23rd MoFo Hall of Fame

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Gangs of New York (2002)

Scorsese more like Scor-snooze-e...

In all fairness, Gangs of New York is actually a really well made movie, with beautiful sets and designs, and a fantastic performance from Daniel Day Lewis. There are moments of utmost brilliance, where Scorsese the master shines through.

However, if you're going to have a running time of nearly three hours, make sure you earn it. Scorsese earned it in The Irishman, but not so much here. I really enjoyed the first hour of this, as we get introduced to each character. That surprised me, since I was cringing hard at the first scene, filled with cliches and tropes that I wouldn't expect Scorsese to fall for.

After that, it picks up quite a bit. My favorite parts were the moments where the relationship between Bill and Amsterdam develops. This is the first scene where they meet, or in the bedroom, or at a gathering. I began to see where (I thought) the movie was going. Amsterdam was going to have to question his loyalty to his father, or to someone he's actually growing to like.

And then, after a tense knife throwing sequence, the story completely changes. I'm not sure if Scorsese intended this, but all of Amsterdam's previous motivations and conflicts seem to be thrown out of the window. It's the like the first half isn't relevant. He immediately switches back into revenge mode, and the movie turns into a huge bloodbath.

I don't know how to feel. It's frustrating. There are absolutely amazing scenes of dialogue and action, but that's all they are. Scenes. With nothing much more to provide to the story. I also was struck by how much Scorsese is trying to tackle here. I said before that he didn't earn his running time, but on top of that, he crammed way too much into it! The story itself hones in on the relationship between the natives and the Irish immigrants... specifically, their growing disdain for each other. So when the film switches to become about the Civil War, African American rights, and the Draft, I was confused. The momentum of Gangs was leading to the wrong point.

Anyways, this is kind of a hot mess. But I can't say I didn't enjoy myself, and that there's a lot of really really great stuff here. It could of been the next Goodfellas, but instead it turns out on the lower end of Scorsese's amazing achievements.


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The Reflecting Skin
(1990)
Directed by Philip Ridley
nominated by @pahaK

It's the story of a slice of life of an 8-year old boy in 1950s America. Seth Dove is just like any 8-year old boy, mischievous and making assumptions but not really looking at life. His father owns a gasoline station and his mother is a home wife. His father likes to read penny dreadfuls of vampires. His mother is always complaining about her life and her home but thinking that when her oldest son returns from the war, life will be better. Seth, himself, is intrigued about vampires and thinks his older female neighbor, Dolphin Blue, is one. After a cruel prank, by Seth and his friends, Dolphin tells him she's 200 years old. One of Seth's best friends comes up missing and is found dead. The police think Seth's father has something to do with it because of a past discretion. His father chooses to take his own life. Seth's older brother Cam returns home and falls in love with Dolphin. Seth's life continues to go downhill from there. So the story goes, life isn't always sweet but at times comes up bitter.

I have to say that I liked this film much more than the film pahak nominated for the Fantasy HOF even though both of them dealt with childhood minds and the stories of make-believe that each of us as children tell ourselves at one point. I didn't hate it or really like it. It was an interesting watch but I'm sure won't be a favorite in this HOF. Let's see how it holds up to the rest of the contenders I haven't seen.



We now have at least one review from everybody except that slacker @edarsenal !
You may have my 2nd one tonight...

I think everyone is doing a great job.

@ahwell

I am glad you enjoyed and felt what I felt when I first saw Hunger!





The Great Mouse Detective
(1986)
Directed by Burnett "Burny" Mattinson, David Michener, and
the team of John Musker and Ron Clements
nominated by @rauldc14

A Disney mystery film based on a children's novel, "Basil of Baker Street", done in the style of a Sherlock Holmes story. A mouse toymaker is kidnapped and forced to create a gadget to overthrow the Queen of the British Crown in 1897. A young mouseling named Olivia searches out Basil of Baker Street to find out what happened with her father. Along the way, Basil, Dr. Dawson and Olivia encounter several helpful and wicked creatures to find her father kidnapped by Professor Ratigan.

