I was thinking about how the movies we consider part of the great lexicon of cinema aren't a given and how much availability and restoration effect those discussing

For example , Theo anglepolpous was once considered one of the most important filmmakers in the world he won a palmdor multiple internationally famous actors starred in his movies like Harvey keitel and Marcello mastrioni

But now he feels like an obscure art house darling , he still has his fans but his not Revered like say tarkovsky or Bella Tarr

On the other hand some films that were ignored can re_ enter the Canon decades later

Like soy Cuba or chess of the wind that were discovered and restored by the world cinema foundation ran by Scorsese

Or the works of edward yang, I feel with each passing year his body of work is more and more revered

I'm in my early 20s, so I don't have much frame of reference

But can you guys think of some directors who lost or found appreciation in your lifetime because the availability of their work ?

I just finished watching Immortal Tales (1974), and it’s basically five unrelated stories, but the main thing in each story is simply fucking. The first story is about a couple who go to a beach and she gives him a blowjob, the second is about a woman who starts masturbating, the third is literally a woman fucking a monster, and so on.

I finished the movie and I have no idea what I just watched. I mean yes has a good directing and i enjoyed it, but for UNSPEAKABLE reasons.

I’ve watched multiple erotic movies(idk if this one even considers an erotic), but this one feels different because of the sheer amount of sex scenes and the lack of an actual story. So it’s really hard to even come up with an opinion on it.

Note: If there was anything "deeper" to it, I completely missed it.

I organized an AMA/Q&A with actor Andrew Scott. He is known for countless memorable roles in films, TV, and on the stage, including: WAKE UP DEAD MAN, FLEABAG, RIPLEY, ALL OF US STRANGERS, SPECTRE, DENIAL, 1917, and BLUE MOON.

It's live here now in r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1w492dn/hello_reddit_im_andrew_scott_ama/

He will be back at around 2 PM ET today to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

Thank you :)

His new film, a WW2 drama based on a true story, Pressure, was out in US theaters earlier this year and is hitting UK cinemas next week. It also stars Brandon Fraser, Kerry Condon, Damian Lewis, and Chris Messina.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYa8N3R2cZw

Synopsis: The fate of the free world hangs in the balance as Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower and Capt. James Stagg face an impossible choice -- launch the D-Day invasion or risk losing World War II altogether.

His verification/proof photo: https://i.imgur.com/M0qpoBU.jpeg

I really think that Snyder's Dawn of the Dead needs to be included alongside The Thing and Scarface when we talk about movie remakes that are great. In the opening when we first see the zombie virus reeking chaos on the world, there is an excellent scene where a guy is standing in the middle of the street talking to the protagonist, and out of no where the guy gets fucking nailed by an ambulance. An ambulance that doesn't even stop after it's just run a man over.

Which is just, such a fantastic way to demonstrate in a instant how things are falling to chaos. And honestly the entire opening is fantastic, from when the zombie enter's the main character's room to when she crashes and falls unconscious.

Not a lot of zombie media covers this period where the zombies are first showing up things are just starting to fall apart. If any of you played Dead Space 2 you'll know that this is why the intro to that game is also so memorable. I wish that we would see that more often, and maybe have an entire film or the first season of a show that is all about dealing with the first few hours, days, or weeks of this. It's also why the next 29 whatever film should be either 29 minutes or hours later.

Spent 3 years on this forever WiP project of mine :)

In the transitions I did not just prioritize chronology, but also setting, and perhaps most of all: theme, mood and subject matter.

I would like adjacent movies to be in dialogue with each other and also tried to create rhymes and echoes across the full sequence, e.g. Chariots of Fire > Race > Contact.

Prioritized throughline over comprehensiveness. Sometimes I really wanted to include certain history such as the French revolution, etc. but I just couldn't find the film chain to bridge it seamlessly. Another example is WW1 which is mostly present as negative space. I wanted to prevent oversaturating with war movies, and give WW2 more space to breathe.

I have focused on films released from the 70s onwards, for visual/acting consistency, and due to my own strong preference for color films, so unfortunately that disqualified some highly acclaimed historical films that otherwise would have fit nicely.

My personal genre definitions:

Epic = multiple characters and events over a significant timespan
Biopic = deep single character study (even if fictional)
Drama = focus on event(s) and/or multiple characters (but lacking the scale of an Epic)

Let me know if a transition puzzles you or if you have suggestions for how to improve!

