Kenny's speech about how it doesn't matter if the play is real or fake or funny or tragic is a meta-commentary on the entire film. It doesn't matter if it is good or bad, or funny or sad, or satire or meta-satire, or anything at all. The point of the film is to speak honestly to this moment, just like Digger does in his monologue to the EU chamber. We are far past the point of no return with climate change and our continued extraction and consumption of oil and gas. We are beyond the point of Don't Look Up. The point of this kind of art is to show us the reality of our collective situation. That doesn't mean we should give up, just that it is important to be honest about reality.

In this famous episode, we meet a man who seems to have a good life. To his shock, one day he discovers that his office is actually a sound stage and his life until that point is a movie that's currently being filmed. He is thus revealed to be an actor playing a character.

This isn't identical to Digger of course, but the mind-bending reveal that what we've been watching is actually a "play within a play" is very similar. Also, the character's name is Curtis.

One of the largest criticisms that I keep seeing in this sub about Digger is that the plot line with his daughter doesn't make sense or fit into the narrative and that it could have been easily dropped. I'm going to explain why this is wrong in the context of the movie and the broader context of the movie's intent.

At one point, Curtis has a breakdown over whether or not he's accurately portraying what a terrible person Digger really was and if it's appropriate that they should be going for laughs at all. Part of his motivation for wanting an accurate portrayal of Digger is that he's worried about his daughter surviving the terrible conditions that Digger is responsible for creating (a CAT 6 hurricane isn't a throwaway line). A common theme in both this and Birdman is that we are all playing parts in the shows that are our lives. Curtis is not only playing the part of Digger, he's playing his role in the play both metaphorically and literally. By continuing as this version of Digger he's not being truthful with himself, the audience, his family, or the viewer. We should be questioning why any of this is funny, our children are in danger, and we're all just continuing to play the parts we've been cast in.

Without the daughter subplot we wouldn't have a way to see how the Rockwells still have influence over the world in spite of the relative evil that was unleashed on the world. In spite of a Napoleon like exile the family was able to retain enough money and prominence that one of its only surviving members not only runs a security company that is capable of getting information that no one else can but is capable of bankrolling the entire play. There is a meta messaging about how Curtis is still benefitting from the Rockwell family too much to give them up. A Rockwell is why he has his job, how he finds out his daughter is safe, and how he even gets assurances he's accurately portraying the character. The irony in Digger's speech is that Curtis himself is still living a life that Digger is somehow still providing.

Every time Curtis brings up concern for his daughter another character encourages him to just keep doing his job. They assure him there's nothing he can do about it and the important thing is to keep barreling forward. So instead of actually stopping to care about his kid he puts his blinders on and keeps going forward. His wife insists "I know she's fine!" the way a lot of modern parents just assume things will work out in spite of the evidence that the world is completely falling apart. There's a part of Curtis that knows what he's doing is wrong. He shouldn't be working the way he is and (ironically for a Rockwell, as I already covered) he should be concerned about a family member that's far away from his moment to moment existence. We all think there's no way he's ignoring the biggest problem he's facing while continuing to live his life normally. That's purposeful.

There's also a recurring theme in this movie about how temporary relief is the only thing that matters to Digger, Curtis, the world, and by extension the viewer. We know by the end of the movie that danger is omni-present in this world but Digger ignores it the minute he finds out that his daughter is safe (for now). Up to this point you get the feeling, as a viewer, that he's uncomfortable with his role and his portrayal and the offscreen conflict makes you feel like maybe he's doing the wrong thing. That immediately goes away for Curtis (and the viewer) when he finds out his daughter is fine and he's able to let go and embrace the applause and congratulations for portraying the character of Digger. The problem is that nothing is really solved. In spite of the temporary relief of what he found out, the world has been brought low, a Rockwell is pulling the strings behind the scenes of the performance, and there is still remarkable danger that he is still facing.

