I organized an AMA/Q&A with Riz Ahmed, Oscar-winning actor known for countless memorable roles including Nightcrawler, Sound of Metal, Four Lions, Venom, The Night Of, Rogue One, Jason Bourne, Mogul Mowgli, The Phoenicia Scheme and lots more.

It's live here now in /r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1qvvwhq/hi_rmovies_were_riz_ahmed_aneil_karia_the/

He's joined by the director of his newest film, Hamlet, Aneil Karia. They won an Oscar together in 2022 for their short film The Long Goodbye.

They'll be back at 1 PM ET tomorrow Thursday 2/5 to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

Thank you :)

His verification photo:

https://i.imgur.com/Skzhzjs.png

I guess the most common answer to this question is probably Le Beau Serge (1958), Claude Chabrol's debut. But I think there are at least two strong candidates for earlier films.

One is Elevator to the Gallows (1958), which came out a few months before and is definitely a stylistic precursor to something like Breathless (1960), even if Louis Malle isn't always considered a French New Wave filmmaker.

The other is La Pointe Courte (1955), which would be my pick. Varda as debut writer/director, Resnais as co-editor, and clear nouvelle vague in its low budget, location shooting, and use of non-actors.

I know this post strays from talking solely about film form and narrative. I recently watched the movie Malena again, and I happened to watch the 1h 48m minute version that is the standard version in Europe, as oppsoed to the 1h 31m minute version that Miramax made for certain countries (which cuts out most of the explicit content to get an R-rating, from my memory).

Overall, purely in terms of narrative decisions, I thought the film was interesting, though not perfect (and possibly misguided at parts), but I gave its structure a bit more faith than most contemporary reviews seem to.

I actually found the conflict between voyeurism indulgence and voyeurism critique to be pretty interesting in the film - I love when a film not only constructs or deconstructs - but does both simultaneously. If you're going into the film expecting an interior-focused feminist critique, you will be disappointed - but I doubt that was ever intended to begin with, and I think thats partially the harm of reframing/reselling the movie the way it has been in recent years. Tornatone's commantery on the weaponization of beauty, misogyny and its relation to fascism was certainly inteded as the core of the film - but I do like how he tricks the audience with a conventional coming-of-age comedy setup, before stripping away that safety net to reveal the true grotesque nature of the story - I appreciate the tonal whiplash. Its less "Tornatone being Tornatone" and more Tornatone using his familiar iconograpghy to trick the audience into watching a different film, at least in my opinion. And honestly - Giuseppe Sulfaro, the kid who played Renato, doesn't really get much credit because his character is an unlikable swine for most of the narrative, but given what that poor kid was asked to do, I think his acting ability deserves a bit more credit here. He has a very expressive face, so he sells the comedy even when the joke is bad, and he sells the longing even when the emotions are hollow.

That brings me to a larger question, though, about how different cultural frameworks affect how we look back on media. When I was watching the film, as much as I may have appreciated parts of it, the thing that stuck out most prominently in my mind, more than the film itself, was the exploitation of the 14-15 year-old actor playing Renato. Not to get vulgar, but in the Italian cut - the kid is given no "modesty" in the brothel scene, is sourrounded by numerous nude adult women with no body double that make contact with him, and films highly explicit scenes with Bellucci with no body double. Now, I am aware that European art cinema standards were different back then, and this seemed to cause no controversy so clearly it was seen as "normal" in that time and place, but I also guess I'm not familiar enough with the culture to really understand why. If anyone has that context, I would appreciate it, because I feel confident that by 2000, most of the world probably knew it was psychologically damaging to expose a child to that. Was it seen as "art" overriding typical ethical rules, or just far more lax standards towards this treatment in general, even outside of artistic mediums?

From a contemporary lens, has European cinema developped the vocabulary to critique the exploitation of women in cinema, but not quite the exploitation of children? I mean that in the sense that when the film is foregrounded in European film cuture, the typical questions associated with the film are often related to the glorification of the male voyeur POV, or how Bellucci managed the more violent/exposing scenes, such as the women beating her up. These securities are considered/lightly scrutinized, maybe even equally to North-America's reevaluations of older films - but the boy's presence/role in nude scenes is never mentioned as a concern or talking point. Idk, maybe I'm just projecting my own sympathy for the child, but is there any cultural European framework, especially in relation to the canonization of art films and idols, that makes this kind of concern seem "prudish"? Even though other exploitative aspects of films are more readily foregrounded? If so, what is it?

Just watched this movie and absolutely loved it, though I do have two questions about the plot.

1. Were the cops the one giving the guns to the arm dealer that ended up getting killed by the cops? I didn’t understand that part, Little Z told the gun dealer to fuck off basically, next scene he is shown in the corrupt cops car then they let him go and shoot him

2. Did Carrot ask Blacky to kill Little Z? Or was that something that Blacky tried to do on his own and after failing thought that Carrot would protect him?

In the last 5 years, within the horror/thriller genre, there has been a trend of movies that follow a very similar structure despite some differences in approach here and there. They may have a humorous and light tone, or a more artsy one, they may have some superficial differences, but when you remove all embellishments the story and the point remains the same.

While there are some older movies that could belong to this category, I won’t include them here because they’d come from a different place, whereas now the trend is obvious and movies that follow it do so very predictably. .

The basic premise/template is: female protagonist gets close to a seemingly charismatic male, there are some indications that something is off, the guy ends up being a misogynist villain, and the girl defeats him in a way that’s generally humiliating, coming out of it happier and stronger.

