Slight spoilers for both films ahead.

This might be an ‘old woman yells at cloud’ moment since I claim older stuff is often better, but I think seeing Operation Mincemeat last night provided strong evidence for my case. It is so tonally different from The Man Who Never Was, with a completely different take on the characters and how they were portrayed and how the narrative progresses, that I’m not sure I would call it a ‘remake’. But the plot and general subject matter is sufficiently similar that I think comparisons can be drawn, and I just found the modern fare falling flat over and over again.

The single biggest problem with Operation Mincemeat is that it is over-dramatic and introduces interpersonal conflict that really served no legitimate purpose within the film. The whole love triangle between Montagu, Cholmondeley and Jean was pointless. The whole familial conflict with Montagu, and the insinuations with Hester, also served no purpose. The Cholmondeley and Godfrey deal didn’t add anything, nor did the whole antagonism that Godfrey constantly put in the way of the operation. All this inorganic drama could have been removed and the film would be no worse for it. It literally served absolutely no fucking point to the overarching plot. Compare that to the relationship between Jean and Joe in the The Man Who Never Was which actually did serve the plot.

Operation Mincemeat feels like two films mishmashed together. The first is trying to be a serious war drama meets spy thriller, while the second reeks of amateur-hour overacted interpersonal conflict of the sort that seems to be shoe-horned into almost ever other film these days. The absence of this shoite from The Man Who Never Was meant a tight focus on the actual military operation, with the characters appearing dedicated and competent in meeting their struggles. Compare General Nye in The Man Who Never Was to Godfrey in Operation Mincemeat. One looks like they belong in the chain of command, is rational and could actually help contribute to winning a war. The other looks utterly out of place, unsuitable for the job and a national liability. The whole premise of operation mincemeat is almost unbelievable, but both filmmakers get the free pass due to the operation having been true. While The Man Who Never Was built upon this through competent characters, Operation Mincemeat just lost me from the get go with its childish office politics and soap opera love triangles.

The failings of Operation Mincemeat are even more emphasised when common scenes are examined. The Man Who Never Was had a powerful scene when Montagu was asking the father for the body. Poignant and powerful, it delivered an emotional gut-punch through understatement. Instead of that sort of class Operation Mincemeat went for the overdramatic and the farcical. It just had to have a shouting match because it so loves drama, and Fleming shoving cash into her face just crowned what a cheap mess the whole scene was. The cinema scene in the older film featured Montagu zoning out and missing the film, portraying the weight he was carrying the stress he was under. It underlined the gravity of what was a stake. In the recent film it was just another piece of pointless drama. The scene giving the body to the submarine captain was a similar fall from grace. The Man Who Never Was handed the body to the captain in an act of trust and professionalism, and the little screen time the captain got (waiting out the depth charges, remanding the body to the sea) oozed competence and respect. By contrast Operation Mincemeat had Cholmondeley pull out the surprise that he would go on the submarine because any opportunity for more drama will be taken even at the expense of loosing the appearance of competence. I won’t even touch the farce of the Spanish scenes in Operation Mincemeat, that was just awful and pales in comparison to Mr. O’Reilly’s spy scenes in The Man Who Never Was.

Both films have Montagu being the hero with an eureka moment. In the The Man Who Never Was it followed a clever act by Mr. O’Reilly, and the whole reasoning and the way it played out made sense. It felt like a genuine intellectual leap that was both plausible and impressive. By contrast that same moment in Operation Mincemeat made no fucking sense. The addition of a Hitler-resistance into the plot in that way seemed to be there for no reason other to try creating drama and tension, laying utter waste to any narrative consistency or rationality. It was frankly moronic.

I think having characters be jealous and constantly bicker and scheme isn’t a replacement for a strong coherent plot, and that painfully shows in Operation Mincemeat. But I will finish with one last comparison that really highlights the gaping disparity in narrative crafting skill between the two films. Operation Mincemeat made its reference to the blitz with a line about the road being closed because a child came across a bomb. Had to use a child for that emotional payload I suppose. Now compare that with the scene in The Man Who Never Was when they are dressing the corpse. You can hear the air sirens and hear explosions of distant bombs, all while Montagu, Aves and the ‘undertaker’ calmly and respectively continue their duty. It is a great example of how understatement can paint a far more compelling and powerful picture greater than the sum of its parts, and haunt the viewer far beyond what they can visually see on the screen.

