The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame IV

This will help you guys with the whole Citizen doesn't like violence thing for the next PR...

I loved these semi 'violent' movies and rated them all or higher. Linked to my reviews.

Starship Troopers
V for Vendetta
Death Race 2000
Downfall
The Hurt Locker
12 Years a Slave
American Sniper
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
Tombstone
Blood Simple
Unforgiven
Schindler's List

OK not a lot of violent movies there that I love, and most of these aren't really violent. But that gives you all an idea of what I mean.

The Court Jester (1955)

Well this was something different, The Court Jester is I suppose a satire of the old Errol Flynn films based upon its time period. The advantage here is that the comedy is pretty good the disadvantage is that 50's humor like this is a bit to goofy for my pallet. My issue here is I'm not really sure if I liked it or if I loved it. You have to kind of think about it...in a lot of ways it feels like a Disney Cartoon come to life. The difficulty is well the film centers around an army of little people who do choreographed attacks and dances....it's just bizarre to me.

The movie does have a number of strong points, the lead clearly came up from vaudeville and thus we get exceptional word play scenes. The actual tongue twisters are so good and the film really soars when you are just dealing with the main characters. And this is where the film really excels, Angela Lansbery plays a horned up princess who's ready to kill her pet witch...yes this movie is weird. She's very good in this. Basil Rathbone is the devious villain of the story but like most villains who love their work you kinda root for him.

The films other star is it's massive set pieces. This feels and looks like an epic..now it does have it's faults. The swords move like they are made of cardboard and the castle feels like a set...but when the film expands with matte paintings and a massive cast it just looks good....except when it doesn't. Still I enjoyed this one quite a bit. good nom,

And Siddon gets on the board for the 1st time, but that's ok we don't worry about Siddon. I watched The Court Jester for the 50's countdown and it was more enjoyable than I expected.

I heard someone on a podcast describe The Court Jester as the kind of film that everybody would/should enjoy regardless of age.

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While I didn't love it when I watched it, I did find it overall pleasant.

I didn't like The Court Jester when I seen it long ago, but after reading Sidney's review I feel like watching it again as the film sounds like it has enough strange stuff to at least hold my interest.

Maybe I should go and cross it off my MoFo list if I can't remember it?

I've genuinely never heard of The Court Jester, although I must have scrolled past the name on the lists a few times.

I loved The Court Jester. It’s such a charming, enjoyable film. Lots of fun to be had. 🥳

Kaye is definitely at the height of his powers when he is doing vaudevillian bits like this. The punchline actually made me snort.

Gentleman’s Agreement

1947 Oscar winner about a journalist who pretends to be Jewish to investigate anti-Semitism. This is the sort of film that still wins Oscars these days – a solid, talky issue film.

It’s a little ponderous and takes a long time to get going – in the time it takes him to think of an angle for a story he is writing (at least 30 minutes, and we all know from the summary of the film what that angle will be), our leading man has managed to get engaged to his new editor’s niece. Either he’s very slow at thinking of angles for stories, or very quick at proposing. Probably both.

It’s all very well meaning and does have some serious and astute points to make about anti-Semitism and about how inaction from those who purport to be against it help it to flourish, in the character of Kathy. Interesting to see that anti-Semitism was such a huge thing in America in the 40s - I'd never heard of 'restricted' hotels before. I still think there’s something a bit off about the premise of this man pretending to be Jewish, although he obviously has good intentions. More uncomfortable still was when he harangues the actually Jewish secretary about anti-Semitism after his 8 weeks of experience.

Although it’s not the main point of the film, I liked the presentation of the domestic side of things, and the relationships between Phil and his ill mother, his young son (played by Dean Stockwell) and his old friend. I liked the character of Anne. I felt that the romance was too shoe-horned in and I didn’t like the ending. It doesn’t have much visual flair.

I’m glad I watched this, because I want to watch all the Best Picture winners, but I doubt it would place high on my ranking of best picture winners. All in all it was fine but not great.

I saw that one a couple of years ago and like it a lot. Here's my review on Letterboxd, but here's a bit of it...

I can tell you it was my initial pick for you, but had to switch cause someone had already recommended it to you.

I just read Thief's review that he linked, nicely said!
I've seen Gentleman's Agreement a couple of times and really liked it. Nope it wasn't my choice for Thursday.

My review of Gentleman's Agreement

Pick it up Sidney!

It is a bit divisive and even though it opened up with a gosh gee feel as family got together it didn't stay that way and while I easily see how people can be split by all that occurs in the film, I found that aspect enhanced it for me.

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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

YEAH it was!!
and love the idea of recording your thoughts about a film. That's gotta be handy as hell

you are such a complex mystery to me, sir. You truly are.
I would have guessed you liked that one

I would put that film in around 65-75% CR would enjoy seeing it. Though I would still give a bit of a margin depending on certain scenes. I don't see him loving it, but, it'll hit the mid-mark for him, definitely.

I don't see CR liking much from De Palma, who's one of my favorite directors.

That would be the wild card to send it spinning

I'd say though I've "hated" more films than I do now