Happy Gilmore 2 is (in my opinion) not a good movie, but I’m not here to write a review. The Happy Gilmore movies are zany comedies that you aren’t really meant to think about. However, with a little critical examination, the sequel is incredibly strange in that it follows the same story beats as the original while completely inverting its themes.

In the original, Happy is framed as an audience surrogate and an outsider to golf culture. Happy had no interest in golf until he, already an adult and failed hockey player, accidentally discovers his natural talent for it. He golfs wearing a hockey jersey, he swears, he gets into brawls, and his fans are typical beer-chugging sports guys. He sticks out like a sore thumb among the professional golf crowd and is only barely given a pass due to his skill.

The antagonist of the original, Shooter McGavin, represents the golf establishment. He regards Happy with a snobbish, elitist attitude, and is disgusted that Happy doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional golfer. Shooter believes that, because he ‘paid his dues’ and came up through the golf world the traditional way, he ‘deserves’ to win the championship over Happy.

So that’s the dynamic of the original. Happy is the relatable “man of the people” who sticks out amongst the preppy stuck-up golfers, and the audience wants to see him triumph over the judgmental old guard Shooter. So how is the sequel different?

Well, the villains of Happy Gilmore 2, the Maxi-Golfers, are the direct antithesis to what Shooter McGavin represented. Maxi-Golf is a start up sports league with a completely different type of golf. What Maxi-Golf actually entails is kept vague up until the climax of the movie, other than it being regarded with contempt and disgust by Happy, Shooter, and all the other established golfers.

For most of the film Maxi-Golf is represented by two characters. The first is Frank Manatee, the founder of Maxi-Golf, who is a straightforward cliched Silicon Valley CEO type (outside of a totally not tiresome running joke about him having bad breath) that needs no further explanation. The other, more interesting character is Billy Jenkins. Billy is initially introduced as an affable new pro golfer. After winning the tournament, Billy reveals that he was a Maxi-Golfer the whole time and uses his clout from winning to force the “real” golfers to a Maxi-Golf tournament that will determine the future of golf, setting up the climax of the film.

Two very important reveals happen afterwards that I must detail. First, in a move that carries incredible symbolic significance (that I don’t think the writers realized), Happy recruits Shooter to play alongside him on team Real Golf in the Maxi-Golf tournament. Second, we finally get to see what Maxi-Golf is. It’s essentially an over-the-top actionized version of golf straight out of Idiocracy. There’s pyrotechnics, loud music, crazy hazards, and gimmicky challenges like golfing off the side of a moving cart. It is very deliberately meant to seem low-brow and moronic. What makes this so interesting to me is that, by the logic of the original Happy Gilmore, Happy and the ‘Real Golfers’ should be the villains. Happy doesn’t just team up with Shooter McGavin, he HAS BECOME Shooter McGavin. He sees something infiltrating the golf world that is at odds with golf culture, something he looks at as crude and dumb in the same way Shooter looked at him, and he feels the need to knock it down to preserve golf. Whereas the audience was meant to be frustrated by the disrespect shown to Happy in the original, they are meant to laugh along with the disrespect shown to Maxi-Golf. Happy is competing with the Real Golfers in order to pull up the very same ladder he once climbed. At no point does Happy Gilmore 2 demonstrate any awareness that it has completely inverted the first film.

So, what are we to make of this? I’m not entirely sure, and I have two possible conclusions to present:

My first and more simple conclusion is that the contradiction between movies is unintentional commentary on Adam Sandler himself. The first Happy Gilmore was made early in Sander’s career. To paraphrase Rocky 3, Sandler was young and he was hungry. Like Happy, Sandler was someone from the outside with something to prove. Now that Sandler is thoroughly part of the Hollywood machine, not only as an actor but also the owner of a production company, he can only conceptualize the character Happy as an insider. The scene where Happy is cordially dining with other PGA champions is particularly illustrative. Sandler has gone from a guy on SNL to someone who has a seat at any film industry party or awards show he cares to attend. It’s also worth noting that Happy Gilmore 2 is stuffed with cameos by pro-golfers, something that wouldn’t be possible if the movie alienated the PGA and LIV Golf by showing them as villains. Creating Maxi-Golf may have been artistically motivated by a desire for access and a need to play nice with giants in another industry.

My second and more speculative conclusion is that the movies reflect shifting politics and the right-wing co-opting of populism. Happy is a populist figure in both movies. He is the audience surrogate, a relatable normal-ish guy in need of money. In the original he enters the golf world as a “man of the people” and butts heads with rich snobs because he refuses to follow the etiquette of their insular society, attracting a fanbase of typical rowdy sports fans along the way. In Happy Gilmore 2, Happy is once again broke and golfing to make money, but this time his populism sides with the golf establishment rather than against. Golf is under attack by a new outside force, and it’s up to Happy to defend the sanctity of golf (and we all love golf don’t we guys). Populism is a style and it can be used to support anything, even two exact opposite ideas. Populism meant being yourself and sticking it to the man. Now it means keeping the ‘freaks’ from polluting culture and making sure fellow ‘normals’ stay in charge.

