Movies: Last Movie You Watched and Rate it | New Year New thread

[x Tame Impala]

The Conclave (2024). The Pope is dead, long live the Pope! Ralph Fiennes, in the first unequivocally positive role of his career, plays a cardinal tasked with watching over the process of electing the new pope. This movie’s first 30 minutes are excellent: intense, suspenseful, foreboding. But then it suddenly becomes very boring. Nothing happens, the suspense is gone by the wayside, the conflict feels trivial and underdeveloped. The Big Reveal is not only mega-woke, it’s lame. His Wokeness becomes his Holiness. I am not Catholic but, to me, on the scale of 1 to 10 (10 being certain and concrete, 1 – completely unrealistic) this event happening in reality is somewhere in the “-20” range. It makes the Vatican in-fighting in Angels and Demons seem positively credible. It can fire up the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Improbability Drive. This is what happens when you woke-program ChatGPT and let it write scripts. 3/10 (for Fiennes and the first half an hour).

I didn't see this one but someone I know did. She was telling me about this plot twist and saying how it's just totally tacked on at the very end. So not only was it a stupid twist but it's insulting to the viewer because it came off as them just sneaking it in there. If that's what you want to make the movie about, fine, but waiting until the end is cowardly.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Saw Nosferatu, 8/10

Great visuals and direction, some uneven writing and acting performances .

I did like that it really was a straight remake of the original which I didn’t expect.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Killer Heat (2024), 5/10
I'm a fan of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Shailene Woodley is in it too.

From IMDB, the premise "follows twin brothers who find themselves in a dangerous love triangle on an isolated Greek island. The investigation is given to The Jealousy Man, a wounded detective."

It's a strange movie because it has interesting elements and ideas, but always felt a bit underbaked. There was not much depth to the movie, and the attempts at creating that depth fell flat for me. As a result, I didn't care about any of the characters or their fates.

Not a terrible way to spend a few hours on a plane ride, but there are much better options.

Oh yeah that's definitely a plane movie.

My biggest criticism is it's neither good enough to be good, nor is it bad enough to be entertaining. It just mostly...is. Unlike my juice, I would've preferred a lot more pulp.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Flow (2024) Directed by Gints Zilbalodis 9A

A brave cat tries to survive in the forest after a great flood has wiped out human life but spared some animals. There is no dialogue, and this wondrous piece of animation doesn't need any--the story telling is superb. Along the way, the cat is befriended by a capybara, a ringed-tail lemur, a golden labrador and a stork along his and their journey on a skiff sailing to who knows where. These animals are only very slightly anthropomorphized--this is Miyazaki territory, not Disney. They all seem to know how to use the rudder on the skiff, and they all show moments of cooperation and kinship. But other than that director Gints Zilbalodis' approach is naturalistic and thoroughly captivating. The animation complements the story perfectly, and the cat's journey is an eventful and occasionally nail-biting one with a surprising number of genuinely suspenseful moments. Latvia's submission to the 2025 Oscars' international film category, Flow is the equivalent of a top-of-the-line Ghilbi Studios work. I can't say enough good things about this movie; I just loved it.

Sidenote: While there are gracefully treated themes about resourcefulness, friendship and especially cooperation clearly evident in this movie, I'm not sure Flow is suitable for very young children. There are too many intense scenes, and the movie seems pitched as much to an adult audience as to a young one. Older children will love it, though.

Having just seen it, the sidenote applies to me as well . As a certified cat lover and cat owner my entire life, I found myself overly uncomfortable at all the cat's distress. Not that I had any doubt about the outcome, but just the depictions of the events were enough for me to immediately find my cat and give him some well-deserved scritches when I got home (my short-haired, mostly black-and-grey furred cat at that).

All that aside, and a day later trying to remove myself from my personal biases, yeah, there's definitely a lot to like and a surprising amount to dig into from a thematic perspective. There's a bit of a Noah' Ark vibe, an evolution of life angle to be had, there's climate change...you can easily look at some of animals as stand-ins for commentary on humanity (the various lemurs all wearing different crowns was bang-on for that). All of that underneath your basic (but ever-relevant) themes of needing to put differences aside to work together and survive.

I would also recommend it, but also provide a "cat owners beware" disclaimer, depending how sensitive you are.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Hundreds of Beavers. Man, I have never felt like more of a grouch than when I was watching this movie. I was excited going in. Everything I heard or read sounded like something I would enjoy.

