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An in - depth discussion of film @reddit2telegram @r_channels
Looking for a video editor and narrator for a film analysis
I've long wanted to help explain one of cinema's most enigmatic films, the film that Stanley Kubrick bragged was his greatest contribution to the history of cinema.
I realize that this film has attracted endless speculation for the last 27 years, believe me I've read or watched almost all of it. While there are some kernels of truth, it's all nonsense for the most part. Seeing as my health is failing, I'm unable to withhold the urge to make a video analysis that finally reveals what Kubrick's final masterpiece was really about. I don't want some of
The information that I have compiled regarding the film is pretty much unparalleled, and much of it has never been released online to my knowledge. Kubrick famously stated that having explaining the meaning of a film essentially cheapens it, but with a film like Eyes Wide Shut, I am convinced it will forever remain widely misunderstood unless something changes.
I am unable to narrate the video myself, and lack some expertise in video editing. I am not doing this for any commercial reasons, and don't plan on monetizing the video unless forced to. I am doing this so that fans of not just Kubrick but the art of cinema can more fully appreciate this masterpiece.
If you have knowledge or skill in narrating or editing videos, feel free to DM me. I don't think the video will be more than 2 hours in length. I intend to write the script and compile clips from the film, as well as help provide other images or necessary references from other sources. This isn't some wacky theory about numerology or secret societies or whatever. It's the real thing or else close as it gets anyway, and I'd like to share it before it's lost for good. You don't need to be a fan of Kubrick or the film in case you were wondering, but I guess it helps.
The goal is to have it done by the end of the year, when the Criterion Collection Kubrick box set is released.
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Casual Discussion Thread (July 03, 2026)
General Discussion threads threads are meant for more casual chat; a place to break most of the frontpage rules. Feel free to ask for recommendations, lists, homework help; plug your site or video essay; discuss tv here, or any such thing.
There is no 180-character minimum for top-level comments in this thread.
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Sincerely,
David
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The "STAAY" scream from Obsession
I found this to be one of the scariest parts of the film, She's laying so close to Bear as he's trying to slowly slide out from her grasp, you can feel the claustrophobia, it's like you're right there with him, and then as he's trying to escape she yells out this haunting scream, the way her eyes don't even open is so unnatural and disturbing
And then I found that people online thought it was a hilarious moment to ease the tension, which had me baffled. like their brain registered funny instead of fucking terrifying. In an interview the director was also surprised at how many people laughed at that moment
This scene is a perfect illustration of that Jordan Peel quote. "difference between comedy and horror is the music" both genres rely on rhythm, subversion and timing, they both use building up to a jumpecare/punchline to engage the same areas of the brain
And so the Stay scene walks right at the middle of those two concepts, sorta like clowns. Some found it hilarious while others like me thought it was deeply disturbing.
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Under the Skin (2013)
So, I've watched "Under the Skin" (2013) with Scarlett Johansson again. I tried to google what other people think. Many reviews talk about how the alien is first predatory, then learns empathy, and tries to understand the people. It appears strange to me that I haven't seen another obvious reading yet.
I think the woman is in fact not an alien. She is a sex worker, and the biker is her pimp. If you look carefully, right from the start, she doesn't really appear predatory. She is flirtatious towards men, yes, but also shy and almost scared of other people, for example, when a group of girls pull her into a club. She only looks for single, lonely men to lure them into her environment, just for them to vanish.
Now, if you were a movie director and wanted to visualize a scene of dissociation during unwanted sex, how would you approach it? Maybe you would refrain from showing explicit sex scenes. In the movie, as soon as she lures the men in, she literally steps back, and everything but her drowns in an oozing black void, a blackout, a space of absolute nothingness.
Later, after trying to lure the disfigured man, she stares into the mirror for a long time, examining a body that feels entirely foreign. She runs away, and as opposed to her charming flirtations in the beginning, she barely speaks now and seems confused, and even scared at times. She attempts to reassociate with the world, tries to eat cake, literally asks for help on the bus, and tries to be intimate with the guy who saved her. These look like the clumsy attempts of a deeply traumatized person trying to remember how to feel human, and how to inhabit a body for pleasure rather than utility, someone who might see herself as so disconnected from the world and its ordinary people as if she were, in fact, an alien. Eventually she runs away again, and the world breaks her before she can manage it.
In the woods, a man tries to rape her. Again, how would a director depict dissociation during unwanted sex? The rape scene is never shown, instead, we see the assaulter ripping apart her human shell, revealing a featureless, black alien underneath, before he runs away, only to return, douse her with gasoline, and set her on fire.
In her final moments, after being raped in the woods, which the movie only suggests when the assault shatters her seemingly human disguise, she truly recognizes herself as an alien and fully dissociates. She literally pulls off her own face and looks at it, still blinking.
So, the true journey of empathy is one the watcher has to make, where in the end, after being raped and burnt alive, she dies not as an actual alien, but as a lonely, isolated being.
...
Yes, I recognize that the original book (which I haven't read) may very well be about an alien. And yes, even the movie's own synopsis may also talk about an alien.
Still, the movie has its story in its own right, which at the very least plays with vagueness. There are no spaceships, no backstory, just abstract images and strange, otherworldly music. Except for the end, when she sheds her skin, all alien elements are rather abstract. And the synopsis might be a trick to hide what is otherwise obvious in plain sight.
And yes, there are many sci-fi stories that hold deeper meanings and metaphors. For instance, "Gravity" (2013) is more about the disorientation following the death of a loved one than survival in outer space. Nonetheless, this is not what I am trying to argue here. I'm trying to say that in this very particular case the abstract nature of the sci-fi elements allows for a different interpretation where we're not witnessing the downfall of a predatory alien, but of a human being. This is not a matter of narrative allegories or metaphors; rather, it is a literal depiction of the raw psychological reality from her own point of view.