It is very important that the main villain is made to be extremely pathetic, ridiculous or gross at the end as the female protagonist delivers the punishment, so not really a formidable threat at that point, and usually explodes into some contrived “this is misogyny” rant showing his true face. Bonus points if it involves several female characters coming together to defeat the evil male to also make a point about the importance of female friendships.

The point of these movies is to follow the social trend and make a cheap, but usually rewarded, statement about toxic masculinity, though as individual works some are much better than others.

I will chronologically list the movies (and one show) I was able to so far identify to fit into this category with some individual remarks and comments on how many of these points they meet:

Promising Young Woman (2020) - pretty good as a movie. Mostly follows this template but with some smaller changes, e.g. the boyfriend who turns out being bad isn’t the main male villain, the female friendship angle happened before the plot of the movie, and she actually dies in the end while getting her revenge - interestingly this element that makes it unique is also what gets criticized the most. Also, it clearly came before the trend was at its peak so it can be seen as an original story.

Barbarian (2022) - famous for its strong start and original structure, though I didn’t find it all that great and pretty incoherent as a whole. Doesn’t completely follow the template, e.g. the male villain (the kidnaper/psychopath) is not directly connected with the female protagonist, and the male antagonist is not the same as her love interest, but you can say all three exist to demonstrate behaviors that should be punished, from being an incestuous serial kidnaper, to putting your survival first, to not fully believing when female protagonist tells you you need to leave the only available place in town because she saw a room in the basement. Anyway, I think the director is good, I liked “Weapons” more, but I find the messages very questionable.

A Wounded Fawn (2022) - it has a bit of an artsy and Greek tragedy angle going for it, and it’s not even that bad although kind of forgettable. Completely follows the template.

Fresh (2022) - cannibalism is its unique spin, but aside from that follows the template perfectly. It wasn’t great and the girl power angle made it completely non-serious (it even included a cheerful amputee.)

The Menu (2022) - it doesn’t fully belong here, but it incorporates this element though in a more secondary way. Overall a gimmicky, but very popular movie with a really weak story that serves as a metaphor without anything really interesting to say, and it couldn’t pass on making another popular cheap commentary while already at it. EDIT: after some consideration I would not include Menu on this list, but have a separate sub-category for movies that manage to incorporate this theme while it not being the main storyline/point. I mean, I mentioned it in the description that it only does it in a secondary way but it clearly distracts from the topic.

Men (2022) - obviously, the 2022s were the culmination of this trend, and Men is the culmination of all these movies with all the symbolic subtlety of a film student in their experimental movie phase. It was hard to watch. It puts all these ideas together in a very annoying and pretentious “metaphor” the story dissolves into, and then manages to visually assault while remaining banal as fuck.

Fair Play (2023) - incredibly annoying thriller with an obnoxious female protagonist, follows the template almost completely aside from the fact it seems self-oblivious to the fact that the female character is worse than the male villain.

Blink Twice (2024) - a pretty ridiculous movie, completely follows the template though the ending strays a bit with the main female keeping the male antagonist alive and in some bizarre way becoming a CEO of his company despite being a waitress before, as if there’s no board of directors deciding on these things, because maybe the writer doesn’t know how things work in reality. So now she is the evil capitalist, or maybe that’s empowering for her and we should be glad, no idea. Obviously the theme with the island is relevant and all, but it was written very childishly and now even looks surprisingly tame, as if these rich guys would stick with the same group of ordinary girls.

Presence (2024) - a not very famous ghost story, even though it’s not great it doesn’t fully fit the list because of the more supernatural focus, but it still managed to fit this template into the story.

Companion (2025) - pretty much follows the template exactly with the small twist that the female protagonist is a robot who is a metaphor for a woman.

You (2025) - this is a TV show, and not a very good one, but it should be included here because its last and final season decided to join the trend in a very exaggerated and pandering way, fully absorbing this template.

Keeper (2025) - a very boring movie that follows the template with some supernatural elements thrown in. I’m not sure I even remember the plot anymore although I just watched it recently, that’s how memorable it is.

Housemaid (2025) - totally follows the template, but it managed to be kind of fun too, which is more than I can say for most of the movies on this list. Really dumb though.

Maybe there were more, this is all I could think of for now. As we can see the trend as the strongest in 2022s and then just continued from there. Not all of these are bad movies out of context, most are, but I wonder how many times you can recycle the same theme, add a few superficial details (supernatural/cannibal/robot/”metaphor” …) here and there, and act like it's a story that has something to say.

I find movies about female psychopaths and villains usually much better, because they are usually written in a more original, likable or entertaining ways, while most of these movies suffer from everyone in them just being a stereotype.

Anyway, the point of this post isn’t to necessarily shit on these movies (or theme within a movie), it’s mostly to outline the popularity of this trend. The most interesting element about these movies is that the audiences generally react well to them and don’t seem to mind that it’s always the same shit getting recycled, which probably explains why they keep getting made. Let’s see how the trend continues or evolves, if that's possible.

Edit: more movies identified that belong here - Ready or Not (2019) - a year off but fits the template perfectly, The Invisible Man (2020) - among the more solid entries as far as the entertainment aspect is concerned though Hollow Man was better, and maybe Heretic (2024) - which has other dimensions to it as well, not really sure if it belongs here

Edit 2: I'd put Menu and Heretic on an adjacent list, and not include them in the main list.

Glad that Cronenberg is still making films 🍻

I preferred this one to his previous effort Crimes Of The Future, which felt like he was leaning into his old body horror tropes and didn’t offer a compelling central character or plot.

This one has a great protagonist, superbly played by Vincent Cassel (this marks their third collaboration), he’s a grieving tech millionaire who has invented ‘shrouds’ that allow you to see your dead loved one’s body decay, which he uses as a ‘grief strategy’.

