Movies 2025 Movie Discussion Thread

[Curt McGirt]

 

Roofman makes me think there's got to be a movie coming about the college-agekids who broke into that mall to live in for quite awhile before they were found out. (Also, sorry about the dentist thing, I remember your Texas Roadhouse story...)

34 minutes ago, Andrew POE! said:

MTV's Liquid Television

Oh man, you reminded me of this, which I think was on it. From Neo-Tokyo in '87. My eyes were bugging out watching it again. It was in the Streamline Pictures intro/commercial at the beginning of all their VHS tapes too.

https://www.facebook.com/100076463277353/videos/neo-tokyo-1987-dir-yoshiaki-kawajiri/420773717748602/

[Andrew POE!]

Yeah, I have to be careful when I eat steaks at Texas Roadhouse now lol.

Movies today....not as much full length features due to work demands today.

Flores (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

While watching this, I didn't really pick up on the queer romance storyline between two soldiers serving in the Portuguese military. I was more noticing the economics of a region overrun with hydrangeas and one country forced to abandon it due to that and another country harvesting it.

I loved how the short film was shot and how it was made to seem like a documentary.

Past Perfect (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

At times, I wondered what the point of the short film is and then at other times it makes sense. Subtitles about the 'crying parties,' playing a song out of context that's asssociated with ISIS, subtitles about various moments in history where things were out of order.

The visuals don't match the written word and the written word is devoid of propulsion. The problem is then the movie can't be zoned out despite it not being very interesting.

Tattoo (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Watching this, it's easy to take for granted things like going to a DMV and being able to renew a driver's license without having a panel of men questioning women having tattoos affecting their ability to drive a car. Never mind the fact that a hand injury is more of an issue for actual driving. It's noticeable that one of the men has an eye injury / glass eye, but is anyone questioning his ability to drive a car?

Quietly devastating short film from Iran and like a lot of films from the country, it's a statement from a closed society.

The Fly (1986) (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

The Fly as a movie is about social isolation. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) doesn't recognize social cues or social understandings of things that are normally done; he's isolated due to his genius and his own misunderstanding of the world. He wears the same outfits every day because "I learned that from Einstein" and is purely focused on his thoughts and his outcomes. A lot of people in history that were thought to be 'nerds' and 'geeks' had such unusual habits and little regard for social norms. Steve Jobs wore multiple pairs of the same jeans and shirts every day; those closest to Jobs describe him as an absolute asshole to have work with, much less deal with (not to mention the abhorrent way he treated his own child).

As The Fly starts, the camera is fixed from a 'fly POV' onto the crowd of people in a room. Seth Brundle is discussing his research with Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). The way the scene is shot, Brundle appears further away as the camera has a close up on his face then on Ronnie's face. In the side profile shot is it realized that Brundle and Quaife were much closer than anticipated. Quaife's reaction to his research and walking away from Brundle shows they are worlds apart. Brundle isn't deterred and pursues Quaife as she walks down the steps to leave through the crowd.

Brundle takes Quaife to his lab and reveals the pods that are in the room. What Brundle proposes is teleportation. On the ride over there, Quaife drives; Brundle revealed that the slightest thing makes him car sick, even with riding in the front seat. (The fact that what Brundle does later with his secretion as a fly that looks like vomit isn't lost on me). Once there, Quaife isn't sure of what Brundle is doing; she gives Brundle a stocking and he proceeds to teleport it across the room. Quaife doesn't believe it and think it's a 'parlor trick.' A baboon is teleported and turns into a deformed creature that dies nearly instantly.

Quaife talks to her boss (and former lover) Stathis Borans (John Getz). Borans isn't sure about Brundle's discovery and tries to get Quaife to kill the story. What's interesting with Quaife's relationship with Borans and with Brundle is the concept of woman body autonomy. Borans views his relationship with Quaife in possessive terms; Brundle doesn't adopt such a view until after he goes through the teleporter with the fly. The choice of the nylon stocking is both a tool of seductiion and sexuality that Quaife freely gives. Later, when Quaife is pregnant with Brundle's baby, she has a dream that her attempt at an abortion results in a spawn that's not even human. She then tries to go through the process for real despite the danger (somewhat of a commentary about abortion restrictions and those seeking to end abortions altogether not caring about what happens to the mother).

Going back to Brundle, Brundle goes through changes socially as a result of the teleportation with the fly. He seems more socially capable and adapted; it's a bit like what Sam Raimi would later use in Spider-Man series with Peter Parker being imbued with the powers of the spider. Parker never undergoes the transformation that Brundle undergoes as Brundle becomes a fly.

Brundle meets a woman at a bar and takes her back to his place (after gruesomely breaking a guy's wrist in arm wrestling). Brundle wants this woman Tawny (Joy Boushel) to go into one of the pods but Quaife arrives with the famous line of "Be afraid, be very afraid" and Tawny leaves. Brundle is angered and more taken aback with Quaife warning to the woman, feeling like Quaife doesn't understand what Brundle wants to do. "But you only know society's straight line about the flesh. You can't penetrate beyond society's sick, gray, fear of the flesh. Drink deep, or taste not, the plasma spring! Y'see what I'm saying? And I'm not just talking about sex and penetration. I'm talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh!" Through this scene, Brundle feels that Quaife can't join him in social isolation too, even though it's not what Quaife wants to do and would destroy her humanity too.

