Digger amazed me. I went in without knowing anything, and I don’t know the last time a movie managed to change my perspectives and surprise me like this.

I also read and heard many criticisms later, and I want to comment on the one I find the most bizarre.

But first an overview of common problems people seem to have with it. Anything related to people’s dislike for Tom Cruise or his involvement with a movie like this doesn’t interest me too much. I don’t care about his personal life and find him to be an excellent actor, like Digger clearly showed. Overall there isn’t much to discuss here, if you just can’t watch Tom Cruise that’s fine but that also means you don’t have anything to say about Digger.

Second criticism is also something I can’t really debate, and that’s the fact that some people just didn’t like the experience. Either because the first part (satire) was too corny to them, and even if that was the point, it still wasn’t pleasant to watch; or because the second part (meta commentary) took them out of the movie where they could no longer care about the satire plot or had a good reason to care about the meta/ making the play plot either yet. Or because it looked ugly, and again, even if that is on purpose, it doesn’t make it pleasant. Those are the basic things I saw mentioned a lot.

Personally, I totally enjoyed the satire part for itself and was immersed in the story. When the meta segment took place, it made me curious to see where it’s going, while still being interested in the plot of the satire play too. And I thought it all looked very cool and unique. But I can’t convince anyone about what they find corny, boring, or unpleasant to watch, and I agree that the awareness that something is a purposeful choice doesn’t necessarily change the experience. My experience was just the total opposite, it pulled me in from the start and then just kept being more than that.

The third criticism is something I heard a few times and kind of annoys me, it seems more like a reaction to marketing (hiding the twists.). I heard a few people say how the big “twist” , by which they refer to the first twist that tells us the satire is actually a play, should have been known from the start, or how it was underwhelming. The structure of the movie clearly fits into three parts, the reveal of the play sets the second part in motion, and I am surprised by how many times people who talk about their disappointment with this twist totally forget to even mention that this sets the stage for the second twist that leads to the third part of the movie. For me, the first reveal had an interesting destabilizing effect where I realized there was more to what I thought I was watching, but the second reveal was the real shock and put everything in place.

So I am not sure why anyone would think that changing this flow would have been better in any way, or act like the movie blew its big twist after the first 15-20 min as if the second and more important one never happened. The sequence is so clean and makes perfect sense, so I don’t get this.

But my biggest disconnect is with people who seem stuck on the second part of the movie as if the third one never happened. I keep seeing the movie getting accused of wanting to be a satire but removing itself from being a satire by shifting to meta commentary about satires.

In fact it seems most posts here about this movie are super focused on what the movie says about satires and their power, or lack thereof, even implying that the movie’s main focus is commenting on Don’t Look Up or something. While obviously that commentary is an element the meta segment seems to be focused on, the movie then does the complete opposite from this perceived removal when it tells you that all the events seen in the satire actually happened.

This completely changes all the implications. Cruise’s character now 20 years later may have issue with some parts being too much of a caricature or unrealistic, but you as viewer would think that the overall criticism is that the whole satirical play is unrealistic and exaggerated, just to learn that the actual plot, the most extreme part of it, is completely real.

And then it really doesn’t matter if Digger is a cartoonish villain, or if he was actually a bit more charismatic and refined, or if he was on a plane with the president or not, because the most outrageous elements of his life and actions aren’t even a question, they happened.

Instead of staying in the meta space of examining satires while making a satire, the movie pulls you into a realistic drama where it clearly stands behind its story. It’s no longer a satire or a meta movie, it’s a tragedy.

It had a profound effect on me, that final switch of perspectives. It was sad and shocking, and I really can’t remember the last time I was surprised like that.

Even if it didn’t manage to affect you that way, I don’t get how anyone can blame it for not being brave or for hiding behind a meta satire, criticizing in a way that tries to avoid criticism etc. There’s no bigger statement it could have made then it did by declaring it was all real. It’s obviously not trying to remove itself from its message, it totally dives into it, and just in the moment when you think you get what it’s doing.

I mean, that scene where they are debating the point and validity of the satire (and I disagree that it was done in a way that made the director seem incompetent or the satire total trash), just to hit you with the facts that everything you were watching happened, you realize as a viewer that you didn’t even understand the actual issue of pt 2. They live in the post Digger world so for them it makes sense to debate the approach the play took, but for the viewer, you basically learn that the actually important part (plot of the play) never even was a question.

Anyway, I am not explaining anything with the post that the movie doesn’t explicitly say, and I am sure everyone who saw it got it, but that’s why I don’t get why this is what it gets shit for.

I watched A Few Good Men recently, and there's something about the ending that I found more interesting than Jessup's famous confession. Earlier in the movie, we learn that Dawson was punished for disobeying orders to bring food to another Marine. So he was clearly capable of breaking the rules when he thought it was the right thing to do. But when Santiago was targeted with a Code Red, he followed orders.

That's what makes the final verdict interesting to me. Dawson and Downey are cleared of murder, but they're still found guilty of conduct unbecoming a Marine. Downey doesn't understand why. Dawson eventually realizes they should have protected Santiago.

What bothers me is that these men were trained to obey, and then punished for doing exactly that. I'm not saying they shouldn't be held responsible. They absolutely should. But the military system that taught them to act this way also bears responsibility. For me, that contradiction is one of the most interesting parts of the movie, and it gets a little overshadowed by Nicholson's courtroom scene.