The List: 153 fish

Has anyone seen this yet? There’s a lot to discuss, but I just want to talk about cinematography in this post.

1. How did she get that satellite shot? Did she pay to send a camera to space?
2. The color is brilliant. Who knew that the jersey’s on an amateur girl’s soccer team could be that visually arresting?
3. Disembodied voices: Lucretia Martel is captivated with this trope: in La Mujer sin Cabeza, the head of the lead is always chopped in the frame, never fully present. Here, we often do not see the face of a speaker. Separating image from locution.

4. Textures: clothing, the red wood panels of the courtroom, white hair, all vivid and visceral.

5. The use of found footage: taking the raw, documentary footage and rendering both as evidence (as it is used in court) and as an abstraction (e.g., the long shot of the scuffle, in which we only see swirling rocks)

INTRODUCTION

When I was first watching "In The Mood For Love", I had this idea / theory inside my head that two characters (Mr. Chow, played by Tony Leung and Su Li-Zhen/Mrs.Chan, played by Maggie Cheung) are actually sharing the identity of four people. I had this idea because the film doesn't show you Tony's wife and it doesn't show you Maggie's husband either, the latter of whom apparently frequently visits Japan. And I believe anytime a movie intentionally DOESN'T show you something, it gotta mean something.

NOT A TYPICAL AFFAIR...

When Tony & Maggie get into an affair because they believe their spouses are cheating on them, most of their affair is actually role-playing as their spouses. Like Tony pretends as if he is Maggie's husband and Maggie pretends as if she is Tony's wife. Maggie tries to eat the food that Tony's wife might love. There are a lot of dialogues where one person asks the other "What would you do if you were my wife / husband?" I was thinking, in a normal world, who has an affair like this?

They both keep telling themselves that "We won't end up like them" in the affair, but that's exactly what happens as they both fall for each other in love. Tony has a matching tie with Maggie's husband and Maggie has a matching handbag with Tony's wife. You can explicitly see the identities blurring into one other. I just had this in the back of my head as a cool idea, never considered it deep because the film's story felt pretty straightforward at first.

INTERVIEW FROM THE ACTORS

A couple weeks after I saw the film, I was watching an interview that both the actors did for the Toronto International Film Festival 2000 (link here), and about 15:24 minutes in, the actors reveal that Wong Kar-Wai's initial idea was to cast both of them in dual roles. Maggie Cheung was supposed to play both Su Li-Zhen and Mrs. Chow. She is both Mrs. Chan & Mrs. Chow now. Tony Leung was originally cast as Mr. Chan, Su Li-Zhen's husband. Four characters, two actors...Four identities, two people.

Eventually, this idea was abondoned by WKW in favour of not showing the face at all of Mr. Chan & Mrs. Chow, which is how the movie currently is. He could've cast other actors for the role but he chose not to. Seeing this interview kind of validated my initial theory on blurred identities.

INTERVIEW FROM WONG KAR-WAI

A couple more weeks later, I stumble upon a clip from Wong Kar-Wai himself explaining why he doesn't show you the other couple (link here) and it makes an important revelation towards the psychological nature of "In The Mood For Love"

In the clip, WKW reveals that he never shows you the face of Mrs. Chow (Tony's Wife) / Mr. Chan (Maggie's Husband) or their side of the affair because it adds an "extra layer" to the film.

"I hate the idea of showing the husband and wife because it makes the film boring. I'd rather have these two actors go through both sides of the affair. This will give another layer to the film. because maybe there's a dark side in Maggie or a dark side in Tony and they need an excuse to release it. So they are not only portraying the husband and the wife [as in roleplay], they are trying to show THEMSELVES. They can be the husband and they can be the wife." - Wong Kar-Wai

Even if Kar-Wai's English isn't the greatest, the ideas are crystal clear here. There are two aspects to this quote. One is, he is saying he never shows you the other side of affair because there might be darkness inside both Maggie & Tony and they both needed an "excuse" to release it.

EXCUSE TO RELEASE DARKNESS?

It is only implied with dialogues that they both are getting cheated on, there's no real scene where the other spouses are shown hanging out in Japan or something. So maybe there's no other side of the affair at all, maybe Maggie doesn't have a matching handbag with Tony's wife, maybe Tony doesn't have a matching tie with Maggie's husband (again, both are never shown in the movie). Or maybe they do but Tony & Maggie are perceiving coincidences as direct evidence for getting cheated on because THEY want each other and THEY want to spend time with each together. I say this with a string of "maybes" because it's an interesting angle to examine what WKW mentions as an "excuse to release".