At some point though, this desire for connection with Quaife comes to a head. Brundle is once again isolated, but not due to genius and social isolation, but due to physical change and metamorphosis. Brundle slowly loses his humanity and resembles a human/fly hybrid. The scenes where Brundle runs an analysis of the two substances that came into contact confirm that one of the subjects was "Not Brundle." Brundle then decides he has to go through the teleporters again; it's much like what was done in The Substance where Demi Moore's character decides she has to stay as the prettier, younger version of her in Margaret Qualley. Except with this, there's no guarantee that Seth Brundle will become something more with an additional trip.

When Quaife and Borans arrive at the doctor's office, Brundle comes crashing through the window and takes Quaife away. At that point, it resembles what was done in King Kong; Brundle is now regarded as an outcast and outside of society, a savage beast in a civilized world. Brundle still is able to talk to Quaife until they reach the lab. Borans had left and visits the lab before they get there and realizes what Brundle will do with Quaife. He loads the shotguns to destroy the machine.

What's interesting with the last 10 minutes or so of the movie is how much is conveyed through visual storytelling. The characters never speak or if they do, it isn't much. Brundle puts Quaife in one of the pods and Quaife tries to pull away from him; his jaw falls off. Eventually, his humanity is falling away as he staggers to the other pod with the countdown timer running. Quaife delivers the final shotgun blast to Brundle after he's teleported and became part human, part fly, part machine. Nature, humanity, and machinery cannot coexist together; one will destroy the other and all three will die if combined.

The Fly compared to David Cronenberg's earlier works that I saw is a much better and skilled film. The soundtrack is practically atmospheric and tragic, almost Wagnerian. The tragedies and follies of human beings are shown in a science fiction film about a scientist wanting to reach beyond his social isolation and reach a connection. Some critics have noted that the movie is analogous to AIDS, but also homosexuality, queer themes, and the 'loneliness epidemic.' Seth Brundle's problem isn't that he's misunderstood, but that he's arrogant. He's not the smartest man in the room.

As would be said by a later character Dr. Ian Malcolm played by Jeff Goldblum, "[You] were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

Promises: Through Congress (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Promises: Through Congress as a movie is unreviewable. If you look at the movie as it's playing, you can see it be a zoom out from the smallest glandular detail of Julie Mehretu's painting to the painting inhabiting a space in a museum. The small becomes large through the 44 minutes.

The music is simply magical from Pharaoh Sanders and Floating Points. It's really so much of watching it as it is listening to it. At times towards the end (around the 30 minute mark), the strings and Sanders' sax are overpowering.

I question how was the zoom out controlled because humans aren't nearly that precise in zooming out for a camera.

 

[odessasteps]

This would either be more creepy or less creepy in 2025, I’m not sure which. Teenage me just remembers Maud did a Playboy shoot based around the movie. 

[J.H.]

Mcbain - No, not Renair Wolfcastle from The Simpsons but earthen Christopher Walken as a Vietnam vet paying back a debt toa buddy from Vietnam. When his buddy dies his sister, Maria Conchita Alinso, asks McCain  to pay off his to brother by overthrowing the president of Columbia.

It is exactly how yiu expect an action movie starring Christopher Walken to be. Somethings Walken should staycawau from. Romantic comedies is one (A Business Affair) and lead in an action movie is another. Definitely from the "Georgie, I think we need to renovate the kitchen, guess I should make a movie" department of Walken's filmography.

James

Edited October 8 by J.H.

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, J.H. said:

Mcbain - No, not Renair Wolfcastle from The Simpsons but earthen Christopher Walken as a Vietnam vet paying back a debt toa buddy from Vietnam. When his buddy dies his sister, Maria Conchita Alinso, asks McCain  to pay off his to brother by overthrowing the president of Columbia.

It is exactly how yiu expect an action movie starring Christopher Walken to be. Somethings Walken should staycawau from. Romantic comedies is one (A Business Affair) and lead in an action movie is another. Definitely from the "Geogie, I think we need to renovate the kitchen, guess I should make a movie" department of Walken's filmography.

James

Did McBain perhaps inspire Walken's character in Pulp Fiction? 

Spoiler

Hopefully the $100 bill wasn't found up...you know. 

 

[J.H.]

2 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

Did McBain perhaps inspire Walken's character in Pulp Fiction? 

  Hide contents

Hopefully the $100 bill wasn't found up...you know. 

 

As awful as Mcbain was, A Business Affair is worse. Walken playing American-Sicilian book publisher is as bad as it sounds. Neither Carol Bluquet nor Johnathon Pryce can save it!

The highlight of the movie is when Pryce, playing Bouquet's husband buys her a pet monkey to help her get over a miscarriage. You read that tight... A GODDAM MONKEY!

James

Edited October 8 by J.H.

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, J.H. said:

As awful as Mcbain was, A Business Affair is worse. Walken playing American-Sicilian book publisher is as bad as it sounds. Neither Carol Bluquet nor Johnathon Pryce can save it!

The highlight of the movie is when Pryce, playing Bouquet's husband buys her a pet monkey to help her get over a miscarriage. You read that tight... A GODDAM MONKEY!

James

That sounds terrible. It's the thought that counts I guess. Still terrible though. 

[Mister TV]

11 hours ago, odessasteps said:

This would either be more creepy or less creepy in 2025, I’m not sure which. Teenage me just remembers Maud did a Playboy shoot based around the movie. 

