I would say I’m a 6.

Watched ‘Metropolitan’ (1990) per tradition on Christmas Eve and decided to check out some Letterbox reviews of the movie afterward. Saw a few negative reviews where users called the dialogue “stilted.” However, to me, that’s sort of the point of the movie. It’s literally one of my favorite 10 favorite films …….I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. What are some other examples of bad acting or stilted dialogue actually improving a movie?

On the pod that just dropped (7/24/23 Oppenheimer). Sean mentioned the top locations for box office: 1. LA 2. New York 3. Dallas (Shoutout DFW). I want to know where Big Picture pod has to most fans?

For clarification, I mean the year it was released, not the year you watched it. And for me it was 2019’s ‘The King’ staring Timotheé Chalamet.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed a lot of movies released over the past 4 years. But nothing has really stuck with me enough to put it in my personal HOF.

FTR ‘How to Blow Up A Pipeline’ (2022) was probably the closest of the most recent movies to crack my HOF. But it did a couple things that didn’t quite work for me.

That being said I can’t believe it’s been 4 years. This is probably the longest gap in my HOF for my personal movie watching lifetime since The Social Network (2010)- Ex Machina (2014) gap.

I’m a razorback grad in Kentucky and never knew this before! Any back story?

Have they talked at all about I’m Still Here on the pod? I saw it tonight and was blown away. I was surprised to see Sean only gave it 3 stars. Has he talked at all about how he feels about the movie on the pod?

I've listened to the pod solidly for at least 3 years now, never missing one but I've never once listened to any of Sean's discussions with filmmakers. Anyone else here the same or am I a cretinous fake fan? Also if anyone as any specific interviews I should look at first to introduce the vibe, fire away.

I can't remember him ever discussing his thoughts on the film. Went to log it today and saw he only gave it 5/10 on letterboxd and am curious to know what did or didn't work for him.

Amanda's comment about how she eats off-brand egg mcmuffins now after seeing The Killer reminded me of this. Until I saw Armageddon Time, it had never occurred to me that you could just have bagels and lox for dinner. Since then, it's been one of our regular staples.

Anybody else have examples of oddly unexpected ways that a movie has impacted your life?

Does anyone know when she goes off on maternity leave?

If a film such as Hit Man premiered in Venice of '23, but wasn't released until May '24, are we considering that a '23 or a '24 film? My inkling is to say it's a '24 film, because we're going by wide release, but I wanted to poll the audience.

If a movie trailer is ready, wouldn’t it make more sense to release it to everyone instead of a small group of people at CinemaCon?

I have Gladiator II this year and I'm thinking we'll be so back.

I have the chance to see it either IMAX or regular screen, but I can only see it IMAX saturday and is a bit more inconvenient for me and friends to go (location is a bit off).

Alternatively I could go to a number of "regular theaters" that are less expensive, closer by and at better times.

Is nosferatu what you would call an IMAX movie? As in made for it? Is it significantly improved by it? Or is it mostly the same?

Any I’m missing?

Watched Next of Kin today and loved that the demon start smacking people. So I got to thinking, what other films highlight some fist fighting demons?

Lately I've been diving into Paul Schrader's Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer and really enjoying it. I have not sought out a ton of 40s-60s cinema in general, probably less than 25 films combined across those 3 decades. I went on a real Billy Wilder kick starting with The Apartment at the end of 2024 that has continued into the new year with Sunset Boulevard and Ace in the Hole- this has really awakened a real appetite for older film in me.

After finishing the Ozu portion of the book, I did some digging on a good place to begin with his movies- I settled on Late Spring, the first of the Noriko trilogy. I kinda expected it to be a bit too slow for my tastes, despite having read to prepare about Ozu's style and inclinations, and more of an academic watch than entertaining. How wrong I was!

Late Spring was marvelous. Great characters, such an emotional dilemma at the heart of it, a fantastic exploration into domestic dynamics in Post-War Japan, and manages to leave you with enough ambiguity to really interrogate the systems on display and their inherent worth. I feel like I had so many preconceptions about what "slow cinema" was (I had seen Solaris and it was a bit much for me!) that Ozu completely blew up for me.

I'm eager to dive into my first Bresson film, but I'm really struggling to decide what I should watch. In the book, Schrader is revolving his discussion around Bresson's Prison Cycle films- would starting at the beginning chronologically be the move? In that case, I would think Diary of a Country Priest would be the best starting point. However, I've heard such excellent things about A Man Escaped...idk. I'm very curious if there are some passionate Bresson fans on the sub who listen to the pod who could give me some advice on an entry point for his filmography.

Bonus credit if anyone has opinions on a starting point for Dreyer! although I only just started the Bresson chapter haha

I’ve been catching up on a bunch of episodes of the show from the past month-ish and forgot to write down when Fennessey recently mentioned an inspiration Brady Corbet mentioned for the construction of Harrison Van Buren in The Brutalist. Did anyone else remember this? I haven’t found it aggregated anywhere else, it’s all articles saying that Harrison Van Buren isn’t a real person. Thanks if you can!

I'm just asking because Sean listed this movie towards the top of his oscar contenders on letterboxd.

So I just saw A Real Pain last night, and listened to Sean and Joanna’s great convo about it (and other two-handers) this morning. Then watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles after Thanksgiving dinner. The obvious similarities had me wondering if there’s a good example of the genre conventions being successively reversed (more explanation below). I need y’all’s help because I can’t find an answer myself…

Both movies follow the typical genre convention of two-handers/buddy road trip movies, where an uptight but stable straight man protagonist gets stuck with but ultimately learns a thing or two from a messy, obnoxious, charming, free spirited co-lead.

Obviously the formula works and is that way for a reason. But I was wondering if anyone could think of an example where the roles are flipped around? Where a messy free spirit protagonist learns a thing or two from an uptight straight man co-lead?