Im usually the type of person who checks what others think about a movie I just watched but this one was crazy frr

I had this thought while rewatching Fight Club. The film has a lot to say about consumerism and masculinity. However, it seems to justify violence and vandalism as a means to get one over on "big money", which I disagree with. In my opinion, indiscriminate vandalism hurts the average person more than the rich people and banks, and the characters' philosophy seems like more of a smokescreen for toxic masculinity and violence.

I am curious to hear which films gave you a similar feeling of "I appreciate what this has to say, but I don't agree with it at all".

I often find that, when looking at a movie from this era, it does have a unique feeling to it (as all others eras in their respective time periods do) bit I can’t quite put my finger on it. What are some of the themes in this era that are pretty common in it (not necessarily unique) , and how did these movies approach that theme? Bonus : I would also like it if at least someone could explain the causes for why any respective you found was so common ( e.g. worldview/value systems changing, recent events, political/economic/social or cultural events …etc)

Another thread very unfortunately reminded me of a thing that some might call a movie called Nothing But Trouble

So, in light of that, tell me what you seriously consider literal HELL in movie form.

Rule#1: It has to be something people have actually heard of

Rule#2: it ABSOLUTELY CANNOT BE THE ROOM or be subject to DOWNVOTES! I'm not kidding!!! We get it. People living under a rock in Djibouti have trodden this trail many times over at this point FFS

Rule#3: it also can't be shit like Sharknado and other obviously made for that kind of audience kind of shit!

Honorable mention Rule: I'm just gonna roll my eyes every time I see Tenet or Megalopolis.... so...

Btw, when I started writing this, my swipe gave me Tribble instead of Trouble. Now that, I think I might actually watch. No, AI, NO!

Which actors that act mostly on TV should be cast in movies ?

For me it's David Tennant , I watched him in TV shows mostly but I think he should do more movies

Any suggestion?

If I like Over the Garden Wall (2014), The Chronicles of Narnia, Labyrinth (1986) & The twilight... what will I like?

Looking for something with a whimsical fantasy vibe, but it can also also be weird and mysterious. I really like the feeling of magical worlds, strange places, mysterious characters etc

Thanks

Why does no-one talks about this very specific type of movie that basically existed from the late 90s to the mid-2000s

I'm talking about movies like Jawbreaker, Cruel Intentions, Carrie 2, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Sugar & Spice, The Faculty, American Psycho 2, The Butterfly Effect, and Jennifer's Body.

They're all pretty different on paper, but they somehow give me the exact same vibe.

They all have that glossy Y2K aesthetic, over-the-top fashion, dark humor, ridiculously dramatic teenagers, and this weird dreamlike atmosphere where nobody acts like a real person. Everyone is either a sociopath, a manipulator, or one bad day away from committing a felony.

A lot of these movies got mixed reviews when they came out, but years later they've become cult classics. They're campy, stylish, kind of trashy in the best possible way, and way more memorable than a lot of "better" movies from the same era.

I don't really think of them as teen comedies, thrillers, or horror movies. They feel like their own weird little genre that Hollywood was making for a few years and then suddenly stopped.

I've jokingly been calling it things like: Y2K Teen Trash Cinema, Teen Sleaze Noir, Millennial Camp Thrillers

Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? And what other movies would you put in this category?

Since i was a teenager i always loved Citizen Kane. It is a movie that is really close to my heart and i always am very happy to rewatched but outside that I am not a fan of the rest of Orson Welles filmography. Of course F for fake is amazing. It feels very ahead of its time being so meta and also it reminds me a lot of Nathan Fielder and that type of documentary that shows you how fake it is making you ask at every turn what is real and what no. And it is very enojable and very funny at the same time. I really dont know if i like it better than kane or not but kane may be a little bit more creative and fun.

But outside of those two the rest of his movies didnt connect to me. Touch of evil was cool but felt very dated. The Lady from Shanghai had a cool style but i didnt connect to the story. And the other side of the wind also felt the same way being very creative in presentation but i felt the story was too simple. Basically i felt those three were style over substance. Now have in mind i have watched those films a very time ago so i am open to watch them again but should i or should i watch the trial (or any other of his filmography)?

