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Author Topic: The Top 100 Club (Mar 2013 - Aug 2015)  (Read 441548 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4040 on: August 30, 2015, 05:29:19 AM »
I am glad I was able to write this review before the end of the month. I should be able to squeeze yet another one before tomorrow's end.

The Searchers
John Ford (1956)

My review.

TLDR : Great but it could have done so much more with the material.

8/10
« Last Edit: August 30, 2015, 06:12:28 AM by DarkeningHumour »
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Teproc

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4041 on: August 30, 2015, 05:42:06 AM »
I think we got about 12 overlaps in our top 100 plus another 3 that will probably be in my top 100 the next time I revise the list.  You must also be a Pink Floyd fan since you have both The Wall and Live at Pompeii in your top 100.  Quite a few in your list that I haven't seen that now want to check out...

It is my favorite band. I do think The Wall (the movie) is genuinely great, and would recommend it to anyone, watching it was a pretty formative experience for me, it changed the way I approach both film and music. Live at Pompeii isn't on that level, and I would probably only recommend it to someone who loves the band already, though it has some striking shots as well.

Thanks for the kind words everyone.  :)
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jdc

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4042 on: August 30, 2015, 06:01:04 AM »
You will find a few PF fans around here, they have been one of my favorite bands since the mid-80's.  I like live at Pompeii but wish it was an the complete show without the cut aways to the DSotM recording sessions.  that could have been a good extra. 
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Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4043 on: August 30, 2015, 08:41:44 AM »
The Searchers! Wonderful. :) I'll be back, DarkeningHumour.



@Sandy re- Walden/UC

Those passages seem to show Carruth cinema-tising the abstractions on the page; "to look through each other's eyes". The use of the book within the film almost suggests that one should read it as a companion piece to the film.

Carruth employs the text at times as part of the auto-suggestion process, as if the words make the subject more open to mind control. It allows the director to showcase a piece of literature he seems particularly taken with by finding a dramatic role for it.

My reaction though was that I found the words too abstracted. It might be a book to struggle through. Carruth's interpretation onto the screen might be a better way to view a work like this. The passages are flowery and stilted in a way that I don't enjoy personally. The film may be the digestible tablet.

:)

Some of my thoughts as I read through Walden passages....  "You don't say." "Pompous, much?" "It must be nice to sit in solitude as you sit in judgement of others lives." but there are also, "Yeah, I feel the same way." "More about simplifying, please!" 

Overall, a little Walden goes a long way. You are so right about the movie being the way to digest it. :) He can quickly get tedious and verbose. I'm not sure if he wrote most of it when he was younger, and he died pretty young, so I wonder if it would have come across as condescending, if he had the experience and written about it, as an older man.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4044 on: August 30, 2015, 10:59:31 AM »
And this will be my last submission or Sandy's month. Good Morning to you Sandy.

Singin' in the Rain
Steven Donen and Gene Kelly (1952)


My review

TLDR : Love the humour and some musical numbers though not all by any means. Cosmo's the man.

9/10

I am glad I watched this when I did, it feels fitting it should have been during your month Sandy. It's one of my favourites from this club.

Recap of the month :
Singin in the Rain - 9/10
The Searchers - 8/10
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - 7.5/10
It's a Wonderful Life - 7/10
Persuasion - 5/10

I would say this was a success.
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Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4045 on: August 30, 2015, 11:58:42 AM »
Bom Dia, Darkeninghumour!

That review! :)) I too <3 Cosmo and find rain to be very magical. I'm working on my First Contact reply (who knew there was so much in a Star Trek movie!), so will give a proper reply to what you wrote soon, I promise! For now since you made me have a smile on my face, at the risk of really embarrassing myself, I'll share with you how that contagiously cheerful fever affected me.

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Singin' in the Rain has gotten me into a few predicaments here and there over the years. I'm sure it's not intentional, but the movie is just so irresistible, it can't help itself. Or, I should say, I can't help myself.

Do you remember those dome umbrellas that you could watch the rain through the clear plastic. I loved them. I thought they were the greatest invention ever. I was so proud going to and from school on those days I was lucky enough to have rain. Well, not anymore after seeing Singin' in the Rain. So what if I could see through the dumb thing, it wouldn't spin. Nor was it aerodynamic as I swung around in big circles. The clunky thing held me back and kept me from having that glorious feeling. Umbrella dissatisfaction was the first incident.

The next one I'm not proud of and I paid dearly the rest of the day for it, but as we lined up for school one morning right after a heavy rain, the water spout was pouring out the most tempting gush of water and I don't know what possessed me, unless it was Gene Kelly's big smile, but I had to get underneath it, I just had to! Five seconds of bliss. Five hours, fifty-nine minutes and fifty-five seconds of miserable wet clothes sticking to me. Plenty of time to wipe the smile off my own face.