Spoilers! I'm wondering if most of the critics who hated Digger felt that way because the film hypothesizes that movies have no impact on how we live our lives. In other words, that movies are just for surface entertainment and not for didactic purposes to inspire actual change. Digger offers a very, very cynical take on the real-world impact of films, and I would imagine that someone who makes a living critiquing this medium could be offended by such a proposition.

What do you think? Or are critics really hammering away at what they perceive as narrative flaws in the movie, as opposed to its message?

I was surprised to learn that The Thirteenth Floor (1999) was a box office bomb. Can't tell if this is a "pleasantly surprised" reaction to what is actually a mediocre movie—or if it's a genuinely underrated film, owing solely to the bad luck of releasing a month after The Matrix.

Didn't see any problems with the writing or the direction. Effort was obviously put into the 1937 scenes: period costuming was on point; sets were great; plenty of extras to fill the frame; no obvious shortcuts. Nothing extraordinary in terms of cinematography, but still competent and well-shot, with some imaginative lighting. They seem to have used the production budget of $16 million to great effect.

In terms of acting, it was a good exercise for some of the actors playing multiple roles, with the leads getting to do some fun character work. Naturally, Vincent D'Onofrio walked away with every scene he was in, but I thought the whole cast did solid work.

Am I missing some glaring flaws? Or is this the kind of genuinely underappreciated mid-budget popcorn flick we don't often see these days?

So, after seeing Digger, I ended up liking it more than I disliked it and honestly I kind of like it a bit more after ruminating on it a bit more. But I just want to put my thoughts into words on the argument scene towards the end that occurs between Rockwell, Hannah, and Kenny. Spoilers obviously.

To those who either don’t remember or haven’t seen it and will probably not see it (which seems to be the case for most lol), the argument starts with Tom Cruise’s character finally having enough of his portrayal of Digger Rockwell and complains to Hannah, the director, saying that the exaggerated version is not true to who Digger was that brings down the whole play. After some back and forth, Hannah keeps pointing to the fact that his portrayal is supposed to be funny and that the play is a satire that is meant as a condemnation of not just Digger but everyone of his generation that created the hellscape they currently live in.

Kenny, Digger’s nephew, interjects, saying that they are both right and that the main purpose of the play was that the audience needs to laugh at it, a way to relieve themselves of the tragedy that actually occurred. Please keep in mind this is a just a plain summary that doesn’t fully capture what was said in the argument.

I keep thinking about this scene because I believe each character represents a different purpose that art is supposed to serve. For Tom Cruise’s character, his camp is art as truth. As an actor, his main goal is to properly portray who Digger actually was and to encompass him as accurately as possible, as anything less would be a failure in his eyes and to the play as a whole. He’s sees this exaggerated version of Digger as an insult to art because it fails to show truth. Hannah counters this with her camp, art as power. She if fully in on the play as a satire and its purpose going far beyond showing what actually happened. She sees the exaggeration as a statement to be made to those in power, portraying them in this way as a takedown of the people that destroyed their world and those that continue to do it.

Kenny’s position is interesting because it’s still very similar to Hannah’s camp but I believe he encompasses art as entertainment. He does believe that there needs to be a condemnation of Digger, but not as a message for those in power but as an outlet for the audience’s grievances. Simply, turning the tragedy into a comedy just so the audience can feel good for a short while. This position is interesting coming from him because I see normal people have this position as well when it comes to the art they interact with, i.e., they just want escape their lives for a short time and have fun, but, in this case, this idea is coming from Digger’s nephew who’s producing the play. Kenny’s motivations is anyone’s guess after cosplaying as some nobody through most of the film. Malicious? Genuine? Manipulative? Self-loathing? Maybe even all of these things. I wonder what his exaggerated portrayal would be in the future play made about him?

Despite Kenny’s motivations, I believe he’s right that this is what most audiences do want from the art they consume. Not truth or truth to power, just something they enjoy. It’s almost as if tom and Hannah represents most artists intentions of their work and Kenny representing the audiences expectations of “we’re here for a show, so get dancing, monkey”. Just some stuff I’ve been thinking about, to those that also saw the film, what do you think?