Just saw this message from a cineby site...

As planned, today, August 3lst, we're shutting down all of Cineby's streaming.

A huge thank you to every one of you. You made Cineby possible.

Cineby never had an official support channel. And still, the community went and built their own on Telegram, Reddit (A special note for sub Reddit. You are a shame, trying to steal Cineby brand with a horrible copycat), Discord, even Facebook. That was incredible.

A lot of you are probably wondering why we're shutting down so soon. Looking back, the signs were there a few months ago. Our two main video providers went down about three months back (RIP Sflix group and IMovies group) and the service took a real hit. We tried to stabilize things. It just never came back the way it was. We'd rather leave Cineby the way you remember it. A good streaming site. A great one, even. Some things should only last while they're still good. Cineby is one of those.

Be careful looking for alternatives. There are a lot of shady sites out there, some that look a lot like Cineby. There is no official alternative to Cineby. Any site that claims to be one is a low-quality copycat. Watch which sites you visit and where you click. Until now, Cineby has never spoken officially. Anyone who claims to be part of our team is lying. This is our only official statement and the last.

The shutdown calendar stays the same. After September 5th everything will be switched off, and the domains will be gone for good.

There really aren't words for how grateful we are. And once more:

Thank you

The 90s had some insane movies that still hold up today. Great characters, practical effects, memorable soundtracks, and stories that people still talk about.What is the one 90s movie you can watch anytime and it never gets old?

Since Starship Troopers’ release in 1997, some commentators have labeled the movie “fascist”.

While it does depict an idealized fascist society, most movie fans are aware that its intent is explicitly anti-fascist.

The movie attempts to show the emptiness and pointless cruelty inherent to the ideology.

Almost no one doubts director Paul Verhoven’s personal anti-fascist beliefs; his early childhood was spent under Nazi occupation and he has consistently stated that his Hollywood films are satires of the latent fascism in American capitalism, culture, and militarism.

But the argument is usually something like “his intent is beside the point if it promotes fascist attitudes.”

I disagree that intent is beside the point: irony and satire are great ways to sneak a deeper political message into mainstream media.

Verhoven’s anti-fascism is more obvious in a movie like Robocop. It depicts a world that looks familiar: dilapidated, crumbling, and impoverished. Fascist corporate oligarchs control the proles with militarized police and enshittified entertainment.

But Starship Troopers takes the opposite approach. Instead of depicting a dystopia, it shows fascism as a dead-end even its best case scenario.

The original Robert Heinlein novel depicted a future society based on militarism and fascistic social views.

Given the opportunity to direct its adaptation, Verhvoven began reading Heinlein’s novel but was too disgusted by its right-wing politics to finish it.

So he decided to use the film to refute the novel’s ideology.

He described the characters as “fascists who aren't aware of their fascism".

Elaborating on his vision: “If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships but it's only good for killing fucking Bugs!"

While media consumption is essential to our identity, no one accuses Americans of abundant media literacy. The average European perspective is likely more attuned to fascist signifiers.

Maybe Verhoven’s satire is considered insufficiently clear because he directed some of the action genre’s best movies.

Using Hollywood blockbusters to criticize American jingoism is at the core of his subversive charm. And the medium gave his anti-fascist message a larger audience.

It likely took a non-American vision to find this balance. An American director might have gone too far into parody or detached too thoroughly with a tone of superiority.

Or maybe Verhoven’s style was just the natural result of mixing continental intellectualism with American cocaine.

To be fair, It is true that some right-wingers missed the point of Starship Troopers and took it at face value. But you never see it held up as an example of conservative cinema because any examination will lead to uncomfortable questions, like “why was Doogie Howser dressed as an SS officer at the end?”

Though that might be considered “based” in the current political climate.

——————————

Speaking of Verhoven, what’s up with Showgirls?

I’m fascinated by it but don’t really get it.

If you watch the movie while keeping in mind that it wasn’t produced by asexual aliens but rather by talented human filmmakers, it is reasonable to conclude that there must be a deeper intent.