I got into Nathan Fielder years ago from a random video essay on Nathan For You, and somewhat naively, I never felt it was in bad taste. The most memorable characters: The Bill Gates impersonator, the private investigator, the small dick sports car guy, the guy who drinks his grandson's piss. In a sense they were kind of bad people, or at least a little deserving, and that's why it felt ok to laugh at them. And the others, my mind just kind of brushed them off because Nathan takes a lovably submissive role in any interaction. 

Then he takes the same concept and applies it to Benny and Elizabeth and I start to see a different perspective. It starts with a jeering feeling: she's a bad person and Billy is probably silly, stupid, or as bad as her for being with her. Then Nathan is talking to her father, we're laughing at how funny the interaction is, and suddenly he drops that Elizabeth was sexually assaulted. In a flash, you realize this is horrifying. We keep laughing at this whole situation but slowly the reality sets in as a family gets torn apart right in front of our eyes, and there's this perverted, voyeuristic, almost manic feeling to it that made me feel really fucking weird and disgusted.

You realize this whole situation is fucked and everyone’s been laughing like wolves. It's heartless to make fun of a woman as she's being pulled away from her family, especially if were to believe her act that shes markedly autistic and doesn’t even understand the most obvious joke of all time. And then there's the flip side, where she might be performing for us and for Nathan. Meanwhile I still felt empathy for these people, even Benny, who is revoltingly manipulative and narcissistic.

Although Nathan seemed to have walked the line quite tastefully, there’s one moment in particular that I found very gross. On the day she’s going to jail, he’s cracking sex jokes and giving her gag gifts. Does does he or Lance or any of the crew have not a shred of empathy for a family that is likely never gonna be the same again? 

The obvious devil on your shoulder is going to say, “Yeah, but she’s evil too. She defrauded people.” okay? Does dehumanizing and torturing someone become OK just because they are not your definition of a good person? This is a much more callous and deep and cutting and fucked up version of Nathan for you. 

I started to feel a little bit of hope when I saw Amanda Seyfried. She's kind, beautiful and composed in a way that almost sets you at ease. She’s right, she’s doing the right thing. The mythologically correct thing. She tries to empathize with Elizabeth, she gets into politics with Benny at the dumpling dinner, and she does everything politically and optically right. But then you start to think “Why the fuck does she look like she’s having so much fun.”

In the recreation, when Elizabeth says she gets bullied in jail because of Seyfried's show, you see a crack in Amanda’s veneer. The perfect performance fades and all of a sudden she starts grasping at reasons why Elizabeth is guilty and reveals herself to be just as opportunistic as Elizabeth or even Benny but she’s better at following the rules and presenting herself as pure and good. She had very little thought in her own effect on this person. She, just like us, thought: Elizabeth Holmes is bad so it doesn’t matter what I say about her. Kind of emblematic of how our politics feel right now. 

And then Elizabeth herself. I almost want to believe that she is the manipulative person that the entire media has portrayed her to be, because the flip side of that is so shockingly disturbingly depressing: This fucking Benny guy is just one of the many men who has been completely taking advantage of her doe eyed love and has led her like a lamb to the slaughter into this horrible mess.

I usually say I watch movies to be entertained, or to get some insight into why we do the things we do. This made me feel disgusted at the real people, the characters, the production, the audience next to me giggling, and myself for sitting there, and yet, somehow that ends up being profound and beautiful and layered. I’ve not seen art this good in a long time.

I find it very interesting to think of how kids today are growing up with some of the most discussed films being Poor Things, Nosferatu, One Battle After Another, Backrooms, The Substance, Oppenheimer, The Odyssey, etc. These are very artistic, strange films compared to what was popular when I was growing up.

Maybe I'm overestimating how popular these films are, but they seem genuinely trendy among young people and online. I'm imagining what my perspective on cinema would be if I'd grown up on films like that, rather than discovering them much later when I *decided* to look more deeply into cinema.

Of course there's still Marvel, Disney, Tik Tok, brain rot, etc. To be concerned about, but I could imagine a new wave of really interesting, sophisticated films coming from Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

What do you think?

There is of course the fact that Bush's War on Terror plays in the background of this film, the Saddam Hussein statue falling clip, Stone Phillips appearance as he goes to do coverage in Afghanistan, etc.

But the structural parallel goes much deeper, the movie is critical of To Catch a Predator in all the same ways we are now critical of The War on Terror. I'll stay outside of the film for a second. There is the way that both TCAP and TWT stoked the fear of Americans, a danger on the doorsteps of our home that got its way in through the dangerous internet, a danger on the doorsteps of our country getting its way in through immigration and radical Islamic beliefs. There is the way that both existed primarily as media productions, sure there is a reality underneath it but it was amplified to manufacture consent for American intervention in the middle east as well as to manufacture consent for Hansen's TV show. There is the way that both kind of "produced" their target so that they could catch them, as a way to justify themselves. Hansen "produced" predators the way Bush "produced" terrorists.

By production, I don’t mean to say that pedophiles and radical Islamists don't exist, but rather they are both instances where crime had to be generated before it actually occurred so that there was something to punish. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, etc.