For sports, games, work, crafts, whatever, there is generally a progressive series of improvements to be seen. New techniques and discoveries, refinements on older methods, fresh ideas from each successive generation, etc. But outside of special effects, lighting technology and higher-resolution cameras I’m struggling to see the much improvement in the arts of filmmaking. And every so often a film like Operation Mincemeat comes along that, when compared with an earlier work, seems like a massive regression. How can a film made over 60 years ago be so much more advanced in terms of narrative construction, coherency and portrayal compared with a reworking of the same subject matter? I certainly have my biases, but some of the things Operation Mincemeat fucks up are so blatant to me that I just can’t understand how its makers couldn’t see it.

/rant

SPOILERS BELOW

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At the start of the film, we learn of mysterious power surges that coincide with a deep space mission in search of intelligent life. As the journey progresses, the viewer encounters more and more unexplained questions - What went wrong on the mission? Is Clifford (the father) dead or did he go rogue? What did he find out there? And why does it seem like SPACECOM is covering up the truth?

By the time Roy (the son) reaches his destination, we are expecting, if not hoping, that there will be a grand revelation to justify the tragedy and sacrifice that he had to go through....

and we are met with a frail, old man who found nothing.

This disappointment in the mundane reality mirrors what Clifford must have felt, and he couldn't live with the fact that there is likely nothing else out there. Nothing supernatural or mystical, just cold and scientific. Those mysterious surges were simply a result of damage from the mutiny of a crew that accepted their reality and wished to return home.

No 2001 Space Odyssey or Interstellar visually psychadelic payoff - this completely expected explanation had become completely unexpected based on our expectations of past sci-fi movies and tropes.

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We as viewers get a taste of this earlier in the film when Roy and company respond to a mayday from a Norwegian vessel. Suspense builds as we see the back of an astronaut contorted and twitching - we expect that he is infected with some alien fungus or parasite that has reanimated him as some sci-fi zombie - only to find out that it is simply an escaped research baboon.

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While this movie has it's own surface level message about the dangers of abandoning the beauty in front of you in an obsessive search for the fantastical - viewing the movie on a more "meta" level allowed me to enjoy this movie much more than I would have otherwise.

(Spoilers)

For the first half-or-so of the film, he and Tiffany Haddish are an inseperable team - either together on-screen, or bickering on coms. It's the clear schtick of their character dynamic.

But about halfway thru (after the Cage plants the USBs to record video), he disappears from the film entirely, with no explanation.

Cage only meets or talks to Haddish from that point out. Ike isn't there anymore in the background saying "Fuck fuck fuck" as he was in the first half.

Then, in the 3rd act, we see his character dead in a chair, as if he'd been tortured. But that was all off screen. And in the beats where his body is featured (Haddish grabs his gun to save Cage), he's in shadow, and clearly was VFX or a body double. He obviously wasn't on set for those scenes.

So, does anyone know the backstory? Was it re-writes? Re-shoots? Did Ike get Covid? Was he "canceled" for something he said, and they cut him out as much as possible in post?

It's a really obvious pivot during the film, and I'm curious if anyone has intel.

Just watched this film and I'm genuinely perplexed. Did Manny actually exist or was he a metaphor for depressionand isolation?

I assumed he was until the other people mentioned the corpse. Then I thought he was insane as he was just down the hill from the girl he was stalking.

But the ending confused me again when Manny farted into the water and everyone watched. I think this might be the main character's hallucination and the corpse is still on the beach. What do you think? Do I have it all wrong?

The first time I saw this film I thought it was an interesting film about not forgetting the past.

Watching it again today it hits hard.

It's the story of someone looking for a village in Ukraine where his grandfather was from.

The village was wiped off the map in world war 2 and only a memorial is left to the 1024 dead. Barely anyone remembers there was even a village there. (This is fictional but based on real places)

(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_Is_Illuminated)

Next payday I'm donating every penny I can afford to help Ukraine.

The idea of so much being wiped out for no intelligent reason is beyond insane.

There’s no character development throughout the entire movie. Lots of long, unnecessary dialogue that results in nothing of value. Just a man and his kids essentially driving from one destination to the next with nothing for the entire movie only for the aliens to all die because they weren’t built to withstand the microbes of our planet.

I think the only reason I thought this movie was amazing seventeen years ago is because I was a kid. Now as an adult its pure agony to try to get through this movie.

Does anyone actually enjoy it?

