Best Picture Hall of Fame

Some days I do the same so totally empathise. Probably why I dont like free to air tv. Even superbowl ads make me cry some times (the beer ads with the horse who got sold but broke away to find his family had me bawling like a baby. Lol at myself)

Good post. Yes real men can cry just like real women can. That's one of the good things about society today, people are more free to be themselves.

I've never encountered a movie that made me cry. I don't know why? it's just not the way I respond to movies I guess. It's cool that others do. Though The Yearling was kind of sad

got a couple of favorites that I enjoy bawling too. One or two that I would watch through my life to make sure I wasn't TOO cynical or hardhearted. Like the ending to Immortal Beloved. If I don't bawl at that ending then I know I need to adjust my outlook on life.
Though there has to be some lightheartedness mixed in with some of the movies that I cry to or I just can't deal with it. If I'm gonna bawl, for god's sake give me a happy ending of some kind.

you have my vote, darlin'.

as you long as you don't mind 13 responses

@SilentVamp Like Ed said, post em however you like. It's all good.


I hope to watch Gladiator tonight. I was going to watch it last night but was just plumb to tuckered out to give it my full attention. I've been looking forward to watching it too, so I want to give it my all.

@SilentVamp

Post 'em however you like. Makes no difference to me.

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Whatever is easiest for you is best. If you want to post all of your reviews at the same time, then that's how you should post them. I'm looking forward to reading your reviews.

I'm looking forward to getting that second list in. Sounds like it will be GBG or Vamp at this rate, although I'm not far behind. Gladiator tomorrow.

I've only seen this once and that was first run in the theater 18 years ago. At that time I loved it and I've been wanting to rewatch it for the longest time.

I'm surprised that I didn't love it this time around. I don't have any real problems with it and it was fine for what it did. It's just that in all those years my movie taste has changed considerable and what I once liked in movies, I no longer do.

Gladiator delivers on visual spectacle and fight sequences. But I've never been into action movies or martial art films so the fighting sequences were meh for me, especially the opening fight scene. I hate that filming style of reduced frame rate, fast edits and close ups. That technique is used to shoot a lot of fights in movies and it just feels unsatisfying to me.

Ridley Scott doesn't really focus on the underlying story. Oh sure he eludes to it, and the premise of an aging Caesar who wished to restore Rome to the people by restoring power to the Senate....while his son grabs power and seeks to do just the opposite, would seem to be a powerful subject, but Ridley doesn't go into that deep enough. I wanted more palace intrigue and less elephants and giraffes. Ridley loves his production design, but here it gets in the way of the story.

This time around I actually rooted for Joaquin Phoenix to win! Sure he was insecure, manipulative and incestuous and that made him interesting. Joaquin rocks his role and was the most interesting thing in the movie. Russell Crowe was uninteresting to me in this, just to stoic. I ended up not liking him so when all this bad stuff happens to him, I didn't even care. I was thinking what could Commodus do to get rid of him once and for all!

Like I said, I didn't hate it, but I had a hard time getting through the 2 1/2 hours, as it felt like a 90 minute story to me.

Damn.

At least I really like Phoenix in it. I have to say I think he's one of the best actors working today. I'm not a big fan of Crowe though.

I'm a big fan of both actors. Really disappointed that you didn't like it much this time. Any thoughts on when you're going to start the next general HOF?

Marcus Aurelius is the true villain in Gladiator, he should have just named Commodus Emperor and this would have all been avoided. Commodus would have been like the only heir to the Roman throne in history passed up for a non family member, that had to hurt his pride. Marcus Aurelius was probably secretly evil and he just thought it would all be really funny.

Yeah, he does sort of put the cat among the pigeons. It's not exactly a stable plan for a power handover.

It's so dumb and tough to believe it came from the apparently wise and good leader Marcus Aurelius. Maximus is very loyal to Marcus, if Marcus said Commodus was to be Emperor Maximus would have accepted it, the only reason he didn't was because he knew Commodus had killed Marcus which wouldn't have happened if Commodus was made heir like he expected and like was the norm in Rome throughout its history. Why the hell did he think his spoiled son was going to just accept it? If he wanted that plan to work he should have made sure everyone knew about it before Commodus, at the very least he should have told the Senate, not tell him second in a one on one meeting giving Commodus ample opportunity to kill his elderly, feeble father. Marcus should have brushed up on his Roman history, he was clearly rusty if he didn't foresee that coming.

Was always bothered by how convenient it all is and that Marcus is apparently a moron.

I don't find it unreasonable that Marcus didn't think his son would smother him with a pillow personally.

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Letterboxd

Regicide, often by family members had been a pretty consistent thing throughout Rome's history, and Marcus obviously had serious doubts about Commodus as a person. Think it was pretty naive.

The real question is would @Miss Vicky risk death to be that close to Phoenix's bosom.

I should be caught up on the main page. Let me know if I missed anything!

Argo

OK. As I said the other day, I took this DVD from my father’s house. Very disgusted with myself that I owed money on it from the library. I absolutely cannot believe I forgot that I had it! It is so terrible when I have my momentary ditzy spells.

This was a rewatch for me.

I honestly didn’t remember much of it before I watched it that day. I knew what it was about, but I just didn’t remember how they told the story.

Anyway, as I was watching it I was kind of bored. I really was. Then they discovered the script that they were going to use and the film immediately picked up for me. And I remembered that being the same way that I felt when I first watched it. I didn’t care for the film until that moment. From then on I loved the movie.

I remembered liking the film (once I remembered everything that I was watching ), but I don’t remember liking it as much as I did this time around. I loved this movie. I thought it was thoroughly engaging and entertaining. This is the sort of film that I appreciate. It is good storytelling with very good actors to bring that story to life.

Now, would I have given it Best Picture? Yeah, I think so, but ONLY if it were nominated in a DIFFERENT year. You see, this was the year of Lincoln. And for me, that film was BY FAR the BEST film that year. I didn’t think anything else came close to that one.

But I will say that I think Argo did deserve it and I am glad that I watched it again. I just hope that I realize, if I should ever watch it again, that I need to be patient with the story before I think it is any good (of course, I could just fast forward to the portion of the film instead ).

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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe