Youtube Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK-X2d0lJ_s
Netflix Link : https://www.netflix.com/title/81038963
Wikipedia page with plot summary : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Old_Guard_(2020_film)

I watched Knives Out last night with my mother and we loved it. We used to love watching Hitchcock films, I’m in the mood for something more recent with a similar vibe. Like a modern Agatha Christie murder mystery. Any suggestions?

My Anniversary is coming up and I'd like to do a movie night for my wife. She likes romantic films but I don't so we don't often watch them together.

I'd like to come up with 3 or 4 of the best romantic movies ever to watch together as a gift to her. Since I don't ever watch these kinds of movies I don't know what's objectively good.

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who responded! There are so many great options that I'm going to make a list of all of them to draw from on other special occasions too!

Hi!

My wife and I met through our mutual love of horror films, and really love watching movies together in general-- good or bad. For the past three years we'd go to the local horror film festival around her birthday which, sadly, is not happening this year, so I thought I'd wrangle up some horror films available online for us to watch instead.

Do you have any favorites?

Here's some of mine!:

• Transmission 1 (warning: starts loud): This was a webisode released to help promote the 2007 horror film The Signal in which a sound emitting from electronics affects how people behave.
• Spider: A prankster doesn't know when to stop. (trigger warning & mild spoiler: some eye stuff)
• Lights Out: Something seems off more than the lights (all of this guy's stuff is pretty decent as far as short horrors go).

I know those are higher production value than most of the stuff you'd see at a festival, so don't worry about that. We really enjoyed one last year called Finley that was just a complete delight.

It's a miserable cold rainy afternoon. You need to wind down. You want to lie down on the couch, curl up under a blanket, drink a mug of cocoa/tea/chocolate, switch off, and spend a couple of hours just relaxing in front of a movie. You don't want something that will challenge you or make you think. Nothing new and exciting. It doesn't need to cheer you up, because you're not feeling depressed. You just want something that's going to make you feel cosy. Something familiar and comfortable and warm. You want an old favourite that you've seen so many times you can practically quote it word for word, so you don't even need to fully pay attention - but a movie that always makes you feel happy when you see it for the umpteenth time.

What movie do you put on?

We haven't had one of these in a while, and given the amount of time people are spending indoors, I figured it might be good to share some movie recommendations.

I will post my own comment regarding some movies I've seen recently, but I wanted to also share some quarantine / pandemic movies that might be interesting given the strange times we find ourselves in. Warning: they are probably not a great way to take your mind off things, if that's what you are searching for, hence why I'm separating them from my other comment.

• Contagion (2011) - Probably one of the more relevant movies, and certainly on people's minds. It's an interesting worst case what-if scenario, and actually tackles some of the political struggle with organizing around a pandemic.
• Perfect Sense (2011) - Overshadowed by Contagion, which is arguably the better movie, but I liked the premise of this one: a disease that slowly takes away your 5 senses, one at a time. I didn't like the ending, but for a thought experiment it captured my attention. It threw in a love plot line which may or may not have been necessary when the reaction was more interesting, but it does help provide a ground floor experience of a more terrifying epidemic.
• It's a Disaster (2012) - I have somehow managed to miss watching this movie, despite it being on my watch list for some time. A comedy, which may come in use in this trying time, it centers around a group of friends who invariably become part of a self-quarantine at their house.
• Rear Window (1954) - A Hitchcock classic. Jimmy Stewart is confined to his NYC apartment due to a leg injury, and has all the time in the world to spy on his neighbors, where he becomes obsessive over a potential domestic dispute between a couple across the way.
• The Lighthouse (2019) - Superb acting by Willem Dafoe. Two men, a seaman fresh to the trade and a seasoned veteran, are servicing the sole lighthouse on a tiny island as part of a contract. They are forced to stay longer than either imagined due to a storm passing through them. They get at their wits end with each other and their sanity slowly falls apart. Beautifully shot in black and white and with authentic vernacular, it really transports you to a different time period.

