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Author Topic: The Top 100 Club (Mar 2013 - Aug 2015)  (Read 441745 times)

MartinTeller

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4060 on: September 01, 2015, 08:11:10 AM »
Sorry! Fixed it.

ses

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4061 on: September 01, 2015, 08:16:42 AM »
Thanks! And a BIG thank you for starting and maintaining this club!
"It's a fool who looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart"

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Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4062 on: September 01, 2015, 11:45:12 AM »
Thanks Sandy!


Okay everyone... head over to the new thread!

Thank you, Martin! It's been such a fun month and I'm grateful for all your hard work since the beginning of this club. I've a few replys to do and then I'm heading over to the new thread!

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4063 on: September 01, 2015, 12:21:45 PM »
The Searchers
John Ford (1956)

My review.

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

8/10

I could quote so many of your sentences that stood out to me. Very insightful review. I'll quote a few, just because. :)

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Ford shows a true ability of dosing his ingredients to make something that is not too much of anything while being plenty of everything.

I'm sitting here, looking at those words saying, "yep." That style of storytelling creates so much reflection and avenues of thought. I find his movies put me in the most contemplative of moods.

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The colours are vivid and the camera shows us huge swathes of savage land that let us understand just how completely alone these characters are not only on their mission but during their entire lives, lost as they are in something that is not quite yet a functioning country.

nice. Not much of a comment, but what you wrote sits very well with me. A better comment might be, When I went to Monument Valley a few years ago, the vastness really overwhelmed me as stood on the red dirt and walked among the buttes. I felt very small indeed and admittedly lonely. Ford captured that feeling, just how you said he did.

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a smidgen (or is it a dollop) of romance

It might me a dash, or a pinch. :) This humanized Wayne's character from the very beginning and I was prepared to follow him anywhere, through his darkness and through his quest. It didn't matter how hateful or misguided he was. I cared and that's all that mattered.


Thanks for the wonderful write-up DarkeningHumour!

DarkeningHumour

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4064 on: September 01, 2015, 12:24:27 PM »
You are quite welcome.
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

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Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4065 on: September 01, 2015, 01:07:41 PM »
You are quite welcome.

:)


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.

Having Singin' in the Rain associated with me, is like the coolest thing ever!! Especially since you liked it! Whenever you think of a scene and it makes you happy, know that scene makes me happy too. :)

This is so pretty.

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Then  there are moments when there is nothing as appropriate to our hidden selves than the humid hug of a myriad droplets. Whether it be to melt one's soul into a solitary puddle or kiss watery ghosts in the air the rain can be your best friend - and that is never as true as when someone is in love.

*sigh*

It made me go on a image quest, looking for the different ways rain can make me feel. These are representational. :)







Thanks for inspiring that tangent!



I'm in the Cosmo camp, so all wonderful things you say about him, I'm in agreement with. He is pure sunshine. And yes, he was having a mental breakdown. Hollywood can do that to you. :)

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Oh the writing…It is so great from the first seconds. The dialogue is not only sharp and quick, it is full of great jokes that somehow liven up a movie that is hardly dead-numb to begin with.

ka-ching! Yes, one of the most quotable movies ever!

I love chardy's comment on how the movie made you feel.

It's not a film saying "Love me" but one singing "Try not to love me" with a big Cheshire cat grin.


so glad you saw this!


DarkeningHumour

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4066 on: September 01, 2015, 01:21:17 PM »
Not as glad as I am. Thank you for taking the time to answer so profusely.

And I hope you get to be more often image 1 than images 2 and 3.
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Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4067 on: September 01, 2015, 01:26:12 PM »
Not as glad as I am. Thank you for taking the time to answer so profusely.

That movie and your reviews, generate enthusiasm. :)

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And I hope you get to be more often image 1 than images 2 and 3.

2 and 3 are beautifully cathartic, but yes, I'll strive for more 1!

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4068 on: September 01, 2015, 01:31:12 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.

5/5

5 out of 5!

I love how you have us walking with the angels in your review. I had no way of putting me experience with this movie into my own words and here you make the unexplainable, explainable. :) I envy that!

While I was thinking about the movie, I kept hearing the song "Nice Work If You Can Get It" in my head and the quotes from the movie, so I compiled it with some images. That's as far as I could go with an attempt at a review. I'd love to watch it again, with your words in mind. Thanks for watching the movie and for your review!