Now in the language of the film itself, the parallels continue. I'll rattle off whatever I can remember (and used in my essay about ): 1) The way Hansen is unable to ditch his formal tone and demeanor in his personal life is like a military man who is stuck in that mode 2) The way he shows clips of himself from his show to his sons like he is a soldier, fighting for some great cause (the critique being that both what he and a soldier does is actually kind of weird to show a child) 3) The entire arc of Decoy Dan. He goes from a young boy joining the military kind of confused why it's all so serious and weird, to accepting his role, becoming Hansen in that one scene where he takes Hansen's position in the episode. Of course he has his many doubts, and Hansen employs the language of a general to his soldier: "you're part of something much bigger, you're helping children, you're fighting an ancient evil, etc." All the way to the end where Dan and the attorney general share a brief moment together re the musical Rent, like two soldiers meeting in battle and seeing each other's humanity for a second before one kills the other. The "DECOY DAN!" yell was a fun one for me in the theater and it is also exactly how a general would summon their grunt. 4) The general imagery of the final scene with the officers and the media crew working together and transforming into a movie raid

Primetime is also a descent into madness film. By the time he's telling Dan that what they are doing is fighting a great ancient evil from India Hansen has already lost his marbles. He is maniacal about his big sting operation, like a general plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness, a crazed Captain Ahab type. Primetime definitely brought to mind Apocalypse Now for me, especially the register it shifted into for that India scene about the great evil, how Hansen's descent into madness resembled the crew's descent into the jungle, they are going crazy. It's a critique of the madness that seemed to be driving us to keep boots on the ground in the Middle East during the 2000s.

A quote from my essay: "Both Hansen and Bush are reactions to a post-9/11 America. They pledge allegiance to the transcendental American fantasy, driven by this sense of capital-J Justice. And so they must step into this father figure role: how dare you disobey daddy, I’ll teach you a lesson."

The 2000s were a decade of slipping control for America, and the powers that be that wanted to maintain the image of that perfect American fantasy lashed out to try and preserve their legitimacy. This is Bush's War on Terror, but it is also Hansen's To Catch a Predator. The way they both utilized the media spectacle is only half of the equation, but the placement of both next to each other in the same film, asking Hansen's iconic line: "You see how this looks, right?" back to Hansen is really cool art. This film knows the power lies with the one behind the camera, and turns it back on The War on Terror, Hansen's To Catch a Predator, and the joint "father figure" that was losing it's grip on the American family order in the 2000s. In many ways, it's very relevant today as well.

The whole essay is here, I go more into the Foucault and "father figure" stuff there if anyone's interested: https://smtsmtpostmodern.substack.com/p/the-primetime-essay?r=gseqz

My thoughts on Digger. Full of spoilers; if you haven’t seen it, don’t read this. Go see the movie.

“Digger” is not a satire. It is about billionaires, the oil industry, politicians and about climate change - but none of it in any specific sense.
 
On the one hand, it is a critique of the state of the entertainment industry, while at the same time seeking to transcend its limitations.
 
But at its core, it is a manifesto to our society, which will inevitably fall into the same traps that lead us to our downfall. And it’s not because of specific individuals or events; those are likely interchangeable. It is due to the predispositions of human nature that drive every individual human being. As a result of which individual or short-term benefits are always prioritized over the common long-term good.
 
Controlling the narrative is a key theme throughout the movie, recurring in aspects such as the censorship firewall and the hypocritical eco-friendly company. It is also Oil billionaire Digger Rockwell’s obsession - not only part of his business, but his driving force, to the point where he also seems to be outwitting himself with it.
 
“They know the facts - the story has yet to be told“ says Rockwell who then, just to prove his point, makes his employee Ganesh compromise his principles by soothing his conscience with a made up story. Deep down, Ganesh wants to try a bite of the tuna he’s been offered - but without the guilt that comes with it. So he accepts the narrative the billionaire is providing him, though he should have known better - which is the analogy for how the world deals with the over-exploitation of the Earth. By subsequently revealing the trick, Rockwell forces Ganesh to admit his complicity. During his monologue in the European Parliament he does the same thing to the public, though no longer to demonstrate his power, but to create a distraction and to save his skin in the face of disaster.
 
Politicians going mad in the face of death, rich men clinging to power, employees fearing for their jobs, a population seeking easy answers and scapegoats. Either ignoring or nuking our problems, and praying they disappear. None of “Digger’s” characters are innocent, everyone is guilty and has their own motivation. Led by our individual greed, convenience, fear, we all collectively drive and shape our society.
 
It is shown where this leads. “Digger’s” satire layer is just a grotesque play that distorts the facts in order to please and appease an audience. Rich men trying to control the narrative, the actors collaborate, the crowd applauds. The same old rules still apply, yet - as we are about to see - in a world that should have rebelled long ago.
 
Following an announcement, the audience leaves the theater and walks into the dystopian streets “Digger’s” last image is dedicated to. Nothing remains of the satire with which it all began. In the movie’s final stroke, the parallel lines of fiction and reality become a tangent for a brief moment. It ties the spectator to its bleak core message (and the reason why it should be watched in cinema): The credits roll and the very same announcement sounds again - this time with no one left to hear but you. You might realize that you now have no other choice but to physically mimic the audience in the movie. The show is over; you will stand up, leave the cinema, and walk outside.
 
Fortunately, our streets barely resemble “Diggers” grim vision of the future. But the question that Iñárritu makes us ask ourselves is how close we are to the path that leads there.
 
What seemed to be a satire turned into a dark tale of a worn-down world. Society slipped into a future where everyone loses and anyone could have seen it coming. Regarding climate change, the allegory is clearly visible - we know the facts, only our future is not yet written. However, “Diggers” implications go well beyond this specific threat to humanity.
 
It is dark, it carries a corrosive power, it combines art and message in a way that is masterfully executed - I've not seen anything like it.
 
