2026 Movie Discussion Thread

[J.T.]

Hey! The Furious is finally playing near me? I'll be on mids until Saturday, so it loosks like I'll be I'll be checking out a matinee this Sunday!

[driver]

Marty Feldman was getting some air on those hops, that scene was so weird. Is it streaming anywhere?

[Andrew POE!]

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

Hey! The Furious is finally playing near me? I'll be on mids until Saturday, so it loosks like I'll be I'll be checking out a matinee this Sunday!

I'm likely to see it AGAIN this weekend. Although the showings near me are mostly empty. 

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Wig (HBO Max, leaving on 6/14) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Interesting documentary, but really a bit scattershot in what it's covering and what it's intending to do. The archival footage is great in the sense that it shows the changes in NYC from the 1980s into the early 2000s. One conversation encapsulates what a lot of people feel about living in New York City: "It's too expensive to live here if you're weird." "Well, unless you're weird and have a trust fund."

It's amazing how Wigstock went from a gathering in Tompkins Square Park with less than 100 people to being bigger and with over 1000 people. Like everything else, 9/11 changed the tone and sense of community that the drag performers had and Wigstock stopped.

The modern day (well 2018 rather) aspects seem to show what happened a lot with queer culture; it became bigger, more socially acceptable, and (this is the big thing) corporations saw dollar signs with a group of people. So the rest of the movie for Wigstock has it resembling an actual concert with many moving pieces and many fingers in the pie, not a group of people coming together to celebrate drag shows. There's also a bit of bitterness with some of the performances - many of the performers making mean spirited jokes about RuPaul and Neil Patrick Harris (if they are fine with it, okay).

Some of the portions with the people talking about their memories was mic'ed a bit too low (one sequence that had Perfume Genius' "Queen" playing had the backing track louder than the people being interviewed).

So for the most part, Wig won't really change a lot of things in documentaries, but it's an interesting yet scattered view of drag culture.

A Bigger Splash (1973) (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Movies about real life can be absolutely boring.

Which is I think is the point - movies serve as an escape mechanism from the drudgery of day-to-day life. I think movies about painters have a tendency to over-dramatize their creative process. Not everything can be La Belle Noiseuse where the creation of a painting is the whole of four hours and is engrossing with the personal dramas and conversations occurring.

With A Bigger Splash, this didn't feel like a documentary. It felt like real people being staged and set up to 'act' out their lives in front of a camera. The fact that it was made in 1973 is remarkable; this pre-dates a lot of "reality TV" where a camera is set up and the people's lives are recorded. Except there's not any staged interviews interspersed where the participants give their thoughts and hit the audience over the head with what they are thinking or feeling to explain their actions.

Things just happen, even as the camera records it here. Within the documentary, it starts with David Hockney talking to someone in 1973 about Peter Schlesinger, a former lover and muse. Much of the movie is about Hockney's day-to-day life as he paints, attends fashion shows, and endures a breakup with Schlesinger. The movie mentions the breakup in passing, but there isn't a lot of 'drama' around it. Yet when people try to phone or ring for Hockney, it's noticeable. The most 'dramatic' scene is Hockney slashing one of his paintings with a knife. A portrait that Hockney did of Schlesinger is cut up and shown in a dumpster.

The thing with the movie is the musical score has a "Bernard Hermann scoring Psycho" air about it; another review compared it to giallo films too. The movie gave me the most uneasy feeling while watching it, like someone would be killed at any moment. Even though these are real life people and the camera is documenting their lives.

One scene that stood out to me was Peter Schlesinger diving into a pool nude with three other men also nude; something about it felt 'staged' and like he had reached an epiphany regarding who he is and where he was. The pool and the house showed up in Hockney's paintings throughout the movie. Another scene had Schlesinger getting out of a pool and seeing a woman cleaning up. He looks inside the glass wall and sees a painting that has the woman.

Eventually, David Hockney goes from London to NYC and finally has his exhibit. The painting he had been working on is finished and his gallery up. The New York scenes have a different vibe and atmosphere compared to London; London felt lonely with the outside shots of the house that Hockney stays with people ringing him up. New York felt crowded, yet lonely too. Hockney and the person that he went to New York with stand out amidst the people and the cars and buildings.

The movie concludes as it begins, back in Geneva. The London gallery closes and David Hockney is talking to someone about Peter Schlesinger and what he will be doing with his paintings now.

Stop! That! Train! (seen in the theaters) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

To be honest, Stop! That! Train! is a bit too safe with its comedy. I thought it would be a bit like Wig (that I watched this morning actually) and bares its fangs a bit with its humor. Throughout the movie, I couldn't help but to be reminded of Airplane! and how that movie manages to be absolutely hilarious while poking fun at everything and having veteran character actors say ridiculous things seriously.

Stop! That! Train! does that with the conductor (Chris Parnell) detailing his divorce and drug addiction during the pre-startup train announcement, but that's about it with mock seriousness.

Most of the movie is RuPaul Charles as President Judy Gagwell and various former cast members of RuPaul's Drag Race in the movie, poking fun at disaster movies. There's a lot of cameos (including Charo and Sarah Michelle Gellar). A lot of the jokes really didn't land for me and I mildly chuckled at a few of them. (The women in the row in front of me were clearly plastered and laughed at everything, which is fine).

The movie felt like a comedy that would have happened in the early 2010s. In 2026 America, people in LGBTQIA community are under attack for everything - trans athletes can't compete, drag queens can't read children's stories at libraries and elementary schools - and whatever freedoms they thought they had is mostly gone or stymied. A movie like this somewhat puts blinders on itself to say "la la la, that's not happening." The premise has a coast to coast bullet train in the United States, which given what we have in Congress and in the White House now, is a fantasy.

I just wish it was more pointed in its humor at those in power now, but we have to take what we can get. The fact that this movie is even in a Regal or an AMC nationwide is a miracle in and of itself.

I just wish it were better.

 

[odessasteps]

Give me Stop That Pigeon any day. 

[Eivion]

Saw Masters of the Universe earlier today. That was good fun. The cast knew exactly what type of movie they were in and played into the characters and campiness well.

