The 19th Hall of Fame

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I just thought of a good example. Annie Hall, I think, does an excellent job of including narrations from woody Allen’s character, especially the opening scenes. It doesn’t feel forced.






Otto Preminger is one of my favorite directors and when does film noir he really nails it. Angel Face is a story of balance it's told in a very strict three act structure and each act works well. All the characters are defined well enough, none is portrayed with excess of sympathy or cruelty everyone feels human and while we know who the villain is basically at the start we get charmed and lulled into the story.



Robert Mitchum is an old man basically at the point of settling down, he's broke he's got a nurse he calls on and dream of opening a garage. Jean Simmons is a young woman living in an opulent lifestyle in Los Angeles with parents waiting on her inheritance. Both are veterans of the war, and have a hollowed out pragmatism and they connect over that.





Tombstone.

My favorite westerns are ones that typically focus on badassery, and Tombstone is one of the best in that field. Its all-star cast still manages to be outshined by Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in two of their best roles. The action is usually very well filmed, although there are a couple of slow moments during the climax. But that's pretty much all I've got for nit-picking, since the rest of it is a rough and gritty western with enough manliness to keep it going. To think this is a true story seems almost unbelievable.






Return to Paradise is one of those films I would say has a concept but doesn't have a plot. The concept of the film is good, two men have to make a moral decision of returning to Malaysia to serve a prison term otherwise their friend will end up dead. The men are given opposing lives and the lawyer Anne Heche's job is to convince both of them to return.

The problem is often times the run time feels incredibly padded, the moralizing scenes are played repeatedly so they lose a degree of their impact. You also have a number of plot points that are predictable as the foreshadowing is very on the nose.

Joaquin Phoenix is good in the bits and pieces that he's in but the rest of the cast leaves quite a bit to be desired, Heche and Vaughn are just poor choices of leads. It's kinda sad that Vera Farmiga and Nick Sandow who are very strong performers who meander in the background while Heche, Vaughn, and Smith take up the screen time.


What I enjoyed about the film is that it has a budget, the film is shot on location and feels like a real film not just a morality play.






The Virgin Spring

Like pretty much any other Ingmar Bergman movie, the direction was spot-on. The drama of the story felt real, and very bitter to the point where much of it hurt to watch. The faint symbolism and meaning of the movie, mostly centering around confliction from a religious standpoint, helped bring out the harsh behavior of the characters and the delivery. But the movie was pretty slow at times and the story needed a little more depth. While I love the central themes of religious conflict and holiness and sin conflicting with each other, such as the secret pagan worship, I felt the religious symbolism concerning why God allows things to happen and the secrets of this world and the people who claim to be holy was better-handled in The Witch. It's a good movie, but it's probably the worst of the few Ingmar Bergman movies I've seen. But I'd easily watch it again to pick up on more later, and it managed to gets the point across. And to top it off, Bergman always had a bird's eye for brilliant actors, and I love Max Von Sydow's ability to evoke emotions to a painfully realistic level.




Let the night air cool you off
Return to Paradise

Vince Vaughn catches flak for not being a very good actor, and when he talks in this film, it's not great (not terrible either, more just okay at best), but I think he did a fine job of looking like he was being mentally tortured with his facial expressions. I was sucked into the idea of this man grappling with a decision but also grappling with the mask he wears for the world (and also wearing for himself) coming in conflict with who he really is. The other dude, with less screen time, did a fine job of getting over the same thing too. It's just that his was in the opposite direction. He felt like a bit of a smarmy assh*le that wants to show the world that he's a good guy. It's a little more grey than that black and white description, but that's how the two came off to me. I also like Anne Heche's character too. Her performance was fine, but what stood out more to me is how they all wrestled with this predicament and how it affected their behavior and choices. I like how the film ended because I think it kinda leaves the door open on Heche's character not following through on her final promise. To me, that makes all of the "desperate times, calls for desperate measures" possibilities to be true of Heche. Though maybe she does find herself falling for Vaughn's character because of his seemingly selfless actions. Phoenix's performance in this movie seems to be getting love despite the short time he is onscreen. The only thing I can say to this is: I guess it was alright, but we'll see him do much better things. This best part of his performance was how decrepit he looked, but that's more of a shout to the makeup department and not really Phoenix. Overall, this wasn't a bad movie. It worked best as a thought experiment on how you'd handle the situation.



Well, I'm at the point where I've saved the possible best two that I haven't seen for last: Cinema Paradiso: The International Cut and Raging Bull. I've seen the original version of Cinema Paradiso, but I'm a little weary of this new version considering the perfection I sensed in that version. And Raging Bull is something I'm looking forward to considering I haven't found a sports movie I can say is above and beyond like Godfather and Pulp Fiction. Rocky was great but nowhere near perfect, and The Hustler came very close but didn't reach that height.



Let the night air cool you off
Well, I'm at the point where I've saved the possible best two that I haven't seen for last: Cinema Paradiso: The International Cut and Raging Bull. I've seen the original version of Cinema Paradiso, but I'm a little weary of this new version considering the perfection I sensed in that version. And Raging Bull is something I'm looking forward to considering I haven't found a sports movie I can say is above and beyond like Godfather and Pulp Fiction. Rocky was great but nowhere near perfect, and The Hustler came very close but didn't reach that height.
Raging Bull is only technically a sports film, I suppose. It doesn't feel like any other in that the actual result of the fights are less important than what they stand for. You aren't watching to see someone triumph over anything, but instead the fights are symbolic vignettes of the life of LaMotta outside of the ring.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Return to Paradise



This was ok but not anything that really made me feel for the characters situations like it should have. I quite like Vaughn overall, and in this I suppose he was ok. I couldn't stand Heche, and I think that is something that would be common with all her films. I just don't see the appeal of her as an actress and I really hated the romance scenes with her and Vaughn. Phoenix was good, but he obviously really wasn't in it all that much. I think the film made it take to long for Vaughn to decide what he was doing so in conclusion I really lost interest in the overall outcome anyways. Like I said nothing bad it's just that it doesn't feel worthy of a Hall of Fame and it doesn't do anything that great in it either.

