Movies 2025 Movie Discussion Thread

[odessasteps]

Surprised Brief Encounter wasn’t in their top ten.  I haven’t looked at the whole list yet. 

I’d also put Holy Grail in the top ten.

[Brian Fowler]

9 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

You mean just Secretary, the Spader/Gyllenhall film? I've seen most of it. I really feel like the power dynamics in it should be switched, because Spader looks and acts like the kinda prick who is a total power top in the corporate world that likes to go get his balls stomped on in a dungeon in his spare time. And maybe Maggie would look good in a latex outfit, WHO KNOWS? *runs away*

Anyway. 

This was from the Time Out Facebook page. 

Thoughts?

I'll start with putting a film set in Italy with an American in one of the leading roles at #1 is not very British of them.

EDIT: Here is their top 100 https://www.timeout.com/film/100-best-british-films

Wicker Man only 28th?!?

Edited February 22, 2025 by Brian Fowler

[Curt McGirt]

The Long Good Friday would honestly be my #1. Not just because it's extremely great either, but it's extremely British; they remark upon why pretty perfectly in their mini-review on there. 

Snatch wasn't on there which is just ridiculous to me. I don't know who wouldn't put Holy Grail top ten, at least a yank. Shocked to see Theater of Blood get on there; meanwhile, if Dead of Night wasn't then they'd deserve a serious spanking. Funny that Black Narcissus got a photo from Black Sabbath for it haha. And I STILL need to see Brazil. 

[Curt McGirt]

Read it all now. I could make pithy complaints about something like Attack the Block not being on there, but there is one seriously, incredibly, unfortunately missing piece of the puzzle:

Threads. 

Edited February 23, 2025 by Curt McGirt

[odessasteps]

Maybe they didn’t count it, since it was made for tv. 

[elizium]

Kill List being on there is awesome. I would drop Witchfinder General, other than Price being in it, it is by far the weakest of the Unholy Trinity. Should be swapped for The Blood on Satan's Claw.

Dunkirk being listed is silly.

Assuming odessa is right and Threads doesn't qualify because it was made for TV, it would be interesting to see how it would change if TV movies were included. Robin Redbreast, Penda's Fen, and Whistle and I'll Come to You would all probably slide in.

[Curt McGirt]

Yeaaaaaah, I forgot all about it being a TV movie. Shit. 

...then I want Attack the Block in  Actually, if I could use a "Get Movie Free Card" for this list, it'd be Amicus' Tales from the Crypt. That goes without question.

[Curt McGirt]

Honest to god, Shawn of the Dead might belong on there?

Our picks will probably say a lot more about what US film fans think about British films than what British fans do

Edited February 23, 2025 by Curt McGirt

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....practically drowning in Hitchcock movies.

Shadow of a Doubt (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

In a lot of ways for me, this is what Suspicion should have been.

The opening scenes were a bit further back than usual with Hitchcock as the camera follows the money on the floor to a figure on the bed. The person escapes and eludes two people. There's a high angle shot as the two people are shown looking for the person then pans over to the person standing there, smoking.

It then goes to an idyllic life in a small town. A girl named Charlie (Teresa Wright) is told about an uncle named Charlie (Joseph Cotten) coming to visit. From the start, there's an expressed duality between the two although the younger Charlie isn't aware of what the audience is wondering about her uncle. When he first arrives, they act thrilled to see each other but something feels 'off' about her uncle, just based on the way Charlie is filmed - there's a lot of nearly floor level shots as the camera is panned upwards toward Charlie. It's almost to put the audience in the same height as the girl named Charlie.

What I noticed is some of the scenes in the small town and in the house reminded me a bit of Vincente Minelli's Meet Me In St. Louis. Obviously, they are different movies and have different purposes, but the young Charlie is almost similar to Judy Garland's character in terms of her independence.

The scenes I really liked was when the younger Charlie finds out about the Merry Widow Murderer from a newspaper. Earlier, her uncle Charlie ripped out an article from the paper and the camera focuses on his hands - this is a common shot in the movie as the camera focuses on Charlie's hands. What's also common is tight closeups of both Charlies - the secondary characters aren't given this treatment.

The movie does present a bit of doubt as to whether the uncle is the "Merry Widow Murderer." Yet statements he makes and what he tells his niece keeps the audience on the backfoot and confirms that he is. Yet it's never really confirmed that he was involved. We find out about the 'guy in Maine hitting a propeller blade' and thus essentially ending the investigation of the Charlie in California. But that seemingly isn't good enough for uncle Charlie as the young Charlie is almost killed a few times (the loose step, the car running in the garage, and finally Charlie trying to push her out of a train).

It wouldn't be a Hitchcock movie without kooky secondary characters. The precocious yet weird child - the younger daughter in this case - would later reappear in The Trouble With Harry.

I found the scene where the uncle gives the money to the bank to be hilarious as Charlie speaks out loud about his relative stealing money from the bank.

Some of the drawbacks for me speaks more to a modern lens than with anything substantially deficient with the movie (mainly, the patriarchal way Charlie is treated and the preference given to her uncle), but that's a minor quibble.

Shadow of a Doubt is without a doubt one of Hitchcock's best.

Rope (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

Rope as a movie is a lot of things. It can be considered a cornerstone of queer cinema, it can be considered an influential movie for a lot of directors like Bela Tarr and Pedro Almodovar, it's innovative with the nearly single take (although it's noticeable where the camera cuts are), and it's one of Hitchcock's best movies.

What makes this movie work so well is much of the action of the movie is in dialogue but with innuendo and subtext. The two men Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) start the movie by strangling David (Dick Hogan) prior to a dinner party. Their conversation seem less of hardened criminals and more of two lovers; Brandon convinces Phillip that their having a party won't lead anyone to suspect that something has happened.

