Movies Thread

[UNCMSinLS]

#10 of 10: "The Secret Agent". Grade: D

Wow, what a mess! "The Secret Agent" certainly kept the reason for its Oscar nomination a secret. Too many scenes contributed nothing to the plot. Too many confusing characters were thrown into a meaningless mix. And the damn thing lasted two hours and forty minutes. Meu Deus! This was BY FAR the worst of the ten nominees. It will win zero Oscars as the Best International Feature Film award will likely go to "Sentimental Value".

Could my problem with "The Secret Agent" have been the language barrier and subtitles? Probably not because I thoroughly enjoyed last year's captioned "I'm Still Here," a far better movie about the same political era. Could I have watched this too close in time to "One Battle After Another"? Maybe. But the similar length of "One Battle" flew by while this movie dragged like molasses. No, there are no excuses here. This was just an overblown, overrated, confusing, and bad movie.

Here's my Oscar Best Picture ranking with final grades:

1) "One Battle After Another" - A
2) "Train Dreams" - A-
3) "Hamnet" - B+
4) "F1: The Movie" - B+
5) "Bugonia" - B
6) "Frankenstein" - B
7) "Sinners" - B-
8) "Marty Supreme" - C+
9) "Sentimental Value" - C
10) "The Secret Agent" - D

All in all, it was a decent but not great movie year. "One Battle" will likely be the only movie to have a lasting impact, largely because of its timing related to what's going on in this country now. It should win the Oscar, but "Sinners" is the only other movie with a real shot at an upset. I guess we'll find out Sunday night.

 

[EyeballKid]

I haven’t scoured the thread thoroughly, but upon a quick glance of the last couple pages, I don’t see a discussion about the fact that One Battle is based loosely on the Thomas Pynchon novel “Vineland.”

This is PT Anderson’s second Pynchon-inspired movie, after “Inherent Vice.”

 

[duluoz]

Watched Nouvelle Vague which was fun and funny. They wrote Godard as everyone would want him to be. Then I rewatched Breathless and Pierrot le fou and was struck by how much rhythm they have. My memory of Breathless was that it was jagged and fragmented but this time it didn’t seem so. I’d never seen Pierrot le fou and the heightened absurdism might make it the better film. Also Godard was a pretty early feminist, in a French chauvinist way.

Loved it, it slid just into my top 10. A great intro to the period and movement if you’re new to it, and a whole lot of fun if you’re better versed.

Still haven’t seen Pierrot either. For Breathless, to use an overused and abused term these days, Jean Seberg was iconic. And in NV, the “New York Herald Tribune” scene recreated on the Champs-Élysées was a big highlight.

My tiny gripe is that Jean Seberg is on such a pedestal that I didn’t think Zoey Deutch quite carried it off. But good enough to not detract too much. The Belmondo guy was uncanny though.

 

[duluoz]

#10 of 10: "The Secret Agent". Grade: D

Wow, what a mess! "The Secret Agent" certainly kept the reason for its Oscar nomination a secret. Too many scenes contributed nothing to the plot. Too many confusing characters were thrown into a meaningless mix. And the damn thing lasted two hours and forty minutes. Meu Deus! This was BY FAR the worst of the ten nominees. It will win zero Oscars as the Best International Feature Film award will likely go to "Sentimental Value".

Could my problem with "The Secret Agent" have been the language barrier and subtitles? Probably not because I thoroughly enjoyed last year's captioned "I'm Still Here," a far better movie about the same political era. Could I have watched this too close in time to "One Battle After Another"? Maybe. But the similar length of "One Battle" flew by while this movie dragged like molasses. No, there are no excuses here. This was just an overblown, overrated, confusing, and bad movie.

Here's my Oscar Best Picture ranking with final grades:

1) "One Battle After Another" - A
2) "Train Dreams" - A-
3) "Hamnet" - B+
4) "F1: The Movie" - B+
5) "Bugonia" - B
6) "Frankenstein" - B
7) "Sinners" - B-
8) "Marty Supreme" - C+
9) "Sentimental Value" - C
10) "The Secret Agent" - D

All in all, it was a decent but not great movie year. "One Battle" will likely be the only movie to have a lasting impact, largely because of its timing related to what's going on in this country now. It should win the Oscar, but "Sinners" is the only other movie with a real shot at an upset. I guess we'll find out Sunday night.

Talking movies around town, I’m surprised how many people are all over The Secret Agent. Almost like it’s become the “in the know” movie to say was your favorite of the year. I just can’t understand putting it even near the top.