[Curt McGirt]

https://watch.plex.tv/movie/the-hit

This wound up being really good; it's got a Criterion. Terence Stamp plays a British guy put into witness protection out in Spain after grassing on his criminal cohorts. They of course finally come after him, the 'they' being the team of John Hurt and first-timer (in both the film and his career) Tim Roth. Although they manage the kidnapping and escape there's just one fuck-up after another that impinges them on their route with the Spanish police hot on their trail. The gorgeous Laura Del Sol ends up thrown into this boiling pot of personalities, making for one long, contentious struggle. Stamp acts like nothing fazes him, Roth has a vicious temper that at one point has him pull an assortment of murder/assault weapons out of his jacket and come at a foursome of heckling Spaniards at a bar, and Hurt tries to act like a human glacier but his sense of right and wrong keeps kicking down the door in his head. Del Sol at one point bites his hand for like 30 seconds straight without letting go, so you can guess as to the nature of HER character. Marvelous little character study and combined getaway/chase film. 

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today...

The General (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Quite honestly, The General is an odious movie. The problem is, making movies about an odious subject like the Civil War has been around as long as Hollywood - 1915's Birth of a Nation being the most famous example. The thing is with comedies, they highlight these odious subjects and find the humor in it. Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator had him appearing like Hitler and making light of the stupidity of the cause of Nazism. Later comedies like Life Is Beautiful and Jakob The Liar found humor in the unfunny calamity like The Holocaust.

So from that perspective, The General is such a comedy.

Johnnie Gray (Buster Keaton) is wanting to enlist for the Confederate Army to impress his girlfriend Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack). Johnnie isn't allowed to join because he works as a train engineer. Much of the comedy initially is Johnnie trying to join, swapping draft cards, and finally going home to find that Annabelle Lee won't accept him until he is in uniform. (To be honest, with a name like Annabelle Lee, my mind went to the Edgar Allan Poe poem and wonder if the ending would have her die).

Much of the movie is with the physical actions and stuntwork. Johnnie rides a handcar and a boneshaker bicycle to catch up with where Annabelle is captured. Essentially, the movie acts as a chase to get Annabelle while those opposing Johnnie's attempt are seeking to sabotage his efforts. It's utterly engrossing to watch the interplay between what Keaton does on screen as he climbs on and around the train and dislodge impediments from the track.

Eventually, Johnnie catches up with Annabelle after she is captured in a house and sneaks out with her at night. (I was surprised that the Union soldiers kicking at the table didn't feel Johnnie's body underneath the table, but I guess they weren't going to). The movie then becomes a chase for the Union army soldiers and generals to catch up to Johnnie and Annabelle, now with the pair offering impediments. The most impressive scene wasn't just Keaton's stuntwork, but the wide angle shot of the burning bridge collapsing with the train on top of it. The thing is that had to have been on one take.

Towards the end, Johnnie and Annabelle catch up with the Confederate army to warn them of the advancing Union. One darkly comedic scene had Johnnie telling Confederate soldiers what to do while one by one they are shot and killed. Johnnie then throws his sword (which he struggled with on it falling apart as soon as it's introduced) and kills the Union soldier that killed the other Confederate soldiers. The whole scene is funny in the sense of physical actions, but also a dark scene. People get killed in the scene.

Eventually, the Union army is thwarted and an Union officer is captured. Johnnie gets promoted to Lieutenant and kisses Annabelle while everyone is now saluting him. We never see what happens after that - the Confederacy loses the Civil War, but knowing how Johnnie Gray avoided danger even in risky situations, it's doubtful that he would have died. He might have been captured and probably was able to escape somehow.

Despite the premise and historical aspects being propaganda for the Confederacy, The General is a landmark movie for its great filmmaking aspects.

Two For The Money (Netflix, leaving on 6/15) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

There's something that is a bit different with Two for the Money. On its surface, it's very Oliver Stone-y; Walter Abrams (Al Pacino) is very much Gordon Gekko in Wall Street where he takes on a protege and the protege learns about the under-handed side of the business that he is in. Instead of stocks on Wall Street, it's sports betting in New York City. Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) adopts a persona that he presents on television and on phone lines as John Anthony; he's very much like Charlie Sheen's character from Wall Street.

The thing with Two for the Money however, is it comes close to having Lang/Anthony getting burned with his involvement with Walter Abrams. Lang kisses Walter's wife Toni (Rene Russo), but doesn't spend a night with her. C.M. Novian (Armand Assante) finds Lang in Central Park and assaults him. Walter Abrams begins to lose his mind as the losses mount for Lang and yet fires Jerry Sykes (Jeremy Piven) before a show. The thought would be eventually all of this would catch up with Lang and Abrams, the feds would crash the gambling operation and arrest them for something Walter Abrams describes as illegal. Of course, seemingly the difference being "sports advisory" is supposed to get them off scot free, when the truth would be very different.

Even if the conclusion has Brandon Lang walking away and taking a flight out of NYC, his pick for Super Bowl....XXXX (someone doesn't know Roman numerals apparently, so I guess it would be Super Bowl XXXXX for the 50th one) proves to be correct. That's not important for him; just leaving while he is still alive is.

The movie is carried with McConaughey and Pacino's performances; my favorite scene was when they were walking along and Abrams tells Lang that his father would beat him that he thought "my name was Asshole." The thing with Walter Abrams as a character is the path he treads in the movie is false bravado and he knows it; he takes out a loan with organized crime for $275k while Lang begins to crumble and decide to rely on a coin flip for his picks.

The cinematography for this movie has great nighttime shots of NYC as capturing the oppressiveness of the offices that Lang and Abrams work in. The movie does have a feeling that it will come crashing down on both characters.

Two for the Money isn't a bad bet.

Money Talks (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Money Talks is a bit better than would be thought. It's not the deepest movie ever made, but it doesn't waste any time with its scenes in terms of what it's doing. Chris Tucker as Franklin Hatchett has an Eddie Murphy dynamic to him although a bit more profane.

What weighs this movie down is probably everyone else in it. Charlie Sheen as James Russell, a reporter is a bit too serious and almost lacking in charisma. Paul Sorvino as Guy Cipriani, the father-in-law to be, hams it up and has great scenes with Tucker, especially at the car auction. Heather Locklear is always incredibly gorgeous and plays James's fiancee Grace. Elise Neal as Paula, Franklin's girlfriend, has great arguing banter with Tucker and isn't that bad looking either.

The action sequences are really well filmed; the prisoner escape with Franklin handcuffed to Raymond Villard (Gerard Ismael) is really exciting to watch. I really loved the cinematography in the finale sequence and how that whole sequence was done. It's grade A action with multiple enemies appearing and getting gunned down and Aaron (Michael Wright) rescuing Franklin with a bazooka (although if the electrical control room got blown up, wouldn't the lights stop working?).

