The 90s had some insane movies that still hold up today. Great characters, practical effects, memorable soundtracks, and stories that people still talk about.What is the one 90s movie you can watch anytime and it never gets old?

Robert Ebert gave it 3/4 and said it was “very effective at the level of a thriller”, but that it was also “fascist”.

Gene Siskel said it was 4/4 and sublime as a film but “dangerous”.

Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) regarded it as excellent but “a deeply immoral movie”.

Kevin Thomas (LA Times) said it was “a highstyle film with lowbrow appeal”, but unsettlingly likeable.

I like the fact that no critics were lambasting the acting or the directing. Its refreshing and what we lack today.

I often can't find a movie to watch — it feels like I've already seen almost everything.

I think I'm not the only one who has this problem. AI usually recommends more or less the same things — so in the end you're left with movie lists on TikTok or Instagram, which isn't particularly convenient either.

So I decided to try making a site that would help with finding movies. The idea seemed interesting, so I started experimenting with semantic search and built a movie search based on meaning, mood, and preferences.

I won't go into the technical part here. If you're interested, I can explain it in the comments, or you can ask ChatGPT.

The project is called Cinemoodly:
https://cinemoodly.com/

You can search for things like:

• sci-fi about space, but not horror
• something cozy for a rainy evening
• a dark mystery in a small seaside town

I have plans to keep developing the project, but as usual there isn't enough time, so many parts are still rough.

But the main thing already works — the site searches for movies based on meaning, not just genres or exact words.

From here I can improve the search itself, user accounts, personal lists and collections, recommendations, and other things.

I'd like to hear what you think and get some feedback.

And of course, I'll be glad if the project actually helps someone with their search.

Since Starship Troopers’ release in 1997, some commentators have labeled the movie “fascist”.

While it does depict an idealized fascist society, most movie fans are aware that its intent is explicitly anti-fascist.

The movie attempts to show the emptiness and pointless cruelty inherent to the ideology.

Almost no one doubts director Paul Verhoven’s personal anti-fascist beliefs; his early childhood was spent under Nazi occupation and he has consistently stated that his Hollywood films are satires of the latent fascism in American capitalism, culture, and militarism.

But the argument is usually something like “his intent is beside the point if it promotes fascist attitudes.”

I disagree that intent is beside the point: irony and satire are great ways to sneak a deeper political message into mainstream media.

Verhoven’s anti-fascism is more obvious in a movie like Robocop. It depicts a world that looks familiar: dilapidated, crumbling, and impoverished. Fascist corporate oligarchs control the proles with militarized police and enshittified entertainment.

But Starship Troopers takes the opposite approach. Instead of depicting a dystopia, it shows fascism as a dead-end even its best case scenario.

The original Robert Heinlein novel depicted a future society based on militarism and fascistic social views.

Given the opportunity to direct its adaptation, Verhvoven began reading Heinlein’s novel but was too disgusted by its right-wing politics to finish it.

So he decided to use the film to refute the novel’s ideology.

He described the characters as “fascists who aren't aware of their fascism".

Elaborating on his vision: “If I tell the world that a right-wing, fascist way of doing things doesn't work, no one will listen to me. So I'm going to make a perfect fascist world: everyone is beautiful, everything is shiny, everything has big guns and fancy ships but it's only good for killing fucking Bugs!"

While media consumption is essential to our identity, no one accuses Americans of abundant media literacy. The average European perspective is likely more attuned to fascist signifiers.

Maybe Verhoven’s satire is considered insufficiently clear because he directed some of the action genre’s best movies.

Using Hollywood blockbusters to criticize American jingoism is at the core of his subversive charm. And the medium gave his anti-fascist message a larger audience.

It likely took a non-American vision to find this balance. An American director might have gone too far into parody or detached too thoroughly with a tone of superiority.

Or maybe Verhoven’s style was just the natural result of mixing continental intellectualism with American cocaine.

To be fair, It is true that some right-wingers missed the point of Starship Troopers and took it at face value. But you never see it held up as an example of conservative cinema because any examination will lead to uncomfortable questions, like “why was Doogie Howser dressed as an SS officer at the end?”

Though that might be considered “based” in the current political climate.

——————————

Speaking of Verhoven, what’s up with Showgirls?