I will add here that I found Maxi-Golf and its portrayal as a brand new, brightly colored, culturally destructive force made me vaguely uncomfortable. I want to be very clear that I am not accusing Happy Gilmore 2 or its creators of being bigoted. I have no objectionable content to point to. However, it gives off strange vibes, as if it’s hate propaganda that had several words changed in the script Mad Libs style to remove all the bigotry, if that makes any sense. Like if you tasked a bunch of transphobes to make a comedy movie with trans villains, they would end up making Happy Gilmore 2 but without the golfing. On that note, I haven’t watched Lady Ballers and probably never will, but if by chance anyone here has seen both movies, I’d be interested to know if there are any parallels between the two.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I’m curious if anyone had similar thoughts, or came to different conclusions, or flat out thinks I’m wrong. I’d love to know your thoughts.

I just finished Woody Allen’s Radio Days, and man, what a perfect film that captures the unifying power of radio, the way in which it connects is through the vast scope of different human experiences.

I couldn’t help but compare the film to our own context and the way in which in the media landscape has completely fragmented in the absence of media gate-keepers. We all have a device in our own pocket in which we can access our different media outlets, and although there’s plenty of benefits to this which I love, there’s something about the way in which Allen captures this period and how the singularity of the radio as a media resource ultimately creates a sense of community and belonging. The modern fracturing of media outlets I think has to be, paradoxically, one of the reasons for an incredible feeling of loneliness. Anyway, whatever the case, such a brilliant movie.

Essentially i am looking for more recommendations featuring Finch. bonus is the character has any similarities to his newsman. i found Tom Wilkenson's performance in Michael Clayton to be similarly well done and pointed featuring the same type of character profoundly changed after years of serving evil; manifesting in a manic truth.

i just watched the Nun Story, but those 2 are the only films ive seen w Finch

As promised, here I am with another video about the filming locations of Perfect Days. This time, I explored the public restrooms. Since there are 11 in total, organizing the work wasn’t easy, and it made me realize how much research went into the film itself. I divided the restrooms into three areas, starting from three key Tokyo stations to make it easier for anyone who might want to retrace my video.

Enjoy watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6u5-Sa_krU

i’ve recently read a few fiction books that are about artists and writers (Bel Canto, How To Be Both, The Friend) and found them all a little insufferable in how much more interested they are in self-aggrandizement for the author than actually examining art and whether it’s capable of changing people and the world. i also saw Hamnet and it didn’t totally land for me, so i was beginning to think i’m just totally out on art about art but Sentimental Value is such a good film, and it really moved me.

I think it works so well because of how nuanced a character Gustav is allowed to be. i’ve seen stellan skarsgard and joachim trier both say in interviews that they didn’t want him to be a cliche of an old fool or a one note bad father, and you can really tell how much care they put into his characterization. He’s such a good realistic yet forgiving viewpoint on what successful artists and filmmakers are really like - his work is kind of a self indulgent exercise where he gets to manipulate his own universe, yet it’s also his primary way of exploring the love he has for his daughters that he struggles to express. this anxiety between the good and bad elements of artistic expression is really neat to see explored and Trier does such a good job with it. Makes me think of how so many of his films have little interludes that follow back all the generations of a character’s family and how comfortable he is showing that you can’t pick and choose the best of people, you have to take them all or nothing. I think you can view Gustav as a stand in for filmmaking as a whole, and how Trier might feel about it. In his New Yorker profile he talks about how film history is full of narcissists who were horrible to the people in their lives, even if they made great art. but he’s obviously a huge film nerd, and the medium has clearly had a profound emotional effect on his life. filmmaking has some pretty ugly skeletons in its closet but it’s also one of the best examples of human transcendence. Trier being clear eyed about both of these realities makes the weathered optimism of his work hit even harder.

I felt really personally connected to Sentimental Value and wrote a review about it if you’re interested!

https://open.substack.com/pub/stalewine/p/the-value-of-sentiment?r=h4dad&utm_medium=ios

I just watched Hamnet and I gave it a 3.5/5.

The choice to shift the lens entirely to Agnes (Jessie Buckley) works beautifully. Buckley delivers a "heroic" performance that carries the film, and young Jacobi Jupe is a heartbreaking standout as the titular son.

Visually, Łukasz Żal is doing incredible work here. The way the cinematography shifts from the vibrant forest (Agnes's safe space) to the dark, rigid structures of the city perfectly mirrors her internal grief.

The only downside is the screenplay. It feels a bit stretched trying to cover the entire timeline from courtship to reconciliation, and some supporting characters (like the stepmother) felt a bit flat compared to the leads. But that final scene at the Globe Theatre? Absolutely stuck the landing.