I was 19 years old when this film was released. I had other things to watch. I knew of this movie when my daughter was young as she watched all Disney films. It is a little too deep for younger children but not older children who would understand the concept. It was ok. Nothing special to me. Its not a favorite Disney film. I'm sure there are many out there who love every Disney film and that's acceptable.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
We now have at least one review from everybody except that slacker @edarsenal !


Hmm?
What?
__________________
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




Christiane F. (1981)

Why is it that looking at city lights sparkling in the night is both the most wonderful and most lonely thing ever? Maybe it's because you can imagine all the life going on out there, all the celebrations and the parties. But you can also remember that there are horrors out there. Living in the city is living all alone. Especially a divided city.

Drugs are the center of Christiane F., but loneliness and longing is what drives the story. The very reason Christiane gets into the drug and crime world is because of her longing to be with a crowd, and to spend time with her friend(s). In the first scenes, we see her struggle to take it all in. Flashes of neon lights, shots of hundreds of buildings twinkling in the blackest of nights. She's a 13-year old girl, and she sees the world from those eyes. It's pretty, so pretty, and if you don't look hard enough you'll miss all the ugly stuff. Or worse... get involved with it.

And so when she meets Detlev, it's almost like her fate is already sealed. As they get sucked into this vortex of drugs, sex, partying and "dying", we see Christiane barely even able to comprehend it all. The scene early on where they smash through the glass and grab the money, all the time with David Bowie's "Heroes" playing over it all, is like watching Christiane numb herself to the pains of doing something immoral.

Every time she steps further and further into the rabbit hole of depression and drugs, the film gets more and more aching. By the end, as she wanders through the streets of Berlin, perhaps some of the most colorful shots in the movie, there is nothing more dark and grim. Afterwards, we hear Christiane narrating her life. She got better. That's good. But did they save her? Was she dead? Is she dead?

Of course, it's all the more shocking that this is actually based on the life of Christiane Felscherinow. Perhaps not shocking actually... just saddening. Saddening that loneliness really can be the most dangerous thing on the planet. Saddening that nothing has changed. Saddening that perhaps nothing ever will change.

It's a tough film. It's a great film.


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Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)
aka Christiane F.

I've known about Christiane F. for ages (I've had the VHS case on my hand in the mid-'80s), but I've never seen it before. Especially after the recent reviews here, I had high hopes for it, but at the same time, I was afraid it wouldn't live up to those expectations. In the end, it was worse than I had hoped but also better than I had feared.


There's only one major flaw in Christiane F., but it's so fundamental that it affects the whole movie. Far too often, it feels like an educational film about the dangers of drug use intended for school showings. Especially the dialogue is so underlining at times. I don't like pedantic movies, and this one comes off as way too preachy.

Technically, Christiane F. is better than I expected. In the beginning, Berlin has this decadent beauty, but the deeper Christiane sinks into her addiction, the uglier it becomes. It moves from the Sound club and David Bowie concert to the metro station and public toilets and grey streets littered with homeless junkies. The style supports the story almost perfectly.

Acting is mostly good, especially considering the number of first-timers and amateurs. Some scenes feel little forced (like the withdrawal scene with Christiane and Detlev), but I'm blaming the director for that. Natja Brunckhorst is quite perfect in the titular role.

I wish the film would have told the story and nothing else. Remove the corny dialogue about the dangers of heroin, and just show the downfall of this girl. And I know it's based on a true story, but the ending is terrible: you just can't build up to a suicide attempt and then end the film with a voiceover saying "I'm good. Drugs are bad, mmkay".

