Oh yeah, that sounds good. 
Definitely not in a mirror.
I admit, this was a pretty cool movie. I was genuinely surrpised several time.
Bugonia The latest Yorgos Lanthimos joint. It’s a pretty straightforward story of the kidnapping of a tech CEO (Emma Stone) by two delusional men (Jesse Plemons and relative unknown Aidan Delbis). At least, pretty straightforward compared to other Lanthimos films. Not as surreal as Poor Things, the pleasure of watching comes from the cat-and-mouse between Stone’s CEO and Plemons’ delusional conspiracy theorist. While there are various twists and turns, you should be able to see the ending coming from early on in the picture. If you’re a fan, this movie delivers enough (I liked it). If you aren’t a fan, this is probably not the movie that will make you one, though there is plenty of bloody action as well as a bit of body horror, as is typical of Lanthimos’ films.
The Mastermind Kelly Reichardt (Wendy and Lucy, Certain Women, First Cow) is definitely an acquired taste. If you enjoy her slow, meditative approach, you’ll enjoy this tale of an art heist gone wrong in the late 60’s. The movie primarily follows the “mastermind” of the heist as his life falls apart and he goes on the (slow) run. As usual, there is no violence or scenes that could be construed as “action scenes”, and the ending leaves a lot of open questions unanswered. But if you like character explorations and letting “real life” dictate the narrative, you’ll enjoy this movie. I certainly like it, but I can’t recommend it to the casual viewer.
I’m on the fence. I liked Dogtooth and Lobster. I did not much care for his ones since then. He’s odd, but I feel like he is worsening instead of improving.
I had a number of minor technical gaffs and a couple of procedural issues with the film, but except for one thing I think it accurately portrayed the scenario in which a ballistic missile launch from an unknown party threatened the continental United States. I did find that the structure of the story––told in blocks of repeated segments from different points of view––undercut the tension that was developed in the first act of the film, and while the acting was uniformly good (with Rebecca Ferguson being the particular standout) I think some of the particular character conflicts really didn’t serve the story, and I wish we’d gotten more of the Deputy National Security Advisor trying to convince people to slow down and not exacerbate global tensions by preemptively responding without information and the FEMA coordinator, but while I’ve seen a lot of complaints online and in reviews about how the ending was ‘unsatisfying’, that was kind of the point; the movie isn’t providing any answers; it is asking questions about how comfortable we are with the current system for addressing strategic threats and how we expect the people involved––including the US President who has unitary authority for determining any nuclear response––to be prepared for the worst case situation for which there are no positive resolution.
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Lou (Netflix, 2025) RT gives it 69/61 and that is about right. The blurb:
Thinking she’d put her dangerous past behind her, Lou (Allison Janney) finds her quiet life interrupted when a desperate mother (Jurnee Smollett) begs her to save her kidnapped daughter. As a massive storm rages, the two women risk their lives on a rescue mission that will test their limits and expose dark and shocking secrets from their pasts.
My wife and I found it watchable for a ‘Netflix and Chill’ situation. It’s watchable but not great, 3 out of 5 stars, and even that is generous.
Are you using that term as intended? It doesn’t mean you are chilling out and watching Netflix.
Indeed. This thread just got even more interesting!
I just watched it last night and tend to agree with most of this. Very riveting but didn’t get why they structured it the way they did. I guess to show the decision-making from 3 different POVs at three different levels.
IMHO whether the missile actually hits Chicago, is nuclear, and actually works and the actual American military response is irrelevant. We’ve all seen that movie a bunch of times already. The ambiguity is the point.
A couple of nits to pick obviously. Like why was it critical to decide on a response before the missile hit (other than it provided a convenient countdown)?
The thinking must be that you can’t allow your enemies to think you will always wait to see how things turn out in the aftermath of the attack. MAD only works if they are convinced that you are capable of making the irrational decision to commit suicide to “win”. That’s really the whole plot of the film; smart people being forced by circumstances to choose from a playbook only filled with stupid options.
Perhaps. I mean I’m no expert on nuclear war strategy but it seems to me that once you have fired that first missile, you’ve already decided to forgo MAD doctrine. Either way it doesn’t seem like there is any downside to seeing if Chicago evaporates. The options to retaliate is still there, particularly with B-2s and submarines ready and waiting to go if needed.
But you can’t count on your enemies (especially the ones not responsible for the launch) also waiting for the missile to land. It’s already a race to see who can neutralize everybody else’s ability to strike. Don’t kid yourself that the targets the President was choosing were limited to a single state like N. Korea.
The Changeling (1980)
Recommended.
George C. Scott gives a great performance, as anyone would expect. I had not heard of this movie, but it is a pretty solid horror movie. The title is a bit misleading; this is not about shapeshifters or anything like that.
He plays a man who loses his wife and daughter in a tragic accident. He rents a house to focus on his music composition work and strange things begin to happen. The movie avoids cheap scares and focuses more on being a genuinely creepy and kind of scary story.
Good one, overlooked in my opinion. Check it out!
TMI, but…nice!
I started a new thread on the topic of A House of Dynamite so as not to derail this thread with specific discussion:
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Looking to kill some time this past weekend, I found Cold Turkey from 1971. I’d heard of this film but never saw it before.
A small Iowa town tries to give up smoking for 30 days for a $25 million prize offered by a tobacco company as a publicity stunt. Norman Lear wrote and directed, just before he took the TV world by storm.
Lear seemed to have been trying to make a silly screwball comedy and a cynical, biting satire at the same time, and thus doesn’t fully succeed at either. Still, there are some decent laughs and good performances.
Bob Newhart plays against type (or perhaps more accurately, he hadn’t quite settled into his “type” yet), and it’s a hoot to watch him play a slimy little weasel. Dick Van Dyke is a pastor with a dark side. And a pre-Edith Bunker Jean Stapleton steals every scene she’s in.
Worth checking out, even if it’s not exactly a classic.
I’ll have to see if I can find the video. The author points out that in the world of John Wick, there are so many assassins, in the few weeks where all the films take place Wick can kill more of them than there are murders in the real New York City for the entire year. And that doesn’t put a dent in the assassin economy that is so large that they have a dedicated international chain of luxury 5 star hotels dedicated solely to their profession.
Which also begs the question, who are all these assassins assassinating day to day to earn such a decent living. Particularly if all of them in some form of another ultimately role up under the governing board of “The Table”?
I also recently watched Fight or Flight which is basically Bullet Train on an airplane (which is basically John Wick on a train).
I assume that this would be the end result of the assassin’s union that Dan Ackroyd’s character wanted to form in Grosse Point Blank:
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Ha! I came on here to say the same. I watched it yesterday afternoon. I enjoy horror, but I’m not a fan of slasher/gory movies. This was perfect. Eerie, spooky, scary.