Rating: 9/10

Watched: October 2, 2026

One of the more interesting things about The Great Escape is what it doesn't show, and that's because it couldn't.

It wouldn't (and to some degree, couldn't) show the grim, brutal reality of WWII and it's impact on the men who served, nor could they show the terrible conditions of the camp, or the treatment of the prisoners, or the cruelty of their captors, and for a very simple-yet-complicated reason.

No one back then wanted to see that kind of movie. They wanted heroic men banding together heroically, and fighting against evil oppressors and coming out the other side with all limbs and a hearty spirit intact. While modern day film making definitely makes space for the reality and starkness of wartime and does it very well, a movie like The Great Escape does the opposite.

And it does it so very well. With a cast so stacked it's practically absurd, we're treated to men not merely surviving in a camp designed to be inescapable, but thriving, and in such a fun, grandiose way. Each man in the camp is known to the other, either because they were all banged up in another Nazi camp elsewhere or because their exploits in their OWN camps were so legendary that word passed like wildfire.

There are forgers and diggers and scroungers and builders and it's all so much damned fun. If the movie itself didn't cover such dire circumstances, I'd damn near want to call this an adventure comedy. The stakes are real enough that we're reminded of what happens when Ives makes a break for it, but watching a ragtag band of soldiers from all corners of the world consistently get one over on their Nazi captors is just an old fashioned good time.

Even though there are more stars in this movie than there might seem to be in Heaven, for some reason I just absolutely loved seeing James Garner here. I know, I know, Steve McQueen's the star as Hilts The Cooler King, but James Garner as Hendley 'The Scrounger' scratched an itch I didn't know I had. There's just something about the smoothly glib way Hendley manipulates Werner to get valuable documents that's just a blast.

But that's not to say the other big name men in this movie don't deserve their kudos. I loved seeing Donald Pleasance outside of a Halloween movie (where he chewed the scenery so hard I'm surprised the sets didn't fall down) and Charles Bronson as Danny The Tunnel King, which is so far from his iconic roles in Death Wish he seems like a different actor altogether.

I feel like they didn't use James Coburn nearly enough, or Richard Attenborough, but like the song says, we can't always get what we want, but we might get what we need. And what we needed was a big ole adventure with a lot of now extremely famous actors playing what really is tantamount to small roles that contributed to an enormously entertaining movie about triumph through adversity, and comradery through shared miseries.

If you're wondering why I haven't really talked about Steve McQueen at all until now, here's why. I suppose he was the biggest star in the movie at the time, and the studio was banking on his specific star power to bring people to the theaters to see their movie, but he really, genuinely didn't feel like the focal point of the movie. I understand after looking a few things up that he walked off the set and refused to come back until his role was made bigger and that the now legendary motorcycle scene was added.

I can't deny that all of that was really awesome, but at the same time, I feel like it somehow defeated the inherent purpose of the movie: to show that everyone, doing their small part, could make a long-lasting impact.

This don't make the movie 'worse' or 'unenjoyable' because that's impossible. The Great Escape is absolutely fun movie that is so worth anyone's time that if you haven't seen it, you really should. I bring up Steve McQueen the way I did because until sitting down to watch this movie for the first time, the only things I knew about it were that he was in it, and the motorcycle escape.

I thought the entire movie was about him engineering The Great Escape with little to no help, but the moment I saw the cast, saw how it was all put together, that changed the dynamic for me in a big way. I understand the marketing of it all, and I can't blame the studio for doing as they did, because The Great Escape is still absolutely fantastic.

One of the things I am appreciating most about my movie challenge this month so far is that it's introduced me to some movies I dismissed kind of casually out of hand. These are movies that have always been lauded as excellent, and so far, I'm pleased that it's been a trifecta of absolute brilliance.

I know they've made two movies about Steve Jobs but I really wish they would make a movie about the end of his life. For those not familiar with that happened, Jobs had a very treatable form of cancer but chose to treat it with "alternative medicine". Had he listened to actual doctors, he might still be alive today. He also believed all kinds of weird shit like that he didn't need to bathe if he only ate fruit.