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The Godfather is one of those films where you see something new everytime to watch it. I won't go into the plot because it's an epic one but I'll talk about some of the things I loved about it.


1. The role of marriage and love in the film, each wife is given a very different objective and perspective with respect to the male characters. Apollinia ends up being such a major character towards Michael's character growth (perhaps more so than his father and brother) and how Kay starts off the film as an equal and ends the film as just someone on the outs.

2. Tom Hagen is the ultimate survivor, he's not a war-time consigliere. And I believe that ends up saving his life.

3. Vito goes about his business and how Michael learns from his father how to weed out problems.

Love the film, great nomination, look forward to see how it does with this Hall.



Cinema Paradiso

This was a good movie. Nothing more, nothing less. I wish it would have moved me more, but it just sagged at the end. I'm not sure what the message was, and it seemed like the movie - as @Citizen Rules mentioned in his review - is a warning against getting dragged from realities into dreams and movies... but I'm not sure Cinema Paradiso was actually looking this deep. I think in many ways it is all about nostalgia, about love of movies, about all that stuff. And then when you look at it that way it's not so great or meaningful. But the actual story, camera work, and acting were all pretty good, so I'm giving it a good rating.







The Godfather is one of those films where you see something new everytime to watch it. I won't go into the plot because it's an epic one but I'll talk about some of the things I loved about it.


1. The role of marriage and love in the film, each wife is given a very different objective and perspective with respect to the male characters. Apollinia ends up being such a major character towards Michael's character growth (perhaps more so than his father and brother) and how Kay starts off the film as an equal and ends the film as just someone on the outs.

2. Tom Hagen is the ultimate survivor, he's not a war-time consigliere. And I believe that ends up saving his life.

3. Vito goes about his business and how Michael learns from his father how to weed out problems.

Love the film, great nomination, look forward to see how it does with this Hall.

My nom's got some tough competition with Pulp Fiction, but I'll be happy if that nom wins as well. Easily would've been my number 2 out of the ten.






The Godfather is one of those films where you see something new everytime to watch it. I won't go into the plot because it's an epic one but I'll talk about some of the things I loved about it.


1. The role of marriage and love in the film, each wife is given a very different objective and perspective with respect to the male characters. Apollinia ends up being such a major character towards Michael's character growth (perhaps more so than his father and brother) and how Kay starts off the film as an equal and ends the film as just someone on the outs.

2. Tom Hagen is the ultimate survivor, he's not a war-time consigliere. And I believe that ends up saving his life.

3. Vito goes about his business and how Michael learns from his father how to weed out problems.

Love the film, great nomination, look forward to see how it does with this Hall.

My nom's got some tough competition with Pulp Fiction, but I'll be happy if that nom wins as well. Easily would've been my number 2 out of the ten.
Same here, except I’d prefer Pulp Fiction. Either winning is great.



Gaslight

I enjoyed Gaslight to some extent. I think it got better as it went on, but the plot was too thin for a two hour long film. The opening hour to me was the weak point, and by the end I was on the edge of my seat. So the structure was really imbalanced. The acting was pretty good, but I couldn't really get into Bergman with this role. Everything else is pretty marginal, but I still ended up generally liking it. It won't be one of my favorites, but it was worth a watch I guess.








Open Range is a western...don't know what else you can say about it. It just felt like a generic film at no point was I really sucked into the plot or I ended up caring about any of the characters. I feel like when a western works well it's always about something else or it has a clever way of telling the story. Unforgiven is about justice, High Noon is about bravery, The Searchers is about forgiveness, and Open Range is about...land rights....whomp whomp.


On the plus side it looked good...though still felt a bit low budget the town didn't feel real to me, just what they could build for what money they had. It was nice but once again nothing special. This is the second time I've watched this film, it was forgettable the first time and I fear it will be forgettable the second time.



...Unforgiven is about justice, High Noon is about bravery, The Searchers is about forgiveness, and Open Range is about...land rights....whomp whomp...
'Land rights' is what most of the fighting in the old west was really about, even Tombstone is about land rights even though it's not made a big part of the film, in reality the real gunfight in Tombstone was all about power struggle between open free rangers and land owners. So I'd say what Open Range is about is the reality of the old west and how it changed to become what we have today.



'Land rights' is what most of the fighting in the old west was really about, even Tombstone is about land rights even though it's not made a big part of the film.

Tombstone is about family and obligations that come with family. And while something might really be about something else if you going to tell a film you have to do so in a compelling way. My number 1 movie right now was about land rights but it was handled in a much better fashion.



Tombstone is about family and obligations that come with family. And while something might really be about something else if you going to tell a film you have to do so in a compelling way. My number 1 movie right now was about land rights but it was handled in a much better fashion.
That's cool. I'm just saying I've watched a lot of westerns lately (guess I'm getting ready for the Western countdown!) and I'm totally surprised how many of them are about land rights with battles between the open rangers who wanted to graze their cattle where ever they wanted and the settlers and land owners who started fencing off their property and thus brought on the bloodiest period in the American west and finally ended the old way west of life.