Undeniably, the film is full of symbolic imagery that involve disconnection, dissociation, and abandonment. Most notably, the crying baby on the stone beach, left behind by its parents who drowned at sea. It also draws from
Why Agent Cody Banks is superior to 007 James Bond
Agent Cody Banks (2003) - Final Fight Scene \[1080p\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhHDFkfxrZc)
The reason Agent Cody Banks is better than 007 James Bond is because, as you can see from the clip posted above, Agent Cody Banks took down The Mummy. 007 never took down The Mummy. In fact, 007 never took down an enemy as powerful and almighty as The Mummy, which makes Agent Cody Banks SUPERIOR to 007 James Bond.
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Mademoiselle (1966) - an incredible example of breaking the metaphysical frame with composition - and witchiness
Film Noir is known for how it communicates a disordered or morally broken world through not only the use of shadow but also the Dutch Angle and unconventional framing. The Noir world is askew, and you can feel it through the lens. I'd recommend this somewhat difficult film to find (did find it on Amazon, one of the versions was a false-lead) that achieves something of this Noir effect in a completely different way. First off, its probably one of the most beautifully photographed black and white films of its decade, or even ever. The frame is stuffed full of exquisite shades and details, whether capturing the stark architecture of village rooms or open swoons of French countryside. It tells a story conceived by apostate Jean Genet of a morally "evil" woman who conducts increasingly damaging senseless acts of vandalism, cruelly against the village she has moved to. (It seems that she has come to the village from the city, likely brought there by a husband to whom she is widowed, and she preserves the narcissistic fashions of makeup, coiffed hair, high-heels and dress, surrounded by country-life folk and their simplicities. She has clerk skills which she deploys for the police, and is the town school teacher.) She occupies a sort of "witch" position in the village culture, in the sense that witches were historically seen as the mysterious causes of all sort of otherwise "natural" phenomena (the spoiling of milk, diseases, etc), and blamed for them. She is an embodiment of "evil" in this sense...but, unlike witches she is not blamed at all. In fact she moves through the village almost invisibly, and the blame goes towards a handsome, heroic itinerant Italian lumberjack who is brimming with masculine sexuality, and seems to represent a sort of Pan god of Nature, a lumberjack who has unleashed her repressed (and thus bridle-breaking) sexuality. The film investigates this fundamental question of sexuality, femininity, Nature, Evil, and I'd say "witchiness" (no, she's not an actual witch).
But, what is so compelling, and what has kept me thinking about this beautiful film for many days now is how it creates a sense of disruption through how it frames the world, with its camera. The use of lots of static shots, often with very wide-lens tableauxs, presents something of an enchanted world...but the subject in the frame is often put at the very, very edge of the frame, unbalancing it. Maybe as a photographer this had an inordinate effect on me, but again and again what should be an absolutely beautiful image is "ruined" by this intentional disbalance, which produces a disconcerting sense, almost the metaphysical argument that human beings are disruptive in the world. What she does in absolute "evil" (it has no seeming motive other than destruction), Nature does all the time. She embodies the moral split between humans and Nature. And the struggle to make aesthetic sense of these unbalanced compositions, for the eye to locate the proper place in the frame (this is intensified if you sit very close to the screen, where the eye cannot take the entire frame in at a glance), embodies the moral/philosophical point of the film. "Man" (or maybe more importantly "Woman") does not fit.
It's really an extraordinary achievement. The director Tony Richardson and cinematographer David Watkin (Chariots of Fire) created the most beautiful visual "milk" and then purposely spoiled it with their deft touch. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. But it is admirable and thought-provoking.
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First Blood (1982)
First Blood (1982)
Rating: 9.5/10 (EXCEPTIONAL)
Watched: July 1, 2026
"All They Had To Do Was Let Him Grab A Bite To Eat"
Fun fact: I grew up pretty near to where this was filmed, and it was an enormous deal for Hope to be featured so prominently in a movie. Even though I was only 10 at the time, that was a very cool thing to have happen in our little corner of the world.
Another fun fact (or a sad one, depending): for an action fan(atic), this was only my second time seeing First Blood, separated by about 4 decades! What a mistake, because this is one hell of a movie
Even though I saw this a year or so after it was released and remembered very little about it, one thing always stuck with me:. Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Will Teasle and his immediate hostility. I thought they'd pace it out, but they spend exactly 1 minute before they get down to business hassling Rambo.
But it's not just Teasle that gives Rambo a hard time. It's the entire Hope PD. I actually had to a little research on why Teasle in particular was riding Rambo so hard because he comes off as so hate-filled for what seemed to be no reason.
To my surprise, turns out that soldiers who survived The Korean War felt forgotten and marginalized by the coverage Vietnam Vets got. Teasle is the physical embodiment of that bitterness, and Dennehy delivers.
I just can't understand that kind of mindset, but then again, I never served myself.
Everything that happens in this movie rests solely on Teasle and the others. But if they had treated John Rambo with respect and courtesy, we wouldn't've gotten some pretty awesome action movies.
Stallone handles the nuances of a man back from a terrible war, suffering from PTSD and who knows what else, with surprising subtlety. It's not until later that Rambo becomes a full-blown action hero, but in this first one we see exactly why he became so famous. HIs performance, especially at the end, is especially powerful.
All I'm saying? Everyone should've listened to baby-faced David Caruso. If they had, everyone would've had a much better time of things.
All in all, I found the treatment and handling of Rambo's PTSD in a movie from the 80s a lot more enlightening and thoughtful than most movies that came after it. That alone makes this one great movie. Everything else just adds to it.
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Raging Bull (1980): From Blindness to Sight, What the Bible Quote Really Means. A Religious Analysis
Raging Bull (1980) ends on a wonderful note, with this text quoted from The Bible:
>"Speak the truth before God, we know this fellow is a sinner"
and the man replied: "Whether or not he is a sinner, I don't know, but once I was blind, Now I can see"
- John 9:24-26
In the Part I of this post, let's try to explore what this quote could mean. In the Part II, we will look at Raging Bull from a more religious lens and analyze what makes Jake LaMotta a "sinner" in the religious sense.
