Blogs · @wyome
Tagged film · everything
Plays from YouTube. Nothing is loaded from Google until you press play.
Brad Pitt returns as Cliff Booth, only this time it’s 1977 and it’s a very different Hollywood.Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Quentin Taranti...
This article recommends four underrated time-travel films that prioritize straightforward storytelling and emotional resonance over complex paradoxes and scientific explanations. The selections—Safety Not Guaranteed, Frequency, Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, and The Fare—demonstrate that engaging time-travel narratives don't require elaborate mechanics or multiple timelines, but instead can explore character relationships and what people wish to change about their pasts.
This piece argues that three 2000s films—The Descent, Moon, and Brick—were criminally underrated despite having outsized influence on their respective genres and the broader film landscape. The Descent's female-centric cast and blend of psychological and visceral horror helped usher in elevated horror; Moon proved that introspective sci-fi focused on human emotion rather than spectacle could resonate deeply; and Brick demonstrated that seamlessly blending noir and high school drama could work, fundamentally changing how directors approach genre hybridity. Each film is credited with reshaping expectations for what its genre could achieve, even though they remain underappreciated for their cultural impact.
Plays from YouTube. Nothing is loaded from Google until you press play.
Start your free month of great cinema now at https://mubi.com/likestoriesofold Why don't movies feel "real" anymore? A deep dive into the first principles of...
An article about Kirk Douglas's favorite Western film from 1962 that he considered his best work in the genre.
Black Hammer, a Dark Horse Comics series by Jeff Lemire that debuted in 2016, creates a cohesive superhero universe by blending pastiches of Marvel and DC characters—from a Thor/New Gods hybrid called Black Hammer to a gay Martian Manhunter analogue—and has expanded into a fully realized world with multiple spinoffs, prequels, and sequels that feel like decades of accumulated comic history. Unlike the declining MCU and rushed cinematic universes attempting to replicate its success, Black Hammer balances the mature, grounded storytelling that shows like Invincible and The Boys pioneered with the classic superhero thrills that made audiences fall in love with the genre in the first place. The piece argues that Black Hammer represents the next successful superhero property for adaptation precisely because it honors comic book history while offering something fresh rather than cynically imitating an outdated formula.
A curated list of critically acclaimed but overlooked films from the 1980s worth rediscovering.
This New York Times year-end list by chief critic Manohla Dargis opens by arguing that the mainstream conversation about a dying movie industry overlooks the far wider world of worthwhile films beyond big American studio releases. It then offers a ranked top 10, beginning with Payal Kapadia's "All We Imagine as Light," a tender drama about two nurses and a cook in Mumbai. The page is mostly cluttered with interface text (a "watch list" widget and access-verification notices), so the critic's framing and the opening pick are the parts worth keeping.
Michael Sarnoski's Robin Hood film stars Hugh Jackman as a remorseless mass murderer attempting a revisionist deconstruction of the legend, opening with extreme gore before settling into a tedious meditation on regret and atonement. The film is technically accomplished in its cinematography and practical violence but collapses under its self-serious grimness, accidentally veering into comedy with lines like "I've killed so many children, I've lost count," while stripping away any traditional pleasures of the Robin Hood story in favor of inaccessible artiness. Despite strong craft and a capable cast, the film fails to generate either entertainment value or genuine profundity, landing instead as a joyless, audience-hostile exercise in self-indulgence.
The Telluride Film Festival, held over Labor Day weekend in Colorado, maintains its prestigious position on the awards circuit through a carefully curated, secretly-announced lineup that has consistently launched Oscar contenders—last year's festival led to nominations for films like Hamnet and Blue Moon. This year's slate features world premieres of films like The Debut with Julianne Moore and Andrew Haigh's A Long Winter, alongside Cannes favorites including Fjord and works from major studios like Netflix and A24, all overseen by director Julie Huntsinger's 20-year tenure that has kept the festival free from the diversity and studio participation problems plaguing other festivals. The festival also includes a guest director program curated by actress Rebecca Hall and restored classic screenings.
This article previews 50 notable films and limited series scheduled for release between September 2025 and December 2025, highlighting prestige dramas, blockbuster sequels, and unusual genre projects arriving during awards season. The piece emphasizes several major collaborations and franchise entries, including David Fincher directing Brad Pitt in a Quentin Tarantino script, Robert Downey Jr. returning to the MCU as Doctor Doom, and Denis Villeneuve completing his Dune trilogy, alongside smaller character studies and international cinema. It's organized chronologically by release date with brief synopses designed to help readers identify which films warrant their attention.
