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100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
You're god damn right it did, there were fifteen movies before Freddy vs Jason came out.
https://letterboxd.com/mook/list/viewing-order-for-freddy-vs-jason/
They then expanded the universe further (via comic books) to include Ash, of Evil Dead fame:
Nope, desktop! Here's what the screen looks like when opening a random movie
As you can see, no pictures. Sometimes there's a trailer but that's it.
Here's the same page on letterboxd
Much more attractive visually, mainly because of the image.
Going into this pretty much blind I was not expecting Okja to be a high-energy quirky comedy. Tilda Swinton is electric. The movie hits you over the head with its overall message like a wrecking ball. But despite that there is a lot to love about Okja.
I left a review on my letterboxd which you can read here: https://letterboxd.com/krusiv/film/okja/
The Assassin's Creed director, cinematographer and lead actor and actress have just come from Macbeth which was insanely good.
Furthermore, the plot that they've released looks promising: > Lynch discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society through unlocked genetic memories that allow him to relive the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. After gaining incredible knowledge and skills he’s poised to take on the oppressive Knights Templar in the present day.
They're ignoring the existing video game story and taking the basic elements such as the animus, templars, assassins, hidden blade etc.
In summary, the best directed screen adaptation of Macbeth's director is adapting a popular video game, alongside the cinematography of True Detective one of the most visually stunning TV shows of all time with award-winning actors (1 oscar winner and 1 oscar nominee).. if this film fails it's going to be the screenwriters and I'll be incredible surprised.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Somehow went nearly 22 years of my life without seeing this action-packed masterpiece. The Terminator impressed me, but Judgment Day took it to a whole new level. Some of the best action I've ever seen, out of this world special effects (considering this was made in '91), imaginative, fresh writing with sympathetic characters and surprisingly excellent humor, and fucking Schwarzy killed it. That man was made for the role of the Terminator.
5 stars.
I wrote a more in depth review on letterboxd here if you're interested.
In case you still needed definitive proof that /r/movies actually does change their opinions on movies over time here you go: Star Wars: The Force Awakens was #141 on last years list and this year the top comment for it has only 16 upvotes and it is also one of the top results if you sort by controversial
Really not trying to be snobby, but you can look at /r/movies top 1000 and see the recency bias outright: https://letterboxd.com/chrimas15/list/reddit-top-1000-2018/
I'm sorry but there's no way someone can ever reasonably convince me the lego movie is the 101st best movie and Mean Girls is in the top 250. Also the top ten is the biggest reddit circlejerk lol
It's certainly a major trend, but I'd argue the current mainstream Horror equivalent of the 80s slashers are the Blumhouse-style jump scare ghost movies. Teens love them, and they make tons of money relative to their cost, and it's what people looking for a quick buck try to get in on.
I do think the last decade of 'slow burn' psychological adult-oriented Horror is how we're going to look back at this era, though, in the larger history of Horror aesthetics.
Oh, and I, too, love this kind of Horror film. My Letterboxd rankings might have some films in the subgenre you might have missed?
First and foremost, Eden Lake.
Then Martyrs, Under the Skin, Annihilation, Teorema, Cache, Funny Games, Amour, The Holy Mountain, Enter the Void, Love, I Stand Alone, Angst, It Comes at Night, Requiem for a Dream, Blue Velvet, We Need to Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Nymphomaniac, The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky), The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly, Shame (both McQueen and Bergman), Cries and Whispers, A Clockwork Orange, Eyes Wide Shut, Only God Forgives, The Neon Demon, The Eyes of My Mother, Kids, Happiness, The Vanishing, Satyricon, The Night Porter, A Tale of Two Sisters, Goodnight Mommy, W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, Felt, Anomalisa, Queen of Earth, ... I'm missing a ton, but those are the first that come to mind.
See also this Letterboxd list.
Here's a pretty large list that someone compiled a couple years ago. It has anything from 'The Sound of Music' to 'Indiana Jones' to 'Letters From Iwo Jima' and 'Inglourious Basterds.'
https://letterboxd.com/meadford/list/wwii-movies-to-watch-in-chronological-order/
Good site for film diaries and expanding your tastes, but the community is terrible. Everyone thinks they're comedians and each page is stuffed with power users and shitty one-liners. If they allowed gifs like Goodreads there would be plenty of that too.
I made a list of period Horror films in chronological order, if you're looking for some ideas. There's probably a hundred older gothic Victorian and Samurai ghost films that aren't on there, but it's not a bad place to start.
I really like using Letterboxd, but I agree that finding good reviewers is tough, since so many users seem to treat the platform like an extension of Tumblr. Here are some suggestions:
I listen to the Filmspotting podcast, so I follow both hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larson. I also follow Peter Labuza, a film critic and scholar who often watches and writes about more obscure films, which I appreciate. I also follow some of the more popular reviewers. David Ehrlich is a film critic at Indiewire and his reviews (often taken from full reviews on Indiewire) are very good. I also follow users SilentDawn and Josh Lewis, both of whom review a lot of films and write thoughtful reviews.
I'm not opposed to some shameless self-promotion, so if you'd like to follow me, here's my account: https://letterboxd.com/PeterGavaris/
For anyone on Letterboxd, you can keep track of how many you've seen in a somewhat easier format than scrolling the entire thing here.
