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Steven Spielberg will be making a UFO movie based on an original idea with a David Koepp script. (Variety) Will this bring Johnny back to the scoring stage?

With the film premiering at Cannes today, spoilers will likely be all over the internet. This is a space for those who want to discuss spoilers can do so freely. Feel free to share spoiler-free Cannes reactions in the existing thread.

I think this title makes more sense than "What Is The Last Film You Watched (from 2023)", because 99% (if not 100%) of the posts are people's first watches of films of the year in question, and usually by the time you rewatch it it's an "older" film and not something you're going to find the specific yearly thread to post about Thoughts? Meanwhile, here's an article I just came across of some of the big films coming this year https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/features/1257902-comingsoons-25-most-anticipated-2023-movies Some I'm looking forward to, some I legit forgot existed despite them having buzz like over a year ago (Wonka)

Under The Skin voted best British film of the 21st century according to critics poll (60 film reviewers) https://www.nme.com/news/film/under-the-skin-voted-best-british-film-of-the-21st-century-in-critics-poll-3203579

Yes

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but.. Can anyone recommend any drama films with Irish content, in the vein of, let's say, Angela's ashes? If it's a period film (first half of 20th century) it would be even better. The thing that interests me more is the soundtrack.

Here's what I'll probably see this year Feb 7 - The 355 Feb 11 - Death on the Nile, I Want You Back Feb 18 - Uncharted Feb 25 - Mar 4 - Batman Mar 11 - Turning Red Mar 18 - Mar 25 - The Lost City Apr 1 - Apr 8 - Apr 15 - Fantastic Beasts Apr 22 - The Northman Apr 29 - Memory May 6 - Dr Strange 2 May 13 - May 20 - Downton Abbey 2 May 27 - Jun 3 - Jun 10 - Jurassic World 3 Jun 17 - Lightyear Jun 24 - The Black Phone Jul 1 - Jul 8 - Thor 4 Jul 15 - Bullet Train Jul 22 - Jul 29 - Black Adam Aug 5 - Aug 12 - Aug 19 - Aug 26 - Sep 2 - Sep 9 - Sep 16 - Sep 23 - Don't Worry Darling Sep 30 - Oct 7 - Spider-verse 2 Oct 14 - Oct 21 - Oct 28 - Nov 4 - The Flash, untitled David O Russel Nov 11 - Black Panther 2 Nov 18 - Nov 23 (25) - Fabelmans Dec 2 - Dec 9 - Dec 16 - Avatar 2, Aquaman 2 Dec 21 (23) - Mario Dec 25 (30) - Babylon undated: Clerks III Gray Man Cha Cha Real Smooth Emily The Criminal When You Finish Saving The World Pinocchio Pinocchio Knives Out 2 Enola Holmes 2

Here is a space to openly talk about the new James Bond movie without using spoiler blocks at all. Feel free to also share spoiler-free thoughts in the Last Film You Watched or No Time To Die hype thread if you like, for others who might be avoiding this thread entirely until after they've seen it. Previous Spoiler Talk threads you might enjoy perusing:

Set photos of a train and costumes

Welcome to the replacement for the "newer films" thread; I'll be making these one per year to discuss the films of that year; Anything older can go into the "older films" thread, unless it's a 2020 film. I don't know if any 2021 films are even out yet, but when they are out, discuss them here!

Warner Brothers has decided to debut all their 2021 films simultaneously on HBO Max the same day they open in theaters. The Little Things (January 29, 2021) Tom & Jerry (March 5, 2021) The Many Saints of Newark (March 12, 2021) Reminiscence (April 16, 2021) Godzilla vs. Kong (May 21, 2021) The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (June 4, 2021) In the Heights (June 18, 2021) Space Jam: A New Legacy (July 16, 2021) The Suicide Squad (August 6, 2021) Dune (October 1, 2021) Elvis (November 5, 2021) King Richard (November 19, 2021) The Matrix 4 (December 22, 2021) Judas and the Black Messiah (TBA 2021) Malignant (TBA 2021) Mortal Kombat (TBA 2021) Those Who Wish Me Dead (TBA 2021) Should we expect Universal, Sony, Paramount, and Disney to follow suit?

https://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/1155717-20th-century-studios-taps-dan-trachtenberg-to-helm-fifth-predator-movie A Bear McCreary score for Predator could be interesting!

The Grudge (2020) Even die-hard J-horror fans should stay away. Despite the jump scares, fantastic cast and realistic gore, the second U.S. remake lacks any kind of tension or spooky atmosphere. Nicholas Pesce and co-writer Jeff Buhler essentially just make the victims the carrier of the Grudge (they look like refugees from 28 Days Later and The Conjuring), while dispensing with most of the uniquely Japanese elements (Kayako only appears in the beginning). He tries to do what Takashi Shimizu did with the original Japanese film (three separate storylines converging into one), but it's confusing. Even the Newton Brothers' score doesn't come close to the haunting scores Young composed for the 2004 and 2006 movies. This is a rare example where a PG-13 remake is scarier than the R-rated version.