So, what is the takeaway then? Iñárritu provides no answer. It is reasonable to assume that, if he truly believed in this inevitable course of events, the effort of making this movie would have been pointless.
 
What if Iñárritu, akin to Digger Rockwell, uses the very same method and tells us the story to the facts that we already know? In that case, “Digger” might be satire. But an absurdly grim one - no, its seriousness is disarming.
 
It’s the dead-serious remark that we will have no other choice but to somehow find a way to overcome our inherent flaws.

I am neither a native english speaker nor a cinephile, so please expect a lot of mistakes. Skip directly to the questions if you don't want to read my opinion of the film. I just felt I had to type it as I have seen a lot of users take time to give detailed answers without mockery, for even films or opinions that the majority of the public dismiss as dumb, I felt it would be insulting if I didn't do the same.

I went to watch Digger with my gf and I really enjoyed it, she on the other hand thought it was superficial. I disagree and I think the discussion around it proves that. She thinks the only reason I enjoyed it is because I don't watch any movies, and that I don't know better. She has an arts background and clearly knows movies better than me.

The parts that resonated with me, were Kenny Rockwell saving Curtis' daughter and Curtis being grateful for it even though he is highly skeptical of the Rockwells. I did go through something similar when my father was hospitalized and the insurance company wouldn't let the hospital do their job, and their representative kept came directly to our room to annoy us and find a reason to reject us, even though we did the proper procedure and made the payments correctly. My father knew the vice president of the insurance company and gave him a call. All it took was one call from him, and everything sailed smoothly. I felt what Curtis probably felt, a mixture of appreciation and guilt, even though I shouldn't, as he himself was the direct cause of the situation and probably the cause of suffering for many others. Saying that I do believe he did care about my father.

I don't think Kenny is actively malicious or represents nihilism in a traditional sense. He is evil, yes, in the sense that he is okay with the status quo that benefits him, but I do think that he genuinely wanted to help Curtis. I also doubt that he would be okay with swapping places with the lower classes. To me what he meant by "it doesn't matter" was, as long as people are content with hating his Uncle and satisfying their emotional needs while actively doing nothing about it, how Digger Rockwell is portrayed is irrelevant. He doesn't have to actively manipulate the audience by interfering with the script. As seen in the last seen when Curtis gets a call about his daughter being safe and looks back at the audience who are eager to see him jump off the cruise ship, I think, Curtis satisfied with hearing that his daughter is safe, is content, and lets go of the skepticism of Rockwells he had through out the rehearsals, and gives the same to the audience and celebrates the success of the play.

I also disagree that the movie mocks the audience or that it completely disagrees with them getting a satisfaction from the satire. Yeah the Level 4 warning at the end credits is direct, but there is another scene, where Hannah the director of the play, who is only seen as pompous Brit and completely dismissive of Curtis, speaks directly to the camera with tears in her eyes without any refutation from Curtis before they are cut off by Kenny. Maybe this is me reading too much into it, but the sudden shift caught me off-guard, and me take her seriously as a character.

Oh, I enjoyed the shift in calming animals sounds to scary ones, supposedly the invasion of Bull frogs decimating the native population.

Either way, I enjoy that people have strong disagreement about what the movie or characters represent, it makes me see through different perspectives. I don't think it is bad movie at all and its really nuanced.

The thing though, is my gf is more familiar with movies and has seen a lot of this directors movies. She says he is more direct and is known for his technical prowess than depth, and I am reading too much into the movie because it reminded me of something personal. And that his films aren't that deep, lack any genuine nuance, and are pretty much "style over substance". Also that there wouldn't be multiple interpretations of it as he is unambiguous in storytelling She also called him pretentious. I think she just hates him though.

I was thinking was watching his other movies, and while, I know art is subjective, I would be really embarrassed if what I saw was only in my head. I am worried that whatever connection I felt to this movie will be lost once I realize that my gf maybe right.

So,

1. Should you try to enquire what the creator actually wanted to show you, even if it destroys what you thought you saw?
2. Should you ignore the creator and his other works in order to avoid ruining one of his work that you cherish, even if it means that you are misreading him?

Either way, I found this movie to be satisfying. I got the tickets dirt cheap at 70% off as the movie is flopping. If it stays next week, I don't mind paying the whole price to watch it again.

Today I watched "Hope" by Na-Hong Jin,  when I saw the trailer I knew this movie will have very very bad CGi and eventually it was true. There was one scene where alien was running and a tear fell from her eye, that scene's CGi was so worse it made me remember Indian TV serials. Na just pushed us into the scene without any context, In starting it was hard to grasp the emotions of characters, but gradually it settled. The movie was very inconsistent (up and down and up and down). I was expecting something like "The wailing" but it's ok if it's different. Performance were good, I liked the dialogues. I liked the Invincible guy(Chief's grandfather's brother's grandson -second cousin).It's a decent watch. The main problem was for me that I couldn't understand the bigger picture, what was this trying to say that both civilizations are on a verge and they're hoping to come out of this tragedy they're suffering from, or am I dumb or was there a big metaphorical meanings. If someone knows please explain or Na was trying to say something like Kubrick (Eyes Wide Shut).........

You can't finish watching this movie without falling in love with Sidney Lumet, the director and Paul Newman, the actor. They are able to bring to the screen a world that oozes despair, where pessimism is in the air, and characters are desperately trying to seek what is just, as per their moral values, but are often disappointed as the machinery is itself cold, rusty and impermeable to any sense of morality, as courts are grounds for winning or losing cases, not for serving justice.

