The 11th Hall of Fame

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MovieMeditation's Cinema Reviews // Film Diary 2015 // Letterboxd Profile // MovieMeditation's Top 50 Horror

What's the human condition trilogy? What's the three films called? I've only seen Samurai Rebellion from Kobayashi, but I liked it and I'm interested in checking some more of his films out. I was going to track down Harakiri first, seems it would be the easiest to find.

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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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hu...n_(film_series)

Whoa...heavy. Seems like somthing interresting, but at nearly 10 hours this might take some planing to see. Not that I'm against trying, but as I've said, I'm not a fan of multiple sittings to get though a movie. But it is three distinct movies or a movie in three parts?

Watch all 3 in order

After I finished watching Ida, I had to google Agata Trzebuchowska to see what she looked like in colour. All throughout the film, whenever the camera was close on her face, I couldn't help but stare at her large, dark eyes. I wondered if she had worn contacts to make her irises look larger, but that's not the case. And it wasn't just her eyes, the entire film was very captivating from start to finish.

I appreciated that the shot length (the actual duration, not focal length) was long enough for me to look around the frame and appreciate everything that was there. I wish more mainstream films would have enough confidence in their cinematography to let shots last longer, because rapid fire editing gets really tiring after awhile. Or maybe I'm just watching the wrong films. Regardless, Ida was beautiful, and with a very subdued but effective sound (or lack of sound, really) design to match the visual aesthetic.

Even though the narrative was rather simple, I really enjoyed Ida/Anna's story. Agata Kulesza was great as the aunt, and I appreciated how her small comment in the car about how Ida's vows mean nothing if she doesn't really know what she's giving up became the film's finale. Ida clearly took that to heart, and I saw her little venture out into Wanda's world as both a way to process her grief, but also to take the aunt's advice to heart. The whole thing just seemed very fitting to me. I'm glad this was nominated because I don't think I would have watched it otherwise.

More love for Ida! Very happy to se you liked it, Cosmic.

The Dead Girl

I seem to really like movies which are structured in this fashion, in a way like a puzzle being pieced together. This way ok for me. The first three segments ranged from mediocre to ok, but I really thought the last two sequences were very well made. I seemed to care more about the mother and The Dead Girls story because they were easier to connect to. I wish I could have connected a bit more to the story. Everything else was just ok for me but I can certainly see why Topsy would think it's a deserving HOF movie.

I hadn't read anything about this movie going in, so it was a totally blind watch. I've seen a decent amount of German movies before with great success. I thought this was going to be a pretty dark movie with the way it started. It ended up mixing heavy drama and comedy, with what I thought were mixed results. The whole plot point with the deception to the mother is what really has me wondering. I think that part of the movie was clever and effective, yet it felt a little zany at times, and without it, this movie could have been a new favorite of mine. I still think it's a fantastic movie, but I would have preferred if this movie wasn't so original for a change. I think there could have been an incredible coming of age story here, had that been the focus of the movie. Up to the point when the mother woke up, this was close to a 5 star movie for me. The rest still ranged from very good to great, but the tone of the middle part threw me off a bit. Again, not that I didn't think that part was good, because I did, but for my taste, it would have been even better if it went in another direction. From an acting and technical standpoint, the movie is superb, and I genuinely liked all of the characters. Great nomination.

Just a rewatch of Ronin left for me

There is 4 more for me. A rewatch of Bringing Up Baby is on the horizon.

The Flowers of War

Pretty good film not something i loved though.

Even though i didn't love it i really didn't have many problems with it, other than some of the battle scenes which i found a bit boring. There were a few 'perfect' things that happened during the first battle that annoyed me; like the dynamite falling perfectly next to the tank from the guy shot as he was falling off the roof and the wall collapsing onto the soldier pointing a gun at Christian Bale; there was also one later in the film with the bullet coming through the church window at the exact right time to go through the little girls neck. Those sort of things i always hate in battle scenes thankfully there weren't too many more of them. The slow motion scene with the soliers dying and the cheesy music playing made me cringe. All of these problems were from the first battle which was only the first 15-20 minutes of the film though. Also i did kind of like the part later in the film where the sniper is shooting the grenades he's planted which is more or equally absurd to all that so i can understand why none of this would bother anyone else.