Wings of Desire



Nice work if you can get it



It's great to live only by the spirit, to testify day by day for eternity only to the spiritual side of people... But sometimes I get fed up with my spiritual existence. Instead of forever hovering above I'd like to feel a weight grow in me to end the infinity and to tie me to earth.


Just imagine someone

An angel's passing by


Sighin' sigh after sigh

Time heals all, but what if time itself is the disease? Sometimes its' like you have to bend to go on living. All the people I've met who'll live on in my head... I waited an eternity for someone to say a loving word to me... Someone who'd say "I love you so much today." That would be so wonderful. I look and the world emerges before my eyes and fills my heart. As a child, I wanted to live on an island. A woman alone, gloriously alone... Empty. Incompatible. Emptiness, fear, fear, fear, like a little animal lost in the woods. Who are you? I don't know anymore... Don't cry! No way! Crying is out of the question. These things happen. It's just how it is. Things don't always turn out the way you'd like. So empty... Don't think about anything. Just be. This evening frightens me. It's silly... How should I live? Maybe that's not the question. How should I think? I know so little. Maybe because I'm too curious. Often my thoughts are all wrong because it's like I'm talking to someone else at the same time... Longing... longing for a wave of love to swell up in me. That's what makes me clumsy; the lack of pleasure. A desire for love... The desire to love!


And you can get it if you try

I've been on the outside long enough, absent long enough. I've stood outside the world long enough.


Who could ask for anything more?

Sandy

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Re: The Top 100 Club
« Reply #4069 on: September 01, 2015, 01:53:05 PM »


It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934)


It's amazing to me (a probably others around here that are familiar with my taste in movies), that I haven't seen It Happened One Night before now.  I think it's a credit to this film that if felt so darn familiar to me.  That just shows how many films are influenced by It Happened One Night.  It was charming and slick and funny and delightful.  You have Gable's reporter wanting to get the story of the "on the run" socialite making her way to her playboy husband whom she eloped with against her father's wishes, but of course falling in love with the girl along the way.  Gable is so much fun here. He's charming and boisterous, making fun of Colbert's socialite, and arguing over the right way to dunk a donut ("Where'd you learn how to dunk? Finishing school?") or the definition of a piggy back ride ("Your father didn't know beans about piggy back riding").  He's great, but the gem of this film is Claudette Colbert.  She's perfect. I can't really describe her any other way.  The famous hitchhiking scene fits perfectly into their dynamic as a couple and the film itself.  It's a road movie, a screwball comedy, an opposites attract romance all rolled into one. 

Outside of It's a Wonderful Life, I don't think I ever took notice of Capra's directing style.  It never really stuck out to me in his other films, but I noticed it here.  When they are in the hotel room with the "Wall of Jericho" separating the two, you see their heads silhouetted by the outside moonlight and rain, it's a lovely shot for a lovely seen. Overall, I really loved this film.  I don't think it will make it into my Top 100, maybe after a few viewings, but thank you so much, Sandy, for finally getting me to watch this film

ses, the picture you chose is so adorable. :)

I was one of the ones that was really surprised that you hadn't seen it, because your top 100 is full of great classics. Happy to be the catalyst for you seeing this one! You've brought many wonderful movies to my attention.

Your review is all happiness and a walk down memory lane. Must see this again soon and with an eye to Capra directing style!

Gable's little monologue has been on my mind, probably, because I read it recently. The words do linger though.

Sure I've thought about it. Who hasn't? If I could ever meet the right sort of girl. Ah, where you gonna find her? Somebody that's real. Somebody that's alive. They don't come that way anymore. Have I ever thought about it? I've even been sucker enough to make plans. You know, I saw an island in the Pacific once. I've never been able to forget it. That's where I'd like to take her. She'd have to be the sort of a girl who'd... well, who'd jump in the surf with me and love it as much as I did. You know, nights when you and the moon and the water all become one. You feel you're part of something big and marvelous. That's the only place to live... where the stars are so close over your head you feel you could reach up and stir them around. Certainly, I've been thinking about it. Boy, if I could ever find a girl who was hungry for those things...

Who wouldn't be hungry for those things? :)

Thanks for the fun review!