The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame IV

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You just like that Laura poster on the wall.

I’m glad you liked it so much, I didn’t expect you too. I have no idea how to recommend new movies to you, you almost always surprise me. On the other hand I feel like I know exactly what you will like with old films.

I know I’m giving away this wasn’t my rec, but had to comment.
I loved all those old movie posters on the office walls I even stopped & replayed some scenes just to get a second look at the background. I love detailed backgrounds & sets. Altman films are rich in set details.

Oh and I liked how they talked about classic movies like Orson Welles' opening uncut tracking shot in Touch of Evil...and that's how The Player opens with a long uncut tracking shot. Altman sure has a good eye for camera usage.

I kind of thought this might be your choice as your a fan of Altman.



The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians (1966)

Yeah I need a link for this... It doesn't look like this even exists in English.
Someone watched it in a previous HoF. I'll look tonight.



The Player scored well in a couple of previous personal rec HoFs. Great movie.
I didn't realize that it had been selected before, I'll have to go and read those reviews.

Someone watched it in a previous HoF. I'll look tonight.
MarkF posted a youtube video of The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians (1966), and it had subs. I don't know about the video quality I didn't watch it.





Million Dollar Baby, 2004

Boxing trainer Frankie (Clint Eastwood) has become overly cautious and conservative as a coach, unwilling to endanger his fighters. This loses him his prize fighter (Mike Colter). Then into Frankie's gym walks Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), a woman in her early 30s and from a rough background, determined to get Frankie to train her. Although he is hesitant, at the urging of his friend Eddie (Morgan Freeman) Frankie takes Maggie on as a fighter and she rises quickly through the ranks.

I was at the gym today, and I was doing a bench press series and I thought about the part in this movie where Maggie says that boxing is the only thing she feels happy doing and she refuses to give it up.

I think that in its best moments, this film captures what it is like to push yourself in a way that is both physical and mental, and the particular joy of doing so with someone to support you and drive you. Maggie is, according to Frankie and conventional wisdom, already over the hill in terms of becoming a great boxer, but she has found something that brings her happiness and she pursues it relentlessly. Watching Frankie get caught up in the magic and the hope of that is really fun.

I also enjoyed Morgan Freeman's Eddie, a character who understands the benefits of boxing beyond the wins and the losses. While I could take or leave the subplot about a mentally handicapped man (Jay Baruchel) who trains at the gym but is afraid to throw a punch at an opponent, I did enjoy the chance to see that side of Eddie's character.

I thought that Swank was very strong in the lead role, conveying Maggie's toughness and vulnerability and the way that they ebb and flow as she interacts with others. Her family has given her plenty of examples of bad behavior, and she is as much running away from that future as she is running toward anything.

Where I struggled a bit with the film was in all the places it leaned toward more Hollywood, popular fare. I don't love a voice over, but as it's Morgan Freeman I'll allow it. Where the film really fell flat for me, though, was in the portrayal of Maggie's family.

Quick, name every "white trash" stereotype you can think of! Cheating on welfare? Check! Babies out of wedlock? Check! Doing jail time? Check! Bad tattoos? Check! Obese? Check! Living in a trailer? Check! Greedy? Check! And I know that people like this do exist (I, um, I teach some of their children), but when taken as a group they feel like a caricature, especially in contrast with Swank's much more measured Maggie.

And if the presence of these characters wasn't bad enough, the film decides to use them as the catalyst for a minor climax and "stand up and cheer" moment when
WARNING: spoilers below
Maggie stands up to them and refuses to sign her assets over to them
. The major problem with this (aside from disrupting the rather interesting drama and character stuff that comes before and after it, is that later in the film (MAJOR SPOILERS)
WARNING: spoilers below
Maggie does not (that I remember) designate her assets to anyone, so when she dies, her next of kin is her horrible family and they end up with all her money and her house anyway!