Tony & Maggie maybe perceiving their spouses as having an affair so they find an excuse to have an affair themselves. Perhaps they aren't discovering an affair, perhaps they're constructing one. Tony & Maggie repeatedly tell each other that "We won't end up like them" just to exactly end up like "them". We never actually know if the spouses' affair exists with 100% certainty independent of Mr. Chow & Mrs. Chan's subjective perception of it and this ambiguity is the point. There is a little bit of evidence the other side of the affair does exist, the biggest being Tony's wife calling someone from her office, telling this person that his wife had visited him after Maggie visits her, but the evidence is left intentionally sparse and nothing hugely confirmatory, like Kar-Wai explained in the quote.

DARK SIDE OF TONY & MAGGIE ARE THE HUSBAND & WIFE?

The second aspect of the quote is, since he doesn't show you the other side of the affair, Kar-Wai says you can interpret the darker side of Tony & darker side of Maggie TO BE the husband and the wife. WKW says the same actors go through "both sides of the affair". When they role play, they aren't simply mimicking their "spouses", they're liberating the dark side within themselves. When the role play ends, and they snap back to reality, it's like they are turning back into their good personality. The roleplay/fun rehearsals slowly becomes their reality. It allows them to express forbidden physical and emotional intimacy while maintaining plausible deniability. By pretending to be Mr. Chan and Mrs. Chow, they can flirt, hold hands, and confess feelings under the guise of "rehearsal" or "simulation."

I see this fitting especially with Maggie, she becomes very flirtatious and smiley faced while role playing and then suddenly serious with a straight/sad face when the role play ends. She's now back to being Su Li-Zhen. Just a brilliant acting performance by her in general. The film also has a ton of mirror shots, especially in the 2046 hotel room where Maggie & Tony write together, further reinforcing this duality inside them, as if their other side is reflected on the mirrors.

The film isn't really about two couples. It's about two people performing four identities. Tony & Maggie even move in on the same exact day, at the same exact time, as one half of a couple, looking space for 2 people, themselves and their spouse, in the very beginning / first scene of the film. So, the signs were always there from scene one.

Dark side doesn't necessarily mean "evil" or "bad", it could very simply mean suppressed desire and longing, which is something Tony & Maggie clearly have for each other but don't quite directly communicate. The only way they communicate this desire is by role-playing as the other side of their spouses' affair. So this idea of their dark side being interpreted as the other spouse makes sense now. The movie also emphasises loneliness and suppressed emotions with how 1960s Hong Kong is surrounded by working people and gossiping neighbours. It's easier for Maggie & Tony to suppress desire than be the victim of gossip.

DARK SIDE OF TONY

Coming to Tony, this psychological reading also adds layers to the film's ending and Tony's decision to move away to Singapore. On the surface level, Tony tells Maggie that "he's had enough of the gossip", so he's going to move away from her. He doesn't wanna be labelled as as a cheater by others. On a deeper level, it's about confronting the darkness within himself. He chooses not to confront it, and rather moves away to a different place (Singapore).

He thinks running away can fix him, but we see how this darkness shapes him as a person in the film's sequel "2046". He is stuck in a purgatorial space, failing to move past his memories of Maggie and ultimately turning into a stone hearted womaniser, having sex for the sake of it, and gambling.

There is a scene (which some may dismiss as unimportant) in between Ping and Tony in Tony's Hong Kong office where Ping says that he left behind his hat intentionally at Maggie's place so he can go back and flirt with her. Ping also jokes that if Tony's wife weren't so pretty, she would be worried, suggesting that Tony might cheat on her if she weren't pretty.

To this Tony replies "I'm not like you", pretending he's such a nice husband who would never pursue other women, just to exactly end up as what Ping suggested (or maybe even worse). Tony did get into an affair in "In The Mood Love", and in 2046, fully channeled the darkness outside. There's another scene in 2046 where now Tony exploits Ping to flirt with Zhang Ziyi's character, bringing the earlier scene on "In The Mood For Love" & Tony's transformation arc a full circle. Speaking of 2046, even that movie shows no traces of Tony's wife, further reinforcing the psychological reading of these identities.