I found that I was taxing everyone's patience as phrases from the movie started creeping into my vocabulary like, “What dope’d wear a thing like this?”, “You and who else, you big lummox?”, “Well, at least you’re taking it lying down.”, or “How did you come, by way of Australia?” and my personal favorite, "I'm a shimmering star in the cinema firmament." Fun the first 10 times, but after that it's pushing it and boy did I push it.

One trip to Hollywood in pre-GPS days, had me facing a carload of angry, frustrated people as I was bound and determined to find certain intersecting streets, so I could take a picture and sing out, "Here we are Sunset and Camden!" So worth it to me, but I failed to convince anyone else of it's importance.

Let's see, what other things did I have to learn the hard way? I'm not capable of running up walls. Spinning around on the carpet propelled by my elbows, creates good and painful rug burns. Reenacting the crazy veil dance cannot be accomplished with a portable fan. Making faces behind people's backs doesn't work, because of something called peripheral vision. There's more, but suffice it to say, I'm a slow learner when it comes to the compelling nature of this movie. Why is it so compelling? I'll tell you. There's not a misstep in any moment of it. Each one is perfectly choreographed and executed and practically begs me to infused it into the very fibers of my being. So I oblige and I'm happy again. And again.



Oh, and I think the scores of those 5 movies is a huge success too! :)

PeacefulAnarchy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4046 on: August 30, 2015, 07:25:06 PM »
To Sir, with Love (1967) 8/10
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this would work without Poitier. It's not just that he gives a very good performance, but also his screen presence and style completely overtake the film and make it much better. Looking at the premise, the finale and a lot of the dialogue it seems like this could easily have been just another teacher vs. rowdy students film with some silly jokes and stereotypical characters. At times I wondered if this was originally written as a straight comedy. But Poitier lends it some gravitas that makes not only his own character's struggles meaningful, but they make the entire setup meaningful. It becomes a commentary on education, on race, on class and on finding your own way in life. Some of it feels a bit light and the specifics a bit outdated, but I really like where its heart is at and it doesn't hurt that it's also a really entertaining film.

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4047 on: August 31, 2015, 08:25:54 AM »
To Sir, with Love (1967) 8/10
To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure this would work without Poitier. It's not just that he gives a very good performance, but also his screen presence and style completely overtake the film and make it much better. Looking at the premise, the finale and a lot of the dialogue it seems like this could easily have been just another teacher vs. rowdy students film with some silly jokes and stereotypical characters. At times I wondered if this was originally written as a straight comedy. But Poitier lends it some gravitas that makes not only his own character's struggles meaningful, but they make the entire setup meaningful. It becomes a commentary on education, on race, on class and on finding your own way in life. Some of it feels a bit light and the specifics a bit outdated, but I really like where its heart is at and it doesn't hurt that it's also a really entertaining film.

Poitier is everything! :)

I'm nodding in agreement over your words. It's what he brings to the part, that keeps the movie in my top 100. Every time I ponder on his character, I learn more, or I should say am reminded of what I'd like to emulate. One of my very favorite role models and I wish to high heaven I had more teachers like him!

So happy this worked for you!

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4048 on: August 31, 2015, 12:28:10 PM »
Star Trek: First Contact (1996) 6/10
Let me preface this by saying I went into this with exactly zero familiarity with these characters, and my only Star Trek experiences are Wrath of Khan and the two recent reboots. On the plus side, the film does let you get enough information from context to understand the story and the general character roles, so not having familiarity shouldn't, in theory, preclude enjoyment of the film.

It's good to know that there is enough information to have the movie stand alone, for the most part. I wouldn't be able to answer that question on my own. Too immersed. :)

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That said, I also felt like there was a lot of winking to the audience with references I didn't get, and also with really overt and blunt references that I did get but were distracting ("you're all astronauts on... some kind of star trek." really?).

ick! I am impressed though, that James Cromwell was able to deliver that line while keeping a straight face. Oh, if I had two more words to explain my love of this movie they would be James Cromwell! :)

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Actually, most of the dialogue seems really on the nose and stilted, it was my biggest problem with the film. I don't know if it's bad writing, bad acting, or just a stylistic quirk that you get used to if you've seen the show and are familiar with the characters, but I had a hard time getting past it. With all that, the film was significantly hamstringed. But, I did enjoy it with it's half-camp half-serious atmosphere and a generally compelling split narrative, even if some of the specifics don't make sense on inspection. I had enough fun that I can kind of see why people enjoy Star Trek, but not enough to get me particularly eager to watch more.

There is definitely a certain style that has it's roots from the beginnings, I tend to like the humor more as it's evolved from The Original Series, to The Next Generation and onto the new Start Trek movies. Yes, lots of winking and nodding, but it feels more sophisticated, each iteration.

