The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame

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Harakiri was nominated in one of the general HOFs. I remember liking it quite a bit. I guess that must've been before you started participating, CR.
Yup, that was first nominated in the 7th HoF and I was a member here but hadn't joined the main HoF yet. My first main was the 8th.

I ranked Harakiri #1 in the recent Japanese Hall of Fame. I later tried to watch the remake, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, but ultimately turned it off and never returned to it.
I should've joined that one, at least I've now seen one of the noms.

Sending my voting list into Cricket soon.



Harakiri was also my #1 in Japanese, even above my own nom!



I was initially surprised that CR hadn't seen it because of the HoFs it had been in. Yes it is a great movie, and CR becomes the 4th member to finish.



I was initially surprised that CR hadn't seen it because of the HoFs it had been in. Yes it is a great movie, and CR becomes the 4th member to finish.
When I joined MoFo the 5th HoF was just starting. I really liked the idea and wanted to join but didn't know how to locate online movies. Once I learned how to find some of these rare titles, that's when I got hooked on HoFs!



Pick it up folks!
I'm waiting until you bust out the whip.



It's been over three weeks now since I watched Hud. Fortunately it's on HULU, so I'll probably fast-forward and re-watch a few scenes to refresh my memory. Also watched The Last Laugh a few days ago. I wish I didn't feel the need to write multi-paragraph reviews because that starts to feel like homework after awhile. I'd churn these out faster if I could keep my write-ups short and simple.
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Oldboy (2003)

Did Quentin Tarantino dirty up the rest of the world's cinema with pulpy, cheesy torture fluff? Oldboy is like Pulp Fiction meets Disney mass entertainment...

It starts off very promising with Dae-Su (Min-Sik Choi) doing a damn funny drunk...then it gets even cooler when it goes psych-surrealistic with Dae-Su mysteriously imprisoned in a curiously decorated room. That all too brief first act reminded me of The Truman Show. I'd give that first 45 minutes a 4/5. But once he's out of his personal prison the reveal of what was going on bored me. I had hoped we'd find out that his prison room was all in his own head, or perhaps he was in a mental ward and had hallucinated the other life. But the revenge, action, torture stuff is crap to me and reminded me of Pulp Fiction. I'm not generally a fan of Korean movies, the ones I see seem like Korea's version of the Hollywood blockbuster, big on action and cheap thrills. I like movies that feed the soul and the mind. I don't care for movies that are the equivalent of deep fried pork rinds.

You never miss an opportunity to take a shot at Tarantino. There's nothing wrong with hating his films or thinking that he's overrated or whatever, but it seems you hate the man himself. Don't tell me QT once ogled your wife's feet at the grocery store.

The way you describe Pulp Fiction makes me think you haven't even seen it, although I know that's not true since you've reviewed it on here. (And surprisingly gave it a positive rating.)



I'm waiting for my library to open up it's stock of films for curbside pickup. So I'm on a hold for both Hall of Fames atm, but I've only got two films to watch for this one so I will definitely finish.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé

Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi 1962)

I saved one of the best for last! I've seen several early 60s Japanese films set in the Samurai period and I've liked them all, this one is no exception. The lead actor Tatsuya Nakadai gave a commending performance and was able to relay so much emotion just with his eyes and the tone of his voice. I watched a fully restored Criterion Collection copy and wow did it look great! I enjoyed the parable of the forlorn and hopeless ronin, who managed to make a powerful house pay a dear price for what they had done to his son in law.

I knew you'd enjoy it. And, yeah, you should have joined in on the Japanese HoF, so many great films you would have enjoyed watching.
I nominated this for that HoF and it came in Second and I had it at third in my vote, having enjoyed Hanni-bi (My #2) and High and Low (#1) a little more.
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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