That side of the film is freaky and compelling. What doesn’t work as well is the conspiracy stuff. I guess it’s there to show how his grief is driving him crazy but his paranoia also seems justified. It eats a lot of screen time and I can’t help thinking Crony should have limited himself to his usual 90 minutes and stayed focused on the protagonist’s inner life.

A subplot involving his dead wife’s twin sister is more interesting, but again it detracts from the more personal and universal portrait of grief which is the strength of the film. Which makes sense because Cronenberg lost his wife a few years ago, and I doubt she had a twin sister nor was China and/or Russia involved in her death.

There’s enough good stuff here - Cassel, Diane Kruger and Guy Pierce are all great, the film looks amazing with Crony’s usual bulging 17mm close-ups and hard lighting giving a 3D feeling, and Howard Shore’s score is appropriately dreamy. For the most part Cronenberg draws you into his perverse world, but you have to be patient with it.

I’m glad he’s still making films, this is definitely a work of integrity from one of our greatest living filmmakers, but I suspect only devoted fans will enjoy this weird and austere entry. I’m still chewing on its mysterious and atmospheric ending which is a good sign…

In Downfall (Der Untergang), there’s a dinner scene shortly before Hitler is informed about Himmler’s betrayal where he goes into a long, almost philosophical narrative — talking about nature, strength, compassion, responsibility, humanity, and how life judges people.

I know the scene is dramatized, but what is this monologue meant to represent as a whole?

Is it summarizing Hitler’s core worldview (Social Darwinism, fatalism, responsibility of leaders, contempt for compassion), or is it meant to reflect his psychological state at that point — projecting blame, justifying failure, and distancing himself from others?

Basically: what is the intended meaning of that entire narrative, not just individual lines like “weakness”?

The following quote comes from Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage by Garner Simmons. In 1974, when John Ford passed away, Peckinpah was asked for his thoughts on the filmmakers.

“I only met John Ford once. On the steps of MGM one evening. We were introduced by mutual friends. People spend a lot of time comparing my work to his. Most of that's bullshit. First of all, I don't like most of his later films. I love The Informer and Grapes of Wrath and—what was that other one?—Tobacco Road. His best Western is My Darling Clementine. Fonda was sensational in that. I hated The Searchers. I loved the book but I thought the movie was shit. But I suppose he didn't like much of what I did, either. I think we're very different.”

I admit I was taken aback by this.

I did read Alan Le May’s The Searchers book a long while ago, but it didn’t strike me as that fundamentally different from the movie. From what I can remember, yes it has less comedy in it, it’s more stark and realistic, but overall it stays faithful to the spirit. And most importantly it’s a Great Film on its own.

Also was surprised by the diss to late Ford, I mean Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is one of the greatest westerns ever.

Now I know there are different tastes… however calling The Searchers “shit” right after Ford dies feels like a very staunch indictment, even for Bloody Sam.

Yes Peckinpah’s films are more violent and chaotic than John Ford, but deep down they share a similar sensibility. Cannot picture Ride the High Country or Wild Bunch without Ford laying the groundwork.

Maybe they just didn’t get along on those steps.

I’m interested to see other opinions on this.

I just finished watching Jacob's Ladder (1990) and thought it was fantastic. Although, I found the final reveal to undercut the drug and Jacob's cause of death reveal. There are no indicators that Jacob has any previous knowledge of the drug prior to his stabbing. If the drug only existed inside the "dream", what actually caused Jacob's stabbing? It is highly unlikely that Jacob correctly dreamed up the drug and the correct cause of friendly fire.

I decided to watch it because Richard Linklater made two recent biopics I really enjoyed. These also happened to be about famous creative geniuses. They were Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague about Lorenz Hart and Jean-Luc Godard, respectively.

So I was expecting big things...and I sort of got that.

Christian McKay played Orson Welles. He carried the movie. He was amazing. His voice work and demeanor were spot on...even if he may not have captured the gentleness of Welles I see in interviews. The film kind of made Welles out to be a vindictive bastard and that was cool to watch. Worth the 'price' of admission. I'm glad I saw it just for his performance.

But the rest of it I thoroughly disliked. The whole tone was very cutesy and fluffy. It often made me cringe - especially whenever Zac Efron featured.

Going in, I had no idea Efron starred in it. Now, I like Efron's more recent stuff...I'd say most of the stuff since he starred in Bad Neighbours has been decent. But this was when he was in a really cringey stage of his career.

Post Highschool Musical pretty boy phase. When he was probably at the height of his fame and playing teenagers still, despite being an adult. I kind of get a creepy vibe because he's clearly in his 20s but they've gone to pains to age him down into a teenager. There's just something uncanny-valley about how smooth his cheeks are. (He was 22 when he made this movie.)

He was not only weak in this but played the most irritating character. He was a thoroughly unlikeable theater kid. So many scenes where this dude acts cringe. And it's clear you're supposed to like and root for him. I was so happy when it didn't work out for him. Getting through the scenes of him and his love interest Gretta (the not-Claire Danes one) was seriously difficult, I had to fast-forward through their final scene as I just couldn't stand it. Efron's monologue in the classroom too, yikes, it was painful.

It only recovered with the electrifying presence as Welles in full bastard mode.

Claire Danes was unspeakably attractive in it. A dream girl. Only I felt she was too perfect. Every line was a witticism. Plus, I felt like she over-acted. Really hammed it up. I feel like it was misguided trying to effectively match her to McKay's energy. It felt like there was only room for one truly larger than life character. I guess the writing is mostly to blame.