For the record, I'm at 22%.
The most popular cinema "social network" website around here is Letterboxd. It allows to follow other users (similar system than Twitter) to track their activity, share reviews and lists. However it doesn't have discussion boards, you can only discuss by commenting on a review or list. I don't know much about the rest, I often hear about Criticker and iCheckMovies.
His Letterboxd review, for anyone who cares:
https://letterboxd.com/ralfmakesmovies/film/ant-man-and-the-wasp/
I'm not gonna judge since I haven't seen the movie yet, but at least his reasons for disliking the movie are actual criticisms, and not whatever his TLJ review was.
A Thai film called Blissfully Yours doesn't have its opening credits until 40 minutes in.
But I heard that there's a Chinese movie that just premiered at Cannes this week called Long Days Journey Into Night (borrows Eugene O'Neill's title, not an adaptation) that doesn't drop its title card until 70 minutes in, and then there's a 50 minute long shot that's in 3D. Also heard that the single shot is pretty much the only thing that makes it worthwhile. Edit: I take that back, I misinterpreted initial reactions.
Haha damn it man I'm really disappointed that this isn't a discussion of Peter Jackson's Bad Taste but yes, just try to be patient with your friends. Try to remember what some of your 'gateway' films were and recommend them to your friends. At some point, something will probably click. I think there is more or less a movie out there for everyone that will make them go 'oh wow movies can be more than I thought.' Unfortunately plenty of people don't end up ever seeing 'their' movie.
I'm very excited to see this and Jeremy Saulnier's Hold The Dark. I guess they're both coming soon since it seems like they've been screened to critics. Jacob Knight from Birth Movies Death has reviewed both on letterboxd already:
>Evans tries his hand at something non-Silat related, producing a left field slow burn that feels like John Huston adapted a lost Clive Barker story. Suitably gnarly, Evans’ penchant and flair for extreme violence and gore is present and accounted for, especially during the third act, where it takes over right when the somewhat obvious themes of religious hypocrisy and fascism threaten to beat you into submission. Dan Stevens continues to own a genuinely strange screen presence, while Michael Sheen is all brogue and brimstone. Glad Netflix is giving guys like Evans and Saulnier a ton of cash to make movies no studio would probably touch (even if I’d rather see their widescreen visions in an auditorium rather than my living room).
https://letterboxd.com/jacobknight/film/apostle-2018/
>A hyper-portentous neo Hemingway riff where darkness creeps in on those left at the edges of human civilization; law, order, and family meaning different things when social morality is stripped from the equation. Contains an austere patience that hasn’t been present in Saulnier’s other pictures, which renders his trademark graphic violence all the more shocking (a set piece that practically remakes Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET sniper sequence with a heavy-caliber machine gun in a barn is 10 of the tensest, bloodiest minutes you’ll see all year). Yet there’s also an oddly spiritual undercurrent, where codes and belief systems are allowed to take the place of established order, colliding and clashing and causing chaos in the wilderness. Don’t make me choose which of his films is my favorite, because I just can’t (though it may be this one).
https://letterboxd.com/jacobknight/film/hold-the-dark/
get hype
This is a great idea.
I'll be compiling all of the personality/celebrity top ten profiles and making a list out of them like this one.
It will be ready later in the day.
I don’t think he hated horror films. The issue for him was that so many horror films are subpar. As much as I love Silent Night, Deadly Night...come on...its not a good movie.
Here’s what a quick google search illustrates about horror films he enjoyed. Some are classics, some are just fun...but I think it indicates he didn’t blindly hate horror.
https://letterboxd.com/31nitesofhorror/list/horror-films-that-roger-ebert-liked/
The female character in that movie actually has a test named after her that is given to other movies, the "Mako Mori test", similar to the Bechdel test, which a surprising ammount of movies fail and it doesn't sound like they would upon first hearing the rules:
>The Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Mo Movie Measure or Bechdel Rule is a simple test which names the following three criteria: (1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.
>The Mako Mori test is passed if the movie has a) at least one female character b) who gets her own narrative arc c) that is not about supporting a man’s story.
Here's a directory of films that have passed both tests:
https://letterboxd.com/waltgoggins/list/the-mako-mori-test/year/2018/
and also the Bechdel test site:
My most desired releases would be:
Pastoral: To Die in the Country
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
The Brown Bunny
Trouble Every Day
Helter Skelter
Son of the White Mare
In a Glass Cage
Killer of Sheep
Bush Mama
The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Mikey and Nicky
Girlfriends
Born in Flames
It was always ironic. The point is that Doe sanctimoniously views himself as some external arbiter, condemning others while harboring his own greater sins, as if two wrongs somehow make a right.
I go into my interpretation in greater detail here if you're interested.
An ongoing RIP to the menchies of the following critics:
Harvey S. Karten-Compuserve
Matt Singer-ScreenCrush
Keith Uhlich-no review yet but his tweet already has an angry reply.
After watching the trippy 70's Japanese horror film House, this review on Letterboxd really stuck with me. It's sincere and contemplative, inviting you to enjoy the magic that is House. The author draws on interviews with the director to explain the film's place in Japan's history and talks about how this film exemplifies the magic of cinema.
