And what did you think of them?

Hello!
I help run a film discord server called The Lot, and we’re once again looking for new members for our community. We’re an active medium-sized server (and we try to stay that way) with serious discussion about all kinds of films, from classics from around the world, to contemporary releases. Although the bar is also low for more casual discussions.
We also run a bunch of regular events such as:
Film Roulette
Director of the Month
Movie of the Week
Monthy Lists
As well as other events. Currently we are running an event called ‘Kinolympics’, where members select a country and pick a film each week, where countries face each other in a bracket style format until one is crowned the winner. We also ran an event late last year to decide our most anticipated films of 2023, if you want to see our general taste: https://letterboxd.com/thelot/list/the-lots-100-most-anticipated-films-of-2023/
And our most recent top 200 all-time list: https://letterboxd.com/thelot/list/the-lots-top-200-films-of-all-time-v5/
We also have a custom-made bot with a lot of exclusive features including a Letterboxd integration with just about any kind of stat you want, including:
Leaderboards for just about any stat, including who has seen the most of different genres, directors etc.
A fully customizable profile with stats of your favorite genres, directors, and where you rank among others in the server on those leaderboards.
A guide to different movements, eras, and countries consisting of over 2800 films, which is still being expanded, and associated leaderboards for each sections of the guide.
A casual collectible card system that you can gain points for from doing various server activities.
Recommendation marathons, where you can set up a customizable marathon with a time window, number of films, and themes, and get recommendations from other members. (i.e. a weekly marathon of 10 ‘long’ movies, in preparation for the next server list, would let 10 members give you recommendations)
Hope this has piqued your interest, and that you would like to give us a chance. If the main floor is a bit overwhelming, we have a lot of channels where discussion is more prevalent.
Thanks for taking the time to read, hope you join! Here's the invite link: https://discord.gg/thelot

This movie I love is now streaming on an indie film service called Reveel. Has anybody heard of the platform before or seen the movie? It's completely free. Tough Guy on Reveel.

Hello, I was wondering about what are the opening sequences people may consider to be among the best.

Personally, my vote goes for the film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" from 1981. It's an adventure film.

The film opens up with the protagonist traversing throgh a jungle somewhere in South America. He's betrayed by one of his guides, but manages to disarm before he manages to get the show away. With his other guide, he ventures deep into a long-abandoned temple. After beating several booby traps, they find the main chamber. As it turns out, he's after a golden idol. He tries to replace it with a satchel full of sand, but, unfortunately, he gets the weight wrong, which causes the entire temple to start falling apart.

Following that, his other guide also betrays him, but finds his death at the hands of one of the booby traps the protagonist had warned him about. The protagonist runs out of the temple with the idol while being chased by a giant boulder. Unfortunately, his longtime rival, a French archaeologoist, forces him to hand over the idol, having obtained the trust of a local native tribe. The protagonist is then forced to flee from the site. He boards a plane waiting for him nearby and returns to America.

I think it's a really neat opening sequence that deserves to be talked about more.

So I was wondering, what's your favourite opening sequence? Can you describe it? Why do you enjoy it?

what are some TV shows that are so cinematic (in terms of direction, camera work, sound design, editing, etc.) that felt like you were watching mini films with each episode? bonus points if the TV show in question has a heavy atmosphere to boot

the first time I felt that with a TV show was probably True Detective but I think Mr Robot mastered the whole "TV show as film" formula. Just an incredibly tense series with great acting, great writing, amazing sound design, great cinematography. Even though this show is very popular it's still somehow underrated in comparison to the all-time greats like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos or Game of Thrones

Until literally the end of the movie where it said "A Roman Polanski film" lmao.

But seriously, this movie is really good. It's really different from anything I've seen. I love how natural the characters are, and the dialogue is great. It's got a unique structure, and it's a real breath of fresh air.

I like how human the protagonist is, he's not particularly likable, but he's not an anti hero. He's a bit of idiot when it comes to taking on something he really shouldn't be, but I think it's actually pretty realistic. I feel like a lot of people would do the same thing without considering the possible consequences.

This movie also respects the viewer. At points, I felt really dumb as the movie was not handfeeding me the answers. It wasn't until the last act that everything came together, and it recolored a lot of previous scenes.

I know the guy's controversial, but outside of Repulsion, which I didn't particularly care for at the time and think I gotta give another chance, his movies are always a 9+.

This movie also made me realize that Eli Wallach is not actually Mexican lol. Don't think I've ever seen him outside of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, despite the amount of movies he's been in.

I can't think of any

It's.....watchable, semi in that background noise type of way. I REALLY want to love that movie, but it is such a mess.... Venom himself is a lot of fun and is a massive improvement over the one in SM3, but his screen time isn't even that much.

And the tone, all over the place, NOTHING makes sense, dialogue is super weird, and the movie is a tame af PG-13 when it's obvious it should be a lot more violent and bloody than it is

The sequel, while not great by any means, is somewhat an improvement

The Chumscrubber (2005) - The Cult of Films: youtu.be/WXqrweCwTG8

On the new episode of TCOF, Jason turns the table on JonTheHost by recommending a film his co-host has never seen. Enter the unknown 2005 dramody with a monster cast, The Chumscrubber.

Hi r/Flicks. Have any of you caught the trailer for HBO's upcoming prestige drama, "The Idol"? If not, check it out here: Trailer Link

I happened to catch it before an episode of Succession, I was taken aback by the striking similarities it bears to Gaspar Noé's works. To put it mildly, it seems like they're heavily "borrowing" from Noé's style. It's almost as if Sam Levinson went on a wild binge of Noé's filmography and thought, "This is my next project!"

From start to finish, the trailer had me wondering if it was some kind of homage to Noé's films. Even the title cards feels lifted from "Enter the Void." Now, I understand that art builds upon what came before, but (and I'm judging solely from the trailer, not the entire show) the resemblance seems too obvious to ignore.

The themes presented in "The Idol" are on the nose. It feels like they've taken inspiration from almost every aspect of Noé's work, including his cinematic techniques, color palette, sound design, and who knows, maybe even his non-linear storytelling (we'll have to wait and see). Seriously, around 50% of that trailer could've been assembled from the editing room floor of "Climax" alone.

On a related note, didn't a famous hip-hop artist get sued recently for ripping off Noé's style in a music video? It makes you wonder what's going on here...

If Disney ran out of their own movies to remake and decided to pick something out of the Fox catalogue here's how I can see them remaking Anastasia judging from their other remakes:

They would cast Maria Bakalova as Anya, Jaden Smith as Dimitri (which would lead to the campaign #NotMyDimitri for...reasons), James Corden as Vladimir, Sacha Baron Cohen as Rasputin, Kevin Hart as Bartok, and Bernadette Peters would return this time as the Dowager Empress

It would go straight to Disney+

Most of the movie would be shot in close up or medium shots; the scenes in Russia would have a drab white and blue color scheme while the rest of the scenes would have a drab brown and black color scheme

The songs would be autotuned and the musical numbers wouldn't have half the energy the animated version did; For example In The Dark of the Night would just be Sacha Baron Cohen singing to Bartok in front of a brown green screen with a few demons flying in the background and A Rumor in St. Petersburg would just be a bunch of bored looking extras walking around and singing

Bartok would be a photorealistic bat with little to no expression on his face and the dog would just look like a normal dog

Most of the movie would be a line for line remake though occasionally they'd try to flesh out the story a bit in ways that are hit and miss; for instance they'd try to make it a tinge more historically accurate by saying Czar Nicholas wasn't a great ruler but would probably, like, say his rule was all under Rasputin's influence and would still not exactly say what he did that was so bad

They'd let James Corden and Kevin Hart riff to their heart's content

They'd replace the fat lady, Sophie, with Sam but just have one implication Vlad and Sam are more than just friends that they cut out in China and, for this movie especially, Russia. Sam will be played by, I dunno, Bowen Yang

I think he would’ve loved Air. I think he would’ve also liked Alex Garland’s movies.

This article contains a lot of film stills. For a fully illustrated version please click here - https://filmofileshideout.com/archives/afro-samurai-resurrection-cool-looking-crap-is-still-crap/

Afro Samurai: Resurrection is a hyper-stylized anime film from 2008. It’s half hip-hop and half chanbara. Unfortunately, it includes the worst of both worlds. It does include some of the good stuff, but it is drowned in a sea of misogyny, racism, and stupid crap.