I heard writer/director Adam McKay describe it as a portrayal of sex relations under fascism.

A crew member from Showgirls apparently disputed this interpretation, saying that Verhoven was out of his mind on cocaine during its production.

To which McKay replied something like “none of that matters. Everything Verhoven produces is a satire of fascism, even if it is unintentional. He can’t help himself.”

Anyone have sources for a deeper analysis of Showgirls in line with McKay’s interpretation?

Robert Ebert gave it 3/4 and said it was “very effective at the level of a thriller”, but that it was also “fascist”.

Gene Siskel said it was 4/4 and sublime as a film but “dangerous”.

Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) regarded it as excellent but “a deeply immoral movie”.

Kevin Thomas (LA Times) said it was “a highstyle film with lowbrow appeal”, but unsettlingly likeable.

I like the fact that no critics were lambasting the acting or the directing. Its refreshing and what we lack today.

I’m curious about everyone’s picks—and what made you love or hate each movie.
Marvel — best / worst, and why
DC — best / worst, and why
Share your reasoning, then reply to other comments to compare opinions and see which movies get mentioned the most 😉

Forget box office numbers. Which director has the strongest track record when it comes to storytelling, visuals, performances, and consistency?What makes them stand out to you?

There are tons of movies with crazy good CGI but the story is just meh. And some movies have an amazing story but nothing special visually.
What movie do you think actually got both right? Great CGI/VFX and a story that keeps you hooked till the end.
For me that’s pretty rare. Curious what everyone’s pick would be and why.

Mines has to be David O. Russell's Joy (2015) a structurally bad film that was nonetheless very affecting to me because the scenes of Joy being on the come-up trying to sell her Wonder Mop reminded me of my parents' hustle when they first came to America. Do you have a movie where the subject matter itself, and select scenes, put it over the top into the category of movies you like even if you can tell the movie isn't all that well made?

I’m not too sure if I should be posting this way, but this (Reddit) is where things started just a few days ago so I’m hoping this is ok? Someone please let me know if it’s not ok! 🙂 this always was, and still is just for fun!

To catch you up: I was a bored dude who reached out on another sub because I wanted to hang out & watch movies together! It worked! Sort of…it was very last minute, unorganized, but we still had a damn good time watching something as a group!

After very fun feedback and requests to do it again, that same night I got to thinking - how can we make this more organized and more interactive - so I built a whole damn site!

Weekly, now we can:
1. Nominate your choice of movie
2. Vote for others picks
3. Watch together!
4. Review together
5. Be goofy-as-shit together

I’m posting an update here now because we’re mid-week and our designated Watch Day is Sunday of each week! I wanted to see about getting another discussion going here, checking if anymore of ya’ll want to chill & watch movies, or if anyone had any suggestions or advice or anything?

https://sadmovieclub.com

Loveeeee you guysss
-B

Directors usually follow the 'short → festival → feature' path after finishing film school, or build their way up on set as staff until they take the full control. Then there are some that come in sideways through unconventional, but more and more realistic path. Some examples I'd like to share:

Tarsem Singh directed R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" in 1991 (VMA Video of the Year), then spent years in commercials. When he couldn't get The Fall funded, he financed it himself, piggybacking shoots onto commercial jobs across 20+ countries over four years. That movie's maximalist visual language is basically a music-video director applying what he learned in a different medium.

Lee Chung-hyun worked at an ad agency, quit, and shot Bargain, a 14-minute single take about underage prostitution, in one day for about $5k of his own money. The short swept festival awards, which got him a studio apprenticeship, which became Netflix's The Call (2020) and Ballerina (2023). Both are female-led thrillers, which he's said is a deliberate preference.

Curry Barker built an audience on sketch comedy YouTube, then made Milk & Serial, a 62-minute found-footage horror, for $800. It went viral on YouTube, which funded Obsession: made for under $1M, grossed $90M+, bought by Focus Features after a TIFF bidding war. He's 26 and already been tapped for the next Texas Chainsaw.