> At the root, House, like the best movies I know -- even and especially, low cinema, b-movies, horror -- seems to me an overflowing love for movies or an obsession with film. The rest of the magic -- the joy and struggle -- flows from that source. > > To me, cinema is falling in love. And there is such joy here.
The new one wrote and directed Careful How You Go (2018).
Reviews:
"One of the coldest black
comedies I've seen in... nah,
one of the coldest black
comedies I've seen, period --
it has a truly terrific final line."
"This is mean-spirited and diabolical and goes against the grain of everything I want to see in a film.
That said, it’s also self-aware of its monstrous behavior, going as far as to morally question it’s own existence while maintaining its puerile glee."
Also a suggestion which i got earlier this year too from r/365movies, Check Letterboxd out, it's diary feature is pretty good and one can see the user's ratings with entry even in the lists too unlike imdb lists.
I have a letterboxd, but I don't follow too many people. When I first got it, I just looked up movies that I liked, then looked for thoughtful reviews. If someone seemed to know their shit, I'd check out their profile, and if we had similar tastes, then I started following them, in case they logged or reviewed something I had never seen or heard of. I've discovered a few pretty good movies that way, but the biggest resource, I think, are the user-generated lists.
I'd like to be a mod. I already post 3 times a week for the Netflix Club, and I post regularly on Letterboxd (Example Review ), so, while I haven't written anything professional, I am experienced in writing about film. I think that being a mod here would be fun, and it'd be cool to write about movies i love and what makes them so great.
Only one Quentin Taran-kino and no Interstellar? Fraud.
(For real though, "To see before you die"? Because Signs, Last Samurai and Edge of Tomorrow changed my life.)
I highly recommend letterboxd! It's part social network, part movie database, and allows you to write reviews, make lists, and track your watch history. Best part is being able to look up a film and instantly see what my friends thought about it.
There's a few good lists on Letterboxd:
Folk Horror Films. Bucolic butchery!
there's also the very small /r/folkhorror/
According to this fabulous list on Letterboxd (which tracks every movie ever referenced on the podcast, and specifically the first time it was mentioned) it was first brought up in Episode 80 (Jack Frost) because it was literally the same ending.
Is it any of these? https://letterboxd.com/naomikawasevevo/list/im-always-a-slut-for-unusual-aspect-ratios/
the only movie I can think of that does exactly what you describe is Mommy, though that isn't an action movie and doesn't have a "big fight scene"
There's one in theaters right now called Gemini. I haven't seen it, but it seems to have decent reviews. Some recent ones I recommend are Small Town Crime, Inherent Vice and Black Coal, Thin Ice.
Other great anti capitalist feature films with a critique/message:
https://letterboxd.com/film/blood-is-dry/ (This one is a must)
Luis Buñuel’s last three films (1972-77)
They Live
Godard’s Weekend
Tati’s Playtime
I love this movie to death, but I don't know if you watched the right version. You say the length is 2 hours and 29 minutes, but the final cut is 3 hours and 49 minutes.
Here's my review of the movie btw: letterboxd
Basically my all time favorite film - with practically the greatest film score I've ever heard in my film watching life.
Also what do you think happened in the end? I refuse to think that the entire film was a dream (a serious cop out imo), but instead, a flashback to an earlier time in his life where he was happy, after seeing the last vestige of his adulthood vanish into a garbage truck (whether he killed himself or drove away, it does not matter), where he just imagines himself high on opiates enjoying his life.
Strange needs a better director IMO, or they need to give him a bit more freedom to do something more unique and original with the character.
I enjoyed the movie, but it was too cookie cutter. Some great visuals, but the story left something to be desired. Of the 5 movies in phase 3 so far, which is admittedly very strong, it is the weakest.
I currently have it 10th out of the 17 MCU films released to date.
Letterboxd is essentially a social network that combines all of those things (reviews, lists, etc.) whilst allowing you to potentially follow other users. I'm a big fan of TSPDT's lists of the 1000 greatest films and 1000 most acclaimed films of the 21st century, they're quite thorough and a good source for finding films to watch. And there's also Icheckmovies, which is a little redundant to something like Letterboxd but is a quick and easy way for checking off films that you've seen on all kinds of lists if you're into that.
Start with De Sica if you like realism, start with Fellini if you like artsy, circusy stuff, start with Antonioni if you like moody arthouse ennui, start with Argento if you like bloody horror, start with Leone if you like westerns, etc. It's up to you.
the reviewer has been answering some questions https://letterboxd.com/thewesk/film/it-2017/ someone mentioned about (apparently) the "manhattan project" folks' negative video review and here is what he answered:
"I guess everyone's taste is different. The humor is primarily coming from a bunch of pre-teen's perspectives so I think it was very appropriate. I definitely jumped at a few parts. I just watched Annabelle and while that was good IT was much better. Having read the Steven King book , the story has some cheesiness (like many King stories) but this movie is in my top 5 of the year so far (with Dunkirk, Baby Driver, Wind River and Wonder Woman)"
Are you new to Reddit?
Have you heard of Letterboxd or Rotten Tomatoes?
I'm serious in asking because I don't come to Reddit for reviews or deep dives into Criterion films. Or to put it more accurately, "Films that just so happened to have received the Criterion treatment." I go to the sites I mentioned, or even googled "[insert film here] film analysis" and found some good articles and especially some great clips on YouTube. You may want to start your ventures there before Reddit.