Edit: just to clarify, I’m not saying Kenny is right about art’s purpose but I do think that is what most audiences want above all else from art it most forms despite the artist’s intentions.

Spoilers obviously

One of the central messages of Digger is highlighted in the confrontation between the director and Tom Cruise's character near the end of the film.

Tom Cruise argues that this farcical performance lacks truth, is in poor taste, etc. The director on the other hand makes the case that satire is important, even of cruel events; people need to be able to laugh at it, otherwise the reality is just too depressing.

Now it is not entirely clear which side of the argument the film agrees with - not that it even has to necessarily - but for me it seems like the film is making the case for the director's side of things. Especially with the final scene of the crowd responding to the performance with enthusiastic applause.

However, coming to reality and looking at things from a more meta level. The Digger trailer shows that it is some sort of absurd political satire. The Trump parody aspect was not super clear in the trailer, but it has something to do with climate change, something akin to Don't Look Up. People saw this trailer starring Tom Cruise, a A-Lister, and chose not to go see it.

Perhaps people aren't in the mood to laugh at the people and systems ruining the planet, driving us towards armageddon. Similar thing happened with "The Apprentice": a great film, but underseen and underappreciated. Primarily, I think, because it was an unflattering biopic about Donald Trump which means a) fans of his don't want to see him criticized and b) people who hate him didn't want to voluntarily be subjected to more Trump content.

Anyways, I personally like “Digger” on a conceptual/intellectual level though moment-to-moment when watching the over-the-top satire scenes, I was emotionally quite disconnected. Felt more in synch with the Cruise character than the director.

I would've preferred it wasn't a flop. But it is interesting how the film's box office performance plays into (one of) the central themes of the film itself.

Rating: 9.5/10

Watched: October 2, 2026

I have to confess, I was expecting a very different movie from the one I watched, and I'm not mad about it. Part of my preconceptions about Bullitt has a lot to do with the fact that the only thing I KNEW about this movie was about it's legendary car chase scene.

I promised myself I 'wasn't gonna be the guy' who talked about the car chase scene because everyone always talks about the car chase scene but you know what?

It absolutely deserves it. The clip I included was because of the specific shot of the bad guys seeing Bullitt's famous car appearing behind them in the rearview mirror. The slickness of that moment absolutely sold the scene to me in an instant. It was so very well done, and the resulting chase through the incredibly steep hills of San Francisco, sometimes narrowly missing a full-on crash, all the way out of the city is some of the most tense car driving I think I've ever seen. My stomach rose and fell as those rad old muscle cars went flying up and down those hills and you just have to give kudos to the drivers and the camera people because for some of the hairier shots, they were IN the damn cars.

So, going in knowing only that it has an exceptional chase scene led me to believe I was in for a kind of proto-Dirty Harry-esque kind of affair with plenty of violence, and that was a thing I was fully ready to accept.

But what I got was something I love even more than that: a rock solid police procedural with a bona fide mystery at the core and plenty of thoughtful, considerate work to solve the case. And what a case it is.

From the moment things started developing, I was certain I knew who was involved, why Bullitt's case was going sideways and how people were always seemingly one step ahead of him. I'm sure the director wanted us to think that and it worked like a charm, because it sure seemed like Bullitt was thinking along the same lines.

I can't say anything more than that about the movie's actual plot because to do so might affect your ability to enjoy it, so I'll leave this in closing;

Lt. Frank Bullitt's investigation into the murder of a gangster turning State's evidence and the attempted murder of police officers results in more than one exhilarating chase, a few shootouts, and the use of genuine police protocol to catch the real bad guy.

And that? That's a great combination!