The party happens as various people arrive including a housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson), the parents of David, Janet (Joan Chandler), Janet's ex Kenneth (Douglas Dick) and housemaster Rupert (James Stewart). Throughout the party, it's noticeable how Phillip is starting to crack - he breaks a glass, he plays piano nervously, he changes the subject in conversations, and he drinks a lot. Brandon acts like nothing is the matter with David not arriving, which makes Rupert subtlety notice it.

One scene I liked (which has probably been pointed out a lot) is how Rupert describes how a murder would take place in the room. The camera pans over each object placed in the room as Rupert says what it is. It stops on the chest, where David is hidden, yet Rupert doesn't say anything. The audience watching knows from camera placement that's where the body would be. Rupert then opens up the chest (leading to a blackout on the lid, close-up on James Stewart and a cut) and sees the body. The audience doesn't see it at all, but sees Rupert's reaction.

The drawback to the movie is some of the histrionics and melodrama is a bit off-putting, but the movie is able to overcome that with the actors and technical abilities.

Oblivion (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

Positively dull sci-fi and absolutely Scientology coded. Tom Cruise plays Jack who goes on repair and scouting missions with Vika (Andrea Riseborough) as his communications partner. Everything is going great until Jack encounters a capsule with Julia (Olga Kurylenko) inside.

The movie is visually stunning but entirely lacking story wise. Cruise is a bit more soft-spoken in this and not as much of a bombastic lead....a lot of the acting is pedestrian but decent. Morgan Freeman as Malcolm is really the only standout. The soundtrack with M83 approaches Vangelis in some scenes (since M83 are big '80s music fans) but they can't save everything.

I wonder if Tom Cruise agreed to do this movie because he likes the idea of there being clones of him in the world.

The Unbreakable Boy (saw in the theaters) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

"I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy" -Tim Hardin, "Black Sheep Boy"

The Unbreakable Boy is emotionally manipulative. It starts with an event in progress told by its narrator Austin (Jacob Laval) as his father Scott (Zachary Levi) gets drunk at a New Year's Eve party then attempts to drive home with Austin and Logan (Gavin Warren) in tow. We don't know how that will end as Austin zig-zags through various points about himself and Scott is talking to himself in a mirror.

It then relays the rest of the story where Scott meets Teresa (the impossibly gorgeous Meghann Fahy) in a department store while trying to buy jeans or "8 whole jeans" in Scott's attempt to flirt with Teresa. Teresa gives him her number and then goes on three dates and apparently on the third date, she got pregnant.

The movie acts like both characters committed the grave sin of sex before marriage (gasp!) that leads to pregnancy (double gasp!) without really giving Teresa that much agency as a character or Scott much of a backbone. Scott is presented a lovable drunken louse with an imaginary friend (Drew Powell); in the early parts of the movie it's mostly annoying. The movie had something with Scott and Teresa's relationship and their good natured flirting and ribbing each other.

It's just when Austin is introduced the movie takes a bit of a nosedive.

Throughout the movie after Austin arrives, it turns into trauma dumping and lacks any sort of storytelling nuance. We don't really see the characters exhibit growth other than when the movie decides they have to grow (usually with sad music playing in the background). Austin as a character I found completely annoying and not even realistic; he seems to only serve the purpose of providing a challenge to his dad.

By the end of the movie, I wanted Austin to go skydiving without a parachute.

What's irritating is the movie presents unsustainable expenses - they lose their garbage pickup service because they didn't pay - after Scott loses his job while he pretty much lies about the reason. "They wanted someone who wasn't a family man. They gave me three months severence" after he's shown pounding drinks with his imaginary friend. The family then has about $70,000 in credit card debt and $37,000 in medical debt. While living in Oklahoma, where the governor wants the school system having the Ten Commandments hanging up.

Sorry, but it's not God's Will for people to not get paid enough to pay off their debts. And fuck the American healthcare system for expecting them to pay over $37,000 for something they can't control.

All that is seemingly resolved (or something) somehow by the end of the movie (or at least pushed under the rug). Scott and Austin go on a father-son camping trip where Austin didn't become target practice for arrows.

Apparently, we find out that everyone at Austin's school loves him and wants him back. Teresa and Scott say they want to pull him out of public schools for homeschool (which earned a laugh from me). For me, the movie didn't really present Austin as a person, only as a condition. He seemingly sees Fight Club and A Few Good Men without his parents wondering what the hell he's watching (to be honest, I liked the scene where Austin quotes Jack Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men because that's one of the few times he's shown as a person). But Scott talks to an imaginary friend and Teresa plays Gears of War, so I can't complain that much.

The cinematography seems almost typical for faith-based movies where everything is overly lit and looks like a "Made For streaming" movie but the direction from Jon Gunn is competent and nothing fancy. Jon Gunn as a director seems to do nothing but faith-based dramas like this that milk the audience for sympathy but doesn't milk their actors for performances.

In the credits, the real life people of course aren't as good looking as Zachary Levi or Meghann Fahy.

The Unbreakable Boy is a black sheep boy of a movie.

Strangers On A Train (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

To say Strangers on a Train is influential is an understatement. I can think of at least four or five modern movies that has used scenes, shots, and camera setups from this movie. Ocean's Eleven, Challengers, and A Different Man are the most recent ones I can think of.

The movie starts with a great introductory scenes as the camera follows the two main characters' feet as they enter the train station: Guy (Farley Granger) and Bruno (Robert Walker). For the entirety of the movie, the idea of parallelism for the characters is maintained; the camera cuts back and forth between their lives. Guy is a good guy that is trying to resist the pull into darkness while Bruno is a bad guy that is trying to resist being pulled into lightness. Guy argues with his estranged wife Miriam (Kasey Rogers) about their divorce and Bruno laughs at the painting of St Francis from his mother to say it looks like his father.

In a lot of ways as a character, Bruno is from the same queer-coded mold as the earlier characters in Rope and with Norman Bates in Psycho. Unlike those characters, Bruno seems to delight in wanting to murder Miriam and have his father murdered. When he is following Miriam, his pursuit is silent, like an Angel of Death. It's similar to the pursuit that Anton from No Country For Old Men would do as well.

