The 19th Hall of Fame

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

07-30-19

Return To Paradise

Going into this, I semi knew the premise and wondered how they were going to play it out and finally, would it be a Hollywood ending or. . .?

WOW!

This was actually very well done and while a large chunk of the film was: do they go back? WILL they go back? Will only one of them go? I still found myself caught up in what was transpiring and the tension that was rising at this momentous crossroad.
A lot of the build up of them on the beaches and in the city was done rather well and moved swiftly along while introducing the characters and their friendship.
In fact, I was very much surprised by the quick pace of the film itself. When they returned to De Nang I checked the time out of curiosity and was very surprised at how far in I was.

I've read other reviews saying they cared little for Neche and Vaughn and while I'm on the fence with both of them, I found them quite engaging in this one.
As for Phoenix?
Holy sh#t!! A complete precursor of what this man is truly capable of doing when going for the emotional and mental extreme. It was very powerful. Even more so for how things came about from the court scene and on.
On a side note it does reaffirm my hatred for the parasitic, self-centered, hypocrisy of journalism when their intrusion caused the Judge to change his mind from leniency to death on the following morning.
I was jaw-dropped the entire time from there on and emotional as hell as it happened.
Very powerful.
Very, very powerful.

I remember thinking, when it came out: there's no way I can deal with this film and what, most likely, would be a very hard hitting scenario at that time.
Not sure now as the time drew closer to seeing it, but, thank you Vicky for nominating this and so that I DO see it.

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Miss Vicky

MoFo's Resident Bitch

07-30-19

Great to see a positive review of Return to Paradise after so many lukewarm to negative ones. So glad you enjoyed it, Ed!

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Siddon

Msg

Registered User

07-30-19

BTW just to

@KeyserCorleone, @john-Conner, @neiba, @jiraffejustin, @MissVicky, @rauldc14

Just a heads up if you like high quality films I'm doing the comedy hall from 1952-1976, I'm trying to get 10 people and 20 noms the quality is very high to give you an idea the IMDB rankings right now...

IMDB
8.4
8.3
8.2
8.0
7.8
7.8
7.7
7.7
7.5
7.4
7.2
7.2

Miss Vicky

MoFo's Resident Bitch

07-30-19

Originally Posted by Siddon

BTW just to
@MissVicky

Just a heads up if you like high quality films I'm doing the comedy hall from 1952-1976, I'm trying to get 10 people and 20 noms the quality is very high to give you an idea the IMDB rankings right now...

Pass.

John-Connor

Registered User

07-30-19

Pass but thanks for the heads up!

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rauldc14

2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ

07-30-19

Thanks for the invite Siddon but I am going to pass on that one. Sorry

edarsenal

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

07-30-19

Originally Posted by Miss Vicky

Great to see a positive review of Return to Paradise after so many lukewarm to negative ones. So glad you enjoyed it, Ed!

you know me, I'm pretty much a safe bet for enjoying your nom or already be in love with it

thanks for nominating it

neiba

The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible

07-31-19

I'm in and I've seen every film already! But I'm in the process of moving to a different country. Will post my reviews soon and send my list!

edarsenal

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

07-31-19

Originally Posted by neiba

I'm in and I've seen every film already! But I'm in the process of moving to a different country. Will post my reviews soon and send my list!

Hope everything goes well with the move.
A different country?! That sounds pretty exciting and I'd imagine, a LOT of paperwork.

jiraffejustin

Before man was, war waited for him.

08-02-19

Cinema Paradiso

The main criticism that gets tossed around at this film has to do with sentimentality, but personally I'm not so cynical that I can't enjoy something this warm. Especially considering that underneath a lot of the warmth is a man looking back at not just the good things, but also a lot of hurt and missed opportunity. Even with the glow of sentimentality attached to nostalgia, it's hard to argue that the film doesn't properly nail that feeling of longing you get when you look back at a time that you wish you could go back and visit. All you are left with is memories and your choices.

Angel Face

Not your typical Noir, but I can't say that I was ever really all that surprised by anything that transpired. That doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but when I get a nice juicy steak, I'm not usually surprised by anything that transpires. I do, however, get exactly what I am asking for, and I am very happy with it all the same. I could see that ending coming from a mile away, but just like that steak, it was very tasty indeed.

rauldc14

2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ

08-02-19

Gaslight

I had seen this when I first joined Mofo. It was pretty highly acclaimed and I was just getting into classic films. I didn't enjoy it much then.

I had a bigger appreciation for it this time though. First off was the look of the film and the setting. It looked really crisp. I don't know if this has a Criterion but it certainly deserves one. I really liked the shots of the outside of the house, looked really cool.

Ingrid Bergman was really awesome in this, not to the level of Casablanca but I think this may contend with Autumn Sonata as her second favorite performance that I've seen. Charles Boyer was pretty darn food in his role to. Although underutilized I enjoyed both Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury as well.

