25th Hall of Fame

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BlacKkKlansman (2018) -


More than happy to watch this film again as it's one of my favorites of the 2010's. One thing I like about it is how it provides middle ground to both races. This extends to the police as one of the cops is corrupt and even the black characters such as Ron's love interest Patrice, who believes all cops are racist. Speaking of her, the love interest sub-plot doesn't feel tacked on as her character adds a lot to Ron's arc such as her differentiating views on the police which challenge Ron's own beliefs and how she requests for him to fight to grant power for all people, not just his race. I also really enjoyed the acting. Even though John David Washington wasn't as experienced of an actor as Denzel Washington, he was able to capture the energy and subtlety of his father in this role. I also like how there's so many memorable scenes in this film. For example, the various suspenseful moments or Lee humorously mocking the KKK in various scenes (like a scene of them having an over-the-top positive reaction to The Birth of a Nation) are great. In fact, even a simple scene of Felix and Connie lying in bed where they talk about how their marriage has been enriched throughout the years has darker implications since they list the KKK as one of the main reasons for this. While some people call Lee's films convoluted due to all the ideas he crams in them, they shouldn't find that issue here as the thematic montages are cleverly woven into the film, giving a bookend structure to it. The opening minutes detail the U.S.'s long history with racism, and the conclusion to this timeline serves as a chilling reminder that despite what Ron accomplished in this film, we've yet to see an end to racism and the fight still goes on. It's a bold and striking message which any director who'd turn this story into Oscar bait wouldn't dare to go near. Overall, it's an excellent film and I'm glad I got to rewatch it for this thread.

Next up: Chimes at Midnight
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Les Miserables (1935)


Like I said when I saw this nominated, this is a story told I think 6 or 7 times in film. So for me the viewer the question is do I judge the film that's presented and simply ignore the cuts and changes they've made? How about do I judge the film by it's limitations how all of the characters have different accents and the timeline really doesn't add up. Do we judge Laughton not aging and March aging at a hysterical pace...I mean how old is Jean Valjean supposed to even be at the end of the film.


I haven't seen any of Richard Boleslawski's work before so I don't know if this is on him or the studio. Visually the film is fine though noticeably a step below it's contemporaries. The male performances are solid..Laughton is definitely a great Javert, he's the highlight of the film. Fatine on the other hand is done dirty, 90% of her story is cut and she's often considered the big lead of the story. Cosette is fine though the child and adult seem to have completely different accents so that's another reason I didn't care for it. Though fun fact little Cosette has outlived them all and is still alive at 95.


But when it's all said the done the film was just okay and fine to me. I didn't hate it I just hated that I knew all the shortcuts, edits, and different ways the story was told.



Even though John David Washington wasn't as experienced of an actor as Denzel Washington, he was able to capture the energy and subtlety of his father in this role.
I had no idea he was Denzel's son, and I remember when I watched it with my wife she said he reminded her of him. It still didn't occur to me, I just teased her saying ok now I know how you are having to compare the black actor to Denzel. It's been a couple of years but I remember thinking the dude was one of the highlights of the movie.





Vertigo (1958)



Sight and Sound decided that this was the greatest film of all time over Citizen Kane. The bar gets raised fairly high for films, and you wonder why this is considered Hitchcock's best. I certainly would call it his magnum opus a sprawling epic of a story that blends noir, mystery, romance, and drama. Visually it's likely Hitch's most distinct film, he takes wide shots of San Francisco and it just looks gorgeous. A film like this should really be experienced on a wide screen.


This might also be Jimmy Stewarts finest work as an actor. Stewart plays a confirmed bachelor who was once a lawyer, then a detective, then a PI all while remaining wealthy. His mental instability is hinted at earlier and builds throughout the course of the story. Though naturally you have to wonder about the mental treatment of the character, if he's seeing things or depressed or something else. But Vertigo is also a detective story that doesn't really involve much detection. In a lot of ways Vertigo is a strange story.


Kim Novak is spectacular in this playing duel roles, she manages to really go through the full gambit of emotions. Hitchcock's taste in music and lighting is also very good. My only real complaint is that the mystery is pretty dry and obvious and the ending kinda comes out of nowhere, I don't think it really worked for the character.


But still it's a great film and a worthy entrant in this hall, just not a top five Hitchcock film for me.



I don't get the love for Vertigo. Other than the on-location San Francisco shooting which looks great, the movie itself has some major flaws. Hitch has better films.



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He's almost done with the Asian HoF. The deadline for that one is coming up soon so he's probably working on finishing that HoF before starting this one.
Exactly. I've got one more film to see and 2 more reviews, so nearly done and ready to shift over.