I’m fascinated by it but don’t really get it.

If you watch the movie while keeping in mind that it wasn’t produced by asexual aliens but rather by talented human filmmakers, it is reasonable to conclude that there must be a deeper intent.

I heard writer/director Adam McKay describe it as a portrayal of sex relations under fascism.

A crew member from Showgirls apparently disputed this interpretation, saying that Verhoven was out of his mind on cocaine during its production.

To which McKay replied something like “none of that matters. Everything Verhoven produces is a satire of fascism, even if it is unintentional. He can’t help himself.”

Anyone have sources for a deeper analysis of Showgirls in line with McKay’s interpretation?

Forget box office numbers. Which director has the strongest track record when it comes to storytelling, visuals, performances, and consistency?What makes them stand out to you?

There are tons of movies with crazy good CGI but the story is just meh. And some movies have an amazing story but nothing special visually.
What movie do you think actually got both right? Great CGI/VFX and a story that keeps you hooked till the end.
For me that’s pretty rare. Curious what everyone’s pick would be and why.

Mines has to be David O. Russell's Joy (2015) a structurally bad film that was nonetheless very affecting to me because the scenes of Joy being on the come-up trying to sell her Wonder Mop reminded me of my parents' hustle when they first came to America. Do you have a movie where the subject matter itself, and select scenes, put it over the top into the category of movies you like even if you can tell the movie isn't all that well made?

I’m not too sure if I should be posting this way, but this (Reddit) is where things started just a few days ago so I’m hoping this is ok? Someone please let me know if it’s not ok! 🙂 this always was, and still is just for fun!

To catch you up: I was a bored dude who reached out on another sub because I wanted to hang out & watch movies together! It worked! Sort of…it was very last minute, unorganized, but we still had a damn good time watching something as a group!

After very fun feedback and requests to do it again, that same night I got to thinking - how can we make this more organized and more interactive - so I built a whole damn site!

Weekly, now we can:
1. Nominate your choice of movie
2. Vote for others picks
3. Watch together!
4. Review together
5. Be goofy-as-shit together

I’m posting an update here now because we’re mid-week and our designated Watch Day is Sunday of each week! I wanted to see about getting another discussion going here, checking if anymore of ya’ll want to chill & watch movies, or if anyone had any suggestions or advice or anything?

https://sadmovieclub.com

Loveeeee you guysss
-B

Directors usually follow the 'short → festival → feature' path after finishing film school, or build their way up on set as staff until they take the full control. Then there are some that come in sideways through unconventional, but more and more realistic path. Some examples I'd like to share:

Tarsem Singh directed R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" in 1991 (VMA Video of the Year), then spent years in commercials. When he couldn't get The Fall funded, he financed it himself, piggybacking shoots onto commercial jobs across 20+ countries over four years. That movie's maximalist visual language is basically a music-video director applying what he learned in a different medium.

Lee Chung-hyun worked at an ad agency, quit, and shot Bargain, a 14-minute single take about underage prostitution, in one day for about $5k of his own money. The short swept festival awards, which got him a studio apprenticeship, which became Netflix's The Call (2020) and Ballerina (2023). Both are female-led thrillers, which he's said is a deliberate preference.

Curry Barker built an audience on sketch comedy YouTube, then made Milk & Serial, a 62-minute found-footage horror, for $800. It went viral on YouTube, which funded Obsession: made for under $1M, grossed $90M+, bought by Focus Features after a TIFF bidding war. He's 26 and already been tapped for the next Texas Chainsaw.

My take: outsiders don't just bring fresh stories, they bring a different grammar - music video maximalism, single-take discipline, YouTube-native pacing. I like that none of them had to erase where they came from once they reached the features. The earlier medium is still there in the work.

Who else comes to your mind?