Will it be better than Prometheus?

The year is coming to an end, but with a few movies still to come. What has everyone seen and liked a lot so far? My top three: Isle of Dogs Incredibles 2 Avengers: Infinity War Honorable mentions: A Quiet Place, Paddington 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Ready Player One

Hans Zimmer & Harold Faltermeyer to score ‘Top Gun: Maverick’.

Rian Johnson will direct a modern day Agathie Christie inspired murder mystery starring Daniel Craig called "Knives Out" before regrouping with Disney for his new Star Wars trilogy

Thought this would make for a fun thread, so here goes: What films have you seen that reference movies that came before them? Do you think the homage is subtle or glaringly obvious? Perhaps that overtness was part of the filmmaker’s goal. What do you think the intention of the director was in including this allusion? For example, this moment from Swedish director Victor Sjöström's Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)... ...is pretty clearly referenced in the climax of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Another example is the opening of Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs... ...which closely echoes the rally scenes from Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. Feel free to share more examples of homages and references in films, both discreet and on-the-nose, in this thread.

As some can deduce from the "favourite shots" thread, I re-watched the LOTR EEs earlier this week. I'd last seen them when the Blu-rays came out, so about seven years ago. I'd been excited to finally revisit them for a while, waiting for an opportunity when I would have time to watch all three films on consecutive nights. I wasn't necessarily fully in the mood for them this week and mainly watched them now because I knew I had the time, so that may have influenced my experience a bit. Still, after such a long time, I was more ambivalent about them than I was used to. On the one hand, I was more receptive to their missteps than I'd been after my first viewings of each. At the same time, I still know much of them by heart, so there was nothing to positively surprise me, and not everything had as much impact as I'd expected. Also, because I was more aware of their issues while still being so familiar with everything, I was bothered by some things I had barely noticed before. There's a shitload of out of context dialogue in these films, mostly expositional. And mostly it's even taken straight from Tolkien, only given to different characters in different situations that make you wonder why that specific character would say that specific thing now, or even be aware of it. The best visualisation of this is perhaps something that's always annoyed me: Faramir and his second in command discussing their strategy on a map of Gondor. Pointing to Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Mordor - as if they'd even need a map to find them in the first place. And it's not even necessary for unfamiliar viewers, since the camera clearly shows those locations anyway without fingers pointing at them. There are the other familiar issues - out of context humour that's meant to lighten the mood of grave or dark sequences, which by definition has the effect of at least partly destroying that mood (goofy young Hobbit antics, comic relief Gimli). Characters acting decidedly out of character, and in fact out of everything Tolkien's moral compass for these characters dictates (Gandalf striking Denethor and actively taking command of Minas Tirith from him, Aragorn beheading the Mouth of Sauron; Elves showing up for the defence of Helm's Deep - and then either all dying (all of them?) or going home instead of aiding in the crucial Pelennor battle). Sam letting Frodo send him home (!) from the edge of Mordor (!), then tripping and breaking his skull, but seeing the missing Lembas bundle and deducing (how?) that Gollum had betrayed him (as if he didn't know), then running after Frodo, which highlights the films' often confused sense of time. Character arcs being shortened so much that they become goofy rather than tragic (Denethor). Stuff being blown out of proportion just for an iconic shot (I still like the beacons sequence, but burning Denethor running across the entire top level of Minas Tirith and climbing the balustrade just to plummet to his death; Legolas's heroic feats that make you wonder why they need entire armies at all instead of just a handful of Elves; the Ents are played nearly entirely for comic relief without the melancholy, gravitas or enigmatic other-ness (in a non-"funny", non-"obviously wrong" way) of their book counterparts). Christopher Lee is a brilliant Saruman, but his portrayal as a sadist lunatic and ally of Sauron doesn't do the character (or the fundamental concept of the Istari) justice. I still applaud the decision of incorporating the Arwen plot into the films (and the fact that they ultimately refrained from making her a badass fighter character), but the confused handling of her (non-)decision to stay with Aragorn is neither in character nor convincing (and was also badly received by non Tolkien enthusiasts). The thing is, most of these can be summed up as variations of the same basic problem: Characters acting not out of their character's motivation, but either the film's need to further a plot, or simply to entertain the audience (or lightening a mood that doesn't need lightening), i.e. characters being aware that they're in a film. And that's the most effective way to destroy any suspension of disbelief, regardless of whether the source material is something as intricate as a Tolkien story or not. But despite all this, where the films are not hampered by these things, they still work. The cast is excellent, the story (when it's not dumbed down too much) is obviously strong, the editing is mostly good (though there repeatedly are spots where actors completely switch their facial expressions and apparent mood with one edit - probably due to the extensive post production changes to pretty much everything). The locations are still so spot on that I can't bring myself to believe that these are NOT the original Middle-earth locations from the stories, and that includes the biggatures. The effects, with the exception of frequent putting Legolas on top of other things CGI shots that never looked good even in the theatre, still hold up. The scores are obviously iconic, although there are times when less might have been more. Another point that has always disappointed me is that a number of the books' most (at least to my mind) cinematic moments never made it into the films. Pippin's view of the Pelennor battle from afar being replaced by tons of exciting scenes from right inside the battle is not surprising (but considering that the battle goes ever on and on, hurts only more). Gandalf's "hour of doom" proclamation could easily have been an iconic moment of cinema and probably fell victim to the heavy intercutting between the storylines (which I think does take away a bit from the tension of the Mount Doom confrontation, given how - necessarily - uninvolving the Morannon battle is - though at least they came to their senses and didn't have Sauron battle Aragorn personally). I fully understand that sometimes (often) a film version of a story must make changes to the book to work - in fact, at least given the limited time in the films, I think they did well with Faramir (in the EE). But I strongly disagree that necessarily everything must be changed to adhere to established film conventions, especially if the book versions of certain scenes feel so cinematic that I can still picture them in my mind just like the first time I read them. With my increased awareness of the numerous flaws, not every emotional scene hit home, but most of the big ones still do and still make me cry (and I mean not just tears but genuine near-sobbing). I just wish they could do that without me being increasingly annoyed in between them. As Steef said in the other thread, they're beautifully shot, although (especially in TTT and ROTK) the rather hectic storytelling actually gets in the way and leaves many iconic locations without actually getting iconic shots. That's another thing I noticed for the first time: Never mind that the films last some 11 hours in total, they're actually too short for everything that's been crammed into them! Many important sequences that deserve enough time to make an emotional impact just fly by like a bit of exposition that has to be gotten out of the way. It doesn't help that after the lengthy TTT battle, the Pelennor battle in ROTK "had" to be even bigger and longer, taking up time that's missing for other stuff. I guess it's not that the films haven't aged well. In fact, I think they mostly have. All their problems were just as problematic when they came out. Although back then they could compensate by showing stuff that had never been seen before. That technical amazement, which distracted from the flaws, is mostly gone now, though to the films' credit that mostly means that special effects which stood out as amazing effects are now just organic components that don't stand out anymore *because* they're still convincing. But I've also always said that I hope someone will make another attempt at filming this story before long. Considering that many problems stem from having too much story to tell in too little time, having too many characters to properly portray all of them, having to constantly top a previous big battle with an even bigger one, perhaps the time is ripe for a TV adaptation. In fact, a sufficiently lengthy TV version could stick more closely to Tolkien's original structure (after all, having selected episodes take a break from the surrounding storyline to offer a standalone flashback or different perspective is a staple of contemporary TV) and thus do justice to some moments from the books that couldn't possibly have worked in the structure of the PJ films. Like, just as an example, the TTT cliffhanger at Cirith Ungol, the mere memory of which still has as much weight for me as any of the most effective moments in the films. Obviously, given the rights situation, the still healthy merchandising and the upcoming spinoff (?) series on Amazon, a LOTR series isn't in the cards at this point. But perhaps in another ten or twenty years...