Les Misérables (1935)
Directed By: Richard Boleslawski
Starring: Fredric March, Charles Laughton, Rochelle Hudson

Given that Victor Hugo's Les Misérables is one of the longest novels ever written, Boleslawski's film clocking in at a mere 109 minutes was a very pleasant surprise. I appreciated the concise runtime, even if certain events and explanations sometimes felt a little rushed. I've never read the original book, nor seen any of the other adaptations, so this was my first exposure to the story outside of a vague familiarity its presence in pop culture has given me over the years.

Fredric March and Charles Laughton are fantastic as Valjean and Javert, though Laughton was criminally underused. I would've liked to have seen more of his perspective, and why he felt a compulsive need to pursue the law to the very letter. The other performances in the film were all serviceable, with the exception of Cedric Hardwicke as the bishop. He sounded quite disinterested, and almost as though he were half-heartedly reading his lines from off screen.

Les Misérables was an easy watch, and I was quite engaged with the story through to the end. I was quite impressed with the film, thinking it was made a decade or so later than it actually was. I was honestly surprised to be reminded that it's over 85 years old. I obviously can't speak to whether or not it is a good adaptation, or compare it to other versions of the story, musical or otherwise, but I will say that it serves as a good introduction to Hugo's classic tale.


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Whiplash (Damien Chazelle 2014)
*spoilers*

I tried watching Whiplash when it first came out, I shut it off after 30 minutes. Previously I wrote this:

Whiplash lost me when the music teacher picked up and hurled a heavy metal chair at the student. I know the director wanted to show the teacher's intensity, but that scene broke the illusion of believability. No way could I believe that in today's political correct & sue-happy society would a teacher with such near-psychotic behavior be allowed to continue to work... and I sure didn't want to spend two hours listening to someone yelling & bulling. That's the problem with many new Hollywood films, they have to be bigger, louder, ballsier than the last picture.

So...I just watched the entire movie and yeah it was entertaining but akin to eating a big bag of pepperoni sticks for dinner. Yes it gives a big punch...and yes it also hits the right emotional spots. But like eating a bunch of junk food, it sure in the hell wasn't good...

Miles Teller...what a bad actor, at least in this one movie. His one note method of acting never varied. It didn't matter if he was knuckling under to his instructor or 'fake acting' being shy as he asked the movie theater girl out for a date. Nothing about his acting rose above the level of mediocre.

J.K. Simmons ...he actually kicked ass as an actor and was the best casting choice in the film. But the crappy dialogue that he's forced to say by director/writer Damien Chazelle is just pure bunk, bombastic. You know J.K. Simmons could've been more intimidating just by brow beating someone with a steely glance and a snide remark. He sure didn't need the homophobia hate language, that was a cheap writer's trick to get the audience to hate the instructor's guts. That hate was not earned by the movie, it was shoveled in our face by a lame script. And yes the chair throwing incident was ridiculous. Instead: the metal folding chair should've been thrown at the ground with force.

Melissa Benoist 'The girl'...yup that's her role in the film, to be a girl. We get one contrived meeting scene between her and the music student, that has him shyly asking her for a date. I've seen the same scene done better in corny 1980s teen films. Then there's a brief pizza eating scene, then he breaks up with her. Why bother to do a movie relationship if the script can't earn what it wants to achieve. What the film wants to do is get us to the one crucial spot where he dumps his girlfriend so he can then study music full time...thus pounding into the audience's heads that he really, really wants to be a jazz drummer. That break-up scene wasn't earned. There needed to be a couple more brief scenes establishing that 'the girl' was falling for jazz boy and that jazz boy was increasingly become obsessed with his career.

The abusive teacher....OK now that I've seen the entire film, I do know they address that the teacher was abusive and he's let go from teaching. BUT that one brief scene with the lawyer (or whoever she was) trying to convince the drummer student to tell the authorities about the teacher's abuse, rang hollow...Once again the director/writer treats the scene like an afterthought. The demise of the abusive music teacher and the repercussions from that, should've been the entire third act.

Whiplash
tricks the viewer into thinking they've seen something amazing when all we really did was go on a fast & loud ride.
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Themroc (1973)
Directed By: Claude Faraldo
Starring: Michel Piccoli, Béatrice Romand, Francesca Romana Coluzzi


Though the film existed for decades before hand, to me Themroc comes across as an extreme version of the “return to monke” meme. A man is tired of the same every day routine, and reverts back to just engaging with his primal desires, much to the dismay of society at large. But freeing himself from the shackles of modernity sparks a similar need in some of the people around him, creating a sort of contagious caveman plague.