Could the Reddit community provide these things? Of course, and they have. I bet if you posted your in-depth analyses on specific films you would receive some great feedback. But it's not a go-to resource for what you're claiming you're looking for. If you're that put off by the gluttony, then you may want to stay away from this subreddit (and other social media outlets with #criterioncollection, because if you think this channel was bad...). Or at least until the B&N sale is over because the posts will keep coming.
In other words, let's not limit the "Criterion culture" to what's being represented here on Reddit (and whatever "Criterion" videos you've seen on YouTube).
I generally agree with you, but some have certainly started to re-evaluate it. Just look at all the positive reviews on letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/jennifers-body/
These are my favorite types of horror movies–by drawing out the horror over the course of the entire runtime, with little to no respite, these movies tend to stick with me a lot longer. I made a list on Letterboxd with some of my favorites. It could use some updating with recent entries, which I'd love to get here :)
Carl Theodor Dreyer has what I think is the best quote about slow-burn, atmospheric horror:
"Imagine that we are sitting in an ordinary room. Suddenly we are told that there is a corpse behind the door. In an instant the room we are sitting in is completely altered; everything in it has taken on another look; the light, the atmosphere have changed, though they are physically the same. This is because we have changed and the objects are as we conceive them. That is the effect I want to get in my film."
I love that idea–that far beyond the initial scare of something horrific, that these unnatural elements can forever shape the way one sees the world just based on mere power of suggestion.
If you liked "Idiocracy" there's a alternative-reality comedy coming out in July (I'm sure a limited release) that that I recommend you check out called "Sorry to Bother You". Saw it at the San Francisco film festival last week. Trailer.
It has some of the same dystopian absurdity and comments on our economic system and culture. About a down-on-his-luck guy who discovers his telemarketing prowess when he uses his "white voice" (see if you can figure out which comedian plays that voice) but then finds out success has downsides, not least of which is finding out messed up stuff his biggest client is up to. A recurring show people love in the movie's universe is "I got the &$*# kicked out of me", which is probably a little too close to "Oww, my balls!" but quite a bit darker if you ask me.
I would also suggest Steven Schneider's "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", and of course the /r/truefilm's 100 movies list :)
Steven Schneider's list might be intimidating, but the fact that it is listed by chronological order can be very helpful for people who want to deepen their love of cinema, since older movies, I think, are harder to appreciate when you begin. My suggestion would be to start by exploring some of the movies made after 1970 for a while, and then dive into older ones. (That's what I did, and it went very well!)
Here is a link to my "thoughts" on that Olaf short before the movie, which I've copied and pasted here:
INT: WALT DISNEY STUDIOS EXECUTIVE BOARDROOM JUNE 12, 2017
FRANK - "Hey Tom, I have this great idea." TOM - "Yeah, what is it Frank?" F - "Hear me out... snorts line of cocaine ...so you know that Frozen made for TV special we made?" T - "Yeah, the one we were gonna put on ABC?" F - "Well the marketing people told me its gonna bomb. Too many people are cutting the cord." T - "We put millions of dollars into this thing, what are we gonna do? We can't just put it on Netflix or post it on digital streaming services." F - "I know what we're gonna do." T - "What is it, tell me! F - "Coco is coming out in a few months." T - "The new Pixar film? Yeah, it's gonna be a real moneymaker for us, why?" F - "We're gonna put Olaf's Frozen Adventure before it" Tom spits out champagne T - "WHAT?! That's crazy man. We always put a Pixar short before a Pixar movie. And its usually only 5 minutes long! This special is 20!" F - "I know, but you forgot one thing." T - "What's that?" F - "We already got their money People have to sit there for 20 minutes watching that annoying fucking snowman, praying for the end so they can watch something actually good." T - "Frank, you're a genius!" F - "Besides, what are theaters gonna do, apologize for it and remove it from circulation?" Tom and Frank both laugh and clink their champagne glasses together
(As for Coco itself, I saw it today and really enjoyed it. Every time I thought the story was getting predictable it would do a left turn and try something different. I look forward to rewatching it and exploring its themes)
Someone on Letterboxd has created a list of all the HDTGM movies, and Letterboxd allows you to filter by service, so this should be a list of all the HDTGM movies on Netflix US (I'm in the UK, so you'll have to verify it yourself!)
Edit: That link only works if you're signed-in to Letterboxd (which you should be, because it's incredibly useful) but here's what you'd see if you did:
Catwoman
Trespass
Judge Dredd
In The Name Of The King
A Joyful Noise
Sharknado
Over The Top
Toys
Crossroads
Mortal Kombat
Sharknado 2
Safe Haven
Sharknado 3
Bloodsport
Vampire Academy
Dreamcatcher
Grease 2
Escape from L.A.
Wraith (upcoming)
If you don't go by US release dates because many of the titles in the list are released in Europe beforehand, I update a weekly list of the Metacritic top 50 on Letterboxd.
I also use the same filtering for Letterboxd's own top 50 highest rated movies.
Man I could not get into Annihilation. I loved the subtlety of Ex Machina's emotions and the philosophical nature of it's conflicts when contrasted with the sci fi base. It did everything I think sci fi movies should aim for, and it did it perfectly. So I was pretty hopeful about Annihilation.