PART I
In the Biblical context, there was a blind man who was miraculously cured of his blindness by Jesus' touch. There were plenty sceptics of Jesus' power around that time and they approached the cured man, asking him to tell the truth and testify against Jesus by labelling him as a sinner in front of God. The cured man however, simply replies that he doesn't know if Jesus is a sinner or not but atleast he opened up his eyes.
Coming to how this quote might connect to this film, whether the things Jake LaMotta did are morally correct is a different conversation but the raw portrayal of his downfall in this film we all spent a couple hours watching atleast opens up some eyes in us. That quote nicely explains the purpose of the film without being very on the nose. The film, much like that blind man, isn't more interested in absolving or condemning Jake, it's more so interested in showing the truth of Jake's existence without flinching in an unfiltered manner. It helps us "see" how arrogance and rage corrupts a person.
I read online a couple theories from other people on how Jake's posture in his last match v/s Sugar Ray Robinson evokes the crucified posture of Jesus with the arms wide and blood pouring down the body from his wounds, which adds to this interpretation. While I don't personally rock with a person like Jake being potentially portrayed as a Christ-like figure, I can pass it off because it is subtle and the final Biblical quote also connects to this, because the person addressed in the quote is Jesus.
Or maybe this crucifixion pose is to show that Jake LaMotta has gone so far down his delusional vanity that he feels like Jesus getting crucified when he finally loses and if the whole boxing world conspired against him. He even leaves by frantically repeating "I never went down Ray" . Ironically enough, there is a big cross showing Christ's crucifixion placed above Jake & Vickie's bed centrally in their house, which adds weight to this theory. During the scenes before his matches, religious artifacts like crosses and images of the Virgin Mary are framed around Jake.
Another interpretation of the quote could be the fact that Jake finally "sees". The quote is flashed on the screen right after the final scene, where Jake looks at himself in the mirror and recites "Let's face it, It was you Charlie" as a rehearsal for his stand up comedy. This also functions as a moment of self "reflection" into a mirror where Jake realizes the problem was always him. "I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am" also cuts deep in this monologue.
This interpretation goes along so well with confessions from the real Jake LaMotta in later parts of his life about himself, which is what made him write the autobiography in the first place to admit his wrongs. The film itself is based on that autobiography.
PART II
Let's now analyze what makes Jake LaMotta a "sinner" in the religious sense. As a quick recap, Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth are the seven deadly sins in Christianity. Raging Bull portrays Jake LaMotta indulge in all seven of them strongly in some way or form.
The #1 thing I love about Raging Bull is the fact that it epitomizes the age old teaching and Christian saying that "Pride" is the deadliest/worst one out of the 7 deadly sins. On paper, "Pride" doesn't sound that bad right? What's so wrong in having a bit of respect for yourself and why is
Backrooms was so much more than I expected
I went to see the movie mostly out of curiosity and out of need for a distraction after a long day at work.
I was fully prepared to accept and enjoy a simple horror movie with little thinking, not a lot of depth, some cheap jump scares, relatively trite ideas (e.g., lost footage) and plot devices. I even mistakenly thought it the an adaptation of the video game, and was perfectly ok with that. I had low expectations.
Instead, I got so much out of the movie and I related to it so deeply.
The way I see it, the movie is about mental illness (and less serious psychological conditions) and it offers an extensive, substantive, satisfying development of at least a couple core ideas that are not easy to work on.
The movie is deeply relatable because we all have light psychological problems we need to solve (anxiety, loops we are unable to escape, behavioral prisons of our own making, inability to make peace with traumatic episodes of our past, etc.). In addition to that, many of us have experienced at least indirectly serious mental illness in a family member or a loved one.
The movie develops at least two themes, and in my opinion it does so well.
The first theme develops the world experienced by the person suffering from serious mental illness. They fully know that they are not well and they can't function normally. They fully know that the world as they see doesn't make sense. They struggle very much in their attempts to make sense of it. This nonsensical world makes them suffer, and very much so. They live in a reality that doesn't make sense and that frightens them.
A lot of therapy work consists of exploring this scary world that doesn't make sense to them, while living in fear and in the continuous frustration caused by this broken, malfunctioning reality.
I thought that the many qualities of the main character's obsessive fixation with descending and remaining into his broken world was relatable, and a way to empathize with those suffering from mental illness.
Others have criticized the movie for the slow rhythm. I think the slow rhythm is necessary. The path of therapy is frequently one of very slow progress, and frequently no progress at all. This is real. This is how many people suffering from mental health conditions go through their life.
The fact that this world is populated with distorted and malformed copies of people and events occurred in real life is, in my opinion, also very emblematic. The mental landscape of a person suffering from mental illness (but also less serious psychological conditions) is inhabited with incorrect representations of other people that exist in real life, and events that occurred in real life. We all live surrounded by potentially unfaithful memories of what really happened and how people in our lives are. People with mental illnesses suffer from even worse distortions of reality. From the outside, those distortions are evident... but for the person suffering, those distorted elements feel very real.
Another theme developed pervasively (and, in my opinion, convincingly) in the movie is the theme of self-caused inprisonment: many psychological conditions consists in people forcing themselves into habit patterns that are unnecessary, don't achieve anything useful, are detrimental to us, make us miserable, and yet we can't easily resist them. We keep ourself in a mind prison of our own making.
I am sure that the movie has additional development themes that I either missed or that I was somehow blind to, as they didn't immediately serve the two main themes I was resonating to. For example, all the elements of the narrative setup (the research institute setting, the scientist seen at the end, the men in the hazmat suits, etc.). I'm fine with the movie speaking different languages to different people.