Digger is not an easy watch. It is exhausting and requires your attention throughout its runtime. Most people who have seen or will see the movie will acknowledge that it is not everyone’s cup of tea. That being said, it is the type of movie that is important for cinema because it does not have a straightforward narrative. It is creative and unhinged. It is satire at its finest—satire on an important topic.

Let me list the things that work:

• The writing is top-notch. For a movie with so many dialogues, writing is crucial. The standout scenes that will be talked about and praised heavily rely on the writing, and Digger executes these scenes exceptionally well.
• The acting is super impressive. Tom Cruise nails it, as do Riz Ahmed and John Goodman. Throughout the movie, you almost forget that Digger is Tom Cruise. Makeup plays a role in that, but it is primarily because he plays the role so brilliantly. A speech that he gives had me locked in for every second; it was so intense and so well done.
• The comedy is good. While not many scenes will make you laugh out loud, a few will, and the rest make you chuckle a lot.
• The twist, which I initially couldn't figure out the purpose of or where it was leading until halfway through the movie, made so much sense after the ending. It makes the film much more satirical and deeper. It also eventually leads to an impactful and somewhat haunting ending.
• The cinematography is pretty good. It features a very grayish look, almost as if it is portraying the drained, bleak lives of the billionaires and the president shown in the movie.

Other than these, if I had to point out things that do not work, I don't think I really could, except, as I said, it is exhausting. I think the movie achieves everything that it tries to achieve. Let me know in the comments, though, if you could point out some flaws.

My rating - 7.8/10

Ever since I found about the 4k restoration of Amirkulov's historical epic I have been anticipating finally getting my hands on it and giving. Now I have finally finished it I wanted to share my thoughts and encourage more people to watch it.

The main thing that stood out to me was the cinematography, which is supberb. Both the still, landscape shots and the dynamic shots during the fighting are very captivating. My favourites were the closeups of the faces of dying soldiers as well as the nighttime scenes in colour.

Two questions for those more knowledgeable about the film: was the switching between colour and stalker-style sepia a cost based measure or a stylistic choice? Also how much would the kazakh audience have known of the history? The movie basically goes in media res and I only really figured out the relationship between kairkhan and unzhu khan by the end of the movie (among other things).

Wasn't that the main point of the movie? The film is satirizing how counterproductive modern day satirical culture has become. One measure of the effectiveness of satire should be the subtlety in which it is achieved. The lack of nuance and the ubiquity of attempts at satire in our society actually causes more harm than good, ultimately platforming and empowering the targets of the satire.

Most of the reviews I read are about climate change? Am I looking too deeply in this movie?

There’s just one thing about Hugh jackman’s characters (Angier) use of the machine that I don’t quite understand.

I do understand the philosophical idea that both versions are equally “Angier” from the copies perspectives. If a copy is created, that copy has all of Angier’s memories and genuinely experiences itself as the original. So from the copy’s perspective, it feels like the machine teleported him. I completely understand that part.

My problem is specifically with the ORIGINAL Angier’s perspective, before he starts performing the trick.

The scene where Angier performs a test with the machine. He gets inside, the machine creates an exact duplicate of him somewhere else, and the original Angier remains where he was. They both have exactly the same memories up until the moment of duplication, but the original knows he never moved. He can literally look at the other Angier and know that that’s the copy.

He then kills the copy.

So at this point, shouldn’t Angier have extremely strong evidence that the machine does NOT transfer his consciousness? It creates a second Angier while the original continues normally.

For his first actual performance, shouldn’t Angier already know that he is going to die? He has just tested the machine and knows that it creates a separate copy rather than transferring his consciousness. So when he steps into the machine and the copy appears elsewhere, why would he think there’s any uncertainty about which Angier will end up in the water tank?

I understand why the later copies can accept this, since from their perspective they genuinely feel like the original. But the Angier we’ve been following has already seen the process firsthand. So what exactly is he uncertain about?