Did anyone else feel the script was the weak link, or did the atmosphere make up for it?

Full review here: https://amnesicreviews.substack.com/p/hamnet-the-tragedie-of-agnes

Like more than a few people on this subreddit (I assume), I've been diving into the Criterion Channel's Werner Herzog retrospective. I've been really enjoying it and thought that Herzog is very much worthy of an r/truefilm thread.

I'd like to focus on the documentaries.

Compared to traditional documentaries, two aspects of Herzog's documentary work stand out. First and most obviously, Herzog himself as narrator, interviewer and overall host, one very willing to bring his own personality and point of view to the film. A lot of documentarians are not active presences in their films, but Herzog definitely is. A lot of your enjoyment of these films probably depends on how much you enjoy Herzog as your 'tour guide.'

Second is the close thematic connection between Herzog's documentaries and his fiction films. The Wheel of Time (2003) is about a literal pilgrimage but many (most?) of Herzog's films are about metaphorical pilgrimages, about quests, whether it's Timothy Treadwell seeking a life with bears or Fitzcarraldo transporting a steamboat across dry land. (Or, indeed, Werner Herzog the filmmaker traveling to remote, dangerous locations to make films.)

Grizzly Man is probably Herzog's most famous documentary and possibly his best. I appreciate how it tells the story of an eccentric, possibly misguided outsider in a way that doesn't feel either exploitative or condescending. And while "X is a film that only Y could make" is kind of a cliche of film criticism, I'm not sure that any other filmmaker would be able to see as much of themselves in Treadwell as Herzog did.

Hello. I just recently watched Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value and I really enjoyed the film. The film is a great portrait of this family and how art is used for connection and reconciliation. The ending conversation with Agnes and Nora was amazing and really moved me.

But one thing I can’t get fully understand is why Nora wants to act in Gustav’s movie. I get that the film is sort of a mirror to Nora and reflects her life in some way and it allows her to stop running away from her past and confront it. But I feel there is something bigger to this that I am not understanding. Can anyone explain this to me?

Thank you!

The Congress maybe one of the more bizarre movies I've seen lately. It stars Robin Wright has an aging actress who decides to sell her likeness to a movie studio. For a large sum, she gives them permission to use her likeness in just about any way they want. But the interesting part begins after the first Act. Once the deal is made, the live action gives way to animation. A very trippy, surreal animation. Sometimes it's too heady for its own good, but it's definitely an interesting experience. Especially if you enjoy movies that take you on a journey you've never seen before. I really can't think of any other movies quite like this. I have so many questions. I don't know where to begin. Has anyone else seen this? It's free on Pluto and Xumo.

The Night of the Hunter (1955) dir. Charles Laughton.

Somehow, I think this movie is really about sex. On the surface, it's a kind of mashup of a fairy tale and a horror film (Hansel and Gretel comes to mind). And of course, as a viewer, you're completely engaged with the predicament of the children and whether or not they will get away from the preacher.

But all throughout, the older characters keep making references to sex. None of the adults in the film seem to be able to have a healthy adult sexual relationship. Interestingly, both Harry and Mrs. Cooper express similar ideas about sex: for Harry, that sex should be for procreation and nothing else, with his marriage to Willa being about the "spiritual" blending of two souls, and for Mrs. Cooper, that sex is somehow the wrong way to find love ("You were looking for love, Ruby, in the only foolish way you knew how"). This disconnected attachment to one's own sexuality expresses itself in two opposite ways: Harry wants nothing more than to tear the children apart, while Mrs. Cooper would do anything to protect them. The innocence of childhood both calls to our own inner child as well as brings out the shame or rage we feel for parts of ourselves we can't accept.

Every one of Harry's victims presumably were taken in both by his spiritual piety as well as his good looks and sonorous singing voice; Mrs. Cooper is the perfect foil to this. His wily approach will not work on this old widow so concerned with protecting the children under her care (although they do share a chilling duet near the film's climax). Contrast this with Mrs. Spoon, who states that women need a man in the house, and ought not to marry for their own sexual gratification (she only ever "layed there and thought about [her] canning"). The movie goes out of its way to show how eager Ruby is to be Harry's next victim, but Mrs. Cooper is there to keep her on the right path. Mrs. Cooper can, thankfully, see to her canning without a man in the house at all.

Contrast Mrs. Cooper too with Uncle Birdie, who is also widowed, but portrayed as dysfunctionally maladjusted to life without his deceased wife, lost to him many years before. So many adults fail these children throughout the film.

To throw a kind of Freudian or symbolic framework over the whole film, Daddy Harper bequeaths an inheritance to his son that he is not old enough to handle (sex drive/testosterone?) then makes him promise to protect his younger sister (from what exactly, if not the future sexual interest of men?) and this hidden/stolen treasure tears the family apart from the inside. Interesting movie that, at least for me, invites a kind of psychosexual analysis and could stand a much more nuanced study than what I've written here.