Spoiler

 

[The Macho King]

[Reposting from locked thread with additions] Been awhile since I posted here but I just watched for the first time The Grandmaster.

I didn't really know what to expect. I knew it was about Ip Man and id seen the Donnie Yen movies, but also... i mean WKW isn't exactly known for Kung Fu. What i got.... was definitely very WKW. So much melancholy permeating through it. Ridiculously beautifully shot - a step down from In the Mood For Love and 2046 but like.... what isn't?

It also got me thinking about how some of WKWs tackle HKs relationship with the mainland. A large part of this one's melancholy is the separation it caused between both Ip Man and Gong Er from their previous lives, and how it impacted them. Days of Being Wild, 2046, and In the Mood For Love have it as a backdrop, but I think all of them featuring characters who have to leave frequently for economic opportunity is interesting. And Happy Together is probably the most directly about HK and China despite literally not taking place there, because it kind of casts a shadow over the movie as a whole.

That's all to say WKW didn't make enough movies.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

The Substance (2024). No reality here at all. A fading has-been celebrity takes a mysterious drug that splits her body into two: herself and her much younger self. Predictably, things deteriorate rapidly. Despite the name, this movie is more “style” than “substance.” Imagine Stanley Kubric going for the full-scale, gross-you-out effect, like The Shining meets Requiem for a Dream meets Doom but far more gross. This movie is masterfully made but I will be honest with you: we could not finish watching it and had to first fast-forward it and then simply turn it off. I hate horror as a genre but my wife loves it and yet it was too much even for her to stomach. So I cannot tell you exactly how it ends. After last year’s success of The Poor Things, it’s not surprising that directors will attempt to outdo each other in sheer shock factor. If you are in the least bit sensitive, stay the hell away. The allegory is clear (too clear) and Demi Moore is very good here (people looking to reward her with some kind of an award after such a successful career finally got a good excuse) but it’s just too revolting (another thing that’s revolting is all men in this film, from Dennis Quaid on). 4/10.

I sort of wish I had taken the same route. The ending just felt so ridiculously unnecessary. I was belly laughing at the absurdity, I'm not really sure what angle they were going for there.

I was very surprised to see this film getting so much acclaim... I thought it was fairly basic. Not much subtlety to the message they're sending... Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were great in the movie, but that's about it. I also think the director has a thing for Qualley's booty. There were so many butt-shots I'm surprised her ass didn't get a mention when the credits rolled lol.

 

[kihei]

The Substance seems to be having a rough go of it around here lately, so I thought I would file a minority report. What I liked primarily about the movie was Fargeat's treatment of themes. Here is the final paragraph from my review at the time:

"As was true of her debut film Revenge, director Coralie Fargeat makes horror films with clever, relevant and well integrated feminist angles. On a thematic level, The Substance tackles how some women internalize sexist conceptions of beauty in order to seek male approval or, simply, to continue to appear young. These efforts to remain youthful and beautiful often result in women being literally at war with their own bodies. The Substance is basically a brilliant exploration of these attitudes, cleverly executed in the extreme. Fargeat provides her movie with a stylish but superficial look, something like what you might see in a high concept perfume commercial. The pacing is perfectly timed to allow the tension between these two women to build incrementally, culminating in a payoff that has to be seen to be believed, a gorefest of a final act that rivals anything in Sion Sono or David Cronenberg's catalogue. In short, the incisive social criticism in The Substance complements rather than compromises a masterful horror film, one with a lot more meat on the bone than we have come to expect from the genre."

The Substance certainly is a divisive work, but, along with Heretic and Nosferatu, it was easily among the most interesting horror films that I saw this year.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Oh, I'll quote myself too!

The Substance (Fargeat, 2024) - Really wanted to like this one as it should have engage with my notoriously refined fancies (you've got some pretty naked girls, some original, stylished and relevant horror, plus some pretty cool body horror - what's not to like?), but nah... I think it tries really hard to be clever, but it fails to find a story - it has the themes, it has the style, but it lacks in ideas, and tries to go to extremes to cover for it (you just won't care about the grandguignol ending - some of it worked on a minority of the little crowd I was with for its abject effect, but it's pretty much its only efficiency as horror, and it's very limited). I also felt it versed a little too much into hagsploitation, considering what it was trying to convey. At some point, I thought I should have stayed home and rewatch What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? instead. 4/10