Money Talks won't do anything new with the mis-matched buddy comedies, but it's a nice throwback to movies like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 HRS.

(Although I found it amusing that Chris Tucker would sing and quote Barry White, I'm surprised that Charlie Sheen's character didn't listen to and sing Neil Diamond's "Forever In Blue Jeans" to quote the movie title).

Disclosure Day (saw in the theaters) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

"Don't be afraid of what you don't know."

Disclosure Day quite honestly is one of the best movies I've seen this year. What is done differently is in how it tells its story - information isn't just hit over your head with a mallet-sized exposition, but it's presented slowly and carefully. A car tag tells you that the characters are in Virginia. The wider implication is around one character named Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) who is holding a device that Noah Scanton (Colin Firth) and those around him act as those it is dangerous. Kellner inhabits the movie much like Edward Snowden does in the real world, where the secrets of the US government and what is learned from them is needing to be exposed.

Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) is very much like a lot of Steven Spielberg's past main characters in other alien movies; she is both Elliot from E.T. and Jillian from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Her powers and abilities scare her and are awoken with an encounter from a cardinal landing on her kitchen table. From that, Margaret is able to sense everyone's thoughts and tell them information that they only know; she is able to get out of a traffic ticket on the way to the news station in Kansas City due to it. The shot with her arrival at the station is a wonder of handheld camera work; the camera follows Margaret everywhere as she goes from a dressing room to a hallway to a couch where two people are seated from South Korea and able to speak Korean perfectly. She incredulously doesn't believe that she even spoke Korean. The camera continues to follow her as she is next on the air to deliver the weather and then suffers a panic attack as an unknown language begins to emit from her. I felt that scene in my bones as a look of panic engulfs her face when the news station cut to commercial and she is taken to the hospital.

The progression of the movie is very much like Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. but also an earlier movie he did like The Sugarland Express and maybe Catch Me If You Can. Daniel and his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) hide out in an empty farmhouse where Noah uses an artifact to locate and communicate with Jane. Jane reveals their exact location and Daniel and Jane are on the run until they get to a hotel in Indiana. At the same time, Margaret and her boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) are looking for Daniel because Margaret knows his name somehow and where he might be. The significant others of the two main characters not believing them is much like what was in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Daniel is captured and Margaret arrives at the abandoned base, using her powers to get her way in and retrieve him. The scenes where she is able to 'touch' everyone with a look is much like what was done in Everything Everywhere All at Once; what stopped them was not actions, but words, emotions, and looks. The scene where Noah imagines himself talking to his dead wife was touching as the camera pans around him to show both his wife and Margaret in the same shot. Daniel and Margaret meet up with Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), another Wardex employee.

Where they go is a replica of Margaret's house; I found those scenes the most emotionally affective (complete with a NES underneath the family TV). Margaret and Daniel connect with each other holding the artifact to link back to the time that Margeret first encountered the aliens. The aliens assumed animal avatars to not 'frighten' them. Margaret goes into a house bathed in light - the choice of images is much like the Christianity that Jane espoused earlier and the sisterhood she once was in. The aliens give Daniel the gift of speaking the language of numbers, where programming and mathematics makes the most sense to him. Margaret has the gift of verbal, where she can speak every language and communicate with people's emotions instantly through just looking at them.

The two flee the house due to Margaret using an artifact to hide their location - to be honest, those scenes in the warehouse weren't really the best with the wire work going on and a lot of 'green screen' to cover up the objects. They escape to go to the Kansas City news station that Emily works to begin the broadcast to the entire world the US government's coverup of aliens on planet Earth. It's a bit like what John Carpenter had happen in They Live, except not as cynical.

It can be argued that the closest equivalent of a broadcast would be if/when someone commandeers a newscast and reads the unredacted "Epstein Files" on television. The one drawback I feel is that Steven Spielberg and writer David Knopp assumes everyone in the movie's universe is as liberal as they are. A figure like Sean Hannity or Jesse Watters or Greg Gutfield would decree Margaret and Daniel's exposure of the alien conspiracy as a 'hoax' and would somehow blame the Democrats for perpetuating it. The news media would overall likely not carry it because of people not believing it or instantly being skeptical that it is true. During the movie, North Korea was shown to be an aggressor; it could be surmised that an US president like Trump caused it or at least apparently is powerless to stop it. The "Disclosure Day" event makes the North Korean escalation appear 'smaller' in comparison.

I can say also that there is almost an over abundance of lens flare in the shots that can be distracting to watch. A lot of the shot compositions didn't look as good as they normally would be - it's not quite like the science fiction look that Minority Report had or maybe A.I. Artificial Intelligence had. The interiors at Wardex were nice though.

After everything is exposed, an alien appears and whispers in Daniel's ear. Margaret seemingly knows what was said and stands in front of the camera. "Listen," she says as the screen cuts to black. What was said afterwards, no one knows. The effects of the disclosure had already been done; that explains what Noah essentially gives up the fight on stopping it from being exposed. He couldn't do anything else to prevent it.

Disclosure Day for the most part is a great and engrossing return to form for Spielberg. I'm not sure where this movie would land on the best of list for the year, but Emily Blunt gave a career best performance followed by Colman Domingo and Colin Firth. It's a great movie to see in a theater.

Loulou (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

I found myself strangely captivated with this movie - Gerald Depardieu as Loulou has an early Jeff Daniels quality to him mixed with seedier elements of actors like Terrence Stamp and Malcolm McDowell. Nelly (Isabelle Huppert) meets Loulou at a nightclub after a fight with her husband Andre (Guy Marchand). Nelly decides to sleep with Loulou and moves out of her apartment to live with him.

It's weird, but this movie recalled later American movies like Say Anything... and Silver Linings Playbook regarding the relationship dynamics of Loulou and Nelly. In those movies, the relationship is able to be sustained and the two end up together. With this, there isn't really a reason for the two to be together; Nelly only stays with Loulou to get back at Andre. Loulou really has no direction in his life; as he tells Michel (Humbert Balsan), he can do everything and nothing. He doesn't really want a job, as he has gotten Nelly pregnant.

What Loulou seems to be good at is getting into fights at bars and robbing places of items. There's nothing heroic about Loulou doing so; he has Nelly join him on a robbery as he steals a record player. At the same time, I get it. Why pay money for expensive stuff in a store when you can just steal it?

