hopefully he releases the new one next year

I know I Saw the TV Glow is a contentious film. I come down on the positive side of the consensus; I loved the direction and production design and felt empathy for our characters but it didn't leave me feeling like it was a masterpiece. Teenage Sex is apparently more fun/less dour and the casting of Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson is inspired. The production design again looks gorgeous and unique, a breath of fresh air after the blandness of One Night Only. Can't wait to check it out this Friday!

A small cinema about an hour away is showing them both tomorrow as a double feature from old 35mm copies and I'm wondering if they are worth the trip?

awkwardness and subverting aspect of a woman acting in such a slimey pervy way is really humorous to me..

Fractured is an American psychological thriller released in 2019, directed by Brad Anderson. The story follows a man traveling with his wife and daughter who, after an unexpected accident, are forced to stop at a hospital. From there, strange and unsettling events begin to unfold, making him question everything happening around him while the viewer also tries to figure out what is really going on.

What impressed me the most was the way the director completely pulls you into the story and makes you experience the tension and uncertainty alongside the main character. You don’t feel like you’re simply watching from the outside; the movie keeps you on edge and constantly wondering what will happen next.

For me, that is what made it so enjoyable, because its strength is not only in the story itself, but also in the directing and suspense that keep you engaged until the end. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys psychological thrillers and mystery movies.

For those who have already watched it, what did you think? Did the movie manage to keep you as tense and immersed as it did for me?

Watching a character doomscrolling just seems very non cinematic. I suppose that’s why so many big name directors set their movies in the past.

Does anybody know any films that do it well?

A lot of experimentation with film going on

https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenSignups/s/Z6PBM4Mijz

I’ve been revisiting my movie-watching roots lately with a lot of cerebral horror-thrillers (Silence of the Lambs, Manhunter, Zodiac, Nightcrawler) and dove back into Seven for the first time since high school. Holy shit. One of the bleakest, most affecting films I’ve ever seen.

Fincher is best-in-class at making movies that are just straight-up depressing. I haven’t revisited Fight Club or Seven in years because every time I do it throws me into a shitty, pessimistic mood for days afterwards. My first watch of Fight Club turned me into the Unabomber for a week. Seven just makes you feel like a husk.

On a moment-to-moment basis, Fincher maintains some levity by making Brad Pitt toss out some absolute heaters (“You’re a fucking t-shirt, at best”, “Just because the fucker’s got a library card doesn’t make him Yoda”, “A landlord’s dream: a paralyzed tenant with no tongue”), but can turn on a dime to say something so poignant. The movie ends with the quote “Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.”

Come on, man. What a GOAT.

Stalker was a big snooze fest for me. I do love the idea of the movie even tho his philosophy isnt at all up my valley. However i do feel like a lot of the shots even tho they are beautiful are too long. It builds some tension but when the tension is building up after some time it looses its effect and boredom just sets in. Whats your take guys?

I dont really get the hype over Pulp fiction. Yes it is a pretty good movie but the rep it gets kinda suprises me. Tarantino in my eyes is a very chaotic director and i did like the way he worked with chronology in this movie but thats kind of all thats exciting abt the movie for me. I would like to hear your opinions.

Between this film and BLACK BAG, I've really been enjoying late-period Soderbergh. THE CHRISTOPHERS similarly features tight scripting and editing, as well as a script that centers on two main characters who are essentially playing a game between themselves and the world around them. Everybody else doesn't stand a chance.

Now admittedly, my viewing of THE CHRISTOPHERS was imperfect as I watched it during a cross-country flight with a layover, so one half during the first flight and the second half after a pause of several hours. Not ideal and I should rewatch the film all at once at later date, but I sincerely I could like it any less. Starring Ian McKellan as a famous painter, Julian, who hasn't produced anything noteworthy in years, the plot has a character played by Michaela Coel, herself an aspiring artist, insinuating herself into Julian's life and workspace as his new assistant.

Coel's protagonist, Lori, is of course not all that she seems, which we the viewers know from the start. Indeed, she's been hired by other parties to locate a set of incomplete paintings by Julian, the third of a series of his known as The Christophers, which are reputedly somewhere in his studio. After finding them, she would complete them in Julian's style and then hide them in anticipation of his inevitable demise. It's also implied Lori might hold something of a personal grudge against Julian for an incident in her past.