ANGKOR WAT SCENE

Another important scene between Tony and Ping, this time in the Singapore office is the famous "whispering your secret into a hole in a tree and sealing it with mud" dialogue scene. Everyone knows how this ties into the climax of Tony going to Cambodia, and burying his secret in Angkor Wat.

We don't know what exactly this "secret" is, it could be the fact that he fell in love with a married woman, or that he is a cheater. In either case, this can be interpreted as Tony burying his dark secrets in what is the world's largest religious monument, with just a Monk watching him over, instead of confronting or revealing the darkness, which would mean making his affair public. Instead he does the opposite and buries it deep. The sequel 2046 also re-tells the "hole in tree" dialogue in its opening scene and the movie depicts Tony falling deeper into the abyss.

Although it's not shown what Maggie does with her secrets, she also does something metaphorically similar, she also buries it deep, by one, rejecting a chance to go with Mr. Chow to Singapore with an extra boat ticket & two, Visiting Singapore, contacting Tony on the phone but yet not having the courage to face Tony or get back together with him. She actively chooses not to despite her feelings for Mr. Chow. When she moves back to her Hong Kong apartment, the scene just before Angkor Wat, Maggie gets teary eyed reminiscing on who used to live next door.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I'll finish this analysis by saying although "In The Mood For Love" is deservedly discussed as one of the greatest films ever, I wish more people would discuss it as a psychological piece on desire + suppressed emotions and also in the context of the trilogy because it elevates the romance shown even more. The main protagonist Yuddy from the first installment Days Of Being Wild is a womanizer. He intentionally fails to form emotional bonds with women he loves. He gets into a relationship just to break their hearts, including Maggie's Su Li-Zhen.

Mr. Chow in 2046 then becomes emotionally just like Yuddy in terms of relationships with women. Carina Lau's character "Mimi" reprises her role in 2046 and tells Mr. Chow that he is very much like her ex-boyfriend Yuddy, which confirms this connection. But in this trilogy, as the middle child, "In the mood for love" shows something emotionally resonant between the two lovers. It's an affair yes but is based on true yearning for one another with no intimate sex / kissing scenes like many have noted. It's the beauty in the middle of the trilogy that shines through the ugliness that bookends it.

Let me know your thoughts on my analysis and if there's anything you'd like to add.

I just watched it last night and was wondering about something, is the reason the first Sam is dying because the clones only have a 3 year lifespan or because of his injuries from the crash?

There is signs he is feeling ill earlier in the film like when he doesnt want hot sauce as his stomach is upset and he is obviously seeing hallucinations which cause him to burn his hand and ultimately crash the rover.

The 3 year contract would also suggest that the clones only live for that period

I’ve been thinking about why the Montgomery Riverfront Brawl footage stuck with so many people. Beyond the actual fight there was something striking about seeing a Black man attacked and then watching other people immediately step in rather than seeing him framed only as a victim.

It got me thinking about how films handle agency in stories about racial violence.

By Any Means seems like an interesting example. It puts a Black FBI agent at the center of a Civil Rights-era story in Mississippi and pairs him with a Mafia informant when the usual legal process isn’t getting results. The film is inspired by real events but clearly takes dramatic liberties with them.

There’s a difficult balance there. Make the characters too passive and the film can become another story where Black suffering drives everything. Push too far the other way and history can become the backdrop for a revenge fantasy.

Where do you think that line is? Can a historical film heighten resistance and retaliation while still taking the history seriously?

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Rating: 9.5/10

Watched: August 24, 2026

Brawl in Cell Block 99 was not what I was expecting. At all. I'd seen a few clips on the various social media platforms, but they were all pretty banal. There was no doubting it was going to be a violent movie, but I always wondered why they weren't even showing those clips with some censoring.

Simply put, it's because if you censor the violence in the most interesting clips, all you're left with is a lot of big black blocks everywhere or an entirely pixelated screen. By the time Bradley (never Brad) makes it Cell Block 99 and things truly kick off, there's no stopping the man.

Imagine if the producers for Reacher woke up one morning and had been given the green light to film Reacher's fight scenes in the most graphically lurid manner possible. That's how intent Bradley is on achieving his goals, and Vince Vaughn is terrifyingly believable as soft-spoken, weirdly intelligent Bradley Thomas.