Towards the end, Nelly realizes that Loulou isn't really the type of person she can sustain a relationship. What breaks them up is not anything Loulou did, but the fact that one of Loulou's friends was wielding a shotgun and threatening to kill someone. This after Nelly had a lunch with Loulou and his family. When they return, Nelly phones Loulou and tells him it's over. She has gotten an abortion and she wants to move out.

Loulou and Andre talk, with Loulou not understanding how Nelly wasn't wanting children. Andre and Loulou seem to share in their commiseration. At the end, Loulou and Nelly come home drunk from a bar, with the cycle starting all over again.

For the most part, Loulou as a movie is a bit different compared to Maurice Piarat's earlier movies. It can be compared to Piarat's earlier We Will Not Live Together, except Loulou and Nelly never really argue. Nelly is made to feel uncomfortable with Loulou and the social circles he inhabits; Nelly is having to pay for the apartment she shares with Loulou while Loulou sits around. As Nelly says at one point, she rather "be with a loafer who fucks than a rich man that's hard to deal with."

What seems to be the larger point with the movie is the fact that middle class and working class in France don't have it easy regardless of where they end up. It gives Nelly and Loulou a sense of nihilism; contrast that with 1974's Julia that they watch on television where a man falls in love with a woman and is seemingly happy from that despite fights happening around him. This seems to come back later as Loulou breaks up fights at his mom's house.

Loulou is a great French drama that shows the imperfections of its characters.

 

[zendragon]

Watched Dead Man's Wire on Netflix, film came and went in the theatres so this was a really pleasant surprise. Reminds me of classic films of the 70's like Dog Say Afternoon and Serpico (Cary Elwes delivery the performance of a life time as plainclothes cop) and makes me feel like the more things change the more they stay the same with the Lugi Mondelli being viewed as a hero for his actions.

[HarryArchieGus]

7 hours ago, zendragon said:

Watched Dead Man's Wire on Netflix, film came and went in the theatres so this was a really pleasant surprise. Reminds me of classic films of the 70's like Dog Say Afternoon and Serpico (Cary Elwes delivery the performance of a life time as plainclothes cop) and makes me feel like the more things change the more they stay the same with the Lugi Mondelli being viewed as a hero for his actions.

Dead man’s wire was excellent. A tight little film. I was lucky enough to see it during its brief run. Latter day Van Sant often comes and goes quietly, but more often than not the movies completely satisfy my film going needs. He’s an incredibly tasteful filmmaker with an outstanding eye for composition and colour. He’s always had a remarkable sense for emerging talent - Bill Skaarsgard here was fantastic. And totally with you on Elwes. Another underrated Van Sant of recent years was the series he did with Ryan Murphy called Capote vs the Swans.

[odessasteps]

 

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today...

Margaret (HBO Max, leaving on 6/30) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

What's an often repeated refrain is how life isn't like an opera. Those involved in the life of Lisa (Anna Paquin) are not simply characters that appear and disappear for her amusement. The story at first is like other teenage 'coming of age' stories, albeit with a character in New York City. She's attracted to her mathematics teacher Aaron Caije (Matt Damon), talks to a boy in her class, and is looking for cowboy hats for a party. A bus driver named Gerald Maretti (Mark Ruffalo) is wearing a cowboy hat that she tries to get his attention and distracts him as he runs the light and hits a woman named Monica (Allison Janney).

Lisa's life changed in that moment, the tragedy of her life then became operatic. Lisa's emotions throughout the movie is a deluge, affecting those around her. Lisa's relationship with her mother Joan (J. Smith-Cameron) feeds into the play that Joan performs in. Joan meets Ramon Cameron (Jean Reno), who takes her to an opera and begins a relationship with him. Lisa finds herself involved with a wrongful death suit that concerns Emily (Jeannie Berlin), a friend of Monica, and Abigail (Betsy Aidem), Monica's cousin.

What's interesting is the class room discussions that Lisa partakes her seem to mirror her own emotions and sense of guilt about the death. She attacks a classmate, comparing Syria to Hitler. Her teacher John Andrew Van Tassel (Matthew Broderick) tries to get her involved in discussions about King Lear, but she doesn't seem connected. One of the conversations about King Lear included a student wondering if the gods are indeed cruel and why would they care to damage humans with swords.

As the movie progresses, Lisa's life falls apart. Her father doesn't want her to come to California due to his work and minutiae around dinner choices - which said to me that he had already made up his mind about her not coming. Lisa confronts Maretti at his apartment and tells him that she believes she wasn't truthful after the accident. Lisa has this extend to the police involved, while hiding what's happening from her mother. Out of the blue, she tells Aaron Cije that she had an abortion, likely due to their sexual tryst at his apartment.

The scene that culminates everything for Lisa in the lawyer's office where a settlement is reached. They are to receive $350,000, but no mention of the bus driver being fired will occur. Lisa and Joan towards the end spots Maretti driving a bus, which is typical. Margaret's wider point is that real life involving mundane details like a company reaching a settlement and paying out money from insurance is less dramatic than what people going through it would realize.

It's appropriate that the movie would end with Joan and Lisa going to an opera performance, Lisa breaking down and crying in her mother's arms. This was intended to be the opera that Joan and Ramon would see. Within those moments, it can be surmised that the weight of the tragedy was lifted from Lisa.

It's also appropriate that the director Kenneth Lonergan was involved in a prolonged lawsuit concerning the release of this movie. I had watched the theatrical cut, which was not what the director intended to have been released. It seems that sadly, lawsuits are the 'major product' of the United States at this point; we're the only country in the world where we sue each other over the slightest thing and feel that any investigations from law enforcement would warrant a lawsuit from it. The police officer jokingly said 'in the old days, we could spray him with a water hose to get the answers we want,' when that's not a solution either.

Margaret is a tragedy of small events writ large.

32 Sounds (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

This should not be confused with Oliver Hermanus' The History of Sound, but does cover a similar ground as it speaks to sound relating to a person's memory and to a sense of space within a person's memory. The director Sam Green uses his own personal history as he relates to us stories of an American exile living in Cuba hearing "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us" for the first time in decades and talking to a physics professor from Lebanon hearing recordings from when he was eleven. What was fascinating was Green's interviews with Annea Lockwood going to a river in New York and recording the river; her partner did a musical piece called Conversations as it contains recorded conversations between the two. Towards, Annea revealed that her partner died and sits on the steps of the house they lived for over 40 years.