But on the couple of themes that I latched on, I thought the movie was very original, creative and imposing.
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Older movies that aren’t “must watches” that jusssst miss the line?
this is difficult to word, but here I go.
I love movies. I’ve seen, I think, most 1970-1999 movies that people discuss when talking about movies. Except for some movies where I’m like “Oh yeah I should watch that.“
They tend to be movies where I’m like “yeah I’m sure it’s good but it doesn’t sound enthralling and I think I know what it’s gonna be.“
Over the past two days I’ve watched:
1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
2. Philadelphia
They both were wonderful and it’s crazy I put them off so long
What movies do you think I missed in that 1970-1999 timeframe, and why do you think I’ve avoided it?
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Why Backrooms fails as a film
Backrooms fails as a film because it mistakes atmosphere for storytelling. Although its unsettling setting is visually distinctive, the movie relies almost entirely on eerie visuals and prolonged silence instead of developing compelling characters or a meaningful plot. Horror is most effective when audiences care about the people on screen, but Backrooms gives viewers little reason to become emotionally invested.
The film's pacing is another major flaw. Rather than building suspense through escalating tension, it stretches scenes far beyond what is necessary, making the experience feel repetitive and tedious. Slow pacing can be effective when it serves the story, but in Backrooms, it often seems to replace the story altogether. The result is a film that feels longer than it actually is, despite relatively little happening.
Supporters may argue that the movie's ambiguity is intentional and artistic. However, ambiguity should encourage thought, not substitute for coherent storytelling. Backrooms leaves so many questions unanswered that the mystery becomes frustrating instead of intriguing. A film should challenge its audience while still providing enough narrative structure to make the experience satisfying.
Ultimately, Backrooms is an example of a strong premise weakened by poor execution. Its atmosphere cannot compensate for its weak narrative, underdeveloped characters, and sluggish pacing. While some viewers may appreciate its experimental style, these artistic choices do not excuse its failure to tell a compelling story. A horror film should be both unsettling and engaging, and Backrooms struggles to achieve either in a meaningful way.
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Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
Boys Don’t Cry tells the true story of the life and murder of a young Trans man in Humboldt Nebraska.
Brandon Teena was born December 12, 1972 in Lincoln Nebraska and left his home town in 1993 to escape legal troubles.
After some time Brandon was arrested for forging checks. The arrest was made under his birth name, the local newspaper published the story, revealing his biological sex to the small community.
On Christmas Eve of 1993 Brandon was confronted by two acquaintances about his gender, he was then kidnapped, raped and beaten by the two men. When Brandon went to the police his case was largely dismissed.
On New Year’s Eve of 1993 in a small farmhouse outside of Humboldt Nebraska, Brandon along with two acquaintances, Phillip DeVine, and Lisa Lambert were murdered by John Lotter and Tom Nissen, the same men who had assaulted him days prior. Brandon Teena was 21 years old.
A very depressing and hard film to go through, it’s a film I’ll only watch once
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“Lynchian” as a description of style is a misnomer — or, how Lynch’s filmography gets mis-categorised
I realize my thesis stayement here is kind of like saying “water doesn’t make you wet except for when it does”, but I think its notable in Lynch’s case to make this observation — his “style” as a director is so embedded in pop-culture that it’s easy to forget that for a long time, his *feature films* had largely traditional plot structures, narratives and themes.
*Eraserhead* as his first and most purest of dream-logic films — riddled with terrifyingly strange imagery -- might be responsible for this reputation. And of course the fine art and short films he made before that were probably even odder, even more free of anything close to ‘narrative‘.
But in quick succession and during his most prolific period Lynch would make use of that early success to direct:
* *Dune*, which, for all intents and purposes is an attempt to faithfully adapt the novel in under 2 hours. You can see Lynch’s instincts here but it wasn’t anything that precluded it from being traditional hard sci-fi.
* *The Elephant Man* — again, stylistically unique but utterly engaging for a broad audience. I think the strange but true subject matter sometimes gets confused for a Lynchian touch but Merrick’s story was always going to be odd.
* *Blue Velvet* \- in my opinion this is Lynch’s strongest distillation of his tastes in his film; it follows a traditional noir structure but infused with Lynch’s unique perception of America. The complete lack of orientation to time (when is this movie supposed to be set? Who knows) again contributes to an eerie sense of high strangeness, but it never crosses into the world of dream logic.
* *Straight Story* \- people talk about this as if it’s an outlier of a Lynch film because its plot is so straightforward. But in my opinion its no more or less geared toward general audiences than it’s predecessors.
* *Wild At Heart* \- Again this is Lynch taking a well established crime film form and slightly warping it but it’s never not recognisable.
By that point it’s 1997, and Lynch releases the first and last ever *Twin Peaks* feature, which is badly received at the time and for all its retrospective value is not high on the list for most people’s favourites of his movies.
It’s not really until the 21st century with *Mullholland Drive* that Lynch has another wide release that audiences tend to feel a need to ‘decode’ and which completely moves away from a traditional structure (and interestingly it was originally an extended pilot for TV!). Another highlight from his film career, but hardly a representative sample of his style at time of release.
Lost Highway, Inland Empire — this is where Lynch goes full goblin mode. Both are great, and in particular both have famously horror-coded sequences that have entered pop-culture in their own right (Lost Highway’s moment with the old man calling from inside the protagonist’s home, and Dern in Inland Empire being so on Lynch’s wavelength that many scenes featuring her are the closest thing I’ve seen to what a dream actually ‘feels‘ like). But they’re two of eight or nine films, not a majority.
I think perhaps Twin Peaks — which is good, but for me isn’t Lynch at his best by far — entered the pop culture vocabulary so strongly that it got confused for a statement on Lynch’s artistic intentions. It’s noteworthy that it’s one of the few artistic projects he shared writing and directing duties on at different times, not that I’m denying his stamp isn’t all over it; but the demands of network television actually seemed to create a unique situation where Lynch’s stranger instincts were amplified by an episodic structure.