I'm still a little unsure of my eventual rating, but at the moment I'm leaning towards the idea that Christiane F. is a good movie, despite its one major and some minor flaws. Without a question, there's a lot of wasted potential.
I guess it comes down to point of view but I can't picture it as an educational film, a cautionary tale though yes. As for the dialogue, I got the impression that the subtitles weren't a perfect match, but rather a close interpretation. I see that sometimes with hard to find foreign films.




Christiane F. (1981)

Why is it that looking at city lights sparkling in the night is both the most wonderful and most lonely thing ever? Maybe it's because you can imagine all the life going on out there, all the celebrations and the parties. But you can also remember that there are horrors out there. Living in the city is living all alone. Especially a divided city.

Drugs are the center of Christiane F., but loneliness and longing is what drives the story. The very reason Christiane gets into the drug and crime world is because of her longing to be with a crowd, and to spend time with her friend(s). In the first scenes, we see her struggle to take it all in. Flashes of neon lights, shots of hundreds of buildings twinkling in the blackest of nights. She's a 13-year old girl, and she sees the world from those eyes. It's pretty, so pretty, and if you don't look hard enough you'll miss all the ugly stuff. Or worse... get involved with it.

And so when she meets Detlev, it's almost like her fate is already sealed. As they get sucked into this vortex of drugs, sex, partying and "dying", we see Christiane barely even able to comprehend it all. The scene early on where they smash through the glass and grab the money, all the time with David Bowie's "Heroes" playing over it all, is like watching Christiane numb herself to the pains of doing something immoral.

Every time she steps further and further into the rabbit hole of depression and drugs, the film gets more and more aching. By the end, as she wanders through the streets of Berlin, perhaps some of the most colorful shots in the movie, there is nothing more dark and grim. Afterwards, we hear Christiane narrating her life. She got better. That's good. But did they save her? Was she dead? Is she dead?

Of course, it's all the more shocking that this is actually based on the life of Christiane Felscherinow. Perhaps not shocking actually... just saddening. Saddening that loneliness really can be the most dangerous thing on the planet. Saddening that nothing has changed. Saddening that perhaps nothing ever will change.

It's a tough film. It's a great film.


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Glad you liked it. I was wondering how many movies you've seen like this, movies that are a little rough for the average viewer.



I guess it comes down to point of view but I can't picture it as an educational film, a cautionary tale though yes. As for the dialogue, I got the impression that the subtitles weren't a perfect match, but rather a close interpretation. I see that sometimes with hard to find foreign films.
It is an educational film. Or at least it’s used as such. Well, I don’t know if it’s as used anymore because if its age and the oversensitive times we live in now, but I saw it at school in 7th grade I think it was. As part of a drug focused thing in class. And I know we weren’t the only ones or the only school to see it.



It is an educational film. Or at least it’s used as such. Well, I don’t know if it’s as used anymore because if its age and the oversensitive times we live in now, but I saw it at school in 7th grade I think it was. As part of a drug focused thing in class. And I know we weren’t the only ones or the only school to see it.
I'm surprised they showed it in class, but maybe that's the reason one might think it's an educational film? I saw Cuckoos Nest in school but never thought of it as an educational film. Did they show the uncut version?




The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

This was a nice, easy watch and short too! Which is a plus with all these heavy, dark and long nominations.

I'd never heard of The Great Mouse Detective before. Which isn't surprising as back in 1986 when this first came out I had other things on my mind than watching Disney films I suppose a lot of younger people had this on VHS and watched the hell out of it. I missed that VHS era by a decade or so...and when I was a kid we were lucky that the TV was a color set!

