Movie

Just finished the live action 101 Dalmations and my god the score in that is just phenomenal and actually takes the movie up another level for me.

What other movies do you think has this? And I’m not asking for movies just with good scores - god knows there’s plenty of them - but movies where the score itself adds another mark or two to the overall film.

The main thing I love about the prequel is that Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character is just as smart as Kurt Russell's character but she's not a Mary Sue. Every time she and the rest of the characters get to a conclusion it makes logical sense how they got to that conclusion. The ending is a great showcase of this and the ways he figured out the Thing can't replicate metal. I thought the characters while not as memorable as the original were decently written and I thought the transformations were very cool. What lets this movie down and what sours it for a lot of people is the CGI; It's bad. No if, ands, or buts about it. I really think if the movie made more money and they could touch it up in a directors cut the perception of the movie would be better. Overall I think it's a very entertaining movie with an outstanding cast and set pieces.

The movie might be mid at best, but it has a killer soundtrack.

I love podcasts and I love movies, but I cannot find a good film podcast. No offense to anyone, but I've listened to the big podcasts like "Show Me the Meaning" (this one I kinda like) or "The Big Picture" and I find the humor and content to be really bland at times. They tiptoe around difficult subjects and generally just regurgitate what I've read in Rotten Tomatoes reviews. While they do have a lot of knowledge about film/the industry (which I totally respect), I just feel like I'm eavesdropping on a couple of 38 y.o. tech bro's at the local bar. I think I might just be a little young for their vibe.

Any recommendations for film podcasts that are a little more provocative, funny, or colorful?

Initially, the film portrayed the workers organising a revolution with strong communist undertones. However, the conclusion diverged from this theme, depicting little change in Metropolis. It gave the impression that the workers resigned themselves to the upper class maintaining control as the dominant force in the city.

It felt as if there were two individuals with conflicting perspectives collaborating on the film, contributing to the stark contrast between the initial revolutionary theme and the eventual acceptance of the upper class's dominance in Metropolis.

Which movie made you think the most after watching it?

Thinking about the movie itself, the plot, the search for its meaning or solution but also the reflections it brought to you as observations of reference towards life.

Write the movie title, how it influenced your thinking, and how much time you spent thinking about it.

Thanks for your attention

Denzel Washington basically gets universal praise for Training Day (and rightfully so), to the point that I feel like it sort of overshadows how good Ethan Hawke was as well. And I say this as someone whose favorite actor of all time is Denzel. The King Kong scene seems to be the first scene people bring up with this movie but I actually might put the bathtub scene over it. It got me thinking about other movies where this might have happened?

I was watching Big with my family and while watching Elizabeth Perkins' performance I realized just how closely Millie Bobby Brown resembles her. Apparently I'm not the only one to have noticed this. Check out . I think that they are both great actresses and should do a film together where they play the same character at different points in time.

By hopeless I mean, the character in the situation knows they have no escape usually of death however, it doesn't have to be death, it can be just they breakdown and have gave up.

I recently saw Ferrari, and, given that I chose a weekend matinee showing, the audience was mostly elderly people, several of whom talked throughout the movie. It was mostly brief comments like "that's his wife" and "that's his mistress," and the theater's sound was good enough that it didn't really impact my viewing experience. Except for one moment.

During the Mille Miglia crash scene, as the car is flipping through the air, crushing and dismembering people , almost the entire audience was sitting in stunned silence, and the film is also very quiet. Against this near silence, I hear, ringing out in the most stereotypical "old NYC Jewish lady" voice, "oh, isn't that terrible?" in very much a tone and delivery I would describe as more "my grandma telling me that a local restaurant is closing."

So when I went to listen to the Ferrari episode, and they got to discussing that scene, I agreed with all the points made, it's a very shocking, well made, effective scene. But also, in my memory, that old lady's commentary always makes that moment a little funny to me, and I'll never have the same experience of it that David, Griffin, and Bilge talked about.

I'd love to hear other people's stories about big movie moments that are similarly shaped in your memory by something that happened to you specifically in the theater!

