The Personal Recommendation Hall of Fame II

Nope I picked something special for Cricket, last time I tried to picked from every list this year I did something more specific.

No.

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So I planned on watching The Killers this morning. Woke up, reset all the clocks, drank my coffee then headed downstairs to watch The Killers in the movie watching room, sit down crank up the Criterion Channel and....it's GONE! It was there ten hours ago! SOB! So, I ended up watching:


So, yeah. When you plan on watching a 1940's film noir that's no longer available the next best thing is a 2001 musical about a transexual East German rock singer with mommy, daddy, boyfriend, husband, professional and body issues (hence the Angry Inch). Makes sense to me.

Hedwig seems to get screwed, in the bad way, at every opportunity and it's been happening FOREVER! All she wants is to be whole again. We learn this mostly through flashbacks which are often times hilariously sad. At the same time her band is currently touring the country playing a chain of ****ty restaurants in front of small, aging crowds and dealing with the fact that the ONE that got away, got away with all the songs she wrote and is a now a major star on the strength of them songs. So, on the surface this sounds like it should be a fairly depressing flick except that it's not. Not really. In fact, I found myself smiling quite often. It gets a little misty towards the end, I guess or maybe I completely missed the point and if I did so what? I enjoyed what I got from it. I'm sure if I watched it again I'd pick up on a few of the smaller things.

Hedwig is a musical so how's the music? Not bad. I would say I enjoyed most of the songs with my favorite being the Wig in the Box(?) (kicking out the ONE light bulb cracked me up for some reason) production number and the Angry Inch is memorable as well. The performances at the restaurants are all pretty funny, sometimes hilarious. The thing with the songs is they are part of the story. Listen to the words and you get the insight.

Hedwig is a very interesting character which is good because it's a movie about Hedwig. She's a lot more complex than I expected and the movie is well written. I think the underlying story is something most people would get into but the wrapping, unfortunately, may hold some back from seeing this. I really liked this and would highly recommend it. My guess is this is a Miss Vicky nomination.

That will rank high for me whenever we do a musical countdown.

Glad you liked it! That was my choice for you!

I was thinking it may have been, and it was a great choice!

Yes! This is the one huge exception to the "Miss Vicky hates musicals" rule (at least as far as live action movies go). It's a top ten movie for me and I'm thrilled you enjoyed it! "Wig in a Box" is my favorite song in the movie as well, but I adore the whole soundtrack and even bought it on CD.

I actually nominated it in one of the general HOFs and, as expected, it got some pretty mixed reactions. I was a little hesitant picking it for anybody here, but I remembered you liking Pink Flamingos and I hoped it meant you didn't have an issue with drag. Glad to see you don't.

Dial M for Murder

Margot Mary Wendice: Do you really believe in the perfect murder?
Mark Halliday: Mmm, yes, absolutely. On paper, that is. And I think I could, uh, plan one better than most people; but I doubt if I could carry it out.
Tony Wendice: Oh? Why not?
Mark Halliday: Well, because in stories things usually turn out the way the author wants them to; and in real life they don't... always.

Murder plots never work out the way one plans it. We’ve seen enough movies to know that.
Yet Tony (played superbly by Ray Milland) comes damn close.
He wants to hire an acquaintance to murder his wife for a an affair from a year ago. The murder doesn’t go right. Now he has to manipulate the investigation into his favor, while covering up his involvement
But that’s all dressing. It’s the script and dialogue that crackles here. The conversations that take place between Tony and his accomplice, the final reveal and discussion between Mark and the Chief Investigator (Robert Cummings and John Williams respectively, both giving great performances with what little screen time they have) on how it was accomplished. Grace Kelly looks marvelous here, as the wife caught between the two men, and who of course is great in what little there is written for her role. And of course all things Ray Milland.
Milland delivers his lines with a sadistic glee, secretly enjoying his wife’s torment and subsequent arrest and conviction. This is his movie, and he owns every minute he is on screen.
Especially the end, where he’s cornered, and rather then trying to make a run of it, or some final shootout to escape, he just calmly makes a drink for himself before offering one for everyone else before uttering “As you said, Mark, it might work on paper, but......”

This is such a great film. I want to see it again as soon as I finished it! It’s only one watch, but I would certainly rank it amongst Hitch’s top films!
Thank you....Cricket? Perhaps?

Haha! I respected Pink Flamingos for it's willingness to go all out in terms of extreme bad taste. It's really hard to enjoy a movie like that but it did induce some uncomfortable laughter a few times. I don't have any problem with drag or any LGBTQ movies except that it seems they're usually love stories which I don't really enjoy in any form.

I think Pink Flamingos is a steaming pile of dog s***, but I was reaching for some clue of what to pick.

They definitely do tend to be love stories and the ones that aren't - at least of the ones I've seen - seem to either be about discrimination, the AIDS crisis, or both. If we do another one of these, I'll definitely have to keep in mind that you're not a fan of romance. It's just dumb luck that the movies I've picked for you aren't love stories.

No I didn't nominate Dial M for Murder for you Wyldesyde but that's a good guess. I strongly considered doing so as it's my favorite Hitchcock besides Rebecca.

Then my next guess is CR

No, jiraffejustin hosted it, and he was the one who nominated Dead Alive. And just for the record, I never asked him to change his nom. I just immediately dropped out of the HoF as soon as he posted the nominations.

My "big dust up" came after that when I started a new thread asking that the nominations should fit the theme of the HoF. I got attacked so badly in that thread (and in PMs) that I left the forum for a few months.

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If I answer a game thread correctly, just skip my turn and continue with the game.
OPEN FLOOR.

Yep I got all that. My initial recollection was that I hosted but I quickly realized it was JJ.

Dead Alive did fit the theme of that HoF.

I'm probably the only person who knows why you're thinking/saying that. But actually I hosted

Wow one of the most disastrous threads in Moe pho history and you were responsible!

Ha, who knew!