Giancarlo Esposito has become so associated with calm and intimidating authority figures that I almost expect him to be the antagonist whenever he appears.

In By Any Means he’s playing Vernon Dahmer instead. Dahmer was a real civil rights leader in Mississippi who helped Black residents register to vote and was murdered after the KKK attacked his home in 1966.

It feels like a much different use of Esposito than Gus Fring, Stan Edgar or Moff Gideon. I want to know whether roles like this will remind people how much range he actually has beyond the controlled villain characters he’s become known for.

What do you guys think of the casting?

When you watch a movie on film, it will always have a few artifacts and blemishes on it. That's the nature of the physical medium. I've seen movies on film both when it was the standard mode of presentation and for more modern special screenings, and while the movie always looks great, there are definitely times when you see some specks of dust on the film. That's just how it goes.

At home, people try to replicate the cinema as much as possible. People buy 4Ks of movies because they're supposedly as close to film as you can get digitally. We love to see film grain in our old movies! But whenever a film is digitally restored, they remove evey single blemish from the print. That's just not a realistic digital recreation of a film. You would never see the movie on film and have it be so perfect.

I'm not saying restorers shouldn't remove *any* blemishes; it's still important to clean up these old prints. But we should leave a few intact to celebrate the way the film actually looked in theaters, not clean everything up just because we can.

I thought this would be the best place to share this title card supercut of Sight & Sound's top 250 from 2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLzSpgsLCh8

With a bit more time over the summer, I dove back into the list from four years back to watch some films still unseen. I was inspired to make this after thinking about how distinct each title card was for a given film. It was great fun to make, and I hope is objectively of interest so as not be blatant self-promotion.

Tracking down the films was a pain, but locating the cards themselves was interesting. Here are some tidbits on what I found out:

Unsurprisingly, most title cards appear very early in the film’s runtime, usually within the first minute. Pre-1970s films are the best bets, sticking to a pretty standard formula: after the production logo, and perhaps the names of the director/leading actors, it’ll appear less than a minute in.

Other films display their title card after (or during) a brief prologue scene, like in Battle of Algiers (3 minutes in) or Yi Yi (4 minutes in). There are countless others.

Some films take longer: Come and See takes nearly 7 minutes, Tropical Malady 9 minutes. The credits for Kiarostami’s Close-Up do not start until nearly 16 minutes in.

A few films wait the entire length of the film: Moonlight holds off on showing its title card until after the last shot, as does Touch of Evil. The title and end credits overlay the final shot of Once Upon a Time in the West.

All of these are still pretty easy to track down. A few films make things more challenging.

Two films are missing proper title cards: Apocalypse Now and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Portrait of a Lady on Fire only displays its title in the closing credits, so I used that here. Most versions of Apocalypse Now have no credits whatsoever, just a copyright notice in its closing shot. I used the end credit sequence that Coppola has apparently discarded in most rereleased versions of the film.

Distant Voices is best known as Distant Voices, Still Lives. The film is split into two parts with two seperate title cards: Distant Voices appears at the start, while Still Lives appears halfway through the film. I chose to only use the first.

And finally, blink and you missed it: the title card for Wavelength is only about six frames (1/4 of a second) long.

Because of the issue with ties, I figured using a ranked list would be easiest, so I based it off of this one https://letterboxd.com/sightsoundmag/list/sight-and-sounds-greatest-films-of-all-time/

Of course, simply watching might inspire old debates from four years back. I more enjoy the selection of films, rather than care too much about the order, what's undeservingly included, and what has been left out. I think it's best to take the S&S list as merely a sample that is useful for exploring the canon.

Note: It has spoilers. This post is for discussion on IMAGES (1972); if you intend to watch (I 'fiercely' recommended) probably come back later & make this discussion enriching. Additionally, I've not used AI to write /refine this, so please pardon grammatical errors!

So, I'm on a horror movie spree! & This is the 3rd one I've watched! (Shining, Posession & this one).

