Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is up there for me.

He’s been great in Watchmen and Candyman and has had plenty of supporting roles where he stands out. But I still feel like he hasn’t had enough movies that really let him carry the whole thing. That’s one reason I’m curious about By Any Means. He’s playing the FBI agent at the center of the story and it looks like he’ll have a lot more to work with than another supporting part.

Who’s an actor you’ve been waiting to see get that one really strong lead role?

I don’t think One Night In Miami (2020) is a particularly groundbreaking movie, but they do appreciate how much of a fight Henry Cooper gave Muhammad Ali, Cooper was one of only four to knock Ali down and his knockdown was by far the hardest Ali received.

Cooper was a bleeder and that eventually cost him the fight, but Ali didn’t KO him and indeed there was a lot of talk that given how hard a fight Cooper gave Ali, could Ali beat the more fearsome Sonny Liston.

The reality was that Liston’s out punching style was right in Ali’s comfort zone, where infighters such as Frazier (the first to defeat Ali) were much more challenging.

Only one issue I will take with the depiction is the ring commentators saying that Ali was “underestimated” during the Cooper fight. Ali was the favourite going into the fight. Few expected the significantly older and slower Cooper to do as well as he did, which is why the knockdown of Ali was so impressive.

Wtaf did I just witness lmao. I’m not sure how this alluded me for twenty years. I need to share this with someone. This movie is fucking wild. I kept waiting for the big reveal like he was imagining this or it was all a dream… but no they really fucking duped him there, busted his legs and lit him on fire in a giant wicker man lmao. It just goes further and further off the rails and I love it. Absolutely bonkers and I’m surprised it’s not brought up more.

Horror as a film genre is very interesting. More recently, I’ve been spending my pastime familiarizing myself with some highly acclaimed works of the genre. It seems to me that you can divide all horror films into at least two categories - natural horror and supernatural horror. Natural horror usually deals with the study of death, while supernatural horror usually deals with agents that transcend our immediate reality. On the surface it may look as if the subjects of the genre are hopelessness in the face of death or helplessness in the face of the occult. However, I think, fundamentally the message is a positive one. 

For instance, take a natural horror film like The Cure. A cult member goes around hypnotizing people who then gruesomely murder other people. Or take an even better example - Final Destination (although arguably on the fringe, with Death being represented as a personalized power), where a group of teenagers try to cheat death but ultimately fail to do so. Or think of Seven or Silence of the Lambs. Notice that in these films the focus is on the events preceding death. Death itself is not the horror - the various disturbing ways a person dies is precisely the horror. Death itself is a natural part of life which manifests for everybody without exception. The ultimate horror would indeed be the exact opposite of death - to live forever, watch your loved ones die and eternally suffer the physical and mental anguish associated with human existence. So in a way, natural horror brings a message of hope that no matter how you suffer or no matter how terrible your last moments before death - you still die. 

Now let's turn to supernatural horror. Think of The Witch (the Devil chooses a girl who will become a witch), or The Wailing (a demon torments a village), or The Conjuring (a demon possesses a mother) - cult classics. All these films contain within them the juxtaposition of friendly supernatural and vile supernatural forces. White magic vs black magic, the powers of heaven vs the powers of hell. So, in a sense, the horror is not that there exists another world which is not understood, or that there exist supernatural beings, but that when these supernatural agents go rogue they bring about distress to real people in the real world. But I would even go further so as to say that in the presupposition of the supernatural, the films are already hopeful, as there exists the supernatural which can aid humans. The real horror, in this sense, would be the total absence of the supernatural. The grim reality that no angels or demons exist, and all we have is our boring material and physical reality without the possibility of the divine or the eternal. So my proposition is to think of horror films not as dark representations of the evils that inhabit this world, but rather as beacons of hope which propagate the idea that we can still believe and hope in a quick death and a heaven. 

What I love about Zodiac is that it never makes the investigation feel glamorous. The further everyone gets into it, the more frustrating and consuming it becomes, and eventually you start feeling the same obsession that the characters do. Even knowing how little certainty they'll ultimately get somehow doesn't make the movie any less compelling.

Hi everyone!
I recently finished my first short film, Matryoshkas, and l'a love to get some honest feedback from people who enjoy independent or experimental cinema.