Guy on the other hand realizes very quickly that Bruno was serious about murdering his wife when he sees Bruno outside his house. He decides to inform the police after talking with his girlfriend Anne (Ruth Roman); it only leads to the police tailing him.

What I found interesting is an earlier callback to Shadow of a Doubt where Bruno is discussing ways to murder someone with a high society woman at a party. Upon seeing Anne's sister in glasses, he 'flashes back' to when he murdered Miriam as music from the county fair is playing in the background.

Going to the scene that likely influenced Challengers, Guy does a tennis match against an opponent and at the end of the match, he gets out of there quickly to catch a train. What I loved in those scenes is again the sense of parallelism; Guy is struggling to reach a win as Bruno is struggling to reach a lighter.

The last several scenes with the carousel is a wonder and feat of filmmaking. The way the camera pans made me believe the carousel was spinning fast. Then when the carousel finally collapses, it's a scary feat (I wonder how many takes were doing to accomplish that).

Honestly, I could go on with Strangers on a Train. There's probably film theory/film criticism/filmmaking courses on this movie alone.

The Wrong Man (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Francois Truffaut did a review in 1957 about The Wrong Man that can be found at: the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Truffaut_(1957)_-_The_Wrong_Man

In the review, Truffaut says "Hitchcock has never been more himself than in this film, which nevertheless runs the risk of disappointing lovers of suspense and of English humor. There is very little suspense in it and almost no humor, English or otherwise. The Wrong Man is Hitchcock's most stripped-down film since Lifeboat; it is the roast without the gravy, the news event served up raw and, as Bresson would say, "without adornment."

The Wrong Man is indeed such a movie as Monsieur Truffaut describes.

Admittedly, I'm not well versed in Bresson's work at all - I'm hoping to change that soon. So my frame of reference for this movie is The Wrong Man is less of a Hitchcock film and more of an Otto Preminger film or, probably more accurately, a Stanley Kramer film.

Like Kramer's Inherit The Wind, The Wrong Man is trying to deliver a message about the United States justice system. Chris (Henry Fonda) is seemingly railroaded through the justice system because he resembles a man that did a robbery at an insurance company Chris visits. Through most of the scenes, it's almost clinical detachment for both the audience and for Fonda. Fonda's character seems befuddled by the entire event and regardless of his claims of innocence, he's not believed.

Someone posts bail for him and he is free.

What Truffaut didn't really talk about in his review is Vera Miles as Rose. Rose as a character is well meaning, devoted, and refused to believe her husband is guilty. Until she just starts to crack - it can be seen in the scene where Rose and Chris reach a dead end and Rose bursts into laughter. Before Chris' trial, Rose completely breaks down and becomes nearly catatonic. Miles' acting in those scenes is as of someone suffering from clinical depression; regardless of Chris being not guilty, it's not good enough. The text at the end of the movie tells of Rose 'walking out of the sanitarium, completely cured,' but how much of that is not without problems, who knows.

One thing that Truffaut noticed that I'll highlight is the scene where Chris is standing in front of the picture of Jesus Christ. He mouths a prayer as we see a figure walking along a street. The camera stays over Chris' face as he prays with the figure walking playing against it. Eventually, the figure's face and Chris' face is encompassed.

What prevents the movie from being a five star classic for me is it is really dull at times. The approach of doing a true life crime drama is not typical of Hitchcock and I'm not sure if it plays to his strengths that well. I will say that this movie did influence later directors like Scorsese (especially with Taxi Driver) and Friedkin (some of the shots of Fonda walking in the streets reminded me of similar shots in The French Connection).

 

[Curt McGirt]

Nil By Mouth (1997) was #21 on the Time Out list and I found and gave it a go. Of course I would have to pick like the two darkest movies on the entire list to seek out off top, and both had Ray Winstone just crushing it. This was Gary Oldman's only directorial subject (to date) and he hit a homer, if you can take it. It's about a working class family and connected family friends in South East London that are riddled with drug and alcohol abuse. Winstone is the boyfriend of put-upon Kathy Burke, who looks exhausted all the time and we find out down the way is actually pregnant (but still smoking and drinking). Winstone is a foul-mouthed lout who is constantly drinking and shovelling charlie up his nose while hanging out with his equally vulgar (yet somehow charming) friend. Her sister's kid is a dope fiend that comes around stealing shit and begging for money from the sister, his mom, who even watches him shoot up in her van, which is only one of the nigh-unbearable scenes in this. They all (except for grandma) talk about jail like they've been there and it's clear that Ray and the kid are doing all kinds of illegal shit to get by that nobody talks about -- he may be a barkeep because at one point he's drinking at one behind the bar alone, though. Eventually something really really bad happens that you REALLY won't be able to watch and then the results are something you REALLY won't be able to watch. 

This is me talking. You won't be able to watch them. 

If you can get through that you get to see Ray Winstone pull off one of the best performances of both a breakdown and a confession you will ever see, ever. And Kathy Burke performs her own confessional that won her best actress at Cannes that year along with same for the British Independent Film Awards. 

It's fun at first, running fast, running fast... then it hits a wall, real real hard. And the rest is someone trying to pick themselves off the ground after the impact, and heal. It's hard to watch but you might find the worth in it. 

There's this too: 

Quote

Nil by Mouth features the word "cunt" 82 times, more than any other film in history. It also features 428 uses of the word "fuck" and its derivatives,[6] more than any film at the time until Summer of Sam surpassed it two years later, but it remains the highest-ranked (as of 2019) with regards to the average number of utterances per minute of running time, with 3.34 / min (leaving aside Swearnet: The Movie, which is more of a concept movie revolving around that very theme, and Fuck, a documentary about the word in question).[citation needed]

 

[zendragon]

5 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

Movies today....practically drowning in Hitchcock movies.

Shadow of a Doubt (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

In a lot of ways for me, this is what Suspicion should have been.