The Neon Demon is far more complex to me than something like The Substance. In agency, for example: Moore's character is victim of her own decision, she is offered an absurd and counter-nature opportunity, which she accepts, with terms and conditions. I get that this simplification feeds the narrative, but that's exactly where I thought the film was weak. Fame and superficiality isn't presented as problems until they threatened to disappear, creating the tension needed to "tell the story". TND's character trajectory is a lot more subtle and opened to different readings. The film portrays the industry of images, its operation and philosophy, more than it's about Jesse's experience. The distribution of what's "evil" in the glorification of looks and superficiality is really complex too, and nobody gets out unstained, even the innocent and good boyfriend could be the "demon" (not only the Keanu Reeves character implies, by saying neither of them did it, that he might have been the one opening the door* to the mountain lion, but just before this incident, he runs back to Jesse and points to the moon, like Baphomet). And it's that type of details that makes it a complex film, one in which the spectator is invited to read from the diegesis more than he is fed from it. Another example, Keanu concludes that only Jess could have opened the sliding door, which refers to the Law of Invitation in demonology (the Neon Demon had to be invited in order to lay into Jesse). And again, the moutain lion, maybe a wtf example of what you consider self-indulgence, but which finds echoes in the film through the stuffed cheetah (associated to Ruby when she is revealed to be "evil" too) and through the quote from Henry V when the designer invites his models to be like the tiger and incites their primal instinct for violence (and the reference to Sharkespeare is an invitation to explore the intertext surrounding the association of cats to violence, evil or the demonic... a path that would lead me first to Cat People, where Jesse's repressed sexuality would find significant echoes).

So yeah, maybe not your cup of tea, but certainly a film too complex and opened to different readings for me to tag it a "bad movie for sure". Anyway, I've at least convinced myself to push TND to 7/10!

---------------

Also didn't care much for Heretic

 

[kihei]

Also didn't care much for Heretic

I love your readings on films. Agree with them 12% of the time, but still love 'em.

C'mon. You don't think the highly skeptical take on religion isn't just a little bit amusing, especially coming from High Grant's curmudgeon.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I love your readings on films. Agree with them 12% of the time, but still love 'em.

C'mon. You don't think the highly skeptical take on religion isn't just a little bit amusing, especially coming from High Grant's curmudgeon.

I should have, being myself a cranky anti-theist. And the very first part was good. Identifying intertextual links between religions certainly was a good and fun idea, could have been brilliant had it impact the actual film. I just thought it was flat. It's highly possible I missed something though.

I guess 12% is a start. You'll get there eventually. ;-)

 

[Fripp]

The Substance seems to be having a rough go of it around here lately, so I thought I would file a minority report. What I liked primarily about the movie was Fargeat's treatment of themes. Here is the final paragraph from my review at the time:

"As was true of her debut film Revenge, director Coralie Fargeat makes horror films with clever, relevant and well integrated feminist angles. On a thematic level, The Substance tackles how some women internalize sexist conceptions of beauty in order to seek male approval or, simply, to continue to appear young. These efforts to remain youthful and beautiful often result in women being literally at war with their own bodies. The Substance is basically a brilliant exploration of these attitudes, cleverly executed in the extreme. Fargeat provides her movie with a stylish but superficial look, something like what you might see in a high concept perfume commercial. The pacing is perfectly timed to allow the tension between these two women to build incrementally, culminating in a payoff that has to be seen to be believed, a gorefest of a final act that rivals anything in Sion Sono or David Cronenberg's catalogue. In short, the incisive social criticism in The Substance complements rather than compromises a masterful horror film, one with a lot more meat on the bone than we have come to expect from the genre."

The Substance certainly is a divisive work, but, along with Heretic and Nosferatu, it was easily among the most interesting horror films that I saw this year.

There was some great visual stuff in there, and I loved the batshit-crazy fearlessness, but overall it was more of a miss for me, mostly because the ending didn't do it for me. Someone ... anyone ... should have taken Fargeat aside and asked her to revisit editing and take 45 minutes out.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

"Simple and effective," might not be the first thing that comes to mind to describe a 140 minute body horror comedy, but that's my 3-word takeaway on The Substance. It gets some bonus points from me since I saw it back on election night in need of a good distraction. Obviously, it delivered on that front.

