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.
Next up is Run Lola Run (original German title: Lola rennt) from 1999 starring Franka Potente and directed by Tom Tykwer. It won several awards at various film festivals.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, what did you think of Franka Potente's performance in this?
The rest of the schedule for April is:
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.
Next up is The Silence of the Lambs from 1991 starring Jodie Foster. The movie won five major academy awards for Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Picture.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, what did you think of Jodie Foster's performance in this? Are you familiar with Thomas Harris' novel or the other movies about Hannibal Lector?
The rest of the schedule for April is:
For example, every so often (maybe every year or two) a local theater will do a showing of Lawrence of Arabia on 70mm film. I will plan my schedule around this when it happens, it is simply an experience I can't miss when I get the opportunity. I'm wondering what movies fall into that category for others!
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.
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.
We are starting the month with female leads with Moonstruck from 1987 starring Cher in the leading role as Loretta. A role than won her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, what did you think of Cher's performance in this?
The rest of the schedule for April is:
Last movie not winning Best Picture is Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from 1998. It won for directing, cinematography, film editing, sound effects and sound editing
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
The schedule for April is:
Voting closed
I do think our list of movies is turning out to be a pretty good list of solid movies, it it a bit male heavy. I hope we can find 5 movies for April that has a female substantial leading role.
Rules
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
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.
Third movie of Best Picture nominees that didn't win is High Noon from 1952 directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. Gary Cooper won for best actor, Dimitri Tiomkin won for the score and for the title song "The Ballad of High Noon ("Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'")"
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
The rest of the schedule is:
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.
Second movie in the Best Picture Losers month is Life is Beautiful from 1997 directed by and starring Roberto Benigni. It won for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Leading Actor and Best Original Dramatic Score.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
The rest of the schedule is:
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.
First movie in the Best Picture Losers month, starting with There Will Be Blood from 2007 directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. While it didn't win Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis won for Best Actor and Robert Elswit won for Best Cinematography.
Besides any thoughts on this movie, have you seen the other nominees that year and do you think this deserved the win instead?
The other nominees:
The rest of the schedule is:
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.
Second Martin Scorsese movie is Gangs of New York from 2002.
Besides any thoughts any thoughts on this movie, now that we have done this little comparison between Scorsese and superhero movies, what do you think sets these types of movies apart and are they really as opposites as it is sometimes made out to be?
The schedule for March is:
Voting closed
Sorry for the title gore, but since it is the Oscars next month, lets find a Oscar relevant selection of 4 movies, with narrowing it down to Best Picture nominees that didn't win. So if you have a favorite movie where another movie took the award that year, now is a good time to bring that up.
Rules
Wikipedia has a list of all the nominees through the years. Or this list on Letterboxd.
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
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.
Second superhero movie Nolan's Batman Begins from 2005.
How familiar are you Batman - comicbook, animated series, other movies - and how does this compare? Have you seen the other movies in Nolan's Batman trilogy and does this stand up against the rest?
The rest of the schedule for February is:
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.
First Martin Scorsese this time around with the animated The Aviator from 2004.
Are you familiar with other of Martin Scorsese's movies and how do you like this compared to his other movies? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
First superhero movie this time around with the animated Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse from 2018.
Are you familiar with Spiderman, from other movies or the comic - and how does it compare? Have you seen the sequel Across the Spider-Verse? All comments are welcome.
The rest of the schedule for February is:
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.
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.
Final movie for January is Brad Bird's animated The Iron Giant from 1999.
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The schedule for February is:
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.
Edit: Voting closed
Lets try something a bit different for February, with one of the favorite discussion topics among cinephiles - with setting up superheroes against Martin Scorsese. We will need 4 movies for February and we will need 2 from each category. Directed by Martin Scorsese or a superhero movie (interpret that however you seem reasonable). Based on top number of votes the schedule will be:
Not a hard rule per se, but I would recommend to at least consider that especially the superhero movies should be reasonably standalone and not require having seen several other entries in a series.
Rules
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
Fourth movie with a running time of 100 minutes or less is Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (90 minutes) from 2021
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The final movie for January is next Monday on the 29th with The Iron Giant
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.
We got our first silent movie (almost) with Charlie Chaplin's City Lights from 1931.
How familiar are you with silent films and Charlie Chaplin? Is a movie that is more than 90 years old still worth watching today? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
Rest of the schedule for January is:
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.
Can you please recommend a movie about someone finding a new direction in life? Ideally something heartwarming, no soul-crushing drama this time. My picks would be:
Do you know about something like that, but less known?
Thank you.
We begin the new year with a movie that takes place on new year's eve with Four Rooms from 1995. Written and directed by four direcors - Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.
How was the movie as a whole? Were there any of the four segments that you particularly liked - or hated?
Rest of schedule for January is:
Next movie with a running time of less than 100 minutes is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles directed by John Hughes from 1987.