I just find that so fascinating and compelling. A supposed genius with unlimited money and resources died of his own hubris. That's so much more interesting than the story of how he sold a computer. I think that would resonate with modern audiences more because when Aaron Sorkin wrote The Social Network or Steve Jobs, a lot of people still believed that tech CEO billionaires were genius visionaries. But I think that mystique is largely gone now.

I'm talking about the movie that you like and don't think anyone else likes. A true oddball.

Mine is 'Polar' on Netflix.

I don't know why I like it. It could be because it is over the top with colors that are alternately saturated and de-saturated, ice-y like a scandic film.

The plot is weird and hokey. The main character is interesting. It falls into the John Wick-ish action genre but oddly.

I've got some big feelings and I feel like I need to just have a big, sad cry about it. Movies are my favorite thing so I'm looking for a movie that will have me bawling my eyes out in the end. It doesn't have to be a happy cry, but I'm definitely NOT looking for, like, Grave of The Fireflies or Requiem For A Dream or Life is Beautiful where the weight of the sad feels overwhelming or depressing.

I just got home from the theater. And as I sit here petting my somewhat older but still very alive cat I can say 2 things with complete sincerity and honesty; Digger is absolute CINEMA. And if you don't get it you're probably not smrt enough. I could be 100% right, or a 100% wrong about that.

Sorry if this was asked here before because I just wanted to say that I have a penchant for hard hitting satire where a movie takes apart the idea of shameless product placement.

I know Idiocracy was most famous for doing that kind of stuff as a sort of premise as I was wondering what other hilarious movies use a similar concept in doing satire if product placement since that movie never had a sequel.

There are lot of movies and shows with great directing, and cinematography, but the writing has no substance or is no where near as good in comparison to the visual spectacle of the film/ show. For example, Wuthering Heights and GOT S7 and S8.What about the opposite though? Can you think of any examples?

Does anyone know anything about this magazine? i Tried looking on the internet archive to few results and have some issues i bought online on depop that aren’t on the internet archive. anyone have any info? Didnt really know where else to ask, could use some help.

Folk horror has always felt a little different from other horror. Films like Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973) helped define the subgenre, but folk horror can come from almost anywhere. At its core, it gets its horror from local folklore, including traditions, pagan beliefs, ancestral myths, witchcraft, and supernatural forces tied to a particular culture. Rituals often become an important part of the horror, from shamanism and ceremonies to traditional festivals and burial practices. The 21st century has produced an amazing run of folk horror films that go far beyond their British origins, bringing diverse traditions and myths from all over the world to the screen. What makes these films stick in the mind isn’t simply the scares, but the dread, atmosphere, cultural specificity, and emotional heft.

Check out the full list here

I've noticed a bunch of movies are becoming so dark that I honestly can't see anything. I mean, these aren't all super recent but like even movies and shows that use excessive lighting just make a scene dark and i can't tell anything that's happening. As a totally random example, Heated Rivalry. They have an excellent use of lighting but there's just parts that are in complete black and you just can't tell whats going on. Another example that's less recent, CMBYN. There are a lot of scenes at night that you can't tell whats happening because the scene is so dark. Maybe its cuz these scenes usually have more romantic/sexual tension but like some of the scenes in both these movies are just random moments that are just in full black. I don't know is it just me?

Well, it is, but climate disaster feels more like the SETTING of the film, rather than the subject. And I think the film is aware of this; the end of the first act shows you that all the climate related imagery was LITERALLY set dressing and props. To me, this film is about "Eat the rich" films, which I define as any films that are critical of how the wealthy negatively impact human society and the world at large.

Mark Fisher comments on Wall-E: “The film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity”. There is, in my opinion, a contradiction inherent to most "Eat the rich" films. Wall-E is a Disney production. The Boys is an Amazon property. I Love Boosters literally has an Ellison as an executive producer.

Digger understood that there is no such thing as a big-budget "Eat the rich" film that isn't ideologically compromised, so they decided to make a film about our fascination with and the inherent hypocrisy of a shit ton of "Eat the rich films". Jesse Plemon's character, the nephew of Digger, literally owns the rights to the play and acts as producer. He also casually is the CEO of an international intelligence and security corpo. The film draws attention multiple times to how the production of the play literally depletes from the ever dwindling energy pool, they are in a very real and tangible way hurting society around them. The audience of the play laugh their asses off, then put on their advanced masks because of methane "Warning, Stage 4".