 

[Pink Mist]

Nickel Boys (dir. RaMell Ross, 2024)

RaMell Ross takes Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and transforms it into a gut-wrenching, visually inventive piece of cinema. Nickel Boys doesn’t just tell a story; it drags you headfirst into it, making every moment feel personal, raw, and immediate. Set in 1960s Florida, it chronicles the lives of Elwood Curtis, an idealistic young man whose future is shattered by a single unjust act, and Turner, his street-smart counterpart. Together, they navigate the horrors of Nickel Academy, a reform school built on cruelty and systemic racism.

Ross’s direction is bold and immersive. His choice to employ first-person perspectives at key moments is a revelation, pulling the viewer into the emotional center of Elwood’s experience. The stark contrast between Elwood’s unwavering optimism—rooted in the teachings of Dr. King—and Turner’s cynicism creates a dynamic relationship that feels heartbreakingly real. Their bond, born out of shared suffering, is the heart of the film and provides glimmers of humanity in an otherwise oppressive world.

The film doesn’t shy away from the brutal realities of systemic injustice, yet it resists becoming exploitative. Instead, it’s a thoughtful meditation on resilience, morality, and the scars left by institutional violence. Ross’s cinematography, paired with a hauntingly minimalist score, amplifies the story’s emotional weight.

If there’s a flaw, it’s that the film’s pacing stumbles in the final act, slightly undercutting the emotional payoff. But Nickel Boys remains a powerful, essential work that honors its source material while standing firmly on its own cinematic legs.

 

[Pink Mist]

The 39 Steps (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)

Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps is a thrilling concoction of espionage, mistaken identity, and razor-sharp wit—a blueprint for the modern spy thriller. Watching it almost feels like seeing the moment when Hitchcock declared, “This is what I’m capable of,” and then promptly delivered.

Robert Donat is perfectly cast as Richard Hannay, a dapper everyman thrown into chaos after a chance encounter pulls him into an international spy conspiracy. From the moment the mysterious Annabella warns him about “The 39 Steps,” you’re hooked. When she turns up dead in his apartment, the stakes go from mildly curious to “run-for-your-life,” and we’re off to the races.

The Scottish countryside plays host to much of the action, with its fog-drenched moors and isolated inns giving Hannay nowhere to hide. Hitchcock’s mastery is on full display here—every scene brims with tension, yet he always manages to sneak in moments of levity. The sequence where Hannay delivers a political speech to a rapturous crowd, entirely improvised to save his skin, is comedic gold. And don’t even get me started on the handcuffing dynamic between Hannay and Pamela. Their bickering-turned-reluctant-alliance is classic rom-com chemistry wrapped in a spy thriller package.

At just 86 minutes, the pacing is relentless, never letting you get too comfortable before throwing another twist your way. Yes, some of the spy plot’s finer details might feel a bit implausible or rushed by today’s standards, but it doesn’t matter. This is Hitchcock having fun, and it’s infectious.

The 39 Steps isn’t just an early Hitchcock gem—it’s a cornerstone of the genre. Its blend of humor, suspense, and romance has been endlessly imitated but rarely matched. A thrilling, endlessly entertaining ride that reminds us why Hitchcock was dubbed the “Master of Suspense.”

 

[Winger98]

His Three Daughters (2024, Azazel Jacobs) - 7/10

Three daughters with all of the necessary baggage forced together to care for their dying father. I want to give it a lower rating because looking back on it and it feels like I should have seen this film before, I've seen these themes before, but the damn thing just landed for me. The three ladies just kill it, and maybe it's just me being old enough to appreciate the family dynamics, the desire to bond together, and the inability to do so.

It is a shame that the last ten minutes just goes off the rails. I felt it was a cheap pay off where truths that should have been explored and discovered by the characters themselves are told to us only to then have that payoff pulled back again at the end. It felt like the director/writer wanted this payoff but just couldn't find a way of giving it in a way that fit better with the movie.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Inspired by @kihei's recent selection of Two for the Road for our movie club, I set myself out on an interesting little movie marathon this past weekend. MARRIAGE STORIES. I'll save my thoughts on Two for the Road for movie club, but I followed that up with:

Possession
Before Midnight
Scenes from a Marriage (the long one)
Eyes Wide Shut

This was certainly not the most jovial 15 hours or so that I've ever spent watching movies. But good lord was it satisfying. (FWIW no one worry about me, my wife and I are great ) So it wasn't a cathartic thing that I was going though to watch these couples dissolve and devolve and destroy. Truthfully, I'd been meaning to watch Scenes for a long time and had been wanting to revisit both Possession and Eyes Wide Shut for a while. While watching Two for the Road and realizing I had a weekend fairly open to allow for lots of couch time, it occurred to me I should just do this. Didn't hurt that the scripts for my two bookends – Road and Eyes – were both written/co-written by the same guy.