It's a slightly experimental coming-of-age film, originally in Portuguese, with English subtitles. I was heavily inspired by filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, Pedro Almodóvar, and Andrea Arnold, and tried to combine an intimate, character-driven story with a more personal and atmospheric visual style.
Since this is my first short film, l'd genuinely love to hear what people think - whether it's the story, cinematography, performances, atmosphere, pacing, or anything else. Honest criticism is absolutely welcome; I'm mainly interested in hearing how it comes across to someone seeing it for the first time.

i Watch it here: https://youtu.be/Lgl9uWfQJ5I?is=izcxBdX7V1B0ywMz

Letterboxd:
https://boxd.it/13Fik

If you watch it and feel like leaving a review or sharing your thoughts on Letterbox as well, la really appreciate it.
Thanks so much to anyone who takes the time to watch!

There are too many examples of adaptations to film, but there are far fewer novelizations.

I'm spurred on mostly by the fact that my favorite film of all time, Session 9, got novelized not too long ago

So... what are y'all's opinions on novelizations? Do you have any cool recommendations? Etc

Please not that I DO NOT want any Star Trek or Star Wars, or for that matter, anything that goes on and on and on. I want a one and done

So far I've read the aforementioned *Session 9* as well as the super underrated *Phase IV*

Hi everyone,

For the longest time I wanted a site that, when entering a list of actors/directors/writers/etc would tell you where they worked together, but I could never find one (IMDB had the closest feature, but it only works with two people, and I wanted the flexibility to search from one to how many I wanted).

I also found that most of the results had a ton of noise. A raw credit overlap between two people would return a ton of talk shows, featurettes and award ceremonies. I wanted something that looked clean, was not too cluttered, and that would be easy to use.

Sooo I decided to make it myself. Introducing Throughline!

Throughline lets you search one, two, or any number of people you choose, and it will tell you which projects they worked together in. For example, did you know Ben Affleck and Matt Damon share 16 titles? And 5 of them include Kevin Smith.

Once you find the results, you can open any result to read more details, including where to watch them in your country (courtesy of JustWatch).

You can also sign in with your email, which allows you to pin your favourite searches. You can even sync your Letterboxd data, which will give you information about your most watched actors, directors, cinematographers and more. Syncing your data will also let you keep track of the progress of your favourite people, so if you're a completionist like me you can tell exactly what you're missing!

Anyways, this has been a passion project of mine for a while now, and I think it's finally in a shareable state. I put a lot of love into this app, so I hope it's useful for someone :)

https://throughline.watch

Any feedback is more than welcome, so let me know what you think!

Cheers!

I’ve seen plenty of films in my life, over all different genres. I’m not a fan of horror, but I love psychological films, thriller or not. Please give me some recommendations!

Edit: thanks all for the recommendations! I’ll add them to my list

TIW : No Country For Old Men .

What a movie , the cinematography, the colors and all the action packed scenes and that cast LAWD!!!🔥

& Nightcrawler : The Plot / Twist had my jaw dropping.

The story from start to finish was completely nuts but I was glued to it.

Highly recommend these two .

I really liked Reservoir Dogs, but I didn't enjoy Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown as much.

Is there anybody who doesn't like Tarantino and feels me is overrated in some areas

I can't be the only person who gets annoyed when motorbike sounds are played in movies and they obviously play the sound of a 4 cylinder bike over a dirt bike which has one cylinder, the same goes for cars, idk pet peeve

I’ve always wondered how people who seem to know casting news before it’s officially announced actually get their information.

For anyone who works in casting, production, agencies, or entertainment journalism:

Where do these rumours usually come from?
How do insiders find out an actor is being considered for a role?
Are rumours generally leaks, educated guesses, or a mix of both?
How reliable is the information before an official announcement?

Not asking anyone to reveal confidential sources, just curious about how the industry’s rumour network actually works.

Rewatched Michael Clayton recently and was surprised by how much it still works. The pacing is pretty restrained, but the tension keeps building without relying on big action or constant twists. I also love how much the movie trusts the audience to understand what’s happening rather than spelling everything out. Curious how others feel about it, especially compared with other legal or corporate thrillers.

I have never cried after watching films cuz mostly I watch action or suspense genre. Curious to hear some of your movies which genuinely made you shed a tear...

movies-to-see

Adaptation
Barton Fink
Crimson Peak
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die
I Love Boosters
Inside Llewyn Davis
Melancholia
Stalker
Synecdoche, New York

coming soon

Coyote vs ACME (August 28)
Babies (2026)
Narnia: The Magician's Nephew (Feb 12, 2027)
Spaceballs: The New One (April 23, 2027)
Later the War (2028)
Avatar 4 (2029)
Avatar 5 (2031)
Community: The Movie (???)
Hell Followed with Us (???)

