29
An in - depth discussion of film @reddit2telegram @r_channels
Do not go into La Bola Negra blind
I often like to watch movies without having seen the full trailer or know much about the film. In the case of La Bola Negra, all I knew was that it was acclaimed, was probably going to be nominated for an Oscar, and had Penelope Cruz, and all that was enough for me to go into the movie theater for 2 hours 40 minutes.
My opinion js that, to really appreciate this film, you need context. You need to on a surface level understand 1930s Spain and the impact on the country, especially how LGBT people were treated. You need to understand that the film is based on real life figures and that it is providing a uchronian narrative ending to real life events
With some minor historical knowledge, you will appreciate the emotional weight of the themes more. The bittersweet alternative ending to the life of a tragic poet and those who will loved him will be felt more. The generational trauma to the modern day character will also be understood more.
https://redd.it/1xsb4gf
@r_truefilm
the fantasy did. Betty's gaze is fixed to the singer, but Rita emotes the catharsis Betty feels, ever the device by which Betty processes her experience.
The singer collapses, though, and the reconciliation is not permitted to continue; it is interrupted by (dun dun dun) the cube. Betty disappears and Rita opens it, transitioning the audience to Diane's experience. We are treated to a sequence switching between the living and dead Diane in bed, Diane's neighbor comes to collect her things, then Diane believes she sees Camilla (the Rita-equivalent in Diane's experience), who one moment appears to be Camilla, and the next is revealed to be Diane herself. We are to understand that Camilla operates in Diane's experience much the same as Rita does in Betty's.
Diane's mood, mannerisms, and her story to follow all seem to indicate that she doesn't reconcile herself with her true sexual identity. She is excited but also seemingly on-edge at the sight of Camilla, and when Camilla rejects her during intimacy later, we know why: Camilla is Diane's means of understanding / expressing herself, and Diane is appalled at the fact that Camilla is denying who she believes she is. Diane is appalled to learn that her experience--a part of the mind witnessing itself, and her personal truth--diverges from the dominant narrative the mind is aligning itself with. Camilla's actions are a sign that the mind is rejecting the way Diane, and probably also Betty, are experiencing it.
This becomes ever more apparent when Diane attends the dinner party. We begin with Camilla telling Diane that "it means so much to [her\]" that Diane is attending the party, while it is clear that Diane feels coerced to go. Diane's experience is being altered for her by the mind, and she is being made to go along with a narrative that is not her own. At the dinner party, Camilla and Adam (the director) announce their upcoming marriage, and Camilla taunts Diane by being intimate with another woman. This is the mind enforcing its rejection of its own queerness through the experience of Diane (essentially telling itself a lie by presenting that lie as truth in one of its self-experiences), and then mocking the notion that it possesses queer sexuality as a defense mechanism against the uncertainties and instabilities in this false narrative, which are created by Diane's existence and past experiences.
Diane, her will to experience queer identity authentically sufficiently subdued by the mind, is then led to kill herself. Perhaps it is torment that drives her to suicide, or perhaps the mind needed to subdue this experience of itself so that it could comfortably and self-assuredly destroy whatever nagging remnants of its queer identity remained. I prefer the latter.
(Start of TL/DR)
The mind wished not to possess a queer identity. It was awakened to this identity through the experience of Betty. The end of Betty's experience, her disappearance before the audience is introduced to Diane's experience (Rita is left, and the tool by which the mind transports its influence to Diane's experience), and Betty's absence throughout the rest of the film might suggest the mind destroyed her experience in the instant we leave it. Through Diane's experience, the mind rejects its queer identity, presents a normative identity as truth, and ultimately destroys Diane to remove all traces of its queerness, all experiences of the mind that might remember when it still acknowledged its queer awakening. Rita and Camilla are the mind's devices for expressing itself (and its will) within Betty's and Diane's experiences (which goes against what I claimed previously, but I believe this is closer to the truth).
Now, for symbolism that doesn't neatly fit into what I've already written:
The man out back, or the bum as some people call the figure, is perceived as a man by the frightened man in the films opening sequence, but appears to be a woman, and is in fact played by a woman. The man out back is filthy and rejected by society, and is even feared by some. I think the androgynous nature of
smile is fleeting, and who always seems to be on his way somewhere, is not quite living like a normal child. Juxtaposing him visually with other children draws attention to what is missing in his life. Much different from scenes with his siblings, where Akira merely stands out as older.
In the second half, outsiders begin to enter the family’s world, not always to good effect. Two kids Akira’s age, who earlier framed him for stealing at a grocery store, try to persuade him to bite the proverbial hand that feeds him. They distract Akira from his duties as de facto patriarch. Another character who enters the picture is a depressed young girl, a drop-out who embraces the family’s outsider status. She becomes like an older sister to Yuki and Sumi, but her means of earning money, which she gives to Akira, seems to exacerbate his feelings of helplessness.
While the new characters are interesting, and there are some happy moments in store as well, the second half is basically one long slide into increasingly sadder circumstances. Four siblings and a friend, all age 14 or under, cannot pull themselves out of the slump of poverty. It is a credit to Koreeda that he doesn’t try to compose a fairy tale ending. Yet the unexpected jolt towards the film’s end, which I won’t give away, left a cold pallor over my heart. By giving us the ultimate tragedy, Koreeda emphasizes how utterly powerless his characters are. This, I agree, is necessary. It is also almost unbearable.
I watched this movie with someone who lived in Japan for several years. She was the one who informed me that the Japanese public has long ignored the problem of child abandonment. When she said "ignore," I thought back to all the people Akira and his siblings encountered, who either tacitly accepted their desperate existence, or seemed perfectly oblivious to it. I distinctly recall the scene where Akira and the drop-out girl are at the supermarket buying soft drinks. The girl stands there clean and well-groomed, while Akira looks like Mowgli stumbled out of Kipling’s The Jungle Book. But the cashier doesn’t notice this; he simply takes their money, then turns a blind eye.
Blind eye-turning happens a lot. For a while, the family lives out of a public park, within plain sight of people. Social services never comes a-calling, which leads one to believe that nobody called them.
And therein lies the real tragedy: Not that the kids have been abandoned, but nobody cares they’ve been abandoned. The public does not see them suffering, perhaps, because they deceive themselves into thinking the situation is perfectly ordinary. Yeah, all those other children are Akira's cousins. Yeah, the boy looks slovenly because all boys do. Nobody acknowledges these kids are abandoned. Nobody wants to. Should they pass out of the world, no one would know they had left. No one would know to miss them.
https://redd.it/1xs38m3
@r_truefilm
Lust, Caution(2007)
A great film about the complex relationship between member of a puppet government and an espionage trying to get into his personal life. The thing I most liked about this that despite being a chinese film, it didnt show the struggle for freedom against the japanese as a just black and white picture, like the students who are trying to be a part of the resilience are all saint, doing it for patriotism and sacrifice themselves for country etc etc- its more complex than that. Some are participating for adrenaline rush, some for just to be a part of a group cause of their family detachment, like these might not be the main reason but playing a huge role behind the participation which is actually close to real life decision makings in the time of war or protests. We can see them making tons of ameturish decisions in the film at the beginning, which is refreshing to see that director isnt trying to make another heist movie in war settings.