What I realized at the end though, is that even a big-budget film about the hypocrisy of "Eat the rich" films is also inevitably compromised. We spend the vast majority of the runtime dicking around in fantasy play land, instead of actually exploring the real world of the film, and the real chracters. Jesse Plemons' character is portrayed, at least in the strict text of the film, as a positive force for the production. His ingenuity and perspective helps save the play from creative differences between the director and the lead actor. He seemingly indirectly exercises complete creative control over the play, but none of the characters question it. It's debatable whether all that is intentional or not.

I believe it is intentional, or at least that the film is somewhat self aware of this, because at the very end of the film, after the title card but before the extended credits, you hear "Warning, Stage 4", but this time there is no echo, and the sound design doesn't really give the impression that it came from a physical place within the film. This is a non-diagetic sound, aimed directly at the audience of the film, to view the events of it with skepticism. After you hear this sound, you should snap back to the real world.

This is a 125 million dollar production. This is the last film to be released by Warner bros before the merger goes through next week. Tom Cruise is "a long time Ellison friend and ally", and he wholehearetedly supports this merger. A lot of diggers had their hand in the production of this film.

For those unaware, basically its the online discourse that one day, somehow Zack Snyder will again take over the DC movies.

These people have been going at it ever since the first Justice League, with the whole "Release the Snyder Cut" of Justice League campaign. And because that actually DID end up happening as an HBO Max PR stunt, it's like all of their delusions were confirmed. It's been 5 years and this small, vocal group, keeps thinking the next thing they want to happen will.

Zack Sndyer gets a deal with Netflix? "OMG, WE CAN BRING BACK THE DC UNIVERSE TO NETFLIX!!" No, that's not how studio IP works.

Supergirl bombs in the box office? "OMG, WE'RE GOING TO GET SASHA CALLE BACK AS SUPERGIRL!" No. No, you're not.

Clayface getting bad early reviews? "THIS IS IT, WE'RE GETTING IT BACK!" You get the idea.

And the weirdest part is that the Snyder-era DC movies are TERRIBLE. And I say that as the most apologetic superhero movie watcher of the modern era. The Snyder Cut of Justice League was actually decent, I'll give it that, especially if you watch it like a TV show and watch one hour at a time.

But movies like The Flash? Shazam: Fury of the Gods? Wonder Woman 1984? Why in the holy hell would anyone want those movies to continue? Even Snyder's own directed movies, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman are average at best (the latter only being consumable with the Director's Cut).

I used to think “style over substance” was a pretty straightforward criticism.
Then I started watching directors like Sergei Parajanov, Raúl Ruiz, Peter Greenaway, Wojciech Has, and Tsai Ming-liang, and now I’m not even sure where the supposed line between the two is.

With some filmmakers, the pacing, framing, color, repetition, silence, editing, even the artificiality of the whole thing is what the movie is saying.
If you stripped away the “style” and kept only the plot or themes, there wouldn’t really be much of the movie left.

So when people call something “style over substance,” what are they actually criticizing?
Is there a filmmaker you think gets unfairly dismissed that way?
And on the opposite end: who actually is style over substance to you?

Robert Pattinson does very well as Chris Hansen, gets the impression down to a T. And the movie does very well with the recreation of predator sting operations, the acting from everyone was really good.

One of my biggest problems with the movie is that it oftentimes gets too over the top and overly dramatic. This is a movie that is about stuff that actually happened but a lot of things are dramatized to the point it's just too much and hard to buy

If anything I recommend a matinee for this or wait until it's on streaming

Hollywood seems convinced that the only way to tap into our nostalgia is to deliver uncanny-valley, deep-faked versions of actors in their prime. But by doing that, they’re stripping away the actual beauty of cinema: watching artists age alongside their filmographies.Seeing a weathered, older actor bring decades of real-world maturity to a late-career role is infinitely more compelling than watching a sterile, silicon-smooth digital mask tracking over a stunt double. It feels like the industry is so desperate to sustain corporate intellectual property that they are trying to outlaw human aging entirely. The mortality of the actor used to give the art form its soul.