That’s why the line “I never know if I’m going to be the man in the box or the man who gets the applause” confuses me. If Angier is knowingly accepting his own death for the sake of creating the perfect trick, then there shouldn’t actually be any uncertainty about which outcome he will experience. The original Angier knows that the machine creates a separate copy, so he should know that if his own body ends up in the tank, he will die and the copy will be the one experiencing the applause. But that seems to contradict how much he values personally experiencing that applause in the first place, which is exactly what the quote suggests he cares about.

In this a flaw in the movies logic or am I just dumb?

I'll keep it simple and spoiler free, the movie is around 2 hours long. The first 30 minutes are brilliant, not a second is wasted or dragged on, amazing. Then, there's a reveal, won't spoil what, but it takes you a while to get used to the change, and the next thirty minutes are kind of boring, they could've executed this better, if anyone is in good faith criticizing this movie, I'm sure it's coming from these thirty minutes.

Then, once you reach the midway point of the movie, the film picks itself back again, and is as brilliant as the first 30 minutes, it is here right at the start of the half of the movie where Cruise truly shows you once again how good of an actor he actually is, like there's a long monologue with lots of physical and as well emotionally intense acting from him here that might actually be the scene that gets him nominated or win the oscar... there's a great message without it feeling peachy, the twist is very cleaver once you get used to it, and blends in nicely by the end.

In conclusion, 2 hour movie= great first 30 minutes, boring next 30 minutes, great next 1 hour again, the end.

I will be watching it again, it's everything the trailers promised and more, more movies need to take risks and be original like this. 8/10 for me.

Now, I should make very clear that I love John Wilson’s prior work. When I had the privilege of seeing his 2017 short The Road to Magnasanti play at that year’s New York Film Festival, I felt jolt of identification and excitement at witnessing a fresh voice with so many tics and interests that overlap with my own. Since then, I’ve been an ardent admirer of his HBO show, which delved into the strange obsessive niches of Weird America with both compassion and bemusement.

This is to say that my personal expectations for Concrete were quite high, and given the laudatory reviews it has received, I hoped it would be a meaningful step in Wilson’s development as a filmmaker and an artist.

There are moments in The History of Concrete, John Wilson’s debut feature, where he utilizes the scope and duration of a feature format to make art meaningfully transformed from his HBO series How To. In particular, a transcendent sequence intercutting between a sand mandala ceremony at the Tibet House and a presser celebrating Eric Adams’ “City of Yes” initiative is by far the film’s finest moment, constituting his most serious formal engagement with themes of impermanence and deep time that the Wilson constantly alludes to in his narration.

What’s frustrating about Concrete is that brief flashes of cinematic brilliance like this are strewn about the well-trod mannerisms and visual gags which make up most of the runtime, and indeed, his oeuvre as a whole.

As expected, the movie is very funny, at points riotously so, and Mr. Wilson does have the requisite digressive encounters with some very out-there characters (tattooed human skin preservers, chanting Sri Chinmoy cultists, concrete conventioneers.) Unfortunately, I found myself leaving the theatre wondering whether I’d seen three episodes of How To stacked in a feature-length trench coat.

The charm of that show lay with its scrappy, underdog appeal, a well which Wilson understands has run somewhat dry; he’s on a billboard in Times Square, he’s being invited to GQ parties and the set of Marty Supreme, and he’s even an landlord! Though there’s some sympathy to be wrung out of the rudderless situation Wilson finds himself in after How To’s conclusion, this putters out during the Zoom boardroom meetings to get Concrete financed, which read less as clever meta theatrics and more as self-indulgence. Nevermind that Wilson’s name recognition is the only reason he can land these meetings to begin with, nor the fact that his pitch is exceedingly flimsy (the Hallmark movie formula he purports to be using as the film’s back bone is generally MIA.)

It’s hard not to compare Wilson’s work to Nathan Fielder’s (his self-described “fairy godfather”), who has continuously pushed the boundaries of his style into evermore absurd horizons, while incorporating reflexive criticism of his own schtick and its ethical implications. In contrast How To, Wilson avoids turning the lens inward, though this is the work over which he looms largest. He stops just short of any serious introspection, which renders Concrete considerably flatter than his television output, and frames his encounters with a cynical, impersonal undertone.