Also our main espionage character(Chia Chi) isnt any kind of superhuman. She is constantly manipulating and being manipulated by Mr.Yee(the person she is trying to honeypot), the motivation behind the double life starts getting mixed up between her country, the organisation she is working for and the person of interest. Mr. Yee, no matter how important person he is in the secret service, is powerless inside cause in the end he is working for the japanese. We can see that insecurity and void in him and the expression of that through his interactions with Chia Chi throughout the film. Tony Leung and Tang Wei both were brilliant in their roles.
The set design looked very convincing too. One scene I particularly want to mention,at the beginning of the film the Mahjong playing scene where through camera movement we can see how Chia Chi is observing every movement and talking from other woman and thinking whats she gonna response. I really liked it and the film hooked me by it at the very start.
Overall, a really really under discussed film compared to its quality and scale. also if you see who directed it(Ang Lee), its more buffling. I would highly recommend this film if you are into thriller or ww2 genre in general. Thanks.
https://redd.it/1xs14iw
@r_truefilm
michael man's notes to the editor, heat (1995)
i saw this shared by vashi nedomansky on twitter (x) - https://x.com/vashikoo/status/2119638073504051402
the notes felt inspiring. very articulate on what was needed. describing based on what feeling the director hopes to achieve. wonder how many such notes would have been passed and it made me keen to read more of them. gives insight into so many interesting choices the director makes. the french film critic jean-baptiste thoret called mann an epistemologist. these notes reinforce how sharp his artistic vision is and he's displayed remarkable consistency throughout his works. always beautiful to see a great artist at work.
https://redd.it/1xrtad0
@r_truefilm
People who watched You Can See Everything in the movie theater-did this also happen to you?
Okay this is kinda crazy but I just got home after walking out of my local cinema's screening of You Can See Everything, with more than 2/3 of the movie left. Why? Because the audience was laughing at absolutely everything. Like actually, laughing out loud in scenes that weren't funny at all in my opinion?
It was absolutely surreal. Obviously being Nathan Fielder, there were quite a lot of awkward moments and interactions that might get a small chuckle out of someone, but most people were straight up cackling. For a movie so intimate and disconcerting at times, this completely shattered my sense of immersion.
I have been anxiously waiting to watch this movie for months but I just couldn't get past the audience's reaction around me, so much so that I decided to walk out (first time in my life) and stream it at home when it comes out.
Has anyone here experienced this type of reaction when watching it? Or maybe were you one of the people that found it funny? Genuinely seeking answers since I am not even angry or disappointed, just baffled and confused really.
Is the movie actually that funny and I'm just in the minority? Or could it be that these people were familiar with Nathan's more comedic work and were actively looking for the funny moment where there was none?
TLDR: walked out of my You Can See Everything's local screening because the audience kept laughing.
https://redd.it/1xrccre
@r_truefilm
itself out of tight spots inelegantly, or acts largely without consequences. Because of course, Akiko drives away with Noriko and Koichi at the end. Of course, all plans just burn themselves. And so on.
In the end, though, it remains a superb theatrical experience and a top-shelf Toho Godzilla. In the future, however, I’d love to see it venture a bit further into the future, because the post-WW2 era and the inherent victim mentality of a perpetrator (even if two things can be true at the same time) is wearing a bit thin. It's okay to lean into the fun a little more if you don't have much to say.
I fear, though, that in the next installment, the Americans will somehow find the plans and piece them back together to do something with them. Instead, they should dedicate a sequel set in the future focusing on Akiko, this child is going to grow up emotionally completely unhinged and would surely make a great antagonist.
But be that as it may. It was more cinema for the heart than for the mind. And that's fine too.
https://redd.it/1xre2en
@r_truefilm
Casual Discussion Thread (November 09, 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.
Follow us on:
[Letterboxd](http://letterboxd.com/truefilmreddit/)
Twitter
The sidebar has a wealth of information, including the subreddit rules, our killer wiki, all of our projects... If you're on a mobile app, click the "(i)" button on our frontpage.
Sincerely,
David
https://redd.it/1xrd0oa
@r_truefilm
I watched Obsession and I’m traumatized
I had a short 4 hr flight to chicago and decided to watch a movie. I had no real context going into the movie. I only heard of obsession vaguely and saw the “no,no, no” scene as a meme.
I didn’t expect to be literally traumatized before landing like I’m genuinely sick to my stomach. It’s so depraved in a psychological way and to leave Nikki ALIVE at the very end of the movie was such a gut punch.
This might be a reach but I see a similar dynamic with girls on the street getting hooked on drugs by their pimps or boyfriends. If youve ever spent any time around them or watch a few episodes of soft white under belly you see clearly see the Bear/Nikki dynamic especially after the girl gets hooked on hard drugs. The decline in her physical condition is almost the same as a few months as a junkie.
Making Bear a soft nervous quiet guy was genius. It turns the face of evil on its head and shows how the “nice guy” takes advantage too. Man Ian was my hero when he pointed out how bear was taking advantage of Nikki. Whats so poignant was how even when things where INSANE with Nikki publicly no one said anything! Thats exactly how a bad situation gets worse because no one speaks out OPENLY while its happening. Ian even points out it would be taking advantage of her BEFORE it happens and bear agrees and still straight up r8pes her! Knowingly! Openly! Without plausible deniability. It really does show how some people wont act aggressively but will take advantage of a situation if allowed too.
Nikki pleading with Bear to kill her nearly brought me to tears, then for him to turn his pasty ass around and tell Sarah a lie! To be so obsessed with her that even after pure deranged insanity he wants to keep her obessed with him and under his control is a level of sick I didn’t expect to encounter.
Nikkis acting was incredible.
I’m watching PG movies for now on. Im not a “I want movies to make me feel” type of person. I did not expect to be knocked off my ass in my row 23 window seat.
https://redd.it/1xr2tty
@r_truefilm
The Great Mother archetype in My Neighbor Totoro – a Jungian analysis
Is Totoro a representation of the Great Mother?
I've always found Totoro fascinating, not just as a character, but as something that seems to embody a deeper connection between childhood and nature.
I recently made a video exploring My Neighbor Totoro through Carl Jung's concept of the Great Mother archetype.
I'd love to hear what other Ghibli fans think. Is there something more to Totoro than initially meets the eye?
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmwlhPzNaks \]
https://redd.it/1xqgp39
@r_truefilm
montage sequence. Rocky 1 gives us the OG training montage. The second one adds a chicken and recreates it, and the crowd goes wild.
For Rocky 3, sure, Stallone's directing again, but the studio is involved now. Their notes: "MORE MONTAGE". One in the front, one in the middle. And fuck it, one more right after the middle one too.
