22nd Hall of Fame

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2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
That was a good one, CR.

Anyways, hopefully the negativity is over for Last Picture Show. I think CR, Ed, and Ahwell will really like it.





State of Siege / État de Siège (1972)
Directed by Costa-Gavras
Starring: Yves Montand, Renato Salvatori, O.E. Hasse

State of Siege is a film that blends fact and fiction into a sort of educational thriller. It has the look and feel of a documentary without an interview crew or narrator, and is a fictional retelling of an incident that happened during a real guerilla campaign. I hadn't heard of the film before it was nominated, and had no idea what the plot was going to involve. Halfway through watching it, I realized that I still didn't really know what was going on, because I have practically no knowledge of Uruguay or its history, and didn't even realize it was the country in question.

The film doesn't outright explain the political situation, so it would certainly benefit from audiences who are already familiar with the setting. It does however provide the necessary context for viewers to quickly assume that there's an unpopular, oppressive government involved, so it's easy enough to follow the narrative from there. I did still get the impression that I was missing out on something though, especially before I realized the story was being told out of sequence.

After the initial confusion, I did find the narrative and the manner in which it was being told to be quite interesting, and I felt as though I might've learned something along the way. It has this old, dull look that reminded me of the films we often watched in primary and elementary school. I'm not sure if it was just the technology used, or if it was an intentional choice to make the visuals look similar to stock footage, but the aesthetic ultimately lends itself well to the film's mix of real and fictional elements.

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I didn’t love Last Picture but I certainly didn’t hate it. I wouldn’t even say I was negative towards it. I was mostly indifferent about it except for some of the later parts of the film.

It’s a good nomination and it seems to be an important film for many reasons. So I’m glad I finally saw it.



State of Siege (1972)

I’d never heard of this film at all before this hall of fame and probably wouldn’t have watched it if left to my own devices. I’d heard of Costa-Gavras and his film Z, but I’ve never seen that either. They don't seem to be very easy to get hold of. I don’t know what I was expecting, having only the title to go on, but it somehow wasn't quite what I expected.

I feel like the context of the political situation needs some kind of explanation when attempting to describe it, but as I had only the faintest idea of any of the context before watching it, I’ll refrain from any attempts at explanation. Perhaps there is more to be got out of this film if you are more knowledgeable about the situation, but I found that I could follow what was happening from how it unfolded on screen.

There was something about this that felt like a dramatization of a real event, and yet when I read about it, it seems that it wasn’t exactly a true story, but based on similar events in order to illuminate the wider story of what was happening with the Uruguayan government, the guerrillas and the American involvement.

There was something about this film that reminded me of Army of Shadows – not just the subject matter of kidnap and resistance cells, also the pace and the cool blue-grey colour palette. I liked the way it was shot. I thought the way they conveyed the flashes of torture was well done, it wasn’t exploitative or lingering on it but got across the reality of the way it had been used by the police.

I think the flaw for me in this was that it was so focused on the political situation that there was very little attempt to make any of the characters into characters, to understand their motivations, quirks, relationships or personalities. Except perhaps for the journalist. Perhaps it just wasn’t that sort of film, but it did come across as a little cool and impersonal.

I think it was a very interesting film and I’m glad it was nominated. Thanks also to Citizen for helping me find it.

Sounds about right couple things


1. The situation needs explanation...Gavras is like Tarantino this all his work could kind of fit together. I chose State of Siege because this was the most accessible of his work. Z, The Confession, and Missing are all basically in the same universe and the same style.


2. Character work...is really not the focus of the story at all, for that you want to go with Missing about a Father who goes to South American country to look for his son and how he deals with the politics. It's a Jack Lemmon film and they gave Costas is Oscar for it.



State of Siege is a film that blends fact and fiction into a sort of educational thriller. It has the look and feel of a documentary without an interview crew or narrator, and is a fictional retelling of an incident that happened during a real guerilla campaign. I hadn't heard of the film before it was nominated, and had no idea what the plot was going to involve. Halfway through watching it, I realized that I still didn't really know what was going on, because I have practically no knowledge of Uruguay or its history, and didn't even realize it was the country in question.

I would say it's a neonoir, but that's a great term...and Gavras is nebulous because he jumps from state to state to tell his stories. It's more about the ideas and less about the specifics and minutia.

State of Siege - Uruguay
Confession - Czechoslovakia
Z - Greece
Missing - Chile



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Dronningen (Queen of Hearts) *SPOILERS*



I had never heard of this film from last year and it was quite a surprise. It's amazing the range of emotion that this film covers for the viewer. At times it made me feel uneasy, sad, happy, and downright uncomfortable. And that's I think just what it was trying to do.

