The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame

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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
@HashtagBrownies The Fifth Element was my nomination. It's such a visually pleasing film and balances the right amount of cheese and action. I literally did not know it was Gary Oldman until my third watch of it, that guy is a chameleon. Willis is actually giving a poop about his performance and this is one of Besson's best films.
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Suspect's Reviews



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
@Miss Vicky my nomination for you was Starship Troopers. It was literally a 50/50 shot if you'd like it. I guess you fell in that 1% margin of error of being in the middle? Ha. I replied earlier with my thoughts on it, but figured I'd say it was me finally.



Going down the list:

Hey Frederick - He said he thinks he knows who nominated Mary and Max, but didn't give a name. It was me.
WyldeSyde - He hasn't watched it yet, but he correctly guessed that I nominated Perfect Blue.
Citizen Rules - I chose Bambi.
Ahwell - Correctly guessed that I picked Paprika
Captain Spaulding - Correctly guessed that I chose L'illusionniste, though he hasn't watched it yet.
Edarsenal - After being given a hint from me and a little help from ahwell, correctly guessed that I chose A Town Called Panic for him, but hasn't watched it yet.
John-Connor - Correctly guessed that I chose Waltz With Bashir for him.



@Miss Vicky my nomination for you was Starship Troopers. It was literally a 50/50 shot if you'd like it. I guess you fell in that 1% margin of error of being in the middle? Ha. I replied earlier with my thoughts on it, but figured I'd say it was me finally.


I think anytime anybody picks a movie - whether as a recommendation for me or as a general HOF nomination - it's pretty much a crap shoot on whether or not I'll like it.



@HashtagBrownies The Fifth Element was my nomination. It's such a visually pleasing film and balances the right amount of cheese and action. I literally did not know it was Gary Oldman until my third watch of it, that guy is a chameleon. Willis is actually giving a poop about his performance and this is one of Besson's best films.
Thanks!



Porco Rosso 1992 ‘紅の豚’ Directed by Hayao Miyazaki (English dub version)



(Voices: Michael Keaton, Susan Egan, Cary Elwes, Kimberly Williams-Paisley)

Sun is shining this morning and the weather is sweet. Got some gardening done and caught some sun rays while chill-axing. The next movie on the menu was supposed to be The Innocents. But the weather and time of day made Porco Rosso the more appropriate choice to watch.

Porco Rosso is an animated, adventure, comedy, fantasy about a retired Italian WWI fighter pilot. Who was somehow mysteriously transformed into a humanoid pig after his last aerial battle. Nowadays he makes a living as a bounty hunter, clearing the skies of air pirates.

A simple, romanticized, almost fairy tale like story. The dialogue is witty and Porco Rosso is a cool character, debonair and noir-ish in a Bogart kind of way. Miyazaki really did an excellent job conveying the beautiful landscapes and surroundings of the Adriatic sea area of 1930’s Italy.


The drawing style is slightly less detailed than Miyazaki/Ghibli’s other airplane movie The Wind Rises or my personal favorite Spirited Away, but still visually impressive. Accompanied by a beautiful and a bit familiar sounding score by composer Hisaishi. (Can’t recall which tune it reminds me of, maybe it will come to me later in the day.)

Perfect nomination for this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Thanks Ahwell



I watched all of that director's movies back for the animation countdown. My favorite was The Wind Rises and Porco Rosso was somewhere in the middle.




The Hidden
Directed by Jack Sholder

Something is inhabiting the bodies of people and doing whatever it wants to do, mainly listening to loud music, driving Ferrari's, robbing banks, cassette stores, murdering folks and just being a jackass. A cop (Michael Nouri) and FBI agent (Kyle MacLachlan) are on it's trail.

I enjoyed this but it had one big problem. The first scene is far and away the best scene in the movie. It's a bank robbery - car chase and it's very good. The entire movie is pretty much a chase movie with the thing commiting crimes, abusing the host body until it's unusable then jumping to a new one to do it all again, all while being tailed by the police. The cop has no idea what's going on at first but something is off and the FBI agent isn't sharing all he knows.

