12
votes
Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
Hello, everyone. This is my first post here, and I’m excited to join the conversation. I love reading your opinions and recommendations, and I’m happy to share my own thoughts on films I’ve watched.
Recently, I saw some good movies. Here’s a quick review on them:
Night and Fog (1956)
A gripping short documentary narrated with precision and raw impact. In just over 30 minutes, it delivers a harrowing, detailed portrait of concentration camps. Using real footage shot barely a decade after the events, the film exposes the cruelty, humiliation, and banality of evil in a way that’s hard to digest but essential to witness. The experience leaves a bitterness that words can barely capture.
New Order (2020)
A dystopian film that mirrors reality in many places, and could easily become reality in others. The story begins at an elite wedding while protests rage outside. As military intervention escalates, power struggles unleash chaos, violence, and systemic abuse. With its nihilistic tone and shocking scenes, the film crafts a disturbing narrative steeped in despair.
Sertânia (2019)
A chaotic yet poetic tale set in Brazil’s Northeast, elevated by stunning black-and-white cinematography and natural landscapes. Reality and delirium blur in intense moments, with frenetic camera movements, expressive angles, and rich cultural elements. The raw performances pull you deep into its immersive world.
The Sleeping Beauty (2010)
Catherine Breillat’s bold reimagining of Sleeping Beauty surprises with its creativity and daring. The story blends fantasy with themes of growth, desire, and self-discovery, featuring sharp dialogue and intriguing characters. The performances are strong, and the unpredictable plot embraces weirdness and irony in a uniquely compelling way.
These were the highlights of my week.
Over the past few months, I have spent some time upgrading my audio system (new LCR speakers + sub) and I also got a new television (went from a 75" FALD LED to a 77" OLED). Along with these upgrades, I decided to bite the bullet and start building a physical media collection, so I have been purchasing Blu-Rays of all of my favorite movies, and when available, purchasing the 4K UHD versions. This has provided a great opportunity to rewatch some of my favorites and reflect on what I appreciate so much about them.
Zodiac
There's an in incredible sense of atmosphere in this film, where the reality of the attacks and the response on the ground is contrasted with the almost larger-than-life mythology of the Zodiac killer. You get chilling levels of reality in many of the scenes depicting the murder; there is no carefully curated music selection designed to set the mood for the viewer. Yet you follow along with Graysmith as he spirals further and further into an all-consuming drive to uncover the truth, and you find yourself becoming just as deluded as he was, grasping at every straw, every anonymous tip, every spurious claim as the final clue in the massive puzzle.
Ford vs. Ferrari
The actual plot in this movie isn't all that special to me, because I was well aware of the story before I watched the movie. However, it was executed incredibly well, on all fronts. Bale and Damon deliver great performances as Miles & Shelby; the supporting cast at FoMoCo is suitably devilish when called for, and the milieu of shop-hands at Shelby are underdogs in exactly the right way that you can't help but to root for them. Although, all said and done, by far my favorite part of this movie is the incredible sound mixing! With a nicely set-up sound system, you really feel the roar of the exhaust as the cars fly past you, the continuous drone of V8 engines screaming at the test track, and the claustrophobic, all-encompassing whine of the gearbox in the cockpit scenes.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
This is an infinitely re-watchable flick. It's a tour-de-force of acting performances, who all truly disappear into their roles. Gary Oldman is almost unrecognizable – he really embodies George Smiley; folks who have read the Le Carre books will most likely agree that he did about as good of a job with the role as anyone could have. It's a quiet, contemplative story that is deceptively gripping and really drenches you in the atmosphere of Cold War spy tension and quiet worried whispers of double agents and moles among the highest echelons in British intelligence.
Band of Brothers (not technically a movie, but really good nevertheless)
In my opinion, this is the greatest television show ever made. You get a glimpse of the journey these soldiers made from training all the way through to the end of the war, and the ups and downs (mostly downs) that they encountered along the way. There are lots of sobering moments, reminding you just how fleeting life is, and just how brutal war is (although this show isn't quite as visceral as Saving Private Ryan or Come and See). You really get time to learn about and bond with the characters, and see their relationships with each other grow as soldiers, and as friends, which makes it all the more painful when they get ripped away. Aside from a little bit of "clean Wermacht" revisionism and some inaccuracies carried over from Ambrose's book underpinning the show, it's truly as flawless a show as I've ever seen.
As I keep re-watching through the collection I'll keep writing reviews!
I really like Zodiac and Band of Brothers, two masterpieces in my opinion.
What TV did you get? I’m also eyeing up a 77” OLED, it’s the next big purchase on my list. I’m also with you on physical media. Not only is it fun to collect, the audio and visual quality beats the pants off streaming for sure. I also no longer want to be dependent on streaming services.