The opening one introduces us to Eye of the Tiger, written for the movie by Survivor. We are to believe it's not just a song, but a fighting concept as well. It also brings us the franchise's best villain, Clubber Lang, played by Monsieur T.
At this point, we're clearly being influenced by the Bond movies. There's a clear formula, a cold-open action set piece (not just a recap, for the first time), and even supervillains with incredible names. We transition straight from meeting Clubber Lang to wrestling with Hulk Hogan's hornier-than-thou 'Thunderlips' in a spectacularly choreographed exhibition match.
The third entry also shifts the franchise from drama to action (it shifts back later: see above). Rocky 3 puts us immediately in the ring, gives us an early high-stakes boxing match, and is all the more propulsive for it.
Struggle. Train. Win. (I'm in)
4/5 stars
Rocky 2
The Rocky in Rocky 2 is so glib, dumb and damaged that it would have been easy to typecast Stallone as the strong idiot from here on out. "I play Rocky" could have been a career-ending demand. But the commitment to this performance is exactly what makes Rocky 2 so great.
He's got nothing. His fight with Creed is over, he damn near died in the ring with him. We believe he can't return to boxing. His right (or left?) retina is hanging on by a thread, and one more punch to the head might blind him forever. So he tries to make it on his own, without the fighting.
It's fantastic. I'm a sucker for tragedy, so a boxer whose only chance at life is fighting, but can't fight, is cinematic catnip. Watching a man with the cadence of a podcast played at .5 speed, and a mouthful of gravel, struggle through an aftershave commercial creates one of the best scenes the series has. His miserable failures at other day jobs add exceptionally to the drama.
As for the boxing ring's stakes, we're just running back the first movie and that's fine. Adrian comes out of a coma after giving birth and tells him to win. He's seemingly inspired. Bet you'll never guess how this one ends.
4.5/5 stars
Rocky 4
It's capitalism versus communism in the fourth Rocky, which is a rollicking ride from start to finish. The Bond influence has fully infiltrated the screenplay, with British exceptionalism swapped out for a celebration of American capitalism. As Creed says in the first Rocky, "only in America", right?
Ivan Drago is more than a villain here, he's a specimen. Designed and trained to be studied, he's been hardened by a lifetime of Soviet winters, plus a ton of steroids. Much like Jaws in *Moonraker*, Drago barely talks. He doesn't need to. After he administers a particularly brutal beating to another fighter, he says coldly, "If he dies, he dies."
There's a dramatic death at the midpoint that may elevate this film for some, but for me, this one is all about the montage. The studio head who green-lit three montages for Rocky 3 did a line of blow off a boxing glove then turned into Kylo Ren, of *The Last Jedi* meme fame, simply screaming "MORE!"
A montage of the montages from the previous 3 Rocky movies appears onscreen while Balboa drives his Lamborghini and 'No Easy Way Out' blasts on the soundtrack.
I don't know what heaven looks like to you, but this was it for me.
An all-timer. 4.5/5 stars
Rocky
What could I possibly say about the first Rocky that hasn't been said already? It's an instant classic. It practically perfected the modern sports-movie genre. It's a movie whose creation seemingly mirrored its own storyline in such a way that we've circled all the way back to making a Rocky movie about the making of the first Rocky movie.
So let's reserve this space for something more important. This is our FUCK PAULIE section.
Paulie in
The Loved Ones (2009) is the best horror film of the century.
I first saw this movie at TIFF in 2009 and it struck me in a way that few horror movies have.
I’ve kept up with Sean Byrne and I enjoyed The Devils Candy and loved his most recent film Dangerous Animals. Yet, The Loved Ones is a cut above everything else.
When I first saw it most people got mad because I couldn’t shut up about it. I kept describing it as “What if Norman Bates had a child” and after recently watching both Psycho and The Loved Ones again, I still feel this description is apt.
Let’s start with John Brumpton as the subservient father who was belittled by his daughter in a willingly almost fetishized way. In my mind a perfect nod to Anthony Perkins performance as Norman Bates.
Then we have the hilarious comparison between the prom from heaven and the prom from hell. I love the way they cross between Jamie and Brent’s prom experience, it always gets a laugh out of me.
Robin McLeavey is absolutely brilliant as Lola and should go down as one of the best horror villains. The scene of her dancing with Brent is both one of the most terrifying and hilarious moments in any horror movie.
Oh yeah also at the end there’s >!zombies!<
This movie is to me the a Tarantino style horror film built on theft. It takes pieces from all these other horror movies and pieces them together in a mosaic that becomes its own original beautiful thing.
If you’ve never seen this movie do yourself a favour it’s a great ride. If you’ve never have seen it, what do you think of The Loved Ones? What do you think of Sean Byrne?
Extra Hot Take: Red Rooms (2023) might actually be my favourite from this century but I feel it leans closer to suspense/thriller than horror.
https://redd.it/1xr42ao
@r_truefilm
Lord of Illusions (1995)
Lord of Illusions (1995)
Rating: 8/10
Watched: November 7, 2026
Lord of Illusions is an under-talked-about movie from Clive Barker, and that’s a real shame, because even with heavy studio interference, a mostly miscast Scott Bakula, and a mashup of genres that I personally appreciate, it’s a really good movie.
Part of that’s from my love of books like Imajica and The Great and Secret Show. There are elements of those novels in this movie, in that the magic being used by Nix is filthy, obscene, a kind of gutterborn, twisted magic that’s as foul as it is miraculous.
I love the nastiness of Barker’s magic. There’s a particular passage in The Great and Secret Show where Kissoon, a shaman of some sort, uses his own bodily excretions (all of them) to make snakes. The very specific gross luridness of that passage has stuck with me for nearly 40 years, and that’s the kind of foulness that Nix’s magic has.
It’s all about decaying flesh, satiation, grotesque hunger, and Daniel von Bargen sells every bit of that fetidness as Nix attempts to achieve godhood. If you think von Bargen is recognizable but you can’t place him, he’s been in everything from Malcolm in the Middle to Crimson Tide to Six Degrees of Separation. That’s quite the pedigree (which I’m just learning about, to be honest).
His counterpart, Kevin J. O’Connor as Philip Swann, needs no damn introduction at all. We all for sure know him as Beni from The Mummy, because of course we do. It’s a genuine shame that he plays second fiddle to Scott Bakula as Harry D’Amour, and for more reasons than because I do think Scott (who is a good actor in his own right) was miscast.
It’s because I want to see more of Philip Swann, and his use of Nix’s magic as he climbed the stage to become the world’s most popular magician, that’s why. We see how Swann uses that magic in the beginning of the movie, and it’s the same kind of blood-tainted nastiness, and we never really get to see how he turns this very venal power into world-class illusions.