A nice twist, however, and most redeeming thing about Danes' character Sonja, after being so insufferable, which I quite liked a lot, is that it's revealed at the end that she was basically sleeping her way into the industry, with the implication she's about to romp Hollywood producer David O. Selznick!_

It was a cool watch though. I liked a lot of the stuff with the Mercury theater troupe who went on to star in War of the Worlds, Citizen Kane and Welles's other projects I imagine. Although, it's played for laughs so it clearly wasn't concerned with showing the truth. It was entertaining. Nowhere near the level of Linklater's more recent films, except for McKay.

(I've not read the book this was based on - how does that compare?)

I’m curious what you think are some of the strongest, clearest ways you’ve seen a theme communicated in a movie whether through

a specific line of dialogue, a recurring trait in a character, a relationship dynamic or the plot itself.

I’m especially interested in examples where the theme isn’t stated outright, but becomes undeniable by the end where you feel it rather than it being spoon fed to you.

Seems like there's a been a trend lately with morally ambiguous #MeToo films.

"Submission (2017)." Filmed pre-#MeToo. Serendipitous situation. Not very good, but has interesting elements.

"Tar (2022)." A borderline masterpiece.

"Miller's Girl (2024)." A watchable mess.

"After the Hunt (2025)." Flawed, but underrated. Probably the most interesting role of Julia Roberts' career.

The upcoming "This Is Pleasure" with Jessica Chastain and Chris Pine.

What do you think of this trend and the quality of the films?

Finally caught up with Eddington and found myself much higher on it than the general consensus, largely because I think it’s being misread as ponderous or evasive when it’s actually doing something quite specific.

Yes, the runtime feels long, arguably oppressively so, but that duration feels intentional. The film mirrors the temporal drag and psychic fatigue of the pandemic period rather than offering narrative efficiency or release. It’s less a political thesis than a portrait of psychological attrition.

I was struck by the emotional sincerity is. Ari Aster shoots the film with a grim, almost clinical empathy, and the three leads are uniformly excellent: Joaquin Phoenix plays collapse as slow erosion rather than explosion; Pedro Pascal weaponizes charisma while remaining curiously hollow; and Emma Stone delivers a restrained, quietly devastating performance that anchors the film’s moral weight.

The gunfire is brutally designed, flat, concussive, and shocking. Each shot feels invasive and final, with the silence that follows doing as much damage as the sound itself. I want all movie gunfire to sound like this.

I was also surprised by how darkly funny the film is. Not satire in the conventional sense, but humor born out of behavioral absurdity, people clinging to slogans, certainty, and performative belief as meaning collapses around them. The laughs curdle quickly, which feels appropriate rather than indulgent.

Very curious to know if this movie resonated with others, and if not why not. Was there humour there for anyone else. Especially interested those who bounced off it hard, why?

Elvis (2022) is one of my favorite movies, but I've always found that it was served pretty poorly by its original trailer.

Music biopics have a reputation for being formulaic, and if one were going purely by the trailer, I couldn't really blame someone if they thought that the Elvis movie looked indistinguishable from a thousand other music biopics. I felt that the snippets of dialogue that were used, while admittedly in the film for the most part, made the movie look a lot more bland and perfunctory than it was ("I need to get back to who I really am," "I just gotta be makin' the most of this thing while I can"), and it looked like a movie that made people's love of Elvis's music do all of the heavy lifting.

Now admittedly, I imagine it's probably a difficult thing to make the trailer for a music biopic unique, since there's almost always going to be a sense of formula present. But in this case, I think I have a concept for a trailer that would've served the movie better and might've gotten people who are more cynical towards biopics on board.

What I would've done is have the trailer feature almost no Elvis songs, and instead set the whole thing to the 2001: A Space Odyssey theme, which was Elvis's entrance music in the 70's. Even if you don't already know this (I didn't the first time I saw the movie), Elvis is such a staple of American culture that a film about him can inherently carry an epic gravitas worthy of such an iconic theme. You could have a line or two of dialogue from the film, and you could even throw in a brief excerpt of "Hound Dog" at the very end as a stinger once the 2001 theme has concluded, but if you were trying to make this movie stand out from other music biopics while also getting across Baz Luhrmann's extravagant tendencies, I think this would be a good way to go about it.

First off, I was very surprised that the reception was so divided. Some people really wanted to have that mystique, eldritch vibe regarding the children's missing cases. That it could have been developed more, to slow-burn more, to have that fear be even more pronounced. And I get that.

But I think the movie was rather clear about the story it wanted to tell. And on that end, it was really great. Tonal whiplash was its bread-and-butter, and when Gladys was not even trying to fake being a bumbling, naive senior citizen at Wong's house, I became really confused as to why people wanted the changes in the first place.

Funnily enough, I only watched the movie because of an okbuddy post which depict a bunch of teenagers trying to wrestle a MAGA. In my mind, I have a whole other different view of how this movie could be, and I was really waiting for it. In fact, I thought Act 1 was kind of dragging on with fluff in my first viewing.

That was the problem. My expectations were different. I don't know what the marketing team was doing since I haven't watched the trailers, but I have a suspicion that they tried to advertise it as another IT. Because if they had leaned into the comedy bits like Shaun, I swear that Weapons wouldn't have gotten half of the flak that everyone was throwing at them.
And in my opinion, criticism got fucked over this as well, as some were rather wanting to see their version of the movie, and not the movie itself.

SOTD actually sets the tone right on the get-go, and has all of the humor and tonal whiplash of Weapons. It even has a climax that makes everyone want to scream and cry and die of laughter at the same time. Was weird to think about this at the time, but SOTD really is everything that Weapons wanted it to be.

Overall, looking back, Weapons is fine. Solid 7. Though there is much better competition, and that movie came out 22 years ago. Still though, climaxes like that are so rare.