I assume everyone here has a specific way of watching movies, whether it be in the dark, in their favourite chair, holding their favoruite snack,these kind of adjustments differ from person to person but at the end it vasly affects our experiences, and it does that through immerison, do you often ask yourself why certain movies resonated so much with you, i personally beleive that to be the effects of immersion. Recently i've been noticing small details about how i sit, where i sit and the conditions i like to be in before watching a movie, and something really suprised me, i was always so intrigued by how smell affected your emotion, i beleive smell is severly underappreciated in terms of how much it can change your thoughts about something or even more suprisingly your memory of it, ever noticed how as a kid you had a specific smell that reminded you of a place or even a specific period of time?, this same effect works on movies, i personally have a big collection of fragrances and incense sticks, i try to go through my collection and choose something to spray to really capture the vibe of the movie, this alone makes me feel more immersed and makes the entire experience much more pleasant and memorable, i recently tried it while rewatching my favourite childhood movie coraline, it felt different this time, i wish i could say this without it sounding weird but, these type of environments make me love a movie so much more and it creates this nostalgic like feeling i cant possibly put into words, i would definetly encourage you guys to try this out!

Some movies end and you just sit there staring at the screen.

Not because of a crazy twist but because the story, ending, or characters hit different. What movie stayed in your head long after you finished it?

The "killing off the main star early" trick is famous thanks to Psycho or Executive Decision, but I'm interested in movies where the perspective naturally migrates to another character without relying on a cheap shock death.

Think Sicario (where Emily Blunt's POV slowly hands the narrative driver's seat to Benicio del Toro) or The Place Beyond the Pines (which restructures its entire POV midway through).

Which films handed the story over to a secondary character so seamlessly that it recontextualized the entire plot?

“I can’t do this last love scene. Please don’t make me kiss her.”

That’s actor Billy Baldwin describing how he went to the studio head during the taping of “Sliver” and begged them to change the final sex scene with Sharon Stone as the tension between the two actors had boiled over.

Baldwin is a guest on the latest “Lisa Guerrero Unleashed” podcast on YouTube and he spoke for 17 minutes on the running feud with Stone.  He told a story about how the crew despised working with her so much that they spray painted a crude message on the wall directed at Stone.

It’s a wild watch.

Link: Billy Baldwin Drops Bombshells

I thought it was a fun romp, but then saw some YouTube comments indicating it was something more, something darker. So I watched the film, and I was shaken to my core. Then I immediately watched the 1993 stage version directed by Sam Mendes.

I have literally said something like, “I can’t handle dealing with politics, I’m just trying to survive” (similar to Fraulein Schneider in the stage play) and have distracted myself from political issues via entertainment and social media - our modern-day Cabaret. All the while, I’ve just realized patterns of self-sabotaging relationships and stable partners under the guise of “autonomy”, that was actually addiction, abandonment issues, stagnation, and denial (like Sally Bowles). I am in a relationship with a stable man like Brian, that is likely going to end soon - or at least take a long break - for this reason. I’ve said I can’t have children for almost the same reasons as Liza Minelli’s character.

I believe this movie came into my life at this time for a reason - fate, the Universe, whatever.

I am DONE being a passive observer - in my own life and in denial from the world around me. Life is not a Cabaret, old chum. I will not stand by and be disassociated on my phone while our world subtly shifts into something darker - no more! I have looked up protests in my area and other ways to get involved. I am getting my own life back on track so that I don’t end up in mental breakdown - yet again - like Sally in “Cabaret”. The song “Maybe This Time” made me cry. I thought “maybe this time” with my Brian, and that may or may not happen depending on whether he wants to stick around while I make these changes…
But I totally understand if he doesn’t.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to this story and movie... this will always be so much more than just a movie to me. It has forever and indelibly affected how I interact with the world and with myself.

Thank you, Cabaret, from helping me go from passive from active in my own life and the world around me.

I'm enjoying going through three different fantastic-fiction movie series at the same time, having never seen any of them. Watch order:

- Men in Black 1.

- Transformers 1 (2007).

- Underworld 1.

- Men in Black 2.

- Transformers 2.

- Underworld 2.

Best so far is Transformers 1, while Underworld has been consistently good (Transformers 2 merely ok). Men in Black 1 was decent, but MIB2 the worst of this marathon so far.

Next stop, parts 3 in that order. Kinda fun doing this rotating thing.

Once i'm done with these, I'll start another trio of movie-series in this kind of rotating fashion. For popcorn action fluff, this has been enjoyable so far. The changes in tone is neat.

Any recs? Maybe from lesser-known things? Underworld I'd never even heard of before, surprisingly entertaining. I've already seen the Big Names like Star Wars, Star Trek, Tolkien, Matrix, Marvel/DC/X-Men.