What a performance by Trine Dyrholm as Anne, wife of Peter. The range of acting she displays in just one movie is really incredible. The rest of the cast, had they been as great as she was, could have really elevated the film, but I didn't care for their performances as much. Not that they were bad or anything, they just didn't stick out. Gustav just seemed like a rather cold character to me with not all that much to offer which was a real bummer.

Plenty of beautiful film shots. The forest scenes we're definitely really well shot and beautiful. The sex scenes we're very uncomfortable given the situation of the story. It sounds strange but they were filmed very well, are we sure they didn't have an existing career prior to this

Great direction by a relatively new director, May El-Touky, who looks like she did one film before this. She could have potential to be real good in the future.

The subs I had weren't great though, couldn't even get the lyrics of Tainted Love right, but what do you do. I'm not gonna lie I was at first ready to give this like a 3-3.5, but I think it needs to raise a bit. That ending was something that bumped it up quite well.

My question to those when you see it, near the end Anne sees Gustav in the mirror. Was it a flashback or what was going on there?

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Well done, MM.



Dronningen (Queen of Hearts)

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Well done, MM.
Aww thank you!

Now I'm getting even more bummed I didn't like Last Picture Show more


It's so nice to take these chances with the HoFs and see them received well. Mostly my noms seem to be received well - I think The Square was one of those that didn't really click with most.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked it. I will refrain from commenting further right now as I really want to rewatch the film before I take up a discussion on it.



The trick is not minding
That was a good one, CR.

Anyways, hopefully the negativity is over for Last Picture Show. I think CR, Ed, and Ahwell will really like it.
Having seen it previously, I can safely say you can add my review, when I get to it, amongst those that are favorable.
I doubt my opinion will have changed a decade later.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Having seen it previously, I can safely say you can add my review, when I get to it, amongst those that are favorable.
I doubt my opinion will have changed a decade later.
Good to hear!



I just noticed that I've unintentionally followed a pattern (1 rewatch, 2 new viewings, 1 rewatch, 2 new viewings), so I guess I should continue the trend and go with either Inglorious Basterds or I, Daniel Blake next.



I did decide to watch Inglorious Basterds after, pretty much as soon as I posted the above comment. I liked it a lot more than I did the last time. Not that I really disliked it before or anything, I just had a lot of issues that prevented me from really enjoying it. Those things didn't bother me so much this time, so the rewatch was a good decision.

Also, I was kind of dreading the runtime, but it didn't really feel like 2.5 hours, so that's another bonus.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Waco: The Rules of Engagement



Liked I said, it was pretty cool to see a documentary get nominated in a Hall of Fame. Makes these things feel a bit more diverse and while I believe it would be tough for one to win due to so many people having differing interests as far as those go, still a bold move.

Going in I didn't read anything about this and I knew nothing of it. I was too young to remember anything like this going on and this happened back when there wasn't media overload anyways like there is today. We wouldn't miss one story like this these days.

The Branch Davidians seem like some crazy people to me, obviously haven't done all my research but that's how I feel currently. This whole situation that was displayed was just unreal, but as for the format of the doc and how it was unfolded while it was pretty well done at the same time it didn't do anything that really glued me to caring about what actually happened. Some of the stuff was talked about too long that I lost some interest (like, did the tank set the building on fire or was it a plan for Mass suicide). Still, a historical documentary is usually something that I can get into, and I was almost there. It does a decent job of giving us a message of how crazy people can ruin innocent children and women's lives, and that makes me feel pretty uneasy, so it did a good job with that.

And who knew Biden would be seen in this film. I kind of dislike that guy.






Inglorious Basterds (2009)
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent

Inglorious Basterds has an impressive, tense opening that arguably sets expectations for the rest of the film a little too high. That introductory chapter is so successful thanks to Christoph Waltz, whose outstanding performance rightfully won him a number of supporting actor awards. The cinematography and direction certainly contributed as well, but I'd still be drawn in by Waltz even if the mise-en-scène was terrible.

That leads me to the one problem I've had with Inglorious Basterds every time I've watched it, and that's Brad Pitt. I just do not like him or his character. I'm not a fan of Eli Roth's performance either, but luckily he doesn't have many lines of dialogue. Pitt, on the other hand, is a fairly prominent figure, and is someone the audience is supposed to be rooting for. While he did still irritate me a little, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the supporting cast as much as it did previously.