I hope Alex got his therapy.

I really like movies, but in some instances, when watching classical or very highly regarded movies, i tend not to see anything "special" in it, and i cant help but think that im missing out. One of my favorite movies is "In Bruges", and i feel that, for me to like a work of art in film, a lot must happen in the plot and visually, and i must get the "point" of the movie. I dont know if im making myself clear enough. Sometimes, like when i watched "La Haine", i was a bit bored about the happenings of the movie, feeling like i wasnt stimulated enough. How can i start to introduce myself to more "complex" and "slow" movies, like "Stalker" by Tarkovski? (sorry if the movie isnt really like that, thats only my impression of it wihout seeing it). Thank you for the attention!

So this is definitely one of the films I was most curious to check out last year, I wouldn't say I'm the biggest Tim Robinson/ITYSL fan but I have seen the whole series and I can say that when it lands, it absolutely cracks me up, but I also find it to be somewhat hit or miss.

That being said, I was also curious to see how his style would translate to a feature rather than the sketch world. After seeing it, my friend pointed out it was as though the film was what would happen if you took a character from one of the sketches but they didn't get the grace of having the scenario end after 3-4 minutes; they had to live with the consequences of how shitty and unreasonable they were.

To that end, the film played its hand far straighter than I anticipated, which lead to the experience being less funny than I expected, though not in a bad way; I got something far different out of the film than I originally expected, which was something a lot more dry and sad than anything else.

I should say, I think part of it may have to do with the kind of crowd you see it in; I'm sure most of the festival audiences are the kind that would be more familiar with Tim's work and subsequently more receptive to it, but I saw this film with some friends at an arthouse theater where the majority of the audience seemed to be significantly older (I guess they were there for Paul Rudd?) but they barely laughed at anything in the film - with the exception of Connor O'Malley's Afghanistan joke, which genuinely did get a full belly laugh from the whole room.

In general, I feel like I tend to suffer a bit more from the 'secondhand embarrassment' phenomenon which makes the 'cringe comedy' stuff harder to watch. Most of the ITYSL sketches are just fully absurd but this film was played just realistic enough to just make it legitimately uncomfortable.

That's not to say it was entirely without laughs, there would be random choices such as the song they listen to as they initially drive up to the sewers which made me crack up (just the image of these two 40 somethings driving around at night listening to 2000s butt rock was perfect) and of course the Subway sequence had me dying, but in general, the film was just a far more cold and unpleasant experience than I would have expected based on early responses and reviews.

The tone almost reminded me somewhat of The Curse, the television show with Nathan Fielder, which also feels like taking concepts from a 'cringe comedy' setup and executing them so dryly that it essentially turns into psychological drama.

I'm curious if anyone else felt the same way about this. Would consider rewatching eventually but I'd definitely have to be in the right frame of mind lol.

luv this film! wondering if anybody knows what year or around what decade it's supposed to be set in? it seems like it could take place in the early 2000's but i'm also guessing it's modern day (2023)

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https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/writing-the-shining-by-diane-johnson/

Kubrick's workflow, thoughts and 'process' -- outside being on set, surrounded by cast and crew -- are shrouded in a kind of mystique. Kubrick co-wrote or adapted almost everything he ever made, but for some reason we as a culture are still enraptured by figuring out the inside of his mind. Superficial questions about him abound. What was he trying to depict precisely in 2001? (This despite Arthur C Clarke publishing a novel based on the same treatment which basically unlocks all of the film's exposition). Why did he choose relatively obscure literary works like Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon by otherwise well-known novelists to stake millions of dollars in production in? What even was Kubrick's taste as a consumer of fiction? Why was he so obsessed with adapting the novel that would become Eyes Wide Shut (which he seemed to be planning at least from the 70s)?

I find it fascinating, therefore, that in 2018 some kind of small film blog site called Scraps From The Loft published an interview with Diane Johnson, who co-wrote The Shining's script with him, and she lays bare the most technical, efficient and specific details of Kubrick's style as a writer that I've seen. It's basically the legend to understanding Kubrick as a writer and editor that isn't clearly established elsewhere.

Why did Kubrick adapt King's book when he doesn't seem to have liked very much about it? Johnson (whose own largely forgotten 1970's novel was the other option Kubrick was considering for adapting as his first horror movie and is how he found her a co-writer) posits a purely logistical reasoning -- a third person narrative with enough psychological content to allow Kubrick a canvas to project his own Freudian and Gothic styles onto. He told Johnson, as consolation for why he wasn't adapting her novel, that he preferred to adapt 'less literary' works into films. With Clockwork and Barry Lyndon, she says he deliberately chose lesser-known works by well-known authors.

Johnson says Kubrick was mindlessly consuming genre fiction at huge volumes in the 70s to find the work to adapt. He otherwise seemed to stick with literary fiction -- Johnson remarks that she was taken aback by Kubrick's level of literary knowledge, herself a professor.

King famously hated the way Wendy Torrance was reduced to a nothing character by the film, and Johnson says her script contained a more fulsome character for Wendy; Kubrick tells Johnson he filmed such a supposedly bland female main character because Shelley Duvall could not say the lines written.

Johnson says she and Kubrick spent evenings watching older Jack Nicholson performances trying to decide which of his 'modes' of acting were better -- is this why Kubrick seems to have been unable to modulate Nicholson's performance in earlier scenes to depict a more clear decline into madness? Because he'd watched so much Nicholson that he could no longer detect when he was been over the top (to some)? Johnson doesn't presume.