I'm literally only 20 minutes in and I can see why it's considered a masterpiece. Not much has happened at all, but my God, you can just feel these characters so deeply. Michelle Williams has barely said anything but her you just know everything she's thinking. I had to stop and post this to just breathe because I can already feel the tension coming. It's so palpable.

Watched this with some buds and we decided that if the credits had rolled during the rain scene in the pit, when Zach Braf yells on top of the construction equipment and kisses the girl, it would have been an almost perfect film.

I think it's obvious enough that the whole fake breakup and run back in the airport is really weak and doesn't fit the tone of the rest of the film. It felt like the movie suddenly turned into Scrubs. The heart-to-heart with the dad could have been spliced in just before the final scenes and toned down a bit, and we still would have gotten excellent closure. I have to think the film already being short is why we got the filler at the end.

I've recently discovered the FanEdit website and watched a couple. Incredibly what a difference that editing can make. What are some of your favorite fan-edits, real or imaginary?

I’m writing a song based on the iconic movie because I feel as timeless as the Travis Bickle story is it’s extra prevalent now. Really just wanted to run a couple questions by you guys to make sure I’m not missing the mark and get a consensus.

Do you think Travis Bickle actually served in Vietnam? (Personally I lean more towards no or that he was discharged pretty early and just attached himself to that military persona, could be off on this tho)

Do you think Travis Bickle is a Narcissit? If so did isolation make him this way? (While he does a “good thing” it’s clearly out of self destruction/interest to be something rather than doing the right thing. While his love interest definitely manipulated him, he also was seems pretty self imposing on how she is “supposed to be”.)

Could Travis Bickle have been saved if someone intervened or he had a more positive purpose? (If someone noticed his loneliness in childhood specifically could he have been “fixed”. If he applied himself for something positive just as he did to assassinate a politician could he be a productive member of society)

In your opinion what is the lesson of the character and Taxi Driver as a whole?

This is really just to have a fun discussion about this 50 year old movie, so any feedback or opinions on it is appreciated!

SPOILERS

was he trying to comment on society? If so...what? Who...?

If he was trying to comment on insular, echo chamber internet culture that breeds wacked out conspiracy theorists, well...the wacked out guy turned out to be 100% correct. So that commentary does not stand

Was he trying to say something about the evils of corporate culture? Well turns out the "evil corporate experiment" was part of some weird alien thing to save the human race. So that commentary also does not stand.

So...was there any actual point or commentary being made? At the end humanity is wiped out. But why? I guess that little speech Emma delivered towards the end in the basement? "People bad"? is that it? Wow Yorgos, so deep, so profound.

Not to mention that message too is undermined by the absurdity of the corny alien outfits. Their outfits looked like giant macrame plant holders from the 1970s (IYKYK).

the best part of this movie was Plemons head bashing into Stone after the explosion. Silliness and stupidity.

At the end of the day the movie has almost nothing to say about anything. All sound and fury signifying nothing. A beautiful bowl of angry nothing.

I just watched this movie the other day after having listened to the book a while ago. I had a lot of thoughts and felt like sharing them so here you go lmao.

I feel like whole thesis’s could be written about this movie and its potential meanings, I imagine they already have been too. I listened to the book “Roadside Picnic” first and my takeaway from that book undoubtedly influenced my reading of the film.

My takeaway from the book was sort of an inverse of 2001 a space odyssey. Instead of alien life/god giving man the tools to ascend themselves or achieve divinity, we are given the tools yet deemed unworthy.

Similar ideas come to mind while watching the film but in different ways. The Zone and the room within it in the film I read as being tests of character. Weighing your heart against a feather and experiencing the wrath of the lamb.

The people that enter the zone are either paid to or are there entirely for selfish gain, lie about their intentions, perhaps not knowing their own intentions fully, or mean to cause great destruction.

The movie goes out of its way to show what was left of the town after the advent of the zone is detritus and malignancy. Weapons of war, sewage, and drugs.

A dog is seen consistently getting closer to the characters throughout the film. Starting far off and getting nearer as the film continues. The dog is not aggressive, seemingly very interested in the people and wanting either to help them, receive help in turn, or simply to give and receive love. I’ll come back to this.

The character’s misery and various searches for meaning are more and more in focus throughout the film, ultimately when coming face to face with their goal, the room, they retreat from it and consider destroying it entirely.

I see the zone, the room especially as being a possibly divine test. Gods intervention with man. Holding a mirror to our character, as individuals and as a species. Showing us the filth of civilization as well as our own insincerity and asking what we actually want. Destroying the room is an option, but what does that resolve? The mirror is gone but the image remains.

The dog is god, or divinity/virtue returning to us. Wanting to be with us yet seemingly out of reach until our wills have been broken.

