24th Hall of Fame

I found them all. You were going so fast I couldn't keep up!

The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Minister: There is one thing: how did you know whose telephone to tap?
Lebel: I didn't, so I tapped all of them.

From Frederick Forsyth's very first novel, (with several more following the made into a movie path), it is said that Forsyth worked for MI6 for some time and hence the knowledge behind writing a "practical" assassination attempt on President Charles de Gaulle. Including a re-enactment of the real failed assassination attempt on the President of France in the opening scene, in August of 1962.

It's a fascinating watch seeing all of the leg work that both Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) and The Jackal (Edward Fox) do to achieve their goals. But even more so, with a central focus on these details there still remains a connection to the emotional/intellectual mindset of those involved, with some great moments of wit. Such as the two gentlemen sitting on the bench discussing who The Jackal may be and one suggests how the first three letters of the first and last name spell out Jackal in French. To which the other gives him a demeaning scowl as if to say, "What do you think this is, a Ian Fleming novel?"
Or how Lebel's wife has to yank on his toe to wake him up after continually yelling his name to no avail and his timid "Hmm?" in response.

It's the marriage of the two that intrigues and satisfies without bogging down the pacing of this film. Which of course should be credited to Fred Zinnemann. (High Noon, From Here to Eternity and others). Following the dogged pursuit of research of those pursuing, and meticulous machinations of the one intent on pulling the trigger and getaway with it.
A common enough premise but one that is done brilliantly without any need for "suspension of belief" that is even more common. Or overloading us with just factual incidents and no "pulse". Zinnermann brings both the visceral and cerebral aspects together and does a fantastic job of it.

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I like a few Kubrick movies. I was on the fence with Barry Lyndon the first go. Will be interesting to see how I feel the second go.

Still, this HOF could be a 2 way battle between Kubrick and Bergman for their second general wins, tying up Tarantino.

I think Ryan O'Neil was cast well in it as I gather Barry Lyndon is sort of an average guy who just stumbles in and out of life's situations. I was never bored and the film looked great.

That's kind of the take I got from it as well. Average guy attempting to rise above his station with little to no emotional connection to anyone or even to the nicer things in life.
And yes, Loved how the film looked.

Am I the only one here who typically doesn't notice acting in movies? The amount of films I've seen which contain an acting performance I noticed and appreciated quite a lot is incredibly small.

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I’m sure you’re not the only one. I can’t speak for others, but for myself, acting, directing, cinematography and dialogue are the main things I look at while watching a movie. Other things may catch my eye, such as themes and metaphors and such, but those are harder to spot on occasion.
What do you look for when watching movies, if I may ask?

I use to value movies for their plots, but I don't do it anymore. If I forget the plot of a film, I don't have to rewatch the film to remind myself of what happened in the film. I can just check Wikipedia or IMDb to refresh my memory on what happened.

Nowadays, I mainly value the feel of a film. Whether it's an emotional impact or feeling something mysterious that I can't put into words, this is what impacts me the most about my favorite films and tends to invite me to rewatch them. No written summary of a film can properly describe what I felt while watching the film. The only way to remind myself of the film's feel is by rewatching it.

I still look at plot, but that’s usually on a case by case basis, as sometimes the plot isn’t as important as the rest. Plot still matters for me, but I largely agree with you as experience is valued more by me, followed by theory

In Barry Lyndon acting didn't matter as it wasn't an actor's film. So different types of films can resonate with me for different reasons. But the sublime moments of acting, when I feel as if I'm one with the character for a brief moment, is a very valued experience...and one that's all together too rare.

I feel like I "notice" acting more at the extremes, either someone giving an amazing portrayal or someone really tanking it.

But what I do notice a lot is my perception of the "vibe" someone gives off and their chemistry with the other actors.

My problem with O'Neal in Barry Lyndon was that there was nothing there. It was so flat that I felt it often detracted from the story. I felt that I was watching a person who was doing the things the script told him to do. Actually, people following a script it often how I feel watching Kubrick's films, but strong actors (like Kirk Douglas in Paths of Glory or Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut) find a way to put a human heart into it.

And for me, three hours is too long to look at pretty things that I don't care about.