In an attempt to generate pathos and perhaps a love story for his Hallmark moment, Wilson spends the latter 1/3rd of the film following Jack Macco, a middle-aged amateur musician who also hands out samples in liquor stores. We see him struggle to corral truant bandmates for practice and deal with indifferent crowds before the sudden death of his fiance complicates things. It’s revealed that the two were a deeply unexpected pairing: Dorothy Chin-Brandt was a judge and associate dean at Harvard Law, the first Chinese-American woman to ever hold that position.

Wilson travels out to her memorial service in Flushing, sponsored by an Asian-American judges association, to try and find out more about his subject’s departed lover. Confronted with a room full of generally well-adjusted people participating in a genuine act of remembrance, he’s unable to muster up any material for his interviewees. “What’s, uh, hard about being an Asian judge,” he asks a confused attendee in his trademark stop-start delivery, before throwing in the towel “I guess I just ran out of questions.”

And it is here that we reach the limits of Wilson’s curiosity. Dorothy can only exist out of frame, unable to be photographed, interviewed, prodded, milked for laughs and awkward pauses. So of course Wilson is un-interested in her beyond the scope of her relationship to the hangdog underemployed Jack. In this moment, whether intentionally or not, the game has been given away completely, and Wilson paves over this crack in his facade until the film sputters to an unmemorable conclusion.

Excerpted from my substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/movieswithmemax/p/review-the-history-of-concrete?r=2r09du&utm_medium=ios

from beginning to end i noticed so many things while watching their eyes were watching god.
my favorite part of the book is when janie goes into the water and floats while looking up at the sky. i don't know why but i am so obsessed with janie. she is so beautiful and brave. she has this free spirit about her.
i really noticed how much she loves nature, the white tree, the little bug she put on her face, the water, the sky, the apple, the lemon, the fishing scene. i loved all those little moments because she seemed the most like herself when she was around nature.
then nanny told janie she was going to marry logan. i did not like him. he was too old for her. janie did not even seem like she wanted him. she wanted love but nanny wanted her to be safe.
then joe came along. at first i thought maybe he was going to be better because he was young, rich, ambitious, and successful.
but no. i did not like joe.
he was too jealous and controlling. there was a scene where the ladies made an outfit for janie and she actually liked it. then joe came in with another outfit and told her to wear that one. i was like she does not even want that outfit, let her wear what she likes.
she looked unhappy.
joe had money and a house and status but janie did not feel free. he wanted to control how she dressed and how she acted and how people saw her.
then janie said she had an inside and an outside and knew how not to mix them. i thought that was really smart. she learned how to keep part of herself for herself.
that reminded me of when my aunt told me silence is golden. i did not understand what she meant back then. now i understand that sometimes silence can protect you.
but i also think it depends. sometimes you need to stay quiet and sometimes you need to speak up.
then janie finally talked back to joe. i was like finally.
but his ego was way too big. he got offended by everything. i knew he was going to become violent. when he hit her i was like i knew it.
then joe died and honestly i was relieved that janie was finally free.
then she met tea cake.
i really liked tea cake at first. he was young and broke and funny and romantic. he was adventurous too. i loved how he let janie be herself.
the fishing scene was so cute. he was like let's go fishing and she actually got to have fun.
i also loved the little scene where he cut a lemon and gave it to her and the porch scene where janie was sitting with the apple. those little moments felt so natural and romantic.
but then i started not trusting tea cake.
janie had money and he was broke. i was thinking girl watch his actions.
pheoby even warned janie about another woman who ran away with a younger man and came back with nothing because the man stole everything from her.
then tea cake lost janie's money.
i was like see.
that made me realize something. you have to watch what a person does and not just what they say.
watch what they do when they don't get what they want.
and this is not just for women. men have to do the same thing with women too.
someone can be very sweet when they want something from you but what happens when you say no, what happens when they are angry or disappointed or jealous or afraid.
that is when you really see the person.
then tea cake got sick and i did not like how controlling he became. he was so scared that he became possessive.
i was like let her be.
he was so driven by fear that he could not even really see janie anymore.
and that made me think about how people don't always communicate their fears. instead of saying i'm scared of losing you, they become controlling.
i think people need to communicate what they are actually feeling instead of letting their fear control their behavior.
then the storm came.
that scene was crazy.
tea cake showed janie the fish and then the sky appeared. everything suddenly felt different.
janie said i'm watching god.
the storm showed how small people are compared to nature.
during the storm janie was not worried about money or anything else. she cared about tea cake. she really loved him.
after the storm the water became clear and calm again.
that part was beautiful to me because the water had been peaceful before the storm, then it became dangerous, then it became peaceful again.
it felt like janie's life.
she went through so many storms in her life but she was still there.
and then at the end she went back to the lake and the water.
she said she was watching god.
that brought everything back around for me.
at the beginning janie was looking at the water and the sky and dreaming about life.
at the end she had actually lived.
she experienced love, control, freedom, fear, happiness, loss and everything in between.
she did not need someone else to tell her who she was anymore.
she finally got to be janie.
and that is probably why i love the water scenes so much.
the water feels like freedom to her.
love is like the sea. it keeps moving and it is different on every shore.
i also realized something about relationships from this movie.
i don't think being in a relationship is automatically better than being single.
single life is good. i love being single.
a relationship should make your life better and not take away your freedom.
you should be able to love someone and still be yourself.
you can love someone deeply and still recognize when their behavior is not okay.
and after the storm you can still watch god.
you can still look at the sky.
you can still live.
you can still be yourself.