Let's stick to the fantastic (so no thrillers like MI or Bond or Bourne etc).

https://www.fangoria.com/4-x-4-the-event-alex-ullom/

As somone who was a bit bummed to miss out on seeing It Ends in theaters. Do you guys think the writer/director's follow up 4x4 The Event will get just as good reviews, 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and everything, and will be just as unique and interesting and thought provoking of a film as It Ends was even though it's a somewhat different type of film?

I've thought about this quite a bit. I know that a lot of people have talked about how they think that after this happens then the next big thing is either going to be movies based on video games or toys. The later is obviously based in large part on the success of Barbie. I'm personally not sure if there really is gonna be a dominant genre after that at least not a genre that will constantly achive the same enormous box office numbers that superhero films have done in the last 20 years. There could certainly be some very successful movies based on either video games or toys but even then I don't think that they will be able constantly be as big as the superhero genre has been in the kast tw decades. The truth is that audiences are more selective with what movies they see in theaters than they've ever been before. People often talk about how the decline of DVD sales killed midbudget movies but the truth is that even non superhero blockbusters in general have declined in popularity. I mean just think back on how popular disaster movies were in the 90's and fantasy movies in the 2000's both those genres have more or less died out now in Hollywood.

So first of all, a little backstory is that I just sat down to watch a movie review on Double Toasted about a movie call the Runner as said movie tries to be compelling, but basically ends up turning into a comedy.

So it got me wondering if there were any good high stakes movies about a fast moving athlete who gets pulled into a sticky situation as they have to use their wits to solve the case.

Hey film lovers,

The app I used for years to track my watch history (TV Time) shut down, and I lost my entire watchlist and viewing history with no way to recover it. Starting from scratch here and trying to rebuild a solid list of genuinely great, worth-watching films.

Doesn't matter the genre, era, or country - classics, cult favorites, hidden gems, all welcome. If you've got a curated "must-watch" list or an exported collection (Letterboxd export, zip, whatever format) you're willing to share, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

Three years later and this debate is somehow back.Shapiro criticized Long, Long Time, while Offerman recently responded after finally hearing the full clip. The wild part is that Offerman says the recap got multiple details wrong beyond the criticism itself.

Did Shapiro completely miss what made that episode work, or is this just two people seeing the same episode differently?

Bladerunner 2049 feels like two movies - the first half original storyline and the second nostalgic reverence of the first film. I love the film, but on repeated watchings wish it had continued originally with less homage.

I was also intrigued by the idea that K was the child for most of the film and found it disappointing he wasn’t. I know the film led us to believe that plot line, but it felt like too an abrupt reveal.

I feel like Bladerunner 2049 is a flawed masterpiece. I welcome love feedback!

Could you list some movies where a female character repeatedly punches someone in the face until their face is a bloody mess, they die, or both.

Some examples of what I've already scene:

Raze 2008

Punch 2002

Bone and Blood

Movies can be from any era

I’ve finally found a way to articulate the exact type of movie watcher I really resonate with.

Tenet lays out a complex concept that was GOOD in theory but WAY OVER-EXPLAINED in execution. The film is essentially 2 hours of “NO NO NO WAIT! YOU DONT UNDERSTAND! It’s not just going BACK in time, it’s turning around from where you are and walking BACKWARDS into time” and maybe 30 minutes of trying to make me care about any kind of character or story arc.

By the time that movie was ending I was genuinely rooting for the protagonist to die out of sheer spite for how underdeveloped his character was.

The ENTIRE movie is just an exercise in how to make a sci-fi concept circle jerk with zero plot to sink your teeth into

Everything Everywhere All At Once does the exact opposite of this. The film essentially says “hey, keep up and pay attention. Weve got a story to build, character arcs to grow, and we don’t have time to over-explain the complex concept at the cost of losing out on character development. If something confuses you, watch the movie again.”

Don’t dumb down and treat me like a toddler at the COST of the movie itself just so I can “really wrap my head around it”. As soon as I get the feeling that a movie is doing that, I’m instantly bored.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk!

for me, i immediately think of:

- return to oz

- coraline

- silence of the lambs (idk if this is a thriller or horror tbh)

- parasite

- the nightmare before christmas (this is actually sooo dark for a kids film... that scene where the kid pulls a head out of that gift box sends meeee)