I also wasn't sure about how I felt about Frankie's character arc. He is estranged from his daughter--and asks her forgiveness in letters she returns without reading--but the film never tells us why. The whole thing of Maggie becoming kind of like a surrogate daughter to him (and she is missing her father as well) is fine, but in the last act of the film I wasn't sure things landed quite right. The logic about Frankie's decisions and how and why he chooses to make them just weren't convincing to me. Maggie is the point of view character, but the character arc belongs to Frankie and I found it a bit underwhelming in the end. In the last act Eastwood's performance also begins to oscillate more between more naturalistic acting and this exaggerated "growly old man" and I found it kind of jarring.

Not a film I would have probably ever gotten around to (especially as I'd already had a significant element of the plot spoiled for me), but it's always interesting to watch something you'd never normally pick for yourself.




Swank, Freeman, and Eastwood. It would be hard for a movie to be bad.
No, but I think it would have been so much better if they had streamlined it and dropped some significant chunks of the subplots. I think the film could have easily lost about 30 minutes of content and been much stronger for it.





Mystery Train, 1989

In three different stories that take place over the same 24 hours in Memphis, a young couple from Japan (Yuki Kudo and Masatoshi Nagase) tour the city out of a love for Elvis; an Italian woman (Nicoletta Braschi) is stranded in the city while escorting her dead husband's body back to Italy; and a trio of men (Steve Buscemi, Rick Aviles, and Joe Strummer) end up on the run after an unfortunate encounter at a liquor store. All of these characters end up and one point or the other at a run-down hotel, presided over by a night clerk (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) and a bellboy (Cinque Lee).

This was very much Jarmusch, and one that I've been meaning to watch for a while. Much like Night on Earth, the stories have thematic overlaps, though in this case they are also united by taking place in the same city on the same night.

As with any anthology, there are strong points and weaker points. I liked the middle story the best, the one that featured Braschi as the Italian woman stuck spending the night in Memphis. The story manages to be both funny and tense, as she is gently cajoled into buying a ridiculous number of magazines that she carts around for the rest of the episode; but then later there is some genuine menace as she is first scammed and then stalked by two men (one of them Tom Noonan!) who spot her in a diner.

The third story, to me, didn't land quite as well. There are plenty of little moments that do work, thanks to Buscemi and Aviles and their appalled reactions to their friend's behavior. In a basic but very funny moment, Buscemi's character turns on an overhead lamp by pulling a string . . . .followed by a rain of plaster and then the lamp itself crashing to the ground. But there is something a bit unfocused about the segment, as neither the narrative nor the characters make for a great arc.

I really enjoyed Hawkins and Lee as the night clerk and bellboy respectively. The two have good chemistry with each other and with the various customers who cross their paths. Their good natured banter and seen-it-all wariness are charming and they really ground and unite the various segments.

Overall I liked this one quite a bit. I just wish that the last segment had a little more pop.




Just finished watching another of my nominations. And I think this film may actually be a masterpiece and one of the greatest films of all time! Any guesses as to which film it is before I post my review?



Just finished watching another of my nominations. And I think this film may actually be a masterpiece and one of the greatest films of all time! Any guesses as to which film it is before I post my review?
Harakirir



I just finished watching Fail Safe (1964) and the first word that comes to mind is WOW! Masterfully directed by Sidney Lumet, the film has a great cast including Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Fritz Weaver, Frank Overton, and Dan O'Herlihy. A technical malfunction mistakenly sends American planes on a mission to bomb Moscow. The President has limited time to try and either stop the bombing or prevent a possible nuclear war. The film is really dramatic and intense, with edge of your seat suspense and high stakes. The viewer doesn't know how things will go down until they do. The screenplay is pretty much flawless and the performances are all excellent. This is a really intelligent film with something worthwhile to say about the systems of politics and war and ultimately taking responsibility for our own actions. Fail safe is thrilling and chilling and very compelling. I was invested in the characters and the events that were happening. I don't throw around the m word very often, but I'm going to call this a masterpiece and add it to my list of favourite films. This is an essential film. A big bravo and thank you to whoever recommended it for me.



