The 12th Hall of Fame

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I definitely like parts of it. It was a little too inconsistent and drug on a little long. I am happy to have seen it.
No biggie, it's not my nom anyway. I just love it for Phoenix's performance.
Have you seen Romper Stomper yet?



Let the night air cool you off
No biggie, it's not my nom anyway. I just love it for Phoenix's performance.
Have you seen Romper Stomper yet?
Yep.

Sad you didn't get more out of it than that, Citizen.

Personally, I think spending much time on their backstories would've killed the film's momentum and wouldn't have had any effect, positive or negative, on my feelings towards the characters and understanding of their motivations. It's a story that is very much in the moment and it works well for me.
I agree with this. I don't think we need to know their motivation, because no matter what their motivation was it wouldn't be sound in any way. They are impressionable individuals who fell into the hands of the wrong people that molded them the wrong way. It seems as though Hando and Davey were first, and I am guessing they were friends before the whole skinhead thing. I assume Hando got hold of Mein Kampf, and shared this with Davey. Knowing that they have a German background and were a rebellious lot, they held onto what they were reading because it was against everything that decent human beings would be for. While I do think AHX is a good film, I think the approach of never rehabilitating these characters is more realistic. I don't know how a person would ever come back from that type of thing. Especially when considering the performance that Crowe gives; I believe he is this person the whole time. He's deep in it. I think the director had a delicate handle on this too, because he never punished his characters for their actions or beliefs, regardless of how messed up they are. Everything that happened was cause and effect, and most of it was ugly. But that's what you get when you have these types of people. I also don't think of the Koreans as being shown as barbarians like these skinheads, because they are only retaliating. I understand the feeling of really wanting to take matters into your own hands, because you know that the process of getting this fixed the "right way" would take too long and might not fix anything at all. Whether that's right or wrong can be debated by other people.


Anyway, I watched this last night after I watched Y Tu Mama Tambien . Two very different movies.



Ah, yes. My memory's for ***** today. Been a little sleep deprived lately.
Also I don't think that post is linked in the write-ups on the first page.



The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
Never Let me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)



I like this kind of Sci-Fi. The fact that is based on events that could perfectly happen in the future, gives it a strong morale and makes the viewer think, which to me is a major part of quality cinema.
It's a very homogenous film, always looking sad, though never looking depressing, and that is mostly due to the cinematography and the sountrack. I liked the acting from everyone envolved, even if I'm not the biggest fan of A. Garfield.
However, I think it lacked a bit power now and then and that the premise deserved a lot more depth. It ends up being a nice movie that had much to tell but that I felt that didn't go to the full of its potential.

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The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
Sugata Sanshirô (A. Kurosawa, 1943)




A pleasant surprise! It's an early Kurosawa (second after 1941 Uma, I think) so I was curious to see how it would hold. I love the story, it's one of my favourites from what I've seen from Kurosawa, and there were already some signs of the japanese master's talent.
I think those cutted scenes hurted the final result a lot but the fact that it was so short made story a lot more condensed which had its advantages.
I loved the tension in the fight between Sanshiro and the hold man near the end, I just wished the final fight had that tension aswell.





The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
La cité des enfants perdus (Jean Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995)



Fantasy is not exaclty my type and I always find difficult to let myself be involved by movies of this kind. That being said, I found this extremely original and creative.
I liked the cinematography and its dark and somber tone, and the over-the-top acting suited the whole movie just fine!
I liked the little girl (though her relationship with One seemed quite weird at times) and the twin sisters!
There's not much I can say about this. I recognize its value though I can't say I enjoyed it too much!

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The man from Nowhere

This was a rewatch, I saw the film 3,4 years ago and I remember loving the film, after the rewatch I'd say that I still like the film very much, but that it isn't anything that special. The flaw of the film, I think is that the story isn't that interesting, the quality of the film solely rests on the action which is fine because the action is great, the film is very entertaining, but to be at an other level of greatness I need something from the story, the visuals, the music to make it more special. I see this film as a very solid action film with cool characters and well filmed action, but not as one of the best action films I've seen, like I thought it was from my memory.