Finally, Johnson lays bare the conceptualisation of Kubrick as a formalist overly intellectual and highly controlling director; she clarifies that his process (as she saw it) of only having a single film on the go at once allowed him to essentially direct the movie from home before the first day of shooting. She watches as he goes deep on every element of the film before the script is finished, down to the tiling on the bathroom sets, with input sought from members of his family and Johnson. It makes perfect sense, then, that Kubrick on set is task-driven, not actor-focussed, and not open to compromise: he's already planned every aspect of the film a year earlier. He for example wants 150 takes because he spent months watching Jack Nicholson in every movie he ever did, and he's aware what kind of line delivery he needs and Nicholson is capable of but cannot articulate it.

Her memories of co-writing the script don't even seem to depict Kubrick as some grand high-faluting auteur of filmic theory or of metaphor, theme, and visual language. It's more that Kubrick so obsessively breaks down every element of every frame and that this total control (at the highest and lowest levels) is from where Kubrick 'directed'. The famous patterned carpet in the Overlook might have once had a deeper meaning in Kubrick's mind, one that tied the movie together, but by the time he's physically on set he's long incorporated that into his blueprint for the movie that it's not something he pontificates about.

There's even more in the essay that I haven't mentioned -- how Kubrick's need for realism clashed with a supernatural story (he worked it out in the end), how he seems to already be directing from the first time he picks up the phone and calls his future co-writer.

I'm not pretending this is the first time a collaborator of Kubrick reminisced about working with him, but for some reason to me it seems like Johnson is the most effective at capturing the how and why without too much effort to get inside Kubrick's head; I have no semblance of her writing career outside The Shining but in 2018 she basically wrote the decoder ring for Kubrick and few people noticed.

A couple films have recently come out that have pushed this century's intimate relationship between creator and viewer to new heights. The main discussion point for Iron Lung and Shelby Oaks is that they are a growth from YouTuber to "real" filmmaker. Whether you're a fan or not almost feels like something you have to admit going in and in talking about the films. The novice status of the directors is at the front of discussion so even if you're not a fan, you're caught up to speed on the behind the scenes details. These filmmakers, Chris Stuckmann and Markiplier/Mark Fischbach, put their life online, creating parasocial relationships with fans, and actively communicated the status of their projects with viewers. Stuckmann's Shelby Oaks was crowdfunded and Iron Lung was self-financed and grew in numbers for distribution from the effort of fans. Their advantage in getting the films made and released comes with the disadvantage in a more personalized reception. There's a different tone in review and response.

Using Return to Silent Hill as a traditional example of a film adaptation that has been trashed everywhere, it shows how a filmmaker can letdown a fanbase by prioritizing their own desires. Aside from all three films being horror, there are more similarities between them that highlight the link between a creator, fans, the love of film and film conventions, source material, and fulfilling your vision to a fault.

Shelby Oaks

What always jumped out at me was not that Chris Stuckmann was a YouTuber who just reviewed films, but that he was a verified critic on RottenTomatoes. He was someone who influenced the rating of a film on a major website that could then be used in marketing material. While many people wouldn't choose to see a film just based on a number, it's a first impression of sorts, and most people like that fast, easy-to-understand information to see if it's worth money and time. So there was a little more on the line.

Since Stuckmann naturally reviewed many horror films--thus tearing down many he didn't like--and even put out a short video essay about the problem with horror films, there's a bigger expectation for a home run. It shouldn't be a surprise that a first effort was luckluster. I have many qualms with the video essay linked, but as one could guess, he's accused of being guilty of the problems he's talked about.

The major problems with Shelby Oaks comes down to following film rules, tropes, conventions, whatever you want to call them, to satisfy the concept rather than creating the scenario that best fits the emotional and thematic weight. There are many details in Shelby Oaks that feel amateur, and have been called amateur, because of Stuckmann's online presence. Major story based aspects like the useless husband, the manufactured need to visit a creepy prison and house in the woods, the way information is given in photographs or books, a lack of logic in character decisions, are common criticisms. Smaller details such as a dead man's blood staying on the protagonist's face for an entire evening, and bangs being cut for the victim after years of captivity are those fun nitpicks we typically make online but how nitpicky are they? These visuals are front and center and show a lack of what the audience would be thinking; they took a swarm of people out of the film for breaking their experiential involvement.

Stuckmann is obviously a fan of horror movies and it shows to its detriment, not just in the films he's obviously inspired by. The progression of the plot and the overall concept of a found footage/pseudo-documentary that turns into a regular horror film is something that seems cool and worth experimenting with. Playing with different formats can be interesting but it doesn't really work here. We start with the fake documentary using the found footage of internet paranormal investigators. It pulls us in to the mystery and the history of the missing person case. When the film pulls its trigger on switching to the normal film with a fourth wall, we have to watch the main character watch yet another tape that's been missing. All this with blood on her face. It allows for some scares, but this film is a lot of watching characters watching in order to learn information for themselves and for the audience's benefit. It's too much for a feature film on the shorter side.

The main character is re-energized for her mission. She's going to look into the new information presented to search for her sister. It's here where things feel like they happen because they are supposed to happen in movies. We have a fight with the husband while the characters are folding clothes. It's an awkward scene. Props for an actor are like another actor in the space. They're something to work off of, something to give purpose for a character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtIvZZp_gsk&list=PLf1AWspjJU8Bzig6muCfqbLB2_54sDrAk&index=6

https://youtu.be/SseJhOPV9nY?si=Zr12nA23N75ppUSi&t=3349

The way the characters use the clothes to fold isn't exactly what Uta Hagen is criticizing but it was inorganic all the same. The scene had artificial elements to smooth over the rough plotting and dialogue to get to the next point. It's indicative of a larger problem which is a lack of a natural progression. The kind of advice given to actors can cross over to writing. The objective is always known and repeated: Mia wants to save her sister. Unfortunately, there's not much that challenges her on a personal level since she's doing everything alone. Her husband is practically non-existent. There's some background regarding Mia wanting children, but it's not a continuing thematic angle even if the resolution of the film ties it in. During Mia's clue finding with someone who worked at the prison, there's a pointless close up shot of alcohol poured into a mug while Keith David is unravelling creepy details about the demon and the possessed. The main character searches through clues to get to a set piece at the prison. It's a hard break in the presentation with the music cues. It's like we're jumping to a new level. After that, we enter the climax for the disturbing old witch in the woods who somehow went unnoticed for over a decade.

