Its attitude towards war in general is more European. The production design emphasizes the burned out ruins of various settlements, suggesting that the environment is comprised of one conquest overlapping another.

Jayhawkers

Hitchcock wanted a younger actor for Scotty but Paramount wanted a more established name, a trend that helped entrench the growing age gap between leading men and ladies in 50s and 60s movies.

It's an interesting dialogic triple feature with LAURA and ALL ABOUT EVE, where men's making over women to a supposed feminine ideal is linked to coded signifiers of male homosexuality.

Agreed, but I think that the moment that clinches her affection for Scotty occurs after (SPOILER!) she is "rescued" at the Presidio. "Madeline" is in a sexually vulnerable position in which, in the past, she has been victimized. The fact that Scotty doesn't violate her in the performance of his duty, which…

The novel of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is arguably superior to the film, but the set pieces re-invent the material into something different than what Highsmith envisioned. With the exception of REBECCA, ROPE, DIAL M FOR MURDER and PSYCHO that's pretty much what Hitchcock did, and even his more straightforward adaptations…

And THE BIG SLEEP, RIO BRAVO, and HATARI

Pretty much anything Hitchcock adapted.

Ironically, purging self absorbed douchebags from my life gave me insights as to what the film was trying to address.

Despite a noticeable wobbliness in the film's narrative construction, I'd recommend it, primarily in how it relates how memory and story telling play a major role in addiction/ recovery culture. I caught it at a special screening a few weeks ago and its kind of a cultural Rorschach test, with everyone I've talked to…

And neither would THE HATEFUL EIGHT, the ultimate Hawks/Carpenter amalgamation.

And its one of the best depictions of life in the California suburbs as well.

Parents drinking around kids, even during the day, was not really frowned upon, at least in my family's social circle. That's the thing that really seems subversive to me today as opposed to when I saw it during its first release.

When I first saw CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING my reaction was to recommend it to all of the Lynch fans I know. Nine to know that there are programmers out there who can pick up certain affinities between different filmmakers.

Completely agree on —-MARIE ET JULIEN, one of my favorite lost film finds when Netflix primarily ran on discs.

I think that Tarantino has been working his way back to films in which his aestheticism serves a more transcendent historical vision, but he needs to present himself as less of an auteur to shift the viewer's attention from himself to the narrative.

I love the final shot too, as it makes a point about the racial injustice embedded in the story that the script otherwise didn't address.

I'd highly recommend BREAKING POINT as well. Despite a change of setting the film is a pretty straight up version of Hemingway's TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT that actually sticks to the text.

The draft I read prior to the films release had the additional scenes post shoot out, but they were extensively fleshed out in the final release version.

Hazarding a guess, I think that Tarantino was trying to get the audience to relive the raucous spirit of the audiences who saw his beloved exploitation films back in his youth.