Now I’ve got Swann and Nix covered; it’s time to talk D’Amour. I don’t hate him. I just think he’s in the wrong movie, at least to a degree. I love noir almost as much as I love horror, but it’s a bit flat here. I don’t know if the 12 minutes that Barker added back in to his Unrated Director’s Cut fleshes that out, but the movie as it stands leaves D’Amour as so painfully unrealized it’s a crime unto itself. Bakula’s got the chops to do a lot more; he should’ve been allowed to do it.
They do such a good job of hinting and teasing at D’Amour’s background, at his handling of an exorcism, and while they zing us now and then with a few moments about that past, it’s not nearly enough. Sure, D’Amour’s dealt with evil before, but much like Swann, we’re not really given enough of it. That? A cryin’ shame.
Lord of Illusions has all the workings of a filthy, wretched slice of back-alley godhood transcendence, but studios are gonna studio, right? Thirty years later, and we’re still seeing the kind of studio interference where the people holding onto the financial reins fundamentally miss the point of the movie that’s trying to be made.
MGM/UA wanted a movie that didn’t have quite so much noir and detective-ing, which is fine, I guess. But how anyone at the studio could’ve read Lord of Illusions as it was and think, “No, yeah, we can repurpose this into something more commercially successful if we just get rid of most of that thematic stuff,” is beyond me.
Even on paper, nothing about this movie is generic, standard, or traditional. Barker wanted more of a nasty Constantine with grime. Lord knows what MGM/UA wanted. It sure as hell wasn’t the movie they got.
If you’ve read all that and are wondering why I rated it what I did, let me be clear: I like this movie a lot, despite its flaws. It carries a lot of Barker’s fetishes, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong about that. His appreciation of S&M is part of what makes his vision for movies like this very much unique. The same for books like
Rating and ranking films: What do we gain, and what do we lose?
Rating and ranking films is very common online. But it's not something I do at all, and I wondered if there are other film-lovers like me.
There are so many elements to a film, and boiling them all down to a single number seems incredibly reductive to me, and borderline insulting to the people who worked hard making it. Slapping a number on it also kills the debate, beyond the most shallow "I agree/disagree with your number".
By abandoning ratings, I find we spend more time talking about what works and what doesn't in a film, and how it makes us feel. I think we gain a deeper understanding and a more interesting discussion.
Ranking films is also fraught with difficulty. I love The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and I love Unforgiven. Both Clint Eastwood westerns, but they're still apples and oranges. Then if we introduce Amelie, Interstellar and Casablanca to the mix, it's now apples, oranges, holidays, furniture and fish. What are we really doing when we rank films? And what if anything does it tell us about the films themselves?
Ranking and rating also gives us the pastime of talking about which films are under or over-rated. All this means is "I believe most people give a film this number, but I'm right and they're wrong, so it should actually be given another number." But why is it a problem if we like a film more or less than we believe the majority of people do?
What about you? Do you enjoy rating and/or ranking films? Do you enjoy reading other people's ratings/rankings? And why is that?
https://redd.it/1xq8xu9
@r_truefilm
Catiline) (Actor who got it: Adam Driver) (Reason: When the film was in development in the 2000s, DiCaprio was considered for the role and participated in a script reading)
Unmade Projects
1995: James Dean (Director: Michael Mann) (Role: Jean Dean)
1999: The Godfather: Part IV (Director: Francis Ford Coppola) (Role: Sonny Corleone)
2004: Alexander The Great (Director: Baz Luhrman) (Role: Alexander The Great)
2006: Untitled Hollywood Fixer Film (Director: Michael Mann) (Role: Unknown)
2010: Viking Project (Director: Mel Gibson) (Role: Unknown)
2014: Cleopatra (Director: Martin Scorsese) (Role: Marc Antony)
2015: The Devil In The White City (Director: Martin Scorsese) (Role: H.H Holmes)
2022: The Wager (Director: Martin Scorsese) (Role: Unknown)
2024: Sinatra (Director: Martin Scorsese) (Role: Frank Sinatra)
2024: Home (Director: Martin Scorsese) (Role: Unknown)
2025: Evel Knievel On Tour (Director: Damien Chazelle) (Role: Evel Knievel)
These are the most notable roles DiCaprio turned down or was considered, but I think there are more roles he was considered. I mean, he is DiCaprio and is possibly on every Producer’s shortlist for being considered. I will say, I like DiCaprio as an actor and I do think he is one of those last stars that could carry a film. I will admit, I really wish DiCaprio was in the Star Wars Prequel, I like Hayden Christensen, but I think George really wanted Leo for the role. Boogie Nights was also a missed opportunity and pretty much any Scorsese collaboration I wish got made.
All in All, What roles do you wish DiCaprio accepted? And what roles did I miss?
https://redd.it/1xpxz1i
@r_truefilm
this figure, and the way they are treated, is meant to signify to the audience the ways in which society treats non-normative identity, especially queer identities: some are afraid of identities and gender/sexual presentations that do not fit within their conceptions of "what ought to be", or the norms that are meant to be followed. In general, people who don't adhere to societal norms are cast to the margins so that they may not participate meaningfully in society, nor may they validate the non-normative experiences of others through visibility and recognition.
The blurring camera seems to represent attempts to alter experience. We see it first during the jitterbug scene, where Betty/Diane(and also possibly the mind's physical conception/manifestation of itself) blur and refocus, a scene of the figure in a dazzling dress seeming to win a prestigious award fading in and out. Then, we see the same effect used again after Camilla leaves Diane after denying Diane intimacy, where Diane is perhaps attempting to force herself into a version of her experience in which she is still allowed to live queer identity authentically. However, this other life is never allowed to focus, because the mind does not wish for Diane or any possible experience of itself to continue witnessing/acknowledging its queerness. We see the camera effect used once more in the ending sequence after Diane shoots herself, focussing the bedazzled avatar (Diane/Betty/mind's self perception) over top of a shot of the man out back's face. This final shot presents the tension between how society treats non-normative identities and how society lifts up and celebrates those who embody the most-perfect ideal of the norm (the bedazzled avatar represents the conventionally beautiful, straight, media-trained, mild and moderate personalities who find the greatest success in normative/heteronormative spaces such as Hollywood).
The flashing blue light has a meaning that's a little hard to nail down. It seems to most obviously signal the transitional spaces / moments between a switch of experiences. It might also represent the death of an experience, because it seems to only appear right before an experience is destroyed by the mind.
This interpretation of Mulholland Drive hardly covers all of the interesting and meaningful symbols and sequences of the film. It does not account for the explicit criticism of Hollywood. There is a third lens through which to analyze this film that I'm cognizant of but having a hard time understanding or expressing, and I don't account for it either. This film is really meant to be viewed through all three (or even more lenses if they exist) simultaneously, but this addresses only the queer lens because all of its complexities are difficult to handle simultaneously when viewing the film through all the lenses at once.
https://redd.it/1xs5fd8
@r_truefilm
A Mulholland Drive interpretation I haven't seen before
TL/DR at the end (the 1500 words preceding the summary are justification; refer to it if there's confusion; TL/DR begins with "The mind wished not to..." and includes the next two paragraphs hereafter)
I think discussions of the queer interpretation (not queer theory, necessarily, but queer-ness as a character element and story motivator) of Mulholland Drive is unfortunately fraught with shallow analyses, and it annoys me to no end that many of the existing queer analyses assume Lynch meant one idea but ineffectively expressed it and accidentally expressed another. Analyze what's there, not what you think should be ffs. Anyways...