So when people say a movie or show is “Lynchian”, I tend to think they’re actually just saying it reminds them of Twin Peaks, or they give oversized weighting to Lynch’s very earliest or latest works.
But of course Lynch was able to experience the success he did because he smuggled the surrealism he enjoyed into largely digestable pop culture artefacts, at least until
I Watched Obsession (2026) – People Are Praising This Garbage?
I knew horror movie fans didn't have any standards, but man...
Plot Is A Mess – Couldn't take it seriously at all. Full throttle from minute 1, way too over the top and silly. Character actions are not even in the realm of believable, but the movie is also pretending as if it's serious. So dumb.
Repetitive, Repetitive, Repetitive – *GF acts crazy*, "OMG YOU'RE ACTING CRAZY" x100. Nothing interesting happens a single time in this movie. And even in the small glimmers of engaging moments it's recycled to the point of exhaustion. E.g. long takes of her smiling, her hiding in the background of a shot, her hitting herself in the face, her yelling/screaming randomly, suddenly snapping back to normal, etc. they're all repeated several times. Not to say that any of these moments are executed particularly well in the first place.
Boring Characters – Couldn't care less when any of them died, which says it all.
Painfully Bad Dialogue – My mind blocked out all the cheesy lines so I don't remember them thankfully.
Predictable As Fuck – For example: that car scene with the other girl that's supposed to like the main guy (not even slightly convincing btw). From frame 1 I immediately knew she was gonna burst through the window and kill her. I'm sorry but that's just terrible filmmaking. It was completely telegraphed. And how does she have the arm strength to bash her head into a brick like that without her resisting? Like I said: silly. It was also made obvious that the supporting characters were gonna get killed as soon as he made the wish, and that he was gonna die at the end.
God Awful Sound Design – No words, just wow. Obnoxious beyond belief. Even saw casual movie watchers clowning on it.
Not Funny – Apparently this director did comedy sketches, and some of the scenes were intended to be comedic? It was just cringeworthy, didn't mesh at all.
Not Scary – I get that making an attractive girl seem scary is hard, but holy shit did they even try? I thought to myself several times: "Just add a POV shot for this jump scare, what are you doing?" They couldn't even do the bare minimum. Him waking up and looking around for her, only to eventually turn his head and see her staring at him from the floor right next to the bed would be 10x more impactful than her standing 5 meters away from him across the room.
The Nikki girl's performance was pretty good considering the dogshit script. The main guy however was just too much of a bitch for it to be believable. He could easily have toned down the facial expressions by 90%. It was so extra. Annoying as fuck. The entire character was so unbearable that I was rooting for him to die and just return the psycho gf to normal less than halfway through the movie.
Would have more numerous and precise complaints if I rewatched it and took notes but i'm not interested in torturing myself again.
3/10
Rant over. Just pissed at every recent 'viral' film being shit and audience standards continuing to decrease. Saw that trailer/clip for weapons last year where that fat asian guy attacked the main white lady character and laughed at how terrible it looked. Held off on watching it until a couple days ago, and I was right. But that one at least had some entertaining parts to it so it achieves mediocrity (5/10) status. Can't say the same for this one.
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Time To Die
Western. Mexico, 1966.
Written by no less than Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes. Directed by Arturo Ripstein, who began his career as an assistant director to Bunuel. The internets credit Ripstein with founding independent film in Mexico.
If you’re accustomed to action filled Westerns, this film will be challenging. Well worth the effort though. The influence of Bunuel is heavy, as is the voice of the authors in the dialogue.
This is a slow, dusty revision of a classic western theme, told in an elegantly philosophical way. I enjoyed it enormously, highly recommend.
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"Coffee is for Closers" (Glengarry Glen Ross 1992) is this the greatest monologue of all time?
I rewatched the other day, I've loved this film for a long time, but it really hit me with this Alec Baldwin scene and made me stop. "Is this the greatest monologue I've ever seen in a film?"
This is like if writing were Special Effects. You have this muddle of guys, working schmoes, they're chitchatting going about their day. Between that and the hub bub of small talk you have the constant rain making everything kind of a droning muddle.
And Alec aka Blake, just CUT through all that. Suddenly his voice singulary commands attention. Youre sharp suddenly focused on the intent of what he is saying.
Every word that ensues begins to paint a picture of these mens future, Alec is the unrelently certain fate that will befall each of them if they don't change course, manifest in flesh. He is every fear theyve had every doubt in their mind they have horbored about themselves being spoken out loud.
After he is finished you hate Blake, he's disgusting, a soulless yuppee who has no compunction letting these boys know he's better than them. What's even uglier is clearly got their through family connection which these men don't have.
But what's so damning is Blake is so ugly but so right also and thats what really stings. He's right more or less about these men in many ways, they likely didnt challenge themselves and ended up here and now have to come face to face with it here with him.
The speech literally leaves me not only wanting to go punch Blake but also step up and go push myself further, out of anger and spite toward what he said. To show him and anyone else who doubted you.
I don't know I just am not sure I've seen a speech so clever and effective at getting you to feel so many emotions at once. Rage, anger, ineptitude, fear and so on.
What did you think?
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Why is Stanley Kubrick the only major film director accused of steganography?
Ever since Dr. Strangelove was released, Stanley Kubrick's films have continued to invite endless speculation that he purposefully embedded hidden meanings in his work.
Whether he's doing sci-fi, historical drama, horror, thriller, or a war film - the movies themselves have attracted a considerable number of analyses alleging the presence of hidden themes.
I've also noticed that the same does not seem to apply to any of his peers, whether that's on the mainstream side or the arthouse side.