• Trailer topic
• Wikipedia

I watched it last week. Fantastic movie. I don't watch many war movies (in fact this is one of my first ones), but I really, really liked it. I didn't even notice the two hours go by.

The one-shot effect is really well done, and I enjoyed trying to spot the transitions.

It's not an exceptional movie or anything like that, but it's one of the rare times I just went into the theater and came out exceedingly satisfied.

I was chatting with a friend today and this question came up - I drew a complete blank.

Aside from a few foreign movies retranslated into a completely different context, like Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven, most remakes don't even approach the quality of the original, for my tastes.

Please enlighten me if you're aware of any superior, or even equivalent remakes that tell roughly the same story with the same characters.

I love single-location films, and use them as inspiration for my own very-constrained filmmaking endeavors. This is a space where great screenwriters and filmmakers shine, coming up with creative solutions to keep things fresh and enticing with little to no variation in ambiance. Some examples:

• 12 Angry Men (1957)
• Straw Dogs (1971)
• Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
• El Angel Exterminador (Exterminating Angel, 1962)
• Phone Booth (2003)
• Coherence (2013)
• The Invitation (2015)

But I want more! Any ideas?

I should add that my motivation for this question is research for my next production, and because of practical concerns I'm only looking for single-location films in which the main location is small and simple enough that its sub-divisions cannot be considered a location of their own. For example: according to my criteria, a large house or apartment would be a single location, because its subdivisions (living room, bathrooms, bedrooms, etc) can be considered as logical parts of the main one. A shopping mall, a large condominium or an apartment complex would not be a single-location, because its many buildings and apartments are distinct and independent enough to function as locations of their own. When in doubt, try applying production pragmatics instead of pure logic. If something is logically not really another location, but would be just as hard to manage as another location (a whole new set design), it is a location. Thanks!

I can mention many movies that influenced me in major ways.

• Stand By Me made me realize the importance of friendship
• High Fidelity helped me understand romance is not entirely about passion. It's also about respect, love, and care. There's value in something that's simply "good", and "good" is not something to brush off.
• Goonies and Godfather showed that, when shit hits the fan, family is everything.
• Manhattan taught me love is nothing without courage
• A Bronx Tale taught me that our parent figures can be imperfect and even downright criminal, but this doesn't mean they don't love us.

Ant the list goes on...

The end of the year has me in a movie-watching mood and I want to add the best of the best into my queue for the next few weeks. Similar to games of the decades, what are your movies of the decades and why?

From Community to House of Cosbys to Rick and Morty, Dan Harmon made a name for himself as a comedy genius. IDK much about Justin Rowland, but I assume he's at least partly responsible for some of the most brilliant moments of Rick and Morty, and I'm not just talking about the jokes. Among other episodes, The Wedding Squanchers, The Rickshank Redemption, Pickle Rick, Rickmancing the Stone and Look Who's Purging Now show great mastering of how action scenes are supposed to work. They ally irreverence, great rhythm and creative use of violence to make delicious gory spectacles. Unlike the increasingly incomprehensible movie brawls of today (I'm looking at you, Marvel...), their battles can be just as fast, but their choreographs are dramatic and easy to follow while retaining a great degree of complexity.

Dan Harmon and his team have a lot to teach to Hollywood.

Partly because of the nature of the subject, most true-crime documentaries tend to emphasize dread. Some of them employ formal devices similar to horror movies, such as ominous soundtracks, dark lightning, and moody camera movements. My interest in the problem of evil is philosophical, and the constant attempts to induce fear are distracting.

I'm interested in documentaries that are more like case studies, with a clinical, speculative or even scientifical approach to the problem of evil embodied in criminal acts.

Any suggestions?

Not sure how spoilers are supposed to work here, but I deleted my other post and put the image in the comment

https://i.imgur.com/6EupcC0.png

T.W. - is Arthur imagining it in arkham asylum? When asked by the social worker he didn't have much of an answer why he was locked up before.

I'm interested to find out who you think is making good films? I'm also interested in what your favourite film from them is, and why you like it.

Feel free to interpret it how you like -- I'm interested in distribution as well as production companies, as well as producers, directors, writers, and actors.