One of the linchpins of this perspective is the fact that neither Rita nor Camilla exist, that they are both tools used by Betty's/Diane's mind to grapple with her sexuality. Diane might also be viewed in a similar light. The final act is not reality, but rather a sequence of happenings purely inside of Betty's mind (I refute this idea later, and the justification is further down; the revision is a correct expression of my thoughts, and this was more a stepping stone along the way to refinement). This doesn't mean, however, that the first two acts represent reality, and in fact they don't. It might be more correct to say that Betty and Diane share a mind that belongs to neither, and are both ways for this mind to experience / express itself.
The first act of the film depicts Betty's arrival to Hollywood (which represents a space and culture of seeming heteronormativity and the power it wields, a presentation of the norm, a performance) and her hopes of becoming a shining example of all that it stands for. The film also introduces the audience to the aspects of Hollywood (normative culture) that don't adhere to its narrative about itself, namely the man out back (whose perceived and presented sex is important for later) and Rita as a disgraced and disposed-of former member of the Hollywood elite. They serve as a note to the audience that we shouldn't take the veneer of normativity at face value, and promise viewers that a conflict will arise between the norm and the subdued inadherents to it.
The second act begins with Betty's successful audition, where she upsets the "natural" order of gender roles by taking power in the direction of the intimacy side. This serves as the first bump in Betty's departure / derailment from the path Hollywood designates for her, and so it sends her a reminder of its power to silence those who choose not to conform by way of the discovery of Diane Selwyn. The audience does not yet know who Diane is, nor that the discovery of her rotting corpse is a portent of what is to come, and seems to be only a vague and perhaps incidental warning in the moment.
This sequence is immediately followed by Rita cutting her hair and donning a blonde wig, appearing roughly like Betty. It is important to remember here that Rita is an imagined part of Betty's experience. Their subsequent intimacy symbolizes a sort of self experimentation with homosexuality--Betty is experimenting with herself, with a figure that simultaneously appears to be Betty and another person, with a projection of an imagined woman onto a double of the self. Rita is a tool used for Betty's self discovery. This is Betty's final and most overt rejection of normativity.
Rita and Betty then visit Club Silencio, where the magician claims that everything that appears to be real is an illusion, that it is all a recording, an appropriate metaphor given the setting of the story. Betty convulses at this revelation, and Rita serves now as a tool for Betty to comfort herself, holding Betty in a loving embrace. Immediately following Betty's witnessing (the mind's acknowledgement) of the truth, she receives catharsis through the singer's performance. Rita serves here as Betty's means of catharsis: Rita begins to cry and expresses what seems to simultaneously be grief at the death of fantasy and at the ignorance of truth, which persisted only so long as
NOBODY KNOWS (2004), directed by Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s 2004 breakthrough tells the story of four abandoned children, left to fend for themselves in an unnamed Japanese city. That the main characters are so young immediately arouses our sympathy. The way they convincingly survive for several months without parental supervision engages our intellect. Koreeda doesn’t seek to entertain so much as inform the public about the serious social problem of child abandonment in Japan. Yet the movie is never short of engrossing, with great performances from a nearly all-child cast.
Nothing seems amiss at first, as a woman moves into an apartment with her 12-year old son, Akira (A bright-eyed Yuya Yagira). She tells the landlords that her husband is overseas, and they readily accept this explanation for his absence. But once they are gone, mother and child unzip a pair of large suitcases, revealing two more children: Akira’s younger sister Yuki (Momoko Shimizu), and little brother Shigeru (Hiei Kimura). Soon after, Akira goes to the nearby train station to pick up another sister, Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), this one only a few years younger. He sneaks her back into their new home, where, over dinner, the mother reminds them that they must never leave the apartment, not even to go out onto the fire escape (Except Kyoko, to do the laundry). We surmise that, the building owners would probably evict the family, if they found out its actual size.
The not-unfamiliar story of a large family and single mom struggling against the odds is immediately thrown for a loop. The mother, it turns out, is crazy (or simply selfish—the movie never makes it clear). She abandons the children for several months to work in Osaka. Conceivably, she also goes there to spend time with a man who doesn’t know she has this brood.
Eventually, the children are abandoned for good, their money supply dwindling (She left Akira with 100,000 yen, the equivalent of $1000, which doesn’t last long). They ask some of the former men in their mother’s life for help, but the one-time beaus and suspected fathers of Kyoko, Yuki, and Shigeru, are down on their luck themselves. Whatever scraps of money they can get from these men, and from their mother, when she occasionally mails them, isn’t enough to keep food on the table or the utilities on. Their meager support also isn’t enough to keep the sadness of being left behind from slowly creeping in.
For the most part, “Nobody Knows” observes its four main characters as they try to get on alone. Too young to work, not enrolled in school, isolated from the world (except for Akira), they spend their days trying to maintain a sense of purpose in lives cast adrift. For the three younger siblings, passing time consists of playing indoors, performing household chores, and staring longingly out the window. Akira, by contrast, has no time to waste. Practically conscripted into adulthood by his status as eldest child, he has more responsibilities thrust upon him than someone his age should. He keeps the budget, buys groceries, and otherwise runs around the city performing errands while his peers have fun.
Koreeda explores the children's alienated status throughout the first half of the film. Personally, I found this half to be the more satisfying one, specifically because it was less plotted. It concerns itself more with how the family interacts (or fails to interact) with their environment. Not having the regular channels of school or play through which to establish bonds with other children, Akira in particular stands apart. Koreeda emphasizes this social gulf through subtle visual technique, specifically, juxtaposition.
Throughout the first half of the film, he constantly frames Akira walking past kids in his age group. They dot the sidewalks, cluster inside arcades, linger aimlessly in groceries stores reading comic books. Notice how they barely move, while Akira is always moving. By framing him side-by-side with those other kids, who bear their lackadaisicalness with a laugh and a smile, the director makes it clear that Akira, whose
Recommended for history film buffs: Winstanley (dir. Kevin Brownlow, Andrew Mollo, 1975, B&W)
“Was the earth made for to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the earth from others, that they might beg or starve in a fruitful land, or was it made to preserve all her children?" (The New Law of Righteousness, Gerrard Winstanley, 1648).
Thanks to my partner's curiosity in alternative societies through history (who wouldn't be interested in that?), we stumbled upon this absolute gem of a film. An oddity perhaps, but truly fascinating and (we thought) immensely rewarding.