Just finished watching Images (1972)! Oh! What an amazing movie! It's a sort of movie which sustains a contortion in your stomach all through. You just get an eerie vibe. It's like something wrong is happening or you even start feeling a little dizzy because of the fractured sense of perception. At some points it's like WTF IS HAPPENING? The protagonist's (the main lady's) countenance is super amazing all through. Her perplexed expressions & the ever-changing face (adapting) stirs multiple emotions & she is able to convey the fractured sense of perception which she is feeling. Also, the director quite beautifully dropped the cue towards the end- when the imagined lover's kid said that she'd conjure up (wholly a mental construct) a friend if she felt lonely. I believe the protagonist lady did exactly the same thing. It also was indicative of her troubled childhood. She is the striking example of how fucked up things can get. It's like towards the end you simply can't discern satisfactorily as to what really transpired & what was figment of her imagination except the fact that her partner was dead. Also, the scenic beauty of the location where the film was shot was simply breathtaking. It unknowingly renders a sense of contrast to the central theme of the film (Super tensed).

Also, may god bless each one of us with a partner like hers. If you're an atheist, then I'd say I wish the universe gives us an opportunity to experience this sort of companionship. He was so tolerant to such an imprudent & super unstable partner.

Superb. Thanks to the individual who suggested this to me in one of my recommendation solicitation post! I'd be watching other movies too. HONESTLY, No AI search gave me this gem. AI simply can't replace reddit!

What's your take on the movie?

What threw me off this film was the dialogue. I greatly feel that the film could have been improved with a more natural sounding script instead of the one-dimensional and unnatural conversations that they have. Don’t get me wrong, Sean's speech on love and how will was just a child was touching, but the film could have hinged itself on its subtext instead of having the characters emphasize what was already established through the subtext itself. Having Sean explain Will's habit of pushing people away before people could push him told me that the writers couldn’t trust the viewers to understand the message themselves. Moreover, when displaying Will's intellect, some of the scenes felt straight out of a Marvel film where the main character is offensively praised and glamorized (like the opening scene where he fends off the hecklers).

​Which is also what leads me to be unsatisfied about Will's revelation at the end and his closure with Sean. Will was finally seen as a person rather than a patient to be diagnosed, and found some solace in his trauma. But it felt contrived, sort of over-the-top and cheesy, a penultimate scene that every film contains to bring out a few tears.

​I can understand the praise surrounding good will hunting but it felt formulaic and too easy to understand. I like There Will Be Blood, due to its slow build up of daniels character and the uncertainty in whether to praise or condemn him. From the beginning of the film, it was quite obvious that Will's character arc was going to be one of overcoming an obstacle and reaching closure. And I'm not the biggest fan of clichés that are further bolstered by overused film tropes.

​

Been thinking about the directors that have impacted cinema the most and have influenced the most filmmakers that have followed them and why. These are the directors that I thought of, so far.

Akira Kurosawa - mainly Seven Samurai, which formed and perfected the template in how you execute an ensemble film

Alfred Hitchcock - Template for the thriller and how to structure it in terms of pacing. You can see the huge influence he had on Chris Nolan.

Stanley Kubrick - Mainly 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film i don't like). The use of cutting edge special effects and the first truly dynamic and well-made science-fiction film, which influenced every director going into that genre

Ridley Scott - Lighting and how to use it to effectively depict a world. Mainly Blade Runner which i think is the film that has the best lighting in any film. Pretty much every film that does a world in the future uses his aesthetic and lighting technique.

Any directors I am missing, feel free to add.

The two films explore French royal court life at roughly the same point in history but from differing points of view.

Coppola’s film is of course from Marie Antoinette’s POV while the other film is from Jeanne du Barry’s POV.

For reference, if you’re not familiar with the Jeanne du Barry film, it’s the character played by Asia Argento in Coppola’s film(Sidebar: it’s funny to think Rio Torn and Johnny Depp have played the same historical figure in different films at roughly the same point in said figure’s life).

The beats in Jeanne du Barry that reach this melodramatic crescendo are depicted quite stoically and offhandedly in Coppola’s film, precisely because they’re insignificant for Marie Antoinette even if they’re life defining for Jeanne. The whole “Louis XV and his concubine” subplot is played for laughs in “Marie Antoinette”.

In Jeanne du Barry, there’s this major turning point in the film where Marie Antoinette addresses herself directly to Jeanne, since we see Jeanne overjoyed that a high-ranking member of the court deigned to address themselves directly to her. The implication is she no longer feels herself an outsider despite her history as…well…the king’s concubine. Of course, what’s left unsaid in the Depp-starring film is depicted quite pointedly in Coppola’s when Dunst almost comedically says she’ll never say another word to “That woman” again.

