Tropical Island Video Vault Draft - ROUND 20 - FINAL ROUND

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
My brother just advised me to watch that one last week. Of course its all samurais and westerns with him so I am never sure if its the movie or the genre which has his interest piqued.
 
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Warhawk

The cake is a lie.
Staff member
OK, been wavering a bit on where to go with the last pick and wanted to finish with an oldie but goodie WWII movie with a great cast (and I needed to have Clint eastwood on my list somewhere!). Great performances by all in this one.

Donald Sutherland is outstanding in his role as Oddball, a tank driver more interested in protecting the rear than fighting up front. And he makes "modifications" to his tank to prepare it for battle. Good stuff.


Kelly's Heroes

Some info from wiki, etc:

Directed by Brian G. Hutton, who also directed the 1968 World War II drama Where Eagles Dare, the film stars Clint Eastwood, Donald Sutherland, Telly Savalas, Don Rickles, and Carroll O'Connor, with lesser roles played by Harry Dean Stanton, Gavin MacLeod, and Stuart Margolin.

A few lines from the movie:


Oddball: Hi, man.
Big Joe: What are you doing?
Oddball: I'm drinking wine and eating cheese, and catching some rays, you know.
Big Joe: What's happening?
Oddball: Well, the tank's broke and they're trying to fix it.
Big Joe: Well, then, why the hell aren't you up there helping them?
Oddball: [chuckles] I only ride 'em, I don't know what makes 'em work.
Big Joe: Christ!
Oddball: Definitely an antisocial type. Woof, woof, woof! That's my other dog imitation.


Oddball: This engine's been modified by our mechanical genius here, Moriarty. Right?
Moriarty: Whatever you say, babe.
[giggles]
Oddball: These engines are the fastest in any tanks in the European Theater of Operations, forwards or backwards. You see, man, we like to feel we can get out of trouble, quicker than we got into it.
Kelly: [looking skeptical] Got any other secret weapons?
Oddball: Well, yeah, man, you see, like, all the tanks we come up against are bigger and better than ours, so all we can hope to do is, like, scare 'em away, y'know. This gun is an ordinary 76mm but we add this piece of pipe onto it, and the Krauts think, like, maybe it's a 90mm. We got our own ammunition, it's filled with paint. When we fire it, it makes... pretty pictures. Scares the hell outta people! We have a loudspeaker here, and when we go into battle we play music, very loud. It kind of... calms us down.


Oddball: We see our role as essentially defensive in nature. While our armies are advancing so fast and everyone's knocking themselves out to be heroes, we are holding ourselves in reserve in case the Krauts mount a counteroffensive which threatens Paris... or maybe even New York. Then we can move in and stop them. But for 1.6 million dollars, we could become heroes for three days.


Kelly: Well Oddball, what do you think?
Oddball: It's a wasted trip baby. Nobody said nothing about locking horns with no Tigers.
Big Joe: Hey look, you just keep them Tigers busy and we'll take care of the rest.
Oddball: The only way I got to keep them Tigers busy is to LET THEM SHOOT HOLES IN ME!
Crapgame: Hey, Oddball, this is your hour of glory. And you're chickening out!
Oddball: To a New Yorker like you, a hero is some type of weird sandwich, not some nut who takes on three Tigers.
Kelly: Nobody's asking you to be a hero.
Oddball: No? Then YOU sit up in that turret baby.
Kelly: No, because you're gonna be up there, baby, and I'll be right outside showing you which way to go.
Oddball: Yeah?
Kelly: Yeah.
Oddball: Crazy... I mean like, so many positive waves... maybe we can't lose, you're on!




pm sent
 
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Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
For my last selection in the movie draft, I'm going to pick a bit of a different film, but one I've always adored - 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (Not Rated).



One reason that I have to grab this movie for my island is that the DVD is now out of print, and new copies are going for hundreds of dollars (I'm lucky enough to have added it to my non-island collection before it went out of print). The movie itself is a loose biography of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, broken into 32 shorter films (though the credits "count" as a film) in order to mimic the structure of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which is one of Gould's most famous recordings. The short films are mixtures of music, biography, interviews, and Gould-inspired artistry, and do a fantastic job of giving one insight into the life of an eccentric but talented musician. Notable as the only movie in all of history featuring a tear-jerker interview with a piano tuner. Plus, more Colm Feore!

Below the spoiler, one of the 32 films in its entirety - and one of my favorites.
 
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Is the final playoff going to be done by opposite numbers (i.e. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15), sequential numbers (1 vs 2, 3 vs 4), random seeding, or some other form of seeding?
 