I started enjoying it when they got to the church. To my surprise they got a kinda nutty, funny, story going; with all of the prostitutes trying to get theirselves into the church. Up to the church storming scene that is of course. Brutal scene, that creep shouting "liutenant hurry up we have virgins", and the girls being dragged about scremaing; ugh just horrible. Loved Bale trying to save them though; i do like how it was clearly him thinking this is my best chance to survive at first when he realized he couldn't hide then when he saw how brutal it was he became genuine about it. That fit his character and was a really good choice IMO. This part of the film was brutal scene after brutal scene with the small amount of hope Bales story brought. It absolutely had to be like this though or it would have been a whitewashed failure; while not the easiest to watch at times i'd definitely say this part was a success in bringing forward just a tiny amount of the horrific reality of this atrocity. The rape and murder of the one that jumps into the river in particular was horrendous. The final scene when Bale starts tearing up when he is driving away in his truck was probably what got to me the most in the film; just the mixture of relief that he's got the girls out and sadness/regret for the prostitutes fate was so apparent; great scene.

From when he was first introduced i really loved George. I felt for him with his "You Fix truck. Help us" lines and i loved his interactions with Bale. I liked Bales character and thought he was fun for the most part, but i don't know i'm not really confortable with a white guy getting shoehorned into the story. My guess is the "we need your western face" thing was an excuse for them hiring a big name westerner since it really didn't lead anywhere. The other characters and performances were solid as well.

The film was really beautiful; like Yimous other one i've seen Hero. My only slight problem was the shaky cam during a few of the chase scenes like the one with the two prostitutes who get the string, that's a very minor thing though as it only happened a couple of times and only for small amounts of time.

Anyway solid nom. I didn't love it but i enjoyed it and again i really didn't think there was any major problems with it. Just Good Bye Lenin! and i'm done.

Bringing Up Baby

I liked this even more the second time around. Great screwball comedies have always appealed to me for whatever reason. Some Like It Hot and It Happened One Night are two of my favorite films of all time and while I wouldn't put this in their tier, it is still up there for me. I really liked the two main leads and I think that they had great chemistry together. I really liked the character of Susan Vance. I'm not a big Hepburn fan but for me this is the best role that she has had. Cary Grant is good in pretty much everything and I thought he did a solid job as well. Like Camo said I think the writing is what carries the film into having so much success for me. I hate that people penalize comedies because they aren't realistic. I love the use of the Leopard Baby and I also thought that George was a great addition to the film. The cleverness of the film is something that I will always appreciate.Hawks is a very versatile director and you can tell that he has a lot of creativity. If we get around to a 30s list around here this one will certainly be in high consideration for me. It's a shame that Camo and I seem to stand alone with this film, but I've come to see that the older films get, the more hit or miss they can be with people. I thoroughly enjoyed this nomination.

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You are my hero Raul . I'm with you on It Happened One Night as well, BTW.

We'll do a 30s Countdown List! We need to! I was planning on hosting that one myself

30's and before is what most have suggested for whatever reason.

And more AKA Sunrise FTW!!!

Got to see that soon man.

There needs to be a Silent Era countdown, done by itself, even if it's smaller countdown, it's still important to some of us. Silent films are important and we can bring a spotlight to some of the greats by eventually having a Silent Era countdown. Which should be separate from the 1930s countdown, as the 1930s are an important decade full of great films to explore. Just as important as the 1960s or 1950s were.

I could go for a silent era countdown, but I'd have to get a lot of recomendations from you guys on the site, cause I wouldn't even know where to start. I think I've seen maybe 5 to 10 silent films if that, and all of them have been the big ones that you pick up from lists like Top 10 silent movies and such. At the same time, the ones I have seen, I've liked (for the most part). Sunrise is still one of my favourite movies of any category, but I fell asleep to Battleship Potemkin. I don't want to wade through a ton of movies just to end up loathing most of them and maybe finding one I actually liked.