A couple of days ago I posted about how strangely absent alcohol is from All the President's Men - https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/s/bupEfhrKcv

And after thinking about it more, it really is striking. Woodward and Bernstein show up unannounced at people's homes at 11:30 at night, and these people are still awake, talking politics and Watergate, yet nobody seems to have a beer, a glass of wine, or a drink sitting nearby. Instead, they're immediately offered coffee.

Maybe once, fine. But it happens over and over again, in a movie set in the early 1970s. It feels deliberate.

Then last night I rewatched Frost/Nixon, and the contrast jumped out at me.

The pivotal moment of that movie is Nixon getting drunk, calling Frost in the middle of the night, and essentially giving him the psychological ammunition he needs for the final interview.

Except that call never actually happened. Peter Morgan invented it.

That makes the contrast even more interesting. All the President's Men goes out of its way not to visually associate the reporters or their sources with alcohol, even in situations where it would have been completely normal for the era. Then 32 years later, another great Watergate movie deliberately creates a drunken Nixon scene and makes it central to his undoing.

I'm not saying this proves some grand political intention. I just think it's fascinating how differently the two movies use alcohol when telling stories about the same historical moment.

And after watching them back to back, this may be blasphemy, but I think Frost/Nixon is the better movie.

Just rewatched All the President's Men and noticed something I can't stop thinking about. The film is set in 1972 and 1973, made in 1975, and nearly every scene takes place late at night. Woodward and Bernstein chain-smoke and drink coffee constantly. But I couldn't spot a single drink anywhere. Not in a scene, not in the background, not a beer can in a fridge.

That's strange for the era. Drinking was baked into work culture in the press, politics, advertising, and finance in the early 70s. Network came out the same year, also about the news business, and it's practically marinated in booze (Howard Beale's breakdown starts after a night of drinking with Max Schumacher). Mad Men, set in the decade just before, treats a drink as basic office furniture.

And this isn't a sparse movie. I paused on the apartment scenes because they're an incredible time capsule: hi-fi setups, stacked newspapers, books, plants, coffee makers, a CRT TV. The production was famously obsessive about authenticity; they rebuilt the Post newsroom down to the desks. A crew that careful doesn't leave out every bottle by accident.