Having never been a fan of Natalie Portman I went into it a bit reticent, and for all the thematic richness (I think it's there?) I just couldn't get into it. The dialogue was so expository and the characters so light, that the world never seemed real or plausible. Every decision the characters made just seemed silly and clashed really badly against with the overall tone.
Wrote a bit more in depth here, and while the general reception and consensus seems positive, I hope Garland turns it around with his next project and writes a decent script.
Hello r/anime!
I'm new, just wanted to ask for some recommendations and if the movies I picked so far are good.
I've never been an anime guy, used to watch DBZ back when I was a wee boy but that's about it.
Well, lately, I've started a 365movies challenge back in March (my Letterboxd), so I've been going through a lot of movies, and the other day I decided to give good ol' Miyazaki a try.
I watched:
- My Neighbour Totoro
- Princess Mononoke
- (rewatched) Spirited Away.
I enjoyed them all a lot.
Then yesterday I decided to watch Your Name: I read about its success online, kept seeing it recommended, even by irl friends, so what the hell.....
I absolutely love this movie, hands down my favorite anime movie, and honestly one of my favorite movies ever: the art style and animation were gorgeous, the story was amazing and the directing by Shinkai was masterful.
So these recent watches have convinced me to give anime a real good try, since I was getting kind of burnt out with live action movies anyways.
I was thinking of watching some movies frome these directors:
- Miyazaki, for obvious reasons
- Takahata, seems to be the other big guy at Ghibli (again, I dont know much about this)
- Satoshi Kon, saw a video by Every Frame a Painting about him, was really intrigued
- Makoto Shinkai, director of Your Name
I also read decent things about Mamoru Hosoda, and I just watched The Girl who leapt through Time, which I enjoyed ok.
Other than that, I found this list of Top 100 Best-Rated Japanese Animated films from the Anime News Network and was thinking of using that as a general resource of titles too.
Thoughts? Anything I missed and should add to my watchlist?
thanks for any recommendations
On a positive note, there is an upcoming 4 hour documentary being released on Netflix this week directed by Errol Morris that goes into detail about Project MKUltra. It's called Wormwood
Finally got a chance to see A Ghost Story and can't recommend enough. More atmospheric than terrifying, this slow-burn indie flick is an elegiac reflection on death, love, and mourning, told from a ghost's point-of-view. An absolute must-see, and probably my new favorite movie!
What’re you guys up to this weekend? I woke up really early this morning (~630) and wasn’t able to go back to sleep. So I’ve been working on some album reviews while it’s still rainy outside. I’m also trying to figure out what I’m doing, I have no plans until Sunday afternoon.
Also, seen any good movies lately? I checked out both Jackie Brown and Fruitvale Station this past week and they were both fantastic. Fruitvale Station felt heavy-handed but it was still incredibly sad and touching, imo. If you wanna talk movies or whatever, I just set up a letterbox!
To be fair there's this weird proportion of critics who think the Resident Evil films are all hidden masterpieces. Just look at the top few reviews on Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/film/resident-evil-retribution/
There are already multiple people who've had the same idea, but for anyone that uses Letterboxd, this is a list I've created so I could track how many of these films I've seen (29%):
https://letterboxd.com/oliverarre/list/the-21st-centurys-100-greatest-films-bbc/
Posting this here in case anyone else would find it useful.
My name is Julian, I'm 21 years old and from Germany. My house number is 1994.
I attempted to study design last year, failed and subscribed to /r/movies instead to become a useless piece of shit.
Now I'm looking forward to study political science next year (so pretentious, I know) and currently work in a kindergarten for disabled children (much SJW, yeah).
...holy shit, I'm /r/movies' antichrist.
> I guess I'm also speaking from western standards but then, is this not an issue in Japan?
https://www.filmsourcing.com/hollywood-films-age-gap-creepiness-scale/
https://letterboxd.com/soundturnedlow/list/hot-for-teacher-student-teacher-relationships/
Age gaps aren't uncommon outside of Japan.
(High School) student x teacher might be less common due to cultural differences, but I'm not someone that's versed in that area.
A lot of it is likely to be demographics. It's not uncommon for teen girls to be attracted to older men, and it is not uncommon for older men to be attracted to younger girls.
> the film really has some of the most beautiful and amazing scenery and environments I've ever seen, but the story was a bit of a clusterfuck
With you 100%. The story was my biggest gripe and I could hardly look past it especially after hearing so many good things about it. Plot conveniences and sequelitis hurt the most.
Speaking of sequelitis, what was the point to going back and rewriting Blade Runner 'canon'? Rachel was designed to fall in love with Deckard what!? That love scene in the original was disgusting and now it's A-OK? The whole plot of the new one hinges on some of the biggest issues of the first. There are more things jumbled around in there that made it absolutely painful to consider but I'd rather not turn this into a rant.
This is another review on letterboxd that captured a lot of what I felt after watching the movie and it aligns with some of your points as well.
I'd say Napoleon Dynamite. The biggest conflict he experiences in the film is his uncle both overstaying his welcome and also trying to sell Tupperware at his expense.