At times, the documentary involves the watcher and the listener to close their eyes during certain emissions of sounds. Having watched this on a pair of headphones, the movie does tend to be all encompassing and still in its sounds; sounds can seem as though they are coming from a different direction, especially with a box of matches are being shaken. I found it amusing that Green would incorporate John Cage's performance of 4'33" in NYC in 1971 as well as other people doing the same piece at various places.

If anything, this documentary is more of a video essay than a pure documentary; yet, it's fascinating how the director invokes his own life as he tells us about the death of his brother while making one of his documentaries.

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Steamboat Bill, Jr is about a man trying to live up to his father and failing. Buster Keaton had delved into aspects of life that would normally not be funny in previous movies - The General is about an engineer trying to join the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Seven Chances is about a man set to inherit millions if he gets married that day at 7 pm. So "Steamboat Bill Jr" William Canfield Jr (Keaton) is to meet his father William Canfield (Ernest Torrence) after arriving from Boston on a train.

There's something almost queer coded about William Canfield Jr. He doesn't want to 'fight people' and is told to 'stand up for himself' (with a scene of his father grabbing his hand and making Bill Jr knock out another captain). William Jr. does like one girl Kitty King (Marion Byron), but never gets to obtain her love until the end of the movie. A lot of the movie is really the rivalry between William Canfield Sr. and John James King (Tom McGuire). Canfield's ship the Stonewall Jackson is declared unsafe, likely due to King's influence or possibly independent of his influence.

Canfield Sr. is taken to jail where Canfield Jr visits with a 'loaf of bread.' There's an extended bit involving tools being in the bread - this is much like the rest of the movie with extended jokes (the shaving bit, Bill Jr. being fitted for hats, Bil Jr hiding pillows in his bed and trying to sneak aboard the other ship). Eventually, the sheriff is knocked out too and Bill Jr. sneaks out with Bill Sr. going back into jail.

What makes the movie so noteworthy is towards the end with the breakable sets. The practical ingenuity as the camera catches the pinpoint accuracy of buildings falling and Keaton being in the right place is a wonder to watch. I found the ending scenes to be amazing as an anchor hits Keaton in the head - if it went the wrong way on hitting Keaton, it would have been a different story. Keaton rescues both Kitty and his dad and Kitty's dad and finds a priest floating around in the water to get married to Kitty.

There's a lot with Steamboat Bill, Jr. that's still impressive to watch today.

Contemporary Color (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

At times, Contemporary Color feels like the same sort of rambling musical documentary/movie that Robert Altman has done in the past with The Company and with his last movie A Prairie Home Companion. There are other times in which the documentary resembles Wim Wenders' Pina in which the performance and the artists are in the abstract, with their lives intersecting and overshadowing it. And there are times, mainly owing to David Byrne's involvement, that this feels like something inspired by Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense.

It's all of these things, but then it doesn't quite come together too.

The opening performance with Lucius and the color guard is magical to watch; the song performed gives such a strong emotion that the color guard encapsulates. St. Vincent and her color guard felt like a piece of performance art, with the people moving into place in time with her singing and reaching out at the end. Tune Yards is magical to watch, with her face painted to show solidarity with the performers. The timing of the gay marriage legalization to David Byrne saying "America has changed" before his song is incredible, his song not so much.

Some of the songs from the artists selected weren't as noteworthy. Nelly Furtado seemed to have the camera only shoot her from the waist up or in a wide angle shot to obscure her (btw, I'm not speaking ill of her body, I just wish our culture wasn't such that her in jean shorts in 2025 would be an issue with some people). Money Mark and Ad Rock just sounded boring.

The movie is maddening to watch; it's not quite a performance piece like other music performance documentaries like The Last Waltz or Rolling Thunder Revue, but it's not abstract art film either. And the interviewer gave me Fred Williard vibes that I thought I was watching Best In Show again.

For the most part, Contemporary Color is an above average movie, but could have been more to have been a classic.

The Lost Boys (saw in the theaters) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

The Lost Boys is a movie about sexuality. Vampirism in this is freeing, sexual, and scary; those that are vampires in this are overcome with what their bodies can do and what they can do to other people. Contrasting that is a sense of innocence and purity and wholeness. The opening scenes has a group of young men walking around a carousel, much in the way Strangers On A Train would involve an amusement park and carousels. "I told you to stay off the boardwalk," says a guard that grabs David (Keifer Sutherland). The guard is later swept up into the air as the camera pans down to me and denotes something capturing him.

The purity and innocence is with Michael Emerson (Jason Patric) and his brother Sam (Corey Haim) and his mother Lucy (Dianne Wiest). They are driving into town as "People Are Strange" plays and the back of a billboard says "Murder Capital of the World." The song denotes those in punk circles and alternative circles as being 'the strange people.' Michael doesn't feel like he fits in with his mother's generation. Sam could be considered a queer character although to be honest sexuality wasn't really something to focus on him with him.

As Michael and Sam venture out at night, Michael spots Star (Jami Gertz); Star eyes a shirtless saxophonist (Tim Cappello) who is singing The Call's "I Still Believe" and playing the saxophone. If you weren't careful, it could be argued that the saxophonist is the introduction to vampirism for Michael; Michael wants Star because of her attraction to him. Joel Schumacher's camera focuses on the saxophonist to make you feel attracted to him too.

It turns out that Star is with the group that runs with David's group. Michael is pulled into them because he wants Star sexually and they know it. David uses mental trickery on Michael, making him believing that rice are maggots and noodles are worms before having him drink from a bottle. In an usage of cross-fades, Michael sees the other men in David's group around him dancing, as the screen is bathed in red light. Eventually, Star and Michael make love as the camera does multiple cross fades of them together while music plays.

Joel Schumacher with this movie has it resembling a music video. A lot of the visual tricks of the video era is used to tell the movie's story. What's also part of it is having Lisa work at Max (Edward Hermann)'s video store. As is typical of movies in the 1980s, the video store acts as a central location and even considered to be a great job.

The highlight to me were Corey Feldman as Edgar Frog and Jamison Newlander as Alan Frog; the movie has a dry comedic tone with those characters that was infectious with the rest of the movie. "Where the hell are you from? Krypton?" It's hilarious how the Frog brothers use comics to instruct Sam on looking for vampires and for hunting vampires. The 'traps' that they set up for the vampires (including water guns with holy water) seems out of Home Alone.