It's the ending of the film that turns the whole experience sour. After years of rape to give birth to a spawn of an incubus, the sister Riley is killed by demon dogs because Mia was the real target all along. The severe lack of considering how people act as people is most apparent here. Everyone is on board with placing Riley in a room with a baby she was forced to birth, and her years of trauma is unquestioned as something to heal. Riley is more of a plot device than someone who genuinely suffered. Sisterly love is in flashback and home videos, not visible in the present with the ignorance of Riley's condition. There isn't a grand statement on fate or an exploration of women being abused. A movie like this has thematic implications to the plot points but aren't given any attention to--it's to the point of neglect.

With all the negatives, and there's more, Shelby Oaks does provide atmosphere and decent scares in the way they are set up and executed. Mia is doing everything herself which lends itself to a more anxious experience since she has no one to rely on, but it does make the narrative progression choppier. We can feel the point of each scene with no surprises, no creative vision to make a conversation alive or for the world to feel lived in.

As with Iron Lung, fans of the YouTubers or of indie filmmaking are happy that the films got the attention they did and made it to the big screen. Stuckmann still makes reviews and I don't know if he's able to make more interesting observations about films after making a film of his own, but in a unique situation like this, the mind of a filmmaker is well known enough to limit the reception, to steer conversation to a narrower space instead of an area of possibility that moves beyond the filmmaker.

Iron Lung

Markiplier's Iron Lung is adapted from a small video game. As far as I can tell, both fans of the game and fans of Markiplier are more than satisfied with the result of the film. Everyone can go on YouTube and see Markiplier's relationship with the game grow. With such a small and short game, its lore can be expanded and Markiplier takes advantage of that. He adds character to the convict, adds more characters in general, and takes the viewer on a journey in a dying universe.

From the opening, we have a video game-esque voice over establishing the world as we hear the wind and see the top of the submersible enter the blood ocean. It's a cool beginning and is effective at setting the basic danger of going deep underwater as well as hinting the kind of horror to come.

Markiplier is onscreen for the majority of the film since we stay on the convict, whose real name is Simon, the entire time in the sub. For fans of Markiplier, there is extra familiarity to identify with the subject. Markiplier plays games relying on his personality to entertain the audience. Here, we have Markiplier ostensibly holding up the film by himself reacting to what's going on outside. You might not see Markiplier as the character but it's like seeing a friend act at that point. For those more unfamiliar with Markiplier, his acting may be a bigger problem. The lack of radiating charm fits the character and the bleak world of the film. As the film goes on, the character opens up and Markiplier has better things to work with. Unfortunately, I think his angry moments are too one note. He grits through his teeth and it feels like there's a ceiling to how far he's willing to go even as his mind is broken into and death is a certainty.

The criticism that Iron Lung is too long is one that everyone will likely agree with. The actual runtime might not actually be the problem, however, as the lore of the film can be confusing. Even if some questions are answered, they aren't answered directly. All planets and stars are gone? The last tree died? What controls or influences the voices and Simon's visions? There are stations around in space and humanity is on its last breath. How literal should we take the information? In a mind bending cosmic horror like this, we don't know what lies or what level of metaphor we can be working with.

To ground the film, we are given the backstory that Simon was a bystander for the destruction of a space station and he's given all the blame for it. An early scene has him use an x-ray camera on humans, dooming them to radiation poisoning. He has his flaws. His journey is to help humanity beyond saving himself. It's not the most effective character arc in execution but it's one to grab onto. We want him to succeed and for humanity to live on.

The film starts the tangible horror quickly. We know there's a monster in the blood swimming around. The video game elements of the film when Simon is drafting where he is on a map and where to go are where the film slows down too much, but it doesn't hinder the suspense to a great degree. The film maintains a forward thrust with its atmospheric shots of the submarine and the words of dread from messages left behind. Wide angles, close ups, and other effects are used to keep the film visually interesting. The submarine is claustrophobic in the beginning, but it becomes a familiar room where it doesn't feel as constricting. It's still a death trap and the film drives home how it wasn't meant to be any kind of research vehicle.

Both Shelby Oaks and Iron Lung have this element of not killing their darlings as much as they should. With a limited cast, the dead air is more noticeable. I can say that scenes aren't annoyingly long with Iron Lung; there is a lot of information to give, and a sense of dread to cultivate. The repetition is ingrained in the conceit of the game to drive around and take pictures. In the film, it can add to the confusion but the repetition doesn't increase curiosity or wonder as it does in games of that sort. Markiplier does well with cutting dialogue to the essential parts. He establishes character motivation and goals a little too much but with the confusion that arises later on, he should have done the same then.

Watching the film in a quiet theater, you can hear all these little pieces of dialogue. It feels like people in the theater are speaking behind you. It creates an unnerving effect in what's real and puts you in the mind of Simon. The sound mixing is less than desirable at times since characters are speaking to Simon through a broken radio, plus the film does certain effects in passing through time so I was wondering if Simon was speaking in the present or if we were going to transition to a future scene. The increasing pressure of the hull and the rushing sounds of an unknown entity swimming do a lot to make the experience immersive. If Markiplier tried to recreate the general feeling of gaming in the dark with a headset, I'd say he succeeded.