I thought it was good (solid B) but it’s getting highly overrated IMO. It’s overly long and I didn’t feel the stakes throughout like I expected to.

 

[duluoz]

I like Minnie and Moskowitz quite a lot, though it feels like an adulterated version of Cassavetes inasmuch as it was greenlit as part of Ned Tanen's youth-cult push at Universal. Granted, Tanen also greenlit The Last Movie, which is maximalist Hopper.

I think Cassavetes make the most sense--in particular the two movies I listed--when you keep in mind that the goal is to produce a sort of "onstage" (onscreen) sense of dramatic truthfulness derived from American takes on Stanislavski and the like. In the case of Opening Night, this ideal makes sense of the poor framing, the out-of-focus shots, pointless dialogue, etc. Put those elements in a Malick movie (and add lens flare), and you've got the aesthetic of spontaneity, a sort of New Hollywood shorthand for the guiding presence of a filmmaker behind the camera. But put those same elements in Opening Night, a film about marginalizing the director, screenwriter, and producer responsible for staging a play, and you've got the techniques whereby Cassavetes presumes to show that the film director has created the conditions for truthfulness onstage/screen. In short, Cassavetes's camera struggles to anticipate the movements of characters because Cassavetes has ceded control over those elements to the actors themselves.

Interesting points and I haven’t seen Opening Night yet (I’ll watch it soon), but I’m not sure about what you are underscoring as onstage/onscreen. You lost me in the middle there. My feel for Cassavetes is that he’s mostly trying to stay out of the way and let the actors play the scenes as naturalistically as possible, and obscure any idea of stage/screen. Lingering with the camera in long, sometimes brutally tough moments. And some of it seems pointless because lots of the minutiae of life seems pretty pointless, but it’s real nonetheless, and often captured in his movies. And his slice of life style often frees actor/director/viewer from the conventional plot approach to storytelling.

Which maybe that’s part of what you’re getting at by the end, not sure.

 

[duluoz]

I haven’t scoured the thread thoroughly, but I upon a quick glance of the last couple pages, I don’t see a discussion about the fact that One Battle is based loosely on the Thomas Pynchon novel “Vineland.”

This is PT Anderson’s second Pynchon-inspired movie, after “Inherent Vice.”

There’s some chatter about it way back on pages 23 and 25.

I’ve only read Inherent Vice, so I’m no Pynchon expert. But I thought it was a blast and so was the movie.

 

[breepf]

Interesting points and I haven’t seen Opening Night yet (I’ll watch it soon), but I’m not sure about what you are underscoring as onstage/onscreen. You lost me in the middle there. My feel for Cassavetes is that he’s mostly trying to stay out of the way and let the actors play the scenes as naturalistically as possible, and obscure any idea of stage/screen. Lingering with the camera in long, sometimes brutally tough moments. And some of it seems pointless because lots of the minutiae of life seems pretty pointless, but it’s real nonetheless, and often captured in his movies. And his slice of life style often frees actor/director/viewer from the conventional plot approach to storytelling.

Which maybe that’s part of what you’re getting at by the end, not sure.

I think you've got the gist of it.

I say "onstage" because Cassavetes developed his dramatic ideals in a theatrical setting, not a cinematic one. Same goes for a variety of other New Hollywood directors who trained in the Neighborhood Playhouse, Group Theater, Actors Studio milieu--Lumet, Pollack, Frankenheimer, May, etc.

The odd onstage/onscreen split emerges in the sense that he's adapting theatrical ideals to modernist cinema (as opposed to the Kraft Playhouse TV show). As far as I can recall, Cassavetes is never trying to wow an audience with a well-planned long take. Why? Because that type of conspicuous cinematography would detract from the "rawness" of the performances. What he can feature instead is "bad" cinematography that conspicuously adapts in the moment to the "spontaneity" of the actors. This "bad" cinematography underscores this sense in which his films are dramatically truthful because the directors has given the actors' control over the performance--he's not putting marks on the floor, say.

The counterpoint about Malick is that his training is the AFI conservatory--it's "cinematic" and, for that reason, his professional obligations gravitate towards underlining his own occupational control over how the making of a film is accomplished.

 

[duluoz]

Saw the film Sovereign last night, and my first impression is that it jumps into at least the top three films of 2025. It's justifiably an instant contender for many awards, but first of all for best actor for Nick Offerman. He has recently stunned me with brilliant acting in the masterpiece science fiction series DEVS, and yet again in his single episode in the first season of The Last of Us. He could have a huge future in films now.

