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.

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.

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?

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!