I just finished watching Fail Safe (1964) and the first word that comes to mind is WOW! Masterfully directed by Sidney Lumet, the film has a great cast including Henry Fonda, Walter Matthau, Larry Hagman, Fritz Weaver, Frank Overton, and Dan O'Herlihy. A technical malfunction mistakenly sends American planes on a mission to bomb Moscow. The President has limited time to try and either stop the bombing or prevent a possible nuclear war. The film is really dramatic and intense, with edge of your seat suspense and high stakes. The viewer doesn't know how things will go down until they do. The screenplay is pretty much flawless and the performances are all excellent. This is a really intelligent film with something worthwhile to say about the systems of politics and war and ultimately taking responsibility for our own actions. Fail safe is thrilling and chilling and very compelling. I was invested in the characters and the events that were happening. I don't throw around the m word very often, but I'm going to call this a masterpiece and add it to my list of favourite films. This is an essential film. A big bravo and thank you to whoever recommended it for me.
Also worth watching is the live television remake





Roman Holiday, 1953

Young princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is on a European tour. With every moment scheduled and every word she speaks in public scripted, Ann is beginning to crack under the strain. One night, she impulsively runs away and ends up in the apartment of news reporter Joe (Gregory Peck). When Joe realizes he has a princess sleeping on his couch, he recruits his photographer friend Irving (Eddie Albert) to secretly document as he takes Ann on an adventure around Rome.

I love it when you think you know something about a classic and then it totally surprises you. This was a really great pick, and it honestly hadn't been a priority for me to see on my own.

I think that what makes this film so great is the way that it intelligently leans into the elements that could be off-putting and going in unexpected directions.

To begin with, it was really refreshing to see a romantic comedy where the female lead is at the forefront of a lot of the physical comedy (I know there are others, but the ones I've seen recently have used the female lead as more of the character who reacts). Whether it's Hepburn trying to retrieve an errant high heeled shoe, or the princess elegantly failing to climb a spiral staircase, there's an ease and innocent charm about the comedy. Peck makes for a great straight man--especially in the sequences in the apartment where he must navigate the barely-conscious Ann from the bed to the couch and eventually back to the bed.

I also appreciated the way that the film manages to navigate the general ickiness of the situation. Joe is appropriately gentlemanly in their initial encounter (not undressing an intoxicated person--correct choice, Joe!), but in the second half of the film he lies to Ann, has her secretly photographed, and encourages certain behaviors knowing that he plans to exploit them for money. There's also a significant age and maturity gap between the two, and Ann's child-like mannerisms are so naive that she doesn't feel at all like an adult. But, wonderfully, the film makes this dynamic part of the point. Ann is the way she is because she has been relentlessly coddled and sheltered. Her naivete isn't innate to her character, it is a result of the way she has been treated her entire life.

And that's kind of the brilliance of the film. The romance itself isn't the point--the romance is the means to the end of a kind of self-realization for the character of Ann. Her character growth is prioritized over the "will they, won't they" aspect of the film. It also, interestingly, makes Joe's betrayal of her trust all the more potent. The stakes aren't just about whether or not he's a good guy and they'll end up together--the stakes are about whether this young woman figuring out who she is will be punished or not.

There's also a contemporary relevance to the plot itself. Late in the film, when Joe is having doubts about the plan, Irving tells him "Princesses are always fair game." Over the last year or so, there's been a lot of reflection about the way that certain celebrities (specifically people like Brittney Spears and Lindsey Lohan) were treated both as teenagers and as young women. This attitude of "fair game" means that even innocent moments like a dance or a drink are not safe and could become weaponized against them at any moment.

But where the film impressed me the most, honestly, was in its perfect ending. And I do mean perfect. Everything both spoken and unspoken, perfectly played by Hepburn and Peck. It may be one of the best endings to a film, period.

My only complaint (and this applies to many screwball-type comedy things) was that I'm a total fuddy-duddy about stuff that's dangerous or disrespectful to innocent bystanders. So some of the behaviors that were meant to be funny didn't quite land for me. Someone driving an out-of-control vehicle through a crowd and destroying property just isn't something I find entertaining, and it kind of makes me annoyed with the characters. I've always felt this way, and I know it's kind of a silly reaction, but there it is. Anyway, thankfully most of the comedy isn't of that variety, so this was only a minor complaint.

Great pick!