I won't give you the details on how and why Bradley (never Brad) winds up in prison, or why he winds up having to do what he does. That's for Google and your other friends who spoil stuff.

The violence and the carnage is shocking because they show it. It's also kind of funny because in a few spots it's blatant dummies and the like, but I never mind that because it's fun to see. Practical effects are always better than digital, even if you can tell it's a dummy.

The most effective part for me was Vince Vaughn as Bradley Thomas. Bradley never raises his voice. He's never particularly mean or angry. He never says anything that could even really be considered racist or even unkind. He's soft-spoken and he means what he says and he does what he promises.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 gets an 9.5 out of 10 from me because it wound up subverting my expectations. From the few clips I saw and some very vague stuff online, I was thinking it'd be like Prison Kumite with extras, but what I got was a surprisingly sad story about a man just trying to do right for his wife and unborn daughter.

As a side note, I initially rated this 8 out of 10, but I found myself thinking about the movie for a few days afterwards, which is very rare. The last movie to force an adjustment was Possession, though that took several months instead of a few days.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 earns it's 9.5.

Rating: 8/10

Watched: September 1, 2026

This is my second time watching this movie, and the first time, the experience was pretty terrible. I'd rented it on VHS somewhere in the mid-to-late 80s and all I can honestly remember was that most of it was in total darkness.

The version I watched today is the 50th Anniversary restored edition, and let me tell you: the restoration is quite literally night and day. It's a general peeve of mine when directors choose darkness as 'ambiance' over storytelling, but that was never the case here.

So let's get to the movie itself.

It's a LOT funnier than I was expecting. All five of those teenagers are honest-to-gosh idiots, with Franklin being one of the most ridiculous people I've ever seen in a movie. He's cranky, he's mean-spirited, he's got a weird obsession with knives that his friends are surprisingly okay with and he throws temper tantrums when he's having a bad time.

One of the things I like to wonder about when I'm watching a movie like Texas Chainsaw Massacre is how long I'd put up with weird shit before calling it quits.

In this instance, it's incredibly likely I wouldn't even go on the trip if Franklin was present. There's no way that how he is in the movie is a new thing to anyone else. I'd rather not go if a major buzzkill like Franklin was in the car.

If for some reason Franklin was actually a sweet and reasonable fella before this and it's just the pressures of being handicapped on the road, the very next thing that'd have me quit the trip is the hitchhiker. THAT guy was very obviously completely deranged that he really should've been kicked out of the back of the van while it was still in motion, and that was BEFORE he decided to cut open his hand.

One of the more interesting things about this movie is that the world was smaller back then, so the simple act of walking up to and going inside someone else's crazy old haunted Murder Mansion probably didn't seem like a big deal. It's not the world was any less dangerous, it was that it just didn't seem that way. Need gas? I'm going to go on up and ask for some help. Wall of Mounted, Stuffed Heads and Skulls?

This is the Deep South. Probably just a taxidermy enthusiast.

Even though this really is only my second time seeing it, I've seen a lot of horror movies and I'll say this about Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Obviously made on a small budget, it's clear to see why it inspired so many sequels and reboots AND why it influenced so many other horror movies.

Because it's a bloody good time. By the time Leatherface makes his terrifying appearance and things turn nasty, we're prepped and ready to be terrified and grossed out until the last frame. With Sally as The Final Girl, trapped in Backwater Nowhere, being hunted by Leatherface and trusting the absolute wrong person, we get a full, final look at the inescapability that truly would be a family of hillbilly cannibal crazies living in plain sight.

Like a lot of older horror movies, Texas Chain Saw Massacre walked so other movies could run, and that's saying a lot. Sadly, because I've seen so many horror movies, I didn't find this one terribly scary, but what I DID find it was UNSETTLING. There's a rawness to it that earns it's 8/10 from me.

SPOILERS:

Please let your five favorite scenes from Fire Walk With Me and explain why you chose them. It was hard for me not to include the whole movie but here's mine from 5th best to 1st best:

5: Laura's Dream in the painting: This is probably the most "David Lynch" scene in the movie. The image of the Tremond boy in the shadows snapping his finger is awesomely dreamlike. In retrospect this scene really connects all of Twin Peaks from Annie showing up telling Laura what to write in her diary to seeing the wallpaper from the place above the convenience store.