Eventually, Sam, Michael, the Frogs, Star, and Laddie (Chance Michael Corbitt) have a 'last stand' as David and the other vampires arrive. The Frogs had already killed Marko (Alexander Winter) in their lair and they want revenge. The camerawork in the scenes are completely engaging to watch as they whittle down the numbers with a final fight between David and Michael. But even after killing David, it doesn't cure Michael of vampirism. Max is the 'head vampire.' He appears to have won as he grabs Lucy's hand, revealing that turning Michael was part of his plan. If he had bitten Lucy, the movie would have had a 'downer' ending - innocence and purity given way to sexual desires.

That is until Grandpa (Barnard Hughes) impales him with his truck.

The Lost Boys is a great Halloween classic and pre-dates Twilight by decades. It made the vampire characters 'fun' that a lot of later movies and TV shows would copy.

 

[Curt McGirt]

20 hours ago, odessasteps said:

 

Okay, this has gone over the line. Censoring the word "nudity" in public posts is fucking stupid and the fact that it's voluntary makes it even worse. 'Rape', 'pedophile', 'murder', all this other stuff (sadly, 'Palestine' as well) I can almost see needing to be censored... though I don't;  but the simple descriptor of an unclothed body is INSANE. Can somebody, anybody, explain this to me? 

Anyway. The final line in The Lost Boys is a top three final line in any movie, ever. I challenge you to find one better. CHALLENGE YOU! 

Edited June 14 by Curt McGirt

[Technico Support]

There’s a small Lost Boys homage in Jordan Peele’s “Us.”  At the beginning of the film, the family is at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and notes that there’s a movie being shot there.  The movie being filmed is The Lost Boys.
 

[Andrew POE!]

Selected movies today....

Race (Netflix, leaving on 6/15) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

Race is dry as toast and as exciting to watch as a book report. The highlights are Stephan James as Jesse Owens (while really looking nothing like Owens and actually better looking too) and Jason Sudeikis as Larry Snyder. The early parts of the movie were the best as Owens is to go to The Ohio State University with Snyder being a hard driving coach that wants Owens to succeed because he expects so much.

The side stories involving Avery Brundage (Jeremy Irons) trying to make nice with the Nazis and Leni Riefenstahl (Carice van Houten) wanting to have a degree of artistic integrity while working for Nazis feels like a distraction or something for a different movie.

The movie tries to balance everything, with Owens becoming famous for his athletic prowess, his love life with Ruth Solomon (Shanice Banton), and competing in the Olympics with the other stories. It's kind of messy to watch.

Cinematography wise, it's great work although a bit bland to watch. A lot of the shots have the "CGI look" to it that seems to happen in the late 2010s. Cinematographer Peter Levy worked with director Stephen Hopkins in the past on lesser movies like Judgment Night and Under Suspicion and those were more visually appealing to watch.

Race just misses the mark a bit.

Queen of the Desert (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

If you had told me otherwise, I would not have believed that Queen of the Desert was a Werner Herzog movie.

The movie on its surface doesn't appear to be so. The cinematic scope and shot compositions are very different than what Herzog usually does; in a way, the movie resembles something from Stephen Frears or Stephen Hopkins (who did the previously reviewed Race) than anything really appearing in Herzog's filmography.

It's a competent, well-shot movie though. Werner Herzog in this seems to have created something that goes against what he did once Hollywood started to having him direct features. Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) as a protagonist is a bit more like Klaus Kinski's roles in previous Herzog movies, but not having madness as a drive for the character. Instead, it's a dogged self-determination, where the character can walk into a sheik's tent and give him a pistol or a pair of binoculars as a gift and the sheik happily accepts them.

The movie's conflict isn't really one; the movie doesn't appear to be a character study if the drama isn't there. The most horrific aspect of Gertrude Bell's life was the suicide of her beloved Henry Cadogan (James Franco). The first hour or so is honestly the best part of the movie; the scenes with Kidman and Franco has chemistry between the two as the characters bond over Farsi poetry.

After Henry's death, the movie settles into a formula: Gertrude travels to a place against the advice of Charles Doughty-Wylie (Damian Lewis), meets with the local tribal leader, then goes to a different place. She works with T.E. Lawrence (Robert Pattinson), who is quite a bit different than David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence as a character is a bit more reserved and quieter and isn't as keen to be front and centered on everything, even with his Ph.D. in archaelogy.

Gertrude Bell learns Arabic and speaks with the people in their language. She gains their trust as she travels and at the end helps establish the kingdoms in Saudi Arabia and Iraq through her recommendations for their borders.

Queen of the Desert as a movie is a bit too dry and may not be Werner Herzog's best. But it's certainly not his worst.

D.O.A. (1988) (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

This movie if anything is carried with its style - a sleazy, scuzzy world of neon lights, lit cigarettes, sweat, and late night VHS rentals of the 1980s. What the movie does so well is switch up it's visual identity - the introductory scenes are in black and white and it flashes back to being in color for the rest of the movie. There's a lot of POV shots and slowed down footage especially in the scene at the fair. There's a closeup of an actor while a flashback is shown besides it.

D.O.A. is the type of movie that's very influenced by music videos; the audience's attention has to be grabbed for a short period of time, usually for five to ten minutes. It makes the movie very much an "ADD style of filmmaking," although not nearly as bad as later directors like Olivier Megaton or Neveldine/Taylor.

Anyway, the movie is a noir set at Christmas in Texas; yet, it feels like it's a 'summer time' movie. Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) is an English professor who gets involved in the apparent suicide of a student named Nicholas Lang (Robert Knepper) and finds himself poisoned. The movie has Cornell racing against time to find out the truth about Lang's death as well as his wife Gail (Jane Maczmarek)'s death. He gets help from a college student named Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan) and somehow 'glues' himself to her hand while looking for clues to the deaths.

The trail leads to Cookie Fitzwaring (Robin Johnson), her mother (Charlotte Rampling), and butler Bernard (Christopher Neame). Cookie confronts her mother and Cornell is knocked out; Bernard is trying to take him to the police station until Cookie hits his car with her car. Cookie is then thrown into the car while Cornell gets out of his restraints and tries to blind Bernard. They drive around campus and hit hurdles in a track meet before Bernard is ejected and jumps onto the hood of the car. He shoots and kills Cookie and the car goes into a tar pit a la Psycho. Comically, Cookie slumps over (it's just in how the body slumped over). Cornell is able to escape while Bernard ends up dead in the tar pit (yet we never see the car recovered or Bernard's body).