I just like how the pressure of what was happening seemed to mount. While we technically knew Ingrid's character wasn't going crazy we just hoped for the best possible outcome for her. It was redeeming to see Boyer's character get caught in the act.

A really good film. Could maybe even become a favorite down the road so thanks for nominating it Siddon.

John-Connor

Registered User

08-03-19

Gaslight 1944

So I watched about 15 min. of Gaslight 1940 by accident, wondering when Bergman was going to show up..
The first few shots and scenes of the original film were actually slightly better imo.
I agree with the critiques on the run time on this one, for me it felt even longer because I spent +/_15 min. watching the 1940's version.
Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman were both excellent in the acting department. Especially Bergman, because her character Paula was written a bit too frail, naive and self-doubtful at times. Boyer's character could have gotten a little more screen-time.
Loved the wardrobe, setting, cinematography and lighting throughout the whole film.
I believe the third act with the great liberating final shot on the balcony and Bergman's performance made the film a classic within the psychological thriller genre.
Glad I got to see it, good nomination.

edarsenal

Women will be your undoing, P�p�

08-03-19

@Citizen Rules, @ahwell @KeyserCorleone, @Miss Vicky @Siddon, @John-Conner, @neiba, @rauldc14, @jiraffejustin

We're down to 3 Days left with 10 movie reviews left to go and to accommodate us slackers, I will move the deadline back one week to ensure we all finish.

So, new and hopefully final deadline: August 14, 2019

List of slowpokes
edarsenal - 8/10 Reviews
John-Conner - 8/10 Reviews
neiba - 8/10 Reviews
rauldc14 - 9/10 Reviews
jiraffejustin - 8/10 Reviews

***Citizen Rules sent his ballot in and will be posting his final review***

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capitial 'T'

08-03-19

Originally Posted by edarsenal

I guess that's a reminder that I was forgetful

OK, will do

Citizen Rules

Trouble with a capitial 'T'

08-03-19

I didn't rewatch Raging Bull after all, so this is an excerpt from my review. Though I rewrote it so it's sort of a Raging Bull redox review.

Raging Bull (1980)

I usually like boxing movies and right off the bat I see this is shot in black & white, which to me is a huge plus. Then I realize its about a real boxer, Jake LaMotta (who I'd never heard of). Bio Pics + period pieces are just the type of films I usually love...so far so good.

So I should have loved this, but I was bored to tears. Say what you will about critiquing styles, ultimately for me a film works or not, if it can hold me attention, and this didn't. I wanted to shut it off after 15 minutes but figured any movie this respected most get better, for me it never did.

I didn't hate it, even worse I felt nothing, no emotions, zip. I've never been a fan of Robert DeNiro and here he didn't relay any emotions to me other than he was paranoid and even that wasn't really explored, not in any deeper way.

But maybe that's not his fault as Scorsese does his attempt at European New Wave cinema. So I'd say the lack of story or character development is intentional on Scorsese's part and so the film just didn't click with me.

To me it felt like I was watching parts of a movie with the connecting scenes gone. Snippets of a film as it were, such as Jake's first wife disappears from the film without a trace. His second wife reminded me of Kim Novak but without any of her inner qualities, she was the worst written & performed character in the movie. Joe Pesci was the best, he seemed inspired and alive.

I expected some character arcs to take place with the dissolving marriage as a back drop in which to show us how Jake's personality destroys everything. But that wasn't done. Once again that's probably because it's a New Wave style film. Yea, I did get the idea of the film and what Scorsese was showing and it failed me, not surprising French New Wave doesn't work well for me either.

jiraffejustin

Before man was, war waited for him.

08-04-19

I am going to get to Virgin Spring soon and write up a little bit about it. However, I don't plan on writing up anything else about my nom. I've written some about it in here already and responded to a couple of people about it.

Originally Posted by jiraffejustin

I nominated Raging Bull mostly because I recently rewatched it and it was on my mind. I wrote a couple notes to myself about it on Notepad, but it wasn't really anything too substantial. I'll just share them here since I already have them.

Many reasons exist to shoot films in black and white, but it seems to me that just one of the reasons chosen for Raging Bull is to make it stand out as far as possible from the hugely popular Rocky films at the time. Raging Bull is the best boxing film of all-time and probably the the boxing film that least cares about boxing. Which makes it all the more interesting that the boxing scenes do such a great job of being interpretive dances representing LaMotta's outside-the-ring life. The Janiro fight and the final Sugar Ray fight are the best examples; his insecurities, jealousy, and anger are taken out on Janiro and he pummels the poor kid, and the final Sugar Ray fight is his penance for all his sh*ttiness. Even though he is shown fighting another person in all these fights, his real opponent was always himself.

I considered this my write-up on it.

John-Connor