Is the final playoff going to be done by opposite numbers (i.e. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15), sequential numbers (1 vs 2, 3 vs 4), random seeding, or some other form of seeding?
We send Jespher our ranking of everyone else's picks (1-15, because it is assumed you would vote yourself first) and that determines the seeding matches.
 
With my final pick I select:
Young Frankenstein (1974)



Very surprised this came back to me in the final round, there isn't much "pure" comedy in my list and this will address the need nicely.
 
Tough call. Do I go the international route and draft a player I've never heard of just because I saw some grainy youtube video? No, I'll pick the local boy who's been overlooked by the entire board:

He was a covert agent trained in Vietnam
He has a master 6th degree black belt in Akido...and family in the mafia.
He's a cop with an attitude.



Above the Law (1988)
 
Alright, I've got four films I'm looking at. Each one would be an early round pick if I really loved them because they are all popular movies and all were picked in the previous draft. But each one has some flaw within my drafting scheme so I kept putting them off and now here I am picking between those four. In the end... well hmmm... maybe I'll change my mind. I was going to say one is out because I fear it isn't re-watchable more than once every year or two, and I need to be able to watch these at least once a month, right? But then I looked at another I was going to skip and holy crap it is really really re-watchable. But I've been considering it an exact duplicate/alternative to something I picked earlier. Now I'm not so sure it really is that much the same. The one I had settled on is a very good film, and I made the last two picks assuming I would go with it, but I've only seen it once many years ago and I just don't know now whether it is right. The fourth is out because even though it's on a topic I enjoy, there are parts to it that are annoying. So I'm down to two, the really really really re-watchable one or the one I've seen once. The really really really re-watchable one seems like it's the same kind of movie I've been picking over and over, but now that I look at my list maybe not. Gahhhh!!!! Coin flip time?
 
I have saved the best for last, nothing needs to be said except that this film was released in 1986 and it is Rad. It also isn't available on (legal) DVD or BluRay :(

I get chills in my heart every time I watch what must be Lori Laughlin's career defining performance.
Hey Cru, sign my cast?
 
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Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Alright, I'm going with the really really really re-watchable film. I kind of wish I realized earlier it wasn't so much of a duplicate after all so I could have had both, but oh well. For my last pick I select...





The Natural (1984)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087781/

That was one of the ones I auditioned 8-10 picks ago as my sports movie as well as my sepia toned 30s/40s movie. Didn't quite hum for me the way it used to, although some of the problem may have been as usual do NOT get the Director's Cut. As usual Director's Cut on this one = great opportunity to see just what morons directors are and just how lucky they got with that final cut.
 
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That was one of the ones I auditioned 8-10 picks ago as my sports movie as well as my sepia toned 30s/40s movie. Didn't quite hum for me the way it used to, although some of the problem may have been as usual do NOT get the Director's Cut. As usual Director's Cut on this one = great opportunity to see just what morons directors are and just how lucky they got with that final cut.
Yeah, it was between The Natural and Rudy as my sports movie. But really they are pretty different in tone and atmosphere and I can't say that I have a problem with more than one sports movie. I was also concerned that The Natural had too much of the TNT vibe that was rampant through my list, but looking at what I actually picked it didn't seem too bad. Considering I can't turn it off whenever it show up on TV I figured it was worth it to grab here as my finale.
 
So many good movies out there it makes it hard to pick the final one.

With my last pick, I’m drafting Short Cuts.

This is one of those great movies that flies under the radar. Robert Altman has more popular and more acclaimed films but for me, this is his best and most rewatchable. It’s three hour length, huge cast, and numerous interlocking stories make it a great candidate for desert island material.

Probably 100 other films, at least, I could have picked just as easily but that’s the way this draft has been for me. It’s been fun though. I’m looking forward to the music draft where I’ll have a much easier time selecting, so long as too many folks don’t have similar taste in music to me.

 
With my 20th selection, I choose:

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)




This film surprised me with it's clever charm and depth of character development. The story is original, engaging, well acted, and well executed. I particularly enjoyed the subtle use of CGI (Graphic User Interface) to interject Harold's thoughts on the environment. This gave the viewer the feeling like they were reading a book rather than seeing a film, getting a more tangible grasp of the inner dialogue and processing of the character. If you haven't picked this one up I suggest you do, it's a fun, engaging film that remains fresh after several viewings.
 
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I'm at work...I'll come back tonight to add the flare. With my 20th selection, I choose:

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)



This film surprised me with it's clever charm and depth of character development. The story is original, engaging, and well executed.
That film surprised me too. I usually can't stand Will Ferrell but he was really good in that.
 
