21st Hall of Fame

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The trick is not minding
I can assure you that Moonstruck will NOT be last on my ballot.
to be perfectly honest. . . not on mine either
Guaranteed it won’t be last on mine either.
I remember seeing the trailer when it first came out, so it was always one of those movies that stood out to me. I finally watched it about 4 years ago and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Second viewing only reinforces that.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
That day will never come.

Also, I may or may not sometimes let my choice of nomination be influenced by who I think won't like it and how much pleasure I get out of annoying them.
Is that why you put me through Hedwig?

I got a real good one for you soon



After taking a break for a couple of days, I finished Pride today. While I didn't end up hating it as much as I initially thought, I certainly didn't like it. I'll be giving some reasons and other thoughts in a few days.
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28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
After taking a break for a couple of days, I finished Pride today. While I didn't end up hating it as much as I initially thought, I certainly didn't like it. I'll be giving some reasons and other thoughts in a few days.
Out of all the people to watch it, I expected 3 people to dislike it.

I was right on 2 of them.
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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews



The trick is not minding
Quills

The Marquis De Sade was a rather twisted individual who begged to be given the Hollywood treatment. But first one had to find an actor capable of matching his supposed flair. Enter Geoffrey Rush.
Rush attacks the role reckless abandon, bearing his emotions and baring his very body. And he has to really. One can not play De Sade with inhibitions. It isnt an easy role. Yet he glides so easily into it we think to ourselves “yes, this is how I imagine him!”

The supporting cast is also well cast.
Kate Winslet is at her best as the demure Maddy, both innocent yet a willing accomplice to De Sade, smuggling his works out of the Asylum from which he had been imprisoned.
Joaquin Phoenix as The Saintly Abbe Du Coulmier. A role I appreciated more in this viewing then I had previously. Phoenix showed more restraint then he had in Gladiator, and brings a certain warmth to his role.
And finally Michael Caine as the cruel and vicious Dr. Royer Collard. Collard believes the ends justify the means, and enjoys often brutal methods to force not only his will upon them, but their obedience. His tactics isn’t merely to “cure” his patients of their supposed ills. Their meant to break their spirits for his own ego. One realizes this upon his introduction when describing his methods and his reasoning for doing so.
What follows is a battle of wills between the 4 principle characters, with De Sade understanding the three of them better then they realize.
Caine, Winslet and Phoenix each are hiding their true emotions and motives whereas De Sade revels in his. To do otherwise is anathema to him. Phoenix, for example, secretly lusts after Winslet but does nothing. He is a slave to his vows.
Caine is barbaric not only in his work but at home. His gentile guise doesn’t fool De Sade.
And Winslet doesn’t give into temptation and never experiences physical love, a fact that brings De Sade to tears.
One way or another, only one will succeed in the battle of wills.

A great film I first saw 20 years ago, and have revisited every now and then. It remains just as fresh as it did the first time I saw. No....it grows in stature.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé
Quills

The Marquis De Sade was a rather twisted individual who begged to be given the Hollywood treatment. But first one had to find an actor capable of matching his supposed flair. Enter Geoffrey Rush.
Rush attacks the role reckless abandon, bearing his emotions and baring his very body. And he has to really. One can not play De Sade with inhibitions. It isnt an easy role. Yet he glides so easily into it we think to ourselves “yes, this is how I imagine him!”

The supporting cast is also well cast.
Kate Winslet is at her best as the demure Maddy, both innocent yet a willing accomplice to De Sade, smuggling his works out of the Asylum from which he had been imprisoned.
Joaquin Phoenix as The Saintly Abbe Du Coulmier. A role I appreciated more in this viewing then I had previously. Phoenix showed more restraint then he had in Gladiator, and brings a certain warmth to his role.
And finally Michael Caine as the cruel and vicious Dr. Royer Collard. Collard believes the ends justify the means, and enjoys often brutal methods to force not only his will upon them, but their obedience. His tactics isn’t merely to “cure” his patients of their supposed ills. Their meant to break their spirits for his own ego. One realizes this upon his introduction when describing his methods and his reasoning for doing so.
What follows is a battle of wills between the 4 principle characters, with De Sade understanding the three of them better then they realize.
Caine, Winslet and Phoenix each are hiding their true emotions and motives whereas De Sade revels in his. To do otherwise is anathema to him. Phoenix, for example, secretly lusts after Winslet but does nothing. He is a slave to his vows.
Caine is barbaric not only in his work but at home. His gentile guise doesn’t fool De Sade.
And Winslet doesn’t give into temptation and never experiences physical love, a fact that brings De Sade to tears.
One way or another, only one will succeed in the battle of wills.