My question is less about the legitimacy of those theories and more about Kubrick's approach to filmmaking itself. What makes his films stand out in terms of visual style, editing and writing/themes explored that has made his work, dare I say, so over-analyzed?
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seemingly hidden shots of ordinary people, as if we are watching the stupor of the crowd from the outside through a completely neutral lens. Both the sea and the crowd elicit a sense of indifference, and the watcher may already wonder if they are as much part of the stupor as the people who are shown to live their mundane lives so carelessly.
Even without the sci-fi elements, there is a cosmic horror in the movie: Being utterly alone and abandoned in this universe, being disconnected from it all, and drowning either in the noise of the sea or the noise of the mundane and ordinary.
And if we cannot muster any empathy, then we are in fact the ordinary crowd, the ones who are disconnected.
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Fight Club(1999) and Four Lions(2010): pre-9/11 and post-9/11 black comedies
September 11th attack shocked the film industry as much as everything else. After immediate reaction of censoring sensitive images, films changed their tone drastically. The most famous case is probably Independence Day(1996) and War of the Worlds(2005). Former treated mass destruction with tounge in cheek, "We will survive" tone, while latter is more serious and "Humans are real animals" tone.
Fight Club
I recently watched Fight Club and it was very pre-9/11 with some late 90s film tropes. The 'Narrator' is dissatisfied with his boring but stable life and rebels to conformist society (American Beauty, Office Space). He joins radical, sexy underground group (Matrix). Their terrorism is treated tongue in cheek way with very little human cost (True Lies).
I won't summarize entire plot of Fight Club, but the 3rd act is centered around Project Mayhem. Fight Club turned from guys punching each other to full blown cult, as members shave their head, moves to old house, and work day and night for free. Their actions evolved from feeding pigeons diarrhea medicine to blowing away credit card companies to end credit society. 'Narrator' freaks out of Project Mayhem but the movie mostly sticks to tongue in cheek or even anti hero tone. Only one death is shown and even that is a member shot by police. Tyler Durdon, leader of the club, insist no one will die from bombing.
And why it reminded me of Four Lions
The whole third act reminded me of Four Lions(2010). A British film about unbelievably dumb jihadists from Northern England. It's 180 degrees different from Fight Club. For example unlike Fincher's smooth and precise camera work in Fight Club, Four Lions uses documentary style hand held camera popularized by The Office.
But the biggest difference is how they portray terrorism. Fight Club is led by muscular Brad Pitt with sexy outfit, and he gives charismatic speech about consumerism and masculinity. Pitt's portrayal of Tyler Durden is so great it got infamous for getting uncritical worship from naive audiences.
Jihadists in Four Lions wears unassuming cloth, lives in dull place, gives ridiculous speech or even rap. Their belief is mix of pop culture, vague anger to consumerism and very limited knowledge about Islam (one guy can't understand how praying to Mecca works) Those jihadists' plan is wearing bomb under silly costume and blow themselves in London Marathon, which goes horribly but hilariously wrong.
Differences and similarites
The difference between two films came from the period they were made. Fight Club was made when terrorism wasn't top concern in people's mind, even though we experienced major terror attacks in 1995 Oklahoma City and 1993 WTC. Four Lions was made when terrorism was major threat, to a level we overestimated the danger so much we invaded Iraq.
But they have similarites too. They precisely portrayed how cults control followers by humiliation and sense of belonging. They twist our expectation on terrorism. Their protagonist is soft speaking cult leader who lost control what they started. And this is my favorite similarity, they have gay characters who joins group to prove their masculinity. Narrater in Fight Club is famously queer coded. Barry in Four Lions, the only white member of the group, is closeted gay man who 'test' other jihadists by making them pee on his mouth.
My writing got too long as I write. I hope it's readable. If you haven't watch these movies, I highly recommemd watching them both, preferably as double feature. They make each other even funnier, as I can see Fight Club is what extremists imagine themselves, but they're actually just idiots in Four Lions.
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First Slow-Burn psychological Feature Film with no Experience
Hey everyone, its friday today according the rules i think i can post today? Not sure if FFF stands for the right threads?
I helped making this film: Hydrangeas Blood the past 4 years.
The film is about the mental processes of Laura a woman who has lived their childhood and young adulthood being misunderstood, criticized and neglected by society and those around her. And how she dealt with those internalized emotions with no access to support growing up.
Although I had a small role as an extra in the train scene, what i know about it is that its based off of real experiences by the director moving to a country as a child.
At the premiere I wasnt expecting the final cut of the film, I only had a better idea of what the film was about after watching it. It really hit me emotionally which surprised me. I had low expectations for this film. But found myself in the end being like "what the fuck did I just watch". Its not perfect, but honestly for someone inexperienced, inexperienced actors and low equipment.
There was no funding from what i know, it was solely the savings of the director which went to permits and equipment. But something about this film stayed on my mind for weeks.
I just wanted to help out a bit and invite anyone out there who likes subjects of shadow work or trauma to watch it. I would love to know your thoughts!
Its on youtube: https://youtu.be/aRivb9TUqn4?si=hXTikCDo0OYdjRsQ
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Is Godzilla Minus One Imperial Propaganda?
Is Godzilla Minus One Imperial Propaganda?
I think Godzilla Minus One is a fantastic monster movie that finds an excellent balance between action, drama, and sincerity, however I did find myself questioning the way it depicts this time period, and Japanese denialism.
The moment that really caught me off guard was the speech about how the imperial government didn’t value human life due citing among other things, “poorly armored tanks, and poor supply chains”. This stood out to me as an odd choice of wording because while yes these things are true, are we not going to also mention their blatant war crimes that include the butchering of hundreds of thousands of civilians & POW? The war consistently reflects on the costs that were inflected on Japanese society, but has little to nothing to say about anything beyond that, and with imperial Japan inflicting a death toll in the millions, it seems to be an odd choice. Does anyone else agree or feel the same way?
