I couldn't stand Old Joy; a difficult admission for someone who thinks Will Oldham is one of the greatest artists alive today. Nevertheless, Meek's Cutoff is absolutely phenomenal. Essential viewing, in fact. Not many films make me as uncomfortable and tense as it did.

President's Analyst
Winter Kills is a fine addition to this list, and works as a heightened but still tightly plotted conspiracy satire. However, if you're willing to go all out, Theodore J. Flicker's incoherent conspiracy comedy is also worth a look. It wouldn't fit the criteria of this list, but it's well worth…

The real conspiracy is that Leo's also being incepted all along and he never realises.

Definitely underrated, one of the most 70s-conspiracy-thriller-feeling movies of the past few years. Would make a great double-bill with Zodiac.

Re: Nickolodeon execs, I can imagine they watched the final cut of this and had a full-on meltdown. It's utterly, willfully awkward and unlovable, difficult and grotesque, but at the same time one of the most beautiful films ever made. Roger Deakins worked on the lighting, and it shows.

Guess it's up to me…
…to start the thread for people who think Goonies is unendurable and generally awful. Caught a bit of it on TCM the other day & it was even worse than I remember. Some nice photography but really it just boils down to a bunch of kids screaming over each other's dialogue for a million hours. Team…

There was a Q&A with Morris, Kavyan Novak, Riz Ahmed and I think it was Sam Bain (not Jesse Armstrong) when I caught this at the Curzon Soho earlier this year, and Morris (who is incredibly charming) told some incredible anecdotes that sounded madder than most of this movie. Of course all I can remember is how amazing…

I thought I was gonna hate it but as soon as I saw episode 5 - Shadow Games - with Spartacus and Crixus teaming up against Theokoles, I was hooked. It starts out rough and ready and becomes one of the most tightly plotted shows I've seen in a long time. Watching all of those plotbombs going off at exactly the right…

Cryptic non-Venture Brothers post: Staircar1, you need to be on Twitter, seriously. There's a bunch of us there.

Don't see this on DVD
Well, you can if you want, but I strongly advise you see this on a big screen and sit close to it. The effect is incredible. With all of those bonkers close-ups it's like having Mads Mikkelsen sitting on your chest.

It's okay, everyone, I stole the ball from Dong before he left. ::throws it back to everyone::

Palek the Vulcan Inseminatron
There were at least three fans of Tell Me You Love Me on AVC, I'm sure of it. That show confused me greatly. Part of me hated its desperate seriousness and inflated sense of importance, its miserable co-opting of the worst tics of independent cinema, etc, but the other half of me could…

Someone said this was better than Red Cliff? I can't get behind that. It's certainly not a bad movie, but Red Cliff is, at times, absolutely exceptional. Each to their own, though.

A Magnificent Achievement
This was one of my favourite films of last year (saw it at a festival), and I recommend it to everyone. It's what Scarface would have been if it was an austere, thoughtful movie that didn't treat contemporary racial politics as an excuse to make Al Pacino completely soil his reputation with…

Short
I saw her in South Kensington once. She is a tiny tiny person. My wife was mad at me for not pointing her out, but she was walking the other way and once she was five feet away I couldn't see her anymore.

Fair enough, I hear what you're saying. In my branes, I think what made Fish Tank stand above Precious (other than the skill of the filmmaking: Arnold has an incredible eye, and Robbie Ryan's photography is absolutely breathtaking) is that Precious was about nothing but her ordeal, with a minor triumph at the end…

"Bound at chain's length"
Spoilers ahoy…
.
.
.
.
The way I see it, it's not like Mia is aware of her situation. She tries to free the horse and Connor's daughter not because she consciously feels trapped. It's all in the back of her mind and has yet to get to the front, and she's acting out without realising what her…

Unobtainium
Just emerged depressed but pphysically unscathed from an AICN talkbacck where everyone there is obsessing over the fact Cameron called the precious superconducting element Unobtainium, and then I come here and Mr. Mastrapa brings it up again. For the record:

Sorry, *without* sugar-coating blah blah. Silly me.

Unexpected
The thing I liked most about this episode was that so much of it was unexpected. You don't see grieving treated in this manner very often, with sugar-coating and easy resolutions. When Matt took the shovel from the gravedigger I was totally shocked as I didn't even realise you can do that, but then we've…