Throughout the movie, it seems that everyone around Cornell dies. The movie points back to a fellow professor Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern), who turns out to have poisoned Cornell, murdered his wife, tries to murder Cornell and Sydney with a nailgun, and had killed Lang. The movie switches back to black and white as Cornell's face gets closer to an oscillating fan. Cornell kills Petersham as Petersham raises a typewriter over his head. I loved the shot of the typewriter falling onto the concrete in slow motion.

The movie cycles back around to the introductory scenes as Cornell gives his confession; seemingly, Cornell will live although it's a bit obvious that he won't based upon the poison in his body.

D.O.A. isn't one of the best 1980s melodrama / noirs, but it's a nice 'music video generation' take on it.

Watched Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti documentary short film from Maya Deren on Criterion Channel. 

[HarryArchieGus]

19 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Okay, this has gone over the line. Censoring the word "nudity" in public posts is fucking stupid and the fact that it's voluntary makes it even worse. 'Rape', 'pedophile', 'murder', all this other stuff (sadly, 'Palestine' as well) I can almost see needing to be censored... though I don't;  but the simple descriptor of an unclothed body is INSANE. Can somebody, anybody, explain this to me? 

Anyway. The final line in The Lost Boys is a top three final line in any movie, ever. I challenge you to find one better. CHALLENGE YOU! 

I sense they were writing n*d!ty in a humourous way. I've been prone to do so in the past. Boxcar Bertha is an excellent movie completely overshadowed by the Scorsese successes that followed. 

[JLSigman]

 

[Curt McGirt]

Wasn't the last one the same?

[zendragon]

time is a flat circle...

Watched Song Sung Blue last night on Netflix another pleasant surprise (also another movie based on a true story that I had no idea off), relatable as a lot of regular people are looking meaning in life while also struggling to get by. The "What's a Pearl Jam"  scene reminded me of my uncle having no idea who Marilyn Manson was at the height of his mid 90's fame. My main take away was the 90's where a simpler time where a guy could buy a fairly large house from the combined incomes of neighborhood mechanic and playing some cover tunes on the week end.

However Lighting and Thunder's cover of Sweet Caroline pales in comparison to Tragedy's cover of King Neil Diamond

But I would put them ahead of Diamond's in the Rough

but about even with Will Ferrell 

 

[Brian Fowler]

5 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Wasn't the last one the same?

Yes, but the last one was only about a $22 million dollar budget, not $200 million.

[odessasteps]

Very John Carter of Mars feeling

[J.H.]

I remember when The Lost Boys came out. I went one afternoon when I was 15 to the movie theater on 56th and 3rd Avenue. I had a large popcorn and Cherry Coke. It was nice and sunny out but I didn't care. I was at the movies, a place where I was happiest.

I wouldn't categorize this film as horror, at least not straight up horror. The cast is just to pretty for it to be that. Even Keifer Sutherland with the world's greasiest mullet in cinema history!

I have seen this movie more times than I can count. It was just always on TV from 88-95 and if it was on my TV then stayed on my TV.

God I love this movie!

James

Edited June 15 by J.H.

[HarryArchieGus]

This past weekend I had an opportunity to see my favorite John Sayles' movie 'Lonestar' on the big screen with an introduction and Q&A from the man himself and his partner/producer Maggie Renzi. I also got to see the excellent 'City of Hope' for the first time. Very much the proto-Wire that'd been mentioned prior. So nice to see Mr. Sayles/Ms. Renzi's timeless work celebrated. I unfortunately missed 'Matewan', but I've got my eye on it's box at the video store. 

I also got to see an encore screening of Luca Guadagnino's wonderful 'Call Me By Your Name' this past weekend. All the magic I remembered. The always excellent Michael Stuhlbarg kinda steals the show. Also, great credit sequence. Fun to see Chalamet so gracefully run thru a gammut of emotions in closeup.   

[odessasteps]

I’m hoping at some point Beau and I will do a pod on Matewan and the real life events of the Coal War.

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today...

The Illusionist (2006) (Netflix, leaving on 6/16) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

The Illusionist (2006) has a distinction of making two character actors Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti play characters that are inherently heroic. Eisenheim (Norton) has a tragic beginning (told in flashback and done like period specific photographs) and becomes famous for his illusions due to leaving the country over his forbidden romance with Sophie von Teschen (Eleanor Tomlinson / Jessica Biel). Chief Inspector Walter Uhl (Giamatti) at the start of the movie is relaying his story to Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and what lead up to the present day. Uhl is told to make a criminal out of Eisenheim, even after Leopold seems to have murdered Sophie.

What the movie does in how it's depicted is show how political power can be abused and subjugated. Eisenheim is given a 'cult of personality' from those not in power, when he isn't appearing to attempt that. His motivations are simply to be with Sophie. Throughout the movie, Eisenheim keeps 'his cards close to his chest' as to what and how he is doing it, much the way a magician would. He finds Sophie to be 'dead' and then another person (that we never see) takes the fall for it and ends up in prison. Yet somehow Leopold didn't decide to make Eisenheim take the fall and force Uhl to arrest him for murder.

But then Eisenheim's apparent 'communication with the dead' when he makes Sophie appear in shows throws a wrench in the whole thing. Uhl goes to arrest him and...Eisenheim was never there. Uhl contacts the Emperor and confronts Leopold, who kills himself. Uhl has a boy on the streets give him a package with a book of Eisenheim's secrets and Uhl appears to spot Eisenheim in disguise and tracks him down to a train station.

At the end of the movie, Uhl realizes what he thinks is the truth regarding what happened - Sophie isn't dead and this is an elaborate trick that Eisenheim performed to get her away from Leopold. The other people that were damaged - the man that went to prison for her apparent murder and Leopold, who is actually innocent in all of this - don't matter. It does make both Eisenheim and Sophie worse than Leopold, no matter how noble (and maybe selfish) their intentions are.

The Illusionist as a movie is a 'cinematographer's dream.' Dick Pope shot the film to look like something from the time period - lamps light most of the scenes and it has a sepia look overall that is just gorgeous to watch. 2006 as a year for American movies was a bit of a dire year IMO; The Illusionist is not really one of the best movies from that year, but it is well filmed and well shot.

Dahmer (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Dahmer as a movie seems like a 1990s movie through and through; I think it's the way the movie looks and how it was filmed. For a 2002 movie, it uses a more traditional 35mm negative and Panavision cameras and lenses according to IMDB. A lot of the movies in 2002 started to use digital cameras, which was sharper in comparison. I wonder how this movie would have been if it used the same camera as was used in 28 Days Later.

