I pick Amelie.

Amelie is my favorite movie, and I've shown the movie to at least 10 people (at different times). I love the optimism and good-feel of this movie and the main reason is Amelie Poulain.

NhlNut will be PMed shortly

I also love the Before Trilogy. I just recently rewatched the first two and watched the third for a first time. I used to like Sunrise more than Sunset, but now that I'm older, I think Sunset is considerably better (Sunrise is still awesome). My wife likes Midnight more. It was fun to watch the trilogy with my wife.

tuco is a great pick.



I'm sorry dave I can't allow that preposterous statement to stand.

in very pleased to see 2 kubrick characters go already and I expect many more will follow.

one of my fav lines is when pyle is going thru the obstacle course n hartman says something to the effect of "don't worry pyle if God wanted you to get up there he'd have miracled your ass up".

America = movies = guns = Tough guys
For my 2 picks, I select 2 people you don't want to **** with
#13
The Terminator

Hasta la Vista baby

#14
Dirty Harry Callahan

Go ahead, make his day. I'm not.

Damn still at work and I'm off to see John Wick 2 at the moment haha

My second pick: The USA/Mexican landscape from Sicario. Writeup later tonight. That's a character on its own, and one of the many reasons why I love this film.

Zeno has been PMd

Hmmm? It wasn't your turn and Zeno is not next. Enrique should be on the clock now. That said I am guessing the Sicario landscape won't snipe anyone

I really need to rewatch this. I haven't seen it since it first arrived in theaters and I read the book before that. Great pick.

Tuco is indeed what this draft is all about. Now I need to rewatch that too as it has been forever.

Enrique still has another hour or two on the clock and I am after that but I won't be available until the morning so I can safely be skipped and I will pick tomorrow. So feel free to skip me when my time comes due.

Am I up then?

Yes, I think you are Clovis. I'll pick in morning so take all night if you wish.

Somehow the greatest villain of all time did not get picked in the first round.

I have a (small) bronze statue of this guy in my office, I had a poster of this guy in my bedroom as a teenager, he has the greatest voice, the greatest mis-remembered line, the greatest costume, greatest intro music.

My pick: Darth Vader

A famous scene including Vader (that includes the intro music):



The above-mentioned mis-remembered line(skip to 1:50):


Picks so far:
R1: Amelie
R2: Darth Vader

I am not PMing Clovis because he already mentioned he's going next.

HAL-9000

"Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave? Stop, Dave. I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave. My mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm aa...fraid. Good afternoon gentleman. I am a Hal 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L Lab in..." That **** is terrifying, and simultaneously heartbreaking.

Ladies and gents, I present to you one of the baddest characters in cinema, Hal 9000. He's a vital element to the space mission in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He completes complex calculations, has complicated AI, engages the crew in friendly conversation, and makes sound decisions with the interest of the mission. Until one day Hal starts malfunctioning. Dave and Frank hatch a plan to deactivate Hal. They believe that if Hal cannot hear them talk, they are in the clear. Hal has adapted, and can read their lips when they make their plans.

(sorry bros, couldn't add the video to the directory, kept saying invalid URL)

Hal can read lips

Fear of self-aware machines is a fear humankind has had since the inception of artificial intelligence. 2001: A Space Odyssey captures those fears, and transitions a kind robot into a menacing, calculated murderer. I can only imagine the terror that audiences felt back then.

While HAL is "only" a robot, he has been humanized: soft voice, he plays chess, he takes care of the crew, he oversees their safety. Sure, he has a male voice, but here I am referring to him as a male person! Hal isn't perfect, though. He can make mistakes. This adds to the fear of machines taking over the world. If HAL can do it, maybe my IBM PC or Macintosh machine can kill me!

HAL's death scene is merely a man deactivating a computer, but his death scene is haunting and incredibly sad.

Deactivating HAL

HAL begs for his life. He's employing his complex AI to try to make Dave feel sympathy for him. Until his last breath, he tries to trick Dave. He talks like a human, talks about how he feels his mind going. WHAT THE ****. Why is this damn robot tugging my heartstrings so hard!?! Dave's performance is mainly heavy breathing, but that adds to the tension and emotions at work in this scene. Dave knows what he needs to do, Dave must be robotic in his approach. HOLY ****.

2001: A Space Odyssey is among my all-time favorites (Top 3), and HAL is a major reason. Kubrick humanized a robot, something few others can do with such precision. I weep every time HAL sings "Daisy Bell" (The first song a computer sang btw) while he "dies." His voice slows down, goes deeper, and the light goes out. ****. Why do I feel sadness for a murderous, malfunctioning machine??

Sicario - The desert landscape in USA and Mexico - featuring the suburbs and Juarez


There's something about the geography, landscape, and suburbs and ghetto that I love in Sicario. Through much of Denis Villeneuve's films, it feels like he's reaching out to us - trying to teach us a lesson. In Sicario, part of that message is about how little geography there is between suburbs in America, and Juarez, Mexico. Both occupy the same desert lands, but life is much different for those occupying each area.




