I actually watched the heck out of Spaceballs when I was a kid. Blazing Saddles was the best, though - I have fond memories of my grandparents plopping us down in front of that when we were objectively way too young for it.
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I can imagine! Or rather, I probably can’t. The Order was already more than enough, and that was only like thirty minutes. Then again, an experience like that could be fun for the challenge of sitting through it.
Aha! Well, no need to pick another. If one didn’t spring to mind and you had to dig around a little to get to Magnolia, that seems different. At first it sounded like two movies had risen above all the rest. I definitely am a movie person, so I was curious which ones had made an impact on someone who isn’t.
In that vein, I need to engage with this thread more! I’m going to watch Triangle for sure. Maybe later tonight. This is also an opportunity to rifle through my brain and pull out some more recommendations…
To weigh in on the conversation from months ago, I personally liked Everything Everywhere All At Once. But I did think the ending could’ve been better. The finale felt conventional, whereas the movie had set the stage to do something truly weird if it had wanted to. The fact that it wasn’t weirder even undermined some of the story. I’m talking about how the bagel operates. But quibbles with the ending aside, I thought the overall package was pretty darn good! Especially stuff like the battle with Jobu Tupaki when she first arrives on the elevator.
I wasn’t as impressed with The Last Wish. It does sort of vaguely gesture at The Seventh Seal, and the inevitability of death is a core theme of the story. For an audience expecting a saccharine kids’ cartoon, this probably won it a lot of points. It’s also got some cool visuals. But I dunno. It felt like one of those movies that got processed through committee meetings. Gotta have XYZ elements for the merchandising. Carve out this subplot, chop out that one, mince them and mix them together, then graft them back on. Never quite gelled for me, and felt like there was something missing in the middle. Still, it’s a huge step up from the later Shrek sequels, and it’s enjoyable as light entertainment. Unless you’re an animation fan or a Shrek fan, though, then I wouldn’t go out of my way to track it down.
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I watched Triangle the other night. As advised, I went into it blind, which was the right move! It flirts with the semi-schlocky side of the horror genre, so I wouldn’t say it’s a movie for everyone, but for people who are horror fans, then it’s a fun one to check out.
Spoilers for Triangle ahead! I enjoy these sorts of narrative pretzels, where part of the fun is examining the plot like a puzzle and seeing how all the pieces fit. (Especially makes sense, in that regard, as a recommendation to the IF crowd.) Triangle was surprisingly elegant. All the looping elements slotted together cohesively, and cohesion is always a challenge for stories with time/space shenanigans. There were parts where I would’ve preferred the main character to act differently, later in the loop, after she had already seen certain sequences play out and would’ve had incentive to change her behavior, but the movie still covers its bases here with the dream-like atmosphere. She’s clearly not thinking logically, to say the least. My favorite part was probably the scene where they come across all those identical corpses, and then the echo of that scene with the birds later.
This is the second “triangle” movie I’ve watched recently that takes place on a ship, with the other being Triangle of Sadness. In both cases, I expected the Bermuda Triangle to be involved. But it was not! (I thought Triangle of Sadness was great, incidentally, but it has almost nothing in common with Triangle.)
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My thoughts exactly. Spaceballs is so much fun, but Blazing Saddles is his best…
“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
One comedy western that I absolutely adore is They Call Me Trinity. It’s full of charm and always makes me smile.
It’s free on Tubi’s streaming service, no sign up required…
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I’ve been thinking about other movies to recommend, and I realized I could bundle these into a single group: grungy medieval.
Hard to be a God
The Green Knight
Marketa Lazarova
The Lion in Winter
These are definitely film-snob-style recommendations. Not to everyone’s taste. Probably not to most people’s taste! They’re long, ponderous, and weird. Two are black-and-white and subtitled. Hard to be a God, in particular, should be approached with caution: it’s extremely violent and grotesque. Marketa Lazarova is no walk in the park either.
What I love about these movies is their texture. It seems like whenever the medieval period is represented, especially in fantasy, it’s often scrubbed-up. People don’t tend to dig into how things smell or taste, how things would feel if you actually touched them. But these movies are grounded in sensory details. Well, “grounded.” They’re all pretty wild. (In my own little way, I tried to capture the same sort of vibe in Eat Me, with movies like these in the back of my mind.)
The Lion in Winter is the most accessible. It’s also got the best script. The dialogue is so sharp. And it’s a Christmas movie, so it’s appropriate for the season! Hard to be a God is probably the most challenging one, for multiple reasons, but in my opinion it’s a masterpiece.
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The best grungy medieval movie I watched in the last while was The Northman. This is a Viking saga done right. The world feels so harsh; gritty is an understatement. I loved the main character’s journey.
If you like artsy, creepy and beautifully shot movies, I highly recommend Men.
The vivid green hues in the forest scenes are absolutely jaw dropping. Like, that alone will be burned into your memory banks for a long time. However, how the antagonist is portrayed throughout is what makes the film stand out. And if I had to pick a movie with a memorable creature design… the “end boss” is so gross, yet continually interesting. You can’t help but cringe and stare.