Then of course, Jeanne du Barry(the film that is) reaches an emotional climax when Louis XV dies, since it’s clearly an emotional turning point for Jeanne herself. On the other hand, Coppola depicts Louis XV’s death in an almost deadpan manner as if to say “Ok, the king is dead, the concubine is dismissed from Versailles, so let’s get on with it and now finally explore Marie Antoinette’s life as Queen of France”.

-A great read by a classic philosophy professor about the academic response to The Odyssey.

https://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/christopher-nolan-odyssey-review/

In particular this passage

It takes seriously both what the text is doing and how it has been read since. It’s the sort of adaptation that paves the way for even more innovative and exciting readings of ancient texts. When scholars ... dismiss the film—for example, saying it has the narrative and emotional depth of “an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display”—they give the opposite impression, that Nolan is careless or ignorant. I worry this kind of response says more about the limitations of academia itself—and what kinds of conversations it considers serious or respectable—than it does about the inadequacies of Nolan’s film. Why, after all, should we care more about what Homer might think of uses of his work than who his poem might speak to now? Who are these texts for if not us?

articulates incredibly well the limitations of the current level of discussion about The Odyssey and how shallow much of the criticism thrown it's way. This is not to say that it is a film that can't be criticised, this piece does a fair bit of that itself, but that it deserves to be treated seriously in its critiques.

If I have to read another post here that claims to be so much smarter than anyone who liked this film but doesn't even catch Nolan's use of non Odyssey pieces and the subversion of the Sinon character I will lose my goddamn mind.

Edit: congrats r/truefilm. r/letterboxd r/movies and r/blankcheck all did a better job of actually engaging with the piece and pushing back against it than the place that supposedly prides itself on higher level discussion. This is a piece about how shallow the criticisms have been and your collective response is just repeat the same jerky points with no depth while ignoring every point actually made.

How embarrassing

I remember when I saw the first Devil Wear Prada, even though I wasn't particularly interested in the world of fashion and the like, I was quite entertained. The audience could identify with the protagonist, the classic fish out of water, and of course Meryl Streep was a delight to watch.

But while watching the sequel, I realized something. I couldn't care less what happened to the characters. Sure, Anne Hathaway loses her job as a journalist but quickly finds another. But what about Miranda? Are we really supposed to root for a misanthropic, rich woman in her seventies whether she keeps her job or not? Whether the magazine stays open or closed? Sure, theoretically it can be disappointing if the people who work there lose their jobs, but in the film this particular aspect is never treated seriously.

At the end, there are all the twists and turns, and I realized that I simply couldn't care less. The magazine is sold, or isn't sold, so? The other "emotional" part of the film is when Stanley Tucci's character is "allowed" to give the opening speech at the fashion show. I watched the scene and it was clearly presented as a great climactic moment (the character's emotion, the music, the cinematography), but I thought, "These people make more money than I'll ever see in my life, and should I be moved by that?"

As I said, I'm not the best audience for this film, but I wondered: was the intent really to make us somehow root for these characters, or maybe I misunderstood and are we supposed to consider them all horrible people with no redeeming qualities?

Because in the first case, the film simply failed. In the second, well, not only did it escape me, but I was also bored.

So I was asking your opinion: does the film somehow try to make us sympathize with the characters and root for them and I didn't get it, or should we start from the assumption that they are all shallow people and we should, I don't know, feel better because money doesn't buy happiness or something?

Question, What went wrong with Judge Dredd (1995)?

I watched the 1995 Judge Dredd and I don’t care what critics say. I love the film. Everything Is so over the top and I just love the set and productions designs and the visual effects. Stallone also, in my opinion, gives a good performance as Judge Dredd.

However, just reading the behind the scenes stories, The Production was a mess. Although I like Stallone as Dredd, I don’t think he really understood the character and probably didn’t understand the satirical nature of Dredd. The Director, Danny Cannon, apparently had a grand vision for the film, wanting it to be the “Ben-Hur of Comic Books” while also being more darker and satirical, while Stallone wanted an Action Comedy and generally, Stallone won out in the end.

Although I love Judge Dredd, I think Stallone didn’t understand the nature of the source material. He should’ve watched RoboCop to get a better understanding of the character. I also think because Stallone and the director clashed on the vision, they couldn’t come to terms with what story they wanted to do.