Bruce Dern claimed that the sex scene with Maud Adams was "real", which she then had to spend years denying.

[Log]

On 10/5/2025 at 8:16 AM, J.H. said:

If Dana Delaney is involved then I'm watching. You think I'm putting myself through the absurdity of Tulsa King so I can watch Sylvester Stallone?

James

I really have no desire to watch Tulsa King, but it delights me to no end that a late-90's/early-2000's IWA MS mainstay (Cash Flo) is a featured character on that show.

[Curt McGirt]

Re: The Fly

1. Is it possible that Seth Brundle was somewhere on the spectrum? Your description of him really makes me think so. 

2. Boy Cronenberg likes those fucked-up names that no one would ever have. Seth Brundle. Stathis Borans. "Veronica" is at least normal. 

3. Saddest damn ending to a movie ever, and now the analogy with AI makes it even worse. 

Has anyone seen Communion? It's a good Walken one, but by god is it totally insane by the end. It's like Walken on meth, that performance.

EDIT: You know I just thought about it and Communion ends like, of all movies

Spoiler

Xtro, which is also an alien flick. The rest of it is like The Dead Zone and then it just flips a switch and goes wacko.

 

Edited October 8 by Curt McGirt

[J.H.]

8 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

That sounds terrible. It's the thought that counts I guess. Still terrible though. 

Oh, it gets worse!

There is a scene of Walken running on a treadmill and based solely on his body movements you'd swear he doesn't actually know how to run!

James

Edited October 8 by J.H.

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Re: The Fly

1. Is it possible that Seth Brundle was somewhere on the spectrum? Your description of him really makes me think so. 

2. Boy Cronenberg likes those fucked-up names that no one would ever have. Seth Brundle. Stathis Borans. "Veronica" is at least normal. 

3. Saddest damn ending to a movie ever, and now the analogy with AI makes it even worse. 

Has anyone seen Communion? It's a good Walken one, but by god is it totally insane by the end. It's like Walken on meth, that performance.

EDIT: You know I just thought about it and Communion ends like, of all movies

  Hide contents

Xtro, which is also an alien flick. The rest of it is like The Dead Zone and then it just flips a switch and goes wacko.

 

1) I think Seth Brundle is, or at least close to it. Most people like him lean pretty close to it. it was smart (and even ahead of its time) for Cronenberg to include that as part of his character.

2) Yeah, I don't know anyone walking around with that kind of name. 

3) Yup, the ending is incredibly sad.

Even sadder that there's The Fly II. 

[Curt McGirt]

Awww. Chris Walas got to get out of the FX game and direct, I bet that was a life's dream for him. It of course had some cool FX... and I remember nothing else about it.

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Singles (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Singles as a movie is honestly a bit disjointed. It functions as a series of vignettes about its characters with a pseudo-documentary structure where the characters address the camera. The movie starts and ends with a character talking into the camera about their feelings and thoughts on the Seattle singles scene. With movies like that where a character addresses the audience directly, the source of who is being talked to is revealed at the end. We never learn who any of the characters are talking to - is it a documentary director, a hapless bystander, or themselves?

It's weird to say this (and potentially pretentious), but it feels inspired by both Godard and Truffaut in equal measures. It's sentimental and conventional, but it's also cynical and acidic. Love is viewed as an end goal, but the trappings and notions of falling in love are viewed skeptically too. One of the characters at the end laments that he will stay single the rest of his life as two of the characters leave the apartment building to move in together.

At the time this movie came out, I had thought that this would be what living in an apartment building would be like. TV shows like Friends and Living Single expanded on this premise and turned it into episodic television. The reality of living in apartment buildings and being single in apartment buildings is vastly different. Obviously, the movie would be very different if it depicted a white van honking for a day laborer to hurry up and climb in at 5 am. It would be less Sex and The City and more Sean Baker if that happened.

The vignettes throughout the movie really only focus on two characters - Linda (Kyra Sedgwick) and Steve (Campbell Scott). The other characters that have some of the focus, Janet (Bridget Fonda) and Cliff (Matt Dillon) and Debbie (Sheila Kelley) have memorable segments, but don't experience the character growth that Linda and Steve undergo.

Linda and Steve are not perfect people; they both regard love cynically. Linda had her heart broken when Luiz (Camilo Gallardo) is on a visa and is going back to Spain; she gives him her garage door opener. While walking through a crowded bar one night, she sees Luiz talking to another girl and he does nothing but shrugs. Steve starts the movie with his lamenting about relationships in general and the games that men and women play to maintain a relationship: "Now she's with Tony. Tony knows my friend Bailey, who's friends with the girl Tony's going out with on the side, Rita. Rita who I broke up with to go out with Jennifer. So now do I tell Jennifer that I know Tony's going out with Rita or do I tell Rita that I know about Tony and Jennifer? Tony will tell Jennifer that I was still going out with Rita while I was going out with her. How does stuff get so complicated? I don't know." What's interesting in Steve's intro is we never meet Rita, Jennifer, and Tony - although that would be expected with a movie like this. The inclusion only highlights the time period and the complications. Steve relays the piece of 'advice' he got from his dad that reveals a lot about his insights: "My dad left home when I was eight. You know what he said to me? "Have fun, stay single.""

Eventually, Steve and Linda meet at a crowded concert with Steve trying a pickup line, that's not really a pickup line: "one of my options is to be myself." Linda doesn't seem interested and doesn't seem willing to pursue the relationship. "I think that, a) you have an act, and that, b) not having an act is your act." Yet, the two meet outside the newspaper stand and have a long conversation. The shot that ends the scene showing Steve and Linda talking in a midrange angle while Steve and Linda's friends stare at each other.