The opening scenes were a bit further back than usual with Hitchcock as the camera follows the money on the floor to a figure on the bed. The person escapes and eludes two people. There's a high angle shot as the two people are shown looking for the person then pans over to the person standing there, smoking.

It then goes to an idyllic life in a small town. A girl named Charlie (Teresa Wright) is told about an uncle named Charlie (Joseph Cotten) coming to visit. From the start, there's an expressed duality between the two although the younger Charlie isn't aware of what the audience is wondering about her uncle. When he first arrives, they act thrilled to see each other but something feels 'off' about her uncle, just based on the way Charlie is filmed - there's a lot of nearly floor level shots as the camera is panned upwards toward Charlie. It's almost to put the audience in the same height as the girl named Charlie.

What I noticed is some of the scenes in the small town and in the house reminded me a bit of Vincente Minelli's Meet Me In St. Louis. Obviously, they are different movies and have different purposes, but the young Charlie is almost similar to Judy Garland's character in terms of her independence.

The scenes I really liked was when the younger Charlie finds out about the Merry Widow Murderer from a newspaper. Earlier, her uncle Charlie ripped out an article from the paper and the camera focuses on his hands - this is a common shot in the movie as the camera focuses on Charlie's hands. What's also common is tight closeups of both Charlies - the secondary characters aren't given this treatment.

The movie does present a bit of doubt as to whether the uncle is the "Merry Widow Murderer." Yet statements he makes and what he tells his niece keeps the audience on the backfoot and confirms that he is. Yet it's never really confirmed that he was involved. We find out about the 'guy in Maine hitting a propeller blade' and thus essentially ending the investigation of the Charlie in California. But that seemingly isn't good enough for uncle Charlie as the young Charlie is almost killed a few times (the loose step, the car running in the garage, and finally Charlie trying to push her out of a train).

It wouldn't be a Hitchcock movie without kooky secondary characters. The precocious yet weird child - the younger daughter in this case - would later reappear in The Trouble With Harry.

I found the scene where the uncle gives the money to the bank to be hilarious as Charlie speaks out loud about his relative stealing money from the bank.

Some of the drawbacks for me speaks more to a modern lens than with anything substantially deficient with the movie (mainly, the patriarchal way Charlie is treated and the preference given to her uncle), but that's a minor quibble.

Shadow of a Doubt is without a doubt one of Hitchcock's best.

Rope (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

Rope as a movie is a lot of things. It can be considered a cornerstone of queer cinema, it can be considered an influential movie for a lot of directors like Bela Tarr and Pedro Almodovar, it's innovative with the nearly single take (although it's noticeable where the camera cuts are), and it's one of Hitchcock's best movies.

What makes this movie work so well is much of the action of the movie is in dialogue but with innuendo and subtext. The two men Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall) start the movie by strangling David (Dick Hogan) prior to a dinner party. Their conversation seem less of hardened criminals and more of two lovers; Brandon convinces Phillip that their having a party won't lead anyone to suspect that something has happened.

The party happens as various people arrive including a housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Edith Evanson), the parents of David, Janet (Joan Chandler), Janet's ex Kenneth (Douglas Dick) and housemaster Rupert (James Stewart). Throughout the party, it's noticeable how Phillip is starting to crack - he breaks a glass, he plays piano nervously, he changes the subject in conversations, and he drinks a lot. Brandon acts like nothing is the matter with David not arriving, which makes Rupert subtlety notice it.

One scene I liked (which has probably been pointed out a lot) is how Rupert describes how a murder would take place in the room. The camera pans over each object placed in the room as Rupert says what it is. It stops on the chest, where David is hidden, yet Rupert doesn't say anything. The audience watching knows from camera placement that's where the body would be. Rupert then opens up the chest (leading to a blackout on the lid, close-up on James Stewart and a cut) and sees the body. The audience doesn't see it at all, but sees Rupert's reaction.

The drawback to the movie is some of the histrionics and melodrama is a bit off-putting, but the movie is able to overcome that with the actors and technical abilities.

Oblivion (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 2/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

Positively dull sci-fi and absolutely Scientology coded. Tom Cruise plays Jack who goes on repair and scouting missions with Vika (Andrea Riseborough) as his communications partner. Everything is going great until Jack encounters a capsule with Julia (Olga Kurylenko) inside.

The movie is visually stunning but entirely lacking story wise. Cruise is a bit more soft-spoken in this and not as much of a bombastic lead....a lot of the acting is pedestrian but decent. Morgan Freeman as Malcolm is really the only standout. The soundtrack with M83 approaches Vangelis in some scenes (since M83 are big '80s music fans) but they can't save everything.

I wonder if Tom Cruise agreed to do this movie because he likes the idea of there being clones of him in the world.

The Unbreakable Boy (saw in the theaters) - 2/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

"I'm the family's unowned boy
Golden curls of envied hair
Pretty girls with faces fair
See the shine in the Black Sheep Boy" -Tim Hardin, "Black Sheep Boy"

The Unbreakable Boy is emotionally manipulative. It starts with an event in progress told by its narrator Austin (Jacob Laval) as his father Scott (Zachary Levi) gets drunk at a New Year's Eve party then attempts to drive home with Austin and Logan (Gavin Warren) in tow. We don't know how that will end as Austin zig-zags through various points about himself and Scott is talking to himself in a mirror.

It then relays the rest of the story where Scott meets Teresa (the impossibly gorgeous Meghann Fahy) in a department store while trying to buy jeans or "8 whole jeans" in Scott's attempt to flirt with Teresa. Teresa gives him her number and then goes on three dates and apparently on the third date, she got pregnant.

The movie acts like both characters committed the grave sin of sex before marriage (gasp!) that leads to pregnancy (double gasp!) without really giving Teresa that much agency as a character or Scott much of a backbone. Scott is presented a lovable drunken louse with an imaginary friend (Drew Powell); in the early parts of the movie it's mostly annoying. The movie had something with Scott and Teresa's relationship and their good natured flirting and ribbing each other.

