I just re-watched this the other day and was inspired to buy the book (very short/more a short story/novella) this movie was based on. It was a great example of a very good source material being made into something even better. Book is Wild Pork & Watercress by Barry Crump. Loved this movie a lot- Sam Neill was great and loved the cameo from Murray from Flight of the Conchords.
The car chase sequence is a direct reference to Barry Crump*, who used to advertise for Toyota in New Zealand with a very similar rugged driving ad campaign, and the lost tourist in the middle of that scene is Lloyd Scott, who was in those ads with him.
*hence the ute’s nickname of Crumpy
Very cool! On second watch we were trying to catch the name of the truck and thought he was saying Grumpy 
. The car chase is definitely a highlight of the movie.
Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970)
Brutal honest look at a dysfunctional relationship amongst rich Manhattanites. Its unflattering and brilliant. Carrie Snodgrass would have been a 70s and 80s star in the Jack Nicholson vein had she not quit acting to have a child with Neil Young. Richard Benjamin is excellent as the clueless and emotionally abusive husband. Frank Langella is her loser lover. While its not recommended for a weekend romantic date its recommended.
My latest five:
Catwalk
A Canadian documentary about the national competitive cat-show circuit. A light-hearted look at a very furry subculture, filled with people who (mostly) seem to get how silly it all is.
Aggie
An affectionate documentary by her daughter about Agnes Gund, the great Ohio-born art collector and NYC philanthropist, and her shift, late in life, to very generously supporting criminal justice reform. Well worth a look.
Tenet
Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-bending sf thriller, about reversing the flow of time and trying to stop WWIII. I watched it with closed captioning, because I’d read (correctly) in the movie’s SDMB thread that a lot of the dialogue was hard to hear. Not as good as Inception or Interstellar, I’d say, but I liked it.
My Octopus Teacher
Documentary about a South African snorkler and wildlife photographer who, over the course of a year, strikes up a curious friendship with a small octopus in an offshore kelp forest. Beautiful undersea footage and a touching story.
Liar Liar
One of my favorite lawyer comedies, with Jim Carrey just about as funny as he’s ever been, playing a lawyer bound by his son’s birthday wish to tell nothing but the truth for an entire day.
Tried to watch The Spirit. But it was just too awful. Horrible writing, horrible acting. Everyone involved should be embarrassed.
Also with Ace in the Hole. It was unbelievable, in the sense that this whiny bitch lived a whole year in New Mexico and nobody beat the living snot out of him.
And then I watched the surprising The Man Who Killed Hitler and then Bigfoot
Sam Elliot is a national treasure. And this film is weird and wonderful and packs a surprising emotional punch.
Six Minutes to Midnight - a weird little spy thriller about a Nazi girls boarding school on the English coast just before the start of WWII. I don’t recall Eddie Izzard taking a leading role in a film before but she pulls it off convincingly; in fact I was somewhat less convinced by Dame Judy Dench’s turn, although I chalk that one up to writing rather than acting issues.
The story was the usual exciting spy stuff - murders and chases and double-crosses and a race against the clock - but the real charm of the film is that the Nazi girls boarding school really existed. It closed in 1939, unsurprisingly.
Did not know what to expect from “Angel-A”. I actually thought it was going to be an animated short film. Turns out it was a french film, done in black & white, with some pretty good acting and cinematography. Story is a bit silly and weak in parts, but overall pretty darn charming. And not at all hard to look at. 
On a somewhat tangent, I watched something called Summerland about a London evacuee that goes off to live with a lady in the country during the Blitz. Didn’t know what to expect and that’s what I got! Starts off over here and takes a fairly hard left, then gets a little predictable. Not a bad movie, and the scenery is nice. Kinda weird however. But not a waste of time. I enjoyed it somewhat.
Brick. A teenage boy’s ex-girlfriend is found dead and he decides to track down the killer. It’s set in a high school, but the directing, dialog etc. is classic noir detective fiction. The kids talk like they came out of a pulp novel. They all play it 100% straight. The emotional beats hit but there are a few moments where the absurdity of the setting is laugh out loud funny.
I give it an A-.
This in pure film noir. If the characters were 5 years older, the Teenage boy would be private detective.
Great movie.
Last Holiday (1950)
A really delightful old British movie starring a young Alec Guinness a year before his first nomination for an Academy Award and long before being immortalized as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The premise of the movie is Guinness plays a young healthy looking working class man struggling to get by in a country ravaged by the war, but just about getting by with no lavish in his life. He has no personal relations in contact and no real friends because his life is dominated by his work. He has kept most of his earnings in a savings pot for the future. But on a visit to the doctor after not feeling well he is told that he is suffering from an rare and incurable disease which affects the liver and gives him just a few more weeks to live. The doctor advises him to take his savings and spend it on a last holiday to a posh hotel somewhere along the seaside and make peace with it all and enjoy the comforts of what little remains of his life. He takes up that suggestion.
This was the opening and as the movie goes on even though it is a sort of tragic comedy there is a deep undercurrent of the times which shines through. The fact that in his last weeks Guinness’s character gets put into a different world of living to which he had once dreamed of but now can’t enjoy because he doesn’t fit in. A dying man can’t fit in but at the same time because of his working class routes he is too proud to reveal himself and keeps it a secret and therefore a mystery to the rest of the characters. They are elite guests and members of the elite flock in the same circles. The symbolism of class and wealth in Britain with this is further illustrated by the rest of the cast whose characters shape the contrast beautifully.
That was a good film. Note that it was remade in 2006, starring Queen Latifah. The remake was pretty good as well.
Is this the Rian Johnson movie?
Yes. He’s three for three in my book. (Knives Out was great as well. And, well, I won’t mention the other one.)
You’ve only seen three or you think he’s only made three? He’s made:
Brick
Brothers Bloom
Looper
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Knives Out
And one documentary.
And a fantastic music video.
I’ve only seen three. I liked all three (Star Wars, okay? I liked the Last Jedi. There I said it.)
I finally got around to watching it too. She actually was thirteen or fourteen when that was filmed. Wow! I was relieved to find out she had a body double in that one scene.
I could have done without that Gordon part, but I suppose they had to make sure everyone really hated Martin Sheen.
I just love Jodie Foster. One of my favorite parts of the movie was the last long shot of her face.
This was also true in Taxi Driver, as is mentioned in the IMDb Trivia section for that movie:
Jodie Foster was twelve years old when the movie was filmed, so she could not do the more explicit scenes (her character was also twelve years old). Connie Foster, Jodie’s older sister, who was nineteen when the film was produced, was cast as her body double for those scenes.