Discernible speech is not needed to tell the story, because what good is the spoken word in a city where people never truly communicate or connect with each other anyway? I did find the start of the film somewhat insufferable, and it was a scene where the main character screams in a bathroom stall for far too long that caused me to temporarily quit. However upon my return a week later, the rest of
Themroc was much easier to sit through.

I was even amused by the female neighbour's weak husband attempting to participate in their apartment's demolition, though the rest of the film's supposed comedy didn't really work for me. The incestuous relationship was incredibly uncomfortable, but that's probably the film's biggest hurdle. Themroc is not a particularly clever film, but it's still an interesting concept. I didn't enjoy it, but it's certainly not something I'll soon forget.


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Les Misérables -


My only familiarity with Les Misérables - besides an aborted attempt at reading the book - is from the 2012 Tom Hooper adaptation. I was too distracted by how weird it is, and not in a good way, to comprehend the story or what all the fuss is about. Now that I've seen this adaptation, those questions have thankfully been answered. Sure, it's a more bare-bones, traditional adaptation, but it's a strong one, and best of all, it's understandable. Having seen this version and the 2012 one, it seems like the strength of an adaptation is almost solely reliant upon how good the drama is between Valjean and Javert. Casting Frederic March and Charles Laughton, two of the greatest actors of their generation in these roles, is like adding chocolate to milk or putting Mariano Rivera in to close out the game, i.e. a faultless decision that pays off. Other things in the movie I appreciate are the use of the silver candlesticks to symbolize Valjean's identity and his commitment to charity and how exciting the action scenes are, especially the horse buggy chase. Also, its commentary about the consequences of having an unequal justice system - an issue that sadly persists to this day and that guarantees this story will be told for years to come - hits hard. Like I said, it's a bare-bones adaptation, perhaps too much so at times. I would have liked to see more character development of the adult Cosette and Marius and watch their relationship develop, which is one of the few things the 2012 version did better. Despite this, I now understand why Les Misérables is such a beloved cultural institution, and instead of wanting to avoid seeing the musical like the plague, I'm now eager to see it if it ever comes back to my town.



Vertigo (1958)
...
But still it's a great film and a worthy entrant in this hall, just not a top five Hitchcock film for me.
Just curious, if Vertigo is not in your top 5 Hitchcock's, I'm wondering which of his films are in your top 5?



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Just curious, if Vertigo is not in your top 5 Hitchcock's, I'm wondering which of his films are in your top 5?
Not Siddon, but my 5:

1. Rear Window
2. Psycho
3. North by Northwest
4. Dial M for Murder
5. Shadow of a Doubt



The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)

Oh boy, another mystery film without the fainest hint of intrigue . There's really just nothing to latch onto here. Nothing interesting ever happens in the plot, the dialogue is super annoying throughout, Gould has about as much charisma as a glass of milk (really wish this was a french film so Jean-Paul Belmondo could have played the lead) and all it has going in its favour is that it looks like an Altman film, though minus any true showstopping shots that his other films tend to have at least a couple of. Its still a big step up from the last couple things I've had to watch for this HoF, in that it wasn't terribly painful to sit through or anything, its mostly just kind of.... nothing. They say you need to watch any Altman film twice to really appreciate it and I can't really argue that since 3 Women jumped up to favourite status off the second watch. Too bad I'm never gonna watch this again though.





About Elly (2009)


A family getaway leads to a tragic incident in About Elly. This is Asghar Farhadi's first film and it certainly feels like a first. It's hard to talk about this film without going into the twist but I'll try because the twist really doesn't matter.


For me I didn't care for it, I never got to know any of the characters enough to distinguish them and it felt like 80% of the film was people in circles yelling at each other. It's hard when the climax of the film happens in the first 30 minutes and then it's just yelling and crying. I also saw the ending coming a mile away because of my familiarity with Iranian cinema.



Of all the Irainian films I've seen you have this common thread of the tease of something great and interesting and yet it just always ends up a disappointing melodrama. For what the film was it was okay but it's vastly inferior to the directors later works.




American Movie (Chris Smith 1999)

Totally enjoyable documentary!...and that's thanks to the extremely interesting subjects...especially the tall guy on the left, Mark Borchardt who's the would-be film maker and focus of the story. If this was a Documentary HoF then American Movie might very well be my #1 choice...It's so good that I feel like watching it again!

Now objectively I don't know how to stack up a fun doc against classic cinema? I can't even say this is superb film making, because what drives the story is the completely off-the-wall people who's lives we look at.

So when I finished watching it I was thinking it was perfect but one thing: We never learn what happens to Mark Borchardt the would-be film maker? Did he complete his film Northwestern? Did he ever make any movies that were seen outside of his small community? What's he doing today? The doc didn't tell us any of that, I wish it would've have as an epilogue. I guess I'll have to go read on my own.
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