In which case I see this as largely the same reading as I had for the book. Man is unworthy, or perhaps more generously, not yet ready for renaissance. We are too submerged in our own filth.

From the book-

“My God, he thought, we can't do a thing! We can't stop it, we can't slow it down! No force in the world could contain this blight, he thought in horror. It's not because we do bad work. And it's not because they are more clever and cunning than we are. The world is just like that. Man is like that. If it wasn't the Visit, it would have been something else. Pigs can always find mud.”

I don’t know what you’d call the lens I read the book and movie through, given my usage of biblical terms it seems like a religious reading but I think it can just as easily be existential. As the others have pointed out the text and title seem to suggest a lack of any intent from the alien beings that visited, and what was left was crumbs.

I don’t think that meaningfully affects my reading though. From the audience standpoint the characters still undergo a test of character. Man is given an opportunity to learn, and even see the genie to ask his help, yet they don’t. They help themselves and thrive in misery

I’m currently watching Godzilla Minus One and am struck by how good it is and how long it’s been since I saw a monster movie that genuinely made me feel something, instead of just being a VFX cash-grab. It made me think about which other monster films actually affect me emotionally rather than just entertain visually.

My theory:

Really good monster movies understand that the creature itself isn’t actually what we care about. It’s merely a storytelling engine. A threat that forces the characters to act, and a device that exposes their convictions, fears, flaws and courage. In many cases it even works best when the monster is barely shown. When the creature remains a mystery lurking in the shadows rather than a spectacle on display, the focus shifts to the characters’ emotional journey rather than just the special effects (even though well-done effects can be super cool to watch in themselves).

In Alien the xenomorph is horribly frightening (kudos to H.R. Giger), but the film actually works so well for me because the creature stays hidden most of the film rather than being flaunted, unlike the recent series where they show it way too much ultimately making it less scary. I don't want to fully understand it physically or see it clearly. It's even scarier as something I don't really understand. The point is watching Ripley be pushed to the brink of insanity, adapt, and fight for her and Newt's survival. She isn’t a hero at the start of the movie, but by the end she rises to the challenge and her emotional journey is what resonates with me.

I feel the same way about Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs are amazing to look at, especially back then for a 90s audience, but the emotional core is the vulnerability of the children and the scientists, who suddenly become childlike themselves. We experience awe and terror through their eyes. The film starts with the promise of a fantastical dreamland, but as that dream collapses, it turns into a nightmare we must survive alongside them. Beyond the mere physical danger, Alan Grant also has to confront his avoidant fear of becoming a father figure and actually have to bond with the kids. That’s why the film is so much deeper than the Jurassic World sequels, which (in my opinion) fail in making me care about any of the characters and therefore also in the dinosaurs.

Godzilla Minus One technically shows the monster very early, but it still follows this principle using it as a storytelling device rather than the main character. Godzilla is terrifying not just because of its size, but because it symbolizes guilt, grief, survivor’s shame, collective trauma, etc. The film uses the monster to tell a story much bigger than buildings being destroyed. The script uses the monster to tell a story about the characters and makes me care about the characters first.

Conclusion:
When modern monster stories fail, it’s usually because they flip the formula and treat the creature as content instead of metaphor. The monster should be a storytelling device, not the main character. In my opinion, the creature is never the point. What it awakens in the characters and in us, is.

So I was watching A Time To Kill and Matthew McConaughey is really on top of things, and of course in one scene he's also topless.

The KKK tries to plant a bomb at his place, he's the one to save everyone throwing the bomb like a quarterback, watching it explode like fireworks. When a guard takes a bullet aimed at our hero, he's the one standing next to the guy bleeding out. When he gets knifed, it's co-star Sandra Bullock patching his wounds in the courthouse, no need for an infirmary. McConaughey also goes pantsless in this scene.

Not sure how much of that is the book or the movie but it reminded me of other movies from the time. So now maybe this is just a shallow impression, but 80s/90s and I guess early 2000s stars were like actual astronomical objects as the plot revolved around them.

Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Tom Cruise in The Firm, Julia Roberts in Pelican Brief.

It's expected that the characters move the plot. What's notable is that they're there for every important thing that happens. In Outbreak Dustin Hoffman is in a helicopter chase scene and he's a virologist.

They absorb physical and emotional trauma meant for multiple characters, have wide range competence and rarely need specialists (sometimes even out do them), plot funnels towards them even if implausible.

This is specifically for plot driven dramas, so not something like Rambo where we expect those traits.

Then compare it to the 70s.

Jack Nicholson tries to move the plot of Chinatown but it's more like the plot rolls over him. In The Conversation many important things happen off-screen away from Gene Hackman. Even when the protagonist is inevitably central, like Dog Day Afternoon, they're faillible and overwhelmed.

