Talk about FILMS you’ve just seen!
- This topic has 118 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 1 hour, 11 minutes ago by
.
-
Posts
-
I normally avoid general threads on films people have seen, because it gets a little too close to what I do for a living for good comfort. I mean the review aspect of it all, obviously everything we speak about here is close to what I do for a living.
But anyway, just a space to speak about films you’ve just seen – old or new alike, in the cinema, on your telly or wherever. For the first time or the hundredth. If you want to create separate threads for them, that’s okay too, but this is for the occasions where you won’t.
If anyone is curious, I try to keep lists at MUBI. One for new films I’ve just seen, one for every film I see per year (although not rewatches).
Here’s the one for new 2026 films. Ranked.
And here’s the one for every film I’ve seen in 2026 so far. Not ranked, but by date (latest first).
I was supposed to have seen Park Chan-wook’s new film, NO OTHER CHOICE, today, but things got in the way.
The two most recent films I’ve watched are:
The Moment (2026): starring its co-producer and co-writer Charli XCX (who is apparently well known in the world of popular music but who I’m aware of principally through her role in creating the soundtrack for the film Bottoms a few years ago) as a satirised version of herself. It looks good and has a memorable, very amusing performance from Alexander Skarsgård.
Caught by the Tides (2024): a remarkable film from Jia Zhangke, it’s an assembly of footage he’s shot in various contexts over the last two decades or more, including some from the production of my favourite of his films, 2006’s Still Life. Hard to know what to make of this after one viewing except that it was a joy to watch and I can’t wait to see it again.
Fantastic to have you here, Gloin!
The press screening for THE MOMENT is still a few weeks in the future here. I think I’m too old to get the appeal of Charlie XCX, but I know she’s a big thing right now, for the “young’uns”. And I love her enthusiasm for Joachim Trier’s SENTIMENTAL VALUE (she recently came on-stage at a local cinema here in Oslo to present it alongside the director). Still haven’t seen the new WUTHERING HEIGHTS, with which she was involved.
As for Zhangke, while Fifth Generation Chinese directors are well-known entities to me, I still need to immerse myself in the socalled Sixth Generation of which he is part. I loved MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART, but still haven’t seen STILL LIFE (shocking!) nor CAUGHT BY THE TIDES.
Fun, I just thought about doing a thread like this.
I just saw this for the first time since the early 90s.
Horner’s score is not impressive, a lot of atonal cling clang stuff. He is not good with themes here. The track by Clannad is the best here, I think a full score by them would have worked.
I just saw this for the first time since the early 90s.
Horner’s score is not impressive, a lot of atonal cling clang stuff. He is not good with themes here. The track by Clannad is the best here, I think a full score by them would have worked.
I’ve always liked PATRIOT GAMES. Seen it probably 2-3 times. Love the look of it (Phillip Noyce is an unheralded director, with DEAD CALM remaining my favourite), but also Ford’s knack for “agitated face” – just small variations that tell so much. That doesn’t get the credit it deserves either. And the score — well, I had the CD for years, but eventually sold it. Then I revisited it many years later, and found myself liking it. Yes, Clannad’s “Harry’s Game” remains the best cue, but something about those chilly, rhythmical Horner textures that appealed to me all of a sudden.
I just saw YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES tonight for the first time. Pleasantly quaint movie.
God, another one I haven’t watched since I was a wee lad. I remember the fuss with the early CGI for the window, and a relatively easy-going romp of a narrative, but have forgotten most everything else. Well, except the great Broughton score, of course.
I’m currently looking through media works scored by Daniel Lopatin (although I don’t know yet if the Q&A will happen in early April or not). So rewatching some films with his involvement. I’ve already listened through his studio albums, and watched his short films and exhibition films.
He was apparently involved in THE BLING RING, but couldn’t hear much score. It’s mostly songs curated by Coppola’s usual music guy Brian Reitzell. The film, sadly, wasn’t as involving this time as the first time I saw it. I found myself tuning out here and there. But Emma Watson is delightful in it.
PARTISAN (2015) was an oddity, a low budget, almost student-film-like parable on cults and child assassins with Vincent Cassel. Plus for idea and mise-en-scene, minus for some odd narrative choices.
GOOD TIME and UNCUT GEMS remain solid efforts; grit and neon in perfect harmony. Same with MARTY SUPREME.
Meanwhile, HURRY UP, TOMORROW (2025) was a silly vanity project for The Weeknd, directed by Tred Edward Shults of IT COMES AT NIGHT and KRISHA fame. I recently wrote a few sentences about it here.
THE LAST CRUISE (2021) was a fascinating fly-on-the-wall documentary from the early days of the covid outbreak.
Next up is “The Viewing” from the anthology series GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOUSITIES and the Ben Safdie series THE CURSE.
Magellan (2025): Shorter and slower-paced than typical Lav Diaz films; it’s one of the most amazing-looking of the year.