Somewhat confusingly dubbed a 'documentary' on Amazon, it's more an historically informed dramatisation, shot in grainy black and white, of one man's attempts to set up a commune in the wake of the English Civil War (1640s).
It had never occurred to me what an immensely febrile time this must have been, politically, religiously and philosophically (though the three were inextricably intertwined). Centuries of monarchy rule had been upturned for goodness sake! Even the king himself had been executed!
For many, not least Gerrard Winstanley, this presented a genuinely fresh start: a chance to rethink what he (and many others) saw as the spiritually corrupt order of things where the few hoarded all the wealth while the majority struggled (sound familiar?)
So, he set about founding the True Levellers, also known as 'The Diggers', coined to reflect their grow-you-own self sufficiency. His dream was for true equality, regardless of birth, gender, everything really. For Winstanley, all humans are children of God, and all therefore have equal share to the land He provided.
Understandably, Winstanley's vision, which spread surprisingly widely across England during that time, has been seen by many as a true ancestor to socialism, but with Jesus firmly in place of any Marx figure (the contemporary 'Ranters', who make an appearance in the film were certainly more radical).
That being said, I felt this film could work fairly comfortably as a companion piece to Pasolini's 'Gospel According to St. Matthew', which adopts an overtly Marxist take on Christian teaching (if you haven't seen it, this is also thoroughly recommended).
As for Winstanley, he gets remarkably far, and against substantial odds, setting up a dedicated community on St. George's Hill, Surrey. No prizes for guessing how it ended up (ironically St. George's Hill is now a notoriously expensive piece of real estate favoured by high net worth individuals and celebrities), but for a tantalising flash in history, there was hope that the dream of genuinely equal society was within reach.
Some may find the lead performance by Miles Halliwell (a schoolteacher by day) a little on the plummy side, but there's a certain passion to it that I found strangely magnetic. Besides perhaps taking some atmospheric inspiration from Pasolini, the film provided a tonal reference point for Ben Wheatley's somewhat divisive 'A Field in England', although I would argue 'Winstanley' has greater substance.
As with all films, this definitely won't be for everyone, but for anyone interested in past utopian efforts, I'd say it's an absolute must. We watched it through BFI, but I hope it can be accessed through other means. Well worth investigating if you can.
https://redd.it/1xry946
@r_truefilm
V for Vendetta is a terrible movie.
I genuinely don’t understand the appeal of this movie.
First of all, is V supposed to be cool? The first time we meet him, he’s delivering this ridiculous alliterative monologue like a high school English teacher showing off his vocabulary. And that voice! Every sentence sounds like it’s supposed to be the most profound thing anyone has ever said. I’ve also always thought the Guy Fawkes mask looked stupid and ugly. I found the character almost impossible to connect with, and the movie seems completely enamored with him.
The characterization in general is pretty lousy. We barely get to know Evey before she’s swept into V’s world, and most of the supporting characters seem to exist just to deliver exposition. Even the fascist government feels underdeveloped. We’re shown its leaders, its propaganda, and its brutality, but where are the ordinary people? Sure, we see citizens watching television, living under government repression, and eventually participating in the uprising, but what does everyday life under this regime actually look like? I never felt like I had a sense of the society V was supposedly liberating.
And the villains are so uncomplicated that the politics feel almost embarrassingly safe. Fascism is bad. Persecuting minorities is bad. Government propaganda is bad. Okay? Is that supposed to be provocative? People love to talk about how politically relevant this movie is, but recognizing that authoritarianism is bad isn’t exactly a profound political insight.
And then there’s the torture sequence. V kidnaps Evey, shaves her head, imprisons her, psychologically tortures her, and convinces her she’s about to be executed. Why? Because he wants to teach her not to be afraid.
What the fuck?
Why does he need her to be fearless in the first place? Why does he feel entitled to put her through this? His revolutionary plans don’t depend on her undergoing some psychological transformation. Instead, he subjects an innocent woman to an elaborate torture simulation because he thinks it’ll liberate her.
And somehow it works! Evey is understandably horrified at first, but the movie ultimately presents her as spiritually transformed. She stands in the rain, arms outstretched, having apparently achieved enlightenment through psychological abuse.
I’m sorry, but that’s fucking stupid. It’s an absurd psychological proposition that the movie expects us to accept because it serves its message. And why am I supposed to admire this guy? He tortures an innocent woman because he thinks he knows what’s best for her, and the movie still treats him like some romantic revolutionary.
On top of all that, I found the editing choppy. The movie jumps between political officials, investigations, flashbacks, and V’s various schemes without much dramatic momentum. A tremendous amount supposedly happens, yet somehow it felt like nothing was happening.
I’ll give it this: some of the shot composition is quite good. There are striking images throughout, and I can appreciate the visual craftsmanship.
But otherwise, oil to my water.
https://redd.it/1xqpmy3
@r_truefilm
What is the Stalker (1979) correct color grading?
Hi! I want to watch this movie for the first time, and I'm having trouble finding the right version. It seems like Mosfilms has uploaded versions of the movies on their youtube channel, but the new 2025 version has a very noticeable green tint. I am not sure if this means "the new one is closer to the original artistic intent" or not.
Here's a comparison of the 2 versions:
https://www.diffchecker.com/image-compare/PGltF7eb/
And also the 2 original links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Wr3eyEoLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZhQPaw4rE
Does anyone know why the uhd remaster is so much greener?
This facebook post also compares the new 4k master to criterion blu ray version, and the criterion one looks much closer to the hd version in mosfilms, without the green tint: https://www.facebook.com/groups/277575515608051/permalink/25559683680303886/
https://redd.it/1xrfxk5
@r_truefilm
Godzilla Minus Zero. Breathtaking action embedded in onesided pathos and a tiring setting.
Given the success of "Minus Zero," a sequel was inevitable and, honestly, highly welcome. I don't want to spoil anyone's fun with the Monsterverse, but I've never really enjoyed the American films. If Toho and Legendary both cater to their respective fanbases, that’s perfectly fine. A warm, familiar feeling washes over me the moment the Toho studio logo appears, and for two hours, I was truly well-entertained but also analytically challenged, because in that regard, the film offers a lot, and yet leaves some things lacking, which ultimately deserves criticism.
Briefly on the film's framework:
The staging power and visual excellence of this Kaiju battle will once again be the best visual experience you can get in theaters this year. The action scenes literally press you into your seat, and you almost forget to breathe or blink. A fantastic sign of properly directed action.
Visually, Godzilla himself remains pretty much identical to "Minus Zero," while Ghidorah's design doesn't stray too far from his Monsterverse counterpart. Which is fine, since that one looks pretty cool, admittedly. Unlike you, Monsterverse Mothra.
A few obligatory memberberries are thrown at the fans as well; Ghidorah's classic, rattling alien screech is enough to make any fan's heart feel all fuzzy. The same goes for the homage, or rather copy of Ghidorah's appearance at the Torii gate from "Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster" (1964) or the recreation of the poster moment from "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (1991).