It's just when Austin is introduced the movie takes a bit of a nosedive.

Throughout the movie after Austin arrives, it turns into trauma dumping and lacks any sort of storytelling nuance. We don't really see the characters exhibit growth other than when the movie decides they have to grow (usually with sad music playing in the background). Austin as a character I found completely annoying and not even realistic; he seems to only serve the purpose of providing a challenge to his dad.

By the end of the movie, I wanted Austin to go skydiving without a parachute.

What's irritating is the movie presents unsustainable expenses - they lose their garbage pickup service because they didn't pay - after Scott loses his job while he pretty much lies about the reason. "They wanted someone who wasn't a family man. They gave me three months severence" after he's shown pounding drinks with his imaginary friend. The family then has about $70,000 in credit card debt and $37,000 in medical debt. While living in Oklahoma, where the governor wants the school system having the Ten Commandments hanging up.

Sorry, but it's not God's Will for people to not get paid enough to pay off their debts. And fuck the American healthcare system for expecting them to pay over $37,000 for something they can't control.

All that is seemingly resolved (or something) somehow by the end of the movie (or at least pushed under the rug). Scott and Austin go on a father-son camping trip where Austin didn't become target practice for arrows.

Apparently, we find out that everyone at Austin's school loves him and wants him back. Teresa and Scott say they want to pull him out of public schools for homeschool (which earned a laugh from me). For me, the movie didn't really present Austin as a person, only as a condition. He seemingly sees Fight Club and A Few Good Men without his parents wondering what the hell he's watching (to be honest, I liked the scene where Austin quotes Jack Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men because that's one of the few times he's shown as a person). But Scott talks to an imaginary friend and Teresa plays Gears of War, so I can't complain that much.

The cinematography seems almost typical for faith-based movies where everything is overly lit and looks like a "Made For streaming" movie but the direction from Jon Gunn is competent and nothing fancy. Jon Gunn as a director seems to do nothing but faith-based dramas like this that milk the audience for sympathy but doesn't milk their actors for performances.

In the credits, the real life people of course aren't as good looking as Zachary Levi or Meghann Fahy.

The Unbreakable Boy is a black sheep boy of a movie.

Strangers On A Train (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 5/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

To say Strangers on a Train is influential is an understatement. I can think of at least four or five modern movies that has used scenes, shots, and camera setups from this movie. Ocean's Eleven, Challengers, and A Different Man are the most recent ones I can think of.

The movie starts with a great introductory scenes as the camera follows the two main characters' feet as they enter the train station: Guy (Farley Granger) and Bruno (Robert Walker). For the entirety of the movie, the idea of parallelism for the characters is maintained; the camera cuts back and forth between their lives. Guy is a good guy that is trying to resist the pull into darkness while Bruno is a bad guy that is trying to resist being pulled into lightness. Guy argues with his estranged wife Miriam (Kasey Rogers) about their divorce and Bruno laughs at the painting of St Francis from his mother to say it looks like his father.

In a lot of ways as a character, Bruno is from the same queer-coded mold as the earlier characters in Rope and with Norman Bates in Psycho. Unlike those characters, Bruno seems to delight in wanting to murder Miriam and have his father murdered. When he is following Miriam, his pursuit is silent, like an Angel of Death. It's similar to the pursuit that Anton from No Country For Old Men would do as well.

Guy on the other hand realizes very quickly that Bruno was serious about murdering his wife when he sees Bruno outside his house. He decides to inform the police after talking with his girlfriend Anne (Ruth Roman); it only leads to the police tailing him.

What I found interesting is an earlier callback to Shadow of a Doubt where Bruno is discussing ways to murder someone with a high society woman at a party. Upon seeing Anne's sister in glasses, he 'flashes back' to when he murdered Miriam as music from the county fair is playing in the background.

Going to the scene that likely influenced Challengers, Guy does a tennis match against an opponent and at the end of the match, he gets out of there quickly to catch a train. What I loved in those scenes is again the sense of parallelism; Guy is struggling to reach a win as Bruno is struggling to reach a lighter.

The last several scenes with the carousel is a wonder and feat of filmmaking. The way the camera pans made me believe the carousel was spinning fast. Then when the carousel finally collapses, it's a scary feat (I wonder how many takes were doing to accomplish that).

Honestly, I could go on with Strangers on a Train. There's probably film theory/film criticism/filmmaking courses on this movie alone.

The Wrong Man (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 4/5 stars

  Reveal hidden contents

Francois Truffaut did a review in 1957 about The Wrong Man that can be found at: the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Truffaut_(1957)_-_The_Wrong_Man

In the review, Truffaut says "Hitchcock has never been more himself than in this film, which nevertheless runs the risk of disappointing lovers of suspense and of English humor. There is very little suspense in it and almost no humor, English or otherwise. The Wrong Man is Hitchcock's most stripped-down film since Lifeboat; it is the roast without the gravy, the news event served up raw and, as Bresson would say, "without adornment."

The Wrong Man is indeed such a movie as Monsieur Truffaut describes.

Admittedly, I'm not well versed in Bresson's work at all - I'm hoping to change that soon. So my frame of reference for this movie is The Wrong Man is less of a Hitchcock film and more of an Otto Preminger film or, probably more accurately, a Stanley Kramer film.

Like Kramer's Inherit The Wind, The Wrong Man is trying to deliver a message about the United States justice system. Chris (Henry Fonda) is seemingly railroaded through the justice system because he resembles a man that did a robbery at an insurance company Chris visits. Through most of the scenes, it's almost clinical detachment for both the audience and for Fonda. Fonda's character seems befuddled by the entire event and regardless of his claims of innocence, he's not believed.

Someone posts bail for him and he is free.

