435 posts shown.
goldenhound32 said:hmm... wasn't his hands tied by that first Black guy? If my memory serves me right, he actually strangled the second guy who showed up at the door just a moment later.
Mark Wood79 said:That was actually a really well-written point. 👍
Charles Martin2 said:
the human contract (2009)
Jada Pinkett Smith
I went into this film with low expectations since Jada Pinkett Smith has never been a good actress and now not a good director. The film has every cliché that you can imagine and the personal relationships are contrived at best.
The director as a woman had her husband beg and plead for this opportunity instead of earning the opportunity herself. You don't start as a film director, because TV is usually the proving ground to get you noticed.
These Hollywood couples make me want to puke because they spin out dreck like this film which is nothing new at all.
Another quirk about America—which is equally exhausting—is that first the parents, or both of them, finish Juilliard, and then the kids, grandkids, and extended family follow suit, all seemingly gifted since the dawn of time, and everyone suddenly decides they need to work in theater, film, or at Juilliard.
Basically, debut films are under a microscope these days, and their creators aren't allowed a single mistake. Short and sweet. 😁
PLOT
Some things just won't stay buried
Every so often, a thriller rolls around that actually gets under your skin, turns your stomach, and leaves you breathless.
Well, now America has a new thriller that hits with that same raw emotional weight. First-time director Nash Edgerton and his brother—who wrote and starred in it—Joel Edgerton, have put together an intense, moody, and provocative film noir fueled by moral decay and a slow-burning fuse... It asks the big questions: what happens when supposedly decent people commit terrible acts, how much will they sacrifice to protect their own, and what lengths will they go to in order to bury the truth? With a heavy-hitting ensemble cast, the Edgerton Brothers pull you into a dark, gritty world where nobody is truly who they claim to be and everyone has a price.
Arthur Garcia59 said:Hold on a second—so you're telling me that the mere fact a few directors happened to have their best work as a debut film is enough of a reason to start an entire thread?
I suppose I should probably start by redefining what we're actually doing here, though I’m not entirely sure if anyone is actually listening to me or if I'm just shouting into the void of the internet again. It feels like we spend half our time arguing about technicalities that don't matter and the other half pretending we have all the answers when, in reality, most of us are just making it up as we go along. If we're going to make sense of this conversation, we might need to stop looking at things through such a narrow lens and maybe try to actually engage with the core ideas instead of just nitpicking the surface level stuff. It's a bit exhausting, honestly, trying to find some semblance of common ground when everyone seems so set in their ways, but I guess that's just the nature of the beast. kaže:
If I don't get this down now, it’s going to slip my mind entirely. Chugyeog (I finally sat down to watch The Chaser, and honestly, my head is still spinning a little from the sheer intensity of it all. It’s one of those movies that just refuses to let you breathe, dragging you through this relentless, gritty pursuit that feels far too close to reality to be comfortable. I went in expecting a standard thriller, but what I got was something much more visceral and punishing. There’s a certain kind of exhaustion that sets in by the end, not because the pacing drags, but because the emotional weight is just so heavy. It really makes you sit there wondering how much more a person can take before they completely break.Na Hong-jina. 🙏
Watching a film like this really drives home just how much we've been missing lately. It feels like so many modern movies are nothing more than smoke and mirrors, all flash with zero substance. But then you sit through something like The Chaser, and you realize the director actually had a vision—they knew exactly what they wanted to achieve and, more importantly, they didn't feel the need to insult our intelligence to get there. Beyond just making a remake of this, Hollywood should study IT..
goldenhound32 said:following (nolan)...it's actually right up there with his other stuff...I watched Memento first, then followed it up with Following, and honestly, it was just as good... it's about this guy who stalks people he sees on the street. He has this rule where he never follows the same person twice. Of course, that rule gets broken pretty quickly 😉
Following only cost about six thousand dollars, and since we know it was shot in London, that's even more impressive than Robert Rodriguez's seven thousand for a movie filmed in Mexico.
Nolan's uncle even acts in it 🙂 ...I guess some people just want to help out their nephews 👍 ...and another thing I really appreciate is the location shooting; not only is it a hundred times cheaper than using studio sets, but it gives the film a sense of realism that a lot of directors struggle to capture.