What seems to drive the two characters in their relationship pursuits is a photo both own - a black and white photo of a couple kiss with reckless abandon. Steve and Linda don't feel adequate enough throughout the movie to be able to surrender to those kinds of feelings. But, after being with absolutely boring and pretentious Andy (James LeGros), Linda decides the person she really loves is the person that understood her. "What took you so long?" "I was stuck in traffic." The scene with those lines is honestly perfect.

Cliff and Janet's relationship reveal the inadequacies both feel about themselves. Cliff has false bravado with his wanting to be a singer for the band Citizen Dick (which includes members of Pearl Jam) while working four different jobs including flower delivery and at the coffeeshop. Cliff appreciates Janet but doesn't really know how to express it; Janet doesn't feel appreciated and decides what will bring her and Cliff together is getting breast implants. What's interesting with Janet is she could had opportunities to date other people - the plastic surgeon Dr. Jamison (Bull Pullman) and Steve in his anxiety inducing apartment. Yet at the end of the movie, she ends up with Cliff, right where she started. They kiss in the elevator - Cliff complements her on her hat and Janet sneezes with Cliff saying "bless you." Earlier in the movie, Janet had mentioned that to be a requirement for dating - a man saying "bless you" when she sneezes.

Debbie as a character got the 'short end' regarding her character arc. She makes a submission to a video dating service (that includes a cameo from Tim Burton and he gets called "the next Martin Scorsese"); she tries to date a guy that rides a bicycle that the other characters - or 'friends' if you will - say was the best choice. That is until Debbie finds her roommate flirting with him in the kitchen. Debbie goes on a flight and asks to sit 'next to a single guy.' Which turns out to be a kid. But she meets the kid's dad (Victor Garber) and ends up with him off camera as Cliff delivers flowers that "sometimes she returns to throw him off."

As with a lot of Cameron Crowe movies, the music serves as the cohesive glue for the movie. In this case, it's the music of Seattle with Alice in Chains making an appearance to sing "Would?" and Soundgarden appearing to do "Born Ritual." Paul Westerberg's "Dyslexic Heart" appears throughout the movie and at the end with its catchy "na na na na, na na na na na" refrain. Singles is a bit like how Allan Moyle's Empire Records and Times Square is regarding the soundtrack; it puts the movie both in the time period and makes it a time capsule (as another review on Letterboxd has pointed out).

Singles was meant as a tribute to Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone; today, it's sad that Layne Stanley from Alice In Chains and Chris Cornell from Soundgarden are no longer alive as well. Cliff laments "Where are the anthems for our youth? What happened to music that meant something? The Who at the Kingdome, or Kiss at the Coliseum... Where is the "Misty Mountain Hop," where is the, is the "Smoke on the Water"... Where is the "Iron Man" of today?" Little did he know that "Smell Like Teen Spirit," "Alive," "Evenflow," "Outshined," and "Jeremy" were a few years away.

The drawback with Singles is how conventional the stories really are and how conventional the characters really are. Linda and Steve are Gen X models of normality, with Cliff being a bit of a stereotype rather than a defined character. Real issues like losing jobs don't seem to deter the characters or cause any serious frustration. Steve essentially quits his job after the mayor rejects the plans for a 'super train.' The scene where Steve puts his presentation in a drawer and his cubicle falling apart is a bit too 'on the nose' to show that his life is falling apart. Linda is almost too distracted with her feelings for Steve and almost loses her job too.

I wonder how Singles would have been if each vignette shown introduced new characters for each one. Having it revolve around a set of characters make it more like the episodic television that I mentioned earlier.

Even then, Singles is a great early 1990s romantic comedy about a great music scene and is a postcard from Seattle.

Altered States (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

Quite honestly, Altered States is Ken Russell's most perfect film.

The thing with Ken Russell is he is completely unhinged as a director and his films are proof. The Devils has Oliver Reed as an insane priest named Urbain Grandier with Roseanna Arquette playing a nun with a hunchback masturbating with a crucifix. Savage Messiah has an artist driving himself completely bonkers and a young Helen Mirren walking around naked. Tommy has its main character undergoing a psychosis as he gains fame for being a 'pinball wizard.' Nudity, religion, insanity, heaven, hell, crucifixions, and demons follow Russell's work throughout his career.

Altered States is the most 'mainstream' of his work. The fact that it got distributed from Warner Bros. is a miracle in and of itself.

Eddie Jessup (William Hurt) starts the movie in an isolation tank. He explains that other people have gone through the tank and experience various sensations. Jessup figures he try it himself and report back on it. He works with Arthur Rosenberg (Bob Bolaban) and Mason Parrish (Charles Haid), who has him meet a woman at a party named Emily (Blair Brown). What's interesting is the way Eddie meeting Emily is shot; a white light is silhouetted around Eddie, appearing almost as angel.

As Eddie Jessup goes through his experiment, he experiences flashes of imagery that is part of Ken Russell's filmography: a crucifixion, sex, a many eyed creature being killed, images of Eddie and Emily at a table and eating. What's interesting is the images that Eddie Jessup experiences only happens a few times in the movie; we never see what he experiences later in the movie and talks about, only the outside of the tank.