Although I don't agree with some of these, there's a list on Letterboxd called Gentle Cinema that compiles films like this.
supernova, I Am Number Four, Virtuosity, Ghost in the Machine, the signal, lucy, project almanac, robot jox, D.A.R.Y.L., zardoz, Brainstorm, Barbarella, Demon Seed, *batteries not included, Monsters, Somewhere in Time, cloud atlas, Strange Days, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Thelma, evangelion series, time masters, Gandahar
And I've just found this list- https://letterboxd.com/arto/list/tech-noir-cyberpunk-dystopian-cinema-their/
I couldn't help but wonder what this would look like in sequence, so I slapped together a letterboxd list for visualization.
It's mostly obvious picks (watch Star Wars if you liked Guardians!) mixed in with some ridiculous pretension towards grander meaning (All the President's Men inspired Winter Soldier, The Godfather inspired Civil War), with just a little bit of ridiculous attempts at throwing the reader into the deep end and watching them flounder (watch slow-moving, challenging tone poem Samsara if you liked Black Panther, you'll totally like it!)
If the article didn't couch itself in terms of being a curriculum for Marvel fans to explore the wider world of cinema and was instead upfront and honest about its intention to merely catalogue films the directors have cited as inspiration, I'd lay off, but this is the route they chose, and so this is the mockery they have earned.
Where's Upgrade?!?!
I used to save all of my ticket stubs too, but then discovered letterboxd because I'm a stats whore who loves tracking the movies I've seen and slapping ratings / brief reviews on em. Once I did that and saw how clean it all looked, I wondered what I'd be doing with all of these little white pieces of paper and threw em out.
For comparison, here's the 19 movies I've seen with MP since April, sorted from best to worst:
https://letterboxd.com/shedanigans/tag/moviepass/films/by/your-rating/
By far the most extreme version (to the best of my knowledge) of this kind of looped editing is in Makino Masahiro's 1937 film Bloody Duel at Takadanobaba. In the last reel our drunken protagonist (the great Bando Tsumasaburo) learns that his master has been beset by assassins – all the heck the way across town. To show his frantic run to the fight at Takadanobaba, Makino loops the same low-angle shot of Bando dashing down the road no fewer than thirty-two times, albeit broken up somewhat by cuts to the fight, and Bando's "retinue," in parallel, and in increasingly shorter and shorter chunks (an editing technique famously pioneered by Abel Gance in La Roue).
One the one hand, this is clearly a way to save a lot of money within a low-budget, high-volume production system: one short take in one location can fill up a lot of screen time. But on the other hand, it creates a definite effect: of the hopeless desperation of our hero, who keeps running and running without actually getting anywhere, even as the tempo of the cutting reaches a fevered pitch. It's pretty intense, honestly.
If you're curious, the "race" scene begins around here, with the loop in question beginning around 20 seconds in.
[Edit]
Sergei Eisenstein makes use of this technique too, for his own very particular purposes. Check out the mechanical peacock and the door opening in this early scene in October (1928).
My top 25 list is on my letterboxd page. But here's my top 10 anyways.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Dark Knight
The Terminator
Empire Strikes Back
This Is Spinal Tap
Goodfellas
The Godfather
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly
Taxi Driver
Dr. Strangelove
Too "normie" of a list for you? Too bad. I pick my favourites based on what I like, not what makes me look smart.
I went in expecting to like it, but not for it to overthrow Good Time as my favourite of the year. Here is what I wrote for my Letterboxd review
.
Wow. I went into this seeing only the trailer, which made me feel like this was going to be a feel-good film. This is not a feel-good film.
There was a line that my buddy Chris pointed out to me, spoken by one of the children:
>"Do you know why this is my favourite tree? Because it's tipped over, and its still growing."
This works as a wonderful metaphor for the film itself, and the situation the characters are living in. Each day they're simply trying to get by, trying to improve themselves and get out of a bad situation. Much like slapping a new coat of bright purple paint on a bed bug infested motel.
Sean Baker invites us into the world of children growing up in less than ideal conditions around less than ideal role models. The images are uncomfortable, unflinching, and at times heartbreaking. What makes it so real to me are the small glimmers of hope that we are able to see through the cracks in the foundation, the sense of community that's developed, and the caring of individuals like Bobby showing through in a difficult world.
In the end its that hopeful outlook of a child that prevails, wrapping up a somewhat devastating film in one of the most beautiful endings I've ever seen.
The performances here are absolutely outstanding, none of the actors are given over the top scenes which would allow them to appear as "characters" so what we're left with is profoundly human.
My new favourite of the year.
Nice upload, anyone wanna take a shot at doing the movies not in this but in the Letterboxd Top 250? It's a bit more credible imo. x265 mkvs would be ideal.
KOYAANISQATSI (1982)
My biggest complaint typically with films is that they don't capture reality properly. It feels scripted and like it belongs to another world. That's why I like films that are ridiculous in their reality because they acknowledge they won't portray it totally accurate. But on the other side of the spectrum there's this masterpiece. This is beautiful symmetrical raw footage arranged in a way that has you constantly comparing. Mountains to factories. The beauty of a city from its outside to its poverty stricken areas. People walking up an escalator to hot dogs being packaged. There as several metaphors that can be derived and makes it a perfect film for mediation on the human condition. This is much deeper than a YouTube compilation of beautiful camera shots, this is meant to evoke a reaction. Five Stars.
