26th Hall of Fame

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The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming 1939)

Only my second time watching this. I never seen this as a kid and it has been some years since I last watched it. In fact I didn't remember all that much of it.

My favorite scenes were the opening sepia toned section on Dorothy's Kansas farm. I love the rich, nostalgic look of sepia film stock...and I was impressed by that tornado! Just look at the screen shot, if that was a painting it would be worthy of hanging in an art museum.

Just think, way back in 1939 without computer CG the people at MGM who worked on The Wizard of Oz, made a tornado for the movie, that looked absolutely real and absolutely threatening. I've always been intrigued by the way tornadoes move. They connect this twisting mass of funnel vortex from the darken storm clouds above...to the earth below. Dirt spins up to the heavens as if the ground was being pulled into the sky. Tornado's seem to have a life of their own and the one in the movie sure looked alive.

The entire movie is amazing! I just wanted to talk about tornadoes.





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Let the night air cool you off


The Passion of Joan of Arc may be the best film of all-time, but it's a tough watch for me. It's 80 minutes of torture with extreme close-ups that make you think the victim is being tormented and the torturers are tormenting. Nobody seems like they were acting, the casting for the judges is perfect. Obviously Falconetti was too, but the judges just seem evil. I don't really want to get too into some of the nuances that work for me with this film, with things like God seemingly not answering prayers and allowing his most devout to suffer the most. There is also a personal connection I have with the film that I understand might not be universal, which is just me being reminded of my mother's suffering as she died of cancer with a her shaved head similar to Joan. She prayed and her faith never waivered either, waiting for God to save her from her impending peril. Of course, that's not the only way to look at this film. There is also the heroic and symbolic stance Joan took, keeping her convictions. All of that stuff aside, the film looks amazing. The dizzying angles and circling adds to dread, the extreme closeups going back and forth from Joan and her persecutors were the original torture porn. Somehow the burning to death part was easier to stomach than the parts where they try to coerce a confession out of her.

There are plenty of people far better equipped to discuss this film than I. I may have nominated it and I may love it, but watching it is not easy.



Last Year At Marienbad (1961) -


This is a difficult film to talk about since it appears to resist any attempts to interpret it. We get a handful of set pieces and the significance of some characters are hinted at, but other than that, you're pretty much on your own. What stood out the most to me were the second man and the card game. It's implied that the second man might be the woman's husband, but the occasional touches of surrealism sprinkled throughout the film hint that there's something greater at play. Possibly. The Nim game the second man plays with several people in the palace is a possible hint that he holds power over them and might be preventing them from leaving. That he wins the game every time he plays it adds more to this interpretation. In spite of this, however, the film doesn't provide enough evidence for you to draw any definitive conclusions for these details and instead chooses to leave its meaning ambiguous. And while I'm not opposed to ambiguity by any means, I felt the ambiguity prevented me from connecting to the film as much as I was hoping. The second man and the Nim game were promising concepts, but due to the ambiguity, I couldn't decide what I was supposed to feel towards those aspects as I watched the film. Technically speaking though, the film is excellent. One could criticize the narration for being hard to follow, but I think the film found the right balance between being comprehensible and disorienting and I think this approach matched the surrealism of the film pretty well. Also, the cinematography ranks amongst the best I've ever seen in a film. Resnais finds the right camera angles and lighting to capture the artistic beauty of the palaces this film was shot in really well. While this is my least favorite of the three films I've seen from Resnais, I still enjoyed it enough to recommend it and I might rewatch it again sometime down the road.

Next Up: Not Quite Hollywood



Let the night air cool you off
Yeah, it's pretty wild to be worried about me dipping a day after I posted about one of the nominations. Anyway, yeah, I plan on finishing.



Yeah, it's pretty wild to be worried about me dipping a day after I posted about one of the nominations. Anyway, yeah, I plan on finishing.
Heh, forgot about that. Regardless, glad that everyone appears to still be in.




The Celebration
(Vinterberg, 1998)

I'm SURE I'm going to be the odd member out here with my opinion of The Celebration...So go ahead and give me crap if you want or ban me from the 26th...but I disdained this movie!...It literally wore me out and made me tired just watching it. I swear in the first 20 minutes I was already exhausted like I had just watched a 12 hour movie marathon. To make matters worse there were so many loud and uber dramatic characters at the start, that it was hard for me to sort out who was what...and why were all these people there in that one big estate.