Fine. Something's going to be left out, and I'll be unhappy about it either way. So I'll just deal with it and take a movie that was on my list from the very beginning, something that I never expected anyone else to pick, but that I enjoy watching. Another convoluted plot by McGuigan starring Josh Hartnett (I seem to enjoy those I guess) with some clever dialogue that's sometimes too clever for it's own good, a movie that's trying to be Pulp Fiction meets Kill Bill, but falls short, but I still like it. I like what it is, and I like what it's trying to be, and that's good enough for me. It's worth the payoff in the end. A little bit of an ensemble cast, and some cheese. Giddy up.

With the 318th pick in the 2011 TDOS Tropical Island Video Vault Draft, Superman's Super Movie Lineup selects:
Lucky Number Slevin (2006), directed by Paul McGuigan

A Kansas City Shuffle is when everybody looks right, you go left. It's not something people hear about. Falls on deaf ears mostly. This particular one has been over twenty years in the making. No small matter. Requires a lot of planning. Involves a lot of people. People connected only by the slightest of events. Like whispers in the night, in that place that never forgets, even when those people do. It starts with a horse.




PM sent.

Edit: Just realized I used the French poster. Oh well. I like this one much better.
 
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Right, well I just can't let this go any longer. It's a travesty - a sham, a joke, a farcical misjudgement by the masses - that this hasn't been taken yet. I mean, really, look at some of the movies taken and then look at this. What is wrong with you crazy people!!!


Ahem. Now that that's done with I can make my final selection. Never even considered that this would be available with the 2nd last pick of the draft.


With my 20th and final pick, I'm selecting one of the best movies of the last 20 years.




Schindler's List

I'm going to start off by dealing with the obvious criticism. Who would want to re-watch this on a desert island? ME!! I've seen this multiple times and it's genuinely a move that you can appreciate and enjoy over and over. So what it's not all Hollywoody and feel-goodish! It's extremely well made, features two great performances from Neeson (without a doubt his best piece and performance IMO) and the fantastic Ralph Fiennes. Lots of other good performances too. The story is a true one and the barbarity and severity of the concentration camps is captured without sparing any details. You can actually feel the pain and suffering that killed so many Jews during the Holocaust.

For me, a movie doesn't have to be funny or happy to be re-watchable. It has to be emotional and enjoyable, something that doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with the generic happiness people often think of. This movie is great, and I cannot fathom how the 7th best-rated movie of all time on IMDB does not get picked in this draft.
 
Right, well I just can't let this go any longer. It's a travesty - a sham, a joke, a farcical misjudgement by the masses - that this hasn't been taken yet. I mean, really, look at some of the movies taken and then look at this. What is wrong with you crazy people!!!


Ahem. Now that that's done with I can make my final selection. Never even considered that this would be available with the 2nd last pick of the draft.


With my 20th and final pick, I'm selecting one of the best movies of the last 20 years.




Schindler's List

I'm going to start off by dealing with the obvious criticism. Who would want to re-watch this on a desert island? ME!! I've seen this multiple times and it's genuinely a move that you can appreciate and enjoy over and over. So what it's not all Hollywoody and feel-goodish! It's extremely well made, features two great performances from Neeson (without a doubt his best piece and performance IMO) and the fantastic Ralph Fiennes. Lots of other good performances too. The story is a true one and the barbarity and severity of the concentration camps is captured without sparing any details. You can actually feel the pain and suffering that killed so many Jews during the Holocaust.

For me, a movie doesn't have to be funny or happy to be re-watchable. It has to be emotional and enjoyable, something that doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with the generic happiness people often think of. This movie is great, and I cannot fathom how the 7th best-rated movie of all time on IMDB does not get picked in this draft.
I think the reason this movie fell is two fold. The rewatchability factor (i.e. pure entertainment standpoint), but also the gut wrenching pain this film personifies. This was such a horrific period for the planet, as millions of people were murdered in mass genocide. This isn't the type of film I want to keep returning to over and over. Too close to home, making me fathom how lucky I am not to live in Germany during the Holocaust, or through such trying times.

I own it, and have watched it 2-3 times total, and can't find the mood I'd be in to say, "hey, you know, I really want to watch Schindler's List". Perhaps marrying a German citizen has muddled this for me, but while I rate it as an all time GREAT film; it was incredibly important subject matter to make a film about, and was done with remarkable skill and artistry by Spielberg et. al., I just can't bring myself to continue to put myself through that kind of agony. Having said that...put me on a deserted island for 40 years, and I might be masochistic enough to endure several more viewings.