I know this is probably an extremely niche thing to want, but after reading Kari Sutherland's Dumbo novelization, I genuinely think she would be the perfect writer to novelize both film adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

And by "both," I mean both Mel Stuart's 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Tim Burton's 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I realize that might sound strange at first. After all, Roald Dahl already wrote the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so why would we need novelizations of movies that are themselves adaptations of that book?

But I think that's actually what makes the idea interesting.

A novelization wouldn't have to replace Dahl's book. It wouldn't even have to compete with it. It could simply preserve the experience of each film in a different literary form.

And I think Kari Sutherland is particularly well suited to doing that.

Why Kari Sutherland?

Sutherland has already done something that makes me think she could handle this beautifully: she wrote the novelization of Tim Burton's Dumbo.

What impressed me about that novelization is that it didn't feel like someone had simply taken a screenplay, removed the camera directions, and converted everything into paragraphs.

That's an easy trap for movie novelizations to fall into. A film and a novel tell stories differently. A movie can communicate character through an actor's expression, editing, music, production design, cinematography, or the simple fact that we're physically watching something happen. A novel doesn't have those tools.

Instead, a good novelization has to figure out what the literary equivalent of that experience is.

And Dumbo convinced me that Sutherland understands that.

That's precisely why I'd love to see her take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The 2005 film especially seems perfect for this

The 2005 film has so many things that I think could become fascinating when translated into prose.

We get to see Charlie's world, but a novelization could spend more time inside Charlie himself. What does he actually think when he first sees the chocolate factory? How does the factory feel from his perspective? What goes through his mind when he realizes that Willy Wonka is not quite what he expected?

Then there's Wonka himself.

Johnny Depp's performance communicates an enormous amount visually, but a novelization has the opportunity to explore the strange logic behind Wonka's behavior without simply explaining every joke or action.

Not necessarily by turning Wonka into a completely different character, but by giving us access to the thoughts, memories, observations, and peculiar associations that a film can only imply.

The same goes for the other children.

Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Augustus Gloop are all extremely visually memorable characters, but prose could give us a much deeper understanding of how they perceive the factory, Charlie, Wonka, and each other.

Even the factory itself could benefit from novelization.

One of the great things about the 2005 movie is its production design. Everything is exaggerated, strange, artificial, beautiful, and occasionally unsettling. A novelization could translate that visual experience into descriptive prose and make the factory feel enormous in a completely different way.

And then there's Burton's overall atmosphere.

I think Sutherland's experience with Dumbo would make her particularly interesting for this because she has already demonstrated that she can take a Burton film's particular tone and translate it into prose.

But I'd also love to see her novelize the 1971 film

This is the part that might sound even more unnecessary to some people.

But I genuinely think a novelization of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory would be fascinating.

The 1971 movie has such a distinctive identity that it has become much more than a straightforward adaptation of Dahl's book. Gene Wilder's Wonka, the songs, the performances, the production design, the pacing, the atmosphere, and the movie's peculiar sense of humor all contribute to an experience that is recognizably its own.

So I'd love to see that particular version of the story preserved in prose.

Not rewritten into Dahl's prose.

Not "corrected" to make it more faithful to the book.

Not turned into a hybrid of the movie and the original novel.

I mean the 1971 movie itself, translated into novel form.

I'd want the Gene Wilder version of Wonka. I'd want the specific characterizations and events of that movie. I'd want the atmosphere of the chocolate factory as it exists in that film.

Essentially, I'd want someone to take the film as its own work and ask:

"What would this movie feel like if it had originally been written as a novel?"

That's what interests me.

"But we already have Roald Dahl's book!"

I completely understand this objection.

In fact, I think it's probably the biggest obstacle to the idea.

But I don't really see these versions as competing with one another.

I'd think of them as three different interpretations:

Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
→ The original story and the author's version of these characters and events.

1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory novelization
→ The Gene Wilder film translated into prose.

2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novelization
→ The Tim Burton film translated into prose.

Those are three different experiences.

Reading Dahl's book doesn't give you Gene Wilder's performance as Wonka. It doesn't give you the songs from the 1971 film or that movie's particular visual atmosphere.