My favorite scene was the mouse trap death defying scene. That sorta reminded me of a James Bond film. I liked the way Basil mouse quickly calculated the trajectory of the ball and then he set off the trap at just the right moment for the trap wire to hit the ball instead of their heads. Though I'm not sure how they avoided the axe and crossbow from getting them, oh well that doesn't really matter

You know what really surprised me was the amount of smoking the characters did. Even back in the 1950s a Disney film wouldn't have had that much smoking going on. I think that's because of the era it was made, mid 80s. In the mid 80s the popularity of smoking went way up after it had been in a long decline. Had this been made in 1976 or 1996 the amount of smoking would've been far less. Now, don't think I'm pissed or something, cause that would be a wrong assumption. I just find it fascinating how films reflect the social norms of the times in which they were made.
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It is an educational film. Or at least it’s used as such. Well, I don’t know if it’s as used anymore because if its age and the oversensitive times we live in now, but I saw it at school in 7th grade I think it was. As part of a drug focused thing in class. And I know we weren’t the only ones or the only school to see it.
Good to know that my "radar" isn't off. I didn't know it was actually used like that, but it just felt like a film tailored for such use. I think we only watched some actual Finnish educational films about the subject back then and Christiane F. is lightyears ahead of them in quality
__________________





Nominated By: HashtagBrownies


Yellow Submarine
George Dunning, 1968
85 minutes, IMDb



Women will be your undoing, Pépé



Jojo Rabbit

Yorki: There are bigger things to worry about than Jews, Jojo. There's Russians somewhere out there. They're worse than anyone. I heard they eat babies and have sex with dogs. I mean like that's bad, right?
Jojo: Sex with dogs?
Yorki: Yeah. The Englishmen do it too. We have to stop them before they eat us and screw all our dogs.

And then they danced.
Yayyyy

Okay, quick oddball thing out of the way -- I swear to god that kid playing Yorki is, in fact, a time-traveling Nick Frost



Any which way, that. . . was. . . f@ckin WONDERFUL!
Loved the wit. The heart warming moments throughout. The quirky atmosphere of the entire cast and just, well, pretty much everything from Jojo hyping himself up with his imaginary best friend, Hitler to the final scene - which, since not everyone has watched this, I won't say, but it put a big smile on my face along with the placard at the very end:

"Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final."
~Rainer Maria Rilke

This definitely nails it for me in regards to wanting to see more of Taika Waititi's work. Past and what is to come from him. There's an amusing poetry to his work and this poetry does this heart of mine all kinds of delight.

Bless you, Cosmic for nominating this. BRAVO my dear. Truly.



Let the night air cool you off

Le Samouraï
(Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
Nominated By: Siddon
101 mins, IMDb

Le Samourai starts out with a really cool establishing shot of a bedroom. My eyes are instantly drawn to the lying figure of, at the time, an unknown man on his bed. Also prominent in the shot, resting directly in the middle of frame is a birdcage. We hear the man spark his cigarette up and we hear the bird chirping, a sound that we don't currently realize is something that could come into play later in the film, but I have a feeling Melville knows what he's doing, fellas. The smoke rises up and love it or hate it, smoking is cool. I'll never do it, but it's undeniable. The tone is already set and we can expect this film to be cool as hell. And almost immediately after that we get a really cool moment where the camera follows Delon and rises up to his shoulder level and looks into the mirror with him as he fixes his collar on his trenchcoat and the shot flips as now we are the mirror as he puts on his dope ass hat. I'm already all in on this film. Moments later he is in the rain, a cool ass synth(esque?) soundtrack kicks in as we focus on Delon's eyes scanning his surrounding like the coolest motherf*cker in the world. I don't want to spend this much time going over everything in the film that I think is cool, because I would probably just describe every shot or every movement, but this film nails it from the very start. I will say that I did manage to find a moment that was very uncool though, and it was when he backs his stolen car out of the garage and isn't quite sure if he's clear of the sidewalks. There is a hitch in his giddyup as he is pulling forward and thinks for maybe less than a second that he's going over the sidewalk, I almost couldn't believe that it was in the film or that I found it so humorous. The second time he exits the garage, he gets it right.