Lumet directs this film with utmost calm and control. There is no scope for anything flashy, as his long shots let the scenes breathe, and the atmosphere settle in the minds of the viewers. The courtroom scenes use no score, as you look at expressionless faces in the crowd, which give you no hope. Newman is excellent at bringing out his broken and vulnerable side. He is an ambulance chaser by day and an alcoholic by night. He is lonely in life, clumsy in gait, and slurry in speech. When his sense of justice is reborn, he goes out of his way to make a trial out of a case that was already settled. To win his war of morality, to preserve his sense of justice, he betrays his clients and makes a decision that was not his to make in the first place.

(Spoilers ahead)

The twists regarding Laura and KC were highly predictable, though they made sense thematically and narrative-wise. Newman's summation speech could have easily come across as cheesy if he did not deliver it with such vulnerability. And I do not fully agree with the ending, as Newman had practically no case for him. It seemed like the jury went and watched 12 Angry Men before coming to the verdict. The movie was set up for a 'To Kill A Mockingbird' ending, and the script did not do enough to end otherwise.

The final scene, where Newman just lets the phone ring, was the perfect note to end the movie.

This masterpiece of a movie has been on my mind for a while now. One thing that bothers me goes as follows and it is assuming that Teddy is telling the truth:

Lenny's condition does not allow him to make new long term memories.

Lenny killed his own wife with insulin after his condition began.

His memories about Sammy occured prior to his condition.

Lenny attributed "killing the wife with insulin" to his long term memories about Sammy.

Therefore Lenny retained new information by incorporating it into an existing long term memory

I understand that existing memories can become distorted. But in this case, the distortion contains specific information acquired after his anterograde amnesia began. What mechanism would allow him to retain that information as part of an old memory while being unable to form a new one? And if that’s possible, could he theoretically come to remember Teddy as a neighbour from before his injury, for example?

Dying for answers...

(This was my response to a critic who was bored by the heavy handed satire in Digger. In summation: This movie is not terribly interested in entertaining you. There are set pieces that I think are undeniably well done and beautifully crafted, but the true mastery of the film is in the framing device and meta narrative which are superbly subtle when juxtaposed with the blunt satire of the play.)

Pretty much all criticism of the movie I've seen only engage with the movie in the most shallow of terms. "Big Oil Bad" is NOT the "message" of the film if there even is a message. To me there wasn't a solid thesis that could be encapsulated into a pithy truism.

It's a commentary on the nature of satire itself in the face of impending catastrophe and interrogates the audience's complicity in the cycle of absurdist entertainment. It asks us how revolutionary can laughing at our own tragedy actually be? Can art be anything but placating? You being so wrapped up in how bored you were with the satire while the film is actively criticizing itself for the same thing is hilarious to me. It's like another level of the movie breached into reality. You are literally one of the audience members strapping his mask on, but shaking his head at how terrible Fossil Fools was while trundling out onto a cold flooded hellscape. We all are. To me, that level of commentary and self awareness transcends comedy into discomfort and shame and hopelessness back to comedy. It's sublime. And you not understanding that and comparing it disfavorably to other heavy handed satires only increases my enjoyment of the movie. I rarely stay past the credits, but I wanted to see more of that future world that is so scary because it's not really that far removed from the future we can already picture because its already happening. And after that image fades... The sound of a rainforest. Frogs and birds. Insects. The sound of rain on broad leaves. Sounds that are being actively silenced as I watched the movie. It was bittersweet because it felt like a eulogy. Those sounds are precious because they aren't going to last and a world I didn't choose, don't know how to stop is coming and all I can do is cheer and clap at a big empty screen.

Edit: Post I was responding to: https://www.reddit.com/r/moviecritic/s/KwZHjezeKr

I made this canvas over the past couple days. Each image represents some of my favorite movies. I realized after making it that I should change the color of the word “cinema” in order to create contrast because currently it all blends together too much with it all being white. Problem is I can’t decide on a color and I’m worried because once I do it there’s no going back.

Also I know I butchered my boy rob pat in “the drama” image lol

Imgur Canvas Art Piece

SPOILERS

By the way people are talking about this, I expected the movie to culminate in some big revelation or reveal that would completely flip the film on its head and change everything. This film doesn’t do that. In fact, where everything ends up going is very anticlimactic and to be completely honest, I left the theater disappointed. But the more I think about it, where this movie went was much more profound and affecting than any big, Nathan Fielder rug pull would have been. This movie challenges everything you think you know about documentaries, about Elizabeth Holmes, about Nathan Fielder, and about yourself. So much in this documentary feels like it could be biased, staged, or just completely made up and yet, counterintuitively that makes this one of the most true to life works of film ever. You go in looking for answers, twists, and revelations, and while you get some, the film still leaves you unsatisfied and confused. But if this movie did try to give an explanation, to solve the “mystery” at its core, wouldn’t that be ingenue? We are all looking for answers and for most people that answer is god, for Billy its, power, for Elizabeth it may be love and it may be power, and for some of us it is Nathan Fielder. But like this film, life doesn’t provide any answers. The big “magic trick” this movie pulls is that there is no catch. The ice pick does really just go through the hand. Instead of trying to provide answers, this movie holds a mirror up to us all and has us look into the big, blue eyes of humanity and lets us see everything and yet, we still can’t see anything at all.

I held my breath through most of this movie.
It follows Austin's character, a grieving son, as he goes into the waters to find his dad.