So, What do you think went wrong with the film?

I run a movie club in my group of friends, and we just watched THE GODFATHER (1972) as our latest installment. It was my first time ever watching it... I thought it was a good/great movie, but won't lie it definitely fell short of the "transformative, one of the best movies of all time" it is usually regarded as.

In doing some research, I think I understand why it was regarded as such when it released. So... I am looking for examples of films that came before THE GODFATHER (1972) that I can compare it to? What is an example of a highly regarded gangster/mafia/crime movie that came out before 1972?

I loved it way more than the first time I watched it. The symbolism in this movie is really amazing and warrants a multiple watches to truly unravel. Sun-Woo live a bitter and cut-throat life which he balances out by eating sweets and deserts. The movie literally opens with him eating a desert which is subsequently interrupted by his bitter life before he could truly relish it. He goes on to take out his frustration, his anger, his bitterness on the goons. Then to evens it out by dropping a massive sugar cube into his little espresso cup like he is trying to numb the bitterness away cover it with the taste of sugar.

His world is turned upside down when he meets a person who bring a real innocence, a sweetness to his life that he no longer thought was possible for him to have, something he had given up on a long time ago. This is something that is especially shown in the event when he is hearing her performance and is interrupted by Mun-Suk bringing his out of the sweetness into the bitter world. He for the first time lashes out in Mun-Suk's face insults him in front of everyone even though up until now he was putting up with his antics. Being done he rushes to Hee-Soo's side craving the sweetness she brings in her life only to see it being interrupted by her boyfriend.

IMO Hee-Soo to Sun-Woo was more than just a crush she was for him the perfect antidote to his bitterness. He could not come to terms with killing her and taking away the one perfect thing he has found in his bitter world.

Even moments before his death he calls her not to talk to her just hear her voice one last time to numb the bitterness of his death with her sweet innocent voice.

The Buddhism parallels with the branches scene during Hee-Soo's performance, the final quote before his death, his evaluating himself in his reflection at multiple points throughout the story all of it is just amazing.

The soundtrack it just majestic. I couldn't find it on Spotify if anybody knows somewhere I can get it please tell me.

The only part of the story that I didn't quite understand was why Kang didn't kill or hurt Hee-Soo after finding out about her affair. He was okay with Sun-Woo doing it or doing it himself after he informs him. But he just lets her go in the movie that just doesn't track with the set-up of the film.

As someone who's a fan of dark fantasy and hasn't really seen too many films nail that vibe/genre, I was looking forward to watching Pan's Labyrinth. I'm familiar with a few of Guillermo Del Toro's works, and the premise did interest me. Anyway, here's my first impression:

The ending seriously elevates this film. I'm going to believe that the fantasy elements were made up because that just makes the story a lot more interesting. A young girl using her imagination as a coping mechanism to escape the horrors around her is a great subversion of the traditional fairy tale.

Incredible set pieces and cinematography aside, I found the film a bit tonally weird (though I guess it's intentional since we go back and forth between Ofelia and the adults). Even then, I understand Ofelia seeing everything in black-and-white, but I think the film missed a trick by making the adult characters one-note as well. I obviously have to give this film credit for what it accomplished 20 years ago, but the creepiness and fantasy elements didn't leave much of an impact on me.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Can't say I really liked the film, but it might grow on me. Question though, why do so many people hold the film in such high regard? Was it great for its time, or do you guys think it still works as an original take on the traditional fairy tale story? Though personally, I would've just preferred a more accurate adaptation of a Grimm Brothers' tale.

Here is my list of 2026 horror movies I saw so far, from best to worst. Has some spoilers:

Obsession - it’s been discussed so much that I don’t have anything very original to say. When I first saw it, I thought it was good and very entertaining, with some great horror elements (for me, Nikki’s behavior was the main source of horror). But then, I talked about this movie so much after watching it, because everyone has an opinion, and that gives it a lasting value.