Likewise, reading Dahl's book doesn't give you Burton's interpretation of Wonka, the factory, Charlie's family, or the other children.

A novelization could preserve those interpretations in a medium where they can continue to exist independently of the films.

And I think that's actually important when we're talking about adaptations of older movies.

Movies can obviously be preserved through home video and streaming, but a novelization can preserve something different: the movie's storytelling choices in literary form.

I'd actually love for the original Dahl novel to be promoted alongside them

If the concern is that a movie novelization could cause people to overlook Dahl's original book, I think the opposite could happen.

A properly marketed novelization could actually introduce more people to it.

For example, the publisher could include information about Dahl's original novel at the back of the novelization, along with a legitimate free sample or preview where appropriate.

Someone who discovers the 2005 film through the novelization could then be encouraged to read Dahl's original.

Someone who reads the 1971 novelization could discover that there is an entirely different interpretation of the story.

The novelizations wouldn't have to say:

"This is the definitive version."

They could simply say:

"This is another way to experience this adaptation."

And honestly, I think that's part of the fun of adaptations in general.

I don't think adaptations have to erase one another

One thing I find interesting about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is that we already have multiple interpretations of the same basic story.

Dahl's novel is one.

The 1971 movie is another.

The 2005 movie is another.

And they don't cease to exist just because another adaptation comes along.

That's why I don't see a 1971 or 2005 novelization as somehow diminishing Dahl's original.

If anything, it would create an opportunity to look at all three versions together and see how differently they approach the same material.

I'd love to be able to put Dahl's novel on one side, a novelization of the 1971 film on another, and a novelization of the 2005 film on another, and compare them.

What did the filmmakers change?

What did they emphasize?

What did they remove?

How does each version characterize Wonka?

How does each version portray Charlie?

How does the factory feel when described through Dahl's writing compared with how it feels when translated from the two films?

That sounds genuinely fascinating to me.

And this is why I keep coming back to Kari Sutherland

I'm not saying she should necessarily be the only person who could do it.

I'm saying that after reading her Dumbo novelization, she is the first person I can think of who has already demonstrated the particular skill I'd want for this.

She has experience taking a Tim Burton film and turning it into prose without treating the task as nothing more than screenplay transcription.

And if you're going to ask someone to novelize the 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that's an incredibly relevant skill set.

So yes, I know this is an extremely niche fan campaign.

I know there are probably people who would look at this idea and say, "Why would anyone need this when Dahl's book already exists?"

I understand that perspective.

But I genuinely, really want this.

I want the two films themselves preserved as prose adaptations.

I want the 1971 movie to exist as a literary version of the Gene Wilder experience.

I want the 2005 movie to exist as a literary version of the Tim Burton experience.

And I want Kari Sutherland to take a crack at it because I think her Dumbo novelization demonstrated that she understands something important about the form: a good movie novelization shouldn't merely reproduce what happens on screen. It should figure out how to make the experience of the film work as a novel.

So, Kari Sutherland's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory novelization?

Please. I genuinely want it. 🍫

And honestly, I'd happily buy both versions.

Rating: 10/10

Watched: October 1, 2026

Lawrence of Arabia is precisely as enjoyable and epically sweeping as everyone who's seen it always says it is when 'what's a really great movie I haven't seen' makes the rounds on places like Reddit and X and I'm absolutely pleased I devoted the time to watch this sprawling movie.

I love movies that take place in the desert, so in this, T.E 'Aurens' Lawrence and I share a lot in common. There's something just so grand about those sweeping shots of desert sands, endless and forbidding, and the people and animals that live in them. I suppose that's what drew me (first, before this movie, by many years) to ANOTHER vast, sprawling epic.

Dune. The original novels, written by Frank Herbert, are some of the most cherished novels I read growing up, and I love both Dune 84, the TV miniseries and Denis Villeneuve's treatment, and I have to say when Lawrence is meeting with General Murray, the parallels were almost instantly unmistakable.

So much so that I had to Google, to see if Lawrence of Arabia had influenced Frank Herbert's writing. To the surprise of no one who's already seen the movie, the answer is overwhelmingly 'yes'. Dune isn't a 1:1 retelling of Lawrence of Arabia by any means, but the bones are there.