The father lives for the ocean is desperate to pass on his love of diving, the ocean and whales. The son learned the skills but never felt the same love, and that gap seems to disappoint his dad.

I'd never seen the inside of a whale before. Knowing the old story of a man who survived in one, I was desperate to see how Austin's character would get out. The moment I can't forget is his hands covered in acid, and then the squid trying to kill him with their tentacles. I felt his panic, and the close-ups made it so claustrophobic that I felt trapped too. I gripped my seat and was jolted more than once.

The CGI scenes were the one thing I couldn't gloss over, even knowing it couldn't be helped.

It's about a son trying to redeem himself. I've liked Austin Abrams since before this movie, and I almost always watch his movies. Anyone who loves the ocean and whales should watch it.

Let me start by saying that Jacques Audiard is a filmmaker I respected enormously; "A Prophet" is one of my favorite movies of the century; and "Dheepan" is a beautiful refugee drama.

I say this to explain why I finally watched the unhinged musical "Emilia Pérez" after successfully avoiding it two Oscar seasons ago: I didn't follow the award circuit closely and never imagined Audiard was the name behind the film that got tons of Oscar nominations plus an entire country against it.

It wasn’t until yesterday, when "Emilia Perez" popped up on my screen, that I realized Audiard had directed it. So I pressed play, ready to prove the haters wrong. Well, of course they were right, and now I can see why Mexican viewers had such strong objections.

Audiard’s genre-blending mess of a movie displays cultural carelessness at best and inhumanity at worst. I got the impression that Audiard, as a filmmaker, thought he was creating a fantastical version of the country of Mexico, but this isn’t Oz. His dramatic material draws on the real suffering of real people whose lives he didn’t bother to understand.

The more I think about the plot, the more absurd Audiard’s decision to build an original movie musical around cartel violence and gender identity seems. I could perhaps respect the sheer boldness of it if the execution hadn’t been so crappy AND if Audiard had found a way around the film’s central moral problem: the extraordinary generosity it extends to the lead character.

Let me recap. Karla Sofía Gascón plays Manitas, a drug cartel boss whose greatest wish is to transition in secret while faking his own death to escape this extremely violent and macho background. A few years after transitioning, now living happily as a Emilia Pérez; she contacts the lawyer played by Zoe Saldaña, who aided her at the beginning, to go back home.

Anyway, with the softer heart Emilia now possesses, she decides to try to make amends to the cartels’ victims and establishes an organization to help locate missing people. The movie frames this as wonderful work, but in the context of the real-world Mexico, we are talking about a staggering scale of cartel violence—the victims aren’t just people involved in drug trafficking, but also children, women, ordinary citizens—and thousands of families searching for missing relatives or just waiting for their remains to be found.

And what’s being proposed here is that this fictional character who has VARIOUS real-life counterparts and would presumably have been responsible for hundreds (maybe thousands) of murders can suddenly escape her past and emerge happy, at peace with herself, with ALL the money accumulated through criminal activity—naturally, without answering for any of those crimes. The suggestion, then, is that this attempt at making amends is enough.

At a certain point, Emilia allows her more violent self to resurface. (The movie, which also drew criticism from trans viewers, seems to treat her former identity as Manitas as a kind of “split personality.”) This final eruption of violence results in a tragedy from which Emilia emerges—wait for it!—sanctified. No, I’m not speaking figuratively. And that was all, the movie was over.

What did I even see? I don’t even know how to wrap this up except, I guess, by apologizing for reminding everyone that this film exists, and for ignoring the warnings of those who encouraged me and the world that it was not worth it.

I have just watched Bones and All and I fell in love with this movie. I am very impressed by the range of Luca Guadagnino as a director. He has a gift for telling horrific stories in a gentle and beautiful way.

While watching the film I thought "This is a coming off age story!". Bones and All is a shocking film. I was disgusted and moved at the same time. But the gruesome subject matter is told with so much gentleness and beauty. It made me reflect on society and my own struggles as a young adult.

I want to emphasize that Mark Rylance is giving one of the most creepy and mesmerizing performances that I can think of. There are only 3 big scenes with him, but each is hypnotic and tense, culminating is the creepiest drop of saliva in movie history. But it would be a shame not to mention Michael Stuhlbarg, who also has an incredibly scary scene at the campfire. A scene that lends the film its title.

Many people seem to believe that the cannibalism is a metaphor for addiction. I was rather seeing some criticisms of modern capitalistic societies. A system that forces people to play by the (exploitative) rules of capitalism, which has to grow and be fed constantly to function. A system that "eats" a large amount of its people, the poor and unfortunate. But that might quite well be a false interpretation. What seems to be clear though is, that the cannibalism stands for growing older and accepting (or not!) the compromises of the real world. I myself kept thinking of my own life, how I had dreams that I could never fulfill. "We have to do it" Lee says. Like I had to come to terms with life, find a job, earn some money and play by the rules - giving up some of my own freedom. "eating" some of my own dreams and desires. Lee and Maren decide to try to live like normal people. Shedding those desires (hunger, greed) and only do, what makes them happy and be free.

And there comes Sully, deformed and twisted by all the hunger and loneliness he had to endure. He knows how to survive - but not how to form a meaningful relationship.

"Friends call me Sully". And he is the only person calling himself Sully, speaking of himself in third person, because nobody else does. He is his own and only friend. His feelings get mixed up with his hunger in the end. Eating somebody (especially an eater) you love seems to be the highest spiritual sensation an eater can have. And I do think that Stuhlbarg and Brad were planning on eating Lee and Maren - Bones and All.