This is what you get when you search VUDU for free science fiction movies. The plot is banal enough. A spacecraft is discovered in Colorado that is 14,000 years old. A linguist and her lover are hired to read an inscription and then summarily paid and told to go home by the mysterious and unlikeable head of the project, Richard Kontral.

This description in no way does justice to how bad the script is. My first theory was that a rich father gave his fourteen year old son a chance to create a movie for his birthday present. But it's really just a low budget sequel to an obscure cult film called Moontrap.

The lead character, Scout, is played by Sarah Butler who evidently rose to wordly fame in I Spit on Your Grave. Every line that Scout says to the villain includes adolescent sexual insults. The villain is I believe a washed up actor from an old sitcom called The Nanny. This guy is really hard to watch, the acting is as bad as the script.

There's a scene of robots fighting that looks like it was choreographed with Rockem Sockem Robots, a toy from my childhood. If you're a collector of bad movies, this is a true gem.

It was tough to watch, but our free streaming was slim pickings that night. I wanted to watch Day of the Triffids a classic bad movie from the '60's , but got outvoted. At least that movie was based on an interesting SF novel by John Wyndham. Maybe tomorrow night.

We have about a million films showing vampires, zombies, werewolves, and ghosts.

But despite rich folklore traditions we see very few films about other creatures. There is a handful of films dealing with leprechauns, pixies, trolls, fairies, witches, goblins, gnomes, etc. And that's just the western traditions. We have huge range of unexplored creatures from around the world. If I had to sit through yet another vampire film I'd rather it was based on adze traditions than Bram Stoker reinventions.

Why are there so many films that tread the same ground about vampires, zombies, and ghosts, and so few films about everything else?

Used to love reading the IMDB boards after checking out a flick. Up until, of course, Amazon's takeover and purging. Now I feel dirty using the site to check out info about films, and am trying to break the habit of using it as my 'go-to' site.

Letterboxd and TheMovieDatabase seem to be the 2 most credible alternatives. Any other suggestions on the Web3.0 (or 2.5) solution to a great community to kick back, contribute and learn with others about film?

Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking the idea of embarking on a bit of a journey through Mexico with a gritty protagonist as we experience splatterings of violence and negotiate the thoughts of a down and out vagabond making a ran for his riches.

The film left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the path of Benny, experiencing how his character is unwavering in his desire to take that last lucky ticket out of debauchery street, but didn't care much for his journey's partner. While I appreciated the dynamic of the relationship, the understanding they both had that they weren't in love with each other, but all they both had, the chemistry and dialogue didn't really resonate with me at parts. I actually was rather glad when this relationship came to its abrupt end as the film entered its final 3rd.

On top of that, there was major issues with the sound which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the journey at times. I found myself feeling I was watching a caricature of a 70s movie now and again, as opposed to be engrossed in a gritty noir-esque adventure.

But all in all, an enjoyable film which has left an impression. I always appreciate watching unpolished characters navigating circumstances plotted outside their usual courses, then watching how they deal with the inevitable implosion. From what I've read since, the film was one which perhaps accurately portrayed the director's life at the time of filming; dealing with various booze-infused demons. That rawness definitely shows, as does the inevitable imperfections in this movie's execution.

7.5/10

Since we're fast approaching the second half of the year, I think it's a good time to look back on the first half, to the movies that came out this year and to share our favorites. I'm giving my favorite 10 (though in no particular order) but if more or fewer stood out to you and you want to share all of them, feel free! Blockbusters, indies, comedies, dramas, whatever stands out to you from 2019 so far. Don't feel pressured to write anything but the title or a basic synopsis if you don't want to.