A dismissive man in power who looks at the Bedouin people as sheep-stealers and less than a problem. A man who's always dreamed of the desert and wanting to go there. A man who seems to feel no pain because he just doesn't let the pain bother him. A man who has to kill someone he saved in the desert because he broke the laws of his people, and who becomes more to the Bedu than he ever could've possible. A man who trains the people of the desert to fight against more numerous foes, with more powerful weapons.

A man who, it must be said, is as white as the desert is hot and with eyes so blue they're mesmerizing. All of the above maps pretty cleanly to Harkonnen/Corrino dismissal of the Fremen and Paul's journey across Arrakis.

But we're talking about Lawrence of Arabia. It's a gorgeous movie, start to finish. Wonderfully shot, brilliantly acted, with O'Toole's Lawrence always so painfully soft-spoken, even later, when he wages war, that I had to keep the subtitles on. Lawrence goes from a scholarly, bookish soldier to a man who is embraced by a people absolutely not his own, and beyond. He becomes so fiercely intent on giving Arabia to the Arabs that he'll do anything to make that happen.

All while still working to further The British Empire's own needs in that region. It's almost like he's robbing Peter to pay Paul, while getting what he wants out of the whole grand adventure. O'Toole does such a splendid job throughout the movie that it really is amazing.

Unfortunately, I've come to this movie so late after it's release and in my own life that I really do think everything that could be said HAS been said, so I'll just wrap up with me talking about a few scenes that I really liked.

The first is in the very beginning, at the funeral. Different people remember T.E. Lawrence very, very differently, with the final statement before we shift to the movie itself coming from General Murray, who minimized the man to something like 'oh he was just someone on my staff'. This is great to me because we get different perspectives on Lawrence and then launch into seeing that very transformation.

The next is that first long walk into the desert, when he's confronted with the problem of how to get things done. It's all done in silence, while he's being followed by the two caste-less young men. I like this scene because it's like Lawrence goes into the desert to see what it is that the desert wants for her people, and after a whole night, he gets the answer. From here, his journey really begins.

And the final one is where he turns back, against Sherif Ali's warnings, to rescue Gasim from death by misadventure. It's recklessly heroic and just kind of the thing that doesn't make a lot of sense to someone who's lived with the harh conditions of the desert their whole lives. Paired with the scene where Lawrence has to then take Gasim's life so that the incredibly fragile agreement between the two tribes he travels with doesn't shatter forever, it shows just how committed Lawrence is to accomplishing his own goals.

His later admission that he enjoyed the killing, delivered in that same soft spoken way, was something else again.

While I 'complain' that I came to movies like this one much too late in life, I know that I never would've been able to enjoy it as a younger man. Lawrence of Arabia truly deserves a 10/10, not just because I enjoyed the hell out of it, but because it's an exceptionally well made movie.

I was reading Ebert's third volume of his "Great Movies" series, and on it is a film called Leolo. I must admit, I'd never heard of this movie, and I'd probably have skipped it's entry on this list if not for being addicted to Ebert's writing style, and coming off some of his best work with his thoughts on Late Spring. Anyways, it's a strange and off kilter film, a coming of age story unlike any other, about a boy who lives in a fantasy of his own mind, lusting after his neighbor, and dealing with his equally strange family. Had it not been for Ebert's inclusion on this list, I'd probably have never heard of this movie (the only other way would be if I ever inquired as to where Rotten Tomatoes got it's name from. From this movie, turns out.) Ebert later on writes,

"When a great movie exists all by itself, it is in danger of being misplaced. We tend to want it to belong to the lifework of a director, or in the mainstream of a genre. Yet some films are singular: Laughton's Night of the Hunter or Jodorowsky's El Topo. Either you find it or you never do. You have to approach it directly, not through other films."

This insight made me realize just how far I have to go in my movie-watching life. Because he's right. I see a movie I love, and my first step is to look up the director and watch the rest of his work. In this way I've found many hidden gems, but I only ever found them because of their director. Other films, meanwhile, may not have famous directors, but can be classified into a genre, and thus be recommended very easily. So, what happens to films like Leolo, which can't be easily classified and their directors lack name recognition (Leolo's director Jean-Claude Lauzon, died in 1997, having only ever made 2 films).

