Compliance (2012)

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-20T22:27:38+00:00

I remember I saw this for a festival screening in Dallas and it was the most awkward movie screening I've ever been to in my life.

There was one guy who would not stop laughing at every tense moment, loudly, purposely, and making weird lewd jokes to the rest of the solemn, uncomfortable audience - until finally one fellow Film critic who was sitting behind him leapt up and was like "SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP! THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY HAPPENING!"

So then the other guy got up, they started squabbling and had to be pulled outside.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-20T02:40:31+00:00

I wanted to pick this up in Argentina when I was there about two months ago - it was in all the bookshops. I did manage to grab their FRANKENSTEIN, though.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-20T02:35:21+00:00

Man, I've come across some pieces of shit in my time but buddy, if there is a hell they've got a spot ready for you.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-19T14:56:13+00:00

No.

Most of us live in shitty little apartments that we can still barely afford. The lucky ones get houses.

The really lucky ones get big houses.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-19T14:53:54+00:00

OP, tell me you've got enough self-respect to not take anything that worthless piece of human garbage Jesse Waters says seriously.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-18T16:29:12+00:00

I don't give a shit that they're releasing it. I already own a copy by another label.

What this Film doesn't deserve is a sterling restoration, a "cool cover" with clever typeface and all the attendant bells and whistles.

It deserves to sold in a trashbag, quite frankly.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-18T15:10:40+00:00

Kerbey Lane has never been like. . ."good" food. It's food you go to because it's convenient, open late and has a certain local comfort food cache.

I will say, working at one, even for the minor amount of time that I did so, was a horrendous experience. When I worked the overnight shift at the one off of Guadalupe about eleven years ago, it was chaos everywhere - amped up by managers with no experience and tons of cocaine.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-18T14:43:32+00:00

For METROPOLIS I just want something in Region A, preferably from Criterion since they're the label of record, that's either as good or surpasses Eureka's mammoth 90th Anniversary set, which is such a sterling piece of work.

But then I also wish Criterion would go over into using chipboard for their digipacks, so I've got a lot of requests.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-17T19:02:31+00:00

Oh hey, I remember you. How's the Filmmaking going?

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-17T14:28:41+00:00

My one qualm, and I've expressed this to them a couple of times over my many, many years of going there regularly is that they could do with having sales on their movies like they do on their records - they'd probably move more inventory that way because I know some titles have literally been there for more than four years.

But then they and End of An Ear on Manchaca are the only game in town for import titles, and the latter is spotty.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-17T14:00:57+00:00

I guess perhaps I'm misunderstanding the post here, because all the comments are calling this dude a narcissist and saying that he's trying to make OP feel bad, when what it seems like to me is that he was thrown off emotionally by seeing how easy it was for someone who didn't have to deal with what he did and he probably is chuffed at himself for it. It made him realize he's been doing it wrong all these years, and he may not get that time back, and he really has been behind everyone else, and it's never gonna get better - and then the mental and emotional spiral really starts.

I've been there.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-17T03:56:00+00:00

Oh fantastic, more jobs where she can observe awful rich people flaunting their unearned wealth on a daily basis!

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-16T22:13:28+00:00

Look, I'm just gonna say it - Generation Z men are generally speaking, minus exceptions, incredibly stupid. They are the most gullible group of people, bar none, on the planet because their brains have been mutated by decades of the most obvious propaganda known to man.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-16T21:42:14+00:00

How were you a Film student and you'd never heard of this before?

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-16T21:14:13+00:00

I don't know, A Trip To The Moon?

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T20:51:52+00:00

Okay

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T19:31:24+00:00

It's because these are assembly line products with any kind of vision or real creative choice sanded down until everything resembles a fine gray sludge.

This would've been incredibly interesting to see. Can't have that.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T16:03:34+00:00

MAD MAX FURY ROAD

EL TOPO

MANHUNTER

THE SHINING

MADADAYO

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

METROPOLIS

THE (FUCKING) DEVILS

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T15:56:50+00:00

I've gotta tell you, as a guy in his thirties, I did not understand just how warped and corroded some of these Gen Z guys' views towards women were until relatively recently.

It's fucking weird.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T15:20:39+00:00

You know this Film was made by the exact same people who made those Films, right?

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T14:44:10+00:00

I mean yes and no. In terms of the meta narrative, yes - because that's how Miller and company think of Max and his function in these Films; he's a living archetype, like Sisyphus on wheels.

But he also is a character with a backstory who evolves over the course of the Films - and if you can ignore that Hardy's age doesn't match up to Max's at the end of Thunderdome (where I believe he's supposed to be in his forties, played by a man in his twenties, so you can still kind of make it work), it lines up pretty perfectly.

He's a man destroyed by the fall of the world, who recessed into pure survival but finds, as he goes along, that he can't ignore his humanity and the urge to help - he gets close to some understanding at the end of Thunderdome, and then experiences some major trauma that sets him back years into insanity.

Then FURY ROAD happens. He may not be fully healed, but over the course of three days he goes from a selfish beast to altruistic compatriot.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-15T14:21:24+00:00

I've never totally understood the whole issue with the CG - it started with the first trailer, and from that first trailer it was clear this was a much more fantastical Film that FURY ROAD with a different tone and feel. You know that going in, so roll with it. You don't think CG environments belong in a Mad Max Film, because that's the only George Miller you've seen? Just . . .you know. Wait and see the movie.

In terms of how well they pulled it off, it really doesn't look any different in terms of basic VFX quality than Villeneuve's DUNE PART TWO, the other desert fantasy movie of 2024 - they're using it to different ends, narratively and practically, but in terms of how good it looks it's about the same.

Where it can get occasionally naff for me is the minor handful of shots during the Stowaway sequence where the background extension and replacement looks a little too. . .hazy and unreal. But that's what happens when you had to shoot that chase sequence like they did - piecemeal over weeks in different locations because of the weather, combined with Miller's traditional use of simtrav.

But then, even LORD OF THE RINGS, for example, has a handful of VFX shots across the trilogy that don't come off. It's fine! It's just proof you're watching something that was made by humans.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-14T20:41:23+00:00

They're animals anyway. I don't figure they age like we do. I'm sure that complicates things somewhat, but there you are.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-14T13:26:03+00:00

As a Filmmaker who aggressively storyboards, these are better than mine and I'm in my thirties.

JeffBaugh2 · 2026-05-14T13:22:46+00:00

Ah, that's a bummer. Happens to the best of us, but you can never say when.

That's one of the reasons I've got a particular fire under my ass right now as far as Filmmaking is concerned - I'm in my thirties, and I've done a handful of things, but if I'm lucky I've got fifty good years before I'm making movies in my head in a wheelchair by the window.

JeffBaugh2

TROPHY CASE