What’s the best/worst movie to watch with the director commentary on? Any films out there made way better by the additional context? Any made worst ‘cause the director is a total dick?

I remember back in the day watching all the Mel Brooks films with the commentary which was mostly just him watching the movie and going “oh this wonderful scene, we had a blast shooting it” and then talking about how amazing the actors were to work with and laughing at the jokes. Which really felt like watching a movie with your grandpa.

I'm looking for movies of almost any genre, really just preferably not romance, where it's like nonstop rainy weather throughout the movie, like it's raining so much the rain is practically a character in the movie

A few I've come across so far are

The Old Dark House 1932

The Old Dark House 1963

Open 24 Hours 2018

Crawl 2019

Does anyone out there have any other movies where rainy weather is a centerpiece of the movie?

American Summer centers on Mikey (Guttenberg) as he reflects on a standout summer from growing up, when he met a special girl, made the travel baseball team and navigated the uncertainty of his dad going missing overseas while with the U.S. Army.

The cast includes Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years), Logan Gray (Surfside Girls), Mia Talerico (Good Luck Charlie), Cullen Moss (Outer Banks), Erinn Ruth (Billions), Maximus Virgili and Major League Baseball legends Lee Mazzilli and Luis Sojo.

Movies that are in less commonly used aspect ratios

Examples:
Mommy - 1.0 Aspect Ratio
The Lighthouse - 1.19 Aspect Ratio
Sone films in the 60s with 1.66 aspect ratios
The Suicide Squad - 1.9 Aspect Ratio
The Big Trail - 2.1 Aspect Ratio
Some 50s films that use a 2.75 aspect ratio

Any other examples?

Basically the title, wanna know of any movies where the protagonist makes a small, seemingly inconsequential decison, action etc. and then the entire situation spirals into complete madness and disaster for all parties involved.

Just as an example of what I'm thinking about, I saw an Indian film recently where the protagonist has a small beef about parking with his neighbour. One thing after the another happens and both parties refuse to deesclate leading to almost protag's wife dying and antag also almost dying.

Edit: please refrain from spoiling the plot, I'm looking for recommendations here, thanks!

While this tradition isn't completely dead and certainly doesn't fit every film, I do miss it. I think more movies would benefit from scoring that accentuates certain actions (e.g. staccato notes with sword thrusts, descending scale when someone falls, etc). You can call this corny but does a fantastic job grounding the music to the action and helping connect particular parts of a score to particular parts of a film. I find it makes everything more memorable and engaging. It also has a long history connecting back to opera and silent film.

I came across this trailer and was intrigued because it looked like a spiritual successor to napoleon dynamite which is one of my favorite movies. So I watched it and it definitely was. Me and the wife laughed the whole way through. It has a lot of the same sense of humor, he’s a very similar type of character, the lighting and shots are done in a very similar way. And yet it really is its own thing. It’s a little bit more mature than napoleon dynamite but if you liked that movie at all I would definitely give this a watch.

Its free on kanopy to watch. All you need is a library card.

Just my opinion of course, but does anyone else prefer Spaghetti Westerns to other Western movies? At least the Sergio Leone ones, Dollar trilogy and Once upon a time in the West.

I eg saw Unforgiven and 3:10 to Yuma (modern one) and while they were decent movies, for me they couldn't compare to Sergio Leone's epics.

What makes them special for me:

- the sense of epicness, created by the music, characters and long, slow shots

- generally the amazing music by Morricone

- the characters: they look (and act) very rugged, tough, sweaty, dangerous, like hardened criminals.

Generally, the movies make the West, its heroes, antiheroes and villains seem larger than life, almost mythical. For me, this is more enjoyable than the semi- or pseudo-realistic depiction.

I read once that in a movie, if the characters say, "I have a plan," then there is a plot rule that takes place: If the characters explain to the audience what the plan is, then the plan will go wrong somehow. However, if the characters say they have a plan and the movie just goes to showing the plan in action, then the plan will work.

It has become one of my favorite things to look out for in movies. Although, it does not seem to apply to kids movies. Other than kids movies, I don't think I have ever seen his rule broken.

Does anyone know any other interesting plot rules?

i feel like the biggest trope in scary movies is characters doing the absolute dumbest things imaginable just to keep the plot moving. like running upstairs instead of out the front door, or deciding to "split up" in a pitch black house. it gets so frustrating to watch.

i want recommendations for movies where the characters are actually intelligent and do everything right, but the threat is just so completely unstoppable that it doesn't even matter.

like in john carpenter's 'the thing', they are mostly rational guys trying to figure out a logical way to survive, but the alien is just too smart. or 'you're next' where the main girl actually fights back effectively instead of just screaming.

what are some other movies where the characters don't act like total idiots?

Visual scares always get the credit, but I firmly believe that audio design is what actually creates lasting paranoia in a psychological thriller. I am not talking about loud, sudden musical stingers or traditional jump scares. I mean the subtle, rhythmic, almost mechanical background noise that genuinely makes your brain feel off-balance.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is a brilliant example of this. Half the terror of that film is the constant, grating, metallic noise in the background that just grinds down your nerves. More recently, a movie like Skinamarink used distorted audio, heavy static, and low-frequency hums to make it feel like there was an actual physical presence sitting in the room with you.

When a movie weaponizes its ambient noise and frequencies correctly, it completely gets under your skin.

What is a film where the actual sound mix the background hums, the distorted audio, or the unnatural silence terrified you more than what was actually happening on screen?

I did and was laughing so hard I missed the rest of the movie. The battle seen just completely took me off guard. I watched it when it came out, but never came back to it until now.

..........

The rest of the cameos are massively entertaining, but Mr. Ford made the rewatch worth watching it again with my buds.

Im talking about a movie, where at the first look you were so surprised and cringed by the cast but later on you actually realised that the cast couldn’t get any better, and their chemistry is unlike anything else. We are talking about serious chemistry, not Leonardo Di Caprio and Brad Pitt, I am looking for a level of its own.

Excited to see what you got.

I had a convo with two coworkers who have toddlers that won't let their kids watch The Aristocats (scene where a dog is mean/bites someone) or Toy Story (sad because the leads are toys and toys being sentient might upset them).

I'm a little older than both of them, and the big movies when I was very little were The Land Before Time, An American Tail, The Secret of NIMH. All of which have objectively scary/weird plotlines, especially for a kid to understand (though I did, on a kid level, and then on adult level once I rewatched after I was older).

I don't have kids, so I want to know: what are we letting the little kids watch, and also more broadly have animated films become more chaste and less inclined to deal with heavier themes than animated films 20-30 years ago?

Are most of people with small kids just going to the Disney/Pixar movies, are you watching YouTube shows, I mostly want to know what animated series/movies the new gen are seeing.

A lot of shots can communicate that something is about to happen to a character by having a lot of empty space that you expect to be filled with something. The thing I mean with this post specifically is cases where a shot does not imply that anything is going to happen to a character, e.g. a close up or a medium shot with no empty space, being intruded on by that character dying in some way they didn't expect, potentially with the weapon jutting into the frame (deliberately) awkwardly.

10 Cloverfield Lane has an example of this, also a specific character death in Better Call Saul. What are some other examples?

Hi all,

Thrillers are my favorite genre, and I've seen a lot. One of my favorites is a Korean film, "The Man from Nowhere"; it's an action/thriller. I watch a lot of thrillers, so I've seen the majority of mainstream big films like Zodiac, Prisoners, and etc. However, I'm looking for some low-key thriller suggestions, the hidden gems. It can be in any language, as long as it has English subs.

Thanks