The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame II

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Just a thought if we can wrap this up soon. How do people feel about Personal Recommendation HoF III: the Foreign Language edition?

Assuming that will be the next countdown
that would be kinda cool actually
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Originally Posted by cricket
Just a thought if we can wrap this up soon. How do people feel about Personal Recommendation HoF III: the Foreign Language edition?

Assuming that will be the next countdown
Just a thought, you can allow people to opt in for all foreign choices for them, or opt for doing it as usually. I prefer to do it as usually for myself, but if others wanted all foreign picked for them that would be fine.



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I like CR's suggestion, but if we wanted to go for an all-foreign-language edition I would be cool with that too. I only had one foreign-language film picked for me this time around.

Edit: Also happy to start it any time soon...



Just a thought, you can allow people to opt in for all foreign choices for them, or opt for doing it as usually. I prefer to do it as usually for myself, but if others wanted all foreign picked for them that would be fine.
I would want to do it all foreign or regular, but interesting idea.



I would want to do it all foreign or regular, but interesting idea.
OK, it would be up to you of course.

I prefer regular and if we do regular then I'm also good with people giving me some foreign films as usual.



Here's an idea no one will like...Let's start this on March 1st, that's one week. Anyone who hasn't finished this one yet can still join and suggest movies but their movie choices won't become active until after they finish this one. That way we can start soon, and it's also motivation for others to finish this one.



Ok we can start it even if not everyone is quite done yet here. Give it a week or 2. I'll be looking out for when someone agrees to host the countdown and they start the introductory thread.



While I could recommend foreign films I don't think I've got enough open options to take recommendations
You have plenty, I checked your lists before I even suggested it.



city of god

pretty conflicted about this one. on the one hand, it's undeniably effective at fully immersing us in the world of these brutal slums, conveying the cyclical nature of violence as good as any movie ever has. on the other hand, it's kind of a huge mess on multiple levels. i have some admiration for any film that commits to this kind of stylistic maximalism, but it often feels utterly tactless. there are certain moments that work, where the disorienting nature of the filmmaking is clearly serving a broader purpose (the flashing lights in [redacted]'s death scene are particularly potent), but most of the time it's just exhausting and frustrating, a mashup of 90s crime movie tricks deployed without rhyme or reason. the obsessive cutting fractures our view of the characters in a movie that already suffers from a deficit of actual characters as opposed to one-dimensional representations of various relationships to power. its depiction of the titular city of god is perhaps a bit unnuanced as well, focusing almost exclusively on the violence perpetrated within, reducing many of its peripheral characters to nothing more than savage animals, barely acknowledging that entire lives are lived within the favela. while those lives cannot help but be influenced by the surrounding violence, they are not entirely defined by it, yet the movie is only interested in those that are. obviously that's a conscious choice by the filmmakers/author of the original book in order to shock us with pure relentlessness, hopefully awakening us to the horrible reality of the favela's living conditions, but it certainly doesn't help the film's character problem. but again, i think it is very effective at much of what it's trying to accomplish, which explains the film's enormous acclaim upon release, but i don't know if it all comes together as a solid piece of filmmaking, which explains why it seems to have fallen by the cultural wayside in the last decade or so.

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The Collector (1967)


I'm not a huge fan of Rohmer's moral tales series but this was the best of the bunch. The Collector tells the story of several middle aged men who end up summering at a rental home. When getting into the home they come across a teenage nymph type character and we get a sexually charged tale.



The characters were well defined, Haydee Politoff works well as the teenage cypher who is fairly boring and child like but also very sexual and fairly manipulative. Patrick Bauchau is a solid lead what makes the sexual situation work is that both characters are on the same level morally. I didn't feel the need to root for anyone and that helped dive into the moral issues of the film.


Much like the other film I watched this also dragged on a bit, but it went by a bit quicker by utilizing supporting actors changing the scenery and getting more into the personalities of the main players.
Glad you liked it! That was my pick for u!










I don't know if this speaks to the lack of originality in film-making but you can imagine my surprise when I realized I just watched two films with the same setup. Angst(1983) and The Eel(1997) both tell the stories of two men released from prison/asylum and what they do afterwards. Both films take different approaches and one I felt worked very well while the other left me wanting.


In Angst the killer is released from jail and the story is practically told in real time. The killer has not been reformed and he immediately looks for victims. While the film has a certain satirical quality it also turns into a nauseous exercise in gore. You can't really talk about the film without going into spoilers but the killer basically finds a family and executes all three members...then he tries to get away. While that might sound like it's not enough for a film I appreciated how the basics of narrative are stripped away it's in essence a one scene film.


And while the idea of doing a film basically just about a murder might seem thin the director puts in a number of tricks to keep you invested in the story. The story is under 90 minutes and I got the sense that things were cut to make the plot move forward and have no drag. The deaths are clumsy and brutal and ugly and you get a great sense of panic post slaughter that feels both real and incredibly cinematic. The camera and score both feel like characters as the lead is mostly silent and we only hear about his life story via voice over(once again something that works).


The Eel received a number of awards when it came out 25 years ago. I had seen the filmmakers other earlier works. His earlier work was definitely salacious and The Eel has elements of a good thrilling story. However for me it was almost like a film in reverse...the first act though I would even call it a prologue has a Hitchcockian quality to it. A man on a train gets a note that his wife is cheating on him...he tells her he's going out fishing he comes back early finds his wife in bed and kills her in a bloody affair.


So I was like okay...the film has my attention and then it just became a chore to get through. The lead is released from prison and he starts a business finds a suicidal girl gets into some conflict but at the end of the day the whole thing was just so dry and it didn't feel like it fit with the superior earlier part of the film. I couldn't find myself investing into any of the new characters because they were so frightfully dull.



I'm actually blown away that this film beat LA Confidential, The Ice Storm, Funny Games, and The Sweet Hereafter to win the P'alme D'or. I doubt I'll remember this film in a month.



Oh my God Siddon you didn't like The Eel????

I had never heard of it before it was chosen for you.

I am a fan of Angst.

2 reviews in one post, very crafty and less work for me