Eddie Jessup decides to go to Mexico and takes a psychedelic drug that triggers a 'common experience for its takers.' Through his visions in Mexico, they only intensify and result in him killing a lizard. Later, Jessup after regressing into a primate man, kills an animal at the zoo. It seems that being a hunter is what drives Jessup in his primal state. As he said earlier in the movie, "Well, l think that that true self, that original self, that first self, is a real, mensurate, quantifiable thing, tangible and incarnate, and I'm going to find the fucker."

While watching this, I couldn't help but notice how much Altered States and 1986's The Fly seem to be a 'conversation' with each other. Both describe a scientist pushing himself to the brink for science - Jeff Goldblum's character becoming a human/fly hybrid, William Hurt's character becoming a primordal man. Both are driven by love. Seth Brundle has love for Veronica, but that's not enough to save him. Eddie Jessup has love for his wife Emily and that actually does save him. Emily even recognizes their connection: " Of all the God damn men in this world, why do I have to love this one? I can't get him out of me. Do you know how many men I tried to fall in love with this past year? But it won't work. No matter who I'm in bed with I have to imagine it's him or nothing happens. No matter who I'm eating with or walking with there's always this pain because it isn't him. I'm possessed by him."

Towards the end, Eddie Jessup achieves a state equivalent to the Star Child in 2001: A Space Odyssey, except on Earth. The state affects Arthur and Mason as they are knocked unconscious. Yet Emily is able to grab hold of Eddie, restoring to a normal state. The ending has Eddie Jessup talking to Emily after being rescued, seemingly resigned to his fate. Jessup begins to metamorphosis again and touches Emily, turning her into a red lava-like creature, trapped. Eddie Jessup slams his arm against the wall, trying to fight the changes and trying to not become a primordal man. He eventually succeeds and grabs hold of Emily. "I love you Emily."

Altered States is one of the most experimental mainstream movies ever made; there will never be another movie like this again. It's somewhat a shame the director Ken Russell and the screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky had such a contentious relationship. The characters and the movie is as unhinged as Terry Southern's work and as Ken Russell's earlier movies. I loved how Russell filmed the movie; there wasn't a lot of usage of standard dialogue setups in scenes and has the actors walking through the scenes as they talk. Wes Anderson would do something similar in his movies as well.

Altered States is a great state to be in.

Popeye (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

"All at once I knew I knew at once he needed me"

Popeye was one of those movies that I watched endlessly in elementary school. Every afternoon, I would rotate around several movies that I would watch after school: Popeye, Police Academy, Police Academy 2, Caddyshack, Smokey & The Bandit, Cannonball Run. It probably explains a lot about me and maybe my worldview.

Watching it again, I realized while watching it that a lot of the parts of the movie seem really familiar. The movie is constructed like a standard musical, albeit a bit twisted and off-kilter. It seems like a cartoon. Characters are exaggerated, overblown, and cartoon logic explains nearly everything that happens. Popeye (Robin Williams) just shows up at the start of the movie, rowing a boat and needing a place to live. The town denizens dance and sing - one of them keeps kicking his hat and finally has to jump on it. The fact that the town seems like an actual living breathing town calls back to Robert Altman's earlier McCabe & Mrs. Miller. The set design even would have an echo in Rainer Warner Fassbinder's Querelle as well as the nautical characters. The gambling track scenes call back to Altman's California Split as well where Elliott Gould and George Segal try to enter their bets for horse racing.

With such an off-kilter world, the singing for the actors seems 'off key' as well. Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl has a Texas girl twang in her songs, especially in "He's Large" and "He Needs Me." While watching this, it doesn't make sense to me that this didn't become an actual musical on Broadway. Those two songs, "I Yam What I Yam," "Everything Is Food" and "Sweethaven - An Anthem" would be perfect with a large cast on Broadway and with professional singers doing it. Duvall and Robin Williams are decent, but at times they are almost inaudible when singing.

One aspect that does the movie in a bit is the amount of ADR there is in the movie. It explains a lot of the shots being further back and not as close up on the actors. Robin Williams as Popeye captured the mannerisms but a lot of his voice feels captured in post-production. At times, Williams doesn't even resemble what he normally does in roles; it feels like someone else's voice is there and it doesn't feel like he actually said lines in the scenes.

One thing that's a bit interesting is the fact that Sweetpea just appears out of nowhere; Popeye says "the storks dropped him off," which again plays into the cartoon-y world Popeye originates. The implication is that Popeye and Olive Oyl had consummated their love and Olive Oyl was pregnant and had the baby. But for a cartoon like this, why would that even be brought up?

The thing I noticed with watching this now is how Olive Oyl is portrayed; she's not the hapless 'damsel in distress' that typically appears in the cartoons. Olive Oyl is engaged to be married to Bluto (Paul L. Smith). She wants to call off the engagement because 'the hat is too ugly.' When eating dinner, she complains about the knife, the chair, and the table. Olive Oyl as a character is dictated what she should be expecting. So after Sweetpea is kidnapped and Popeye is stewing over what happened, Olive Oyl decides for herself that "he [Popeye] needs me." She wants to help Popeye because it's her decision, not her mother's, not society's. After all, "if it turns out real, then love can turn the wheel."

Popeye is an unfairly mangled movie and a bit of a shaggy dog movie too.