A great film I first saw 20 years ago, and have revisited every now and then. It remains just as fresh as it did the first time I saw. No....it grows in stature.
an excellent breakdown of the four principle characters and how they compared to each other. BRAVO

And TOTALLY agree about Rush. I had seen him previously in Shine, then in Les Misérables, all at the movies and this totally locked my fandom of the man's acting prowess. He did "glide" into this role, completely.
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The trick is not minding
Quills

The Marquis De Sade was a rather twisted individual who begged to be given the Hollywood treatment. But first one had to find an actor capable of matching his supposed flair. Enter Geoffrey Rush.
Rush attacks the role reckless abandon, bearing his emotions and baring his very body. And he has to really. One can not play De Sade with inhibitions. It isnt an easy role. Yet he glides so easily into it we think to ourselves “yes, this is how I imagine him!”

The supporting cast is also well cast.
Kate Winslet is at her best as the demure Maddy, both innocent yet a willing accomplice to De Sade, smuggling his works out of the Asylum from which he had been imprisoned.
Joaquin Phoenix as The Saintly Abbe Du Coulmier. A role I appreciated more in this viewing then I had previously. Phoenix showed more restraint then he had in Gladiator, and brings a certain warmth to his role.
And finally Michael Caine as the cruel and vicious Dr. Royer Collard. Collard believes the ends justify the means, and enjoys often brutal methods to force not only his will upon them, but their obedience. His tactics isn’t merely to “cure” his patients of their supposed ills. Their meant to break their spirits for his own ego. One realizes this upon his introduction when describing his methods and his reasoning for doing so.
What follows is a battle of wills between the 4 principle characters, with De Sade understanding the three of them better then they realize.
Caine, Winslet and Phoenix each are hiding their true emotions and motives whereas De Sade revels in his. To do otherwise is anathema to him. Phoenix, for example, secretly lusts after Winslet but does nothing. He is a slave to his vows.
Caine is barbaric not only in his work but at home. His gentile guise doesn’t fool De Sade.
And Winslet doesn’t give into temptation and never experiences physical love, a fact that brings De Sade to tears.
One way or another, only one will succeed in the battle of wills.

A great film I first saw 20 years ago, and have revisited every now and then. It remains just as fresh as it did the first time I saw. No....it grows in stature.
an excellent breakdown of the four principle characters and how they compared to each other. BRAVO

And TOTALLY agree about Rush. I had seen him previously in Shine, both at the movies and this totally locked my fandom of the man's acting prowess. He did "glide" into this role, completely.
I remember when I watched Shine waaaay back in ‘97. This was after he had just won the academy award. I knew he was an actor to watch and then Quills only reinforced that. He’s an actor you always now is there because his ability commands your attention. Even in The Kings Speech he stood out.



The trick is not minding
In response to everyone joking “Quit trying to make Phoenix happen!”
Here’s a hashtag I can get behind!

#letsmakePhoenixhappenagain



The trick is not minding
The Tree of Life

What a unique film! The way it’s filmed, with unconventional angles and sparse dialogue. Malick lets his actors do most of their acting not though words by by actions. Gestures. They emote with their body and often say more then they ever could with words.
And that’s the point. The film starts off with loss. And that loss will effect the main characters throughout this film. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