Scott Long71 said:Michael Nichols - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Clint Eastwood - Play Misty For Me
Ridley Scott - Duelists
Kusturica - When Father Was Busy
Robert Benton - Bad Company
Danny Boyle - Shallow Grave
John Singleton - Boyz n the Hood
Slobodan Sijan - If Anyone Starts Singing
Lawrence Kasdan - Body Heat
Bertrand Tavernier - A Sunday in Lyon
Jiri Menzel - Closely Watched Trains
Danis Tanovic - No Man's Land
Why are those early films so good? I noticed that a while ago and have been thinking about it; if an auteur is authentic and has real potential, it has to show in their debut. A first film is like a musician's first album—it's the distilled essence of everything they've learned up to that point, and without the baggage of routine, it can lead to something extraordinary, sometimes even unrepeatable achievements. What's most interesting is that most of them were made with relatively tiny budgets, which just proves that money isn't the deciding factor. I suppose Orson Welles was the exception, having access to massive resources that he likely never saw again.
The way they run this local film festival is kind of a joke; they define "first films" so narrowly that they only count the absolute debut, which feels like such a missed opportunity. If they actually opened things up to include second features, the lineup would be absolutely stacked—I’m talking about stuff like Tarkovsky’s *Andrei Rublev* or Chabrol’s *The Cousins*, plus a whole bunch of other heavy hitters that would make the programming look much more impressive.
I'm not entirely sure what you want me to redefine, since there isn't any text here for me to work my magic on, but if you're looking for someone to take a messy pile of ideas and turn them into something that actually sounds like a human being wrote it, then yeah, I guess we're ready to go. Just toss the source material my way whenever you feel like it. kaže:
I’d probably throw in one more incredible debut to the mix, though we're talking about a film this time. I finally sat down to watch *Gone Baby Gone*, and honestly, it’s one of those movies that just sits in your gut long after the credits roll. It isn't exactly a feel-good flick by any stretch of the imagination, but there's something about that gritty, unapologetic way it handles its moral gray areas that really sticks with you. You spend half the runtime wanting to scream at the screen because the characters keep making these impossible choices, yet you can't help but realize they're all just trapped in their own messy realities. It’s a heavy one, definitely not something you'd put on if you're looking for a lighthearted night in, but if you enjoy being left with more questions than answers, it's pretty much perfect.It’s that one from Ben Affleck—you know, the guy who somehow managed to snag both the critics' approval and the audience's heart at the same time.
By the way, has anyone actually sat down to watch this? I was watching Frozen River the other night, and honestly, it’s one of those movies that just sits in your gut long after the credits roll. It’s got that heavy, unrelenting atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re shivering right along with the characters, even if you're wrapped in a blanket on your couch. There’s something about that gritty, desperate struggle for survival in a frozen landscape that feels so raw and unpolished, which is exactly why it works. It doesn't try to sell you a Hollywood version of hardship; it just lays out the cold, hard reality of people pushed to their absolute limits by circumstance. I found myself thinking quite a bit about how much we take for granted in our everyday lives, compared to the sheer, exhausting weight of what these people were dealing with just to get by. It’s a tough watch, sure, but it’s the kind of story that stays with you because it refuses to look away from the uncomfortable truths.?
So, I finally did it—I actually made my first film..
Twenty legendary directors sit down to talk about their very first films, edited by Stephen Lowenstein and published by Paramount Pictures in New York, 2006.
Ever since the French New Wave started making waves back in the fifties, we’ve been stuck with this pervasive idea that the director is the sole creative genius behind every movie. That whole concept of "auteur theory" really took shape in those old film journals as a way to push back against the big Hollywood studio system—you know, those massive production machines that mostly just churned out literary adaptations. Back then, the critics argued that working within those rigid studio frameworks made it nearly impossible to produce anything truly inventive or driven by raw creative impulse, so they championed the idea of film as a direct expression of a director's unique vision. Even though anyone who has actually worked on a set knows that filmmaking is an incredibly expensive, massive group effort, we still cling to this somewhat romanticized notion of the singular "author" figure. In reality, that kind of pure, unchecked authorship is pretty rare, usually only popping up in indie short films; once you get into the world of major commercial features, that level of individual control almost completely vanishes.
I’m not trying to stage some grand coup against the idea of the director as an auteur here, if that’s what you’re worried about. My point is simply that when a budget starts ballooning and those heavy-handed commercial demands kick in, that sense of creative control tends to evaporate pretty quickly. Take Stephen Lowenstein’s book *My First Film*, for example. He’s a filmmaker himself with a handful of decent short films under his belt, and he put together this collection of twenty interviews with established directors—including guys like Steve Buscemi and Gary Oldman—discussing their early works, which were hit or miss at best. It captures that specific window of time before they were raking in the massive Hollywood paychecks that eventually caused most of them to trade in that raw, youthful creative energy for something a bit more polished and predictable. That said, Lowenstein wasn't exactly consistent with his own rules. He claims he only picks projects where he feels a "real sense of authorship," yet he decided to interview Oliver Stone about *Salvador* (1986), which was actually his third feature. If you’re looking for a reason why he broke his own editorial standards like that, you probably won't find it in artistic integrity; it’s much more likely a calculated move to get a big-name star like Stone on the book cover to drive up sales.