Say Grace Before Drowning (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Short films like this tell stories often not told, even in African American cinema. The memories of a young girl meeting her mother and her mother's mental illness has an effect on her in the present day. In a lot of cases, women suffer in silence while not being able to address the root causes of such trauma. Having the trauma be a civil war in another country causes trauma in two ways.

While some of the acting and direction seems a bit "student film-y," the short film is a powerful and well-done film.

Suicide By Sunlight (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

This short film would make an interesting premise for a television show, like True Blood: A nurse in New York City is also a vampire and is going through a divorce. There's a lot of layers to the story for this - the confluence of vampirism and mental illness, divorce and separation with hiding secrets.

I wish it had been longer - the ending of it has Valentina (Natalie Paul) revealing to her daughters that they are also vampires after killing their stepmother.

Not all independent films have to be about people talking about buildings and food.

 

[J.H.]

I would not be stunned to find out that Altered States is what William Hurt thinks his autobiography was

James

[Curt McGirt]

I had an alcoholic panic attack watching Altered States in the dark one night at my old house. 

Yeah, that movie rules. 

It's too bad William Hurt should have been castrated...

[Dolfan in NYC]

...or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.  

 

 

[HarryArchieGus]

2 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

...or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.  

 

 

This can't be much of a surprise considering the results of these newer Mad Max films (that's assuming the sequel was more of the same). I wonder if I'm alone in thinking Fury Road was complete garbage? For me it was like being invited over to a pal's place for a hang only to be forced to watch them play video games for 2 hours while stoking anxious negative energy. And then having the audacity to suggest the rotten experience was somehow a progressive feminist statement. For context - I did love the original Max Max and Road Warrior. And Thunderdome as a kid.

Edited October 9 by HarryArchieGus

[J.H.]

Tiptoes - Yes, it's THAT MOVIE! Let's get something out of the way... Matthew Mconaghey and Kate Beckinsale are a goddam sexy as couple and if this movie were better you vould have built a romcom juggernaut with them together. Like, they have Bogart/Bacall level chemistry, and that, my friend's, is the Gold Standard.

As if you couldn't tell already, I do not think this is a good movie. You've got Gary Oldman "in a role of a lifetime" playing McConaughy's twin brother with the hitch being that Oldman is a dwarf. Actually, it's a major hitch, as the rest of the family are dwarves as well. Kate Beckins

ale plays freaked out fiancée Carol quite effectively.

The fact this movie got made at all and no one rose their hand in production to say "Man, this is really fucked up" astounds me. Did anyone not learn from Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher? Under The Rainbow was a thing people!

The real shame is that Omdman, Beckinsale and McConaughey are really fuckin solid in it, it's just the whole premise is really uncomfortable and just hurts what could've been a decent romcom. You can take out the family of dwarves and just given family members some weird quirks and you've got a decent movie.

But this?

Wanna know something crazy about Tiptoes?

Not just the fact this movie got made. It is the fact that there is a 150 minute director's cut of this thing that those that have seen it say actually redeems it. So Tiptoes is to family- centric romantic comedies what Heaven's Gate is to turn of the 20th century Westerns.

The mind boggles!

James

 

[Zimbra]

"Kate Beckinsale agreed to star in the film for scale if she would be allowed to wear her "lucky hat" during filming, and Bright agreed"

What?

[Curt McGirt]

I really would like someone to corner Mcconaghey (sic? I can never spell that thing right the first time), inject him with some truth serum and have him explain the details of his career. I mean he was in things as far apart as that movie, The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (I know, young actor), True Detective, Killer Joe, The Wedding Planner, Failure to Launch, The Lincoln Lawyer, Contact...

(Yeah, it's wrong. I'm not changing it.)

Edited October 9 by Curt McGirt

[Contentious C]

On 10/8/2025 at 1:38 PM, J.H. said:

Oh, it gets worse!

There is a scene of Walken running on a treadmill and based solely on his body movements you'd swear he doesn't actually know how to run!

James

His. Name. Is. Walken. Why would that surprise you?

[Curt McGirt]

He was probably trying to work some of his dance moves into it.

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

African Booty Scratcher (Criterion Channel, short film, leaving on 10/31) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Short film loses a bit in the middle, but the aim of it is maintained throughout the film. High school life is hard, even harder for someone not from the United States.

I made me reflect on my life and my high school years - there was a Spanish girl who recently moved to the US that a guy I knew tried to get her to go to the prom with him. He called her "bonita" in the middle of class and she was shocked by it. (She was very pretty too and I think they did go to the prom together).

The immigrate experience for someone like that isn't easy - there's a lot of stigmas associated with it, likely made even tougher now.

Flowers (Criterion Channel, short film, leaving on 10/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Flowers as a short film is uncomfortable to watch - it addresses the power structure of mostly white males in teaching roles with their actions against students that are being taught. The two characters - Erin (Belle Le Grand) and Mya (Amee Apedo) - try to catch Mya's teacher Mr. Ryan (Grant Tambellini) in the act of admitting his wrongdoing. He ends up does and it's recorded on Erin's phone and seemingly broadcasted across the internet. "I'm sorry I tried to kiss you, okay?"

There's something a bit unsettling about people being able to record others in settings like that. This isn't to discount Mr. Ryan's behavior at all - far from it. But recording him and broadcasting it everywhere is almost just as bad as what he did. He then makes it worse by assaulting Erin and wrestling the phone away from her.