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I'm curious, is there something specific about this film that puts it in your top 100, or is it more a representative sample of the series?

Yes and yes. I'll start with the second one.

I've never really considered myself to be a trekkie, but there has been a type of Star Trek through line throughout my life. I didn't watch re-runs of TOS growing up, but for some reason my family went to see the movies as they came out. I thought they were okay, but was mostly happy just to go to the theater, or more often than not, the drive-in. Cheaper that way, since the cost was by the carload and we could fit all ten of us in our van. Great memories sitting on top, or on folding chairs outside. Anyway! I did watch TNG, but didn't really appreciate it until the 3rd season and then my kids got into it later, as well as TOS and Voyager, the animated series and the movies, so I did my share of peripheral watching and provided a few Star Trek parties, complete with easy homemade costumes and a "replicator." So yes, it does seem fitting to have the Star Trek franchise represented in my top 100 somewhere. :)

As for specifics! Yes, there are some very specific things about this movie that make it my favorite Star Trek movie.

* Goldsmith's main theme, a darker more melancholy approach, that chokes me up a little each time I hear it. I kept hoping smirnoff would use it for one of his horse races! Goldsmith also peppers past themes throughout the movie at key moments, giving the film a real nostalgic feeling.

* Alfre Woodard. Man, is Lily spunky! The sparks really fly as she pushes all the right buttons and I too wish there were more scenes with her and Picard.

* James Cromwell. I love his arc. Here's an anti-hero that steps up anyway. Overall, I think we all have a more heroic nature inside us, than we give ourselves credit for.

* Picard's "journey." This might be a little less meaningful for someone that hadn't followed the series, but at the end of season 3, Picard is assimilated into the Borg, the most daunting and impenetrable of all enemies to that point. What's worse, is that we all had to wait out the summer months of him being a Borg, until season 4's first episode's resolution. That is a lot of trauma!! Season 4 explored Picard's recovery and First Contact explored it further, as he dealt with his residual trauma, head on. His warrior side really explodes, which is not his usual demeanor at all.

* Data's exploration of the senses. This too might not have as much impact, not having watched Data's conscious efforts to understand humanity, episode after episode. Here he is thrown into fear and desire and we're all not sure what's going to happen. New emotions are a huge thing and it's fascinating to watch Date deal with them.

* Steppenwolf!

I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine
On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here

Well, you don't know what we can find
Why don't you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride


haha! :)


* Lines like...    Lt. Commander Worf: [before blasting some Borg] Assimilate this!



It looks like I may be more of a trekkie than I had considered! :) Thanks for the review and the questions, PeacefulAnarchy. I had a good time watching it again and pondering why it's in my top 100.

Jeff Schroeck

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4049 on: August 31, 2015, 03:24:51 PM »
Wings Of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)

The image I most associate with “Wings Of Desire” is an early shot of Bruno Ganz’s Damiel standing solemnly on top of a building, possibly a cathedral, looking down at the world, but the image that represents, to me, the heart of the film is the first shot of Damiel wearing that gaudy pawn shop jacket. He walks around wearing it with the innocence of a child who doesn’t quite yet understand the cruelty of society, the people who will walk past him and scoff at such a ridiculous looking thing. To him it’s just the wonder of colors, which he’s known about since before history but can only now experience, much like the chill that prompts the purchase of a jacket in the first place.

I think it’s fitting that the angels congregate in a library. There is a split in the film, not between the spirit and the intellect, but between those two and the animal body. The angels appear to only hear human’s existential thoughts and worries, not thoughts of pure existence (“I’m hungry”, “I’m tired”, “I’m aroused”), and when they intervene, they comfort them by positively charging their thoughts instead of their person. We see Cassiel, Damiel’s partner, follow a man obsessed with documenting the destructions of World War II and who lives outside of the actual now. He winds up in a field where buildings used to be and sits in an easy chair, perhaps on the very spot his own chair used to sit in his own house.

The angels exist out of time, which is hard to show on screen. Wenders does a great workaround by having the angels recount activities spanning centuries as though they were their daily logs. He could have easily done rapid scenes of various time periods, but he lets the narrative stay current at all times. The film is about how the angels affect humanity, and not about the angels themselves. When Damiel becomes a part of that humanity, he is overjoyed about finally sensing time.

Sound plays an interesting role in all of this. It could become maddening to try to follow what each person is thinking, and you get the sense that it’s a nonstop barrage of sound to these angels. Their patience is admirable. So is Wender’s technique. He glides through the internal monologues like an NPR man-on-the-street commentary montage, then matches that glide with stunning aerials throughout Berlin. It’s beautiful cinema.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2015, 01:15:44 PM by Jeff Schroeck »

 

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