The 29th Hall of Fame

Yeah, I guess I don't have an extra spare room, let alone one I could dedicate solely to storing physical media. Though I'm wondering, even with that, just how much space does that take up? Because 2000 discs is storable, but if you've been doing this for a few years... do you periodically clear some of them out? Because how large of a room is needed to store something like 10K discs?


Also just wondering since you mentioned the garage sales/prices, are you primarily picking up DVDs or have blu-rays also gotten that inexpensive in that quantity?

I believe that the cat scene was cgi'd as well as The shooting of the crows.

However IMDB trivia

According to the making of-featurette on the DVD, the scene with the crows eating apples was planned to be computer-generated, until a few Czechs showed up with four boxes of real trained crows, and everything worked out fine for a minimum cost.

got 'em.

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"A film has to be a dialogue, not a monologue — a dialogue to provoke in the viewer his own thoughts, his own feelings. And if a film is a dialogue, then it’s a good film; if it’s not a dialogue, it’s a bad film."

- Michael "Gloomy Old Fart" Haneke

I'd say you can stack approximately 150 DVDs from the floor upwards (if you don't have any with weak cases in the lower portions of that big stack) - so in the space where you can put 10 DVDs spread out - not very much room at all - you've got 1,500 all up. But if you've got them stacked that high with no shelf intervening, it can be a bit of a crush on the bottom. I find anything higher than human height - up to 100 - can be a bit much. You have to start at the corners, because a stack that high is very unstable. They need to support each other. So you build multiple stacks next to each other at the same time. Stacked that way though, the volume they take up - you could perhaps fit however many you could spread out on the floor x 100. For 10K, that would be 100. In an empty room, they become the walls up to a certain height - and then eventually one day you have to accept the fact that you double stack - which means you start losing sight of those that get "bricked in" - especially at the bottom of a pile that now has a second pile building in front of it. You want to make sure it's the titles that you don't think you'll ever need again for a long time - but everything always changes. A good recent example is a film called The Machinist, which I'm sure I have somewhere - and I'd like to know for sure - but checking behind stacks is now more trouble than it's worth knowing. So - and here's a nice little absurdity - I saw it going for $1 so I thought "Hell with it" and bought it again for probably the second time (although - in my defense - this was a really nice boxed version that looks more spiffy and could have more special features.)

There is one place I go to where it doesn't matter what it is. If it's one "thing" it's $1 - I've picked up boxed sets of blu-rays for $1. Some items have never been opened, and are still shrink-wrapped packaged. Another is much the same, except their price is $2. Another place their price jumps all over the place - but still, some things are worth paying $4 for - other items are inexplicably too pricey. Rubbish you could get in a 2 dollar store for $2 and they're charging $3. It helps though, to know the people that work at the places. Then you can haggle, or they let things go. I have haunts that are so regular I'm on a first name basis with the people that work there, and they often don't put incoming stock on the shelves until I've gone through it first - which said out loud, sounds kind of unfair - but they know it's my passion and they cater for me.

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Probably will start with The Promise

A Moment of Innocence (1996)

What a fun odd little movie...this is a docudrama about an experience in the directors youth. 20 years ago during the fall of the Shah the director stabbed a policeman. This film is the story of shooting a single scene and the works that go into a single scene.

What's most striking about the film is that parts of it are terrible. The dialogue is just very weird and all the actors are bad, It's basically a mix of The Traveling Players and One Cut of the Dead. But what makes the film good is what you see behind the filming. This is very much a docu-drama where you are getting this picture of Iran and it's shot beautifully. The story is not important at all and it makes no sense but it's all the little touches and the background and how it's shot that's remarkable. I also laughed a few times (of course they then explained the jokes...a common problem with this type of film).

It's a brief film and even though it's 75 minutes you do feel the run time at points because this is a gimmick film. But the film has a lot of characters ideas and tonal changes to stretch this 5 minutes of plot into a feature length film.

Sent!

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IMDb
Letterboxd

So MG really went with Adam’s Apples. Sure is a wild card nomination. I love it and find it extremely funny, but I’m also Danish.

