Talk About Movies: Part 4

Prey = (Predator-Arnie) + (Hailee & snake from True Grit) + (Revenant-Leo) + (Dances With Wolves-American Whitey) x Dog from Mad Max 2.

The Big Sleep (1946) Howard Hawks

1 Doghouse Riley, In a glass!: I grieve over them on long winter evenings!

2 They are alike only in having the same corrupt blood!

3 This flick has more Dames per square inch than any movie since 42nd Street!

4 I've got a bottle of pretty good rye in my pocket: HELLO!

5 There’s a Packard washing around in the surf around Lido pier!: There’s a guy in it!

(You like to play games, don’t you? Mm-hmm!)

6 You see, Shawn Regan ran off with Eddie's wife!: Well, it wasn’t intentional!: Try it some time!

7 Day and night?: Night’s better! I work during the day!: That wouldn’t be bad!

8 Knock knock. Who’s there?: BANGxBANG!

9 A lot depends on who’s in the saddle!: Go ahead Marlow, I like the way you work!

(I don't like people who play games!)

9.5 Is he as cute as you are?: Nobody is!

10 The mentor appears!!!: Elish Cook, Jr.??? Harry Jones transforms the hero’s journey???

11 Wish me luck copper: I got a raw deal!

I got here first, Eddie!: Put those scissors down -- put ‘em down!

12 Don’t shoot! It's me, Mars!

What's wrong with you?: Nothing that you can’t fix!

The greatest movie of all time. Check it out!

Explanatory notes to eliminate any confusion:

Spoiler

Show

Hahahaha...nice!

The notes help. [emoji1787]

William Faulkner contributed to the screenplay.

Is the Raymond Chandler novel that difficult to understand? I don't quite remember.

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This was clever

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This was clever but bonkers as well . More:

" You were dead. You were sleeping
the big sleep, you were not bothered by things like that, oil and water were the same as wind and air to you. You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now. Far more a part of it than Rusty Regan was."
Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep (Philip Marlowe, #1)

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Weapons, Zach Cregger, 2025

Rarely does a movie come out, especially a genre film, that surprises me as much as Weapons did. I guess I shouldn't have been, as Cregger's last film, Barbarian, was one of the most unique - and surprising - horror films of recent years.

Weapons is simply one of the most brilliant, effective, unique, and thrilling horror movies I've ever seen.

It combines Aristotelian/fairly tale archetypes with grounded, flawed, realistic characters in such a way that one is never sure about what will happen next - or even, who the so-called "hero" is.

In a picturesque, upper-middle class community, a whole class of elementary school children go missing, as each one of them leaves their homes at 2:17 in the morning and disappears. All, except one little boy - Alex. He's the only one who shows up to class the next day...but his homelife is not quite what it should be...

The children's parents, led by a grieving Josh Brolin needs someone to blame - and they latch on to the class's teacher, played by Julia Garner. In a lesser movie, this teacher would maybe be played by a different Garner - Jennifer - and would be a perfect representative of what a good teacher is - and she would then do anything to find her kids again. She'd be the main impetus for solving this mystery.

Not this Garner, however. This teacher, named Justine, has a drinking problem and has been fired from her previous teaching job in another town for having an inappropriate relationship with a colleague.

The other main characters are also similarly flawed, and therefore, real.

Brolin plays Archer, a contractor who, because of his grief, is screwing up his job and also semi-stalking Garner because he thinks she must know something that she's not revealing - even going so far as some petty vandalism.

Benedict Wong plays Marcus, the school principal who just wants the school back to normal, go home to his husband to watch TV and eat hot dogs, and is tired of Garner's questions about Alex's family.

Alden Ehrenreich plays Paul, a town cop who is having an affair with Justine even though he's married to the Police Chief's daughter. He also is battling a drinking problem and some "over-zealous" policing with regards to our next main character:

Austin Abrams plays a homeless drug addict and burglar named James, who obviously has a lot of problems - the least of which being he actually finds a clue to the mystery of the missing children.

Each of these characters has a chapter heading we follow, their paths crossing in a Rashomon-like whirlwind of separate POV and time-jumping back and forth.

And that's the setup. If one has seen Cregger's previous film, Barbarian, you might know to expect the unexpected, as well as some gruesome and unsettling violence. Weapons has touches of a zombie flick, Hansel and Gretel, and what it most reminded me of, the horror film, It Follows - as it is just as unique, terrifying, and with a muted ending that's not quite as happy as we might expect.