Also, I think most will disagree, but I didn't find the relationship between the pawnshop guy and the little girl to be that compelling, I felt like the director was aiming at touching us emotionally, but I thought the characters didn't really feel like humans to me, they were caricatures that serve the purpose of the story, but not believable character in this sort of drama, maybe it's just me.
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Women will be your undoing, Pépé
solid reviews, neiba and PG!!

I got a copy of Sugata from my library, looking forward to watching that in the coming week
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The Man From Nowhere


I was so happy when this was nominated since it was already on my watchlist. At first, I thought oh no another Leon, but it was a lot different than that movie. I'm usually turned off by a child having a lead role in an action movie, but it worked out well here. Like most action movies, this one is full of cliches. That's ok though, because originality is not the most important aspect of these movies. It delivers what it needs to and that's what's important. The movie is actually much less dark and morbid than most of the other Korean films I've seen, but it's much more dark and morbid than the average Hollywood action film. I thought it struck a good balance. It's not a special movie, but it's an excellent action film and that is a wonderful thing.





The Man From Nowhere

As I type this I have not read the other reviews, though I see PG and Cricket also just watched it. It's a small world

So...I pop in the DVD and low and behold I see it has English dubs, and so I try them. I hated them.

With English dubs, the opening action scene, seemed comical. It reminded me of the early Spaghetti Westerns, with their flat and odd way of talking. It's very hard for a voice actor to capture the intensity of the real actor in the movie. The dubs felt like a bad pantomime. To make the effect worse, there were no accents at all! Ugh...

So after 8 minutes of this, I switched over to the original Korean language with English sub titles. I did that during the scene with the little girl and the pawnshop keeper as they eat at a table.

As soon as I switched it over to Korean, I warmed up to the characters, especially the little girl who was sympathetic. Anyway that was a good experiment between dubs vs subs.

If you love, non-stop action with an ultra-cool, mysterious Chinese James Bond type, you'll be in heaven. Especially if you like twist and turns at every corner with lots of fighting and martial arts!....Unfortunately that's everything I hate in a movie.

It was well made and looked great, but nothing that I liked personally. I did enjoy the first 30 minutes with the pawn keeper and the little girl.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
yes, subs>dubs. I can actually count on one hand when dubs work better and have several left over. Two that come to mind is the anime Cowboy Bebop and the action/comedy Kung Fu Hustle.

Korea has really become my go to for action movies in the last five years or so (oh, and period pieces as well) and Man From Nowhere is a good example of both that genre and how to bring something more that a lot of hollywood movies sort of fail at. Not always, but sufficiently so.

Glad to hear you guys enjoyed it and, CR, I was hoping you'd enjoy the storyline between pawn keeper and the little girl - yay!
What did you think of the very final ending between the two characters?



...Glad to hear you guys enjoyed it..
Did you read my review

What did you think of the very final ending between the two characters?
You know after the Chinese special agent/pawnkeeper cuts his hair, he lost some intensity. Still I think he was a good actor, but after the dance club scenes and endless twist and turns, I got burnt out. Sure I liked the revenge on the brother of the organ harvesting guy. The nail gun bit was actually good. But when he finally walks into confront the head guy and he's standing in a room with like 15 hench men and takes them all out, I think whatever. I know people love martial arts films, but I don't, I just couldn't go with the odds of 15 to 1 and still winning.

SPOILERS
I knew the eye balls in the jar was most likely a red hearing, still creepy. And I knew when he was about to shot himself the little girl would appear, which I'm glad of!

I liked the bad guy who looked like Zulu from the original Star Trek (George Takei). He was the crazy one.



Save the Texas Prairie Chicken
OK. I finally got my computer back!!!

My plans to finish this HoF:
1. I want to read/re-read all the reviews first (I just want to be completely caught up with what everyone else has had to say about the movies)
2. I will try to get at least 2 of the 3 movies watched this week (the ones that I have to watch online - all others have been watched).
3. I will get to as many of my reviews as possible this weekend.