The topic of the film--based on true events-- is about another current and scary stripe of the growing American ideological madness, one that has a big but not total overlap with the Trump/Republican madness. It's the idea some people have that they are "sovereign" and can reject any government law or statute at any time. Rather than show the trailer, which gives away too much I think, I will show you a short clip from the film:

Finally watched this tonight. It’s one of the most topical movies of the year, very tough and very grim. Even though there were bits that were hopeful.

But all in all I didn’t see all that you saw in it. I thought there were some pat choices by the writer/director that were unnecessary and distracting. Aside from those, it had a very gritty realistic feel, rang very true.

Offerman was fantastic. The kid was very good (was the little boy from Room).

Gave it a solid B.

 

[duluoz]

Kelly Reichardt is one of my favorite filmmakers but this one missed the mark for me. Still worth the watch for some great camera work and a lens that really gave the washed out look of a movie from 1970, and some excellent acting, some good laughs. But all in all it just didn’t work with her trademark tone and pacing.

B-

 

[duluoz]

Absolutely loved this one, though unfortunately I think it would bore the shit out of most people. But the deep New Yorkness of the ‘70s including the trademark Warhol-set accent and all the scenester name-dropping — talk about a slice of very specific NYC life from the era that IMO really defines the city to this day. And at its core it’s just two close friends existing together, both artists not quite struggling but not quite having made it either.

Shot into my top 5 for the year, and only after I sat with it a day (I’d initially scored it a bit lower). It’s resonating more and more though.

A-

 

[StoneColdHeel]

 

[fourheels]

Just watched this. Haven't laughed so hard in a loooong time. Perfect mashup of Downton Abbey meets Airplane!/Naked Gun/Top Secret! and much funnier than the Naked Gun reboot. Highly recommend, especially if you are someone who enjoyed Downton Abbey but grew up on ZAZ humor.

 

[Ddseddse]

Watched the Princess Bride last night with my daughter. Was thinking how the music pretty much made the movie. Whiout the soundtrack I think it would have been just so much camp. Then watching the credits I saw that it was Mark Knophler that did the music for it. I did not know that, or if I did once, I'd long forgotten it.

 

[GoHeelsweeeehoooo]

Seeing Project Hail Mary next Sunday - I enjoyed the book and the movie is getting great reviews so looking forward to seeing it

 

[duluoz]

Watched the Princess Bride last night with my daughter. Was thinking how the music pretty much made the movie. Whiout the soundtrack I think it would have been just so much camp. Then watching the credits I saw that it was Mark Knophler that did the music for it. I did not know that, or if I did once, I'd long forgotten it.

It’s also William Goldman who wrote the book and adapted the screenplay. He’s legendary and one of the foremost authorities on screenwriting. Also wrote Butch and Sundance, All the President’s Men, among others.

 

[breepf]

It’s also William Goldman who wrote the book and adapted the screenplay. He’s legendary and one of the foremost authorities on screenwriting. Also wrote Butch and Sundance, All the President’s Men, among others.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that he wrote All the President's Men. Sure, he got the screen credit, but he's the first one to admit that Pakula and Redford only kept his structure (end it when shit seems dark for Woodward and Bernstein) and rewrote everything else.

 

[duluoz]

Big Oscars night for One Battle with 6 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Sean Penn for Supporting.

Sentimental Value won Best International but got shut out everywhere else.

Sinners won 4 including Jordan for Best Actor, and the first female Best Cinematography winner ever, pretty cool.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

Big Oscars night for One Battle with 6 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Sean Penn for Supporting.

Sentimental Value won Best International but got shut out everywhere else.

Sinners won 4 including Jordan for Best Actor, and the first female Best Cinematography winner ever, pretty cool.

I didn't get to see it, but from the list of winners, it looks like chalk prevailed. Amy Madigan was an upset, but that was pretty much it (at least for the non-documentary/short categories).

 

[nycfan]

Went to see Project Hail Mary today. We got to see maybe one movie in the theater each year at this point and this was well worth it.

My husband and I both loved the novel, so we were predisposed to like it, but still worth it.

That said, when you don’t go often the sticker shock is something. Two rpx seats at early (11:40 am) matinee , one bottle of water and one small buttered popcorn just over $55!!!!

 

[duluoz]

Went to see Project Hail Mary today. We got to see maybe one movie in the theater each year at this point and this was well worth it.

My husband and I both loved the novel, so we were predisposed to like it, but still worth it.

That said, when you don’t go often the sticker shock is something. Two rpx seats at early (11:40 am) matinee , one bottle of water and one small buttered popcorn just over $55!!!!

That’s not nice but you can’t be talking about NYC are you? Here that would cost more like $70-75.