• Apollo 11: Okay, I know I said this list isn't in order, but this one is definitely #1. It's history in motion, and its images and editing will surely be seared into my mind as the way I think of the Apollo launch.
• An Elephant Sitting Still: Technically came out in 2018 in some regions, but has a 2019 release in my country, which is the order I'm organizing this list in. A beautiful and heartbreaking journey into universal pain and suffering and catharsis in the tiniest things. At nearly 4 hours and with an oppressively melancholy tone, I struggle to recommend it to everyone and anyone, but if the description interests you, definitely give it a look.
• The Farewell: Hilarious and sad, often in the same moment. My love of this may well have been colored by my experiences as an immigrant under very similar circumstances as its main character, but it's an interesting look at differing cultural philosophies of the worth of the individual on their own versus their relation to society.
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco: A layered critique of gentrification and the personal individual obsessions that keep us from truly seeing it and other issues in our world as they happen. It's filled to the brim with things to say, sometimes to a detriment, and some of the screentime spent just showing the sad beauty of San Francisco could've been used to further flesh out some of its ideas, but I still found it extremely compelling all the way through.
• John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum: I think the John Wick movies get a little more bloat on them every entry(much like their titles, actually), but the action only seems to get slicker. I still like the balance of the world, character work, and action in Chapter 2 the best, but while I think 3 drags itself down into its lore a bit too much, its setpieces are still top of the line. I find Keanu endlessly killing people left and right to be incredibly cathartic. Should probably talk to someone about that.
• Burial of Kojo: This doesn't say "Netflix original" on it, but it does seem to be distributed by them in all the countries I checked, so I don't know what's happening there. Regardless, there's a good chance you'll find this on Netflix in your country. I'm willing to admit this movie is heavily, deeply flawed. It overtelegraphs many of its plot points repeatedly, for one. But I also think it is filled with a gorgeous charm. It's light fantasy and grounded fairy tale feels half Tarsem and half Guillermo del Toro, and I was captivated from beginning to end.
• Booksmart: I find the new crop of female led high school movies (Booksmart, Edge of Seventeen, Eighth Grade) to be far more relatable and interesting than the dozens of high school movies of decades prior. It feels like the hands of the filmmakers is more on the pulse of the struggles of modern kids. Booksmart is very much a heightened comedy compared to the other examples I mentioned, but it is great at it. It's hilarious, even if there's one scene in particular that goes on forever. The comparisons to Superbad are mostly warranted, and I still lie awake at night, sad at the fact that I saw this opening night and the theater was mostly empty.
• Dear Ex: The Netflix revolution of every indie movie ending up on streaming services and leaving the theaters to the blockbusters isn't quite happening at the speed originally anticipated, but it definitely seems like more and more of my favorites of the year end up being a streaming original. Dear Ex is a Netflix film about different people grappling with the loss of one man, and it shows the power of the individual to connect the lives of the people they love, and of the many tools we employ to try to get over losses in our lives.
• High Flying Bird: Yet another Netflix movie. Steven Soderbergh is one of the people who can make a bearable heist movie in this day and age imo, and he lends that gift to this to make a movie where the heist isn't money or jewels, but the basic rights of human beings being trampled on by a system that creates middle men to suck up money, leaving the real workers with pennies. It's shot on an iPhone, and there are moments where that seems like a limitation, but honestly, a lot of it looks really impressive.
• Ash is Purest White: This is Jia Zhangke well within his comfort zone, looking at the strain put on human relationships by the passage of time and the everchanging effects of globalization and shifting national landscapes. The World(2004) (aka Shijie) is still my favorite of his, and it is definitely an idea he's explored before, but his ideas and commentary on it have never failed me to keep me enthralled all the same.

I have a list of all the 2019 movies I see that I consider "good" here (29 films at the time of writing this) if anyone wants to take a look at all of them.

I Am Mother is a sci fi movie centered in a dystopian future with a novel twist.

If you prefer neat, predictable endings, then this movie is probably not for you.

What is particularly interesting, is the movie is almost deliberately ambiguous, and it constantly challenges the usual assumptions you might make.

The final reveal subtly explains away some of the elements that at first seemed a little jarring or confusing. Other aspects are not fully explained. This creates enough space to construct some very interesting back story theories, while ultimately leaving you guessing.

After reading the recent ArsTechnica review of the latest Godzilla movie, I realized that I haven't really dived into the Kaiju genre and it might make for a fun weekend to watch a few of what you all consider fun and good. I know I have seen Kaiju movies in the past but this was when I was younger so any memory is long and forgotten. I am also not averse to non-english language movies as long as the subtitling is good!