Roger Ebert mentioned in his review of the film that Melville was obsessed with procedures, and it's hard not to see that. From the way Jef sets the hit up to the way the police handle their investigation and the planting of the bug and it's evident in the way time is always being kept. These procedures are detailed for sure, but it never seems excessive. And outside of just being really cool, this film is also pretty damn efficient. It tells you what you need to know if you just keep your eyes on it. Words are used when words are needed otherwise your eyes fill you in. After the hit, we see all the witnesses seeing what they can see of Jef. We can see who can see the most, and we can see who can only see vagueries. The exception being female musician who sees Jef eye to eye, yet tells the detectives that Jef's absolutely not the man she saw. I'm not entirely sure what to make of her lie, but my assumption is that we are supposed to believe that Jef, being the good looking man he is with those steely blue eyes, just has something to him that captivated her to lie for him with nary a word spoken to her. We don't get an immediate answer of course. As the film progresses, Delon's new mission is to find who ordered the hit, as they tried to rub him out as well. When he meets with the pianist again, we get a loving homage to classic film-noir with the shot of the two of them in the car. Like a great chess player setting traps that you might forget have been set, Melville circles us back to things earlier in the film to pay them off. Some things, like Jef's bird didn't seem like set ups to begin with, but that's how efficient this motherf*cker was. Jef didn't really need a reason for the bird, or maybe the bird could have been simple symbolism. Perhaps the bird is symbolism of something. Jef's canary in the coal mine is actually a bird. Two birds with one stone or two birds with one bird, because it establishes not just how crafty Jef is but it's also super dope.

When they are investigating the murder and bring in all of the usual suspects, it doesn't make much sense that they'd bring so many people in to be looked at it, but it does make for a cool visual to see all of those folks lined up in raincoats and hats. Siddon mentioned that this film likely inspired the likes of Tarantino and Anderson, but on the flipside, it seems to me like Melville was inspired by Tati. The lineup scene seemed like a Tati comedy film reel got soaked in booze and contaminated by cigarette and cigar smoke. When Wiener was being questioned and the detective had the suspects all get their hats and coats, even though it was for only a brief moment, they were all crossing paths with one another and I couldn't get the idea of Tati's movement out of my head. Plus there was the square shaped desks that seemed to be on rectangularly shaped platforms. Square edges seeming to be a motif found in Tati films is probably what made me think of him in the first place, so perhaps I was just trying to make everything else fit with it.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé


Nominated By: HashtagBrownies


Yellow Submarine
George Dunning, 1968
85 minutes, IMDb
OMG, looks like its time to light up and meander down this acid trip of a cartoon

WELCOME, Hashtag!!!



Women will be your undoing, Pépé

The Fisher King
(Terry Gilliam 1991)

That screenshot from the Chinese restaurant was my favorite scene. I loved the set design there too with its gorgeous blue and red Chinese motif as a backdrop. The last hour of the film when the Amanda Plummer storyline came into focus was more to my liking than the first hour. The first hour was a bit hectic and truth be told I'm not a big fan of Robin Williams. I had hoped Williams might be more restrained in this but he often went into his famous long improvs. While he was really good at improv and stream of consciousness monologues, I had a hard time connecting to his character. I know he would've been very capable of delivering some serious, heart felt drama like other skilled comedians have done, if he was reined in some. Perhaps it's Terry Gilliam's indulgences in allowing so much improved scenes...sometimes those work and at other times they are distracting from the theme of the movie.

Jeff Bridges was fine here, I never think of him as a great actor but he's always reliable. Some of my favorite scenes were in the video store, gosh I loved looking at that store with all those old VHS tapes on display. I thought Mercedes Ruehl was a stand out, she was especially good during the emotional conflict scenes with Bridges. Mercedes definitely made the most out of her air time.

I wasn't too deeply ingrained into the movie's story but I found things to like. Besides all the aforementioned stuff I just mused over...I have to give a big shout out to the super cool New York City shooting locations.

I remember being incredibly impressed by Mercedes when I first saw this and thought she rose above being a secondary character and truly had her moment in the sun.
I'm pretty sure I'll be feeling the same this time around as well.