24 City (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

atlanta.eater.com/closings/85795/eats-on-ponce-closing-atlanta

Gentrification is a product of capitalism. It extends even into countries like China, where planning is done from a centralized government and everything is done for the glorification of the CCP. With 24 City, the movie functions as a documentary but blurs the line a lot with actual people and with actors interviewing as those they are actual people.

The movie tracks the generations of people and interviews select people as they reflect upon the closure of Factory 420, which was a secret facility that made parts for the Chinese Army. The movie opens as people are routinely handling very hot pieces of metal, literally playing with fire. The parts start fires as they are moving along the ground.

Each person interviewed recalls different things - one person recalls how a senior supervisor showed him how to hang on to a piece of metal for a longer period so it's not thrown away easily. Another woman recounts how at 41 she was laid off as she rides a bus during the interview. She had to struggle, find work, sell flowers, and she had quit school in the sixth grade to work in the factory.

One of the more touching stories involved a real life melding with actors. Joan Chen, in a Julie Roberts in Ocean's Twelve like bit, plays a woman named Giu Minhua. Giu Minhua recounts how she had a nickname of "Little Flower," due to her resemblance to Chen in the same movie. Minhua moved to Shanghai and moved into sales on account of her looks and personality. Giu Minhua ends up staying single because she has higher standards for herself. A guy tells her that he felt intimidated with her approaching her and felt like he could when he became rich. "I'm not someone that's wasted or a 'spare part,'" she says. The end of her segment has footage from the actual movie Little Flower being shown on a TV.

The story that closes out the movie involves Su Na (Tao Zhao). Su Na recounts what happened as she failed her college entrance exam and moved to Hong Kong as a personal shopper for rich women in the city. She came back to get a key to her parents' house and had to go into the factory where her mother works. "I didn't recognize if it were a woman or a man." Her mother is said to thrown ingots into a container. "Each sound strikes against my soul."
The experience that night affects Su Na and gives her new determination in life. "After eating, I told my mother that I would stay the night. She was very happy. She made my bed and brought a quilt. I hadn't touched that bed in ages. As I lay on it, I suddenly felt grown-up. I began to care about my parents. The thing I most want now is to make a lot of money. Lots and lots of money. I want to buy an apartment in 24 City for my parents. I know it will cost a lot. But I can do it. I'm the daughter of a worker."

The workers and the Cultural Revolution of yesteryear gives way to the children of the Cultural Revolution and their almost American-ized focus on making it. The country will not always provide and it's up to them. It's like How To Make It In China.

With how this movie was done, Jia Zhangke filmed the factory as the sign comes down, people sort through remaining parts, dismantle equipment and bring down buildings. A woman talks to a Chengdu TV reporter about 24 City and he talks about his experience going to Beijing for the first time and how he felt a connection with the Bread-like song "The Outside World." The song is then later played after his segment.

24 City shows that change and gentrification isn't an unique practice.

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Criterion Channel, leaving on 10/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is obvious with its stageplay roots. It's one location for the entirety of the movie, but worlds are described within its dialogue. The characters in this are like real people trapped in actual small towns; their dreams, desires, and hopes are trapped there too. Mona (Sandy Dennis) talks about her one part in Giant and giving James Dean a match to light a cigarette. Mona claims that her son Jimmy Dean is the son of James Dean, when the truth is closer to home.

Sissy (Cher) is equally trapped and tortured by the distant past and the depressing present. She wanted to parlay being a roller skater into an ice skater, but the reality is different. Her husband doesn't love her despite boasting about her breasts being "the biggest he's ever seen." Sissy boast about this too until revealing they are gone and replaced. Joanne (Karen Black) had met her husband while he was working a job, "making $200 a day" one night in Kansas City.

Joanne is the most complicated character of all three of the main characters. Her life began as Joe (Mark Patton), who sang "Sincerely" to the jukebox with Sissy and Mona. Joe gets beaten up one night by Leicester T at a graveyard. Joe was the father to Mona’s son Jimmy Dean and Jimmy isn’t “a moron” based on what Sissy revealed. Juanita (Sudie Bond) is like almost all Southern small town women in the Bible Belt; the Bible seemingly gives her license to judge and hate and search for justification for homophobia and transphobia. Joanne has changed the most; she drives a Porsche that Jimmy Dean steals. She comes back despite the painful memories. After all, she loved James Dean too.

Which goes back to the crux of the movie - James Dean. The characters all lament over the actor's passing and James Dean serves as a reminder and nostalgia for their lives. For one brief moment in their lives, they felt as though they were more significant. Having Giant being filmed in their town made their lives matter and made their town matter too. Although in the end as Joanne, Sissy and Mona do "Sincerely" one last time, the Woolworths fades and becomes run down. Their reunion 20 years from then never happened.

What Robert Altman did with this movie is a great work and so simple too. The mirror that shows actors on the other side of it match cut between the past and the present. This happens quite frequently between Joanne and Joe - with Joanne's introduction, she is standing in the same place as Joe was.

Although the story hasn't quite aged as well, it is a moving drama and a moving character study. A lot of great acting work from Cher, Karen Black, and Sandy Dennis was apparent with this movie.

TRON: Ares (saw in the theaters) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

It’s very easy to decry TRON: Ares as derivative and simplistic. Yes, the characters can be told on a cocktail napkin. Jared Leto sometimes cannot act - turns like Mr. Nobody where he does stretch out in an abysmal movie and Oscar winning role in Dallas Buyers Club notwithstanding. With this, Jared Leto plays Ares and evokes Neo from The Matrix and Bruce Banner in Ang Lee’s Hulk in equal measure. (The ending practically IS the same ending as Hulk was).