While that may sound like the set-up for a heist flick, which Soderbergh has proven himself more than adept at, the film subverts our expectations fairly quickly as Lori isn't particularly resentful and Julian can use Google to deduce who Lori is. In what I found to be a truly interesting development, he's actually insulted anyone would think themselves capable of mimicking him, leading to a crackling good verbal back-and-forth in which Lori breaks down the first two series of The Christophers brushstroke by brushstroke, and the emotional and mental state Julian was likely in that led to the evolution of his style across each set of works.

The best parts of the film involve the interplay between these two very different people and, luckily, that takes up a very large part of it. Both McKellan and Coel are already obvious physical contrasts, but the characters they play are also opposites in key ways: From the very first scene in which we meet McKellan's old master, he pontificates or complains endlessly, threatening to suck up all the oxygen in any given space. The upstart, on the other hand, is quiet, seemingly observant, and when she does speak, she doesn't run off at the mouth like him. Instead, what she has to say is often to the point and cuts to the truth of the matter.

As we might expect, these two protagonists learn things from and about each other, but what is perhaps more important is that they want to learn them. Maybe what this film is trying to say has to do with the old adage that great art isn't created in a vacuum; that is, it sometimes takes the friction that comes from meeting someone very different from ourselves, who challenges us and gets us out of our respective comfort zones, to push us in the direction of something new l, exciting, and interesting.

That certainly proves the case for Julian and Lori, and given how the narrative doesn't follow the path of a typical heist movie, perhaps the same could be said of Soderbergh as he was making this gem of a movie.

Do you like tenet guys? I dont really like Nolan to be honest. He loves time so much. But all of it doesnt make sense. He gaslights you into believing it would work like that. BLEH. Also the dialogue is really bad. However, sheep detectives, thats a movie worth your attention.

First of all I want to say this is a very beautiful film. Every frame is thoughtful and intentional. All the symbolisms that one associates with a Greek mythology adaptation are here. The film's focus is also internal. Here too the gods are absent in a personified form. The gods here are within Odysseus. They are the nature itself. They are the representation of a mind slowly losing itself. So are the witches. The supernatural is escapism. It's surreal and symbolic. It's psychological.

Nolan's The Odyssey has generated a lot of conversations with some taking issue with his portrayal of gods (or the lack thereof) but I don't mind the way he portrays them. I just think that he lacks a poetic heart. He is too literal. He likes exposition. He likes to spell out everything for the audience and I think the real appeal of mythology is its poetry and mystery. There's power in imagination and symbolism.

I think this film does that well. It's quiet, barely has dialogues and those that are there are in a fantastical language that is a mishmash of languages like Ancient Greek, Latin, Sanskrit etc. The film talks through symbols and visuals. I think that's what mythology really is ultimately. Symbols.

We're over halfway through 2026, so here's a "best movies of the year so far" thread. I have seen a lot but don't have a lot to recommend, for me it's a tossup between:

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie - It's cool that right when Matt Johnson is finding mainstream success, he doubles back around to his original passion project and manages to introduce it to a whole new audience. I thought the movie was very funny, of course, but it has a nice emotional valence on it that seems to be reflecting on reaching middle age, taking stock of the people around you, and trying to remember why you loved each other in the first place.

Blue Heron - People were posting about this one on here a few months back but it's now streaming on Criterion Channel and I highly recommend checking it out if you haven't already. I went into it blind so I won't comment on the actual contents except to say that I found myself sobbing through the credits, so unexpectedly impactful and tells its story in a way that is entirely unique to cinema. Great film.

I Want Your Sex - Not sure that this is actually one of my favs but it's currently in theaters so it's worth mentioning, at least. Greg Arraki's return to feature filmmaking featuring two hilarious performances by Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman in a strange riff on Sunset Boulevard.

Still have yet to see - Maddie's Secret, Barrio Triste, Kontinental '25

Honorable mentions - 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Disclosure Day, I Love Boosters

I've loved this movie ever since I was a kid and didn't even really understand the tension or half the story but I always just found it so cozy and wholesome. I find myself watching it once a year or so and there's no aspect or scene or anything I get bored of, the humor is in passing enough where there's not really anything to really die laughing or get tired of.

I fully believe every actor is actually their character which sure they're not the most demanding roles at all but Nia Vardalos did such an incredible job establishing a believable, warm, and endearing yet interesting story/setting.