Anyway, the thing with this movie is the root of Jeffrey Dahmer (Jeremy Renner) could be in any number of things. It could be in his job at a chocolate factory and the seeming lack of economic mobility that Dahmer seems willing to be stuck with having. It could be the relationship with his father Lionel (Bruce Davison) being around his parents' divorce. It could be his religious upbringing clashing with his homosexual feelings and making him somehow feel 'guilty' for his attraction to other men. It could be the fact that the police looked the other way most of his life, whether taking a 'friend' home that he drugged or driving late at night with the body of his first victim in garbage bags.

The truth is, we'll never really know; this movie isn't interested in diving into his motivations as it is to present scenes that flashback and go to present day in his life. If Dahmer had reached the right person and that person told him, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with you wanting to have a relationship with men, don't let religious doctrine affect how you think about yourself or your life," this would be a different story. Lionel at the end of the movie takes his son to counseling, but Dahmer escapes and goes into the woods. So perhaps, the right person connecting with him wouldn't have been possible because Jeffrey Dahmer rejected it anyway.

As it is, Jeremy Renner carries the movie, delivering the cold and distant characterization for the real life person. Dahmer's relationship with Rodney (Artel Great) is a chance for a real connection, but Dahmer sees him as another victim until Rodney escapes.

For the most part, Dahmer is a bit drab as a movie even with the story choices and the format presentation.

Lies We Tell (Netflix, leaving on 6/18) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

It's really easy to want to hate Lies We Tell as a movie. The way it's set up, the movie appears as a typical period piece; an orphaned heiress Maud (Agnes O'Casey) has her uncle Silas (David Wilmot) and various cousins visiting her to try to force her into marrying her cousin Edward (Chris Walley). Much of the conflict of the movie is between Maud and Silas; Silas tries to get a doctor to commit her and Maud doesn't wish to oblige him with marrying Edward.

In a way, the movie is like 2016's Lady MacBeth where the lead character in that is forced into marriage and therefore commits murders to rid herself of her abusers. Maud undergoes similar abuse; Edward rapes her and Silas verbally abused her and gives her no win situations. He makes it seem as though she jumped out of a window. The culmination has Maud stabbing and killing her uncle where there's enough plausible deniability that Edward could have done it.

A lot of the movie's language is more of an elevated English; the drama and tension is with the characters not saying exactly what they mean. In the Austen movies, this would be used for humor. In this, it's used for cruelty. After all, as Maud says, there are angels and monsters in the world. The trick is to know the difference.

For the most part, I absolutely loved the cinematography in this movie and the shot selection done for the manor. Some of the editing seemed a bit haphazard and a bit rushed though. The actors involved were great even with the suffocating restraint they gave themselves; there were really no histrionics involved, except for the revelation that the French madame (Grainne Keenan) was actually the mother of Emily (Holly Sturton).

Lies We Tell is an interesting one to see.

Under The Sun of Satan (Criterion Channel, leaving on 6/30) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

The thing with religious faith is there is an element of doubt inherit to it.

Christianity requires a bit of suspension of disbelief. That a system was set up from people who lived in the Israel/Palestine/Jordan region of the world where they wrote down what they did on tablets in various languages and became the canonized Bible. There are books in the Bible not part of the canon. Why isn't the Gospel of Thomas taught in churches? What's in the Bible is to maintain order and to maintain a system.

Under the Sun of Satan as a movie works as a discussion concerning two characters. Donissan (Gerard Depardieu) is a priest who isn't sure of the strength of his faith and how much his faith has meaning to him; he regards himself as a fairly stupid person and is more physically strong than spiritually strong. Menou-Segrais (Maurice Pialat) consults with him and wants Donissan to be a better priest and to have confidence within himself as a priest.

The other character is Mouchette (Sandrine Bonnaire). It had to have been a conscious choice to name the character after the same character in Robert Bresson's movie; Mouchette in this undergoes a similar tragic circumstance. (And with the source material being the same book as that movie's source material, it makes sense). She is pregnant and stays at Cadignan (Alain Arthur)'s place, shooting him one morning with a shotgun. She goes to Gallet (Yann Dedet), to whom she had an affair with, while he is still married. Mouchette regards her circumstances intelligently, but sees of no escape for her. The child isn't Gallet's and he will not help her with the abortion. All she can do is scream as the scene cuts back to the Catholic church.

Donissan is sent to help in another village and encounters a horse trader (Jean-Christophe Bouvet). The horse trader claims to be an incarnation of Satan, but how much is that true isn't readily known. Donissan believes it to be true based on what the trader says. The horse trader upon meeting Donissan tells him that he has an uncle who is a priest and isn't afraid of walking with a priest. The next day, after Donissan faints during his encounter with Satan/horse trader, another person tells Donissan that he knew the horse trader and bought a few horses last week. So is the horse trader really an incarnate of Satan or did he try to get Donissan wound up because he sensed Donissan's difficulty with his faith? The movie never really answers that question and leaves that for the audience to ponder.

The two main characters meet with Donissan trying to save Mouchette after meeting her on his journey. She kills herself with Donissan taking her to the church in an attempt to save her. She dies in the church, with her parents crying over her. Her body is taken away and Donissan is ordered to go to a different place prior to re-assignment. There's a bit of ellipsis in time as Donissan is now acclimated with the new parish and there's a sick boy he is to see. Menou-Segrais visits his house and found that Donissan helped in rebuilding the parish and rang the bells to signify that he was at the church.

Donissan arrives to see the boy and fears the same thing that happened to Mouchette will happen to him. Indeed, Donissan imagines that Mouchette is in his room before she disappears. The boy is sick and appears to be dead; Donissan in desperation lifts up the boy's body and the boy is now alive. Donissan appears to be a 'sin eater' with his asking to receive the boy's illness. The people greet Donissan as he returns and he goes into a confessional booth, where Menou-Segrais finds him dead.

Under the Sun of Satan is an absolute wonder of a movie. Cinematography is utterly amazing to watch; lighting even at night time is great with the color change as Donissan goes through a region. Depardieu and Bonnaire's acting is the best part; Depardieu displayed a sympathetic and conflicted slant to his character. Bonnaire while talking to the two male actors that played people she knew displayed an anger and wherewithal in terms of her character's conflict.

Under the Sun of Satan is not an easy movie to watch; it's very much a secular movie, but has a respect of religious beliefs such as Christianity. Those that practice Christianity aren't guaranteed an 'easy path.' So the natural inclination to question oneself is inherit in the beliefs. It's also inherit in this movie.