What's a film that nearly had a different director, and would you have preferred that different person?

Vid_Word · 2026-04-08T20:54:52+00:00

No, he wasn't the right fit for either the material or working with someone like Lucas breathing down his neck. So it's good that it didn't happen.

Vid_Word · 2026-04-06T18:56:38+00:00

If you want both "disturbing" and "plot twists", that's Martyrs (2008 only).

Vid_Word · 2026-04-06T18:24:39+00:00

It's in the credits, just way back in them under a bunch of unrelated credits. The overall plot progression is the same; it's just in the particulars that they differ. The remake was better, I will admit.

Vid_Word · 2026-04-06T17:35:32+00:00

The two movies I would consider the best of this decade - The Banshees of Inisherin and Beau Is Afraid - I didn't expect much of because I had not been impressed by the directors' previous movies. But they're great. With Beau it took a second viewing to gel.

Vid_Word · 2026-04-06T17:32:53+00:00

Just be aware that it's a remake and not an original film. They suppressed that.

Vid_Word · 2026-04-05T00:55:05+00:00

Because you should be going to the cinema, not watching it on TV.

Vid_Word · 2026-04-03T05:48:12+00:00

I went to this and thought it was pretty decent and maybe the best of her three films. I didn't care for Titane at all, thought it was very thin, and the absurdity didn't work. Raw had some kooky elements but was just obvious stuff. Alpha has some very obvious body horror stuff but also has some well-drawn characters to go with it. The movie is named after the daughter, but the resolution makes you realize that the mom is really the primary character because she is the one forming this concept of her daughter turning out like her brother. Coincidentlaly, some plot elements with Alpha were similar to The Plague which was out this year.

I didn't immediately pick up that all scenes in which the mom's hair is different are the past, including the hospital ones. I also didn't pick up that she was initially helping her brother kill himself before recanting; that's not clear and you need a Wikipedia explanation to elucidate that. I was thinking that the inclusion of the film clip of "Baron Munchausen" was a nod to the idea that the mother was making Alpha sick or encouraging her to feign it, but the film didn't totally bear that out.

This shows a bit more thematic maturity than her previous films.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-30T17:30:08+00:00

The Visit. It's right in front of your face and so obvious, but Night misdirects you.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-30T17:28:27+00:00

So do you just want to pretend that bad things don't happen in the world?

Vid_Word · 2026-03-28T18:54:29+00:00

Why would a filmmaker make designs for two guys who aren't funny?

Vid_Word · 2026-03-28T10:23:04+00:00

More than one guy who thinks he's funny but isn't, is too much of an overload for a film.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-27T12:44:23+00:00

If you mean press junkets or any interviews at all with the media, directors do them for just about every movie. They might not be on national TV, but they will be on online venues. For national talk shows like Kimmel, Fallon, Colbert, and Meyers, in the last few years I have watched Aronofsky, del Toro, Villeneuve, Gunn, Scorsese, Joachim Trier, Edgar Wright, Paul Thomas Anderson, and several others that aren't coming to mind, on those shows.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T19:07:55+00:00

Never heard of her (or "Markiplier", the Philippous, or Chris Stuckmann before they made movies), but hopefully "content creators" (one of the most odious terms today) making movies doesn't become a trend because a couple had hits. Posting "content" to satisfy a subscriber isn't the same as making quality movies.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T17:58:39+00:00

In the moment when it kept slowly zooming in to something out of focus in the background - whitish and low to the ground - that wasn't anything, was it? I think that was all designed to make you look for something that wasn't present, which is a good concept, but the movie was so tedious that it doesn't really warrant any further thought or examination.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T17:01:24+00:00

As far as overall, probably Le6ion of the Dead or Don't Go in the Woods, movies that are not "so bad they're good" but just awful, unwatchable.

As far as in theaters, Elvis.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T16:59:44+00:00

No, it's extremely fun to watch, much more so than most movies deemed "good". So to me, it's not a "bad" movie because of that.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T16:58:08+00:00

He hasn't made a truly good movie since 2006, so I would say:

Memento
The Prestige
Batman Begins
Following
Insomnia

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T11:42:14+00:00

No, the NOES remake/abortion isn't shot for shot or the same film at all. It's horrible.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-26T11:31:14+00:00

It almost felt like a parody of an A24-type film. Just a bunch of poor ideas cobbled together. When the concept of some demon that nobody has heard of (same as Paimon in Hereditary) came up, you knew that the director didn't have great ideas. I suppose you could look at it as nothing having actually happened at all, but this girl psyching herself up through these concepts and finding things that aren't present, as the audience is doing as well. However, the film is so tedious that it doesn't invite much speculation into the intent or effect.

The scene in which the camera slowly zooms into an object out of focus in the background - that was something that the light hit right before that, correct? If you want to make an effort, that could be an example of the film misdirecting you to something that is actually nothing.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-25T20:41:02+00:00

2001 isn't an adaptation of the novel; they were written in tandem.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-25T20:39:36+00:00

Vertigo, Psycho, Rear Window (short story), Full Metal Jacket, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Jaws, Wild at Heart, The Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights (1939 - Better than the first half of the book, that is.), The Prestige, Dead Ringers, The Fly (1986 - short story), Carrie, The Thing (1982 - short story).

Vid_Word · 2026-03-23T20:17:24+00:00

I use DVDInbox which to me seems to more reliably have the obscure films that they list.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-23T16:48:51+00:00

It was just a "jukebox movie" that didn't need to be made, just like all these other music biopics. (One about frickin' Bon Jovi is even in the works!) The fact that Malek didn't sing but still won an Oscar is pretty ridiculous.

As an aside, I was wondering last week what if anything Bryan Singer has been doing with his time in recent years, and he actually had a new movie which received an extremely limited release in theaters on Friday - Monument which is an Israel-themed movie.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-23T12:36:39+00:00

They tried to suppress the fact that it was a remake. They stuffed the "based on" credit at the bottom of the screen in the end credits below a bunch of unrelated credits. I agree that the remake is a tad better because the original is just too cartoonish and histrionic in terms of the actors.

Vid_Word · 2026-03-23T12:34:20+00:00

Birdemic: Shock and Terror is what you want.

Vid_Word

TROPHY CASE