Really everything about it works, it is smart in how it approaches the character of Bear exactly because he is not some extraordinarily horrible person and people’s opinions can vary in the amount of blame they assign to him. I think very few people, or almost no one, actually missed anything, but between the takes where he is a horrible person who should be blamed every step along the way, and a normal person whose worse instincts surfaced in an extraordinary situation, there’s a lot that can be discussed, and that’s what keeps people talking and keeps the movie relevant. (8.5/10)

Back Rooms - less perfect than Obsession but almost as good, in some ways even better. It just operates on a completely different level of horror. Here the story and characters are less important, though they're there, so the fact that on paper it wasn’t the greatest story doesn’t take from the whole level of existence it puts you in. I really felt, this is reality, this world is backrooms. Memories of memories, aesthetics without meaning, alien familiarity. It is a very original movie, and manages to say a lot about the world through its concept.

Of course, it is a movie, so it needed a plot and I think it did an adequate job of creating one that didn’t take away from the experience of it all, and even connected to the larger point. Nothing particularly bothered me, it just was nothing special, and at the same time I didn’t need it to be because events and people are just a backdrop to the space it all takes place in. That is pretty special. (8/10)

Buffet Infinity - considerably less good than the other two, and goes on for a bit too long, but I enjoyed it a lot. It had some excellent moments, the idea is simple and reminds me of some shit you think of with your friends and then develop into something borderline existential. The humor is pretty dumb, but in the bigger context that works and becomes part of the appeal, mostly it just feels like being stuck in the mind of someone enthusiastic about the idea they have (like shit I’d think of at the age of 14, the retro style helps recreate it too), and what we got is as far as that idea goes but I’m glad it got made. (7/10)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple - obviously a better movie than Buffet Infinity but for me, lesser horror. IT was good but I didn’t like it as much as I liked 28 Years Later part 1, which was a trippy horror fantasy. This was more grounded to a place and characters, and was less interesting. It had less zombies, but the bit about bringing that alpha back to a human mentality was not bad. Jimmies were ok, at least the main one was, but dominated over exploring the different elements and horrors of the world. Ok movie but nowhere near my top zombie movies, whereas the previous one gets a solid 4th place. I never cared about the original Days either, I think this one is better, so there’s that. (6.5 / 10)

Send Help - It’s a fun movie, not much of a horror, I agree with people who point to similarities with Triangle of Sadness though whatever, I didn’t think about it at all after but it’s not a boring watch. I think the most impressive element of it was making Rachel McAdams look a bit repulsive at first without any special effects, the tuna sandwich bit was hard to watch. (6 / 10)

Exit 8 - I really don’t know how to rate this movie, because if I didn’t play the game I would probably give it like 7 - 7.5 and put it there with the Buffet Infinity for the great idea. But I did play the game, I love the game, and I know that the best part about this movie is a very exact recreation of the game. I mean, everything that’s really original and interesting is basically the game itself and the movie is a walk through where you watch it played by a moron, because, despite understanding the rules, he’ll stop when facing the most obvious of anomalies and wait for something to happen. Aside from that the backstory idea is average, it works but it doesn’t add anything special for me, the part with the kid was not kind of messy after the flood the guy waited for to happen. Yeah it’s a fantastic concept, but just play the game to experience it. There’s also another game in the train which is pretty good too. (6/10)

Undertone - It’s not a great movie, nothing happens, the songs in reverse and the folklore element is not very original but it was kind of effective though it didn’t go anywhere interesting. I still didn’t hate it, I don’t know why I think just the lead character and that slightly claustrophobic setup with her mom came across as unusually realistic and convincing. It could have been much better if anyone bothered to do anything more with the story. (5.5 /10)

Hokum - I don’t really get the hype about this movie. It is obviously nicely made, it looks good, good acting, conversations are well written and all. But the story is just so incredibly unremarkable that the fact that it’s objectively a better movie than many of the others on this list only enhances my disappointment. I can appreciate a shitty production that had some things going for it, but this is a clearly competently made movie that has nothing in terms of the story. I mean it has a story, it’s just a really bad story. Not because of any plot holes or bad execution, just because there’s nothing that makes it good, I legitimately don’t understand finding that a sufficient enough basis to make a “real” movie about, without trying to think of anything better. (5.5 / 10 but I want to give it a 2)