4.David Bowie and the meeting: Another crazily surreal scene with Cooper seeing his double on the monitor and David Bowie of all people showing up and acting insane. Then the wild meeting with all of the Black Lodge entities and the introduction of one of the coolest and most mysterious characters, The Jumping Man.

1. The Murder and aftermath: The whole movie builds up beautifully to the inciting incident of the whole Twin Peaks universe. When it arrives it is suitably epic and most importantly the climax of Laura's character between life and death. She makes her courageous decision to put the ring on and accept death, defying Bob who wants to possess her (she sees his face in the mirror right before). After the deed is done we get goosebump inducing little moments like seeing the necklace, her being wrapped in plastic, and Leland entering the black lodge through glastonbury grove and being held up by Bob.

2. Laura, Cooper, and the Angel: One of the greatest endings in film history. After the struggle and torture of Laura she finally gets her moment of joy and absolution. The angel is a symbol of goodness to Laura who was swayed back and forth between darkness and light throughout her life. it is beautifully bittersweet and creepy at the same time seeing the two best characters in Twin Peaks lost beyond life and death but together.

3. The Bang Bang Bar and The Pink Room: I had to combine these two scenes together because it creates a whole experience. Laura encounters the log lady outside the Bang Bang bar and her words cut through her like a knife as she reflects on how far gone she is, and if she is a good or a bad person. She breaks down to Julee Cruise's beautiful song (with incredible red and blue lighting) but continues to prostitute herself to two rough looking men as Donna watches. This is where Donna realizes the darkness of the path the Laura has gone down. Sheryl Lee's performance is incredible she goes from this broken down little girl to a world weary prostitute in seconds. The dialogue here is incredible (So you wanna fuck the homecoming queen) and Laura portrays anger towards these older men clearly taking advantage of her but also resigns herself to being with them. Then there is this great "audition" where Laura and Donna make out with the two guys and Laura lets her join. But then Donna realizes how in over her head she gets when she goes to the Pink Room. An incredible design by Lynch with the insane lighting, pulsating music nudity and drugs (We are seeing the depths of Laura's life that they could never show on tv in the 90s). They engage in a crazy drug ritual but we see the true heart of Laura when she protects her best friend's innocence. An incredible stretch of film on every level- acting, visuals, music, direction, emotion, meaning....

Just watched Four Brothers for the first time and it stuck with me how much better Wahlberg works when he plays a guy in a crime scenario

The Departed is probably the best example. He fits that world of criminals and cops and guys who solve every problem by threatening someone. Even Four Brothers holds up to that candle

Then I found out hes playing Gregory Scarpa in By Any Means. Scarpa was a Colombo crime family guy who was also an FBI informant. Somehow the FBI even brought him into Mississippi for work connected to KKK violence.

That sounds like the kind of role Wahlberg should be doing

Not sure if this is allowed or not, if not - may the mighty mods forgive my ignorance.

Season 2 of "One hundred years of solitude" was the only thing I was waiting for. And now when it's out... I am dissapointed. Somehow the magic is missing. And I can't pinpoint why exactly.

The scenery is there, the actors too, but writing has changed - I don't remember cheap gags about virginity, politics or religion in the original book, in my memory all of it was handled with respect to it's existence: if a reader wants to make fun of it - that's on the reader's consciousness.

I watched season 1 in Spanish with subtitles, but season 2 with english language track. And while the narrative voiceover helps to understand what's going on, I don't remember it being necessary during season 1.

I also tried switching to Spanish language track and somehow it made things even worse. Granted, I only know about 5 words in Spanish, so I would greatly appreciate Spanish speakers opinion.

What does the group think about it?

Conversations about book to film adaptations tend to focus on length and often turn into checklists going over how many of the source material’s plot points are pasted into the final movie. Categorizing art forms primarily by such superficial characteristics as duration is reductive and revealing of someone who has failed to engage with a medium beyond its surface and thereby missed what makes the medium unique. The Remains of the Day is an excellent adaptation in every respect, that uses the language of cinema to convey the ideas, themes, and motifs of its source material without feeling encumbered by it. 

Kazuo Ishiguro’s original novel is particularly difficult to adapt on the surface. So much of the book centres around Stevens’ reflections and recollections which Ishiguro presents using Stevens’ inner voice. One of the main strengths of the novel is Ishiguro’s delicate and skillful (well most of the time anyway but this isn’t a book review) weaving of Stevens’ interiority, such that translating this to the screen where the means of freely depicting such an inner voice are far more limited, is exceptionally difficult.