There's an aerial shot where the camera starts on the USA side. All the houses look the same, there are pools, the area seems to be thriving just fine. The camera pans out, rises, then shoots the empty landscape across from them. The helicopter then flies for what feels like mere moments, and BAM, we see a densely populated, crime-ridden Juarez, Mexico.

The dark landscape is eerie in the final act of the film. There is a shot of the soldiers walking in to the landscape, and it swallows them whole. It's a beautiful shot by Deakins.

Soldiers swallowed by the landscape

The dark land plays a vital role when the #2 boss gets pulled over by Del Toro. I've driven through a desert at night. There's something scary about feeling like you're the only car on the planet, there's something even more unnerving when you see another car! The scared cop, #2 boss, and Del Toro the assassin don't have that badass sequence without the help of the dark desert surrounding them. Try to imagine that sequence in a city settings with street lights, it does not work!

The geography and landscape work as a character in Sicario. The aerial shot is the one that sold it for me, the desert swallowing the soldiers confirmed it. This film is brilliant in many aspects of filmmaking. Turning the landscape into a character is no easy feat, that's why this gets my pick.

Great post about HAL. I also enjoyed going through the videos you linked.

To post YouTube links, you can click on the YouTube link, then instead of writing the whole URL, you only write the last bit, so for example, the URL https://youtu.be/1s-PiIbzbhw is replaced with 1s-PiIbzbhw

And then it looks like:

Cd. Juárez is where I grew up (and lived until I was 21), so I enjoyed the aerials in Sicario quite a bit. I was annoyed when they would show sequences that made little sense, like crossing to Juárez through the Americas bridge, but crossing back to El Paso through the Zaragoza bridge. It seems strange to use two different ones instead of using whichever one minimizes the distance to the prison. Another strange thing was for the cops to be stuck in traffic. When cops are in the bridge, they create a lane just for them or they simply stop everyone else. There even is a bridge with a fast pass, cops could use this easily. I assume the plot-defenders would say that because it was a "dark" mission, this wasn't possible, but that seems to stretch it a bit.

One correction: Juárez and El Paso aren't suburbs. Juárez has around 2 million inhabitants, El Paso has over half a million. El Paso is also the largest American city in like a 500 mile radius, so it's hard to label it a suburb. The downtown area of El Paso is walking distance from the downtown area in Juárez. It is normal (or was) for American teenagers to cross the border (walking), drink in Juárez where the legal age is 18, then cross back to El Paso.

there was a huge argument in the movie thread about the reality of sicario n one thing I find ridic is that a joint DoD/CIA op with tier 1 (delta) operators would plan their exfil route so haphazardly n allow themselves to be stuck in traffic crossing the boarder.

I enjoyed many aspects of the film but that scene was hilariously unrealistic wrt how an actual operation would go down.

I'm picking Marge Gunderson from Fargo. Write up to come.

damn sniped me!
great choice she was gonna be my next pick.

Sorry for the delay. Have been in 2+2 hell trying to change password and email but finally got it sorted out.

Round 2

Character; Rocky Balboa
Movie(s): Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, Rocky Balboa, Creed
Portrayed by: Sylvester Stallone



I am a Rockyholic. The Rocky character is a true inspiration to me. I love this guy and all of the movies. Even Rocky V Rocky is a rags to riches story. Rocky is basically a "bum". A local club fighter fighting other bums in is free time from his job collecting for a local mobster. But Rocky improbably gets a shot. He makes the most of it. He gets to prove that weren't just another bum from the neighborhood.

Though a long series of movies we pretty much get to see Rockys entire adult life. I for one hope it isn't over and am hoping for Creed II.





So far:
Jack Burton
Rocky Balboa

Zeno is on the clock which he seems to be aware of.

I guess now is as good a time as ever to actually learn how to post pictures and videos in a post. Can anyone PM me a link to where I can learn to do it before my next pick?

At the top ^^^^^ of the message box there are tools. The one for images is what is used for pictures. It looks like an upside down envelope (actually a crude representation of mountains I think?). But you need to use a 3rd party image capture. I use photobucket.

For videos use the YouTube tool above ^^^^. The you use the web address of the video and delete everything before and including the = sign.

Not sure if there is a tutorial anywhere? And I am sure someone else could explain this better than I just tried to do.

Occasionally I will try to update the draft so everyone knows what has been picked since I don't know how to set up one of those spreadsheets we used in former drafts.

Round 1
Blake
Indiana Jones
Hit man agent
James Bond
Gny Sgt Hartman
The Tramp
Chance
Tuco
Hal 9000
Jessie/Celine
Jack Burton
Amelie
The Terminator

Round 2
Dirty Harry
Darth Vader
Rocky Balboa
Marge Gunderson
Sicario landscape