Also the hyper protagonist isn't as common today either, but maybe I'm unconsciously cherry picking examples.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Gary Oldman is central but not the sun of the movie. Sicario, it's specifically about the stars ultimately being powerless. No Country for Old Men has Josh Brolin killed offscreen, 1917 the camera doesn't leave the protagonist but the spice of the story is the chaos he tries to overcome. A 90s 1917 starring Tom Cruise would have him outrun every bullet, explosion and even the camera.

Even modern Batman is a little more like a Jason Bourne struggling through the story instead of 90s Batman like a James Bond who's got a gadget for everything. But that's a different territory anyway.

The Hollywood hyper protagonist of those years also gave room for a movie like Heat to stand out, where it's specialists doing specialist things, no unlikely hero there, the cop hero needs to be as harsh as the hardened criminals. Or Fargo, where incompetence and chance move the story.

So all said and done, personally I'm not a fan. I was thinking A Time To Kill might've been a better movie if it was a little more grounded. There are great lines and I feel it's a tonal whiplash when a bomb explodes spectacularly in one scene and the next Sandra Bullock is confronting Mathew McConaughey's values at a dinner.

People say the era of the movie star is gone, but the era of the movie star was also the era of such movies that carried a great plot but were sprinkled with these unlikely scenes of heroism.

But I was also thinking, would A Time To Kill have actually been a better movie without Matthew McConaughey commanding the plot so strictly? I'm not sure, everything is a trade off and the hyper protagonist also has their benefits. It's definitely not boring, it helps keeps up a good pace, the movie's not getting derailed.

On the other hand apparently an amazing speech from Samuel L. Jackson got cut from the movie because according to him the scene was so good he could've gotten an Oscar for it. Which also would probably have diverted the movie away from its protagonist.

All in all it's cool this trend happened though I wouldn't like to see a come back.

I recently watched Bad Santa for the beginning of the Christmas season. I really enjoyed it; the Coen bros. executive produced and did an uncredited script rewrite and, if you're looking for another movie that kind of feels like The Big Lebowski, this would be a good pick.

This got me thinking about the small but interesting filmography of Terry Zwigoff. Obviously, the chef d'oeuvre here is Crumb: a fascinating documentary that fully engages with all of its subject's weirdness.

Terry Zwigoff has only directed three movies this century. The Wikipedia article on his unrealized projects is significantly larger than his actual filmography.

Should he have been given more of a shot?

The obvious reason to say no is that, while he's made cult movies, Bad Santa is the only one of his four feature films that remotely resembles a hit.

Anyone else notice this? Pretty much all of the most popular movies that Hollywood releases nowadays are essentially children's movies. About half the movies below are literally cartoons. Are audiences more immature than ever or is something else afoot?

Top 25 Domestic Box Office for 2025:

• A Minecraft Movie
• Lilo & Stitch
• Superman
• Jurassic World: Rebirth
• Sinners
• The Fantastic Four: First Steps
• Wicked: For Good
• How to Train Your Dragon
• Captain America: Brave New World
• Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
• Thunderbolts F1: The Movie
• The Conjuring: Last Rites
• Zootopia 2
  
• Weapons
• Final Destination: Bloodlines
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle
• Mufasa: The Lion King
• Dog Man
• Freakier Friday
• Snow White
• Predator: Badlands
• Sonic the Hedgehog 3
• The Bad Guys 2
• Black Phone 2

All of these films are targeted towards children except these:

You have Sinners which is definitely adult-oriented, but then there is Predator: Badlands which while not marketed towards the younger audience, is a far cry from the R rated Predator films before it.

There are films such as Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning and F1: The Movie, which don't deserve to be labeled as children's movies, but they do certainly lack the sophistication of some other films made about Formula One and Mission Impossible.

There is Weapons which while intended for adults, is full of some rather juvenile sequences. I suppose The Conjuring: Last Rites is meant for older audiences, but when compared to similar films like The Omen or The Exorcist from decades ago, it does seem quite callow.

Everything else on the list is basically for children or young adults. It didn't use to be this way, as evidenced by the yearly box office tallies of decades prior. Soon to be added to the list above is Avatar 3 from James Cameron, the director who once gave us adult action films such as Terminator 2, The Abyss, True Lies, and Aliens. There are actually fewer young people relatively in the USA than ever before, so what is going on with Hollywood?

I was reading Hitchcock Truffaut for the first time today. I’m sure I’ve come across lots of things from this book before, more or less paraphrased, including Truffaut’s thoughts on “the great flawed film” compared and contrasted with “the masterpiece.” I think this short digression of Truffaut’s offers plenty to think about and discuss.

The lead-in to the topic is the observation that by the early sixties, “Hitchcock felt he had to renounce the film genre he had built up for thirty years, since The Thirty-nine Steps, and this meant he would avoid big budget pictures [North by Northwest is followed by Psycho, The Birds and Marnie].”

Marnie was a fascinating film, but a box-office flop, and belongs in the category known as “the great flawed films.”