Any you recommend and why you would recommend them?

I wasn't too sure whether that movie warranted a Discussion Thread, given only Endgame got one here so far but… hey, I really liked the movie.

The pokemon CGI was amazing. Storyline was not half-bad (not great tho); somewhat predictable although with a nice twist I personally didn't see coming.

I'm not even a huge pokemon fan or anything, but this took me back to my childhood quite a bit. I really like how they mostly featured pokemon from the original 151, which made the movie very approachable to old-timers.

It also didn't feel awkward or childish or cringey or anything you might expect from, well, a pokemon movie. Loved hearing the theme music in the TV background early on. Loved pikachu's singing, that was pretty hilarious, felt like a nice place for the movie to poke some fun towards itself.

Coming out, I was reminded of how I felt after seeing the Warcraft movie: Seeing characters that have played such a special part in my life, being brought to a full-feature live-action. It's really a unique feeling. I guess that's why I'm looking forward to both Aladdin and The Lion King coming out this year; even though neither were as special as Warcraft/Pokemon, I still get chills thinking about the unbelievable CGI quality we get for what a few years ago we'd never have thought would go beyond plain animation.

I tried to keep the post body mostly spoilerfree but this is tagged spoiler so I guess go nuts in the comments.

What sites do people use for movie reviews and news? I've been following movie news via the internet since the late 90s. I used to frequent sites like Coming Attractions and C.H.U.D. multiple times per day.

For the past few years, I've mostly been using Twitter to follow news, but I'm trying to use Twitter less so I was curious where other people get their movie news...

This is just a quick list based on my bookmarks...

News Sites

• Birth.Movies.Death - For general movie news
• Bloody Disgusting - For horror specific movie news

Reviews/Thinkpieces

• Bright Wall/Dark Room - Good longform articles
• Horror Movie a Day - My go to reviewer for horror movies
• Jordy Reviews It
• Outlaw Vern - My go to reviewer to find out if an action/martial arts movie is worth watching
• Talk Film Society

I'm in search for new ones to watch, but can't seem to find anything. I'm curious about what they are going to do with the new Child's Play reboot.

Anyway, the ones i liked so far:

• Hereditary
• Suspiria
• The Ritual
• Halloween
• The Clovehitch Killer
• The Void
• Gerald’s Game
• It
• Get Out

Spoilers for Solo follow - you have been warned.

So a year after it's release and months after it went up on netflix, I finally got around to watching Solo.

For context: for most of my childhood, I was a huge Star Wars buff. I played Star Wars: Galaxies growing up, I was in the massive crowd that saw The Force Awakens opening night, I spent the better part of 2 years as part of a prerelease community for Star Wars: The Old Republic. There was a time where I could name nearly every planet of consequence in the canon and knew most of the expanded universe's timeline.

But the new trilogy has been... well, nothing. I found it to be a mediocre, hole-filled mess most of the time, too busy being Disney's Star Wars^tm politically correct safe-kid to actually be good movies on their own. Rogue One was an enjoyable exception, but still not particularly amazing... but the point I'm driving at is, the last couple of years, I've pretty thoroughly come down from the Star Wars high.

When Solo came out, I assumed it would be more of the same - panned by critics, it was presumably going to be another politically correct, lackluster, rehashed or nonsense story, this time using Han Solo's name as a marketing tactic. No desire to see a childhood hero Anakin Skywalker'd, I skipped it, and didn't even care to watch it when it popped up on Netflix.

Tonight, out of pure boredom, I decided to give it a watch and was surprised to learn that I couldn't have been more wrong. Which is to say, I enjoyed the crap out of it!

It had romance! Snappy writing! Memorable, enjoyable, non-trope characters (mostly!) Although it had some of the same flaws as Rogue One (namely that it started to drag on), it also had something that Star Wars hasn't truly seen since the original trilogy: heart and soul.

More importantly, it did something that no movie in the franchise has done since the original trilogy, and actually engaged me with the story. And this is where the spoilers come in.