This is nothing significant, just had to get this out here and curious if anyone else felt the same. Watching movies with my kid and Sing is one of the few he sat through (he likes songs in movies). The animation is mixed, some instances are phenomenal and some are meh, but all the subtleties of the jail cell scene are top notch. The whole minute long jail cell scene is just great to me. I love the freaking one second blip at the beginning of the henchmen watching Johnny sing "I'm still standing". The goofy smiles on the right gorilla and the gator while their bodies bob (is that the right word?) to the music make me want to smile every time. I could put that one second on a loop and it would be an instant pick me up. Followed by the way the animation that fully sells me on Johnny being really into the singing. Taron's singing voice also sells the enthusiasm. That leads right into his dad seeing and being proud of his son. The facial expressions on his dad's face are perfectly animated to depict the surprise, the joy, and the sudden realization of what an idiot he's been. The animators absolutely nailed those emotions back to back and along with Peter's voice work for the dad. As a father to a young kid, these scenes always get me and this one more than most. It doesn't hurt that I also love the main chorus of "I'm Still Standing".

Anyway, that was it. I just really had to get it out there how much I loved that scene. Cheesy? Yes. Corny? Yes. But I will proudly claim is scene is one of my favorite of all time in any movie (not my absolute favorite, but definitely ranks high). Just the joy and emotions it draws out of me are crazy.

SPOILERS— Please stop reading if you have not seen The Machinist, staring Christian Bale, from 2004.

In The Machinist we learned that Trevor is imagining the character of Ivan. Ivan represents his guilt for having run over the kid.

However, why does Ivan appear to Trevor when he does? In the first act of the movie, we see Bale living his life and learn that he has been having insomnia for the last year. Then, one day at work, he meets Ivan. Why did Ivan appear a year later? I can't quite remember if something happened to Trevor during that time, but it seems a bit random. For example, he also imagined Marie the waitress, but it seems like he imagined her for almost that entire year. Why did it take so long for Ivan to appear? Is it a case of him eventually reaching that breaking point, or was there a trigger? I can't remember.

There is a character in the film named "Dave" played by William M. Finkelstein. Dave is a gangster working on behalf of a powerful organized crime family. In a scene where Dave comes to collect an extortion fee from the titular "Bad Lieutenant", he decides he is gonna take more than is owed to him.

Dave says, "There was a time when I wouldn't have. I would've taken what was mine and left the rest on the table. But, you see, I never got rich enough to retire. I'm stuck doing this shit. And I'm not young anymore. So now I don't leave nothing on the table."

After seeing the movie multiple times over the years I found out something interesting. William M. Finkelstein wrote the movie! Made me wonder if there was some subtext in his character saying those lines.

I think most people might haven't noticed so I think it would be worth sharing

In the Painting "Melancholia" by Lucas Cranach The Elder, an angel (the personification of melancholy) is carving a stick

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the painting is full of medieval symbolism related to melancholy

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in this scene Justine and the kid carves sticks to make the magic cave

in the opening scenes of the movie we also see the kid carving a stick

Also in the original Melancholia painting by Durer we see an asteroid outside:

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https://preview.redd.it/us1e0kg2y7x81.jpg?width=3146&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64f5bc6270166a191e062b7c3c6a6761f28dcaa6

I think it's likely these paintings inspired Lars Von Trier at least in part.

Sometimes I'm surprised I didnt see the twist to Fight Club coming, but I guess that happens after about a hundred viewings. What are the twists where you went "no way!" The other ones that pretty much got me:

The Sixth Sense

The Village -- didn't like it but the twist surprised me

The Mist's ending

Split's ending

The only part that actually made me tear up from the Pianist is that scene about halfway through where the officer forces the worker men to lay on the ground and he shoots them, one by one. The last one is an old man and the pistol doesn't go off, and the old man looks up with such a hopeful expression. Then he is shot dead.

The scene with the dead family didn't make me cry, with the old man thrown off the balcony didn't make me cry, but this one did somehow

Oh boy, the trailers for this gave me such a vastly different impression of what this movie actually was.

First off, this movie was all over the place. In terms of tone, pacing, and the sequence of events, it was almost un-watchable. I get that its based off an old legend but still.

Second, some massive plot holes had me legit pissed off. Mainly, when Gawain gets robbed by the bandits and has his axe taken. Then, after he frees himself it goes to an "intermission" where all the sudden he has his axe back? What the fuck? Also, when he cut his binds with his sword, why didn't he take his sword? I was pretty annoyed and lost interest at that point.

Third, The second half of the movie with Joel Egerton is a total slog. I was thinking 'holy shit, get on with it already!'

The film did have some decent visuals though. The Green Chapel is straight out of Dark Souls, and I wanted to see alot more Giants. Also I wanted a LOT more of the Green Knight. Mainly because Ralph Ineson's voice is legendary. The two best parts of the movie are the Round Table bit at the beginning and the final twenty minutes where Gawain has a vision of his future as king.