Ridley Scott's adaptation of Peter Heller's post-apocalyptic novel follows a pilot named Hig who embarks on a cross-country journey after losing his dog, grappling with fundamental questions about whether to help strangers or prioritize survival through isolation. The film explores this moral tension through its characters—Hig advocates for human connection and community while his companions embrace self-preservation and suspicion—but undermines its own themes through uneven execution, cheap special effects, and a truncated final act. Scott's direction feels disengaged, Jacob Elordi's performance is flat and emotionally withdrawn, and the film lapses into troubling stereotypes when depicting marauders, making it one of Scott's most disappointing misfires.
In *Queen in Black: Defenders of Light and Dark* #2, Cloak and Dagger appear to die after being struck by Knull and Hela, but in an interdimensional realm they confront the In-Betweener, a cosmic entity of balance, and survive by affirming their spiritual connection as a dance rather than merely complementary powers. Upon their return to life, they emerge stronger than ever—with Dagger now wielding the All-Light Sword—and are ready to rejoin the fight against Knull's forces.
This piece traces Kyle Chandler's four-decade TV career—from the overlooked Homefront and Early Edition through his iconic Friday Night Lights turn to the darker Bloodline and now Lanterns—arguing he embodies a specifically televisual kind of stardom, relatable rather than mythic, that has never quite translated to film. It contends Chandler's genius lies in exploiting audiences' accumulated intimacy with him across hundreds of hours of viewing, letting him subvert or deepen his everyman persona in later roles. The piece is really a case for Chandler as the medium's premier actor, using his new HBO role as Hal Jordan to revisit and reframe his whole body of work.
A rundown of eight time-loop films that twist the familiar Groundhog Day formula in distinct ways: The Endless traps each character in their own separate, coexisting loop as a metaphor for nostalgia's pull; Palm Springs and Happy Death Day complicate the trope with a community of loopers and a mortal, unmasking-the-killer stakes clock, respectively; Donnie Darko and The Matrix Reloaded obscure or truncate the loop's mechanics entirely; and Timecrimes, Primer, and Run Lola Run push the concept toward slasher paradox, hard-science realism, and kinetic videogame-like momentum. Worth keeping as a quick reference for how differently the subgenre can handle repetition, memory, and stakes beyond the standard "same day, personal growth" template.
A curated list of thirty overlooked 1980s films argues that the decade's real richness lies outside its blockbuster-and-sequel reputation, in mid-budget, adult-oriented work that resisted mainstream form. Titles like Thief, Cutter's Way, The Stunt Man, Star 80, and Secret Honor are highlighted for their tonal instability, moral ambiguity, and formal experimentation—qualities the piece frames as a shared undercurrent of stylistic rebellion rather than a unified movement. It's essentially a viewing list paired with a critical case for revisiting the decade's neglected margins rather than its canonized classics.
This piece identifies six classic films that have faded from modern audiences' collective memory despite their quality: The Iron Giant, From Russia With Love, Frantic, Capricorn One, Sorcerer, and Once Upon a Time in the West. For each film, the article briefly describes the plot and explains the specific circumstances—box office failure, overshadowing by contemporaries, or shifting genre popularity—that caused it to be overlooked or forgotten. The underlying argument is that contemporary moviegoers should seek out these forgotten masterpieces as a corrective to nostalgia for older cinema and as alternatives to endlessly debating the same canonical favorites.
This essay surveys 2025 films that tried to grapple with the current political climate, arguing that success depends on commitment rather than neutrality, nostalgia, or deliberate ambiguity. It sorts its examples into those that failed through vagueness or smug defeatism (Ella McCay, Eddington, Bugonia, Good Fortune) and those that succeeded through clear stances and emotional honesty (Sinners, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident). Its closing claim is that art now need not change the world but must help audiences make sense of it.
"Significant Other" is a sci-fi horror hybrid about a couple whose backpacking trip in Oregon goes catastrophically wrong after a mysterious object falls from the sky, generating dread through atmospheric filmmaking rather than jump scares while exploring themes of intimacy and deception. "Infinity Pool" follows a blocked writer on vacation who escapes execution by having a clone created and executed instead, then descends into hedonistic depravity with wealthy tourists who exploit the loophole, satirizing how the rich can literally buy their way out of consequences. "Costa Brava, Lebanon" depicts a self-sufficient family's isolation shattered when a landfill is planned next to their compound, using their fragmentation as a metaphor for environmental collapse and societal breakdown.
"Dhamaka" is a Mumbai-set action thriller starring Kartik Aaryan as a washed-up radio newscaster who receives a bomb threat targeting the city's major bridge and sees it as his chance to reclaim fame. Directed by Ram Madhvani and adapted from the South Korean film "The Terror Live," the movie functions as a morality tale examining how Arjun's ambition leads him to exploit a genuine crisis for career advancement, while his cutthroat boss exploits it for ratings. The film maintains relentless pacing despite character depth, delivering the bomb-threat intensity of "Speed" filtered through the media-ethics critique of "Network."