The story is good and the acting is passable. Never been a big fan of Kyle outside of Dale Cooper. In fact, this role almost feels like a trial run for Agent Cooper. I thought the fx were pretty good with the highlights being the Hidden. That thing looks good in a disgusting slug, spider way and it's move from body to body is gross enough for me. The more spacey, laser beam fx are totally 80's. Laughable by today's standards but I'll always love em. Closing a car deal was also totally 80's - keeping Tony Montana in business. Got a chuckle out of that.

Looking at its place in the MoFo Sci-Fi list I think it's right about where it should be. It's a good movie, not great.




Porco Rosso 1992 ‘紅の豚’ Directed by Hayao Miyazaki (English dub version)



(Voices: Michael Keaton, Susan Egan, Cary Elwes, Kimberly Williams-Paisley)

Sun is shining this morning and the weather is sweet. Got some gardening done and caught some sun rays while chill-axing. The next movie on the menu was supposed to be The Innocents. But the weather and time of day made Porco Rosso the more appropriate choice to watch.

Porco Rosso is an animated, adventure, comedy, fantasy about a retired Italian WWI fighter pilot. Who was somehow mysteriously transformed into a humanoid pig after his last aerial battle. Nowadays he makes a living as a bounty hunter, clearing the skies of air pirates.

A simple, romanticized, almost fairy tale like story. The dialogue is witty and Porco Rosso is a cool character, debonair and noir-ish in a Bogart kind of way. Miyazaki really did an excellent job conveying the beautiful landscapes and surroundings of the Adriatic sea area of 1930’s Italy.


The drawing style is slightly less detailed than Miyazaki/Ghibli’s other airplane movie The Wind Rises or my personal favorite Spirited Away, but still visually impressive. Accompanied by a beautiful and a bit familiar sounding score by composer Hisaishi. (Can’t recall which tune it reminds me of, maybe it will come to me later in the day.)

Perfect nomination for this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Thanks Ahwell
I didn’t give you this actually, but boy do I love it. My third favorite Miyazaki, very underrated and glad you enjoyed it!



I didn’t give you this actually, but boy do I love it. My third favorite Miyazaki, very underrated and glad you enjoyed it!
lol, I was 100% sure you did, i'm going to stop guessing now, not very good at it.



lol, I was 100% sure you did, i'm going to stop guessing now, not very good at it.
Hahaha me too.



That's right about the opening of The Hidden, almost no possible way a movie could keep that pace!
The dress on the chick from Babylon 5 was the best part for me! I don't remember the beginning, but I remember liking the film and it's complete 1980sness.




Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich 1973)

My kind of movie! I'm a big fan of Peter Bogdanovich, who himself was a big fan of Orson Welles, and well, Welles was big!..and he was a mentor to Bogdanovich and gave him a few tips during shooting of Paper Moon. It was Orson who suggested shooting in black & white, which wasn't unfamiliar to Bogdanovich having done The Last Picture Show in b&w in 1971. I love the choice of b&w for Paper Moon as it makes every scene seem like it was shot back in the 1930s depression era.

I love to watch the background and the set pieces while watching the characters too. The small midwest town shooting locations looked straight out of the 1930s, so much so that I felt I had traveled back in time. I'm impressed that pre-shooting location scouting turned up sections of town that looked unchanged from the 30s.

And I loved that the story in this comedy-drama was not to silly or over the top. The script strikes a good balance between drama, comedy and light heartiness, while still having serious tension. The film stays focused on the 'love-hate' relationship between Addy (Tatum O'Neal) and Mosses (Ryan O'Neal). Of course it's well known that Tatum is Ryan's daughter in real life and that Tatum won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at 10 years old, the youngest Oscar winner ever.

Bogdanovich doesn't leave a lot of loose strings in film making, no wonder he had so many critical acclaimed and popular movies to his credit. Happy to have watched this!

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I didn’t like Porco Rosso.






To me Porco Rosso is Miyazaki's best fairy tale it's not visually on the same level as his other works but the story work is much better. It tells a simple story well which is what is missing in many of Miyazaki's films.