I blame that damn shaky cam. I hate that thing unless it's used with extreme prudence. And I was drove near crazy by the camera-in-the-face of the actors. So many of the shots were extreme close-ups that it gave me a headache...Then when the film actually showed a wide angle shot, it often was crappy looking shot-from-the-ceiling or view-from-the-floor. I have to say this was the ugliest camera work I've seen in a movie. It was anti-Lawrence of Arabia.

I also wasn't buying the overly dramatic acting that resembled reality TV. I swear the Kardashians did the same over acting for the camera. The worst must have been the chief and house staff in the basement kitchen running around dramatically stealing everyone's car keys so they couldn't leave, didn't I see the same thing on one of those Survivor Island shows?

I did have to laugh at some of these people's antics. I found the blonde brother's toast to his father, funny. It seemed like black humor, but was it suppose to be?

You know what film The Celebration reminded me? And it's another popular film:
https://www.movieforums.com/communit...04#post2013304


Sorry, SpelingError!




or ban me from the 26th
I fully support this notion!

All kidding aside, it's definitely an acquired taste, so I understand your reaction to it. I expected it to be hit or miss when I nominated it. I was just curious as to how well it would do.



I fully support this notion!

All kidding aside, it's definitely an acquired taste, so I understand your reaction to it. I expected it to be hit or miss when I nominated it. I was just curious as to how well it would do.
I'm glad you have a positive attitude I hate ragging on a nom, but then again it's better to be brutally honest, at least I think so.

The Celebration was in the 7th HoF and did well, most everyone really seemed to like it and I'm sure most of the members will like it here too.



I'm glad you have a positive attitude I hate ragging on a nom, but then again it's better to be brutally honest, at least I think so.

The Celebration was in the 7th HoF and did well, most everyone really seemed to like it and I'm sure most of the members will like it here too.
No worries, man. It's all good

I'm now curious what everyone else will think of the film since it did good in a prior HoF. We shall see.



I forgot the opening line.
It literally wore me out and made me tired just watching it. I swear in the first 20 minutes I was already exhausted like I had just watched a 12 hour movie marathon.
I really like The Celebration, but I have a similar reaction to you when it comes to how wrung out and tired I feel after watching it. Like I've participated in the movie myself.
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Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.
We miss you Takoma

Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



I really like The Celebration, but I have a similar reaction to you when it comes to how wrung out and tired I feel after watching it. Like I've participated in the movie myself.
Yeah, what I love about the film is that the craziness of the technical aspects matches the escalating craziness at the birthday party. The unorthodox camera angles and shooting positions resonated with me really well as a result. It's not for everyone, but I love the effect it gives off.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Tower



First heard of this devastating event I believe in high school history class. And even though the event is 55 years old and obviously didn't happen in my lifetime, I can't help but to feel the devastation for all of those involved. I think the doc is typically criticized for how it was filmed but I think it was done in a pretty fascinating perspective. Had it all been done in animation I can see how some wouldn't connect to it but I had no issue with it going back and forth, plus it had interesting voices speaking about the event too. Seeing Claire talk in person and especially saying she forgave the shooter is so impactful. Events like these suck but they are a lesson for how fragile human life can be and often a sign to not take anything for granted. Plus I love the score used, which is also used in one of my favorite movies, Man on Fire. Very well done doc.




I just finished Not Quite Hollywood, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I'll have my review up in a couple of days or so, but I looked up all the Australian movies mentioned in the documentary and assembled them into a list, so feel free to use it if the documentary inspired you to check out some of the films mentioned in it.

https://www.listchallenges.com/the-australian-new-wave



The trick is not minding
Mad Dog Morgan has a interesting performance from Dennis Hopper.

Patrick may be worthwhile for horror buffs. I wasn’t a fan, however.

Ditto for Razorback, essentially a Jaws rip off set in the outback.

Turkey Shoot is just bonkers, not very good, but really full of wtf moments.

Wake In Fright is decent, and probably deserves a rewatch. Probably the best of the bunch that I have seen sans the Mad Max films