complex character in Amy North and a figure of historical interest in the jazzman Bix Beiderbecke getting a film based on him to the big screen. Doris Day sings really well, and the filmmakers here don't really push her beyond her comfort zones in an emotional sense, which was a really astute move. Kirk Douglas gives his tragic character a real sense of happiness in his music, which is infringed upon when outside emotional influences begin to poison that soulful place the music comes from. He doesn't really let himself go all the way - not the way an actor might do these days - but it helps to keep the film from becoming too weighed down with drama. Around the time his marriage is failing, his mentor also dies - just as he's becoming an alcoholic. Sometimes it's a tightrope walk just keeping things from becoming too dark and dire.

I'm not really a massive fan of jazz or trumpet music in particular, and I'd hate to be Rick Martin's neighbour (it's said that Bix Beiderbecke had frustrated ones) - nevertheless, on the whole, this is a good film, and would have been rated ever so slightly higher if they hadn't of ended the film with Martin suddenly getting much better and happily blowing his horn next to Jo. I'm not saying that I love happy or sad endings, but whatever ending a film does have should at least match the tone of where it's going. The ending was one note that, if this were a trumpet tune, was a bum note - and so bad that it's glaringly obvious it's a bum note. I wanted to really emphasize that. Otherwise, it's probably exactly the kind of film I'd be going to see if I was a film-going adult in 1950. It came from a great director, great writers and was performed by great actors - and it was based on a great musician. It flows forward at a steady pace, and the music we hear compliments what we see every single step of the way.



Here in Australia, the film is known as Young Man With a Trumpet - the real title actually being censored - and if you are Australian the title, and film poster, look a little odd. I wasn't sure whether to include that little factoid - I simply don't think anyone else could really see it the way I do. The IMDb explains why. I'll just leave this down here in small print.
Oh how DO enjoy that you continue in full-length! THANK YOU

Some great details comparing the Book, the Life, and what the Film censored.
I have a very strong feeling I will be feeling the same regarding ending with a kind of Disney happy ending. I felt the same about Baby Face (1933).
Still, I continue to grow more and more excited to check it out.

The usual Awesome Job, Phoenix!!




Cuties (Maïmouna Doucouré, 2020)

Ok so I assumed this wouldn't be as bad as the media made it out to be (if it was every copy of it would have been fired into the sun) but I'm not sure it's that much better than the media made it out to be. The idea here is "coming-of-age film but make it spicy" which doesn't feel like the most unique idea and you can do something worthwhile with that concept but unfortunately the film is pretty light on ideas beyond that. Being light on ideas is far from the worst sin a film can commit but when one of the ideas is presenting children in a heavily sexualized manner, boy does that make it feel like that was the only thing the film wanted to do lol. Obviously that's not the intent of the director here, there's clearly things that can be said about how sexualized media is and how that's promoted to young people and whatnot and this film is clearly trying to do that but its not really handled with the deftest of hands. In other words, its more of an irresponsible film than it is outright fetish-bait (but I'd still be hella sus of someone saying this was a fave of there's).

Anyway, outside of the shock value is there anything here? Not really. Completely unambitious in terms of story and I'd say just about every aspect of the story is underdeveloped. Now you know I don't care at all about story in film so that's fine but there's really almost nothing of note in the filmmaking either. No real interesting or memorable shots, just bland all the way through. I like some of the songs used, so there's that I guess and its not like its a chore to sit through or anything. Watching it dubbed definitely didn't help either (though i'll take it over the subs in the copy of Rams I watched lmao). So yeah, it isn't necessarily a bad film because its presenting children the way it is, its a bad film because it isn't doing anything else.





My Favorite Year (Richard Benjamin, 1982)

Well then... that sure was nothing. Just a stock studio drama by a no-name director and is as bland and passably entertaining as one would expect. Passes the time without anything of note or interest occurring but it does in fact pass the time and that's more than I can say for a few of the films nominated this time round lmao. Actually the last scene is kind of fun, so there's that but I'll quickly forget about everything else. Oh, and to cast Cameron Mitchell and not have him raise his voice is an absolute crime.





Rams (2015)


Rams is one of those small indie films with excellent production values and engaging story and not a whole lot else. This is the story of a pair of brothers who live on a small island...when a virus comes along all the sheep and rams have to be destroyed. The performances are fine, I don't think we ever really get to know either man which is a problem. Visually it's impressive and the plot outline is pretty good, while the ending is predictable it is satisfying and well done.

The problem with films in this Hall is what exactly do you have to write about? And well seeing as how everyone in this hall is acting like [REDACTED]. Didn't really need to see old naked men but apparently that's what goes for art in these halls. The animals aren't really given any personality or distinction throughout the film it's the biggest mistake from the filmmakers. You are supposed to have empathy for the animals as they are the titular characters but with this film they really just play as background for the brothers issues. It doesn't make for an enjoyable film watching experience...in the end of the day I'm likely going to just forget what I saw.