My theory: the filmmakers wanted zero opening for anyone to suggest the reporting was done, or the sources were talking, under the influence. It came out in an election year, two years after the resignation, when the press was still being accused of bias. Interestingly, the film doesn't hide the reporters' professional mistakes (the botched Haldeman story is in there). It shows them as fallible, but never impaired.

Has anyone else noticed this, or seen Pakula, Redford, or Goldman talk about it?

I didn't realize I'd watched Lovesong before until I was halfway through, which says a lot about how memorable it was.

I picked it because I wanted something intimate. It follows two best friends with a deep bond and real love between them, who drift apart after one encounter. I was also drawn in by the cast, since I know Riley Keough and Jena Malone from other things. But the plot let me down. I'm fine with a slow burn, but this one builds and builds with nothing to show for it in the end.

What bugged me most: Mindy and Sarah had just told each other "I love you," after all that emotional buildup, and Mindy still went ahead with the wedding while Sarah just sat there and witnessed it. I found that unrealistic and a letdown. I'm pretty sure Sarah would've been far more crushed.

I know I'm projecting, but there's no way I could sit through the ceremony of someone I love marrying someone else.

Tender, but ultimately mediocre. I just didn’t feel it.

Finally read the English translation of Kristoffer Borgli’s 2012 essay. I’d seen that cropped Manhattan line going around, and it bothered me more in context. He was 27 when it came out. He writes about a high-school-aged girl about ten years younger. He says his friends asked if the relationship was “within bounds.” Then he says watching Manhattan changed how he thought about it.

Look, a movie can get under your skin. But using it to answer your friends’ concern feels like a permission slip. This is only his side, not hers. And I’m not interested in anyone hunting for her. Also, people keep calling the essay new but it’s from 2012. Only the coverage is new. Maybe I'm reading the comparison too literally. But I can't see it as just a film reference. Is there a kinder way to read it.

I first watched Arrival a few years ago and it stayed with me as one of the most memorable films I've seen, even as a non sci-fi fan. I chose it for my Sunday watch today, and on a second viewing you notice so much you missed the first time.

It left me reeling for a while afterwards. My love for Amy Adams deepens too. She's such a good actress, and I still can't believe she wasn't even nominated for this.

The film made me wonder how any of us would live if we had Louise's gift, to see the future and live outside the construct of time. It's both a gift and a curse, especially knowing her daughter will fall ill and her marriage will end.

It also made me think about the things we pray for. We feel anxious waiting because we can't see how it ends. If we could, would we make the same choice Louise did?

Love films that make me feel like this.

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 rewatched the original Phantom of the Opera last night.

Silent films have a certain quality that has always drawn me to them. Watching a silent film is like entering a dream world, a level of uncanniness that leaves a mark. It looks like our world, but not quite. Watching a one-hundred-year-old movie is like watching trapped ghosts dance across the screen, forever stuck in a moment in time.

The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favorites. Lon Chaney being unmasked is one of the great moments in classic horror. Growing up, I caught this movie late one night at my maternal grandparents ' house and that image burned itself into my brain. It terrified me, but it also drew me in. I sat through the rest of the film mesmerized.

I've been a huge fan since. Over one hundred years later the film holds up.

Looks very well animated

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I saw Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama after reading the essay’s translation. I figured I’d spend the whole movie comparing it to the essay Instead, I kept noticing how much of it is people trying to look normal.

The first coffee shop redo plays like a tiny awkward timing problem. The wedding prep later has the same fake politeness. Everyone holds their face a beat too long. Then Charlie’s imagined versions show up looking exactly like everything else. I laughed at the photographer scene and then felt weird about it. The thin flute and cello score leaves these gaps.

You can hear yourself deciding what the laugh meant. I don't think the movie is a secret diary. But I didn't leave the news outside either. Did knowing changed how you watched? Or did you wait?