In the intro, Lowenstein basically admits that the whole idea for this collection of interviews—chatting with famous directors about their debut features—hit him while he was still reeling from the chaos of filming his own short. He set out with three specific goals: give readers a real "insider's look" at how a production actually functions, introduce us to the director’s actual personality, and dig into the gritty, technical side of how they actually shoot. Because of that, the questions are pretty much engineered to hit those three pillars every single time. Now, if you want to get pedantic, you could argue the book feels a bit formulaic since he sticks to the same template for everyone, but honestly, the end result is actually quite engaging and packed with info. You end up learning if these directors were cinephiles from day one, what shaped them during their formative years, where they went to film school, and the nightmare of trying to secure funding for a first project. He even covers how the shoot went, how the critics reacted, and where they stand today. One of the more entertaining bits is hearing how they felt right before the cameras started rolling. Take Ang Lee, for instance; he held some sort of traditional ceremony with his crew to bring good luck, which apparently worked. Then there’s Tom DiCillo, who was so incredibly nervous the night before production that he polished off half a bottle of vodka and woke up the next morning with a massive hangover.
It’s pretty obvious that when you sit down to listen to these directors, their stories range from wildly different to strangely similar. One thing most of them have in common is that they basically stumbled into filmmaking without knowing the first thing about technical camera work. You see folks like Neil Jordan, Mike Figgis, Steve Buscemi, and Stephen Frears all leaning heavily on their cinematographers to actually make things look decent. Even today, Allison Anders admits she’s still essentially clueless when it comes to the technical side of a camera—she once joked that her own personal snapshots are so terrible she’s actually embarrassed to tell people at a local CVS that she does this for a living. But honestly, having a shaky grasp on lighting isn't even the biggest headache; for most directors, the real nightmare is just trying to scrape together enough cash to get started. If you listen to the Coen brothers talking about their debut, *Blood Simple*, they were basically walking door-to-door through small businesses, trying to convince random entrepreneurs to throw money at their vision. Then you have Kevin Smith, who was either incredibly brave or just plain delusional, racking up over twenty-five thousand dollars in credit card debt just to fund *Clerks*. He wasn't even worried about the legal fallout, mostly because he figured the worst-case scenario was just spending the next two decades paying off interest. I suppose his story serves as a sort of "welcome to the industry" guide for any aspiring director looking to shoot a guerrilla-style indie film while simultaneously gambling away their entire future. Of course, finishing the movie is only half the battle; then you have to deal with the soul-crushing task of finding a distributor. That’s where Smith’s luck gets almost unbelievable, since a series of wild coincidences led Miramax to pick up *Clerks*, turning his struggle into a total Hollywood fairy tale. On the flip side, if you look at Gary Oldman’s directorial debut, *Nil by Mouth*, you realize how much easier it is when you've already spent years being an established star. Without his connection to Luc Besson, getting that three-and-a-half million dollar budget would have been a much longer, much more painful uphill climb. It’s a similar story for J.P. Hogan with *Muriel's Wedding*; he’s pretty upfront about the fact that without a little help from Jane Campion, his film—which turned out to be quite a hit—probably never would have made it past the planning stages.
There’s really nothing quite like the chaos that ensues when a director tries to wrangle a group of actors together. I mean, Mike Figgis definitely had it rough back when he was filming *Internal Affairs* in '88. His audition process was basically a fever dream; he had to sit through an interview with Christopher Walken, who was incredibly awkward and wouldn't stop making these weird snorting noises, and then there was Harvey Keitel, who actually tried to negotiate a sex scene with his secretary into the script just to get the part. It gets even more ridiculous once you actually start production, though. I heard Tommy Lee Jones once pulled him aside during filming just to complain that Melanie Griffith’s trailer was a good foot longer than his own—and honestly, knowing him, he probably actually measured it just to be sure. Then you have the whole Sting situation, which sounds like a total circus, with girls constantly chasing him down the street, lifting up their skirts and screaming for him to take a look. Just absolute madness.