For now, I will say that there were 2 films that I wasn't thrilled with and there was one that I really liked. Which ones were they? Well, you will have to wait and see.
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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity - Edgar Allan Poe



Nothing good comes from staying with normal people
Am half-way through City of lost children, will write something tomorrow. Will hopefully get through another movie tomorrow as well. Think I've done 4/14 so far.

EDIT: 5/14 actually...soon to be 6.
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Why not just kill them? I'll do it! I'll run up to Paris - bam, bam, bam, bam. I'm back before week's end. We spend the treasure. How is this a bad plan?



Nothing good comes from staying with normal people
The City of Lost Children


A surreal tale of a mad scientist, unable to dream, who steals children in order to hijack their dream and stop his highly exellerated ageing.

This movie sits smack dab in the cross-section of sci-fi and fantasy, though I'd push it firmly into sci-fi for two/three different reasons:

1a: The occurence of semi hi-tech, steam-punk like technology, ranging from an consious transformer capable of introducing a mind into anothers dream, to sufficient scientific know-how to both grow clones as well as crafting original beings from scratch.

1b/2: The ability to create a resepticle for a dissembodied brain, as well as keeping it alive and being able to comunicate verbally without any sign of a vocal chord stand-in.

3: There's an alien in the movie.

Oh, yes, you heard me. There's an alien skullking about, hiding in plain site. It is none other than our secondary antagonist: The Octopuss. This is no mere siameese twin, but a extra terrestrial, come to Earth and hid in the group of a traveling side-show. They then set up an orphanage in order to train a group of young thief to do their dirty work, keeping them in a somewhat comfortable lifestyle. The proof of this are numerous; some obvious, some less so.

Take for starters the fact that despite being linked at the feet, it presents as two individuals, but everyone around it refers to it as a single entity, almost as if they know on an subconsious level that it is a single thing. Also, it gives itself away by being far too closely linked with itself, closer than even a set of siameese twins would be. It seems to share a central nervous system, as when one half feels an itch, the other half scratches at it, and when one head takes a bite of something, the other head can taste it. Syncronous movement on a high level isn't deffinetive proof, but it supports the more sturdyarguments.

(Can you tell I found this character the most interesting of the movie as a concept?)

This time around I tried the dub, but I didn't last more that 20 minutes before going back to the french audio track. It wasn't that the lipsync didn't work (mostly), but mainly that I didn't think the voices were right. Pearlman's voice was his own, so that was fine (the russian accent even helped clarify to some extent why his language skills weren't the best) but the others, especially Miette, sounded wierd to me after I'd heard the movie with it's original voicetrack. I'm sure this is a common phenomenon; the first version of a character's voice (be it original or dubbed), is often the voice you associate with the character. For me, that was the french voices, simple as that.

The interractions between One and Miette has been called into question in some of the reviews previously posted. While I still think that Miette fell for One, but that One sees her more as a little sister (and someone he has affections for), I must agree that the comment he made about being in no hurry to pick a woman to be his wife came off as more than a little sugestive. And I'm sure that it isn't a coincident on the director's part that the woman trying to get him drunk and comfort him in the pub is dressed in the same shade of red as Miette is and has the same shade of dark hair.

The acting in the movie might have been a little so so in some instances, but I still found most of the cast very entertaning. Judith Vittet did a great job as Miette, acting far beyond her years, and Emilfork's expressive and unique face could really portray why the kids would be scared out of their mind by him (I know I'll never look at a santa the same again). Ron Pearlman did a great job as the somewhat dim-witted strongman (I've heard comparisons to Gump, which I would take as a compliment) and of course the two ladies playing the Octopuss were amazing. Still can't get over how fluently they moved in that kitchen. Someone I did have a problem with was Grub, the little brother. He annoyed the crap out of me, mostly because he seemed as dumb as a rock. All credit to the kid that played him, but this kid only had one thought throughout the movie: FOOOOD!!! I've seen zombies played with less single-mindedness in tracking down something to eat.

It's a wierd, dark, somewhat comical tale that I really enjoyed the first time I saw it and still enjoyed on the re-watch.