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"Pride" said to be worse than Envy, Greed, Lust or Wrath/Rage, all of which look instantly dangerous. This film sketches out all the answers to that.
Pride is called the "root/father of all sins" because it doesn't just destroy you by itself but it subconsciously plants the seeds for all the 6 other deadly sins to insidiously cultivate. "I still remember those cheers, they still ring in my ears" is the iconic opening line of the film where Jake reflects on where his immense amounts of pride stemmed from: the success and validation being a great boxer brought him. It planted the idea in him that he is the superior and can beat down anyone in a ring and hence he can beat down anyone in his personal life, even if it is his wife or brother.
This later gives rise to
Lust, pursuing other women and staying up all night late at nightclubs while being married
Envy, over Vikkie making the smallest compliment over Jake's opponent which escalated to insane amounts of paranoia over his wife
Wrath, which should be self-explanatory given his nickname "Raging Bull" and during the scene where he beats up his loved ones like an animal
Greed, for success and championships even if it means mutilating his opponents
Gluttony, which is exemplified in the later stages of his career by Jake failing to lose weight and always eating junk food to the dismay of Joey
and finally Sloth, which is all he ends up with at the end of the film, physically overweight and lazy comedian, forced into retirement due to weight struggles.
The final 20-30 minutes of this film portrays his downfall so viscerally. When Jake screams "I'm not an animal" all alone in an isolation prison, punching his hurtful hands against the wall, it feels like Jake has realized the biggest battle he had to win wasn't inside no boxing ring, but inside his own mental cage that he had built for himself with his vices and excessive pride.
There is this quick run-through of years in Jake LaMotta's life from 1944 to 1947 around the 40 minute mark of this film which does heavy lifting symbolically. In this segment, you get the only colour shots of the film, and those are shots of Jake "winning" in his personal life, building a family/bond with Vikkie & his brother Joey. These colour shots are intertwined with the usual Black & White shots of Jake winning games in a boxing ring.
The colour shots show something transiently beautiful that Jake never really achieves anytime in his personal life later, despite his glorious professional achievements in black & white. His hunger/rage for success in the boxing world and his tendency to get envious of his wife's normal behavior is what hinders his personal life moving forward and makes it colorless.
Overall, I think Raging Bull is one of the best cautionary tales that you can find in Cinema. I was even more impressed by this film on re-watch and got inspired to write this post. I still consider it to be Martin Scorsese's best movie. I wasn't surprised when I later found out that Scorsese grew up devoutly Catholic and even considered becoming a priest.
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Mickey 17 review and critiques
Thats my full review and i wanna hear your reviews 🫶🏻
https://boxd.it/f2hhq3
Honestly i really enjoyed the film but i hear not everyone does so i wanna hear your downsides
Overall, I really enjoyed Mickey 17. I only had two issues:
1. Its occasionally cartoonish satire.
2. The sheer number of themes it tries to juggle. The film had so much to say that many of its ideas didn’t receive the depth they deserved. :(
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Obsession is not about an incel.
Literally Bear is not an incel. He literally could be in a relantionship with Sarah if he wanted (he know Sarah is interesed in him). If you know real incels You know they would be with any random girl since they usually are just obsessed with the idea of having a girlfriend without really mattering who that girl is. And i know this is a semantic issue but I am tired with this catch all term for every male issue without really questioning what it is happening.
This is my interpretation of course but to me this movie is about what love is and the false idea of love. Ber doesnt love Nikki. If he loved her he wouldnt like her being brainwashed to be with him. He just likes the abstract idea of Nikki and the fantasy of the two of them being together. In a ironic way "Nikki" (the fake one) also doesnt love Ber. She doesnt care about Ber and what he wants or anything concrete about him. She is just obsessed with being with him. When Ber wishes Nikki was in love with him, this is what he means with love and that is why Nikki acts the way she does.
Well as i said at the start this is also related to incels. But i think it is more broad than that.
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The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
I watched The Lovers on the Bridge (1991) last night. I think the last part of the movie is some sort of posthumous fever dream of Alex's invention, and not the real way his and Michèle's relationship resolved. I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but chatting with my cinephile friends, none of them seemed to have heard of this theory before.
Alex and Michèle somehow end up with weird haircuts at some point in the film: this is "the last part" I'm referring to. Prior to their hair change, we see Alex stumble drunk into the Seine, perhaps where he really would drown and die.
I see lots of discrepancies with this last act, apart from hair. First, there is a distinct change in both protagonists style, now dressed and arranged as total opposites of their characters. Up until then, Alex was bald, and only seen wearing black -- he is now sporting a head of full hair, and rocks a bright and colorful sweater. Michèle, on the other hand, wore bright colors throughout the film (red and yellow), and a head of messy hair -- she's now got a slick side part and wears chic black fitted clothing. Both of them are also way too clean as compared to how they were before.
Then, there is the search-poster induced psychosis situation. Way too many of them are found around the city, which gave me the hunch that Alex's probably having some sort of hallucinations or is dead, I don't know. It seems unlikely that someone in love would not want their partner to retrieve their sense of sight, but I believe Alex's ultimate fear was that Michèle would fall in love with her surgeon, as is later suggested when we see her go home at night to her doctor's office, as if they were moved in together. When Michèle is made aware of the search party organized for her, we hear the radio say that she has been missing for 6 months. However, in the letter written by her friend that Alex reads at the beginning of the movie when he goes through her stuff, we learn that she has been gone for 3 years.
The last straw for me is Michèle going back to Alex. After she's got herself out of the street and possibly -- who knows if this happened or not -- coupled with her surgeon, it would make no sense that she would abandon this newfound economic/social/familial stability to go back with Alex, freshly released from prison, the person she's lived the most intense and traumatic moment of her life.