What Truffaut didn't really talk about in his review is Vera Miles as Rose. Rose as a character is well meaning, devoted, and refused to believe her husband is guilty. Until she just starts to crack - it can be seen in the scene where Rose and Chris reach a dead end and Rose bursts into laughter. Before Chris' trial, Rose completely breaks down and becomes nearly catatonic. Miles' acting in those scenes is as of someone suffering from clinical depression; regardless of Chris being not guilty, it's not good enough. The text at the end of the movie tells of Rose 'walking out of the sanitarium, completely cured,' but how much of that is not without problems, who knows.

One thing that Truffaut noticed that I'll highlight is the scene where Chris is standing in front of the picture of Jesus Christ. He mouths a prayer as we see a figure walking along a street. The camera stays over Chris' face as he prays with the figure walking playing against it. Eventually, the figure's face and Chris' face is encompassed.

What prevents the movie from being a five star classic for me is it is really dull at times. The approach of doing a true life crime drama is not typical of Hitchcock and I'm not sure if it plays to his strengths that well. I will say that this movie did influence later directors like Scorsese (especially with Taxi Driver) and Friedkin (some of the shots of Fonda walking in the streets reminded me of similar shots in The French Connection).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaVSY0VVRxY

Check this out. Kind of an Homage to Rope

[(BP)]

Yakov Smirnoff: Bury your gays? In Alfred Hitchcock movies, gays bury you!

[odessasteps]

12 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Honest to god, Shawn of the Dead might belong on there?

Our picks will probably say a lot more about what US film fans think about British films than what British fans do

If it’s a top 100, either Shaun or Hot Fuzz would warrant a spot. 

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah they're reading a lot of coding into Hitch. Whether that is true or not I have no idea.

And yes it is a top 100, the link is there to read the list is on the page behind if you favor. 

[odessasteps]

7 hours ago, zendragon said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaVSY0VVRxY

Check this out. Kind of an Homage to Rope

There’s a  movie that came out in the early 90s called Swoon, which was about the Leopoldo and Loeb came where their being gay is the main part of the film. 

When I reviewed it back at the time, I wrote a companion article for the paper comparing Swoon, Rope and Compulsion. 

[odessasteps]

14 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Yeah they're reading a lot of coding into Hitch. Whether that is true or not I have no idea.

And yes it is a top 100, the link is there to read the list is on the page behind if you favor. 

Yeah, I meant if someone was making a list, they would likely be on there. I haven’t gotten around to actually looking at the list yet.

And speaking of Hitch, I’d argue you should really only count his British films for this list, so you might have maybe 3 or 4 entries on the list, instead of probably over 10 if you included his Hollywood films. 

[Curt McGirt]

I'm gonna put in spoilers what happens in Nil by Mouth because honestly it might trigger people (spousal abuse) and they should probably know before they go in. 

Spoiler

Ray comes in drunk as shit and coked the fuck out the night after he saw his wife playing pool with somebody else down the bar the previous night, who was merely a friend of a friend. He accuses her of fucking him so he literally stomps down a pregnant woman -- STOMPS. They don't show boots connecting but the noises she makes will make you sick. The next day they introduce her and she's got half of a full-on pumpkinhead and the makeup is so disgusting and the reveal so sudden you will immediately turn away from the screen. She of course tells her mom (it's her mom, not her sister like I wrote before) that she was hit by a car and they share coded language with the car standing for Ray. Mom leaves, she crawls up the steps and miscarries right then and there and they take her to the hospital. 

Thank god right after that you get the vicarious relief of a still drunk and crazy Ray trying to talk to her leaving the hospital while surrounded by friends and family, and this dude steps up and knocks him the fuck out with one shot and kicks him in the head on the ground. Then he goes nuts. After he wakes up. 

 

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today...finally finished Hitchcock movies leaving this month.

Torn Curtain (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Torn Curtain is not one of Hitchcock's best (I think I spoiled myself watching his classics for the past two days), but it is definitely an above average spy thriller.

The first hour or so of the movie just drags immensely; much of the drama is centered on Michael Anderson (Paul Newman) possibly being a villain and engaging in espionage with his assistant/fiancee Sarah Sherman (Julie Andrews) not knowing. Eventually, when Anderson defects to East Germany, Sherman does too and the two are brought in sync.

Julie Andrews is the lone highlight of the movie; her disposition changes as she finds out more about her fiance Michael. In a way, Sarah Sherman is the 'audience's entry point' for the movie. Newman at times acted a bit bored or not understanding of the character; from what's said online, he and Hitchcock didn't get along. The two characters by the end of the movie were shuffled from one place to another.

I will mention the fight sequence between Newman and Wolfgang Kieling as Gromek. I absolutely loved how those scenes were filmed and the camera placement throughout those scenes. The camera focuses on Newman's face and Kieling's face during the struggle then focuses on objects the farmer woman were going to use. I loved the POV shot as Gromek is being dragged to the stove.

The staging/blocking throughout the movie is great and the movie really picks up in the last hour as Anderson and Sherman try to escape.

For the most part, Torn Curtain is better than given credit.

Topaz (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Topaz as a movie is very different than most spy films; there's absolutely nothing exciting because spy work isn't supposed to be exciting. Like other occupations, there's moments of tedium and panic. In a lot of ways for me, this feels like a movie from a Hitchcock acolyte like Francois Truffaut. The international settings and characters lends itself more to Truffaut's style than to Hitchcock's style.

Frederick Stafford plays Andre Devereaux in an absolutely Jean Paul Belmondo-esque style. Devereaux is seeking to track down what is going on in Cuba with the development of missiles from a Soviet defector Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius).

What is a bit different from most other Hitchcock films is there is a lot of silent scenes - the conversation in Harlem between hotel room entrance, Devereaux's conversation in the flower shop - coupled with action after the fact (the murder of a French official on top of a car, the torture of the two people who photographed the site). With this there are also multiple 'main characters' in scenes - not just Devereaux and Kusenov but also Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor), Phillippe Dubois (Roscoe Lee Browne) and Francois Picard (Michel Subor). Compared to Torn Curtain where the focus was on Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, this movie lacks 'star power' but that really shouldn't be the point.