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Personal taste is such an interesting thing. I was excited for that movie because of its Hamlet roots and its rave reviews, and I absolutely loathed it. I thought it was a tremendous pretentious yawn and was amazed at how it garnered all that praise.
I do agree that The Lion in Winter is just fabulous, though, and since we have such divergent taste and we agree on this, it’s an objectively good movie.
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Ha! It was Ethan Hawke’s stage-like (Hamlet?) performance at the beginning that made we wonder if I’d like the movie. I thought he was miscast (I like Ethan though… Gattaca, am I right?), but after that was everything I ever wanted in a Viking tale.
My wife didn’t like it at all. That’s 2 against 1 now. 
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The Northman was excellent! I almost put it with the other grungy movies on my little list, but I prefer The Witch and The Lighthouse. Those aren’t medieval, though, and they would’ve broken the pattern! Robert Eggers has an eye for the sort of detail I’m talking about. Nosferatu is one I’ll be seeing in theaters later this month.
I remember seeing commercials for Men a while ago, but it fell off my radar just because… life. Life has been. Bleh. But now it’s back on my radar!
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I didn’t even know that was coming. I love the original and the Herzog one.
-Wade
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When I was a teenager I went to see Spaceballs at a local drive-in. Partway through they mixed up the reels and a large chunk of the movie was played out of order. It was still enjoyable, if a little weird.
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I’m guessing you’ve already seen Shadow of the Vampire, but if not, then it’s worth checking out for a Nosferatu fan. William Dafoe is really good in it. Of course that’s usually the case whenever he’s in anything! He’s also going to be in the new Eggers remake.
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I was going through my movie collection and came across Shadow Magic (2000).
There are very few movies that feel completely wholesome and charming. This is one of them. It’s a very interesting story about Western silent film technology making it’s first appearance in China in 1902. It was the first directing effort by Ann Hu and it felt like she was a seasoned veteran with a fresh take. It was made for North American audiences, but shot in China and apparently co-funded by the Chinese government.
It has melodrama in spades, but of the highest quality. It’s heart warming, and the reactions of the patrons upon viewing the technology for the first time really draws you in. Definitely watch it! 
Note: I believe it’s on Amazon Prime currently.
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Yeah, that’s the first thing I noticed when I googled the new film.
I saw Shadow of the Vampire when it first came out. I guess it didn’t wow me because I’ve never rewatched it or sought it out for rewatching. But if I come across it at random I probably will rewatch, just because I remember almost nothing of it!
-Wade
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Godzilla Minus One
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Yes it’s that good. Answers the question: What would a monster movie directed by Kurosawa be like?
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I’ve a friend who loves movies with:
- monsters
- even more: big monsters
- even better: Godzilla!
He will probably love that movie. I guess it’s not cinema, but DVD?
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Finally watched Ghost in the Shell (the OG anime)… and I’m empty inside…
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Actually it’s in theaters here in the US. #3 box office on its opening weekend, which is crazy for a subtitled film.
ETA: It’s the kind of movie best watched in a movie theater.
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I’m so glad you watched Triangle blind! It’s one of my favorites to recommend to people who like those kinds of movies.
Some of the cool things I learned on researching and watching people’s videos about it:
Major spoilers for TRIANGLE
Some people complain that there are holes in the loop, but this is because it’s not just a loop - a new Jess arrives on the ship before the first “loop” is done, so there are actually three different versions of Jess on the Aeolus at any given time. It’s kind of a figure-eight folded on itself three times with an entry point and an exit point which then loops around on the mainland with her approaching her house, killing the version of herself in the dress, then getting in the wreck and asking to return to the harbor to start all over again. There may even be an alternating interior loop because at some point one Jess bludgeons another Jess instead of knocking her overboard alive…
The cab driver represents Charon and Jess is choosing to remain in repeating purgatory hell because her nap on the boat before the storm makes her forget everything.
This is probably the best diagram of events, which are shaped like an overlapping triangle (the movie begins from the inside loop of it.)
On re-watch this is so brilliant because the opening scenes completely support everything you now know - the prologue is presented as a montage which is selectively edited so initially audiences think Jess changed clothes because there’s paint on her dress. She didn’t change clothes and she’s in a different outfit because the version that makes it to the ship is not the same version of her! and the doppelgänger in the dress is dead in in the suitcase! 
It’s debated whether she actually killed her son initially and changed clothes because they were blood-covered and not paint-covered, but either way she either killed her son or he died with her in the car wreck because she was distracted and overwhelmed and she is a bad mother no matter how you slice it. She either killed her earlier self to prevent her from murdering her son, or to punish herself for the abuse and take over and get him out of there.
And although the loop is very deviously constructed, plot holes don’t really matter because she’s being afterlife-tortured after assumedly abusing her son - maybe killing him? - and ultimately dying in the wreck, and choosing not to accept it and move on. The act of her killing the version of her in the dress only happens in the afterlife loop where such logical fallacies and mayhem can occur.
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Thank you for that diagram! I’ve seen the movie once, going in blind, not even a recommendation by a friend, just a random film where the title and picture got me interested. I was completely mindblown.
I really need to rewatch it with everything I know now in my head. It’s so cool to see this kind of film again when you know where to look for the crucial details.
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