My profile on Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/Cowboycookie
It's letterboxd. This generation's imdb. If it cared more about quality reviews, it wouldn't be formatted in such a way as to bury everything beneath David Ehrlich and homogenous piles of text. Actively finding good reviews on letterboxd is so difficult as to be almost not worth attempting. If anything, it's more important to block people than it is to follow people, given the ratio of involuntary populism to voluntary subscription.
So instead of hunting down reviews, I just look at a user's favorites and 5-star ratings and decide to follow them based on whether I think what they watch will expose me to new ideas. An indirect consequence of playing more to broad taste I've noticed is that the "reviews by my friends" sections tend to naturally be populated by more informed and interesting reviews. It's slow growing, but it's generally better than leaving things to algorithms.
Check out my follow list, which is still pretty small but doesn't have many popular reviews on it. See if you find anyone that piques your fancy.
EDIT: After going through them, I think I'll be picking up some of the users recommended here. Thanks to everyone else for posting. :)
I love using Letterboxd despite all the problems that its data source is giving them (it's been deleting indie movies because they're 'not real movies.')
Edit: My profile, for the curious - https://letterboxd.com/Foxhack/ - Just a word of warning, I watch a lot of garbage. But I'm trying to make up for it by watching good movies, too.
IMDb, Letterboxd, reddit, tumblr, Twitter - all these social media platforms do is promote narcissism. Everyone has an opinion and nobody is ever wrong, and when every opinion can suddenly be covered and discussed, suddenly opinions become meaningless. To quote Sherlock Homes:
> Ugh, everyone's a critic
...which I think is incorrect.
I think the internet hurts criticism because the 'net is both widening the gap between what a 'reviewer' is and what a 'critic' is and it's blurring the lines. The consensus I get from reddit is: film critics are only here to tell us what to watch. So if that's what the consumer wants, that's what they'll eventually get, and what constitutes actual film criticism, from people who are either a) professional film critics and/or b) academics who study film, is going to slowly be moved out of the way in favour of what-ever-the-hell this is. as it becomes slowly more non-existent and eventually indistinguishable.
I don't see the userbase of IMDb or Letterboxd as critics; I see it as a collection of movie fans; some are intelligent, some are witty, some are sometimes even insightful but I don't think the majority, if any, can be considered critics... a part from the users who are critics, many of whom only use the site to log films and short views and nothing more substantial than that.
Pretty much did the same thing! Watched a movie (or two) per day for an entire year!
https://letterboxd.com/Trevpocalypse/films/diary/
If I can watch 2 more films for today (currently watching my entry for New Year's Eve), it would be 400 films in total. It's a really fun challenge. You plan on doing it again for 2016?
Lot of good movies in both decades; I've got more movies on my 2010s Top List than my 2000s Top List so I guess I'd say I find it "better", but I've still got lots of things to catch up on.
The script writer originally wrote it in his youth and altered it throughout the years, which explains how it became the utter Karloff it is now. But why Trevorrow was compelled to take on the project that maimed his career is beyond mortal comprehension.
The silver lining is that it has produced my favourite page by far on letterboxd, where the user reviews are always a joy to read.
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-book-of-henry/reviews/by/activity/
This film needs to have midnight screenings [if it doesn't already], and people need to attend dressed as Marcus Fenix.
I'm realizing this is not the best list but here's stuff I thought of:
-A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - might not be too popular, but it's pretty good IMO.
-I'm sure he's seen A Hard Day's Night but on the off chance he hasn't, that's a good one.
-Any Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd (Modern Times, City Lights, The Kid Brother, Speedy, etc)
-The Apartment
-This is Spinal Tap
Also, you could look at this list and sort by average rating.
I saw the trailer when I went to see Lady Bird. It seems like such a weird film, I have no idea who the target audience is. Hopefully this isn't the Hugh Jackman Equivalent of Daniel Day Lewis deciding to do "<strong>Nine</strong>".
I'm too lazy to pick out individual films so here, have my Favorite Horror of the 2010's list. Hopefully you find something you haven't seen.
I was so hoping for a trailer for The Modern Ocean, which has been Carruth's next directorial project for the past 6 years. The letterbox page describes it as a 2018 release, but imdb only as "in development" (ie, 2020 or later). The rumored cast is pretty crazy, with 5 A-listers. And the plot synopsis could be anything from Captain Phillips to Waterworld.
Still, this looks potentially interesting, though Billy Senese's prior film wasn't well received.
> I don't know why it's considered a good film.
You could read some professional and amateur reviews to find out.
Someone on Letterboxd recently did up the list for people to check out too. Useful if anyone wants to track it there or have a visual to go with it.
You're in for a treat. He's filmography is phenomenal, and I didn't even like Seven Samurai that much.
Heavily recommend High and Low, The Bad Sleep Well and Red Beard. You'll get a different taste of his style with the first two.
Some recommendations for you:
Fear(s) of the Dark (2007)
Bobby Yeah (2011)
Extraordinary Tales (2013)
Vampires in Havana (1985)
Down to the Cellar (1983)
The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (1984)
Alice (1988)
Angel’s Egg (1985)
Perfect Blue (1997)
The Pied Piper (1986)
Hair High (2004)
Devilman (1987)
Midori (1992)
The Wolf House (2018)
I use it as an excuse to 1)watch film and 2) write.