The films veers into what seemed to me existentialism, and looks almost like a documentary about time, space and nature. I am reminded, for some reason, of the beginning to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the beginning to The Exorcist during the dig.
We are then taken on a ride through the history of the world, through the first life forms, to the dinosaurs and finally, their extinction. Only then do we return to the family.
Unfortunately it is during that time before we return to the family where the film suffers from a lack of any real narrative. It focuses heavily on images that perhaps linger a little long, trying to convey a message that borders on pretentiousness.
It is only when we return to the family where we finally get back on track. If only for a little while.
We’re witness to a family before the aforementioned loss, and how Pitts son views him, and how he in turn is treated by his father. We sense something more to the family, an unspoken level of a kind of resentment that eventually comes to a head. We hear Penn apologizing to Pitt, presumably. But I feel we never really get to actually connect with this family.
After watching this film, I am impressed with its technique more then the story. The acting is good, as noted before. But in the end, I’m feeling like I’m not sure what to make of this film. I definitely think it deserves a rewatch. But I don’t see all the acclaim being tossed its way. At times it gets too sidetracked with it’s beautiful visuals. It’s gets in its own way.
And I enjoyed 2001.
Definitely a polarizing film. And one I need to rewatch one day, for sure.
Tough to really put into proper words. Even tougher to properly place on my eventual ballot.



Women will be your undoing, Pépé



The Breakfast Club

Andrew: We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.

Which, in the end, is all that this little therapeutic session for the high school cliques is trying to express. No one's home life is perfect. No one gets along with their parents and, really, everyone isn't so different and if allowed to step out of the standards of all the cliques, everyone could easily hang out with everyone else.

Keeping the location restricted to an 8 hour, Saturday detention under the supervision of the ideal disciplinarian, Paul Gleason; who excelled at playing such characters. Speaking of, I should remark on my own perspective seeing both his and the Janitor Carl's (John Kapelos) exchange of words and how differently I see it in my fifties as opposed to my early twenties when this came out. Even Gleason's moments of vulnerability that I never really acknowledged or fully understood till this recent viewing.

Saying a lot for the writing and directing of this teen age film and what was being expressed behind the arguing, the dancing, and the reflective moments during their Saturday Detention.
And like so many things during those young years, those simple perspectives are lost until much later in life.



Despite not having written even my previous review yet, I watched Quills today. I will try to get the writeups done soonish. Oh, and I thought Quills was at least OK, maybe even good.



Pride (2014)


Off to gulag now

I don't like to sound like a broken record, but I'm annoyed by films that come out as preachy. Having a message is fine, but shouting it from a pedestal isn't. Unfortunately, Pride seems to be doing just that.

Characters are mostly just stereotypes with minimal depth. Steph actually gives herself a perfect description: "That's right. I'm the L in LGSM." It's pretty much the same for everyone else too. All that matters is whether someone is gay or straight (or whether a straight person loves or hates gays).

The miners (or their wives, actually) parade the gays around like circus freaks and their visit to London is like a trip to a zoo. The women gawking and drooling over gay porn is an example of double standards; change the scene to miners inspecting a lesbian porn magazine and certain people would scream bloody murder for sexism and objectification of women (I think both are fine, I'm just making an observation).

Without the heavily underlined agenda and actually concentrating on the characters and the unfolding of the events, Pride could have been decent. The ending is a good example of its issues. 30 minutes or so earlier the union voted to terminate the collaboration with LGSM as something shameful. Then the strike ends and suddenly the whole union is coming to London Pride. It's like a big chunk of the story is missing there. Maybe it got lost under all the idolizing. I was actually disappointed with this.



Pride (2014)
I don't like to sound like a broken record, but I'm annoyed by films that come out as preachy. Having a message is fine, but shouting it from a pedestal isn't. Unfortunately, Pride seems to be doing just that...
I liked the movie OK. But I wonder if the exact same movie and cast was made BUT instead of gay activist they were environmental activist...would the film then still get the same high praise here as it has?



The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible
I liked the movie OK. But I wonder if the exact same movie and cast was made BUT instead of gay activist they were environmental activist...would the film then still get the same high praise here as it has?
environmental activists are not persecuted for being born in a certain way. I don't understand the comparison!



environmental activists are not persecuted for being born in a certain way. I don't understand the comparison!
It was a hypothetical question designed to make people think about what it was about Pride that they liked so much...I liked the movie myself, but I think it's construction was mediocre. I suspect all the praise that it received is because of it's subject matter and not because the director was awesome at film making.