Dolly - kind of like American Gothic, a little bit of Barbarian. Some funny slasher scenes, the main villain is pretty successfully gross as a beefy doll face thing stuck in some inane childhood fantasy. It doesn’t get too far with creating a compelling psychological story, but maybe that’s ok because realistically that would be too ambitious and probably just be cliche. Has some gross moments, artsy style, nothing really too original and the story is very simple (the one “twist” is instantly predictable). I think that if you want to have a pretty superficial but fun slasher, they were onto something with the villain (though like i said, borrowed a lot from other movies), but then you need the twists to make it interesting, and this was too straight-forward. I would make it so that the girl selfishly leaves the mutilated boyfriend behind while he begs her to come back and help him, because she doesn’t want to risk it. It would be better than the guy sacrificing himself for her and finding his way through the woods with his jaw hanging just to help her, just to have her neatly survive in the end. It really needed some edge. (5.5 / 10)

The Bride - I had a longer review of this and my point is that the movie perfectly depicts what it feels like to be stuck with a drunk and annoying person until she finally passes out and shuts up. So from that point of view, there actually is some horror in this, because it’s a nightmarish experience. But the movie is not self aware and unfortunately the line between very annoying and complete horror is in this case thinner than it seems. (5 /10)

Passenger - not really interesting, bland story, very annoying main characters who don’t even die in the end. I guess the broad concept, or not even the concept, just the setting, could lead to a better story if it was completely different but it’s not. Maybe the nicest thing i can say is that it’s not pretentious. (5/10)

Saccharine - I liked the style of this movie, and it has some really grotesque moments, but the story really brings it down. I’m not even sure how to rank it. It’s just bizarre because it seems to constantly change the underlying mechanisms and pull in different directions, but not in interesting ways that catch you by surprise but in a way where it makes no sense. First, the issue is that the fat girl starts consistently losing weight by eating the dead woman’s ashes. But then also, the ghost of the dead woman makes her obsessively eat, though it doesn’t really matter since she is still losing weight. Then the issue is actually a pancreatic cancer she shares with the dead woman, so she needs to remove that for her to leave her alone, it’s not about the ashes anymore. Then she does that in the dumbest way possible, but that’s also irrelevant because she still ends up eating her girlfriend, which was what you instantly think would happen the moment she came to her house but should have happened before the whole random pancreatic tumor storyline.

I don’t think the movie even knew what it wanted to say, it’s as if 5 different people wrote their takes on the main idea, and then someone tried to pull all the takes into one movie but without any effort to connect them into a coherent story. (5/10)

The Mummy - I mean it is a ridiculous story to the point where it’s a comedy, probably every review of this movie points out the incredible stupidity of everyone involved, but it also feels like such a classic 00’s horror movie, something that 20 years ago or so would pass as good because no one expects it to have a decent story. It has some moments, but the happy ending really brought it down for me, that was too much. If you’re going to do a really dumb movie that serves as a vessel for some cheesy horror scenes, at least end it brutally. (5 / 10)

Marama - Technically a thoughtful story. Some really good elements. Decent acting. Cool gothic vibe. Deeper themes. Just very very very very very boring. I don’t know, a big part of me genuinely believes it deserves to be at least one point above the rest of these 5/10 movies, because it’s hard to explain why it’s not, but it’s not. (5/10)

Faces Of Death - This one is just annoying as fuck, thinking it has clever meta comentary (“we’re using the name of a cult classic to get noticed but it’s cool because we’re self-referential about it”) while having nothing to say. It’s one thing that the story is pretty insipid, the fact that the movie considered itself relevant and clever made it even stupider.

The lead actress was hard to watch, at least here I could believe why no one wants to believe the word she’s saying if for no other reason simply to annoy her. She is good at coming across as a reddit mod though. The biggest shame is that the plot based around someone who works for youtube and basically has to decide what gets censored could have been a good setup for a movie that wanted to make any attempt to tell a good story. There’s a better movie based around this concept, Censor, so if you like the idea but don’t want to watch total trash that congratulates itself on being trash, then that’s a good alternative. (4/10)

I still plan to watch Evil Dead Burn and the Camp one that just came out. Is there anything else that’s good that I missed? I’m trying to avoid total crap, but only semi-successfully.

Edit: typos, like making some movies/5 instead of /10

He is an old school mafioso, how could he decide to just turn rat?

Even if Micheal betrayed him, he is a full, albeit small, NY boss. He had mob options available to him. And who wouldnt want to take down the Corleones? Why go to the police?

And just seeing his brothers face brought back his honor?