This meticulous fleshing out of Stevens’ character through his inner monologue also serves to establish his relationship with the reader as one of Ishiguro’s primary aims with The Remains of the Day was to communicate the idea that we are all butlers, in one way or another and in a connected world we can only hope that our service to whatever it is we serve might bring about something positive in spite of our powerlessness. This is also what led him to conceive of the idea of using a butler as his main character. His outlook is perhaps more liberal than my tastes permit but it remains an idea worth exploring and the relationship is successfully developed. Thus, the film’s challenge is not merely to flesh Stevens out but also to carry onto the screen the relationship Ishiguro managed to craft with the reader. 

The film overcomes these challenges and succeeds as an adaptation for two primary reasons. The first is Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Stevens. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t discuss performances much when talking about movies because I find them a lazy way to praise a film without engaging with anything substantial. Nevertheless, this is a case where the lead actor’s performance is one of the driving forces behind the film’s success and without it, the translation of Stevens’ inner voice into the cinema, would not have been possible. One cannot help but marvel at the care and depth with which Hopkins embodies Stevens in every frame in which he appears. Stevens is a character whose defining characteristic is suppression. Hopkins therefore has to make non-expression*** ****expressive*. His pauses, posture, microscopic changes in facial expression, manner of speaking, and physical distance from others, all become substitutes for the enormous amount of psychological information Ishiguro can simply give us through prose.

The second way the film succeeds is through subtle choices by which Stevens’ inner thoughts from the book are conveyed through dialogue or interactions with other characters. This is a delicate challenge since done without precision, it can easily appear clumsy. But the filmmakers do so at precisely the right moments and in precisely the right ways. One example from the book is a story Stevens recounts that he once heard from his father who was also a butler. About an English butler in India who once encountered a tiger beneath his master’s dining table, calmly shot it, wiped off the remains, and served dinner as usual. This is an important story because it serves several purposes such as highlighting the relationship between Stevens and his father, as well as his worldview and sense of duty which Ishiguro interrogates throughout the novel, until the very end when it begins to crack under the weight of a lifetime of regret and experience.

To tell the same story, the film has Stevens’ father recount it to the rest of the staff in Stevens’ presence while making clear that Stevens has heard it before and nods along approvingly. This establishes that the story is already part of Stevens’ understanding of himself while preserving everything else the story conveys in the novel. It is choices like this the film makes that appear to be small but are quite incredible. 

The film is also well made and pretty to look at in a functional, fully immersive sense rather than a “look at me I’m supposed to be a gorgeous period drama” sense that many period films adopt and I find the former far more respectable.

Check out my Letterboxd to keep up with what I watch and write. It’s aliasad. Or click on the link to go to the review and my profile.

https://boxd.it/g6bgtR

If you think The Godfather is a masterpiece, and I’m pretty confident most people do, then you should absolutely love James Gray’s We Own the Night.

This film explores devotion to family and morality and personal ethics in much the same way as The Godfather. Joaquin Phoenix’s character arc is the inverse of Michael Corleono’s arc. He starts in a criminal underworld and his family pulls him into law enforcement, and the incredible thing is that it ends with the same melancholy that the Godfather reserves for Michael becoming the head of a crime family.

James Gray’s first three films are all incredibley Coppola-esque but We Own the Night is the best of the bunch. I’m fascinated by its tepid response when it came out so hope it gets a reappraisal.

Needle drops rarely impress me. It’s so difficult because the song has to be cool, without being corny. A lot of times the song is corny as hell and it degrades the scene. Music in movies in general has to be well thought out from every angle and I get the sense it hardly ever is. Tarantino is great at the needle drop because he chooses songs no one has ever heard before, but songs that have instant appeal and a certain cool factor. People hate on Twilight, but New Moon has some of the best music moments of 21st century film for the same reason. The Netflix-ification of film and media introduced a lot of fucking needle drops, but none of them feel cool or warranted. The worst fucking needle drop I’ve ever seen has to be when the fat girl from Euphoria was walking in the mall to You Should See Me In A Crown. It made me want to die. Like the jump scare, it has really made me question the utility of it at all.