First, credit where it's due: although the story tended to go on and on, at no point did I feel like any of it was unnecessary - it just felt like it was too constrained by being a single movie.

I was invested in seeing an actual romance in the story (since apparently ONLY Han Solo can do that), which saw a satisfying, and rather complex resolution. The dirty, street-level setting and story was an awesome break from the epic, world-shaking conflicts that the movies have clung to until this point (or whatever the hell The Last Jedi was). It was powered by characters, and I appreciated that.

To top it off, the reveal of Maul at the end of the movie was totally intriguing, and (IMO) beats any other reveal in the series hands-down. I was a fan of his appearances in the cartoons, and seeing him on the villain's throne in a movie, I think, would've made for a much spicier and more intriguing story than whatever/wherever/whoever Snoke was. From getting his ass kicked by the Emperor for the plot, to getting beat down by ol' Ben (for the plot), the guy's a damn competent villain that still hasn't had a real shot.

Don't get me wrong, it had its flaws: as mentioned, it was REALLY long, and I don't mean to imply that every character was perfect, or that the plot wasn't totally ridiculous in places. But the story was good enough, and the movie enjoyable enough, that I could overlook it, and that's more than I could say about the movies that caused me to not see it in the first place...

Which, to my final point, is the greatest disappointment: with the cancellation of all the non-trilogy entries in the series, it's safe to assume that Disney's learned all the wrong lessons from Solo.

Rather than attributing it's A- performance to the point that people just haven't much enjoyed their epics, remembered what happened the last time someone tried to do an origin story in the series, or were feeling Star Wars fatigue, and didn't go to see it as a result, they'll blame the format, the story, the stakes, the setting, the characters - all the things that made the movie worth watching at all.

So, with Episode 9 coming out sometime this year and us presumably going to see a mediocre conclusion to what has at this point been a completely mediocre and forgettable trilogy (with lightsabers!), all I can say is, Solo sadly will stand out in my mind as the only movie in this era that carries on the legacy of the originals. I'm disappointed, more by circumstance than anything. I think, had Solo come out 5 years ago, it would've been hailed as the proper return to the franchise that it deserved to be, far more than any of the other franchise entries have succeeded in doing since.

What'd you think of Solo, Tildes? Am I stark raving mad?

I’ve been using Letterboxd for a few years to track what I watch.

But I’ve got a large collection of physical media and sometimes it’s tough to remember exactly what I have when looking for something to watch. Plus the eternal “Did I lend that to a friend?” question.

If anyone has any ideas on how to keep track of this stuff, I’d love some suggestions.

What's your favorite movie that features average-looking people? We all know the industry selects for youth and attractiveness mostly, but have any good movies risked casting only normal-looking people?

Edit: TV show suggestions are also welcome!

Yep. It's that time of year. We buy presents, go to parties, listen to carols... and watch old Christmas movies!

What's your favourite movie? Is it an old classic drama? A big glitzy spectacle? A soppy tear-jerker? A goofy comedy? Which Christmas movie is the one you watch over and over again, year after year?

Identification of key films and personalities in the history of cinema from a Western perspective

Top 20 movies by influence centrality

1. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

2. Star Wars (1977)

3. Psycho (1960)

4. King Kong (1933)

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

6. Metropolis (1927)

7. Citizen Kane (1941)

8. The Birth of a Nation (1915)

9. Frankenstein (1931)

10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

11. Casablanca (1942)

12. Dracula (1931)

13. The Godfather (1972)

14. Jaws (1975)

15. Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

16. The Searchers (1956)

17. Cabiria (1914)

18. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

19. Gone with the Wind (1939)

20. Bronenosets Potemkin (1925)

Prometheus (2012), Alien: Covenant (2017), Life (2017), The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), you name it. Why is everyone in the team is a complete incompetent buffoon? Why is the science behind the films so bad? Why do the protagonists do stupid crap? The crew from Alien IV looks like geniuses compared to these people.

Am I the only one who is seriously disturbed by this trend?

