For me it’s Interstellar, it never fails to make me ugly cry at least twice during each viewing
John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing. The themes of paranoia and isolation are so perfectly explored; it launched the career of Keith David, who is just a treasure; the performances are all immaculate; and those effects. My god, the effects.
Brilliant film, I love John Carpenter. My favourite is They Live.
That’s a great one as well. That alleyway fight scene is so fucking cool. Carpenter is easily one of the most creative, most fun artists of his generation.
Do you have any bubblegum?
Absolutely amazing movie, the effects were so ahead of their time!
Right? I can’t watch it with people anymore, because I keep pausing to explain how certain effects were achieved. It’s a monumental achievement.
Love that one too. What do you (or anybody with a theory or the answer) think is the meaning of the ending?
I think it’s intentionally ambiguous. For me, the point is the paranoia and distrust. I might be wrong, of course, but my interpretation is that we are supposed to leave the experience with questions.
Damn, that movie really messed me up as a kid, watching it alone.
I can imagine; I wouldn’t recommend it for kids. Way too much gore and tension.
My god, the effects.
My god, the soundtrack. He’s a fantastic musician. I really liked his Lost Themes, especially Wraith:
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5th Element
This is one of my favorites. Also Shawshank Redemption and The Birdcage. Although I learned recently that a lot of humor in The Birdcage goes over the heads of younger people.
Edit: Sharing this here in case you haven’t seen it…
My fav movie! The perfect blend of sci-fi, action, comedy, and fashion model catwalk.
Multipass!
Perfect.
Hot Fuzz. It’s just hilarious and fairly well done and people I know generally appreciate the style.
For those that don’t, maybe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred-Year-Old_Man_Who_Climbed_Out_of_the_Window_and_Disappeared_(film)
Seconded. This truly is a masterpiece of a movie
The Big Lebowski
Is gonna be the best movie you’ve ever seen once you see it twice
Shut the fuck up, Donny.
!achievers@lebowski.social beckons
Really? I tried watching it but I couldn’t get through it.
It has a really messy plot with fast paced dialogue and subtle details that you can miss, I also remember my first time seeing it and being like “wtf is going on?”
As I said, the second time I saw it years later, I already knew the general direction of the movie so I could focus on the single characters and let me tell you: there’s a reason why there are a bunch of people quoting it all the time, every line of the script is like a meme, everything is so iconic
there’s a reason why there are a bunch of people quoting it all the time, every line of the script is like a meme, everything is so iconic
You just described the writing in everything the Coen Brothers have ever made.
Never seen it, I actually started watching it this week, so far so good!
The dude is like my spirit animal.
Damn, now I have to watch it again haha
Ya don’t mess with tha Jesus
Bladerunner.
Me and a friend watched it in a cinema on release aged 13. I’m very tall and my friend looked about 40. (Now he’s over 50 and looks under 40.) You could get away with it in those days.
On VCR release, our friend got his dad to buy a copy and we watched it on repeat at every opportunity. I’ve watched the Final Cut release many times, which I think is even better, and it’s one of the very few films I will happily watch at any time.
The documentary about the making of it is great to watch as well. Watch the film first though. I started reading Dick’s books aged about 11 or 12 and was already hooked before the film. I think that prepared me a bit, along with other sci-fi I was reading by then.
It’s still my favourite film.
Just watched both bladerunner movies (idk which versions of them) and was rather underwhelmed. The cinematic grand setpieces i can apprechiate and see how they can be captivating for some but the story (or bith of them rather) wasnt very good imo. The worldbuilding is ambitious but the logic behind everything is lacking. Its just not “realistic” enough for me. I get thats sci-fi but for me it feels more like a fantasy movie like idk avatar or harry potter, rather than sci-fi which is supposed to play in our world/universe but with advanced tech. Things like not being able to distinguish replicants (first movie I just didnt buy. And then in the second one there is a gadget that can do just that.
And also Ryan Gosling played pretty badly (maybe it was the script), no emotions, (almost) no storytelling in his mimic, emotions, in his character at all. He is almost like a wax figure, during watching I multiple times had to pause and complain to my co-watcher about his performance, as it too was unrealistic and too stoic for my taste
I feel like I’m the only person I know who really enjoyed the sheer visual masterpiece that was the second movie. Gosling is supposed to under-react here, and that he does well, right until the point that he breaks.