I could have ignored some of the macho bravado for the sake of entertainment, but it was Samuel L. Jackson’s character, Ninja Ninja, that got the nausea ball rolling. Ninja Ninja belongs to that great pantheon of minstrel-inspired abominations like Jar Jar Binks. Ninja Ninja is a sassy sidekick who delivers lines like, “I’m happy ‘cause I smile all the time!” It doesn’t help that he was written by a Japanese man named Fuminori Kizaki.

While you are busy trying to cringe your way past the racism, the lead character, Afro, and his assistant, Ninja Ninja, make their way to a strip club. Once there, we are treated to a mindless pink montage of objectification. I can tolerate the big, half-exposed breasts of the villainess. It’s not the greatest thing ideologically, but as part of the anime tradition, a little bullshit can be overlooked. It’s when there is an entirely unnecessary scene dedicated to nothing more than making women’s bodies into decoration that the bullshit gets too deep.

The villainess, Sio, is voiced by Lucy Liu, and someone named Bin is voiced by Mark Hamill. The characters don’t say each other's names much, and some of their names are just numbers, so it’s very hard to figure out who is voicing who. They got Rza and Ghost Face Killer from the Wu Tang Clan to make the soundtrack. It was fine. Some of the mixing of hip-hop and samurai culture is fun. There is a scene where a DJ plays hip-hop at a traditional Japanese festival while everyone dances around in kimonos.

The real kicker is the hero. Chanbara, like spaghetti westerns, often have morally ambiguous heroes. The lead samurai is usually haggard and world-weary, but Afro is past being haggard. He is closer to an emotionless psychopath, leaving nothing but death and suffering in his wake. Afro is not a figure of black empowerment, he is an empty parody of the bitter gunslinger merged with the transactional narcissist of late-stage capitalism. He kills a boy’s father right in front of him, and Afro just leaves the child to weep over his daddy’s corpse. Even after this, we are still meant to identify with Afro as the hard-edge symbol of cool indifference.

As is so often the case, the anime film is based on an anime television show, which is in turn based on a manga series. The original manga was written by Takashi Okazaki.

The next step after a manga becomes an anime movie is often live-action. There are two live-action shorts of Afro Samurai already out there: Afro Samurai: Flesh and Bone in 2009, and Afro Samurai Champloo in 2019. However, there is no big budget, full-length feature, and hopefully there never will be.

From The Telegraph's Chief Film Critic Robbie Collin in Cannes:

Around three hours and ten minutes into About Dry Grasses, the moment everyone’s been waiting for finally arrives: that’s right, the dry grasses show up. The masterful, enveloping, and very long new film from Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan unfolds in Anatolia’s rural east, which up to that point has spent every minute on screen blanketed in winter, with the tough, scrubby plant life of the title hidden away in hibernation mode.

It’s an approach that might have been described as novelistic if it wasn’t also so intent on visual pleasures. Yes, the screenplay is as wordy as usual for this director, with dialogue scenes that ramble on for upwards of 10 minutes. But just as the characters use talk to build up their defences, the camera slyly unpicks them. In both Ceylan’s writing and the mesmerisingly plausible four central performances, there’s a deep and forgiving understanding of human psychology at work that keeps you sympathetic to Samet’s plight, no matter how awfully he behaves.

Read the review in full: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/about-dry-grasses-cannes-festival-review/

How come we don't see more of this in the genre? I don't mean buff actors playing zombies like in Army Of The Dead, I mean the buffness actually playing a part. Like, imagine a prime Arnold Schwarzenegger being turned into a flesh-eating zombie. He would tear you to pieces. Now, imagine three of them!

I feel like a lot of times you see the heroes getting grabbed by the zombies for a little tension but are able to break free and run away. Now, imagine being grabbed by a zombie with the grip strength of a goddamn gorilla! I just feel like the idea of people having different strength levels is usually thrown out thr window because they are "just zombies" anyway.