For anyone who doesn't recognize Patience Phillips, she was Halle Berry's Catwoman in the most terrible superhero film - Catwoman (2004)...that I really enjoyed it. Probably because it wasn't well-received, it's often overlooked when talking about things like "the first female hero on screen" or "the first black hero..." sort of things. And technically, Catwoman's not a superhero.

Spoilers ahead. I'm also going to keep my points to the story and characters themselves. I honestly had no issues with any of the actors.

The good

• The theme and social commentary on make-up, beauty products, self-harm/addiction and image issues woman do face. The added layer of cooperate greed. The idea of what you see in the mirror vs. what others see (and if they're right), alongside what you want to present to the world or to specific people - honestly this movie has probably one of the best takes on "the cost of beauty" that I've seen in a while, and since.
• The scene where Tom thinks he's saving a jumper, but Patience is actually trying to save a cat. This random scene turns out to be a great storytelling scene when brought up again after Tom arrests Patience for murder and she asks him what he first saw the first time they met.
• Laurel is probably the most interesting character in this movie. There's a really well-framed shot of her photos being removed from her company lobby in favour of a younger model. I think it's one of the best scenes in the movie. Laurel is capable, powerful, rich and very accomplished, but somehow her relevance still fades as her beauty does. (I can honestly say I generally can't stand the evil step-mother wrestling with her fading beauty and taking out her bitterness on some young snow white-y girl, but this one worked for me.)
• I loved that Batman wasn't in it (but didn't really like that a love interest still had to be introduced).

The bad

• That she's call Patience Phillips...but honestly this is the warning to divorce this from any Catwoman or female superheros (or anti-heros) you know.
• Patience doesn't earn her "powers" - Selina Kyle (Catwoman in basically all other versions) works obsessively to perfect all her abilities. She's an insanely good cat burglar, not a magic cat.
• Patience doesn't earn or drive her own growth. There is basically no growth as a character. A magic cat ghost could have simply possessed Patience's body and the story would be the same.
• Oversexualization of Catwoman...which I didn't even know could be a thing until this movie. Black leather for a sexy Catwoman - awesome. Whatever the belt thing was - grossly missed the point while trying to copy Pfeiffer's patched up catsuit.
• I'm also not the biggest fan of make-over tropes in general.

The ugly

• The basketball scene - just everything about it.
• The hate that surrounded the movie because Catwoman wasn't blonde (or Michelle Pfeiffer), and that Batman's not in it.
• The physical punch-them-out fight scene between Laurel and Catwoman in the end - just why? This isn't a movie at all about physical strength, and having a "face like marble" isn't a real power. (To be fair, I don't like this showdown in really any superhero movie, with the exception of The Death of Superman.)

The cheesy

• The crazy cat-lady Patience goes too, and her tossing a cat toy at her
• The sushi eating scene
• The in case of date emergency kit her friends gave her.
• Laurel seeing her cracked beauty in the moment of a showdown fight
• The cat scratches on Tom
• Her best friend hooking up with her doctor
• The comparing signatures on the coffee cups
• Her Marvel-like comic book name

Final thoughts

So yeah...I would recommend this movie, and really hope that when they do make another Catwoman film that it might share some themes. Have you seen this movie? Did you hate it? Who's your favourite Catwoman? What would you like to see in a Catwoman movie?

Old stories are always being updated for lots of reasons, ranging from trying to appeal to new audiences to correcting toxic depictions to fitting better to the current social or political climate and more. There's nothing new there. However, one thing I find a bit odd lately, as in the last five years or so, is that a lot of this modernization is actually done pretty poorly in main stream media. We see more forced diversity, queerbaiting, and generally bad storytelling. Not totally sure how I'll do this yet, but I'm thinking of posting stories that stand out to me for better or for worst, starting with a classic.

There will be spoilers for both movies.

Cinderella (2015)

This is one I honestly didn't think worked at all. To be fair, I believe Disney's goal was just to sell a beautiful movie, and not a good story. This whole movie was gorgeous. It was also really boring, which I honestly believe is the greatest sin in storytelling.