And I do think that her mother had the same uncontrollable urge to eat Maren. Again, the confusion of love and hunger. "A world free of monsters". Her mother saw herself as a monster, not because she was an eater, but because she knew she was gonna eat Maren, if she doesn't disappear.

Before I conclude, I want to also praise the music by Reznor and Ross. The intensity of the scene where Maren finds out the secret of Sully in the old ladies home is also a result of the hypnotic percussion that supports the acting - again, masterfully played by Rylence.

Even days after I have watched this film, i still can't get it out of my head.

"Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes..."

My ‘intro to film’ colleague and I were talking about the Lanterns HBO show and it bled into a comparison between Lanterns and F1 and also In The Mood for Love/TheGodfather. Our main conversation was how he felt the Lanterns show and F1 (movie equal) struck all strides of the 3 act structure and character motivations (Story by Robert Mckee) where he could identify the climax, intention/goal, resolution, inciting incident, and so on but the movie emotionally still feels flat. It did everything it was structurally supposed to but the movie just still wasn’t able to deliver on a compelling resolution but it was still “good enough” to enjoy. For Lanterns, we both liked the show but it still felt hollow to us and reminded us about how we felt about F1. We both loved the visuals of both things, but didnt care much for the characters aside from the willing agreement that we like movie tropes where the old badass returns for another fight or has to train the new lead (Creed, F1, Unforgiven).

This also led into ”In the Mood for Love” and Godfather because we watched these two together and had polar opposite reactions to them. I loved ITMFL and disliked Godfather because I just couldn’t get behind the pacing, lack of understanding of real life mafia politics, and the characters/story just wasn’t for me but i would never say that it doesn’t have great cinematography and acting. For him, ITMFL was soulless except from the cinematography and its usage conveying the theme, which he loved and that felt like an objective thing that he couldn’t dispute. We talked a lot about how “art is subjective” but find that there are some objective qualities that we personally can’t acknowledge dispite not liking the entire movie.

I also see a lot of film reviews now, especially with large IP, where things like saying The Last Jedi has great cinematography means I loved every decision the filmmakers made. I just mean I love the cinematography. We are also film students and when I see other student films, i feel like we all lack basic things that hollywood gets right and i like to appreciate even the little basic things that often gets overlooked. I make this post because i wonder if movies or shows like this are actually good ways of teaching filmmaking or film criticism because they have all the things you need to make compelling story/character but something that just doesn’t strike. I also wonder if this is a sentiment that’s been discussed before? let me know your thoughts!

I’ve been thinking about making a personal documentary about my own life, potentially over the course of several years.

The idea is to film my everyday life, including conversations with friends and family, moments of conflict, awkward situations, and ordinary interactions. I’m interested in how being filmed changes the way I behave, whether I start performing for the camera, and how my relationships evolve when my life becomes something I’m documenting.

One of the things I’m curious about is what happens when people discover that they’ve been filmed without knowing it, and that the footage might eventually become part of an artistic documentary. Would they feel betrayed? Would they be angry? Could they still appreciate the artistic value of the project, even if they felt uncomfortable with how the footage was obtained?

I’d really like to hear your honest reactions:

If you discovered that a friend or family member had secretly filmed conversations involving you for a personal documentary, how would you feel?

Would it make a difference if the filmmaker’s intention wasn’t to mock, expose, or humiliate you, but to explore human behaviour, relationships, and the effect of being observed?

If the footage captured something genuinely meaningful or revealing about your relationship, could you appreciate the result despite the lack of consent?

Would you be more upset about the act of filming itself, the possibility of the footage being shown to strangers, or the fact that someone you trusted had made that decision?

If you were allowed to watch the footage and decide whether you wanted to appear in the final film, would that change your feelings?

Do you think there’s artistic value in exploring these uncomfortable questions, or does secretly filming people cross a line that artistic intentions cannot justify?

I’m not trying to argue that secretly filming people is necessarily acceptable. I’m genuinely interested in where people draw the line between artistic freedom, privacy, and trust.

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar, or who have strong feelings about documentary filmmaking and informed consent.

I want to start by Saying I’m not saying there are no good films made there are many good films made this is not a death of cinema post. I’m more saying I feel I almost never see films that feel fresh and as though I haven’t seen something like it entirely before. The few revolutionary films made recently I can’t think of I’ve seen are Bi Gans films and to a lesser degree Digger. Also I’m not talking technically there are always new tech jumps I’m talking narrative structure, ideas and editing etc.

Like I feel 21st century cinema is nowhere near as revolutionary in terms of transforming the medium of film like Orson Welles, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Bergman and many others did for example. There aren’t any major movements today as revolutionary to how films are structured, edited and politic and societal critiques that are new and innovative as the French Revolution or New Hollywood. The last 20 to 30 years feels largely like we are running out of new ways to tell stories and new ideas and things to say and it just feels we are repeating alot of what had come before. Like there’s not revolutionary films like citizen Kane or breathless today or styles of editing like Soviet montage theory. Is the canvas of cinema largely about as wide as it can be expanded or is it a stagnant period I’m having trouble thinking of what might be future evolutions that will be viewed as revolutionary as the films and movements I’ve mentioned. I just feel this century is getting a little boring and with all the political turmoil it is surprising there hasn’t been a lot of innovation was it just the 20th century was unique or what?

Would love to hear your thoughts?