And much more. Keep your eyes peeled.
Ghidorah's transformation was the absolute highlight, I was practically cheering on the inside.
Oscar bait in terms of special effects? Maybe. It wouldn't be undeserved again.
However, AI paranoia struck once more, I had a bad feeling about the animation of the ravens. It looked very jittery and didn't really feel like CGI anymore. But you can't know for sure. At least I couldn't find anything about it.
Terrible times.
The film is also quite melodramatic and, even by military film standards, blessed (or cursed, depending on your perspective) with more pathos than usual. I've binged a few heroic bloodshed movies over the last few days, so I was well-calibrated when it came to cheese. But I can also understand if it's too much for some. In my current mindset, I actually kind of dug it.
Great, new, and never-before-seen element in a Godzilla movie: the revival of the G-Cells from the Heisei era, this time reimagined as body horror and a metaphorical reconstruction of the aftermath of a nuclear strike. In general, the lengths they went here with the monster gore was also a surprise to me.
Story-wise, though, we find ourselves once again wallowing in the victim role. The big bad American. Yet it still barely addresses the big bad Japanese. Two things can be true at the same time:
The Japanese committed atrocities against the Chinese in concentration camps, among other things.
AND
The atomic bomb is one of the worst crimes against humanity (the war scenes here were, correctly, absolutely horrific again, very, very good!), the effects and aftermath of which no one deserves.
Why is the former swept under the rug today, almost to the point of being unknown? Well, after WWII, the Americans basically let themselves be paid in scientists. Japan handed over technology and scientific findings to the USA, and in exchange, the States simply ignored their war crimes. And crazily enough, the film addresses exactly that: the American military's interest in Japanese intelligence. And then it completely conceals why that was the case or how Japan profited from it. Holy shit. Absolute fail and propaganda alert! Once again, unbelievable.
It would be like making a Kaiju movie about Dresden in '45 and never mentioning that the worst evil in human history was originating from Germany at that time.
The screenplay also cut a few corners elsewhere; the film falls into some familiar blockbuster traps, writes
I don’t get Lars Von Trier
His entire filmography fills me with so much anger. I hate Dogme 95, I hate how everyone praises it, I hate how many awards he’s gotten. & I know this is the reaction he wants.
I loved Dancer in the Dark and then I hear that Lars Von Trier sexually harassed and emotionally abused Björk. I watch Dogme movies to strengthen my cinema history knowledge but then I am presented with pornography, ableism and someone who can’t even follow their own rules. A douche who said they sympathised with Hitler and then issued an apology just because he was banned from the biggest film festival in the world just to take it back.
I understand that art is supposed to get a reaction out of the audience but when it gets to being on the verge of porn, gore and making it for shock value, is it really art? Is ragebaiting really art? His entire filmography is basically engagement farming and he’s so proud of being pretentious.
Why do people say they love Lars Von Trier? You truly cant separate the art from the artist in this case
https://redd.it/1xr28x5
@r_truefilm
“A Geisha” (or “Gion Festival”) by Kenji Mizoguchi
I have seen some of Mizoguchi’s films by now, like Miss Oyu, The Crucified Lovers, Sansho the Bailiff, and I really enjoy his works. A Geisha might be my favourite of his, in terms of directing and photography. Its story was, for me, as beautiful as The Story of the Late Chrysantemums.
There was something in the settings and the composition of the shots, like the attention to decorative elements, such as flowers or objects inside the protagonist’s home, that made me remember the style that Ozu would show in his films. The pace of the story was incredibly good and immersive. The main actresses were wonderful on their roles, and the sister-like relationship between their characters was very beautiful to watch.
I also wanna give a happy birthday to Ayako Wakao, who played as Eiko in this film. She is turning 93 on this 8th of november :)
https://redd.it/1xqkld6
@r_truefilm
Rocky 1 is an abusive alcoholic who treats his sister like shit.
Paulie in Rocky 2 is an alcoholic who stole Balboa's job, then belittles him when approached for help.
Paulie in Rocky 3 is a racist alcoholic who is disgusted by training Balboa in a black gym.
Paulie in Rocky 4 is a horny alcoholic who turns a toy robot into a sexbot.
Paulie in Rocky 5 is an alcoholic who signs over all of Balboa's finances to a corrupt accountant who steals it all out from under him, leaving his entire family broke. He doesn't even act a little bit sorry.
Paulie in Rocky Balboa is a grieving alcoholic who is somehow, after ALL THE BULLSHIT HE'S DONE, still allowed in Rocky's corner for the boxer's final bout.
All this to say, FUCK PAULIE. Just an absolute piece of shit for 6 movies.
Shoutout to Burt Young, who always did a fantastic job portraying him and who sadly passed away on October 8, 2023.
His first and only Oscar nomination was for playing our always awful alcoholic in the first Rocky. An imperfect character in a perfect movie.
5/5 stars
I Play Rocky
Scot Teller plays Young in the upcoming *I Play Rocky*, coming out later this month. This is your reminder to revisit (or visit) the franchise.
https://redd.it/1xqlfzi
@r_truefilm
Ranking Rocky: A First-Timer's Journey
How had I never seen these!? With *I Play Rocky*, Peter Farrelly's movie with Anthony Ippolito playing Stallone, opening this month, it felt like a natural time to finally go a few rounds with the Italian Stallion himself.
Over the course of a week, I watched all the (OG) Rocky movies for the first time.
Here are my rankings.
Spoilers for the Rocky franchise below.
Rocky 5
Due to the setup of this movie (Paulie signs power of attorney over to a corrupt, thieving accountant who blows Rocky's fortune on bad real estate deals), the payoff should be him getting his money back. It's set up to be a legal thriller. Let's track that thieving fucker down and take him to court! Rocky being whole at the end of this movie isn't beating the shit out of his surrogate son in a bar brawl, it's seeing that accountant locked up.
After four movies of Rocky taking shots to the dome, over and over again, it's natural to start considering the repercussions (reper-concussions?). Especially with the recent New York Times article on a study that found at least one in four former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 had CTE. Much like those NFL players, Rocky has significant brain damage. Unlike the NFL, though, the boxing commission steps in and does something about it, refusing to license the aging, broken fighter.
The movie almost does everything right. After turning Stallone into a superhero who defeated communism (Rocky 4), it's natural to dial things back: return to Philly, return to being broke AF, and even return to John G. Avildsen, the original director.
The problem is, they executed it poorly. Rocky going from being ultra-rich to pauper poor feels like a jab at the working class more than a return to roots. When the Philly community comes out to welcome Rocky back to the hood, his family acts as if their front porch is being invaded by soul-sucking vampires. His son (played by Stallone's real son, Sage) now has to live in a single-family home instead of a mansion. Boo hoo.