Just saw the film Late Fame which I found deeply layered and well done, wondering what folks thought significant regarding Saxberger character's neglect of the impending death of his brother. A couple thoughts come to mind- a metaphor for his neglect of his writing? Like, something the audience thinks should be important to him is neglected because in fact it is not...or something beyond that? Interested to hear others thoughts.

I’ve always been obsessed with a specific type of movie:

A detective starts looking into something that seems explainable such as a murder, disappearance, serial killer, conspiracy, and the deeper they investigate, the more it feels like they’ve stumbled into something much darker.

Se7en.
Cure.
Angel Heart.
Fallen.
True Detective.
The Empty Man.

They’re called everything from neo-noir to psychological thriller to supernatural horror, but I’ve never felt like any of those labels completely describe what these movies are.

I’ve started thinking of it as **Horror Noir**.

I actually made a video essay trying to define the genre, but I’m more curious what r/TrueFilm thinks:

Is “Horror Noir” already the best name for this? And what movies am I missing?

First, yes there are still great films being made before you touch that keyboard- but overall the industry is experiencing an abundance of something that never existed this much in the past:

Which is movies drawing upon movies as the main influence and inspiration. Back in the day there simply werent as many movies back then, or movies that covered a specific genre, or theme. There was no blueprint or existing roadmap and as a result much of what influenced film was other mediums: Theater, plays, Photography, Art, painting and more.

I believe the heavy influence of outside mediums were a primary driver for what made many films successful. You could argue Disney animateds entire legacy was built off of Broadway style theater.

Much of old cinemas greatest films were deeply inspired by painters, art and photography with a deep knowledge of how light can shape a world and give it form.

Now it feels like films simply see what works from other films and copy that, leading us to a kind of ourosbouros type of reductive film making technique that doesnt lead to anything groundbreaking.

Just a gripe but I wish more filmmakers would train more within other arts and mediums.

Even if you haven't seen Gladiator 2, you've likely heard that there's a scene involving a naval battle in the coloseum. Not content to just feature large naval ships, Scott added CGI sharks in the water.

I highly doubt that someone with Scott's resume doesn't understand that adding those CGI sharks isn't just unrealistic - how did they transport them there, how is the water so clear, this is salt water?! - it also doesn't actually heighten the tension in any way.

He could have just shown murky brown water and a quick scene before the fight showing all the gladiators being made to wear heavy armor. We would have understood: you fall out of the boat, you're dead.

But instead Scott jumps the shark.

Why?

I think it's clear that at this point Ridley Scott takes great pride in being able to get big budget films done in time. At a time when anything outside superhero movies has a hard time getting such funding, Scott has still been able to get nine-figure funding for several projects.

He's not a filmmaker. He's a project manager. And I don't say this necessarily as an insult. He looks to employ as many people as possible. CGI sharks probably meant another $500K or somethign like that, some more people on staff, and another task on the project management checklist, so why not?

That's how Scott approaches his movies these days, as a set list of deliverables, and the more deliverables, the more people he can get paid and the more impressive it is that he gets it done on time. Criticisms of the merits of his storytelling feel totally besides the point at this point.

Please don't downvote opinions. Only downvote comments that don't contribute anything. Check out the WHYBW archives.

I just finished watching this film, and I’m honestly struggling to understand what I’m supposed to take away from it.

I know the movie is intentionally ambiguous, but I feel like I’m missing something important, especially when it comes to the ending and the main character’s motivations.

For those who enjoyed or understood the film better than I did: what do you think the movie was ultimately trying to say? And how do you interpret the ending?

I’d genuinely like to hear different interpretations because I feel like there’s probably more going on beneath the surface than I picked up on.

I recently watched "One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)" as I was trying to watch more from Powell and Pressburger and ended up really enjoying the film, especially it's depiction in the dedication, resolve, and planning of the Dutch that end up assisting the bomber crew in their mission to return home. We see the Dutch construct a highly sophisticated underground network to assist their allies, all without the Germans understanding they are constantly being lied to or deceived. It certainly fits into the compotency porn category from that perspective, and its depictions make sense as a way to bolster support for the allies during the war given it is a British propaganda film.

After watching this, I wanted to see other examples of the competency porn categorization of older films, but most lists I found ended up only really including newer movies (80s to present), with almost no representation of anything prior to that. (I did see mention of 12 Angry Men, but I don't think that fits the genre).

As such my question is:

1. What other some other films that fit this genre that are older? (Mainly interested in classic and silent film eras, so pre 70s).