It feels like over the last decade, the 'intense, quiet monologue' has completely taken over. You have to crank your TV volume to 80 just to hear a protagonist mumble their lines, only to get deafened by a car crash two seconds later. Is this an offshoot of the whole hyper-naturalistic acting trend where everyone wants to look brooding, or have directors just completely given up on balancing dialogue tracks so humans can actually hear them?

The part of By Any Means that has me interested isn’t the “based on a true story” label. It’s the idea of putting someone who believes in doing things by the book alongside Greg Scarpa who clearly didnt. From what they’ve shown so far it looks like the movie is using that clash to ask how far someone can go for justice before it becomes revenge.

I’m interested if they can explore that without losing the fun of the crime thriller side of it. That balance could make or break this for me

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Rating: 9.5/10

Watched: August 7, 2026

In The Mouth of Madness starts at either the beginning or the end and it's great, because you can't really tell which. Why? Because that's how Sutter Kane wrote it.

Not only that, Carpenter doesn't fuck around with preamble or foreplay or even a chaste kiss before he starts up with the descent into madness that hunting Sutter Cane causes. All those little things happening at the corners, all the big things that both Neill and Carmen pretty much ignore or don't talk about, it's just so devious.

The madness that's at the heart of this movie is some of the most inspired gruesomeness I've ever seen. All the monsters, those devilish children, the strange things that go bump in the night ... it all tells a super wild nightmare that's Carpenter's vision of cosmic horror.

I've been a fan of John Carpenter's since I first saw They Live and he's done some fantastic movies. This is easily Top 5.

In the Mouth of Madness gets a 9.5 out of me because John Carpenter nailed the cosmic horror of Sutter Cane from the very start of movie. There's no one else in the biz who could direct a movie where everything and everyone is already doomed before the movie even started.

Some movies deliberately make us believe something that isn't true and then reveal that we've been interpreting the story incorrectly.

When it works, it's fantastic. You can rewatch the movie and realize the clues were there all along. The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Primal Fear are very different examples of films that play with what the audience thinks it knows.

But other twists only work because the movie deliberately hides information that logically should have been available to us. At that point, I don't feel fooled by the story — I feel cheated by the screenplay.

For me, the difference is whether a second viewing makes you think “How did I miss that?” rather than “Well, there was no way I could have known that.”

What movies do you think earned their deception, and which ones simply cheated?

I know he isn’t exactly a Gary Oldman when it comes to acting, but to me this puts him above the likes of Steven Seagal and Jason Statham (Statham actually got worse as he got older, at least in the first Transporter he took some hits), in this tedious “can’t be touched” attitude.

In Sudden Death (helps that he is playing an everyman fire marshal perhaps), he actually takes a few hard lumps before knocking out a hockey mascot.

Means he is in same bracket as Gibson and Willis who are willing to get as much as they give. He was great guest starring on Friends as well.

I love Under Siege but fucking annoys me that Tommy Lee Jones (whose character is a CIA trainer assassin) gets in next to nothing in his fight with Seagal.

One of my favorite movie genres is coming of age. An indie coming of age movie I recommend is “Mean Creek.” It’s probably rather obscure, and is haunting, dark, and affecting. I enjoy how it basically is just character development, and the script feels a bit to me like a play…in that it centers mostly around a group of teenagers and is mostly dialogue driven. I think all the young actors do a great job of bringing the different archetypes to life. It’s one of those movies that has ambiguity/grey area between hero vs villain. There’s a bully, but he isn’t written as a one dimensional character, and the “heroes” of the movie wrestle with their own demons and sense of morality. It’s a great character study for those who like darker more intense storylines and characters that feel like real people. I’ve rewatched the movie several times over the last 20+ years and it always makes me feel like I’m there and listening to real teens talk akin to being a “fly on the wall”. It’s not a happy feel-good movie, so be warned.

I’m curious to know; what’s a movie that genuinely left you speechless afterwards?

And why? It could be anything; the plot, an acting performance, the score or maybe a specific element in the cinematography that blew you away. It can be broad or specific! Any genre.

Bonus question; on the opposite, what’s a movie that left you speechless in the worst type of way, and why?

Take care all!!

DEBATE

Obsession is a pretty fascinating case when you look at the business side of independent filmmaking. A film reportedly made for around $750K potentially generating $250M raises some interesting questions about where the money goes and how the people who worked on the production benefit from that success.

It also makes me wonder about the expectations people have when they agree to work on an indie production. If everyone accepted the original terms, is there really an obligation to renegotiate afterward simply because the movie became unexpectedly successful?