And I agree, the popular reviewers there are very toxic and immature. I just stay away.
Kurosawa is great, but I actually meant Masaki Kobayashi lol. Check him out, one of the greats.
What about Fear and Desire? And Tarkovsky made no weak movie either.
I decided to listen to this again this afternoon while making lunch for myself, and ended up making a Letterboxd list of every movie that gets more than a few seconds of discussion: https://letterboxd.com/jboehle90/list/every-movie-discussed-for-more-than-5-seconds/
I'm still not clear exactly what you mean, but at least now we have a better idea.
Given everything you mention, have you been trying non-Western films? The most obvious go-to's would be South Korea and Japan. Try something like <em>A Tale of Two Sisters</em>. There's some beautiful camera-work here, lingering shots, and the horror at the heart of it is both emotional and relateable.
Though you'll find gems all over. For example, I recently watched Phobia, which owes a heavy debt to Polanski (specifically Repulsion), and is far from empty, being built around a strong, campaigning message conveyed subtly through a wonderful performance by Radhika Apte.
In letzter Zeit auf jeden Fall Letterboxd. Es ist echt interessant wie viele potenziell interessente Filme ich durch Reviews und Wertungen von anderen finde, habe jetzt mehr als 400 auf meiner Watchlist. Außerdem find ich die ganzen Features wie das Film Diary, die Listen und die (Pro) Stats echt cool. Wenn ihr euch für Filme interessiert ist die Seite definitiv einen Blick Wert.
Ok, that's not much less than me, which makes me wonder what movies you're choosing?
I see Birds brought up, but I honestly haven't seen it, and I'm personally not a major admirer of Hitchcock so I can't compare references there. Are you looking at old horror and sci-fi mostly?
Because for me, 90% of pre-70s films I've seen would still blow OK/Good modern films out the water. Everything I've seen from Bergman, Chaplin, Fellini, Kurosawa, Bunuel, Godard, Bresson, Welles, Dreyer, Kubrick, Capra, Ford, etc, etc, etc. Actual classic directors of film.
Calling out the 60s especially, I'm wondering what you've seen. These are some of the films I've seen from the 60s, and I'd say at least 90% of them are better than Imitation Game and Hidden Figures even by modern standards.
Here is a list of all the criterion movies on hulu, you can sort by duration. Also many of Ingmar Bergman's movies are around 1 & 1/2 hours (Persona, Winter's Light, and Wild Strawberries).
https://letterboxd.com/moviefan999/film/sharp-objects/4/ I follow this guy on twitter, he is a reviewer and has seen the final, he says "They actually slightly changed the ending, and it’s good that they did. The ending in the miniseries is so much better in execution than the ending in the novel".
An internet friend made this list of radical/leftist cinema.
But fair warning, it skews on the “arty” side. I’m one of those nerds.
Where are you from?
- Portland, ME
How old are you?
- 14
When did you start collecting Criterion?
- Yesterday
Do you collect Blu-ray or DVD?
- Blu-ray
What is your favorite Criterion release?
- One of these two
What is your least favorite Criterion release?
- So far, Dead Ringers
Who is your favorite director in the collection?
- Stanley Kubrick
Who is your favorite director outside of the collection?
- Denis Villeneuve
Which Criterion do you most want that is not in your possession?
- The Vanishing
Which film would you most like to see get the Criterion treatment?
- Maybe Lolita (1962)
How do you organize your collection?
- Spine number
Since last February, I've been watching them all in spine order. I'm still going and up to number 38 now. I got these two because they're the only ones I've given a perfect 10/10 rating to. I would've liked to have gotten all the 9/10's, but that would've meant 100 more dollars spent, so I passed. If anybody wants to see my ranking so far, here's a link to a Letterboxd list.
Also shoutout to the guy with the red baseball cap at the Newington, NH store. I was too awkward to talk much but you saw me holding Salò and talked about it for a bit.
If you have any recommendations for me (preferably non-Criterion, because I'm already doing spine-order), leave 'em. I'd love to hear whatever you have to say!
Good list. It reminded me I wanted to see Beasts of the Southern Wild, which I had kinda forgotten about.
Here's a list of my favorites and important films by black, American directors.
Here's a version on Letterboxd.
It's not a great list. It's biased towards American and recent films, and has some bizarre inclusions.
I spend time digging around on Letterboxd and IMDB, but there's also sites like UHM that track films in production.
Get a Letterboxd account and get started by finding some of the lists other posters have mentioned in this thread like the Sight and Sound top 250, Letterboxd’s own top 250, 1001 Films to see before you die and so on. When you rate and flag a film as watched, the site tracks the your progress through any list you view. You can add any film to your own watchlist to get an idea of what you want to see. It’s also a bit of a social network so you can see what people who you choose to follow have watched recently and what is popular among the people you follow. The reviews are declining in quality of late, but they’re still better than IMDB.
On top of that, check out The Story or Film by Mark Cousins. It is available as both a 15 part documentary and also a book which covers film history with clips from thousands of films that he deems noteworthy. Not everyone is a fan, but watching this series was certainly was a turning point in my cinematic journey.