As acts of filmmaking and acting all are masterpieces or damn near so. Each has their nuances but each has its own pulse on people and relationships, love, jealousy, sex, need, aging, etc. Each feels very lived in. Even Possession and Eyes Wide Shut which are both elevated or exaggerated (to say the least) spring from kernels of reality.

This isn't shocking but I did notice the preponderance of the male's POV. Makes sense given the writers and directors. The men often (though not always) are consumed by jealousy or need. The women in several cases take the emotional abuse but they still want the man. I see that as possibly true, but also maybe a little wish fulfilly on the creator's part. I don't feel that it's right or wrong, but it did jump out across the movies. Midnight and Scenes give the women the most depth and agency. Watching these all together and Midnight does an interesting filp where the women is more of the driver of the anger and the man is the one working to keep them together. He's quite charming doing so, which also is a little wish fulfilly.

There is a lot of discomfort here. Scenes in particular just nails some uncomfortably real relationship conversations and realizations. There's safety in watching it, not living it, but there's also an upsetting mix of been-there-done-that and a little there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I. Maybe not for all, but I certainly felt it.

Also found it interesting at how small a role children played in these stories. Possession (Bob, LOL) has the most prominent use of a child, but he ain't that important. Kids are present and discussed but in the end, it's about the couple and their wants and desires (sometimes children be damned). That wasn't on my mind going in, but did stand out as I progressed through. I think kids can be used as a bit of an emotional cheat in general in stories so I appreciated that these films largely keep the focus on the adults and their adult thoughts/needs/flaws.

Each of these are certainly worth their own deeper dives. Plenty to talk about. But do I have any other, broader thoughts? It's potentially a punishing subject depending on the viewer but again, across the board, I think these are all powerfully made, superbly acted films.

Well, maybe except for Nicole Kidman who clearly has never smoked a joint in her life.

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

How Do You Live? aka The Boy and the Heron. (2023) B.
Context: the first time I watched this it was in Japanese with english subtitles (like all Ghibli should be watched, since the english dub modifies the script with "americanized" language. However, it became apparent about halfway through that the script wasn't all that essential this time around. So I recently rewatched the dubbed version, so I could just, you know...vibe.

And vibe I did! Honestly I can't knock the plot for not being particularly straightforward or coherent, since it's clear Miyazaki has no interest in telling such a story here. (Judge a film for what it's trying to do, not what you want it to do; for what it is, not what it isn't, etc.) It's why, despite preferring the dub version, the original title is much more fitting. "The Boy and the Heron" suggests a different type of movie. "How Do You Live?" was much more in line with what I experienced.
I wouldn't have minded 10 or so minutes shaved off. And I didn't find much payoff in the early parts of the movie while the "reality" was being established. (i.e. what exactly are we returning to?). But on the whole, this is as "Rorschach Test" of a movie that Miyazaki has made. What do you think it means? Ok cool yeah, then that's what it means.


Yes, I'm aware of the recent documentary about the movie which illustrates most everything in the film to be quite clearly and brilliantly Miyazaki's message to his grandson, and ultimately doesn't leave much, if anything, to interpretation from a thematic/symbolic perspective. But hey, where's the fun in that?

 

[Babe Ruth]

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

This was a '70s version of the classic story. And the stunt work in this one was badass.
If there ever is/was a lifetime achievement award for animal stunts, this movie deserves it. The halcyon days before CGI.. stuntmen wrestling lions, tigers.. there's a scene where a guy is getting dragged by a rampaging lion.. a guy riding an ox, bareback.. a tiger chasing horses. A hand-to-paw fight with a tiger, in a burning stable.
And I understand these are trained animals, but history has shown, if a (trained) big cat is rubbed the wrong way, you can end up at the morgue.

Really wild animal scenes, and good man-imal costumes in this one. Rest of the movie was kind of forgettable tho. On Prime.

 

[Pink Mist]

Myrskyluodon kalastaja / The Fisherman of Storm Island (dir. Erkki Karu, 1924)

Silent cinema often feels like a time capsule, and Myrskyluodon kalastaja delivers just that—a glimpse into early 20th-century Finnish storytelling. Directed by Erkki Karu, the film takes us to the rugged shores of Finland, where the icy waters and unforgiving landscape reflect the desperation of Eerik Storm, a fisherman fighting to save his home.