Lav Diaz is a big gaping hole to me, which is weird, because I love the whole slow cinema movement. An epic with Gael Garcia Bernal as Magellan sounds enticing in a slow cinema format, though. Thanks for the tip!
The composer of the film, Marc Verdaguer, is Albert Serra’s regular composer. And I’ve been meaning to check out Serra’s TARDES DE SOLEDAD, mostly because my colleague raves about it. But I don’t like to expose myself to animal cruelty, so I’m torn.
Yeah, I’m not planning to watch that one.
I think I saw Serra’s name in the opening credits of Magellan, actually.
A funny thing about Diaz is that, while his films are usually described as “slow cinema”, the ones I know are not generally all that slow (by comparison with the likes of Béla Tarr or Apichatpong Weerasethakul, say); it’s more that they’re very long. In this respect, Magellan is maybe the first of his films that I’ve seen that really belongs in the “slow” category – a montage of long-held, immaculately composed and lit shots, with most of the human activity kept at a certain distance both visually, aurally and dramatically.
It’s been a great year for visually gobsmacking films!
It’s been a great year for visually gobsmacking films!
What are the others, in your view? I’ve yet to see Mascaro’s THE BLUE TRAIL and Bi Gan’s RESSURECTION. They are potentially visually dazzling. They have press screenings next week over here.
I do love the visual ‘marketplace’ look of Tsou Shih-Ching’s LEFT-HANDED GIRL, which is a 2026 film over here (but probably a 2025 film where you’re from). And also my favourite of the year so far.
And now for something completely different…
Just came back from an IMAX screening of PROJECT HAIL MARY – Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s recent sci fi extravaganza, starring Ryan Gosling in a story not dissimilar to SPACE MAN from a few years ago, only filled with Lord & Miller’s trademark humour. There’s physical comedy, goofy characters, lots of montages with pop music etc. But also some hard tone shifts along the way, along with ‘meet cute’ elements and sci fi mumbojumbo. I do like their series LAST MAN ON EARTH, to which this is tonally similar, but I’ve always been torn on mixing sci fi with comedy. Also, they struggle with the narrative structure. Lukewarm minus, I think is my initial evaluation. But I heard good things in Daniel Pemberton’s score — will check out when it gets released.
THE CREATOR (2023, Gareth Edwards)
Just watched this tonight while I back up my music from one drive to another… takes hours. Anyway….
Certainly an interesting looking movie with a lot of interesting ideas and concepts. Not sure if it was really well done, because at times, it seemed a very superficial exploration of its themes, but entertaining, “big” looking, and at least engaging for its running time, even though it didn’t always makes sense.Watched J.C. Chandor’s ALL IS LOST again last night (RIP, Robert Redford), probably for the 5th time. It’s one of my “comfort movies”, i.e. movies I like to put on late at night during the weekends, when I’m perhaps a little inebriated and need to “land” before bed time. Hey, now there’s a topic!
SMILE 2 (Parker Finn, 2024)
I’ve never fully decided whether I like horror movies. Really. I don’t know. I’m not a “slasher” film guy, and I don’t enjoy watching gory or brutal scenes. I saw TERRIFIER and found it despicable. I don’t want to return to it…. and here’s the next thing: what I do know is that I hate horror franchises. At least most of them. Because one of the surest way to lose me in the first ten minutes is the laziest sequel move in the playbook: drag back the survivor from the first film, give him or her one more scene, then kill him or her off at the beginning. Oh please, how lame can you be? (Ok, DAMIEN – OMEN II did exactly that and did it well, but it’s an exception. Not that the movie is necessarily great, but at least in that movie, the scene served to tie the sequel to the previous one.)Anyway, SMILE 2 opens exactly like that. Hey, there’s the dude from the last movie (don’t even know his name without looking it up, which I won’t because I’m to lazy and just want to have this typed before I go to bed). Anyway, it’s been a while that I’ve seen SMILE. I liked that movie, it was original and quite spooky. So back to the opening scene for SMILE 2: What’s it about? The surviving guy from the first movie getting killed. Sheesh. And it’s so well-executed I enjoyed it. The sequel managed to engage me in an edgy, tight 7 minute (didn’t time it) opening sequence before the title credits… Chapeau! That scene was really good.. and set up the rest of the movie… so far, I’m in.
Because here’s the thing: this is a very well crafted piece of schlock. The atmosphere is genuinely oppressive. The tension is surgical. The central performance by (what’s that name of the actress? Naomi Scott? Never heard of her… but I will remember her now) is superb, really… it belongs into a movie with actual things to say. Not sure this one has, but it’s definitely well made. But underneath all of it it’s basically a ghost-train ride. Spooky corridors, jump scares, superbly choreographed (literally) jump scares… but nevertheless jump scares… in service of… not much. But hey, I was spooked.