Special shout out to Amy Madigan who plays Alex's weird Aunt Gladys in clown make-up and an orange fright wig. She gives an astonishing performance, and if there's any justice, it will be acknowledged come awards season.

There were scenes and moments in this film that made my jump, scream, and crawl up in my seat. The ending is so ridiculous and over-the-top that I was cackling with glee as I looked on in astonishment.

Genre or not, this is master filmmaking at it's best. The script is sparse but right-on - never quite explaining things, but giving us just enough , and the editing shows us exactly what we need when we need it. Cregger uses darkness and silence to exquisite perfection. I was straining and leaning to see and hear things....it was beautifully manipulative. It reminded me of Rosemary's Baby when Polanski makes the whole audience lean to one side so that we can see a character on the phone, just out of frame.

Weapons is a great, great film. It transcends genre to become something more...this could certainly be said to be a commentary on American school shootings and students' helplessness in the face of such insanity. Think of this as the "entertaining" and horror companion to this Spring's acclaimed limited series, Adolescence. Both are asking questions that can maybe not be easily answered.

I neglected to mention that Weapons has - just like in Barbarian - some sly humor in it, as well.

While I’m guessing this will be much better & much more faithful to the book than Arnie’s version, I’m also guessing we won’t get anything close to the book’s ending.

Hopefully, we DO get the sassy black kid who says

all the time.

The Long Walk looks really good too, but I don’t see how they tack a happy ending on it (oops, spoiler) or how it does much at the box office, but it does fit our present dystopian nihilistic conspiracy-fueled times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAtUHeMQ...

I highly doubt we ever get a movie version of Rage, but heaven forbid we don’t get Roadwork starring Nicolas Cage at some point—with Ben Affleck maybe as Freddie.

I'm looking forward to The Long Walk quite a bit, although there's almost no way they do the book justice.

Planning on seeing Weapons on Wednesday. Tonight Grave of the Fireflies is playing at a Showcase theater, so big screen.

I think I will skip it. I'm not sure I want to see a bunch of people crying.

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Like Aronofsky said, dystopian fiction is basically a crime at this point, and the film industry should step away from the genre. However, I think an exception can be made for The Long Walk. I'm excited to see it too.

Watched Barbarian today. Scary. As usual with horror films, don't go in the cellar. Unless you have a measuring tape handy and maybe some extra flashlight batteries.

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lol what I like about both movies is that I had no idea where it was going most of the time. I will say that Weapons has a slightly more conventional "bad guy", but both are just so damn entertaining and scary.

Hadn't heard of either of these but decided to look them up after you said Weapons reminded you of It Follows — one of my favorite horror movies in (somewhat) recent years. Cregger is one of the Whitest Kids U Know? Didn't even know any of those guys were still making stuff. Definitely gonna check Weapons and Barbarian out.

Watched this brilliant David Lean film free on youtube.

In the vein of Sturges and stuff like that in that there are many moments of brilliant camera work and it's just an immaculate piece of filmmaking, but it's also a very funny and charming story with a bunch of quirky characters and great actors and highly entertaining. I don't want to ruin the story but I found it heartwarming.

It's also very English and set in the past relative to when it was made, transporting us to another time and place, but it is about ordinary people, rather than Roman emperors or pirates or whatever. I enjoyed that too.

Oh man, I haven't seen that in a long time. I remember really liking it.

Random note: Amy Madigan & Ed Harris have been married over 40 years. Both sat stonefaced when Elia Kazan got his Oscar.

Also, it’s pretty eerie how prescient the Bachman Books were on a lot of levels. Very underrated aspect of King’s career.

Stonefaced because of his testimony?

Yes. The audience was divided when Kazan received his award.

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I remember that. Kazan was an informer.

Ed Harris and Amy Madigan led the angry boos iirc.

I watched Hobson's Choice last night. I had seen it long ago, but remembered little of it. Typical of some romantic comedies (I'm not sure if it is a romantic comedy) the mother is absent and the father must contend with his daughters. The comparison to Sturges is a good one. See Miracle at Morgan's Creek for example.

What surprised me was Charles Laughton's grace. For a big man, he moves like an acrobat.

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Nolte, too