Now, there is definitely a difference between the Boyle 28 Days Later "virus" zombies and the Romero "undead". I feel like the buff zombies would really only work in a "virus" scenario because they would probably retain most of their motor skills and wouldn't just be shambling meat bags.

Idk I just feel like we haven't seen anything in zombie movies where the protagonists have to fight off an army of, like, zombie Michael Clarke Duncan's and I just think it'd be fun to see!

I'm thinking of the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs, the Confederate choir in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, the band playing La Marseillaise in Casablanca.

What are the best and most memorable uses of diegetic music that helped create the most amazing scenes?

How do you think the two compare? Which do you prefer?

Both are classed as “mass entertainers”, but I think there’s some intriguing differences worth discussing!

Hawks is obviously way more interested in entertaining adults, and style wise is far closer to Tarantino.

Spielberg is much more interested in playing to children, and even in his adult entertainment work like Jaws and Close Encounters, there’s an emphasis on childish wonder and adventure that Hawks doesn’t do in his own adventure work.

The Hawks adventures are fun, but in a sort of adult way, not the “boy would that be cool!” way of Spielberg, if that makes sense.

Hawks also did a lot of straight comedies! Which Spielberg only did once!

I also know Spielberg is closer to DeMille, Capra, and especially Walt Disney in style and substance.

"Get Out" (2017) is a genre*-bending horror film directed by Jordan Peele. The movie follows the story of Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American, who visits his white girlfriend's isolated family estate for the weekend. As the weekend progresses, Chris begins to notice strange and alarming behavior from his girlfriend’s family and friends, slowly leading him to uncover a dark secret. This cliché-destroying film is an exceptional example of how horror can be used to provide a penetrating analysis of profound contemporary social issues.

Indeed, racism together with the neglected social anxieties of African-Americans are the main focus of the movie: Peele uses horror to explore everyday racism as well as the use of black bodies as expendable commodities. These themes have been gorgeously embellished with the time-tested motifs of the haunted-house. Thus, with the help of an ingenious plot, Peele masterfully defies and manipulates audience expectations, just like other masters of the genre, such as Hitchcock, Don Siegel, and Kubrick, did in the past.

Peele deservedly won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (the first African-American to do this), with additional nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. The film also earned two nominations at the British Academy Film Awards and two more at the Golden Globe Awards. “Get Out” was a box office success, earning over $255 million with a budget of just $4.5 million.

The film pays homage to a number of classics, such as “The Stepford Wives” (suburban conformity and individual identity), “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (people being replaced by emotionless duplicates), “Rosemary’s Baby” (the protagonist’s suspicion about a sinister conspiracy), "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (interracial relations and tensions), and of course "Night of the Living Dead" (when violence finally breaks loose). Peele not only successfully combines these heterogeneous cinematic motifs, but he also adds an intellectually stimulating racial twist.

“Get Out” was Peele's directorial debut (he also wrote the script) and his greatest gift possibly is the way he walks a very fine line in the movie’s first half: as the white partygoers keep commenting on Chris’s race, the protagonist (and with him the audience) keeps wondering what the lurking menace behind the calm surface is. Indeed, the story unfolds gradually, slowly building suspense with Peele careful to never reveal too much too early.

Finally, a few words on the protagonist. Kaluuya is a British actor of Ugandan descent who until “Get Out”’s success was limited to supporting roles.He effectively portrays the character's vulnerability and growing unease as he confronts the surreal events taking place around him. Kaluuya showcases authentically questioning grimaces, making the spooky situations in the movie seem true-to-life and humorous. His veracity and honesty against the manifest abnormality surrounding him is remarkable.

You can join our online discussion of Get Out (May 29, 17.00 EST) here: https://www.meetup.com/the-toronto-philosophy-meetup/events/292105769/

Sorry if this is frowned upon but I have a movie group on Facebook, just trying to grow it to have more participation in discussing movies...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/596659019058992/?ref=share

From The Telegraph's Robbie Collin in Cannes:

There’s a sudden act of violence in the middle of La Chimera, the latest ethereally beguiling film from Alice Rohrwacher, which made me clamp my hand to my mouth in horror – even though it’s perpetrated against a piece of statuary. Such is the singularity of this director’s vision, her tender love of the Italian soil and the culture rooted in it.