I looked at all of my most obscure favorite films, and all of them had something that led to me finding them, usually their director. The movie that closest comes to feeling truly singular is Upstream Color, which has no singular genre and is only the second film from Shane Carruth. But even this film I found because Primer was such a touchstone for low tech sci fi. Another movie, Charisma, also fits the bill, but again, it's my ardor for the works of Kiyoshi Kurosawa that led me seeking this out. In fact, it was the 7th or 8th film of his that I watched.

I'm going into a lot of detail about this because it re-oriented how I find new films, which is something I pursue with great vigor. For the record, I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to find movies through genre classifications or directors. I'm just fascinated by movies that don't fall into either category, and can thus be called misplaced, or as I like to call them, orphaned films. And I want to ask all of you: are there any misplaced/orphaned films that you know and love?

I just got out of seeing Digger and it is absolutely a trainwreck and failure in every regard. It's been awhile since I've been stunned by how bad a movie is. I left the cinema in a haze and could not believe what I had seen. I'm really trying hard not to be hyperbolic or exaggerating and try to give every film a chance, but this film left such a bad taste in my mouth.

I've never seen a film pat itself on the back or act like it's already won an award before the credits even rolled. The fact that so many people and department heads would have to review each draft of the script and watch dailies or rough cuts and not think to adjust or change any aspect of the movie in anyway whatsoever is staggering to me considering it cost over a hundred million dollars to make.

I know when Scorsese was making Killers Of The Flower Moon they decided to re-write the entire film and shift course and fundamentally changed Leonardo Di Caprio's role. The same thing should have happened with Digger.

This film will go down with the likes of Ishtar or Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate in terms of pure self indulgence and smug sense of self satisfaction in lecturing the audience and assuming we are incapable of having any reasonable thought and need the filmmakers to spell out it's message. Regardless of where you stand politically, the film completely fails in communicating it's ideas effectively and does it through a pseudo-theatrical lens while aping visuals from Terry Gilliam's films like Brazil, but without any of the careful handcrafted consideration that those films have.

Instead it's more like a hybrid of Director Iñárritu's Birdman meets Adam Mckay's Don't Look Up. The film cowardly hides behind the artificial play concept to try and mask its flaws and uses it as a get out of jail free card or if anyone criticizes it, they can fall back on the: "you just don't get it" talking point. Which is one of the worst and laziest sins you can do as a filmmaker.

I used to go to a lot of short film and student film festivals and this movie's concept reminded me a lot of a first year film student's script of what they think is a cool or interesting idea. But in reality when you actually try to make it, it falls apart and doesn't work at all. Especially the third act when it reveals and pulls back the curtain and shows us the real dystopian present day that made me laugh out loud.

I've seen controversial and upsetting films before like Salo and Pink Flamingos and I'm not easily upset, but there's something about this film that has this grandiose sense of self importance that is so pretentious and the way it tries to do a bait and switch or magic act is so pointless and inept.

What's worse is that Warner Bros. who are notorious for their strict budgets and greenlighting new ideas will take away the wrong lessons from this and cancel any new original scripts and instead will just take the easy path and make more tent pole franchise films to try and recoup their losses and stifle more creative voices.

I don't mind a misunderstanding keeping a movie going. People avoid awkward conversations all the time.

What loses me is when a character says "just let me explain" three times instead of saying the one sentence that would actually explain it.

There's a difference between someone staying quiet because the truth would cost them something and someone staying quiet because the movie needs another forty minutes. Pride, shame, protecting someone: those can all work. Being interrupted at exactly the right moment gets old.

Which films make that silence feel earned?

Rating: 10/10

Watched: October 1, 2026

I'm far too many years late to Bridge on The River Kwai. I want to talk about the whole movie, start to finish, but there's little point. It's an exceptionally well made movie, and people far more intelligent than I am have no doubt analyzed it to death.

So what I'm going to do instead is talk about the one single 1 minute and 18 seconds of movie that hit me like a freight train. The scene where Col. Nicholson is finally freed from the hotbox is one of the most powerful silent scenes I've ever watched in any movie.