I really liked the movie until that part, which I first thought was true. But after I've analyzed all the details I've just listed, it seems to me like it definitely is a fantasy of Alex's creation, and I like this perspective better than the happy ending most seem to accept as fact. I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this!
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My Obsession Interpretation
I finally saw Obsession last night, and had a reading of the film that I haven't seen online yet. It might a bit out there, curious to hear everyone's thoughts.
In essence, I think it works as a perfect allegory for how the dynamics of social media and content creation are poisoning hetero dating and gender expectations.
Women are being increasingly incentivized to present versions of themselves online that are totally idealized under the male gaze. Forming parasocial attachments, men fall in love with these unrealistic representations, or come to develop similar superficial/submissive/commitment-free expectations in their dating life. In parallel, women are constantly being nudged to think of these dynamics as normal, with the risk of moving deeper and deeper into these archetypes while suppressing their true selves and autonomy.
Through black magic, Bear was able to secure this type of girlfriend for himself and was only really opposed to the situation when it inconvenienced him personally despite the costs for Nikki, with subtle displays of entitlement undermining his socially acceptable "nice guy" presentation. It is strongly suggested that he is mainly into Nikki for her appearance, and doesn’t seem particularly bothered as her real personality fades away. Nikki represents a formerly independent woman forced to become someone whose entire identity is contingent on male approval (in the form of Bear), despite her subconscious occasionally bubbling up in opposition.
In real life, the "black magic" behind these trends are the algorithms, nudging us subconsciously towards toxic expectations. Bear has the illusion of control over Nikki, but pretty soon the relationship takes over his life and he loses his freedom and certainty in whether what he is experiencing is "real"—reminiscent of the dissociation felt by being chronically online. Bear probably was a genuinely nice guy at the beginning of the movie, but the "black magic" gradually pushes him to accept a degree of darkness in himself, just like our behavior is shaped by our use of social media.
Interacting with indifferent customer service (both by phone and in the occult store) further cements this feeling of loss of control, even as the representatives acknowledge the horrors their product is creating—not unlike the apathetic attitude of tech companies as more evidence piles up against them. In the meantime, virally-boosted manosphere and tradwife influencers continue to normalize the toxicity. There's even something to be said about how partner selection has become more and more algo-driven with Tinder, Bumble, etc.
Not sure if any of this was intentional, but Curry Barker has grown up in a world steeped with this stuff, so maybe there's something there—consciously or otherwise.
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he had enough credibility to go hog wild. As a result we have the greatness of *Blue Velvet*, for instance, a movie that could be enjoyed by grandma for its 1950s aesthetic trappings and sense of mystery and by high-art critics for it’s thematic cohesion and originality.
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Why did propaganda movies become so boring? They used to make absolute bangers.
I’ve been thinking about this lately—why does modern propaganda feel so exhausting to sit through compared to older stuff?
When you look back at older films, whether it’s Soviet cinema like Battleship Potemkin, classic Hollywood or even 80s Cold War hype like Top Gun, they were genuinely great movies. You might completely disagree with the politics behind them, but the filmmaking was still incredible. They knew how to hide the message inside something entertaining. The pacing was sharp, the emotional beats worked, and the visuals actually pulled people in.
Now when a movie tries to push a strong political or ideological message, it often feels painfully obvious. Everything feels flat, preachy, and weirdly lifeless. Instead of telling a compelling story and letting the message land naturally, a lot of scripts feel like they’re trying to lecture the audience. It ends up feeling more like an expensive HR training video than an actual movie.
So what changed? Did director lose the ability to make propaganda that’s actually compelling because everything is run by corporate committees now? Or has the internet made people too skeptical and media-aware to buy into these kinds of narratives the way audiences used to?
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Spielberg’s A.I.
So, I recently watched Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence for the first time. Although it is indeed messy, man, it’s still a highly fascinating film that raises plenty of ethical questions about AI, especially the way it’ll function in interpersonal relationships, dealing with the key human aspects such as trauma and sex, and whether the ‘real’ question will even really matter.
Anyway, I wanted to talk about the Flesh Fair passage, which really acutely captures different aspects of human psychology. Of course, the scene perfectly reflects the manner in which humans consistently dehumanise a particular thing via ‘othering.’ Essentially, if they’re not like us, then ethical principles don’t need to apply. And maybe, if the robots are literally just robots and not having a conscious experience, then maybe this is not an ethical conundrum, although it still reflects poorly as a form a mindless, barbaric entertainment. Although, clearly Spielberg is suggesting that maybe the robots are having a conscious experience of suffering and fear, and if that is the case, then this entertainment is straight up torture and the same ethical principles we have such actions should be applied to robots. I think it’s really telling when one of the robots fearfully asks another robot “if you could turn off my pain receptors?” Clearly such a comment indicates a sense of fear prior to potentially being tortured.
Another aspect of this scene that is also quite illuminating is the manner in which human empathy is biased and sometimes isn’t the best indicator for what we should do morally. As the scene progresses, the viewers are more than happy to watch the other robots be destroyed because they look fundamentally different; however, once the boy arrives on the stage, they begin to have moral qualms because of the innocence and similarity to them. Yet, if all the robots, including the ones that look different and the ones that look similar, are all having a genuine subjective experience (which Spielberg seems to suggest), then moral principles should be provided to all of them and not just the one who looks similar to us. Thus, our empathy bias towards similar has misconstrued what the correct moral action is. Although, knowing that something is conscious hasn’t really stopped humans before, just look at factory farming and any marginalised group throughout history.
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Carlos (2010 dir. Olivier Assayas)
So my understanding is that in the film, the PFLP is paid to carry out the OPEC siege by Saddam Hussein because he wants to raise the price of oil so that he will have the necessary funds to wage war against the Kurds. I can't find any other sources that cite this - every Wikipedia page I can find seems to agree that the object of the attack was to raise awareness about the Palestinian cause - so is it a complete fabrication by Assayas and co.?
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