I got a Sony Bravia 8.
My previous television was a 75" Sony X950H - at the time I bought it in 2021, it was their flagship FALD-LED set, and 70+" OLEDs were still in the 4-5K range.
I considered a few other Sony options, but anything better than the Bravia 8 was around double the cost, with most of the upsides not being particularly relevant for my situation (90% of use being night-time viewing). I also briefly considered an LG G4, but I have hated their webOS UI every time I have used it, and Sony's motion processing is also undisputedly better.
Yeah, the quality argument was the biggest driver for me. In some of the research I did during the upgrade process, I found out that streaming vs. disc releases of the same movie often have entirely different audio mixing (in that streaming releases are usually mixed / mastered for soundbars or TV speakers) with a lot of the LFE channel cut out.
The biggest example I noticed personally was A/Bing Top Gun Maverick purchased through iTunes vs. the 4K UHD Blu-Ray copy; the depth / impressiveness of the LFE and Atmos directionality was much more apparent on the disc copy - my favorite test scene is around 1:41:50, where you have the enemy gunship flying up to Maverick's position and then circling him; it's a truly incredible scene on both streaming and disc, but you really feel the overwhelming firepower of the ship on the disc because of how much more utilized the height channels & LFE are.
Thanks for the info! The Bravia 8 is one of the options I’m looking at, 65” for $1800 otherwise I can get an LG C4 for $1400. Both seem to have the features I want. As far as software, my goal is to use as little of the built in software as possible, I just want it for a display, I access my media library through other means, so I have to do a bit of research on how much I can disable/not be forced to use on each TV.
Sony lets you set up in “basic mode” where it warns you that all it can do is “display images from inputs”, which is exactly what I want; and the CEC implementation with my Denon works like a charm, so it automatically switches to the Apple TV or Blu-Ray player whenever I turn either one on.
Hopefully LG has a similar mode, but from what I have seen, even the parts you still want to use (e.g. picture settings, brightness, etc.) seem to be significantly more annoying to interact with.
At the end of the day though, unless you really care about motion processing (I grew up around folks who worked as TV DSP chip designers, so I was trained to notice from an early age), it’s probably not that big of a deal.
Oh man, hopefully I'm not too late. My wife and I just watched The Minecraft Movie last night and it was so much fun.
Granted I've seen the memes with people losing their minds and throwing stuff at the screen but my theater had almost none of that. It was mostly everyone being excited about the movie. It was really fun seeing a bunch of folks from all ages groups getting excited about a game that has had such a huge impact on so many people.
The movie itself it fun. Don't go and watch expecting Citizen Kane or Metropolis or the like. Go in knowing it's going to be goofy and silly and you'll have a good time. Jack Blacks energy is infectious, you can just tell the man had such a blast playing Steve. The animations are pretty dopey but in a fun way and it was really awesome seeing all of the items made, swords, enderpearls and apples. The jokes were surprisingly well written and there were definitely some that went over the kids heads but landed well.
All in all, I had low expectations since I heard it was bad, but I had so much fun and I hope this inspires some folks to go and watch it!
My kids begged me so I agreed to see it this upcoming weekend. Not particularly looking forward to it and my expectations are about as low as it is possible for them to be. I'm just thanking the gods that it's only 100 minutes long. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised like you were, but not going to get my hopes up.
Status update: I found it predictably bland and uninspired, but not terribly unpleasant. The theater was empty enough that we had fun roasting how dumb it was while we watched, so that was fun. I've definitely sat through far worse for the sake of my kids.
I have been heavily focused on spaghetti westerns the last week. Been catching up on some of my blurays and found out that Netflix has a good handful of rather obscure films in this genre I hadn't heard about.
Gatling Gun from 1968 is half spy thriller half western. It involves a kidnapping of the inventor of the Gatlin gun in the midst of the civil war, secret code words, poison darts, and various clever spy tricks and silent assassinations.
And God Said to Cain from 1970 stars Klaus Kinski in a bit of an unusual role for him, as he plays a more calm and calculated man. In contrast to his usual madness. has a simple plot (Kinsksi gets released from imprisonment and seeks revenge over him who put him there) that is stretched over its runtime, so it is a slow burn but engaging from start to finish. It is also labelled as a gothic western for its unique aesthetics. Almost every scene is set at night, often in a church, constant wind blowing, windows and doors bursting open and all that. And the final showdown is absolutely amazingly well shot with creative use of mirrors. While the plot is basically like every other western, it is a very unique movie due to its aesthetics and atmosphere.
