The 12th Hall of Fame

I'm just happy when someone explains what they thought about my nom like you did there. You've been in just about every HOF i have with me so you know that mine are usually not liked to say the least.

You'll finish ahead of me this time for sure

Joe was a great choice. One that i really love as well; think it was you that got me to watch it in the first place.

Yeah, I think that's a fair review. Also, the fact that I'm a french speaker in my everyday life, so that I can experience the film without any subtitles and really ''feel'' it.

It's among those films that you can really ''feel'' (for a lack of a better word) it's highly cinematic, it flows like poetry, it's beautiful, the accent of the japanese actor is just also poetic. I personally find Emmanuel Rivas in this film to be one of the most attractive woman of all time.

Furthermore, non only is it this kind of film that you can feel, but it's an highly intelligent one. One of the most beautiful piece of fiction about memory, the one of Emmanuel Rivas about his childhood at Nevers, the one about Hiroshima. Non only si the content of the dialogue about memory, but the narrative structure also is.

It really is one of those films that I can both intellectually and artisticly enjoy, one of my favorites. At least I'm happy you kind of enjoyed it!

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I do not speak english perfectly so expect some mistakes here and there in my messages

The City of Lost Children

I was going to start my write-up with a line similar to "What a weird f*cking movie." then I saw Miss Vicky's write-up. Welp, so much for my ideas being original.

I've seen this film compared to the works of many different directors in this thread, and the only one that resonates with me is the Gilliam comparison. This is Brazil with some Dark City thrown in for me. The city looks a lot like the city in Brazil, and the odd, repressive, paranoid, quasi-claustrophobic feelings I got from the film reminded me of Dark City. I think the bald guy made me think of Dark City too.

The story may or may not have been very good, I had a hard time really paying a lot of attention to that aspect. I got the gist of it, but I probably missed some of the stuff regarding the Octopus and the others not involved with the mad scientist stuff. I was frequently distracted by the art decoration/set design. It is steampunk grunge all the way. I was also distracted by the oddball cast of characters. Most hit, some missed. The stuff with the guy with the flea, I wasn't really digging. The octopus, the clones, One, and Miette were all great. The bald dude was sort of in between. The kids weren't bad, weren't great, weren't in between, they were just kind of there.

I got into it the further it went on; I wanted to see what new sets they would be filming on. It's not an easy film for me to "grade" with confidence, as I think a rewatch would be needed for that. I just didn't like it enough to want to go right back at it. As of right now, I think I'd go with a

Poetic is a great way to describe it. I was thinking of responding to the subject of the dialogue and using the same word, but I wanted to wait for your response. I don't think that film dialogue has to be realistic to be effective, and poetry is often much more impressive than the rambling and stumbling dialogue you get from unprepared humans.

And yes, Riva is tormentingly gorgeous.

For those for of you who have seen it, how would you say Hiroshima mon Amour compares to Last Year at MArienbad?

I thought Last Year was a very difficult watch compared to Hiroshima, but I watched it before I started being able to get into the slower artistic type movies. I remember it being gorgeously filmed.

Barbara



I'd say the attribute of this film that I noticed most and appreciated most is the steady-handed, quiet reservation that appears all through-out the film. The film is very pretty, but there is nothing showy about it. It's not as loud in its beauty as, say something like The Conformist. That would have been too much for a film like this, a film all about the subtleties. It's present in the acting, the scenes of conversation, and even the scenes of the inspections, which could have been made into loud TENSIONfests. Instead the natural tension of the situation makes us more uncomfortable than artificial feeling inducing music could. The shots of the actors faces are not typically that close-up and we don't see them doing any silly shifty-eye acting. Nina Hoss' performance is stellar, she uses her emoting abilities and body language to go beyond verbal communication to relay everything we need to know. And while I think the ending was a bit predictable, its nonetheless the type of ending that can still work if you build a character the proper way.

Good film, good nom.

the more reviews I read about this film, the more curious i get about seeing it.

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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

It's been my favorite so far of the movie noms.

I like what you said there, it's true too.

When they go to the strip search, inspection scene, I expected to see the usual hysterics and punching up of the camera work and musci score...so to make the scene highly emotional. But like you said, it didn't do that, and that made the scene all the more physiologically terse.

Sometimes less is more, and Barbara does much more by being subtly less. Good review JJ.

Good review JJ, and I'm glad you appreciated the film.

I was worried that it might be too subtle, but it's nice to see other people appreciate that aspect of the film as well. Like Citizen, I like what you said about the inspection scenes. I think the lack of music in Barbara really helps convey the tension more than any choice of score would be able to.

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Midnight Run (Martin Brest, 1988)
Imdb

Date Watched: 02/18/17
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: 12th Hall of Fame, SilentVamp's Nomination
Rewatch: No

I usually avoid live action comedies because... well... they just aren't funny. Most of them anyway. But other than feeling a little wary of it being a comedy,I really had no idea what to expect from this movie going in. With its strong cast I was hopeful I'd enjoy it, though.

I didn't enjoy it.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't quite hate it. Close, but not quite. The cast was capable enough and I suppose if I had let myself not think about what was happening I might have liked it. Maybe. But as the movie dragged on (and it did drag, they should've shaved off 30 minutes or so) I found myself becoming more and more irritated with the writing and with the character of Jack.

Now I'll admit that I don't know the laws pertaining to bounty hunting, but a lot of the things in this movie just sounded like a load of crap that was made up by the writers as a lame excuse for some of the stupid ***** that happens. "I can't keep you cuffed on a commercial flight." Huh? "You know you can't take a prisoner on a plane if he doesn't want to fly." What?! Who gives a ***** what the prisoner wants?

And then there's Jack. We're supposed to like Jack. Jack used to be a cop. A good cop who wouldn't take money from a mobster. So he lost his job and everything he loved and we're supposed to sympathize with him. Right. Okay so this "good cop" wouldn't take money from the mobster, but he thinks nothing of stealing several civilian owned cars and robbing a bar - because theft and robbery are TOTALLY A-OKAY when you're a bounty hunter trying to get a fugitive back to L.A. so you can collect money from the bondsman. No. No, it f***ing isn't. And to that end, Jon wasn't any better. Yeah he's supposedly this "Robin Hood" figure who gave stolen money to charity, but the robbery was his idea.

Oh and let's not forget what a winner of a father Jack is. He says he hasn't seen his daughter in nine years. Nine f*cking years. When we meet her, she says she's in eighth grade. That would put her at about twelve or thirteen years of age, so she was three or four when he last saw her and he couldn't go see his only child or be part of her life because... reasons. Why exactly am I supposed to like this guy again?

So all this just made the ending feel empty, since my irritation towards Jack and apathy towards Jon meant I wasn't rooting for anyone. Oh and as I feared would happen, I never laughed nor even once broke a smile during this whole "comedy."

Sorry Vamp, but this just really wasn't for me.

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I don't give a damn whether you like me or not.

And I do like some live action comedies. There are even some that I love. But this just really wasn't funny.

Ok folks great job so far, and we are less than 3 weeks away from the set deadline of March 10th. However, I set that deadline before 1 or 2 members joined, so if anyone needs a little more time, it can be done

Royalwitcheese hasn't been on the site in 16 days. I just sent him a pm so we'll see what happens.

I hope Royal is still in. I really enjoyed Man from Nowhere.

I'm in for HOF 13

You hosting?

I'm OK with that if nobody objects