The trick is not minding
Dog Day Afternoon

The 70’s were a good decade for Pacino. The man was literally on fire. He turned sin some of his best performances. It reads like a “best of” list of classic cinema.
This was before he started to over act as he got older.
Dog Day Afternoon is peak Pacino. He resists the urge to overact in this film, no small feat considering the subject was about a bank heist gone wrong.
Even when he screams “Attica! Attica!”, where I fully expected him to overact it wasn’t. Here he seems flustered as he tries to stay one step ahead of the police as he negotiates his conditions.
But really, even then he is outshined by Cazale.
Oh poor Cazale. Always cursed to turn in amazing performances but doomed to be be outshined by others. Here he does some of his best work. His career was cut too short by cancer.
And Chris Sarandon in his debut as Pacinos lover. He’s tired of the relationship he feels trapped in with him, detaining the abuse he suffered and the resulting suicide he attempts over Pacino.
Side note: I once had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sarandon at a convention in Pittsburgh (same convention I once met Henry Wrinkler and Tom Savini). We spoke about his time in films and he first bumped me due to having really bad wrists. Nice guy. I had told him I planned on some day watching DDA.
Well, mission accomplished.
What we have here though is a film that hinges solely on its acting, and not much else. The suspense is almost nonexistent. Perhaps because they treat the hostages so well.
But that’s not to say it isn’t any good. I actually quite liked it. Just not as much as I had hoped.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Dog Day is a great film and, like a lot of films of that generation, it spun the whole evil outsider and stoic police to an everyday man who makes a desperate effort to find the cash for his lover and guys with a badge trying desperately not to let sh#t go south - FAST. At the time this was pretty new, that they were put in such a positive light where everyone found it cool to be anti-establishment.
Another addition was that everyone was very real people that you could easily see on any city street. The circus and the willingness of the crowd to turn it into such was quite the statement for its time.
I remember the first time I saw an uncut version and was quite surprised at the very end. (TV didn't show what happens, just the police moving in on the van to arrest Pacino's character.)
D@mn GOOD movie and yet another great Must See! Iconic film for you to see, Wylde. It's gonna be hell for you to sort them all out when it comes down to voting for you. lol



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Count me as a huge fan of Dog Day Afternoon, I seen it for the first and only time in an HoF...Ed was that you who nominated it? I gave it a


Link to my review
Nope, it was Captain T who did. Sadly, it was disqualified, but not before several of us got to enjoy a rewatch of it.
AND I just noticied, we BOTH used the same image in our reviews -- Ha ha

Bit O' Trivia: That Hall of Fame (70's) was my first time Hosting as well. Ahh, memories. . .



Nope, it was Captain T who did. Sadly, it was disqualified, but not before several of us got to enjoy a rewatch of it.
Bit O' Trivia: The Hall of Fame (70's) was my first time Hosting as well lol
Ah, I just checked and see I had voted Dog Day Afternoon my #1 even placing it over my nom. Lots of great films in that HoF!





I thought heading into this film that considering its subject matter, it would be very relevant to the protests and current climate in America today (and possibly for once justifying my dreadful procrastination of Hall of Fames). What I didn't expect though was that the role of the characters as judges and policemen is only used as a way to progress the story and that the story isn't really a satire of America's law enforcement; Travis and Garland simply wanted to make a badass action film (Or maybe this is Verhoeven levels of satire and it's going over my head so far that it's in orbit).

The portrayal of Dredd in this film is great; not seeing his face adds to the dictatorial sense of justice he imposes, and his generic bad@ss 'JC Denton' type voice shows we are not meant to take this action film TOO seriously. The effects are eye candy; the way the brightly colour-graded blood flies out of people during the slow motion segments is as gross as it is cool. Music is nice too, really like the ambiance during the slo-mo segments. Personally I was not as big of a fan of the action as everyone else is, though I did enjoy it.

Negatives? We are not given much about the world of the film apart from a short narration and a few establishing shots,very surprising considering this seems like such a unique world that we would want to spend some time with it. It almost feels like this was a film made to cash in on a popular t.v. show, except that t.v. show doesn't exist. Maybe there's also an argument to be made about how this is an action film without much to chew on? Maybe I'm just so desensitized to movie violence that the action didn't hit home for me as much as it did for everyone else.

Good action film, thanks to whoever nominated it.




Dredd surprised me. Wasn't expecting much but it's a solid action flick with decent splatter, even if it's not quite as good as the original (The Raid: Redemption (jk)). Of all the 3D movies that came out during 3D's short lived, rebirth this is probably my favorite. Those drugged out slo-mo scenes are a lot of fun.