While we could probably keep listing similar anecdotes all day, the real takeaway from those interviews is how incredibly open these directors were with Lowenstein. They didn't hold back, laying out their doubts, their struggles, and those inevitable moments of hesitation that hit everyone eventually, regardless of their status. A lot of them also drifted into broader philosophical debates about the creative process itself. Take Neil Jordan, who’s as respected for his novels as he is for his directing; he offered this pretty sharp perspective on the gap between writing prose and writing a screenplay. To him, working on a script is almost a "pure joy" because it's really just the warm-up act for the actual heavy lifting on set. Prose, on the other hand, is a finished product in its own right, which carries a much heavier weight of responsibility. Then you have Anthony Minghella weighing in on the relationship between writing and the physical act of filming. He pointed out that writing lacks that empirical connection between effort and outcome; you can spend twelve grueling hours staring at a page and end up with absolutely nothing to show for it. With filmmaking, though, there are rarely days where you can't point to something and say, "Hey, look, we actually made something today."
Reading about how these legendary directors navigated the messy journey from that first spark of an idea to the final critical reception of their debut isn't just entertaining—it’s occasionally quite inspiring. Their experiences do more than just pull back the curtain on the supposedly glamorous world of Hollywood; they prove that beyond whatever specific talent you happen to possess, success demands a massive amount of creativity, grit, and sheer nerve. And, let’s be honest, having the right connections certainly doesn't hurt either. So, I'm not going to go out on a limb by suggesting my first film should be mandatory reading for aspiring filmmakers, though it might be worth a glance even for those who've been around the block a few times.
My First Film 2.
Short, sweet, and hopefully better.
Mark Wood79 said:Maybe some guy like Miller is on par with Blood Simple. 🙂
It’s funny how people work.
The 2003 Golden Lion winner managed to pull off fifteen straight minutes of standing ovations after its Venice screening, which was honestly pretty impressive. It’s the debut feature from this old-school Russian student, Zvyagintsev, and people are already trying to draw these heavy comparisons between him and Tarkovsky—calling it some sort of mystical, symbolic allegory about those endless Russian white nights where the sun never really sets, all wrapped up in these tragic elements. It basically opens up a whole mountain of questions without actually bothering to answer a single one of them.So, this director gets handed an award and immediately goes, "..."It feels like a fair enough question to ask, "what is this movie actually about," I suppose. But honestly, I don't think that's even a question worth asking in the first place.'
After that debut neo-noir hit '13/Tzameti' really made waves, director Gela Babluani is currently working on an American remake titled simply '13'.
Back in 2000, when he was 47, Haggis hit a moment of clarity: he realized he "didn't want the epitaph on his tombstone to read: 'Creator of Walker, Texas Ranger.'"
Mark Wood79 said:You’ve got a point; honestly, it might just be easier to call them debut films. If that can actually be changed, I guess the mods can step in if they aren't too busy.
goldenhound32 said:Well, it’s definitely not Training Day, but I guess it’ll do. 👍
There’s one clumsy little detail regarding one of the shootouts, but I'll save that for when someone actually sits down to watch the movie.
What kind of freaking intermission is this? Honestly, I’d lose my mind if they actually cut me off mid-movie just to tell everyone to take a break.
goldenhound32 said:Now I'm sitting here trying to think of even one single thing I didn't like about this movie, and honestly, I can't find any. 🙂 8 out of 10.
Arthur Poppington: I'm gonna capture Captain Industry!
Steven Torres41 said:Total madness, but that was my first thought too. I didn't say anything because I thought maybe it was just me, but apparently, I'm not alone. 🙂
ruggedjackal46 said:s
It isn't in your post.
Quote: Guyz Nite - "Die Hard" (Seven songs about movies).
Inspired by: Die Hard (1988), Die Hard 2 (1990) and Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995)
Even though this 2006 track already feels strangely stuck in that specific Fall Out Boy era, you can't deny the chorus is an absolute earworm: "We're gonna die (DIE!) die (DIE!) die (DIE!) die hard!" Guyz Nite—who basically define "Beer metal" and roll with hyper-masculine stage names like Guy Manley and Bear Woods—tend to take some liberties with their rhyming schemes ("The good cop wouldn't miss this / Even though IT wasn't Christmas"), but I think they earn some serious credit for paying homage to the first three entries in the Die Hard franchise (since Live Free or Die Hard wasn't even a thing back then) and somehow turning John McClane's famous catchphrase into a surprisingly melodic bridge.
goldenhound32 said:It’s actually not all that bad, honestly—I caught a glimpse of the sample.
I have to admit, Fuqua kind of let me down with Shooter—not because the movie itself was a disaster, but more because of his decision to go with that particular script in the first place. I’m really hoping this next one turns out to be a much better call on his part.
restlessfox5 said:So what's your suggestion?
...waiting for a thread titled "good films where the protagonist just walks on the right side of the road"
not bad, just overrated
