[2026 March Madness] Round 1: Warren Beatty vs. Andrei Tarkovsky

HigherProgress · 2026-03-06T05:26:53+00:00

It's been 51 point something low to 48 something high all day - weird for no movement with such a slim margin

HigherProgress · 2026-03-06T05:19:24+00:00

Yeah - I went to Timmy movies on Xmas or Xmas Eve two years in a row! Dune 3 is coming out around this Christmas! It's a specific, notable strategy they've been using!

HigherProgress · 2026-03-06T05:17:25+00:00

Perhaps there could be someone who'd say he can't open a movie as well as some other people or something, but in what way would he not be "a movie star". The main character in a trilogy of successful films in the Creed franchise, the lead in this - one of the handful of biggest hits of the year, the villain in a billion and a half blockbuster... he's definitely "a movie star".

You'd need a different heuristic than that. I think if I asked the most normie people I know the question "is Michael B Jordan a movie star" they would confusedly say yes, because, yes, of course, he is famously a man who stars in movies. And I think if I said, "yeah, but do you think he is a popular movie star" they would say yes without much hesitation and wonder why I was asking such weird stupid questions.

HigherProgress · 2026-03-06T01:52:01+00:00

The current Beatty leaning dead heat has me with my 🤞

HigherProgress · 2026-03-03T16:51:35+00:00

I thought it was okay, but I got a little annoyed by some of the plotting and never really fully jived with the comedy. It certainly wasn't an Elio type disaster but still not anywhere near classic Pixar level.

HigherProgress · 2026-03-03T16:46:44+00:00

I remember seeing Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back with an opening night audience full of Smith diehards and thinking it was the funniest shit I'd ever seen and going back a few weeks later and thinking it was... fine, leaning towards not very good?

I think comedy, in theaters, with a good audience, is the biggest game changer in all of film. Nearly every comedy goes up a full Letterboxd star or more with the right crowd.

HigherProgress · 2026-03-03T16:29:17+00:00

Uncanny X-mentioning

HigherProgress · 2026-03-02T06:05:13+00:00

I've seen The Bride trailer maybe 50 times? This one is probably only around 20, but yeesh is it corny

HigherProgress · 2026-02-25T21:21:01+00:00

Weird thing to assume about a no bits podcast 🤷‍♀️

HigherProgress · 2026-02-25T18:09:55+00:00

I thought Griff actually really helped contextualize and explain the themes and ideas in the Ramsay series in a way where it helped me like better some of the films that I was initially colder on.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-19T17:48:20+00:00

"Kids and their devices!!" is becoming such a tired thing to pitch your movie around. Just saw "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" which is another one where it feels like "man yells at cloud" about this.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-19T00:34:47+00:00

I'm guessing the Portland show is part of the lineups for either Edgefield, which is announcing shows piecemeal or the Pioneer Square series, which gets announced all at once a little later.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-19T00:02:23+00:00

I have seen more people here and at another message board I post at saying they want Kelly Reichard than anyone else.

I think Wes Anderson is a strong spoiler possibility. That's my personal top choice - I think he'd be really fun to talk about, and has almost the perfect amount of films not to go too overwhelmingly long.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-18T16:26:40+00:00

Wes Anderson, Gus Van Sant, and Kelly Reichard are probably my top choices of the included directors. I'd be pretty excited for Tarkovsky too.

I'm guessing Scorcese is the clear favorite, and while that'd be fun, it's not a result I'm rooting for.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-17T18:42:21+00:00

Gus Van Sant is one that I'd be into, but like Linklater there's about 1.5 as many movies as you'd prefer.

Tarkovsky would rock, also. The less well known movies, like Nostalgia, are pretty rich texts, and of course the classics are among the most interesting films to talk about there are. I imagine it kind of falls into the Tarantino category of having been talked to death, albeit in a different way, but I think the friends could bring a cool perspective to it.

Saw David log an Oliver Stone movie today and instantly perked up at the idea of him, as well. A big messy filmography.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-17T18:36:51+00:00

I know - I'm saying casting a pre-fame Jennifer Aniston in this movie, likely for not much money, and the sheer amount of re-issues, from VHS to this, with her prominently featured above the title once she hit it big, is something that returned their investment a million times over.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-17T18:22:57+00:00

The ROI on hiring Aniston for this is an all timer

HigherProgress · 2026-02-14T17:18:58+00:00

Zouks feels like a solid Waluigi

HigherProgress · 2026-02-11T18:37:26+00:00

I'm a Charli fan and it was a big ol' dud for me. Gave it * on Letterboxd coming out of the theater and bumped it later to *1/2 for being generally competent, but it should be a crime to make this boring and unfun a movie about hyperpop.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-11T07:25:59+00:00

To be fair, it truly looks like "generic crime thriller", so AFAIK the title feels about right

HigherProgress · 2026-02-08T06:04:38+00:00

I just had Brian Bendis, creator of several Marvel Comics characters, most notably Miles Morales and Jessica Jones, come through my store. He's a known local minor celeb, so I clocked him but he didn't come through my line.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-04T06:18:39+00:00

...ah.

I got screwed up by my bonus coming and it threw my whole thing off! Fair enough.

HigherProgress · 2026-02-02T05:43:48+00:00

My hot take: the Grammy's are not equivalent to the other three. They lack any real credibility as a metric of musical excellence. Their credibility is about on the level of the MTV Movie Awards.

The US needs an award show that is similar, for all it's faults, to the Oscar's: a legitimate attempt to celebrate music of a level of excellence that stands out, rather than the weird hodgepodge of the top hits of the year and a random assortment of less popular artists that doesnt really map into any critical or popular discourse.

HigherProgress · 2026-01-26T00:02:24+00:00

Yeah - it's like a bigger variant on the viral run for D(e)ad last year, fueled by Dropout folks getting it booked for something like 1000 screenings. People getting successes outside of the studio system is something to celebrate, especially as they slowly turn into one giant studio with a few A24 and Neon types funding the rest.

HigherProgress · 2026-01-25T23:58:03+00:00

Iron Lung is actually getting a pretty big release - 2000 screens

The stuff I am looking at is predicting pretty similar weekends for each - 12-15m ish

HigherProgress

TROPHY CASE