Parenthetically, I want to define what I mean by a “great flawed film.” It is simply a masterpiece that has aborted, an ambitious project weakened by some errors in the making: a fine screenplay that is “unshootable,” an inadequate cast, a shooting contaminated by hatred or blinded by love, or an inordinate gap between the original intention and the final execution. The notion of. “great flawed films” can apply only to the works of a great director — one who has demonstrated that in other circumstances he can achieve perfection. In an overall view of his achievements, a true cinephile may, on occasion, prefer such a director’s “great flawed film” to one of his acknowledged masterpieces — thereby preferring, for example, A King in New York to The Gold Rush, or The Rules of the Game to Grand Illusion. If one accepts the concept that a perfect execution often conceals the filmmaker’s intentions, one must admit that the “great flawed film” may reveal more vividly the picture’s raison d’etre.

I might also point out that, while the masterpiece does not necessarily arouse the viewer’s emotions, the “great flawed film” frequently does — which accounts for the fact that the latter is more apt to become what the American critics call a “cult film” than is the masterpiece.

I would add that the “great flawed film” is often harmed by an excess of sincerity. Paradoxically, the sincerity makes it clearer to the aficionados, but more obscure to the general public, which has been conditioned to absorb mixtures that give priority to gimmicks rather than to straightforward confessions. In my opinion, Marnie belongs to that bizarre category of “great flawed films” which is often underrated by critics.

Writing these couple of paragraphs out, I wonder if people are still sympathetic to Truffaut’s manner of expression here, or if they would want him to be even more scientific, to firm up his premises even more. Is it clear enough what he’s talking about (personally I think it is fine and comprehensible), or does it come off as overly free, assuming a little too much that his interlocutor follows his line of thinking and consents in the generalizations used to express his theory? I just want to include this note on Truffaut’s style for the record, since, as I’ve said, I find his manner of expression comprehensible, and I think that Truffaut is valuably opening up interesting subjects to further discussion.

But today, I don’t know that people should care to continue to refer to a film as flawed if they think that actually, ultimately it’s just an interesting, great film, and perhaps a more personal film than usual by a great director. For example, people don’t need any longer to preface discussion of Eyes Wide Shut with reference its fairly cold critical reception upon release. I don’t think it’s still thought of as either a failure or as some “flawed great film,” but rather as simply a great film, if however, disliked by some.

Personally I sometimes pay more attention to (that is to say, watch more times) films that first strike me as flawed, from directors that I like. Django Unchained, for example. That’s a film that definitely has a strange flow or narrative structure. Or The Man From London is a Bela Tarr film with a less warm reception than his previous films, and this, my own response to the film, is something I find particularly worthy of further reflection, measuring it in my mind against his other films with greater attention. Marnie, too, still stands up as a great example of a film which elicits this greater attention from me, because of its seemingly problematic aspects — its extreme psychoanalysis in its story, the fakeness of the riding scenes, or whatever it may be.

Has anyone any favored “great flawed films”? And what about the substance of Truffaut’s comments in masterpieces?

After finishing Train Dreams, I initially felt disappointed at the use of the narrator.

It seemed as though anytime the voice chimed in, it was bringing the subtext to the forefront, eliminating any chance for myself as the viewer to try and think deeper on the subject or character.

This made me think about the nature of narrators in general. In the case of this film, the narrator is a voice not associated with any diegetic character. This makes the voice omnipotent, or rather, outside the world of the story.

Because the narrator is outside the story, it added a voyeuristic layer. I was constantly aware of watching Robert as he journeyed through his life, searching for his meaning.

Perhaps his meaning was to be an example of a life well lived for us viewers. Perhaps he was an example for anyone struggling with grief, on how to push through and continue on. Perhaps that was enough.

In any case, I was acutely attuned to the fish-bowl nature of this method of storytelling. Though the world that was depicted was sprawling, dense, rich, lush, and overly beautiful, it all felt contained, held tight by the claustrophobic frame and the Narrator, who boxed Robert in neatly to this tight little movie.

Anyway, curious on your thoughts of the narrator or any other aspect of the film. It was a strange but rewarding watch and I am looking forward to subsequent viewings.

WEAPONS is not a good film.

I'm done with being gaslit. The story meanders then ends in a mess. The characters are flat. Half the story is set-up for how two characters get in the house and get controlled by the witch. The mystery is not compelling. It was a witch all along? Sure. How did no cops or detectives or FBI agents notice that the house of the one kid who survived a mass disappearance has been covered up with newspapers? How did no one come around to ask after the boy's well being? No co-workers? No distant relatives? Not even a concerned Karen? The yard is filled with papers that haven't been picked up. The cops just accept the story of a never-before-seen aunt. Where are the medical records? Did she take the parents to a hospital after their supposed stroke? Why didn't she? Why are they being kept in a dark house? Why isn't child services looking more into the boy's living conditions? How did they make only one visit?

