Exploring iconic movies across every era. Commentary and stories from the world of cinema.
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Dogville (2003), starring Nicole Kidman alongside Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård, and John Hurt as narrator, is a disturbing exploration of human nature. Set in a small American town during the Great Depression, it follows Grace, a fugitive who finds refuge among locals whose initial kindness gradually gives way to exploitation and cruelty.
Shot on a nearly bare soundstage, the film uses chalk outlines instead of actual houses, streets, and walls. Even the dog is represented by a drawing. Influenced by Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, Lars von Trier embraced theatrical artifice, explaining that “the whole medium has to do with make-believe.” Stripped of conventional visual distractions, the story places human behaviour under a merciless spotlight.
The production was demanding. Kidman and von Trier reportedly spent three hours arguing during a walk in the forest before building a stronger working relationship. “All I know is I trusted Lars. I don’t know why, but I did,” she later recalled. Paul Bettany, however, found the experience deeply frustrating, feeling more like a puppet than a collaborator.
Although von Trier had never visited America, the film sparked controversy over its portrayal of American society. Conceived as the first part of a trilogy, it was followed by Manderlay (2005), but the planned final instalment, Washington, was never made.
At its core, Dogville asks how easily kindness can become a tool of exploitation. As Kidman observed, “good and evil exists in everybody and circumstances bring it out.” Few films explore this unsettling idea with such ruthless precision.
Remnants of the Past retweeted
I recently finished The Gentlemen Season 2, created by Guy Ritchie, and I loved it. It’s one of the best crime shows on TV right now.
What I love about it is how much it feels like a classic Guy Ritchie crime movie. The humour, the distinctive dialogue, and the way everything keeps spiralling out of control with a sense of cosmic absurdism, all feel very familiar to his earlier work.
The show takes the world Ritchie created in his 2019 film The Gentlemen and expands it into a television series. Without spoiling either the film or the series, I’ll just give you the basic setup: several of Britain’s old aristocratic estates have become entangled with the modern criminal underworld.
This time, the story follows Eddie Horniman, who inherits a dukedom and discovers that part of his family estate is being used as the base for a large cannabis operation run by a powerful British crime family.
What I find particularly interesting about the series is how naturally it fits into the progression of Guy Ritchie’s career as a crime filmmaker.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was about a group of young men living on the outskirts of the criminal underworld. They get themselves in over their heads and suddenly find themselves indebted to people far outside their weight class.
By Snatch, the central characters are more experienced. Turkish and Tommy already operate inside the criminal world, but they are still relatively small players surrounded by much larger figures.
As Ritchie’s career progressed, the criminals at the centre of his films gradually became more established. Revolver moves further into the world of serious organised crime. A much more cerebral story about people operating somewhere in the middle of the criminal underworld, but still below its upper ranks.
And after a series of very high profile hits and misses in Hollywood, Ritchie arrives back at the gangster genre with The Gentlemen.
Matthew McConaughey’s character in the film, Mickey Pearson, is an apex crime lord. He controls an enormous criminal empire, but still mixes comfortably with Britain’s upper classes. As he puts it himself, he is the king of the jungle.
This clear progression roughly mirrors Ritchie’s own career trajectory. The filmmaker who began with a relatively inexpensive British crime movie set in the bottom of London’s underworld eventually became an enormously successful director operating at the highest levels.
The world depicted in The Gentlemen feels much closer to the one Ritchie himself inhabits today. Country estates and private clubs dominate the story. Mickey Pearson even owns a pub, much like Ritchie does himself. In Mickey’s pubs, he serves Gritchie English Lore, a beer made by Ritchie’s own Gritchie Brewing Company.
But the show still embraces many of the tropes and archetypal Guy Ritchie criminals types you see in his earlier films. You have the naive pacifist weed farmer and the criminal savants. You also have eccentric entrepreneurs and, of course, the incredibly dangerous people the main characters do not want to be indebted to, but invariably are.
The show also takes a lot of inspiration from The Godfather. In many ways, Eddie is influenced by Michael Corleone, something Theo James himself has confirmed. An ex-soldier who comes home and becomes entangled in a criminal world he discovers he has a natural talent for.
His brother Freddy is also influenced by Fredo Corleone, the weaker older brother who resents that he’s been passed over.
And of course, one of the great characters in the show is Susie Glass, played by Kaya Scodelario, the daughter of crime boss Bobby Glass, played by Ray Winston. She acts as a sort of Lady Macbeth figure, pulling Eddie deeper into the criminal underworld.
All round, this series is great. If you’re a fan of crime shows but want something a little more lighthearted, I highly recommend it.
Naked (1993) is a dark, uncompromising portrait of a man whose intelligence offers little protection against his own bitterness and destructive impulses. David Thewlis plays Johnny, a drifter who leaves Manchester for London and spends his nights wandering the streets, engaging strangers in provocative philosophical debates and exposing their weaknesses while revealing his own.
Developed through months of improvisation and character research, the film was shot from a short outline rather than a conventional screenplay. Cinematographer Dick Pope used bleach-bypass processing to create its distinctive, desaturated look, transforming London into a cold, almost post-apocalyptic landscape. His visual approach was influenced partly by The Specials’ Ghost Town music video.
David Thewlis won Best Actor and Mike Leigh Best Director at Cannes for a film that remains one of British cinema’s most uncompromising portraits of urban alienation. With its bleak humour, philosophical confrontations, and haunting nocturnal atmosphere, Naked offers a disturbing vision of a man who can dissect the world's problems but cannot escape his own.
Big Fish (2003) is a fantastical tale about a father whose extraordinary stories become a source of both fascination and frustration for his son. As Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) approaches the end of his life, Will (Billy Crudup), a journalist devoted to facts, tries to separate the truth from the elaborate adventures he has heard since childhood.
Tim Burton, who had lost his own father shortly before making the film, described it as “an emotional detective story.” