24th Hall of Fame

Make that 3, pal!

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That's the advice that the assassin codenamed The Jackal (Edward Fox) gives to his potential clients. They want to hire him to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle after one failed attempt from their part, and the Jackal is more than willing to oblige; for the right price, of course.

The Day of the Jackal follows the meticulous attempts of the assassin to achieve his task, and he goes at it with careful planning, a lot of patience, and no emotion. Meanwhile, law enforcement makes numerous attempts to locate him and stop him. The main efforts are led by skilled investigator Claude Lebel (Michael Lonsdale), who has a similarly meticulous and careful approach to his work.

Much like the Jackal himself, there is a cold and distant approach to the film from director Fred Zinnemann, but for the most part it works. Like a great procedural, we see the contrast between the Jackal and Lebel as each one tries to outsmart the other. But the focus is on the Jackal all the way (for contrast, Lebel is introduced around the 50 minute mark, which is halfway through the film), as we see the extent of his skills. I don't think I'm alone, but in a weird way, we want to see him succeed.

There are a lot of twists and turns as the Jackal evades the police, some of them are pretty cool and surprising, a few of them not so much? But through it all we see his focus on the mission and his lack of care for other human beings. The coldness with which he disposes of everyone or anyone that threatens the mission is excellently portrayed by Fox. As for the technical aspects, they are mostly top notch. Zinnemann's direction is tight and tense, and the editing is superb.

In the end, I'm a bit conflicted. Even though I greatly appreciate the "bare bones", emotionless approach of Zinnemann, part of me wishes that Lebel was a bit more fleshed out, or that the climax and ending wasn't as abrupt as it is. On the other hand, I remember other similar thrillers that try to make more out of something and fail by adding too many variables, too many emotions. Maybe that's why they make so many mistakes.

Grade:

NICE!

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Hushpuppy: Sometimes you can break something so bad, that it can't get put back together.

Benh Zeitlin's directorial film debut, BotSW shifts effortlessly between natural disaster and fanciful references to Greek mythology. Young Hushpuppy, played exceptionally by Quvenzhané Wallis lives with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry), on a soon-to-be-flooded island nicknamed The Bathtub, south of New Orleans. Populated by very proud and rather content bayou folks, they "Beast it" when it comes to life. Simply put, life is too hard to be a p@ssy, so toughen up. And considering all that occurs, it's a solid mentality if you wish to survive the bayou and the rising waters.

Since my time had been very limited in the past week, it took about four very short visits to this film to see its entirety causing me to back out and then slip back into the film. Which, in its way, was a great testimony of how effortlessly it was capable of bringing you into both the world that Hushpuppy lives and the world within her creative imagination. Since each time I returned, it was scarcely any transition to get back into the film, though I do wish, very much, upon a full revisit to ensure time to remain immersed in this very captivating film.

Using actual folks from the bayou instead of actors really made the difference in The Bathtub citizens. Adding a more realistic feel to every day and thereby a strong contrast to the mystical aspects while keeping both on an equal keel. The transition between the two is so smooth to the point of complete coexistence.

Like so many films previously and for the ones to come, this is a film I would never have heard of or had the opportunity to experience.
THANK YOU for that!

So, I’m holding off on Beasts for the time being until I know for sure if Neiba is still in. If he hasn’t chimes in by Friday, I’ll go ahead and send my ballot in.

Is this ok, Raul?

Ya. A bit maddening since he said he would post his reviews later today 2 days ago.

I think for future HOFs they should have better guidelines of reaching a certain amount of reviews at certain timeframes, so I blame myself for that.

I understand that as a host or participant, it can be a bit "maddening", perhaps? But to be fair, we can't control the viewing habits of people. What I mean is, some people can spend two weeks not watching anything for whatever reason, work or whatnot, and then go and cram 10 films in a week. If that's the case, I'll say let them be. If anyone hasn't voluntarily bowed out or actively voiced some apprehension about making it (like Speling did a couple of weeks ago), then let's assume they're in and that they will deliver. I know I'm new here, but I feel putting hurdles through the timeframe only ends up being more restrictive. Those are my two cents.

Neiba normally finches these in my experience, and I know he was pretty busy. So I get it.
That said, I’ll give it until Friday and see what occurs. On Saturday, I’ll just send the ballot in as is

I've hosted a lot of HoFs in the past and had dropouts many, many times. The most frustrating situation is when a member is not active at all, yet keeps saying they're in the HoF. That then causes the other members to wonder what they should do. If they go ahead and watch that person's movie they can be wasting their time and even money if they have to pay for the movie. That's not right...as this is a group activity and one of the principals of an HoF is group participation and if someone avoids the HoF until the last week and then dumps a bunch of reviews on the thread then that's not participation...and it's not really fair to the other members.

For what it's worth, I'm starting La Dolce Vita right now. I'm in the middle of editing a podcast episode, which I want to be done soon, but I have to start this some day.

Vampyr (1932) -

Initially, I struggled with Dreyer quite a lot, often being left cold by his films. This was the first film of his I saw which I really warmed up to though. By my second viewing, I found myself taken in by the shadow techniques which were utilized in all kinds of inventive ways, the consistently creepy set pieces and sequences which added to the film's atmospheric power, the overall surreal and often indescribable tone of the whole film, or how it felt like a silent film given how barely any dialogue and sound effects were in it. With my third viewing, I realized that this film does a better job at establishing a creepy mood than just about all horror films I've ever seen have. As for the story, I'm still not sure I understand everything which happened in it. Like, I get the general outline of the plot, but I don't know why everything in the film happens. Normally, I would be bothered by this, but I actually didn't mind that at all with this film. Since the stylistic elements of the film are so strong and diverse, I think that was all the film needed to be great. The sensory techniques this film utilized caused it to be a highly surreal and strange tale. Simply feeling the power of those elements came with their own set of rewards which moved me in ways which few films I've seen have, so I'm not sure I want the story to be more coherent. It was already impactful. As I watched one highly surreal, often indescribable set piece go by after another, I found myself becoming more involved with the mysterious beauty of the film, even if I didn't understand what was going on half the time. Overall, this is a fantastic horror film and I'm glad I was able to revisit it for this thread.

Last up: The Whisperers

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that was my happy experience as well. Was a little lost at times with the storyline but was far too involved in the atmosphere and the clever use of shadows for it to truly matter or be any kind of negative.

I think it also helped that the atmospheric elements contributed to the surrealism, as opposed to feeling secondary or unrelated to it. One thing which really impressed me this viewing was how some characters appeared to pop into the frame in rather unconventional ways in certain scenes.

I agree. I had did the same thing and watched it a second time simply because of the "atmospheric elements" and how intriguing I found them.

Unrelated, but didn't somebody mention that this is the largest HoF we've had so far (or it's one of them)?

Nope not the largest. The 7th HoF had 18 members but three people dropped out, the films stayed in so there was still 18 movies to watch.

It was on track to be tied at one point. It will be quite far off of that for the end result.

Darn, let's amend that with the 25th HoF