Is this movie a Thanksgiving tradition for you? How did you find the humor in this movie? Still funny or dated? How does it compare to other John Hughes movies? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
Rest of the schedule for January is:
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.
One of my favorite movies to watch during the holidays is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It came out on Christmas day and helped me deal with a lot of things that were happening during the winter of 2013. When the winter days get short, I like to revisit the movie because it makes me feel better. What movies do you like watch during the holiday season, that doesn't have Christmas as a theme?
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.
We end the month of 1990s movies with a Christmas classic. Home Alone from 1990.
Is this a stable Christmas movie in your household or is it perhaps the first time you see it?
Next months schedule for January is:
The next movie from the 1990s is The Talented Mr. Ripley from 1999 directed by Anthony Minghella with a 90s moviestar lineup of Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman and many others. Based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith from 1955.
Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule is:
Voting closed
So I am making the poll a bit earlier. The holidays are coming up and it might also be better to have the schedule about a week before rather than having it the day before the first movie of the month. This time we are going for shorter running times - so anything at 100 minutes (1 hour and 40 minutes) or less. "Movies are too damn long nowadays" is a common complaint, so lets see what we can come up with of good movies that don't require a long evening to watch.
We will need five movies for January.
Rules
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
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.
Open to anything from Hallmark-style movies with particularly ridiculous storylines, horror movies with a Christmas twist, or childhood classics that are a lot crazier than we might remember them as children.
The next movie from the 1990s is Edward Scissorhands from 1990 directed by Tim Burton
Are you familiar with other works by Tim Burton and how does this compare? Does it have a certain "90s feel" to it? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule is:
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.
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.
So we have a month with movies from the 1990s and we are starting off with Lost Highway directed by David Lynch from 1997.
Are you familiar with other works by David Lynch and how does this compare? Does it have a certain "90s feel" to it? Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.
The rest of the schedule is:
Edit: Voting closed
Thanks to everyone who have so far participated in the five movies we did in November. We need to pick four movies for December and it is going to be any movies from the 1990s.
Rules
In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.
This overview on Letterboxd can be of some inspiration.
In addition, I think it will be too much to do a vote on voting categories, but I am curious to get some feedback and ideas. Should we go narrower like genres (westerns, horror, science fiction) or perhaps niche genres (road movie, murder mystery, historic)? How about directors - like I had an idea of doing a Kubrick versus Spielberg for example. Actors, countries, film festivals? Or is it okay to have the category be very broad?
Prime has the documentary "Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe" while Netflix is running "Escaping Twin Flames" which were produced by different investigative reporters but take a similar approach to exposing this new group. Both rely on the testimony of ex members of the group to expose the founders power and control and how things changed when the group wasn't working out as they planned.
Apparently the group has a strong presence on facebook and there is also an entire reddit sub for its adherents.
I watched both of these multi part documentaries and was fascinated by the origin and rise of this group. The founders, Jeff and Megan (who now goes by Shaleia) are preying on the desperation of mostly female followers who are desperately seeking their 'one and only true love', their "twin flame". Using a technique of turning all hurts and pains inward the pair asserts they will help heal people who will practice their 'mirroring' technique.
But it starts to get really strange. Shaleia appears to be the one who started with the 'spiritual' aspect of the enterprise and Jeff appears to be the one with a fervent entrepreneurial bent who has turned it into a money making proposition.
They were living in a run down apartment when they began, but now a few years later, have bought a large home with a lake view in Michigan, with Jeff boasting about his Corvette and Porsche in the driveway. Even stranger, they have people living and working in their house to keep their enterprise running. There are shades of other religious communities with a strong 'messianic' leader that have started this way with Waco being mentioned in the documentary. Jeff even suggests, very strongly, that he may be the Christ.
The adherents pay for private or group facetime sessions with Jeff and Shaleia and are encouraged to take their video courses, which can be anywhere from $100 to $8,888. And those who have taken on the role of being life coaches under them are also encouraged to find more life coaches - it seems to be a combination of multi level marketing, religion and some kind of mass delusional 'teaching' to desperate and gullible people.
Jeff and Shaleia encourage people in their group to cut off relationships with anyone who is not supportive of Twin Flames, a sure sign of a cult, and there are several testimonials from hurting parents who are desperate to be back in touch with their children.
And in probably the strangest twist, when very few people were finding their "twin flame" to be responding, Jeff proclaimed that their twin flame already was part of the group - but since most of the group were women, he insisted that several of the women pair up and that one of them was now a "divine male", to the point of asking some to change their clothes, hair and go by a new male name.
It's all quite fascinating, and I couldn't believe that in an age where information on cults and cult activity is so easy to find, that so many people would be sucked into Twin Flames Universe and not see the control and manipulation going on in their lives.
Both are well worth watching but if you only have time for one, I'd recommend Prime's documentary - seems to be a bit more professionally produced.