The drawback I can say with this approach is some of the characters do lose a bit of their momentum acting wise. Karin Dor's scene where her character is killed is the closest thing to 'classic Hitchcock' as the camera has high angled shot to where she collapses and Roscoe Lee Browne's escape through Harlem was genuinely exciting. It somewhat makes me lament that Hitchcock didn't do more movies with black and brown actors and actresses in his career - imagine if he had gotten an actor like Richard Roundtree to do a movie similar to Vertigo or Rear Window or North By Northwest. Sadly, we'll never know.

The ending is a letdown and a bit amateurish compared to what Hitchcock has done in the past - having Granville (Michel Piccoli) escape would have been better.

Topaz is not Hitchcock's best but it's an interesting experiment.

Parthenope (saw in the theaters) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

I went through public schooling with a guy that I think was related to John Cheever.

The private joke between us is 'we're related to famous authors very distantly' although it's not exactly proven (he did tell he was when I asked, I have to take his word for it). I kept up with him through the years and he had gotten married to one of our friends from the public schooling years.

John Cheever surprisingly plays a role in Parthenope. According to Wikipedia, Cheever's themes include:

"the duality of human nature: sometimes dramatized as the disparity between a character's decorous social persona and inner corruption, and sometimes as a conflict between two characters (often brothers) who embody the salient aspects of both—light and dark, flesh and spirit."

Cheever in this movie is played by Gary Oldman and he has less than five minutes of actual screentime, but his themes dominate the movie.

Parthenope as a movie does incorporate some of these themes in the movie; it seems to have a similar disparity between a person's social persona and inner corruption (although for the main character it's not necessarily manifested).

The problem of course is Parthenope as a movie is maddening to watch and maybe a bit dull, but beautifully shot. It didn't feel like a movie at times - it felt like a 2 hour version of Luca Guadagnino's The Staggering Girl where the clothing is the centerpiece (with The Staggering Girl it's fashion from Valentino, with Parthenope it's Yves Saint Laurent). All young men and women are beautifully photographed well and are all dressed immaculately. Every scene with Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is photographed well and she is dressed well and provocatively.

The men (mostly older men like Cheever and the Commandant and even her own brother yuck) all ogle over her beauty while she just smiles and endure it.

If you got the patience for it, it's about 2 hours and some change for that.

Later in the movie, it does inject growth in the character and make her realize that there is more to life than simply being beautiful. Parthenope pursues a degree in Anthropology without really understanding it. "What is Anthropology?" she asks her professor Marotta (Silvio Orlando). The strange thing is, the relationship between those two characters is about the only one that is genuine. "I don't judge you, and you don't judge me."

By the end of the movie, we see Parthenope retiring as a professor and reflecting on her life; it's almost similar to Owen's reflection on his life in I Saw The TV Glow but not as regretful.

Parthenope as a movie starts rather slowly, goes slowly and ends a bit sadly but with a parade.

Cinderella Man (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Great sports movie with a bit of a more wholesome Raging Bull like relationship with James J Braddock (Russell Crowe), Mae Braddock (Renee Zellweger) and Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti).

I love the lighting, cinematography, and production/set design which gives it a 'period look' to it.

The boxing fights and the way they are edited are absolutely addicting to watch; it mirrors how an actual fighter would experience during a boxing match (or pretty close to it).

The movie does a bit of trauma dumping where Braddock has to deal with sending his children to live with relatives and keeping the lights on. I really loved the press conference scenes - Crowe in his performance in those scenes had Braddock come across as someone not completely comfortable with public speaking. Zellweger had a great scene in the locker room where she cheers on Braddock prior to the penultimate fight with Max Baer.

The scenes with other people listening to the fight on the radio is almost Michael Bay like with capturing a lot of people having a vested interest and being pure Americana (a la Armageddon).

The Sisters Brothers (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

As a Western, it's quirky enough to be different and goes really dark in the last 30 minutes or so.

John C Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the Sisters brothers seem like they would fit in with Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and the scheme with Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyallenhaal's characters seem like something from that movie. Jacques Audiard's directing style in the movie seems to similar to Sam Peckinpah but more arthouse.

I did like how the gunshots were done and they seemed more like firecrackers when the guns were being fired (not the gunshot style that's typically seen in Westerns).

Not a bad effort.

 

[Dolfan in NYC]

DOLFAN WATCHES THE OSCAR NOMINEES SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO, PART 3!

THE BRUTALIST - Okay, first and foremost... yes, this movie is loooong.  3 and a half hours to be exact!  However... it does have a 15 minute intermission, which I appreciated.  Anyway, about the movie itself...  it felt like a pretty straightforward arthouse prestige type movie. I think there's a lot to be said about it being an allegory for Israel and Zionism, but I'm not going to comment about that other than to say, "sure".  The third act makes some... hmm... decisions. I cannot in good conscience believe this is going to win, but it's pretty good and will definitely win some of the other things it's up for.  Just not Best Picture.

 

ANORA - FUCK. YES.  Gonna tell you right now, this is my favorite to win it all.  Alternately hilarious and dramatic, while never really losing itself.  Sean Baker is a magician and deserves all the praise he can get.  Yura Borisov was an incredible find for Baker and I really hope he gets to be in more stuff, because he was great in this. And Mikey Madison... god damn girl. Absolutely incredible, and you know something... I think there's an outside shot she wins Best Actress.  For someone who was known to the world as (spoiler alert) "one of the Ghostfaces" she's come a long long way.  I don't want to give away too much of the movie, because it's great to follow this absolutely insane ride as blindly as possible.  Yes, it can win. Yes, it should win.   Will it?  I sure hope so.

[Andrew POE!]

I want The Brutalist to win, but I think the AI controversy has prevented it. I saw it on an AMC a month or so ago and I'm planning on seeing it AGAIN this upcoming Sunday in 70mm at a local Atlanta arthouse cinema.

[Curt McGirt]

Wait, so it's a 3 1/2 hour movie... about architechture. 

...

