The Women Directors Hall of Fame

I'm sending my votes in, and I'll write something about my nom tomorrow hopefully.

AND OMG SETH'S ROGEN'S LAUGH IS IN THIS MOVIE IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!

Glad you enjoyed it HB.

__________________
Letterboxd

And with that I've finished this darn HoF. Discovered lots of new and different films. Thanks for doing this Camo, can't wait to see which one wins.

Got JJ and Hashtag's lists. This is going right down to the wire, there's five different films with a chance of winning depending on how Jal votes, just hope we avoid a tie. These are the points totals:

01. 60 Points
02. 59 Points (two films)
04. 56 Points (two films)
06. 51 Points
07. 42 Points (two films)
09. 41 Points
10. 29 Points

For the record American Psycho was second last after 7 lists.

Just checked Jal's letterboxd and he only has A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night left Hopefully we can finish before the deadline.

Edit: Actually all he has left is The Ascent if he's going to rewatch it.

that is a VERY tight scoring. Wow

Went over them to make sure their scores were correct and there was a slight mistake. One of the two on 56 points actually has 55, glad i caught it.

Nope, 56 was correct. What happened was i wrote a 5th place down as 6th. Jesus christ haha.

some spoilers


Europa Europa

I love this movie. It's very interesting. I think using the term "brave" for film making is bit exaggerating, but I can't think of another term to use for the tone of this film. It's, at times, lighthearted and not without humor. A lot of holocaust/WW2 films decide to leave that aspect of life out. The sex scene, the quote about being glad the war broke out, and just that sort of surprisingly silly things. But I do think a lot of sad stuff does hit me way harder than it did Solomon. He doesn't have time to let it sink in, but I felt them, so that back and forth between the sadness/sh*ttiness of the war and the humor was interesting to me. I love Julie Delpy in this film. I don't really see anybody else ever talk about it, but she is my favorite in this film. And yo, that scene with the dick skin getting tied up is so grody. I love the shot after the gay soldier gets capped, the way it raises up and looks down at the two men. It's funny the way that, as some critic pointed out, I don't remember where I read that, the Nazis in films are known for being able to find Jews like bloodhounds track down criminals and in this film they miss the one right under the nose. That scene is super tense too. I love that one too.

I should probably start commenting them as well xD


I'll keep it simple with this one. The film is, 100%, atmosphere. And I am very positively driven by its constantly daring and playful use of its composition, photography and soundtrack. It looks very polished and quirky, it conveys an effective atmosphere of mystery and an aura of fantasy without losing track of mundane characters, in fact they are infected by this aura as well and the end result is something that rather resembles a fable. The music only helps to deliver this feeling as it is used to match and intensify the little moments with such a skill that it is easily the highlight of the experience, and that is not exactly easy to tell because there is as well an active effort in making the shot composition and visuals in general iconic.

As a horror film it is way more haunting and absorbing than scary, as a love story it is unconventional and interesting. This is however something that to me depends entirely on its presentation, it focuses its appeal in this and in that sense I guess it walks on thin ice. Not that its themes aren't good on its own and the mix of genres is very organic, but I find myself getting more attached to the atmosphere than the characters, and getting the feeling that it's the stylization what drives my interest and fascination, and that if you simply removed it or replaced it by something more "invisible", I wouldn't care enough for what I'm watching. Then again, I don't know if I should consider this a negative. Either way it's a very cool nom.

I had to go over the scores for the 70th, I don't know HOW many times to make sure I got them right. And then do the adjustments when there were drop outs and still added the previous ones to see where it could have been.

I feel your pain my friend lol

When i hosted the 11th i wrote one of the placements down wrong, the score was correct i had just wrote 1x4th place instead of 3x5th. This was pointed out in the middle of me doing the reveal and i obviously thought i had screwed up the order until after i finished. So annoying.

Remember everyone, if you sent a list with American Psycho on it your placement might be slightly off as i took that out.

Also we have ten qualified for the performances list. I'm only counting ones that get at least two votes.

I don't understand, what's a performance list? How are you scoring these, in the usually way or some other way?

You sent me your top five favourite performances from the hall of fame, don't you remember? I'm scoring them like we normally do, five points for first place down to one point for fifth place. I'm only going to include the performances that got at least two votes.

Ahh, that makes sense to me now. Yeah, I had forgot about those top five favorite performances. I thought you meant the regular scoring of the 10 movies. OK, I'm still sleepy

One of your votes was for Bale in American Psycho, i said a few pages back i'm not counting that since it's out so if you want to change that to something else PM me. Ed already changed it.

1 Day Left! It would be nice to finish tonight as i'm not going to be around much tomorrow.

great write ups, @jiraffejustin and @jal90!
Agree about having the amusing parts in Europa was very much a good thing
and yes, the atmosphere and composition in A Girl Walks Home is the real driving force of that film

@seanc @Citizen Rules @edarsenal @jiraffejustin @Siddon @cricket @Thursday Next @HashtagBrownies @jal90

Got Jal's list! Want to get this over with so i'll probably do the Performances reveal in about 20 minutes followed by the films one.

I sent the votes already just in case but I'll write the comments on the ones I miss today. First:


Me watching this film:



The movie itself... agh, I wanted to like it but as I was watching, it got increasingly difficult to remain attached to what happened on screen. I think it's more of a problem of structure than themes. My biggest issues came with the timeskip. I found it difficult to get attached to the characters in their solitary adventures and the charm that the movie had built before for the action and atmosphere inside the house was lost. Understandably so but less interesting nonetheless. In fact the movie gets back to form when a major event happens and the characters reunite, capturing a feel of transience and melancholy that got me quite right.

About the story... I could honestly have done without the love themes. I don't think they were necessary, not at least to get a major focus. It is perfectly normal that these girls have affairs and marry but when you have a slice of life narrative that is working well as that and you introduce romantic dramatism, it just doesn't feel right. Or maybe this was a miscalculation on my part based on my own expectations, because I was driven to the story from the perspective of the ties between these women and their life together, so when romance gets in the way and isolates each of them from the group it is a letdown to me. Particularly on Jo, whose ideas and personality are engaging enough on their own and the moment the movie drags her to romantic relationships it almost seems like everything else becomes secondary.

I don't think it would have become a top favorite, but I would certainly have enjoyed the film a lot more without that abrupt change of focus after the timeskip, and if the environment of the family house and the March family in general wasn't missing for so long. Because, as said, it's when the house and the family are treated as an entity of its own that the movie is at its best. The rest is just... well, not bad, just not clicking on my personal interests.