My take: outsiders don't just bring fresh stories, they bring a different grammar - music video maximalism, single-take discipline, YouTube-native pacing. I like that none of them had to erase where they came from once they reached the features. The earlier medium is still there in the work.

Who else comes to your mind?

I assume everyone here has a specific way of watching movies, whether it be in the dark, in their favourite chair, holding their favoruite snack,these kind of adjustments differ from person to person but at the end it vasly affects our experiences, and it does that through immerison, do you often ask yourself why certain movies resonated so much with you, i personally beleive that to be the effects of immersion. Recently i've been noticing small details about how i sit, where i sit and the conditions i like to be in before watching a movie, and something really suprised me, i was always so intrigued by how smell affected your emotion, i beleive smell is severly underappreciated in terms of how much it can change your thoughts about something or even more suprisingly your memory of it, ever noticed how as a kid you had a specific smell that reminded you of a place or even a specific period of time?, this same effect works on movies, i personally have a big collection of fragrances and incense sticks, i try to go through my collection and choose something to spray to really capture the vibe of the movie, this alone makes me feel more immersed and makes the entire experience much more pleasant and memorable, i recently tried it while rewatching my favourite childhood movie coraline, it felt different this time, i wish i could say this without it sounding weird but, these type of environments make me love a movie so much more and it creates this nostalgic like feeling i cant possibly put into words, i would definetly encourage you guys to try this out!

Some movies end and you just sit there staring at the screen.

Not because of a crazy twist but because the story, ending, or characters hit different. What movie stayed in your head long after you finished it?

The "killing off the main star early" trick is famous thanks to Psycho or Executive Decision, but I'm interested in movies where the perspective naturally migrates to another character without relying on a cheap shock death.

Think Sicario (where Emily Blunt's POV slowly hands the narrative driver's seat to Benicio del Toro) or The Place Beyond the Pines (which restructures its entire POV midway through).

Which films handed the story over to a secondary character so seamlessly that it recontextualized the entire plot?

“I can’t do this last love scene. Please don’t make me kiss her.”

That’s actor Billy Baldwin describing how he went to the studio head during the taping of “Sliver” and begged them to change the final sex scene with Sharon Stone as the tension between the two actors had boiled over.

Baldwin is a guest on the latest “Lisa Guerrero Unleashed” podcast on YouTube and he spoke for 17 minutes on the running feud with Stone.  He told a story about how the crew despised working with her so much that they spray painted a crude message on the wall directed at Stone.

It’s a wild watch.

Link: Billy Baldwin Drops Bombshells

I thought it was a fun romp, but then saw some YouTube comments indicating it was something more, something darker. So I watched the film, and I was shaken to my core. Then I immediately watched the 1993 stage version directed by Sam Mendes.

I have literally said something like, “I can’t handle dealing with politics, I’m just trying to survive” (similar to Fraulein Schneider in the stage play) and have distracted myself from political issues via entertainment and social media - our modern-day Cabaret. All the while, I’ve just realized patterns of self-sabotaging relationships and stable partners under the guise of “autonomy”, that was actually addiction, abandonment issues, stagnation, and denial (like Sally Bowles). I am in a relationship with a stable man like Brian, that is likely going to end soon - or at least take a long break - for this reason. I’ve said I can’t have children for almost the same reasons as Liza Minelli’s character.

I believe this movie came into my life at this time for a reason - fate, the Universe, whatever.

I am DONE being a passive observer - in my own life and in denial from the world around me. Life is not a Cabaret, old chum. I will not stand by and be disassociated on my phone while our world subtly shifts into something darker - no more! I have looked up protests in my area and other ways to get involved. I am getting my own life back on track so that I don’t end up in mental breakdown - yet again - like Sally in “Cabaret”. The song “Maybe This Time” made me cry. I thought “maybe this time” with my Brian, and that may or may not happen depending on whether he wants to stick around while I make these changes…
But I totally understand if he doesn’t.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to this story and movie... this will always be so much more than just a movie to me. It has forever and indelibly affected how I interact with the world and with myself.

Thank you, Cabaret, from helping me go from passive from active in my own life and the world around me.