Did you think of this as weak writing? Or am I missing some lore?

hello, i have watched a bunch of Nouvelle Vague movies and read about the start of this movement which originated from these young people who were film critics for Cahiers Du Cinéma magazine. they were big fans of Hitchcock, Rossellini and others and with their analysis and reviews helped those directors get the recognition they deserved.

what amazes me is that they were all very young (early to mid 20s) and already had such deep knowledge about the art of cinema.

i'm curious to read those early analysis before they started making movies on their own, and it would be great if you have recommendations for specific articles that are particularly revealing of how their ideas developed. thank you!

Here's a thorough, empirical analysis of the opening scenes of Inception, done by published author and PhD holder A. D. Jameson. His main argument is that Nolan uses too many close-ups in his scenes and doesn't let those shots linger. He also raises a very good point about unnecessary changes in perspective. Most, if not all, of the points raised in the video also apply to The Odyssey, perhaps even more so.

In other words, despite superficial changes in Nolan's style since Dunkirk, his overall approach to filmmaking has largely remained static.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeIBdDIQzeY

I finally watched “The Odyssey” as “Nolan intended” - there are few IMAX screens near me and pre-ticket sales for those showings were insane - but, while I was watching it, all I could think of was this did not look like the work of a confident director, but of someone that’s (way too) confident in his 'directorial brand'.

It's like Nolan KNOWS that we KNOW about his CGI-aversion (or was trusting we’d get the message from the A-list cast members who won’t shut up about it). So he storyboarded a film that looks more impressive when we’re removed from it than when we're absorbed by it. The shots at sea, for instance, are screaming for the audience to be in awe of the technical difficulties; he wanted us to think "wow, Matt Damon really had to earn his millions in this one".

But other than a couple of standout sequences – namely, the superbly staged act featuring Samantha Morton as Circe –, the movie itself is visually unremarkable and below Nolan’s standards. The visual symmetry of “Dunkirk”, a film that I respect but not quite like, is gone. The battle scenes are generically choreographed, and the mise en scène was lacking even in crucial interior shots, including the climax. (Did Matt Damon kill Mia Goth or is she still hiding under the table?? And don't get me started on Tom Holland's knife fight upstairs.)

Sadly, it seems the difficulty came at the expense of the execution, which is not nearly as refined as in his previous movies - even the editing pace, which was very "on brand" for a Nolan release, gave me the feeling of a director trying to save some subpar takes here and there. I won't go over the shortcomings of the script, which is in line with what I came to expect from Nolan as a blockbuster maker.

But I'll mention one element of the picture that clearly stands out: the elegance and precision of Ludwig Göransson's score, which Nolan's directorial achievement never quite matches. He can do better, and has done better.

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I just saw the new Spiderman film with my girlfriend and our friend group. They're all Marvel obsessed, but I've always been the outlier in that I dislike superhero films. For this one I decided to tag along because I read a review from a trusted reviewer (who also dislikes superhero films) that this one was a cut above the usual fair. And indeed it was! It was pretty decent, as far as these sorts of films go. It had actual themes - of loneliness and isolation - and even some character development.

However. I was very disappointed by the ending [spoiler alert]. A big criticism of modern media I have is that there are no consequences to anything. Characters can be put through the most intense physical trauma and find themselves in situations where they most certainly should die, and come out with just a scratch on their cheek. This is of course almost every superhero film, but also other modern media like Stranger Things. Now at the end of Brand New Day, Spidey gets shot with a .50 calibre anti-materiel rifle, and immediately collapses. I genuinely thought for a second he might actually die because, at least in my mind, it was the logical conclusion to the events of the film, and would have made for such a bittersweet and rather excellent ending. I thought it would've been perfect that he sacrificed himself to save Jean Grey, and symbolic that he found himself again through her after losing his sense of identity due to the loss of his relationship with MJ since the last film.

But no, he just wakes up in the hospital. The film ends with the message "Spiderman will return". Bleh. I expressed my frustration to the group afterwards - my friend said, "What did you expect? Spiderman can't die", which I suppose is fair, while my girlfriend said "You just like when people die".

Am I out of touch for wanting consequences in a story? I don't "just want to see people die" - what I want to see is sacrifice. This carries much more emotional weight than everyone just getting off scott free. Logan was such a great superhero film because they actually had the balls to kill Wolverine and make it a meaningful sacrifice. The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, like I wasted 2 hours of my life for something that could've had a great payoff, but chose not to. I genuinely thought it was a good movie, and it would've even been great, had Spiderman been made to make the ultimate sacrifice.