The plot is simple but effective: Eerik, out of options, turns to smuggling, setting up a moral conflict that mirrors the stark, survival-driven choices of the era. Thematically, the movie wrestles with ethical ambiguity and the human cost of desperation. It asks: how far will someone go when backed into a corner? The scenes depicting Eerik’s internal struggle are perhaps the film’s strongest, bringing weight to what could otherwise have been a straightforward tale of crime and consequences.

Visually, the film leans heavily on its natural settings, with the seaside landscapes lending a haunting beauty to the story. It’s clear that Karu had an eye for capturing the interplay between man and nature. But while the imagery is striking, the pacing falters. The slow buildup is a little too meandering, and the action-packed climax, while engaging, is muddled in execution—especially in how the smuggling plot resolves.

What saves Myrskyluodon kalastaja from being lost in time is its earnestness. It doesn’t try to overreach or complicate itself with unnecessary subplots. Instead, it stays focused on its central question of morality under pressure.

While it may not hold up as a masterpiece of silent cinema, there’s an honesty here that deserves recognition. For fans of early Nordic filmmaking, it’s a solid, if unpolished, piece of history—a quiet echo from Finland’s cinematic past. Watch it for the atmosphere, the themes, and the rare chance to connect with its time and place.

Can be viewed in a restored version with English subtitles on Finland's film archives here.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Inspired by @kihei's recent selection of Two for the Road for our movie club, I set myself out on an interesting little movie marathon this past weekend. MARRIAGE STORIES. I'll save my thoughts on Two for the Road for movie club, but I followed that up with:

Possession
Before Midnight
Scenes from a Marriage (the long one)
Eyes Wide Shut

This was certainly not the most jovial 15 hours or so that I've ever spent watching movies. But good lord was it satisfying. (FWIW no one worry about me, my wife and I are great ) So it wasn't a cathartic thing that I was going though to watch these couples dissolve and devolve and destroy. Truthfully, I'd been meaning to watch Scenes for a long time and had been wanting to revisit both Possession and Eyes Wide Shut for a while. While watching Two for the Road and realizing I had a weekend fairly open to allow for lots of couch time, it occurred to me I should just do this. Didn't hurt that the scripts for my two bookends – Road and Eyes – were both written/co-written by the same guy.

As acts of filmmaking and acting all are masterpieces or damn near so. Each has their nuances but each has its own pulse on people and relationships, love, jealousy, sex, need, aging, etc. Each feels very lived in. Even Possession and Eyes Wide Shut which are both elevated or exaggerated (to say the least) spring from kernels of reality.

This isn't shocking but I did notice the preponderance of the male's POV. Makes sense given the writers and directors. The men often (though not always) are consumed by jealousy or need. The women in several cases take the emotional abuse but they still want the man. I see that as possibly true, but also maybe a little wish fulfilly on the creator's part. I don't feel that it's right or wrong, but it did jump out across the movies. Midnight and Scenes give the women the most depth and agency. Watching these all together and Midnight does an interesting filp where the women is more of the driver of the anger and the man is the one working to keep them together. He's quite charming doing so, which also is a little wish fulfilly.

There is a lot of discomfort here. Scenes in particular just nails some uncomfortably real relationship conversations and realizations. There's safety in watching it, not living it, but there's also an upsetting mix of been-there-done-that and a little there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I. Maybe not for all, but I certainly felt it.

Also found it interesting at how small a role children played in these stories. Possession (Bob, LOL) has the most prominent use of a child, but he ain't that important. Kids are present and discussed but in the end, it's about the couple and their wants and desires (sometimes children be damned). That wasn't on my mind going in, but did stand out as I progressed through. I think kids can be used as a bit of an emotional cheat in general in stories so I appreciated that these films largely keep the focus on the adults and their adult thoughts/needs/flaws.

Each of these are certainly worth their own deeper dives. Plenty to talk about. But do I have any other, broader thoughts? It's potentially a punishing subject depending on the viewer but again, across the board, I think these are all powerfully made, superbly acted films.

Well, maybe except for Nicole Kidman who clearly has never smoked a joint in her life.

That's such a great idea (and selection). I don't think I'd have the morals right now, but I keep that in mind.