I've been interested in Vampire Cinema and how it reflects anxieties of different time periods. So, I was wondering what our some good vampire films... I'm looking for films from all decades. Thanks

Sidney Lumet was a lot of things. An actor's director. An efficient workhorse. Socially and politically minded. One of the best to ever do it. But he wasn't a provocateur. Despite the often incendiary subject matter he undertook, whether it was the trauma of the holocaust (The Pawnbroker) the marginalization of the LGBTQ+ community (Dog Day Afternoon) or the corruption of police (take your pick), Lumet did not believe in making shocking material for its own sake. Rather, shocking events or subject matter should serve the purposes of the plot, reveal character, make a comment on an idea, or all three at once. He reminisced about how one of the live tv shows he worked on shocked audiences because of a single slap, whereas other tv shows were regularly showing more violent actions more often. The difference, he said, is that he made the single slap mean something, and didn't desensitize his audience.

I say all of this because in his 50 year long career covering all manner of subjects, the most daring story he ever undertook, and by extension the most stylistic film he ever made, was that of Equus, an adaptation of the Peter Schaffer play of the same name. It's a disquieting tale of a boy who blinded 6 horses with a spike, and of the psychiatrist assigned to understand why. That's the simple question that is the main driver of the film throughout its 2 hour and 17 minute runtime, and through it, the film raises just as many questions as it answers. We find out the boy has an unhealthy obsession with horses, quite literally replacing Jesus with the horses and worshipping them. Things... happen, and we're left wondering; if this boy loves these horses so much, why did he so horrifically mutilate them?

Needless to say that the subject matter is frequently disturbing, with maximalist showcases of love towards animals and a brutal blinding scene that is every bit as horrifying as something like the chestburster scene from Alien, see Lumet's previous comment on his approach to violence. But it's not merely in WHAT it shows, but HOW it shows it. Lumet steps outside his naturalistic wheel house to make a movie that deals more in feverish dream/nightmare logic, with unnatural lighting that noticeably shifts in the middle of scenes, and cuts back and forth from the present, real world conversation of our two main characters, to the past, tangled memories of the patient's psyche. Rodney Bennet's score is not just the most that Lumet used in any of his movies, but it's so striking and well made that it holds up as it's own piece of music. It all comes together to create the greatest and most affecting of Lumet's "psychodramas", films that visually portray the psychology of it's characters.

It's not just Lumet's filmmaking that carries the movie, but its actors as well. Richard Burton gives the last great performance of his career, making it so that the pages of dialogue he speaks remain entrancing without being tiring. Peter Firth, by contrast, says less but is physically pushed even more, taking wild risks that border on overacting, but are supported by the circumstances he finds himself in. The two make for a fascinating trio as we get lost in their reminiscing and their baggage. The words they speak were adapted by the play from Peter Schaffer himself, who lets the actors have their day without making the film overwrought.

The vast majority of the film's criticism comes from those who have seen the source play, which is famously Brechtian in scope, that is to say, minimalist and unreal. There are no real horses in the play (obviously), but heavily built men in tribal masks, and the blinding of the horses is not literal as in the movie, but done in pantomime. Many critics protest that the "realism" of the film version intrudes on the quiet genius of the play. I have never seen the play so I can't comment on these changes, but I maintain that A. the realism does not detract from the story, it enhances it, and B. the film remains stylistic and unnatural in the scenes that matter, namely in the patient's flashbacks.

At the same time, even Lumet said that making the movie was a mistake, not because he was dissatisfied with the final product, but because of his own personal view of movies. He believed that the psychology of the characters should be subtly expressed through their actions and through the filmmaking, instead of being simply talked about. Because of the nature of the story and because of Lumet's own evolving method of filmmaking, he didn't look back too fondly on Equus. Truth be told, he seems to imply that much of his early work, from 12 Angry Men to Fail-Safe to The Pawnbroker, is too obvious in its approach, seeking too easy a catharsis. It's a topic for it's own post, but regardless, I maintain that all of those films remain fine pieces of work, and that what he sometimes sees as weakness are in fact strengths.

All in all, Equus is no slouch when paired against many other movies of it's era, Lumet or otherwise. It's proof that his method knows no boundaries, no subject matter was too difficult, and there was no style he was unable to adapt to in service of his story. In a filmography chock full of underseen gems, Equus may just take the cake, and stands as one of his crowning achievements.

Which movie made you think the most after watching it?

Thinking about the movie itself, the plot, the search for its meaning or solution but also the reflections it brought to you as observations of reference towards life.

Write the movie title, how it influenced your thinking, and how much time you spent thinking about it.

Thanks for your attention

“Boys who keep secrets don't get custard for dessert.” - Halloween Ends

I don’t think I need to elaborate with this one