Cinderella herself is "smarter" in this movie than the old classic cartoon. She's well read and has some agency, which honestly makes her more a damsel than the original cartoon for me. In the cartoon, she was an abused child that had no where to go. Her being trapped made sense. In the new one, she's sort of a fighter...who doesn't fight. I didn't get it.

Another issue is that Cinderella was really the only character they modified, which is why the story is still shallow.

Ever After (1998)

This is honestly one of the best modernization of the fairy tale I've ever seen. What worked for me, is that they fleshed out all their characters. Danielle, Henry, the stepmother, stepsisters, everyone! This makes for a much richer story, where characters themselves can be modernized, but still fit the time of the period piece. It's not about dropping a fourth wave feminist into an aged story, but about adding the dimensions that would have still existed then. Danielle is strong, well read, and obedient. Her servitude is not without reason. She's seeking a "mother", and her relationship with her stepmother is more than simply being a slave. The audience is shown the moments of kindness Danielle seeks from her stepmother.

My quick two-cents. I also find it interesting that Ever After came out over 15 years before Cinderella.

So what are you thoughts? Any good fairy tale adaptations you can mention?

Anyone seen this? I heard about this movie on NPR and decided to check it out. Wow! It's a great, well told story that pulls a lot of discreet threads together. As an aside from the main story of a black cop infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan it also references racist media of yesteryear like Gone With the Wind and Birth of a Nation. There are several moments that wink at Donald Trump's talking points and policies. There was a lot of reaction from the predominantly black crowd I was in, the connection was certainly noticed.

And the end! Wow. Almost had me in tears, really brought me back to a year ago when I saw the Vice News on Charlottesville. I was in a theater in Richmond, VA about an hour from Charlottesville. You could have heard a pin drop right when the movie ended. I've never seen so many people get gut punched like that all at once. The timing of this movie was absolutely well thought out.

while its not the best star wars movie, it isn't the abomination that people make it out to be. its legitimately fun to watch and comfy with all its bad CGI.

Favorite star wars movies in order: IV, V, Solo, VII, I, VIII, VI, Rogue One, III, II

So this is something I've been thinking about doing for the last couple weeks, but I've been super busy working on a project and haven't had too much time, and I didn't want to start something if I couldn't commit to it. Now that my project is almost finished I've got more time to both watch movies and talk about them with random internet strangers, which is why I'm here now asking about a weekly movie review thread.

I watch maybe two or three films a week, but often struggle to find anything worth watching. And so for all of you out there with the same problem, I'd like to start a discussion thread where users post a movie review on one film they've watched recently and children comments are free to discuss the review, the movie, or just ask questions in general about the movie.

Here are some questions I have about how this would function, and I'd like your opinion on them.

Is this something that users here actually want?
Like I said earlier, I feel like this could be a helpful tool for people wanting to watch a few things but not knowing what to watch, but there are plenty of reviews and things like that out there, and this might not be something that users here want.

What should be included in the review?
To me what immediately comes to mind is a very imdb style review (with no spoilers) that comments on directing, acting, set, camera angles, etc. Maybe giving it a rating out of 10? How long should it be? I don't read a whole out of reviews though so I'm not 100% sure the best way to go about this.

How often should we have a discussion thread?
I'm thinking a weekly thread would be nice, probably on Monday for two reasons. First, it allows anybody who's busy over the week day but has some time off on the weekend for films and writing reviews to write one, and secondly, it means we can call it Movie Monday, which sounds better then Movie Tuesday :p

Any other questions or things that need to be discussed for this to work well?

I already canceled moviepass. Their new rules of only 3 movies a month plus getting "up to" 5 dollars off on more movies was a kick to the kidneys. The blacking out of mission impossible was absolutely it for me.

Anyone keeping it or have you already canceled? My sub lasts until the 15th. Hopefully I'll be able to see christopher robin and a few others before then.

I just went to see the Apparition (recent French film about a journalist investigating visions of the madonna).

I couldn't make head or tail of it. Has anyone got a coherent theory of what was going on, or is it just a shoal of red herrings that doesn't make any sense?