I can rewatch THE SHINING endlessly (one of those horror films I really love) and find new things to think about. SMILE 2 is a “Geisterbahn”: brilliant engineering… but did it mean anything? Maybe somewhatish… The struggle of drug addiction, hallucination, what’s real and what isn’t was at least present in the film, so it was “above average”. Yep, definitely above average. Not sure if it was really good.. will have to sleep and ponder over it. But yeah, as a horror movie, it delivered, it was more nightmarish and engaging than most movies of its kind. Original setting to. What if a famous pop star gets haunted by a vicious demon out to mentally destroy you, and even with all your fame and fortune and people around you, you have no one to turn to who can really help you. That part of the movie is something I can lock on to, I liked that… so maybe it wasn’t so bad a movie after all.
Funny you should mention THE SHINING, as Jack Nicholson’s son Ray has a small part in SMILE 2, and gets to mimic his dad’s evil grin from that film in a scene. One of the greatest goosebump film moments in all of 2024!
I wasn’t so thrilled with the first SMILE (it was okay), but thought the second was absolutely brilliant, my 8th favourite film of 2024. Not just because of that Ray Nicholson scene, or the scares, but because of the rich filmatic language, and the satirical take on fame and fortune. It’s like a twisted – and IMO better – take on that than Brady Corbet’s celebrated VOX LUX.
They managed to lift the whole thing beyond the generic tropes of the first. A rare feat.
Funny you should mention THE SHINING, as Jack Nicholson’s son Ray has a small part in SMILE 2, and gets to mimic his dad’s evil grin from that film in a scene.
Yes, I knew that part beforehand. In fact, while we were watching the movie, I told Nicole “you know, that’s Jack Nicholson’s son” and she replied dead pan “obviously.” 😀
What are the others, in your view? I’ve yet to see Mascaro’s THE BLUE TRAIL and Bi Gan’s RESSURECTION.
I haven’t seen The Blue Trail, but Resurrection is extraordinary, especially its opening section (where I thought it was Michael Powell who’d been resurrected).
Two other favourites are Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee and Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest, but of which have Bruegel-like visual sensibilities (though they look quite different from one another); I often felt I was going to swoon while watching them, especially in the case of Harvest.
I’m also in awe of the look of One Battle after Another, though it’s not as picturesque as the others.
Cool! I have a double feature lined up on Monday, with THE BLUE TRAIL followed by RESSURECTION. I’ll report back then.
I missed out on THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE from my country-woman, but I’ll see it in due time. And you definitely sold me on HARVEST.
Been rewatching the EQUALIZER movies this evening. I’m a very non-violent person, but I have a soft spot for old-school, old-testament revenge and justice in films and fiction. Love them.
I’ve yet to see Mascaro’s THE BLUE TRAIL and Bi Gan’s RESSURECTION. They are potentially visually dazzling. They have press screenings next week over here.
And to follow up on that, I saw both yesterday. I’m afraid to say they were both disappointments.
THE BLUE TRAIL was Mascaro’s attempt to comment on post-Bolsonaro traumas in Brazil, with a slightly futuristic, dystopian society where old people are no longer needed and sent to “colonies”. A lot of it just feels awkward, and he doesn’t manage to lift the mundane, visually, like he did so wonderfully in NEON BULL. And that’s with having the friggin’ Amazon at his disposal. But some striking moments here and there.
RESSURECTION was a wildly complex film, but also terribly bloated and self-indulgent. I have no idea what the recurring thread throughout the segments are (existential crises?), and the “meta” comment with the “fantasm” didn’t really work. At almost 3 hours, I was wriggling in my seat. But kudos for visual artistry on high level. Yes, there’s some Powell & Pressburger there, but the second part was clearly molded on German expressionism (or, rather, it’s like if Tim Burton and Ridley Scott went to Fritz Lang’s place to pop acid), the second with the monastery and snow made me think of Kurosawa and IKIRU, and the vampire sequence with its massive amounts of red, Zhang Jimou and RAISE THE RED LANTERN. But the whole thing should have been focussed and tightened up.
Was supposed to have seen Maria Sødahl’s PARADIS this morning, but overslept! Next ones out, in the theatre, is Jim Jarmusch’s FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER on Thursday, and then Kristoffer Borgli’s THE DRAMA and Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s BONE LAKE the week after Easter. But probably loads of home viewings inbetween, will need to sort some screeners out — there have been several 2026 “buzz” films I’ve missed out on, including THE MOMENT, NO OTHER CHOICE, IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT, THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE, ALPHA, MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO DUE, RENOIR ++.
Just came back from Jim Jarmusch’s FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER. I’ve never been a big Jarmusch fan, to be honest. Lots of low-energy dialogue and quirkiness, which is not my cup of tea (he was the director for the cool skater kids on the corner that were into hip hop and smoking…I was never part of that crowd, I was more geek than freak). But this is a cute little anthology film, in which Jarmusch reuses many visual/narrative/dialogue motifs across its three segments. I also like how he uses the city, or the rural landscape, as markers for an inner life. Especially those first-person driving shots.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.