The rest of the performances are great. I'm always excited to see Daniel Brühl and Til Schweiger. Brühl gets a fair amount of screen time, but Schweiger is criminally underused. The comedic elements and occasional bursts of violence are quite entertaining, and the film looks fantastic from start to finish. I doubt I'll ever love this as much as some of Tarantino's other work, but it keeps getting better every time I see it. I wasn't particularly looking forward to rewatching this, but I'm really glad I did.


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Warning: Potential Spoilers for Inglorious Basterds below!

About the acting, I usually like Fassbender a lot, but here he didn't convince me.
I found him odd the first few times I saw the film, but this time his performance kind of worked for me and I think it might intentionally be a bit bad. He was a pompous, arrogant character whose overconfidence causes his downfall (and unfortunately the death of my man Stiglitz as well). He's trying to be impressive and present himself as something greater than he really is, but is ultimately terrible at it.

We lose Stiglitz though, waaaay to soon IMO as that's probably the only character I felt I wanted to see more from.
Couldn't agree more.



I think he’s hilarious.
Reading the other reviews so far I know I'm going to be in the minority, but there's just something about him I can't stand. I did actually get the biggest laugh out of one of his lines though, the "Like I said, third best" response to Ulmer saying he doesn't speak Italian.




The Matrix (1999)

I've also felt this movie deserved a better review than my junky old one. But now that I've rewatched it and I'm kind of at a loss for words again. It's just magnificent, fun, mind twisting. Everything I want out of a movie. I love every minute.

I love the characters. I love Neo and I love Trinity. I love Morpheus and I love all the side characters. I even love the villains, they're so cool and mysterious and you just love to hate them.

I love the cinematography. I love that this movie sets up its own visual style, and that it sticks to the grimy, murky colors - it doesn't try to be "beautiful" and in the process becomes absolutely beautiful.

I love the minimalist score. There is a great video on Youtube about this score and how it is absolutely one of the greatest in the last 30 years. It IS. It is heart pounding and catchy and just a masterpiece. Something I would listen to outside of the movie.

I love the Wachowski Sisters and I can't believe I haven't seen another one of their films. They have incredible talent for filmmaking and for making pure, good, ass kicking cinema. There is not much that beats that, and sometimes a good action movie is just the best kind of movie.

I love the story. I love the creativity of the post apocalyptic atmosphere, and how we are constantly questioning reality. I love that this still can be fun and also have dark moments of reality.

"Love" count in this short review: 15. I ****ing love this movie.


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Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997)

Waco: The Rules of Engagement is a documentary about the real life events involving the siege and raid of a group of radical Branch Davidians in 1993. It was a topic I knew virtually nothing about, so I'm glad to have seen this and it is indeed a terrifying and shocking time in United States history.

This isn't really a fault of the movie, but I indeed had to look up the actual events of what happened about halfway through. I don't fault the movie since this was likely designed as a further examination into an event that people were assume to already have background knowledge on.

While we start out learning about the creepy Branch Davidians - and they're Sinful Messiah as a leader, David Koresh, the documentary takes a twist in examining who actually may be the culprit of these events. As we zoom in more and more on little details, the film pieces together the terrifying theory that the government was more responsible for the death of multiple people - including children - than they wanted to let on.

It's almost more relevant today. We live in a shocking day and age, when we know the government is corrupt but we don't know who exactly or what they are doing or why. Everything is a mess. Waco reminds us that things have been a mess for a while.

And in that respect it remains a powerful and important documentary about how the truth is often concealed from us. Documentaries aren't my "thing" but I highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan, or interested in the topic. At the very least, it's criminally underseen on Letterboxd. Check this one out!

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Dronningen (Queen of Hearts) (May el-Toukhy, 2019)
Imdb

Date Watched: 05/19/2020
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: 22nd MoFo Hall of Fame
Rewatch: No


Dronningen makes for a really interesting companion piece to Jagten (The Hunt), which won the 21st Hall of Fame.

But whereas that other film showed us how false accusations can destroy people’s lives when they are believed, this one shows us what happens when true accusations are thought to be lies. Both films are devastating in different ways, but Dronningen was a far more difficult watch.

Many times I had to fight the urge to turn the film off and I had to take breaks and watch the film in bits and pieces, not because it was ineffective but because it was perhaps too effective. My desire to stop watching is a testament to the quality of the film and to the performances therein. The things that were happening onscreen made me feel physically ill.

Which then makes the film VERY hard to rate. On the one hand, I never want to watch this again and kind of wish I could scrub my mind of it. On the other, its a powerful piece of filmmaking and I have immense respect for it, even if I also want to vomit right now. I guess I’ll sort of split the difference.