I mean, I get both. Sometimes it felt more like a documentary whith grand and cinematic images of the city and few spoken words, I can apprechiate that, altho its not what I am looking for in a movie.
I suspected that he is supposed to not really show emotions, to show how he is trained/at the “baseline” and how he is not quite human. But I couldn’t see a gradual/fine development nor “hidden” or suppressed emotions behind his cold pokerface. (Apart from the one moment at the memory girl’s)
To be fair, you have to remember that the story the that the first film was based on was published in 1968. It’s basically a form of the “Seinfeld isn’t funny” trope. Just about every work of sci-fi, about being able to (or not) tell human from machine has borrowed one thing or another from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or the first Bladerunner film in one way or another. It’s basically impossible not to.
So I wonder if your opinion of it, watching it for the first time in 2024 could be colored by that. If all of those themes have been beaten to death again and again, satirized, parodied, meme-ified, then eventually cycling around to being cool again, then maybe you’re noticing all of those things as the tropes/memes they became.
I would say like half of Rick and Morty episodes are a take on a Philip K. Dick plot point. Had I not read his novels before being exposed to that stuff, I’m sure I would have probably caught more about how poorly written his female characters were, for example. But at the time I was just too blown away by the concepts this dude had come up with that it didn’t matter to me.
Yea, me watching it so many ywars after it came out definitely colored my opinion. Its like that with many “first” movies, from Tron to Metropolis, that the original appeal decreases as the motives and filmmaking techniques arent as new anymore, because of those movies. One would have to watch “generic” movies from that year to really apprechiate the innovative parts which then got replicated over and over.
I try to consume media in the context of the time period it was made, but sometimes it can be difficult to overlook some things.
A friend of mine mentioned ‘Contact’ was the perfect film. I thought about it for some time and found that I agree. The plot, casting, filmography, and score are all top notch.
Beyond favorite there are quite a few films I consider ‘done’ we don’t need sequels or remakes. Most recently the original ‘Willy Wonka’ came to mind.
I love the line “They should have sent a poet”
Great movie. If you haven’t, you should check out Arrival (2016).
I like it, but it’s also a movie where world leaders act in the most unrealistically stupid way possible. It’s where emotions take more precedence than any actual pretense of diplomacy. Humans being gaslit into allies by future-seeing aliens is also a bit too deterministic to be seen as any kind of moral victory either. I dunno, not a movie for me
There’s a video by a designer talking about some of the symbolism of Ellie’s journey (Full talk video here – SPOILERS for the film in both).
And also an insightful YouTube comment(!) someone made in response describing their interpretation:
spoiler
"This is one of the most thoughtful and insightful reviews on deeper film meanings I think I’ve ever seen. In keeping with the rebirth symbolism, I would offer the following possibilities.
- The transport pod symbolizes more of a womb, rather than a gas chamber.
- The chair may not be an electric chair but rather a means for Ellie to assume a modified fetal position while in the capsule. This would mimic the position of a baby of in a womb prior to its own birth.
- The wires plugged into Ellie represent an umbilical cord to sustain her, rather than a means to kill her.
- The periodic updates given by the mission control staff as to the status of the machine (10%, 20%, 30%, etc.) mirror the increasing dilation of women in labor (1 cm dilated, 2cm dilated, 3cm dilated, etc.).
- The wormhole sequence mirrors the new life traveling through a birth canal.
- The capsule takes on a liquid form to symbolizes the protective amniotic fluid to keep the new life safe.
- After Ellie’s “birth”, the first person she sees is her father.
- This rebirth scene is enhanced by considering Ellie’s mother died from complications of childbirth when Ellie was born. This backstory enhances Ellie’s natural reluctance to be reborn as her initial birth killed her mother, and permanently altered her life.
There’s undeniably imagery of execution and rebirth simultaneously occurring within the same frames! The filmmakers did an outstanding of capturing some very compelling storytelling while inserting remarkable symbolism."
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First rule is, I can’t talk about it. Second rule is, I can’t talk about it.
I have lost count of how many times I watched that movie. So many great details.
And I think most people take away the wrong message. It is critic and not encouragement.