Return to Silent Hill

The third installment in the Silent Hill film franchise with a returning director from the first film has followed the tradition of making poor video game movies. Fans are disappointed, even furious, at the decisions of the film. Its flaws, judging from the fanbase, is that the director prioritized their own creative decisions instead of staying faithful to what the video game does. It misses what made the games so well regarded even if the director says he respects the games above everything else.

Does a Silent Hill film need to feel like a game? From the performances of the actors, the interactions with monsters, everything feels simplified and like a video game's cutscenes were upgraded.

Stuckmann and Markiplier's passion showed through in their own ways, and it's not that Return to Silent Hill is passionless, but it doesn't have the love for films like Shelby Oaks did or the love for games like Iron Lung did in their experimentation and choices that new filmmakers would make.

Return to Silent Hill theoretically does use its monsters and imagery to match its main character's subconscious. The first film used monsters that were incongruent to the nature of the story on a subtextual layer. Even though the psychosexual meaning of the horror in Silent Hill 2 has been analyzed and the imagery crosses over to the film adaptation, it doesn't mean much since the basics necessities fall through. We don't care about the characters. The things we learn don't pull us deeper into the film. The special effects ruin what horror ambiance there could be.

As expected, it's not like Christophe Gans makes up half the discussion since he's not an online celebrity. As a seasoned filmmaker, we're not judging him for any amateur cracks even if there are shoddy things in this film. His philosophy of film and games is irrelevant. He gave us the film and we can judge it (of course, not everything really falls on director all the time.) Getting it made might be a success story in itself but that's not relevant either. There are major diversions to the plot, and to the world of Silent Hill, so much so that it ruins the motivation for why things happen. Adding a cult backstory doesn't feel out of place as a non-gamer, but anybody will ask the same questions about the incomprehensible plot and decisions of the characters.

As Silent Hill is a multi-decade spanning series without a single voice behind it, it's more about the property itself than any creator. The fans are the owners. A film can match the collective vision in an adaptation, give something new the fans would accept, or fail on all sides. Not being true to the source material is obviously different than doing something that doesn't feel true to what a YouTuber has been talking about. But what does it mean to be true to yourself when there's an unspoken need to appease fans? Fans of your own following, fans of the source material, fans of the genre.

The End

With the major releases of Shelby Oaks and Iron Lung, more opportunities have opened up. There is a larger sense of fans moving things forward as seen in the distribution expansion of Iron Lung and its success. All of the films have some major flaws, and hopefully this increased communication can actualize improvements in future projects. There's the idea that artists shouldn't listen to fans, should tell their own story the way they see fit, but a strict rule can be broken when the relationship has changed, and the growth of the artist is on display from their own content. I'm not saying artists need to explain their own art or defend themselves, but in this direction of filmmakers getting their shot, fans have more power as a motivator and as a source to help production and release.

I recently watched Agurrie: The Wrath of God and I am very interested to more of Herzog's films. Originally, I was going to watch his narrative films first, but then I learned that his documentaries are considered to be as important as his films. With this in mind, is it better to work my way through his work in chronological order, transitioning between film/documentary in the order they were released, or is it better to become a fan of his narrative films and come back to his documentaries? Does watching his documentaries alongside the films enhance your understanding of the themes explored in his films? Another question for fans: how did you work your way through his extensive body of work?

Where do writers/filmmakers get off telling a "true story" in which they show a person commit a murder that is not confirmed in real life ?

Doesn't this bother anybody else?

[Spoiler] In the movie Eden (2024), Dr. Friedrich Ritter is shown killing "The Baroness", then he and Heinz Wittmer throw her body off a cliff, essentially making Wittmer a accomplice.

Then the doctor’s girlfriend (I guess), Dore Strauch, is shown to poison and thereby kill her man.

I understand creative freedom in true stories to an extent but portraying somebody as a killer when you dont know that is absolutely crossing a line.

Just watched But I'm a Cheerleader today, and can't stop thinking about it. It made me realize things about my own identity and moved me in ways that no other recently watched film has.

While watching the satire of Babbit's genius film unfold, i drew parallels to director Paul Verhoeven's own, but whereas one hides satire between a seemingly campy coming-of-age comedy, the other does the same by hiding commentary on fascism behind "cool" military and sci-fi aesthetics

It goes without saying that But I'm a Cheerleader is a cult-classic of queer cinema, but beyond that, its seemingly comedic surface-level presentation hides serious, dramatic overarching societal commentary.

No other film in history has managed to tackle a topic as serious as conversion therapy and heteronormativity in good taste as BIAC has, masking satire on said topics behind pastel-colored aesthetics. It's not unlike Verhoeven's own masking of commentary on militarism behind exaggerated violence meant to appeal to the average viewer and dissociate them from the true message of the film.

Where Verhoeven exaggerates bureaucrats and militants to the point of them becoming caricatures of themselves, Babbit takes "authority figures", in this case camp counselors and parents, and turns them into caricatures of those in society who wish for their offspring/underlings to conform to what's considered "normal" within the status quo. Such people are still widespread across the world unfortunately, which adds to the satire factor.

The film takes a brilliant approach in making the viewer laugh before exposing them to underlying societal critique. It's a film that disturbs once the brightly-colored facade drops.

And as a closing thought, a queer statement piece that is BIAC had me, someone who considered themselves straight for the most part, come to terms with my biromantic identity.