I can definitely see some who will not find it funny at all.

My nomination might require a bit of defending. After I write my review of Goldfinger today or tomorrow, I'll try to review it early.

I'm American and love it and find it funny.

One of the first films of Mads that I watched when seeking out his filmography.

Also knew Ulrich from other American movies and he's great as well.

Tomboy



I decided to kick off the Hall of Fame with one of the movies that I never even heard of going into it. Quickly observed that this was a film that may not be up my alley, but I was actually thrown for a loop. The cinematography stood out for me as there was a lot of great camera work as well. The leads performance was quite quiet but I think that's what they were going for and I thought Zoe Heran did a pretty good job portraying quite a difficult character. The story wasn't amazing or anything but I'd say it was directed pretty well. Not a bad start.

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Might give this a go. Seems like a nice little story.

But also that you mention cinematography. I saw some clips and it looks good. What impresses me though is that it is filmed on a DSLR. Canon 7D and 5D as far as I know. That’s pretty impressive actually.

No need to defend your nom That sounds so serious I was just thinking your nom might have some personal connection or meaning to you, like The Travelling Players did.

I have seen this film before but long ago. It was nice to see it again but it's not one I would normally pick out to watch. I have friends who would suggest it and I would watch it with them.

Story of a small town in California, whose inhabitants were cloned into uncaring individuals by an alien race. The aliens have intentions to populate the rest of the world using pods to clone the humans.

I did enjoy it and nice to see it again. Nice to see Carolyn Jones as well in this and I did recognize a few others. Did I find it scary or disturbing? No. Did it get my adrenaline going? No, but I'm sure if I watched it back in the 50s, I would have felt differently.

I never rate my films until the end of the hall of fame and I never write too much so don't take it personally because my reviews are my thoughts and my feelings.

A Moment of Innocence will be next for me. I'll try to get to a few more before my vacation when I'll be in hiatus for a bit.

I'm watching your Goldfinger next.

By defend, I mainly just mean addressing some of the context surrounding the film and the offscreen events which lead up to it as I think they make the film more interesting. I'll save that for my review though. By 'defend', I don't mean "Disagree with everyone who posts mixed/negative reviews of the film".

Both this film and The Travelling Players are among my favorites, so that's part of my connection to it. I also think this is a really underseen film. It has some similarities to the more well-known Close-Up in the sense that they both combine narrative and documentary filmmaking, but while I like Kiarostami's film quite a bit, I think this one is much better and deserves more recognition.

Goldfinger (1964) -

This is the second Bond film I've seen (the first one being Skyfall). While the Bond franchise hasn't been given much focus on my watchlist so far, this film made me more eager to check out a few others (I'll probably watch them in order). That's not to say I loved this film per se, but that I enjoyed the sum of its parts well enough. The goofy spy action vibes might not appeal to everyone, but I think the film found the right balance to make them work. As a result, the various spy gadgets on Bond's car, the hidden areas and trap doors in Goldfinger's stud farm, Oddjob's extreme strength, and even the occasional cheesy effects impressed me quite a bit. The action in the first half hour, particularly the car chase, was a lot of fun due to all the spy gadgets utilized throughout it (the smokescreen, the slippery gel (not sure what it's actually called), the ejector seat, the mounted machine guns). Unfortunately though, this charm dissipated after the first act as the remainder of the film did away with these gadgets. The rest of the action, by comparison, was more standard and less exciting. The final shootout, for instance, which mainly involved some sub-par gun and fistfights left me rather cold. I did, however, enjoy some of the violence surrounding Bond quite a lot due to how unexpectedly cruel those scenes were (the iconic gold paint scene, in particular, is terrific). I also love how ineffective Bond was. He spent most of the film being captured and had several failed escape attempts. This was an unexpected change from how I thought he was going to be portrayed. Though yeah, that whole rape scene was rather problematic, especially when you realize it set Bond's plan to save the day in motion. Issues aside, I enjoyed this film and I hope the other Bond films I watch will tap more into its potential.

Next Up: A Moment of Innocence