It’s a philosophical movie about breaking yourself apart and rebuilding yourself consciously.
Not hard to understand why so many people don’t get that part of it. It’s a deeply introspective movie, not just about sweaty guys fighting each other.
A high school friend of mine said it romanticized mental health disorders, which I can’t really disagree with.
Seems like a general theme around Palahniuk’s stories… I feel like his type of shock went out of style in the 00s. Probably for the best.
There’s also sweaty boobs
Ah, the Care Bears movie. Yeah I was deeply ashamed too, but you love what you love.
Snatch. Such an absolutely quotable movie with interesting characters, and the great mix of storylines that Guy Ritchie films are know for. The dialogue is just phenomenal!
Y’like dags?
Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
It’s such a gem of a movie, hits all the right notes
We’ve had a doozy of a day!
Aliens.
Great story. Excellent pacing. Fantastic characters. Awesome music. I’m running out of adjectives, so I’ll add that I really liked: dialog, acting, special effects, lore, and setting.
The Blues Brothers. For years people had been telling me how good it was but I hadn’t got around to watching it. Now I get it.
“we’re on a mission from God”
One of my top 3 movies!
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly… by like a lot.
I watched the Dollars Trilogy in order and I love all those movies. A Fistful of Dollars feels very low budget at certain points, including one of the worst day for night edits I’ve ever seen, but overall it’s a damn good 9/10 Yojimbo ripoff.
For a Few Dollars More is straigt up one of the best movies I have ever seen, an easy 10/10. It’s a full blown high budget movie that just shocked me when I saw it for the first time, I was amazed how good it was, and it confused me too since EVERYONE said that The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the best of the bunch, like how could something be better than this???
Well, how is it…? When I first saw The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I almost went catatonic. If For a Few Dollars More is 10/10 then this movie is 11/10, or 12/10 or even 13/10. EVERYTHING about this movie is amazing, if the previous one was made with an A24 budget then this one was made with the same production level as fucking Oppenheimer. Everything is bigger, the scale of the movie is breathtaking, the Morricone music is the best of all time, the characters are amazing, the action is amazing, the climax of the movie is the best ever put on screen, I just fucking love this movie so SO fucking much.
So yeah… watch The Good, The Bad and The Ugly if you haven’t.
(Shout out to Duck, You Sucker. A movie that also blew my socks off, made by the same director.)
They are all great movies! Do you also think highly about What about Once Upon a Time in the West?
Absolutely! Both Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America are pure masterpieces too!
If you haven’t seen it, check out Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
The Dollars Trilogy is a great recommendation, and I think your analysis is spot on! The cinematography in the second and third installments is incredible.
I like to follow up with Tarantino’s Hateful Eight (my personal favorite film to recommend, especially as a Christmas movie in place of Die Hard) to see how hugely influential the Trilogy was.
The Bruce Willis movie, Last Man Standing, is a good Fistful of Dollars redo set in 1920s I believe.
I love most of Wes Anderson’s body of work, but my absolute favourite of his is The Life Aquatic
“I wonder if he remembers me…”
Life Aquatic is great, but I have a soft spot for Royal Tennenbaums myself
Really? I love of Wes Anderson movies, but The Life Aquatic was the only one I couldn’t finish.
That’s too bad. I found it to be just a really beautiful movie top to bottom with a great story and clever humour.
Has to be The Matrix. Was 13 or 14 at the time of release, marketing around it was very mysterious. Obviously my childmind was blown during opening scene!
here here!
didn’t think much of the sequels though
I’m always telling people to REALLY watch Napoleon Dynamite. I think it got quoted and proto-memed to death when it came out, leading to most people having an unfair idea in their head of what the movie is.
The soundtrack is phenomenal. The acting is (mostly) way better than you may have thought it was. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico) was nominated for an Independent Spirit award and he absolutely deserved that nomination. The cinematography is excellent, especially knowing how much it cost to make + how much experience the crew had. Though it’s not explicitly said, I think it’s ultimately a story about neurodivergent people finding friendship, solidarity, and happiness in a world not made for them.
Also, the scene where Uncle Rico throws a steak at Napoleon is still funny.
I still cry laughing when I see or think about the grapefruit peg the windshield and Uncle Rico’s scream.