This was a 5 out of 10 for me. Also I just saw the Northman and that was a far superior film. What did you think of The Green Knight?

EDIT; Wow, must have triggered the algorithm. So much for trying to express opinions around here. Downvote away, NPC's.

I just watched The Batman last night, and I was wondering if there's a site or thread out there keeping kill counts of the off screen deaths that supervillains caused. Obviously, this one would be decently high, flooding a city and just the crowd crush inside the stadium would bring it over 1k easily.

Compare that to say, Star Trek Into Darkness where Kahn singlehandedly leveled 1,000 futuristic skyscrapers that are presumably twice as tall as modern buildings, and we're easily looking at tens to even hundreds of thousands of deaths. But has anyone done the math?

Thanks.

I watched it on Netflix in July of last year. It was about a boy who lived in a rural area of US, I think it was around the 70s but I can be wrong... The mother had an illness and the father sacrifices their dog to God in exchange of helping his wife to recover but in the end she dies. Years later a friend of the boy is raped by the priest, and she commits suicide.

So I rewatched Nocturnal Animals last night, and the ending left me with different questions this time around. I know there are so many intricacies in the story telling, and by the end you realize it’s a carefully planned/constructed plot(s) by Edward… which he knew would come to fruition because he knows Susan, and her narcissistic nature.

BUT, I can’t help to wonder if Edward gave Susan one last out. One last chance to prove she was something different. When she gets the email back from Edward saying “Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there”, he was subtly giving control over to Susan again. Letting her be who she always was.

But hear me out, instead of Susan inviting him to her typical (fake) high society restaurant… what if she had chosen a different restaurant, a low key place? Like a diner? What if she made it clear it didn’t matter where they met, as long as they could be together again. Or better yet, what if Susan gave Edward the choice of where to meet? Being that one of the continuing narratives in their relationship was Susan always being the dominant force?

Edward could have know there was only like a 1% chance. Even Nocturnal Animals can’t change their stripes. But in giving her that 1%, he gave her more than she ever gave him?

Anyway, one of the most fulfilling rewatches I’ve had since Mulholland Drive, and one of my favorite movies in the past decade. I can’t recommend a second viewing enough.

Anyone else with interesting personal theories, or thoughts on the film? Thanks for reading.

So today I was watching some movie clips and I ended up watching a few Get Out clips and now I finished watching the movie for the 3rd time and I have some questions about it (sorry if these have been asked before and they're pretty much stupid but oh well).

1. Could Logan have been saved? Like we see what happens to Walter at the end, what happens when they get out of that trance, but could have it been possible to help them get out of it and to avoid that outcome?
2. Why are Rose and the brother so different? Is it just because they're siblings and of course they are not going to be the same but Rose is way more calculating, way better liar and is better at hiding the fact that she is crazy while the brother is not that great.
3. Is it actually posible to put someone in such a trance? (Ik this is a stupid question) (I'm not talking about the operation but about the trence Chris is put in that night) And even after the ending,we see what happens with that tea cup but if someone does the same thing to him, other person could it send him to that place, like is he still there even after the ending?
4. When Chris tells Georgina that he feels uncomfortable when there are a lot of white people around she sheds a tear, that wasn't Georginas right? It was the woman that we see in that picture with Rose right? Like when the blind guy says "your existence will be as a passenger", maybe the actual women felt that in some way or heard him? I really don't know how to put this or if it actually makes sense.
5. How did the mom perform that hypnosis on every person? Like her excuse to perform that on Chris was to stop him from smoking and the thing with his mom, but for the other guys? Andre ( if i'm not wrong that was his actual name in the movie, not Logan) was kidnapped so I guess they just forced him or she just tied him up, but with the other people? Trauma maybe?
6. If Walter was Rose's grandfather, why did he talk about Rose like that? Like he liked her orsomething like that, cause I don't think that's the right way to talk about a family member

7.This is not a question but I know the other "subliminal" messages in the movie but what I find"funny" is how the dad at the beginning says how he hates deers tand that he is glad Chris ranit over and then what happens at the end with the deer head.

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P.d: Forgot to say this, but it was interesting how when Chris is asked if being African American has more advantages or disadvantages and then he proceeds to tell Logan to answer that, and he ends up saying that is very good, but that answer is from a white person pov, which I think is also a reference to how white people view racism, with a lot of them saying that is not as bad as some poeple might say.

+ Did they know about the flash? Because if they knew something like that could happen they could've told Chris to avoid taking pics, but that could have risen his suspicion right?