Tommy Gunn's heel turn isn't quite believable. We're meant to accept the Don King knockoff George Washington Duke as an all-corrupting force, but it's still good fun. Gunn is played by real-life heavyweight Tommy Morrison, and he makes for a menacing physical foe. It was the right call, but as mentioned earlier, just executed poorly. The stakes are virtually non-existent. If he wins the fight, what happens? He's still financially fucked.
All said and done, still recommend. 3/5 stars.
Rocky Balboa
After Adrian's death, Balboa is grief-stricken and you know what? Adrian would be rolling in her fucking grave if she knew what her husband was up to in the sixth and final Rocky boxing movie. Stallone returns to write and direct 16 years after Rocky 5, and his decision to frame the movie around the death of Adrian does not check out.
After 5 movies of her begging him not to fight, her gravestone would have read, "Adrian Balboa, March 10, 1950 - January 11, 2002. 'HE'S RETIRED'".
While incoherent in its setup (in perhaps the most 2006 decision the movie makes, he's motivated by an ESPN computer simulation of prime Rocky versus the current champ), the execution of the final fight against Mason "The Line" Dixon, played by another real-life fighter, this time Antonio Tarver, saves the film. It's a combination of HBO documentary realism and Oliver Stone's hyper-editing in *Natural Born Killers*. It's staged as an actual HBO broadcast in Vegas with real HBO commentators, a stylistic choice the Creed franchise carried forward.
It comes out of left field though, the movie is mostly a conventional drama about a grieving husband who wants to fuck the hot bartender. But unlike Rocky 5, we get our hero back in the ring one last time.
As a bookend to the first fight in Rocky, it's perfect. As a Rocky movie in general, we'll call it so-so.
3/5 stars
Rocky 3
Rocky 3 contains the most entertaining opening 20 minutes of a sports movie, perhaps ever. It's fun because this whole series can really be read as notes on the
Imajica, which features perhaps the most genderfluid creature I’ve ever read, or The Great and Secret Show, which is … something else altogether. If you’ve never read those books, or the ones that follow them, I can’t urge you to do so strongly enough. I can’t even describe the genre mix, but they’re definitely both provocative and evocative.
Lord of Illusions is a fun movie. It could’ve been a spectacular movie if MGM/UA hadn’t thought they knew better. Creatives like Barker know their audience better than anyone, and an untouched release would’ve undoubtedly been a better film.
https://redd.it/1xqwwxw
@r_truefilm
What Have You Been Watching? (Week of (November 08, 2026)
Please don't downvote opinions. Only downvote comments that don't contribute anything. Check out the WHYBW archives.
https://redd.it/1xr1pu3
@r_truefilm
What is the difference between depictions of native americans in classic westerns and depictions of Jews in Nazi films?
Wouldn’t both be dehumanizing subjects through film (or at least adapting dehumanized representations from literature) that are part of a genocide? Why does Riefenstahl raise so much more eyebrows and disgust than old racist westerns? Why would watching scenes of Nazi films bring up images of death camps while westerns bring up nostalgia more than anything else?
https://redd.it/1xq5pie
@r_truefilm
Leonardo DiCaprio Turned Down Roles
Roles Leonardo DiCaprio turned down or was considered
1993: Hocus Pocus (Role: Max Dennison) (Actor who got it: Omri Katz) (Reason: DiCaprio revealed in a interview that he turned down the role)
1994: Interview With A Vampire (Role: Daniel Molloy) (Actor who got it: Christian Slater) (Reason: After River Phoenix's death, DiCaprio was one of many actors who was offered the role)
1995: Batman Forever (Role: Dick Grayson) (Actor who got it: Chris O’Donnell) (Reason: DiCaprio auditioned for the role)
1996: Primal Fear (Role: Aaron Stampler) (Actor who got it: Edward Norton) (Reason: DiCaprio was the 1st choice for the role, but he turned it down)
1997: Boogie Nights (Role: Dirk Diggler) (Actor who got it: Mark Wahlberg) (Reason: DiCaprio was offered the role and was Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1st choice for the role. DiCaprio loved the screenplay but had to turn it down due to his commitment with Titanic. DiCaprio would later say that he wished he had done both and would later call turning down the film the biggest regret of his career.)
1999: The Matrix (Role: Neo) (Actor who got it: Keanu Reeves) (Reason: DiCaprio was offered the role and initially accepted the role, but ultimately exited the film, due to not waiting to work on another heavy special effect film after making Titanic)
2000: American Psycho (Role: Patrick Bateman) (Actor who got it: Christian Bale) (Reason: DiCaprio was cast as Bateman in a more earlier version of American Psycho that was going to be directed by Oliver Stone. Stone and DiCaprio wanted to take the film in a more psychological direction and turn it into a Jekyll and Hyde Story. Ultimately, DiCaprio exited the film due to Creative Difference and the story goes that he was talk out of starring it by Gloria Steinem, who was not a fan of the novel. The film was ultimately made in 2000 with Christian Bale)
2001: Moulin Rouge (Role: Christian) (Actor who got it: Ewan McGregor) (Reason: DiCaprio auditioned for the role, but was rejected. He asserted that it was due to his poor singing voice)
2001: Harvard Man (Role: Alan Jenson) (Actor who got it: Adrian Grenier) (Reason: DiCaprio was actually cast, but dropped out when they couldn’t afford his salary)
2002: Spider-Man (Role: Peter Parker) (Actor who got it: Tobey Maguire) (Reason: In the 1990s, James Cameron planned to make a more mature and gritty version of Spider-Man and wanted DiCaprio for the lead. The film ultimately collapsed when Carolco Pictures went bankrupt)
2002: Star Wars Prequels (Role: Anakin Skywalker) (Actor who got it: Hayden Christensen) (Reason: DiCaprio was George Lucas’s 1st choice for the role of Anakin and show interest for the role and had discussions with Lucas. However, DiCaprio turned down the role, feeling unprepared to take on the role)
2003: The Dreamers (Role: Matthew) (Actor who got it: Michael Pitt) (Reason: Turned down the role because he felt he was too old to play the character)
2008: The Dark Knight (Role: The Joker) (Actor who got it: Heath Ledger) (Reason: According to the Casting Director, DiCaprio was the 1st actor to received the script, but his didn’t answer back)
2009: Inglourious Basterds (Role: Hans Landa) (Actor who got it: Christoph Waltz) (Reason: Tarantino originally sought DiCaprio for the role of Hans Landa, before deciding that the character needed to be played by a German Actor)
2009: Public Enemies (Role: John Dillinger) (Actor who got it: Johnny Depp) (Reason: DiCaprio was originally attached the role, but decided to exit the role to star in Shutter Island)
2015: Steve Jobs (Role: Steve Jobs) (Actor who got it: Michael Fassbender) (Reason: DiCaprio was in discussion for the role, but ultimately decided to not take the part)
2021: Nightmare Alley (Role: Stan Carisile) (Actor who got it: Bradley Cooper) (Reason: DiCaprio was the 1st choice for the role, and was in negotiations to play the role, but he ultimately decided to not take the part)
2024: Megalopolis (Role: Serge