Glóin the Dark

I’m very keen to see the outcome when the review embargo is lifted, but the early reactions are intriguing. Brian Cox (the physicist; not sure what his taste in films is like) called it a masterpiece, and Paul Schrader says it’s the best film of this century. I think I might go and see it. This morning, when Google was greeting Barbie-related searches with a shower of pink confetti, a tweet showed up in my feed imploring everyone not to Google Cillian Murphy.

No pain no gain.

You certainly can! Memento and Incendies are both bloody brilliant. I wouldn't expect a new Nolan or Villeneuve film to be brilliant, but then I wouldn't expect that of Spielberg or Scott either - though the latter pair have made the two best films of the bunch.

I see that the general opinion is that the films get better as the series progresses, except that Letterboxd agrees with you that the second one is rubbish.

Okay, thanks! I found the official title using Google. I like how Tom Cruise kept the same hairstyle for Magnolia.

It'll be all or nothing for me!

The reviews are so good (and nearly unanimously so) that I feel I should watch the film, but I have to decide whether it's worth putting in thirteen hours of homework beforehand since haven't seen any of its predecessors in the series. (They might not be necessary for following the new one, but for a pedant like me it's unthinkable to jump straight in at the seventh instalment...)

Brilliant, both of them! I love the other three movements; the last one not quite so much. Hickox reigns supreme (for the symphonies). My earliest acquaintance with all of them was when Hickox performed the complete cycle in 1996 (I think it was with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, but could be mistaken), so I may be biased in that respect.

I think the film was called “The Creator” - trailer posted two pages back.

Hopefully true! But my post was a reply to an earlier query about a different trailer with a far wider aspect ratio.

How'd you know that? Should have been ExpendIVles.

That trailer is 2.76:1.

Wow, that’s awesome! It looks good...

Haha - yeah, I meant to guess the option in which Kevin Smith was not the primary exemplar of cinema.

Of course, now I'm twenty years older, so the aches and pains occur ever more frequently, often in corners of the body I hadn't previously realised existed. Wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for all these upcoming films!

I always feel this when there's something that I want to see or do that won't be possible for months. Throughout 2003 I was convinced that my daily chest pains meant I wouldn't see the ending of The Lord of the Rings. It was only years later that I realised they were due to my carrying a heavy backpack full of books every day...

Reports from the Cannes Film Festival have been whetting my appetite for several upcoming films. From the reviews of Ceylan's About Dry Grasses there's every reason to expect that it's on the same level as his last three films - enough to make it the most anticipated film of the year for me. Now I'm worried that I'll somehow contrive not to live long enough to see it. The response to Glazer's The Zone of Interest has been nearly unanimously rapturous. I wouldn't be surprised if it were to acquire a similar status to Under the Skin over the next decade; it certainly seems a shoo-in for a place among the top few films of the year in the general critical consensus. I'd have been interested in a new Scorsese film in any case, but Killers of the Flower Moon is looking as though it could be his best in three decades. It's great to see his refusal to capitulate to the running-time moaners - this is even longer than the Ceylan film! Rohrwacher's La chimera had its premiere today (I think) and the first flush of reviews have been great. Less enthusingly, Karim Ainouz's Firebrand seems to have had a lukewarm response, with descriptions like "bland" and "conventional" commonly applied to it. I look forward to seeing it nonetheless.

Sure - for you personally it didn't stand the test of a single viewing, so the test of time is presumably a non-starter! You mean "not cinema, like the films of Kevin Smith" or "not cinema, like the films of Kevin Smith"? I guess the former, but I haven't seen the films of Kevin Smith.

It's been about three decades since Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction burst onto the scene and they still seem to be as highly regarded as ever. Surely, as far as the test of time goes, they're doing about as well as they possibly could have...

I'd say it'll be 45% him criticising films in a rude manner, 45% him venerating other films in a rude manner, and 10% bloodbath in a climactic confrontation with a disgruntled film-maker.

Just to complicate things further, I also dislike Titanic but very much like The Power of the Dog.

I’ve seen that - the same writer/creator did The Shadow Line from my list above. It’s only seven episodes!

- Hey, who is that? Is it the guy who played Rick in Casablanca? - No. Snot Bogey.

Apart from L'Avventura (which doesn't do much for me), 8½ (which I don't like as much as Fellini's earlier films) and The Passion of Joan of Arc (which I don't like as much as Dreyer's later ones), I love all of those!

When I was a lad we'd go to the pictures every month to see the brand new instalment of Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires, but nowadays the youngsters dismiss it as an "oldie"!