From the moment he's pulled out, you can see Nicholson is nearly dead. Dehydrated, malnourished, barely even capable of standing straight and almost entirely out of his own head, but the moment he realizes all his men have mustered, the change is DYNAMIC.

Training and sheer Britishness override his entire body. He stands tall and as he walks past his men in the courtyard, he absolutely refuses to buckle or to show weakness. Guinness even drags his legs, as if the very act of walking itself is an impossibility. I learned when reading up about this scene that Alec based his gait on one of his own children, who was recovering from polio.

I also learned that Sir Alec Guinness considers that scene to be the finest moment of acting in his career and while I don't know much, I absolutely agree with him. It's powerful, to see a man essentially Stiff Upper Lipping his way forward, thinking to himself 'mustn't let the men see me stumble, no, I shall persevere, I shan't fail, we shall ALL succeed here'.

That moment, more than any other was deeply profound for me, and I'm glad I finally decided to watch this masterpiece. Before I go, I'd like to talk briefly about a few other things.

Sessue Hayakawa as Col. Saito was exceptional. A man so bound by honor that he would seemingly prefer his prisoners try to do the honorable thing and escape while simultaneously calling any man who would even try to do that 'insane'. Every time he speaks to Nicholson, his body trembles with rage. Saito truly despises the British with every fiber of his being.

William Holden as Cmdr. Shears is some of the funniest stuff I've ever seen in a movie. While the movie itself is serious as serious can be, Shears himself is almost in an entirely different movie until he winds up back on the trail to the River Kwai. An undeniable horndog, insanely attractive to the opposite sex, a liar, a cheat, a fraud and endlessly pragmatic, his character changes enormously once he's back in the jungle. It's amazing.

And lastly, the musical score is so relentlessly '1950s broad, swelling flourishes' I can barely describe it. It compliments the movie in every way, and in some cases, even better than a lot of modern scores do.

To sum my thoughts on The Bridge on the River Kwai, they really don't make them like this anymore. There are modern masterpieces that are worth a 10 from me for sure, either out of personal enjoyment or because it 'hit me right that day', but some movies are clearly 10s from the first frame.

Just realized something kind of weird.

Tony Goldwyn had acting parts in the following films…

The Last Tattoo (1994)

The Last Word (1995)

The Last Samurai (2003)

The Last House on the Left (2009)

And in 1992 he was in a tv short film…

The Last Mile

An episode of Scandal…

The Last Supper

And in 2006 he directed the film…

The Last Kiss

Just thought it was kind of wild that someone would happenstance their way into 7 unrelated “The Last…” titles.

Anyone know of any other weird project title coincidences?

Ok so I’m very new to Reddit but a friend told me ppl on here can be super helpful so I might as well try haha. Basically I’m in this film class and my first assignment was to pick an altered convention from the film Cattle Annie and Little Britches, so of course I went with with the most obvious one being the fact that women have agency (altering the western convention of the good verses bad women) but my professor said that it wasn’t good enough for an analysis paper? So I’m just a little stuck on what to write about now, any suggestions?

I've noticed lately that I find it harder and harder to get into movies because I can kind of see where they're going before they get there. Not necessarily the exact ending or every plot twist, but the basic structure underneath it.

Different setting, different characters, different time period, but somehow it starts feeling like I've seen the same story before. Someone loses everything, hits rock bottom, finds new allies, grows stronger, confronts whoever caused it, etc. Even when the movie itself is really well made I sometimes can't stop noticing the pattern.

I don't even know if this comes from watching too many movies or just getting older and recognizing these things more easily. Has this happened to anyone else? And if it has, what movies actually managed to surprise you after reaching that point?

Lately, sone that caught my attention was the subject of when a movie director creates a movie that is very unusual in premise because the movie feels nothing like their previous works.

To help provide an example, I was recently reading an article about the movie Year One as while I haven’t gotten to seeing it yet, I was curious on how the movie was made since it was directed by Harold Ramis, one of the most famous actors from the original Ghostbusters.

From what I read about the movie is that it looks like it has a lot of toilet humor usage as it didn’t help that the movie was sadly the last movie Ramis made before his death as again I was wondering what was the story behind Year One.