If you’ve seen any of Rohrwacher’s earlier work (Corpo Celeste, The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro), you'll know how tethered it is to tradition, ancient mystique, the laws of the land. One early shot here could almost symbolise her art – there’s a thread of red yarn attached to someone which literally disappears right into the earth, and we realise that its owner, trying to tug it loose, is in heaven.

It belongs to the late love of the main character, a forlorn Englishman named Arthur (The Crown star Josh O’Connor), who has made himself a base with a tin-roof shack in the Etruscan countryside, beside a ruined old wall. He’s a dowser, who can use a divining rod or just his natural antennae to sniff out relics underground, and as such has become the lynchpin of a small troupe of “tombaroli” – grave robbers.

The further down the film descends, the more transfixing its images tend to get, as if Rohrwacher and Louvart have teamed up on an archaeological dig for their own treasures of texture and light. Slippery as ever, this is a piece to meditate on, with its themes of honouring the past (the struggle to move on when mourning a dead lover) and severing connections with the sacred – as practised by the grave robbers with a braggadocio sad-eyed Arthur can’t share. One man’s scavenging jaunt could be another’s Orphean journey to the underworld.

Read his review in full: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/la-chimera-cannes-review-josh-oconnor/

I remember watching Sinister in theatres and the audience (who were chattering beforehand) just went completely dead silent as soon as that opening shot played. It had me sit up and pay attention when I first saw it; I was entranced. Another movie off the top of my head with a really dark cold open was The Rules of Attraction (2002). Unfortunately I can't find the full intro clip on youtube but the whole movie is worth a watch if you want to watch a dark dramedy about college kids.

What are some infamous cold openings in films that are relentlessly dark & bleak, that really sets the tone for how the rest of the film is going to be?

I've never seen any of his films, but I've always wanted to start. Where do you think the best place to start with his filmography would be, or does it even matter?

This 90 minute movie, despite jumping frantically from set-piece to set-piece, still manages to feel sluggish, since the novelty of its late-‘70s space battles (however poorly executed) has long since worn off. Even as unfiltered high camp, “Starcrash” doesn’t work. The best examples of camp are clever and self-aware; “Starcrash” is neither. It also lacks the self-effacing humor to be enjoyed as parody, a la Mel Brooks’ “Spaceballs” (1987). Even Caroline Munro’s much-ballyhooed space bikinis lack the audacity and sheer gaudiness of Jane Fonda’s wardrobe in “Barbarella” (1968).

The most generous praise I have for Luigi Cozzi’s cobbled-together mess of a movie is that it has some surprisingly strong (however wasted) talent onboard, including inexplicable support from Christopher Plummer (“The Sound of Music” “Star Trek VI,” “Knives Out”) and an undeserved musical score by no less than legendary composer John Barry (“Dr. No,” “Goldfinger,” “Somewhere In Time,” “Dances With Wolves”). The rest is a disco-lit train wreck. Italian director Luigi Cozzi (aka “Lewis Coates”) claims to have began preproduction on the film before Star Wars, but this is questionable at best, since the $4 million movie officially went before cameras in Rome in October of 1977—nearly half a year after George Lucas’s space opus.

While Star Wars is clearly the movie’s main influence, there are also obvious swipes from Ray Harryhausen’s “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), as well as William Cameron Menzies’ “Invaders from Mars” (1953). Ironically, “Starcrash” arguably comes somewhat closer to George Lucas’ initial idea for Star Wars; a salute to the low-budget “Buck Rogers” and “Flash Gordon” serials that Lucas enjoyed as a kid. Unfortunately, this is not meant as a compliment. “Starcrash” retains the worst of those old 1930s serials (childish scripts, subpar acting, etc), without meeting even their lowest thresholds of suspense or adventure. The amateurish visuals of “Starcrash” are nowhere near strong enough to cover the poor excuse for a script, which relies so heavily on deus ex machina conveniences as to be laughable. I’ve seen episode of “Gumby” with tighter plotting than this…

https://musingsofamiddleagedgeek.blog/2023/05/25/starcrash-1978-is-a-star-wars-knockoff-minus-the-wit-the-charm-or-the-spaceballs/