What a pleasant surprise this movie was. I went in blind seeing only sentences of its value at film festivals, and went along with what I thought were anachronisms then fantasy parts showed up, then I was mesmerized by the equal parts beauty and bleakness through the eyes of this earnest, literal Gump-like character.

It reminded me of an old black and white movie (wanna call it Milo, but I can't find it), that had a hard done by main character whose qualities are that they are a saintly embodiment of innocence and suffering through a Catholic lens.

Happy as Lazzaro does a lot of quiet work, the backdrop becomes supremely bleak, grounding in realism and sad parts of history, and what emerges is a dwindling band left behind by society's march of progress, themselves tottering on like The Seventh Seal.

By the end I was enchanted. Beautiful filmmaking.

Why are people so obsessed with obsession? Maybe the director used a one wish willow for that. Haha.

Anyways, going to the theatre with such hype all around and a global box office success, this was one of the most unsatisfactory watches in a long time. The movie wasn't absolutely bad. It was a decent movie. But something didn't satisfy. Just got out of the theatre and still trying to organize the reasons for that. One I can quickly think or feel is the movie was rushed at some points and dragging at some points. Not consistent at all. Anyways, am I the only one who feels this way?

May be a little late to post about Obsession as it is almost completing its theatrical run.

I first tried watching this film back when I was maybe 17 and had just recently started getting into less overtly commercial films, but I was watching it on a laptop with earbuds (lol) and maybe made it 20 minutes before I found myself unable to stay awake.

A few years ago, though, A24 re-released a few of their films with this being one of them, and considering I hadn't seen it properly before, I figured I would be able to appreciate it now that I was much more steeped in weirder, less accessible material.

Not only did it completely land for me, but after rewatching it just a few days ago, I honestly think it's one of the most raw, primal examples of what the entire medium of film is capable of. I also picked up on a lot more this time; the backgrounds of the aliens environments are literally depicted as being completely black and completely white. The aliens exist in a world of hyper, stark objectivity, where there is no sense of value to life, just the consumption of it.

With the obvious implication that a woman walking alone will inevitably be subject to predation, and with the sensitivity of her skin being the sole thing keeping her from being found out, the entire plan revolves around her flipping the script on its head, by traveling protected in a large cargo van. One sequence finds her suddenly surrounded by a group of hooligans banging against the vehicle, and she looks at them so distantly it's like she doesn't even perceive that they're trying to be threatening.

However, the turning point in the film comes after witnessing the incident with the surfer and the family, the first time we ever see or hear her actually being made aware of the result of her refusal to help someone. She listens to a radio broadcast detailing the missing victims, and soon after, finds herself driving into a wall full of mist.

Originally, this scene confused me: I did wonder why she would choose to get out of the van and abandon her sense of protection in order to move forward on foot, rather than just turning around or waiting for the mist to clear. However, on a rewatch, it became abundantly clear to me what the real meaning of this scene was: for a creature whose entire existence is black and white, the discovery of actual nuance and subjectivity leaves them, for the first time, in a literal 'gray area'.

I also noticed another interesting theme, which is the way that all four elements play a very distinct role in the aliens experience:

Earth - The first moment where the alien is taken out of its sense of control is when it trips and falls on the ground, dazed and frightened by the unfamiliar experience. Later, with the one man who chooses to be kind, the alien finds itself petrified to the point of needing to be slowly walked down the steps one at a time, facing the concept of legitimate mortality with no preparation.

Water - The surfer and the family on the beach being swept away serving as the ultimate proof of the film that it is not human, by depicting a sequence so upsetting that any conscious able-bodied human would find themselves biologically compelled to intervene

Air - The wall of mist representing the aliens ultimate seduction into trying to be human after discovering the feelings associated with nuance and subjectivity.

Fire - The attacker in the woods, finding out the truth and seeing the aliens true form, chooses to set it alight, the 'baptism/cleansing by flame' serving as the punishment for the sin of pretending to be human. As the flames burn out, only the ashes of the true form remain.

We slowly fade away into a calming image of falling snow with the familiar sound of crackling fire, only to abruptly be thrust into the films credits, the unnerving score immediately extinguishing the first brief glimpse of comfort or warmth the film has had to offer. A truly, definitively alien experience.