I thought the Digger credits were some of the best parts of the movie, especially because I watched it with my mom, who was a biologist before she retired.

She pointed out that during the credits, the forest sounds (unsure which forest) they played were that of native frog species to the Amazon rainforest. Slowly, as the credits went on they introduced sounds of the North American Bullfrog. The North American bullfrog is widely invasive and aggressive to local fauna, and can expand rapidly in water.

Thought this was such an apt reflection of the film itself, and a great way to end it off. Equally loved the lights coming up with the “Level 4” announcement. What do y’all think?

I didn’t get this at all. I’m aware it’s been considered a bit of a flop in terms of the box office but figured that was just poor marketing. The cast is fantastic and Inarritu is capable of being fantastic too. I’d carefully avoided reading anything about it, despite so many of you putting near-spoilers in the titles of threads. I was really ready to go in blind and enjoy this.

For the first 40 minutes or so it felt like more of the same ham-fisted, on-the-nose, SNL-style “satire” that we’ve seen so much of over the last few years. It was painful watching Sandra Huller and Riz Ahmed, who I absolutely adore, doing these awful accents and playing these (barely) one-dimensional characters. Tom Cruise delivered some of his lines in a very funny way but the whole premise felt incredibly stale and more like what a conservative might imagine of an idiot liberal’s idea of satire.

Then the first reveal happened and suddenly it made sense. That’s not the real film. They’re not going to make us watch this bullshit for the entire run-time…

It’s already tired and pointless trying to tear down the establishment with these sorts of caricatures. Inarritu isn’t simply trying to be Lanthimos or Ari Aster or Ruben Ostlund or even Wes Anderson, he’s mocking these clunky style-over-substance black comedies that imitate them and don’t go anywhere or have the balls to really make a statement.

And then we just continued to watch that same god-awful movie for the next 90 minutes anyway.

Occasionally we’d dip out of it and get some sort of equally clunky meta-commentary, a bit of Birdman, a bit of Charlie Kaufman, but mostly it was just watching Tom Cruise channeling Uncle Baby Billy from The Righteous Gemstones and John Goodman doing not-Trump with a sore arsehole.

I don’t get it. I felt like the film openly acknowledged this was all complete drivel - that’s what the big reveal was, yet we have to continue watching it anyway?

Digger questions the integrity, accuracy and writing of the project, but then Jessie Plemons fixes everything with a rousing speech (and another fun reveal!) and oh, Digger has a daughter by the way and she’s in peril, due to weather, but she’s okay now so that’s nice.

What was the point? “The establishment” are bad? Okay. Liberals mocking them and not focusing on the real problems are bad too? Yeah sure. The world is burning? Who is this aimed at?

Was it Jessie Plemons’ (who was also great) speech about the story being dumb and fun and OTT and that’s fine? Was that the point? That none of it matters and we should just enjoy being spoon fed bullshit like in The Menu? I watched the video about cinema being a bit broken by the endless analysis and need to decode the true message of film etc. but what else is there to this movie? You can’t beat people over the head with (what is normally) sub-text and then pull the “it’s not that deep” line.

I did see one thread title on here that the film wants to have its cake and eat it too. I assume that’s what this was referring to but I’ve avoided reading any other opinions.

Why were the obnoxious music and quirky cinematography so prominent if they weren’t expected to be enjoyed in earnest? At a point it felt like Inarritu jabbing at other filmmakers, but I don’t believe that would be the intention. Why was this such a feature? Because it’s easy to churn this stuff out now, that it’s easy to imitate something that was previously quite original? We've certainly seen many of his techniques from Birdman (which I loved) absolutely flogged to death, often with no tie-in to the core of the material, in the last 10 years or so.

What am I missing? Did people sincerely enjoy the way the ‘play’ within the film was put together? There were isolated moments of entertainment in there, some good performances and some very inventive visuals at least.

I don’t want to shit on the film unnecessarily. I’d like to understand what he was trying to do or if I missed something fundamental to other people enjoying it. As ever, I find a film that is almost good much more frustrating than one with nothing to offer at all. I could understand Inarritu pointing the finger at all of the above and saying it’s a load of shite, but then don’t ask us to suffer through it for over 2 hours. To me, it feels like this should have been a 15 minute SNL sketch.

Say what you want about Digger, but I maintain that it is the best acting I've ever seen from Tom Cruise. I believe he was the best pick for this role, and given what I've heard about the background discussions that got him onto the set of Tropic Thunder, I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being one of his favourite roles.

In fact, the acting in Digger is top notch all-around and I particularly loved the over-acted scenes, given the context.

Unsurprisingly, it's the best film this year in my opinion. I believe those who dislike the film are anchored to unrealistic expectations of what the film ought to have been - whether it be the story, style, acting, etc.

If you haven't watched Digger yet, I strongly recommend watching it in theatres and going into it with zero context and zero expectations.

*Trapped in an insane asylum or some other place

I feel like I’ve seen this trope a lot growing up, including in an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. You show up somewhere and everything seems fine, and then suddenly, you realise you aren’t allowed to ever leave. Like the Eagles song “Hotel California” - “you can check out any time you like, but… you can never leeeeave”.

I always wondered what the original reference(s) might be! Is there even such a thing?

I did not love the movie when it came out but I still really respect its craft. But I do think it’s one of those movies that work better in your mind as a concept than as a movie. Though in the future when people aren’t really as familiar with the Backrooms then the movie could be mindblowing. The acting is all well done, I don’t like the writing but I think it can work in it’s favor for cult class.