Despite that, TRON: Ares is pure visual and audio extravaganza. In 2025 America, movies like this should be celebrated despite our world resembling a dystopian nightmare. The real acting heft to this is Greta Lee as Eva Kim, the CEO of Encom, and Evan Peters as the Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network channeling Julian Dillinger of Dillinger Systems. Kim is carrying guilt of her sister’s death and wanting to complete the work she started, Dillinger arrogantly shows off his technical skills and thinks that he has control over Ares. Ares begins to question everything around him and, maybe predictably, wants more of the world beyond the 29 minute time of existence in the real world.

Eventually, Ares breaks from his programming just out of pure inquisitiveness. What prompts it is learning more about Eve, her past, and the photos and text messages she shared with her sister. To borrow from The Terminator (which this movie lifts a lot from as well), it's as if SKYNET gained humanity as it gained awareness. Ares bonds with Eve over Depeche Mode in a nice sequence and later recapitulates his love of Depeche Mode with Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) in the original TRON world as being a "feeling." He's called both Frankenstein ("I am fearless and therefore powerful") and Pinocchio ("you want to make him a real boy?") by various characters, but he's also T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day too. Flynn is equally delighted and amused as he sends Ares back with the permanence code. "It's more of an impermanence code," Flynn says.

Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), who was chartered by Dillinger to capture Eve Kim "by any means necessary," is hunting after both Ares and Eve. She ends up killing Julian Dillinger's mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) and creates a giant flying device borne out of the Grid to continue her search. She ends up catching up with Eve and has her captured as Ares arrives from the original TRON world. Eve's friends at Ensom manages to hack into Dillinger and unleashes a payload that shuts down everything there, including Athena. As the police are closing in, Julian uploads himself into his own cyber world and disappears.

The soundtrack and sound is pure eargasm. At times, both were overpowering and made dialogue difficult to hear. The dialogue really isn't that important, but it does help to have known what was said.

Despite expecting to hate this and its predictability, I found I loved it. I loved the fact that it felt like something teenager me would enjoy and would take me back to high school. It's purely "turn off your mind, awash in the synths and the visuals" type of movie.

An American Werewolf in London (saw in the theaters) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

An American Werewolf in London starts rather simply with tremendous shots of the English countryside and a truck driving into view. David Kessler (David Naughton) and his friend Jack Goodman (Griffin Dunne) wander down the road into an English pub, The Slaughtered Lamb. The reaction they receive is similar to what later films, like Guy Ritchie's Snatch and Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, would do with the depiction of English pub culture. Those in the pub are immediately not trusting of outsiders and it's apparent that they are hiding something. David and Jack surmise that the pentagram must carry a meaning and ask about it. The two are told as they are leaving to "beware the moon" and "stay to the main roads."

As the two leaves, they get lost and come into contact with a werewolf. The sound of the werewolf is heard off-screen until it finally encounters the two, kills Jack, and infects David with the villagers killing the werewolf.

David undergoes dreams, including an instance later where he experiences a 'dream within a dream' (pre-Inception too!). David wakes up at a London hospital and meets a nurse named Alex Price (Jenny Agutter), who takes a fancy to him.

What's interesting during David's experience after the werewolf is he begins to see Jack again, in various stages of decomposition. Jack tells David to kill himself, which is a bit extreme even in the early 1980s. David doesn't wish to do so, but he's told that he will kill people as a werewolf. David then meets various victims after he kills them and wakes up. David waking up in the zoo reminded me of what happened to William Hurt's character in Altered States, where Eddie Jessup woke up in a zoo and killed one of the animals. David, in the zoo, is naked too and hides in a bush and lures a boy with a set of balloons (even then that's pretty cringe-worthy and probably wouldn't happen today). David steals the balloons and runs off. "A naked man stole my balloons."

What I found interesting with An American Werewolf in London is it shows a lot of the other characters that are killed by David in his werewolf form. In a way, it humanizes them and doesn't make them mindless victims. They meeting David towards the end and suggesting ways for him to kill himself is darkly comic and tragic at the same time.

An American Werewolf in London has a lot of great usage of music in the movie. What was memorable for me was Van Morrison's "Moondance" being used during a love scene between David and Alex. "Bad Moon Rising" showing up prior to David's first transformation is a bit of a comic usage and shows David being bored while hold up in Alex's apartment.

The ending to the movie is a bit jarring after David is cornered while in werewolf form again. The accidents on Piccadilly Circus are horrific and gruesome; yet the movie never dwells on the aftermath of those accidents. Alex tells David that she loves him as David stops before he attacks. He's gunned down and reverts to human form, almost like in a painting amidst the trash. It cuts to the credits and The Marcels' "Blue Moon" playing, which makes the final image seem ironic and comical - an effect later used in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and Kubrick's usage of music in that movie.

Character and story wise, An American Werewolf in London is a bit thin. It's mainly a search for the werewolf with some story threads introduced earlier in the movie not really playing a part in the conclusion. But even then, I can't argue with how the movie is done with its mixture of horror and comedy.

 

[Curt McGirt]

I've never thought American Werewolf was very funny; instead I thought it pretty somber and the humor too black to be... well, funny. And how could you review it and not bring up the Nazi mutant killers dream?! That shit is one of the craziest things in an '80s film. And that's a deep deep lake right there.