[Brian Fowler]

FWIW, GoldDerby has The Brutalist as a very slight favorite at 7/1 over Anora at 15/2 and Wicked, Conclave, and Emilia Pérez all at 8/1.

[elizium]

One thing I forgot to mention from that Timeout best British movies list. For Black Narcissus they used a picture of Barbara Steele from Black Sunday by mistake

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Free State of Jones (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Free State of Jones as a movie is limited in its own freedom. The movie is winding and overloaded with story threads. There's the wider implication of the abolition of slavery in the South and in Mississippi, the post Civil War culture, the main character Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), the secondary characters that he encounters including Moses (Mahershala Ali), Knight's wife Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), his lawful wife Serena (Keri Russell), and Newton's descendant Davis (Brian Lee Franklin).

The movie spreads itself so thinly that it almost shouldn't have been a movie and should have been a TV series. The main story with Newton Knight leaving the Confederate army and helping to found the Free State of Jones should have been the entirety of the movie. The reasons behind his disertion and his founding the state were more compelling and more interesting. There's something to be said that's relevant today about "the poor fighting for the rich man's cotton" as is said in the movie.

The scripting and the convoluted plot dilute this message and this focus for the movie. Knight as a main character has almost nothing really distinctive about himself - although I did like the characterization that McConaughey had of him as a folksy leader and a guy you would want to have a beer with or listen to (McConaughey in almost all his movies has a variation of himself in these characters). The interactions between McConaughey and Ali were great as well although it sadly didn't play more of a part in the movie.

It can be said that the movie does engage in a 'white savior' narrative that the movie only in passing addresses. One of the characters leaves the group then gets killed and hung; Knight and his group return the bodies for a burial which turns out to be an ambush. Yet there are no consequences for that action to Knight and the others; the movie just moves along to another historical anecdote. There's also zero confrontation when Knight says "the word" about black people in front of the people in the general store; the implication being he can say that due to the audience, but how does that reconcile with his friendship with Moses and having a child with Rachel? The movie doesn't answer that.

Cinematography throughout the movie is gorgeous - the swamps, forests, farms, and fields in Mississippi are gorgeously shot and everything is framed well. Gary Ross as a director is a competent director and the scenes don't over stay their welcome.

Free State of Jones is not really free from issues.

In The Heart of the Sea (Netflix, leaving on 2/28) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

Movie at times feels like The Sea Wolf meets Master & Commander: Far Side of the World but not really that compelling to watch. There's a nice bit of tension and antagonism with Chase (Chris Hemsworth) and Pollard (Benjamin Walker) as they decide to go after the largest whale they've ever seen. Cillian Murphy as Matthew Joy is a bit wasted in this movie.

The way the movie is shot, it feels at times like a Marvel movie (usage of CGI for water effects, a bit of a disconnected feel for the acting). The scenes with Brendan Gleeson as Thomas Nickerson and Ben Whishaw as Herman Melville are about the only scenes that feel 'in the moment' and has more of a tangible sense of a location.

I will say that I liked some of the mounted camera shots (mounted to a harpoon or on Chris Hemsworth's head while he's asleep) and the closeups of activities give it a grounded feel.

Not one of Ron Howard's best efforts.

Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood (Hulu, leaving on 2/28) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

The hoarding in Scotty's houses bothered me more than the secrets about long gone Hollywood stars. I cleaned up for about an hour after watching this documentary as a result.

The stories Scotty shares are interesting but as a documentary it's a bit bland. Although hearing Scotty Bowers break down about his brother in WWII and being involved with Kinsey's sexual studies was interesting.

Last Breath (saw in the theaters) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

I saw this as part of AMC's Screen Unseen.

Last Breath as a movie seems to be in a line of occupational/work dramas that were largely prevalent in the 1970s - Poseidon Adventure or Airport call to mind most frequently. Aspects of the movie present itself as 'actors really doing the work' like Clouzot's The Wages of Fear and Friedkin's Sorcerer. Sorcerer had a famous scene where Roy Schneider and others really were preparing a truck for transportation.

Last Breath is somewhat like those two movies.

The drama and tension (and the bulk of the movie) works with those scenes where lives are on the line. Chris (Finn Cole who is essentially the Temu version of Miles Teller or 'Miles Temu') is part of an underwater repair unit with David (Simu Liu) and Duncan (Woody Harrelson). The movie had me wondering if David (or "Dave" as he likes to be called) would betray the group or try to kill one of the others due to his standoffish nature. Chris and David go underwater when Chris' oxygen line breaks and David has to go back up alone.

The rest of the movie is a race against time as the movie shows a clock for the amount of time Chris spent without oxygen.

Alex Parkinson is at his best with the real life / docudrama aspects of the movie; the camera placement is within the diving bell and in the cage as the divers go into the ocean. The lighting and cinematography really adds to the fearful nature and intense scenes. The showing I went literally had audience members exclaiming signs of relief when Chris finally woke up and was conscious after being without oxygen for 40 minutes.

Where the movie doesn't do as well is with standard melodrama. Chris and his girlfriend Morag (Bobby Rainsbury) had the most bland and pedestrian acting with basic camera setups near the start of the movie. There were great wide-angled shots of the coastline and of the shipyard after that.

This is the director Alex Parkinson first feature-length film and some of his documentary features does show up a bit in the movie; he has a long way to go with fictional movies. All of the characters in the movie don't really have that much going on (I did like Simu Liu's line about how "in 10 years machines will be doing this job" when talking about Harrelson's character and his retirement). They felt more like tropes than actual characters.

Even then, the intensity and tension carried Last Breath when the story and characters couldn't.

 

[Curt McGirt]

3 hours ago, elizium said:

One thing I forgot to mention from that Timeout best British movies list. For Black Narcissus they used a picture of Barbara Steele from Black Sunday by mistake

 

On 2/22/2025 at 6:11 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Funny that Black Narcissus got a photo from Black Sabbath for it haha.

I'd do the "elizium hates my posts" BS but I think it's neat that somebody else caught it too