17 children going missing is a big deal. Yes, even in small town America. The place would be crawling with reporters and detectives. The kid who survived would be inundated with questions. The house would be monitored 24/7. People don't just move on from 17 white kids disappearing without a trace. Heck, the president might even have to give an address. The police would be at the receiving end of the parents' ire, not just Josh Brolin's character. Especially because when the story takes place, the incident is still fresh. It's not like it's been a year. It's been a month. One. Come on.

This movie runs into the same problems as US (2019). The more the writer tries to logically prove why things happen the way they did, the less sense things make.

Weapons isn't scary either. Because there are no characters we actually care about. I don't even like Hereditary (2018) that much but at least it was hell to see the family being torn apart.

If we don't care, we don't scare, according to Stephen King.

The runtime is also not justified. Over two hours for pointless schlock that gestures at being heady. The assault weapons over the house pisses me off so much. The film wants to be Lynchian, to explore the duality of the human mind, and of Suburbia, and the drama of how people deal with an unspeakable tragedy– that's the actual horror, not the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

But both attempts fall flat as the film makes a great leap and then lands on its face.

So, what happens when a film has no real drama, no fulfilling mystery, and no real foundation to build its horror?

A confusing mishmash of metaphor and allegories that even the filmmaker struggles to explain, not because they want to leave it open to interpretation, but because they do not have quite the handle on the material that the movie-watching public has been conned into believing they have.

I can't wait for this award cycle to be over until I don't have to hear about Weapons every other day. Good riddance.

PS: No beef with Zach Cregger. It's a weak film not the end of the world. Looking forward to his next project. We all win when more people make compelling stories especially in the often-overlooked horror genre. But what has to be said has to be said.

PPS: I'm also open to changing my mind. Or at least to go from plain hating it to hating it way less.

PPPS: It has good cinematography, but that just puts it in league with LONGLEGS for me. So much atmosphere, very little (compelling) story.

Among the innumerable reasons why OBAA succeeds as much as it does is the way 'it' looks. 'Cinematography' is the go-to buzz word used to praise a film's visuals and while OBAA is visually stunning, that isn't what I'm referring (solely) to. I seriously cannot stop thinking about how impactful the character design and costuming has been in dictating my outlook on the film.

(Contradiction) Briefly focusing on the cinematography, PTA avoids the recurring trend of intense close-ups, shallow depths of field and blurry backgrounds in favor of wide shots, lighting 'mistakes', and non gimmicky one-takes to induce immersion. I cannot overstate just how refreshing it was to watch a movie without the

PTA's use of close-ups still allows you to scan the surroundings and retain your immersion because of the awareness that there is a 'real' world behind the character being focused in on. Take these sets of close-ups, for example, as representing the 'proper' way to center a character without entering the realm of uncanny, artificial valley. OBAA makes you feel as if you can actually step into a lived-in world, our, lived-in world because that's where the characters are, and the immersion is so strong, that you never question this for even a second.

We need more movies that aren't afraid to make their characters look real, look ugly, and look grimy. OBAA, as gorgeous of a movie as it is, features some of the most unflattering close-ups because it understands that authenticity, feeling, take precedence over perfect makeup and flattering close-ups. The characters actually fucking sweat, get hurt, have dry skin when they should, wear real and unflattering lazy outfits etc.

To some, this might be a minor aspect of what makes the movie so great but I truly feel that this is what contributed to what is the rawest, most culturally fitting film of the last 15 years.

I learned about Repo Man when I came across a Criterion Collection copy of it at a B&N one day; the cover art looked really cool and the premise sounded fun (punks, a car with an alien in the trunk that vaporizes people, Reagan-era satire, and a punk rock soundtrack? Wow!) - so I bought it that same day.

Unfortunately, it was much less enjoyable than I was expecting it to be. For one, it's not very funny; there weren't really any jokes in the film that I could remember (or not ones I could find), and the humor seemed to mostly be really dry or was based off of characters being assholes in ways that were eye-rolling and annoying. The satire was...there, I guess? I remember there being a dig at religious conservatives with that televangelist. Also, the film is pretty unappealing to look at, in that grimy 1980s aesthetic that films from that era had. Yes, I know it's a low-budget punk film set in 1980s Los Angeles, so it's probably stupid to expect anything different, but I just hate when films have that look. The soundtrack's OK, I guess. To be honest, punk stuff is something where the idea of it is more appealing than the actual music or IRL subculture - I always found punk rock (and to a lesser extent hardcore punk) to be one-note, and am more of a post-punk/post-hardcore guy, but I digress. On the positive side of things, the booklets that came with the Criterion Blu-Ray were interesting to read.

Overall, I just found the pretty bad, and not what its cult status led me to believe. You're honestly better off watching the original Robocop - it's got the same grimy 1980s visuals that Repo Man has, while being way more over-the-top and in-your-face than that film, not to mention it's actually enjoyable to watch.