I haven't seen Barry Lyndon in a while, but I think O'Neal's casting and blandness was intentional, primarily to highlight how unremarkable this man is. I mean, that doesn't justify it; if you're bad, you're bad, but I think that's what I heard about the casting choice.

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I figured that Barry's emotional blankness proves that all that lying and deception he was doing to become part of the upper crust as well as being a part of it wasn't giving him the fulfillment he thought it would.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (contains spoilers)

Watching this movie is akin to eating at a nice meal at a restaurant with someone at the table next to you slurping their soup the entire time or listening to one of your favorite albums in the middle of summer while your home's air conditioner is broken. In other words, the movie's merits - and it has some - are tainted by an elephant in the room; specifically, the way it romanticizes poverty. I cannot shake the vibe that the movie's perspective towards its Gulf Coast residents is from someone who merely watched a documentary about them or spent a random Saturday volunteering to assist them, i.e. an outsider, or better yet, a dilettante. There is truth in how the movie depicts the strong sense of identity and fellowship of such communities, but it does not give a fair shake to the problems they experience such as lack of opportunities, necessities, etc. and the associated consequences, the possible exception being the alcoholism we observe in Hushpuppie's father Wink. Speaking of, Zeitlin and company may very well be experts on these communities' fondness for nicknames, but their preciousness and other touches like a resident dressing in a hip getup complete with fedora that you can imagine one of the filmmakers owning are more saccharine than sincere. I have heard the argument that it's foolish to be bothered by such inaccuracies because the movie is from Hushpuppie's perspective, but when I think of better movies that show a world from a child's eyes, that naivety does not extend to how its adults experience it. Smoke Signals, for instance, is largely from the perspective of Thomas Builds-The-Fire, who is an adult, but his view of Native American reservation life could best be described as innocent and childlike. I walked away from that movie with a better understanding of the pros and cons of having that mindset, but it’s one that is much more substantial in comparison because I also gained a more realistic understanding of what life is really like in such communities. Again, the movie is not entirely without merit: the ways it depicts the kind of love a father has for his children is accurate - I do like the scene where Wink encourages Hushpuppie to break the crab shell with her hands instead of utensils - and her imagining the toughest that life has to offer in the form of a herd of aurochs is an imaginative touch. Plus, there's her trip to the restaurant and dance club, which succeeds for how it shows the humbling experience she has there and for its ambiguity. Regardless, I went into Beasts of the Southern Wild hoping that its dramatization of the horror that was Hurricane Katrina and how it affected its most vulnerable communities would honor and accurately represent that regrettable part of history. Unfortunately, it was much better at honoring and representing the worst things about early 2010's hipsterism.

Regarding how I view a film, I do favor dialogue, cinematography (heavily since I love looking at composition), the actors, and the directing, and finally the emotional/cerebral connection, along with entertainment. Depending on how much any given film affects me in any or all categories, things do vary as I try to allow to let the film dictate what feels essential to any particular viewing.

Though, in regards to rewatchability, emotional connection/entertainment is the number one reasons.

Well, I think it's one of those things you notice without noticing. I mean, acting is obviously a main part of a film so it's there, we're watching it, so we're noticing it one way or the other. But it's like any other work. The ones that do "well enough" go more or less unnoticed, while the ones that are pretty bad or great are the ones that stick out.

For an analogy, you can eat at many restaurants and diners and not really "noticing" the food unless you come by a dish that's particularly bad or astonishingly great. Then you go like "Whoa! this was good! I have to eat here more often". But that doesn't mean the other places you had eaten at are bad. They do the work well enough, or even pretty good, but that's the expected standard, which means that they tend to pass unnoticed.

What I read was that Kubrick was forced to cast a "top 10" actor in order to get funding for the movie and ended up with O'Neal.

Barry is too much of a wet paper towel to feel like a dynamic character, and yet the character himself is too active/sneaky for it to be a comedy about a bland nobody being carried along on the tides of fortune.

Question: Am I the only person who liked the character of Barry Lyndon? (well except for his behavior towards his wife which was bad), but other than that I seen the character as someone I could root for.

He spent years physically abusing his step-son and flagrantly cheating on his wife, seemingly not caring at all that his behavior was driving her into depression. He mooched off of her money. He never seemed to show any kindness or action outside of his own self-interest.

Or, to quote the person on the massage table for the first half of the film, "The whole movie is about him? This guy sucks."