Thought this bit of news might warrant a thread of its own... Lost Stanley Kubrick screenplay, Burning Secret, is found 60 years on

Which movies that have come out in the past 10 years or so (2008 to 2018) do you think will eventually be considered classic films? Keep in mind a "classic" doesn't necessarily mean it's one of the best movies ever, just a film that will stand the test of time and leave a lasting impression on movie fans and the pop culture landscape. For example, some of my choices would be: Fantastic Mr. Fox - a beautifully animated stop-motion comedy, with a sharp wit and an absolutely dynamite voice cast. La La Land - an infectiously optimistic and colorful musical with endearing characters and a memorable, upbeat score. Avatar - flawed, no doubt, but the sheer power of the storytelling along with the revolutionary VFX (as well as the upcoming sequels) make this a film I feel will continue to be discussed by both movie fans and the general public for a long time.

On occasion, I like to watch movies that have low stakes, good humor, are easy to watch and don't dip too far down before a big, boisterous third act. One of my favorite examples of a movie like this is Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox. Yes, it's a stop-motion film with talking animals, but it's also an absolute masterpiece and immensely amusing. From the way the film looks (everything is shot in rich, warm tones), to the pitch-perfect voice cast, to the deadpan humor; it's a movie I can put on whenever I'm feeling a bit down and is guaranteed to put a smile on my face. What is everyone's favorite "feel-good" movie?

Which Vangelis electronic score do you prefer; Chariots of Fire or Blade Runner? Both the scores and the films are undoubtedly iconic and great, but I personally prefer Chariots of Fire over Blade Runner, in both categories.

I'm already fairly certain of this poll's outcome, but I thought it would make for an interesting discussion. Which sci-fi film and its respective score do you prefer; Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Christopher Nolan's Interstellar?

Steven Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio To Team Up Again For a Ulysses S. Grant Biopic Lincoln 2