Jake Gittes

I think you're gonna really dig a lot of his stuff.

Cronenberg has easily been the most consistent over the longest period of time. Some missteps along the way, but nothing terrible, and a lot of greatness.

Sure. Django and maybe Death Proof are the only movies that doesn't apply to.

The reason he's my favorite working filmmaker is because he almost always pays equal attention to all major elements of film (dialogue, performance, tone, pacing, visual style, music) while telling stories that are genuinely inventive, entertaining, smart and emotionally involving at the same time. And, to add, he's doing all of that with seemingly unlimited joy and enthusiasm that always come through. I think he's got two of the greatest films of all time (PF, Jackie Brown) and at least three other fantastic movies (RD, Kill Bill taken as a whole, Basterds) under his belt, and while he's not at all above reproach (Death Proof and Django are both "merely" pretty good, and I don't have any desire to watch them again any time soon), that's a hell of a track record.

See also: The Master.

Seen 299. Good question. Drop whatever you're doing right now and watch it.

What does that have to do with it? QT considers Kill Bill to be one movie, doesn't mean everyone should but he has a full right to do that.

Wouldn't surprise me if he simply goes into television like Soderbergh and others, provided they can get him some film to shoot on

I feel like WOWS is my favorite Di Caprio performance because, for once, he's not trying to go method in it (and is also discovering his amazing physical comedy skillz). I agree with people who say they rarely, if ever see him fully disappearing into a character, but that's not inherently wrong (you can say the same thing about most iconic actors of the '30s and '40s, or, say, Nic Cage), and in Wolf he actually seems aware of that, knowing that we've come to watch him and putting on a grand show both as Leo Di Caprio and as Jordan Belfort. And because the performance is so outsized and fourth-wall-breaking, that kind of blend actually makes it more effective, pulling us closer both in comedic moments ("wow, when's the last time Leo Di Caprio was so much fun?") and in dramatic ones ("did you just fucking see Leo Di Caprio punch a woman in the stomach?"). I don't know if that makes much sense but that's what I arrived at when I started thinking about why I love him in that movie so much even though I never forget I'm watching him.

Tied with Mad Max for my favorite movie of the year so far. Peter Strickland made some waves two years ago with Berberian Sound Studio, and here now he's made his first near-masterpiece, turning what is on the surface a tribute to kinky lesbian erotica of the '70s into a really smart, moving, occasionally hilarious, and - visually and aurally - breathtakingly beautiful take on some crucial pitfalls of long-term relationships and the sacrifices a couple has to make in order to move forward together. If you describe it as a movie about lesbian entomologists who dress like it's the 1800s and seem to be living in some kind of a purely cinematic all-female quasi-Victorian fantasy world somewhere in Eastern Europe, it sounds like a parody of an art film, and I'm sure its audience was limited because of that - and that's a shame, because, save for maybe one sequence near the end, it's completely unpretentious and could be relatable to anyone who has ever had to make compromises in a relationship. And if the Oscars paid any kind of attention to movies like this, it'd land half a dozen nominations just in the technical categories. You can see that from the trailer already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-xIMBnclyA

The Duke of Burgundy (2015)

Cinematography looks kinda easy to predict from this point - The Revenant, The Hateful Eight, Carol, Sicario, Spectre and Mad Max seem like the only movies with a big enough chance to get in, and I think either Sicario or Spectre will get the snub. Though it's possible I'm just not paying enough attention to the boring period pieces like Suffragette or The Dressmaker.

Not Phoenix?

Anderson's best movie after Rushmore and Mr. Fox. Should have got all the nominations and awards that were piled on GBH last year.

IIRC, Friedkin himself said before shooting that if the car chase wasn't gonna be better than the one in The French Connection, the whole movie wasn't worth making. I agree that it ended up being better.

It's also an awesome deconstruction of the buddy cop movie in general and the loose cannon cop who gets results, dammit character type in particular. I found it hard to believe at first that it was actually made before Lethal Weapon.

Didn't care for the ending, but before that it's truly gorgeous, and Mortensen especially does a good job of holding it together and keeping it interesting. Some really nice sprinkles of off-beat humor in there too. Also, it's JAUJA.

Love the shit out of this movie. Maybe my favorite Friedkin. The shotgun to the face shocked me more than most movie moments ever will.

I guess all cinema should just be a bunch of feel-good, "life-affirming" movies that never challenge or confront anyone, or deal with the angst, darkness, anxieties and issues that are all very real.

So from now on Keaton won't rest until he wins his damn Oscar

Lol wtf. It's not hitting 4x.

A ton of fun. At least as good as the fourth one, maybe even better, because the third act isn't noticeably weaker than the middle, and Rebecca Ferguson's character and performance are much more engaging than those of any of the previous female leads. Like Ghost Protocol and the last couple F&F movies, it's basically three enormous, very elaborate set-pieces stitched together with the bare-bones plot and exposition, but all of them are hugely entertaining. The opera scene is the most stylish and my personal favorite; sadly, Robert Elswit doesn't get a whole lot to do afterwards, and for all its thrills, MI5 doesn't feel very distinctive from other huge action movies, which is one of its weaknesses along with a lot of just-go-with-it plotting and a villain who's somewhat effective but ultimately feels like a much less memorable or threatening version of Philip Seymour Hoffman in MI3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeeTfsm8bk

Little character moments like that are as responsible as the shark-related thrills for this still being the best summer blockbuster of them all (or at least in the top 3). 99% of today's big movies either don't bother with scenes like that or don't pull them off nearly as well as Spielberg and his actors do.

I literally just rewatched Face/Off so that would've seemed appropriate. Should have gone for it.