Duccio Tessari made two films in 1965 with basically the same crew and actors, A Pistol for Ringo and The Return of Ringo. However as I found out, they don't really have anything do to with each other and are quite different types of films. A Pistol for Ringo is a fast paced bank robbery hostage situation. Ringo is no hero, but he saves the day - for a price. The general vibe of this film tends to be a little goofy with silly characters and over the top violence. But it is also very very sinister with the gangleader killing hostages left and right just for the heck of it. The many deaths (overall body count is huge) are both laughed off and sometime taken quite seriously. It is a weird mix of style, but common for these early Italian westerns before the settled into the mostly serious tone in the upcoming years (before it got comedic again in the 70s). It is however pretty damn entertaining from start to finish and Fernando Sancho is the perfect Mexican gang leader with his pompous acting style. The Return of Ringo is almost a romantic love story, told in an extremely theatrical manner with absolutely over the top music. Ringo returns from the war only to finds his family killed and his wife about to be married to the ruthless leader of the town. It somehow works pretty damn well.
I Want Him Dead from 1968 is a title that could fit basically every western. It follows a Confederate soldier who just want to settle down now with his sister on a small farm. The sister gets raped and murdered and he sets out to find and kill those bandits who did. Parallel to that, a wealthy arms dealer hires the same bandits to kill two generals in order to keep the war going. Because of course, peace is bad for business. They had to stretch the two plots a bit far to fill the runtime, but I did like the aspect of the lone gunslinger really just wanting to settle down and live "happily ever after".
Fort Yuma Gold from 1966 also follows a Confederate soldier, this time an imprisoned one that gets tasked with a special mission with the goal of stopping confederate soldiers in a foolish attempt to raid Fort Yuma, because it will end in a bloodbath. It is one of the few of these westerns that at least acknowledges that mindless killings are a pretty big deal that should be avoided. People here beg for their lives and the whole plot is pretty sympathetic at its core. There are still some pretty damn entertaining scenes like an absolute mad saloon bar fight. It also comes with a pretty good sounding score.
The only disappointment was Hallelujah for Django from 1967. It starts and ends well, but that is pretty much it. Starts with a spectacular bank robbery of $500,000 and ends with someone skeet shooting after sticks of dynamite. In between a whole lot of mostly uninteresting fights and terrorizing of poor townspeople.
What continues to keep me hooked on this niche genre is how there can be tons of films with basically the same 2 or 3 plots, yet are still very different. Even the mediocre movies usually always have a single unique element that makes them worth watching. A creatively shot scene, a reversal of a trope, individual scenes that stands on their own or just a cool title theme.
I watched two movies this week and I liked both!
Sonic the Hedgehog was an impulse watch when my sister was over. We were both sonic fans growing up and hadn’t seen it yet. It was fun! Not a stupendously amazing movie or anything, but it was enjoyable and the callbacks to older sonic media were fun. I’ll be watching 2 and 3 in the next few weeks, I reckon.
Then tonight I watched Drive and I absolutely loved it!
Spoilers
I really appreciated the slower pacing in the first half, which allowed the movie to breath a bit and for us to get uncomfortable with our driver as he’s trying to navigate a fairly normal life (at least in the daytime). The slow pace helped so much in building up tension and releasing it all at once in the second half. I’ll say that I knew absolutely nothing about this movie and didn’t know it would turn into a high stakes crime drama in the second half and I loved it for that. The story telling worked on me.Also, the opening scene is now one of my favorites, there was so much tension when he was trying to avoid the cops and all you could hear for parts was the radio and heavy breathing. It set the perfect tone for the first half.
Warfare
I liked Alex Garland's Civil War enough. I thought it was a good thriller, it's social commentary, while basic, gave it an interesting hook. This feels similar in the way that it's shot and the way that it's sound is designed. This is not a film concerned with character or plot. It's an exercise in immersing us into the battlefield, to place is there along with the soldiers. I had to cover my ears in portions of the film because of how overwhelming the Sound is.
It's good. I do think the lack of character development affects it negatively overall, and I found it less interesting/entertaining than Civil War. But really good technical craftsmanship.
Drop
From the writer/director of Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2, and Freaky. This is a relatively grown up film. There's comedy in the film but not the self referential comedy that we saw in his previous three films (where the characters often acknowledge they are in a movie).
It's his best film. It's a high concept thriller in the vein of Phone Booth (character is stuck in one location while effectively playing a dangerous game reluctantly), and the much lesser known film Grand Piano.
The craft here is excellent. There are many stylized sequences and shots, it's really quite impressive. The two lead performances are great. It's the type of studio film Hollywood used to make a lot of but has know been relegated to low-budget Blumhouse territory.
With this, Smile 2, and Abigail. I'm surprised and impressed that some of the most interesting and technically proficient up and coming filmmakers are stuck in this low-budget horror phase. I really would like to see them take over bigger budgets and have the opportunity to grow their craft to bigger and bigger scales.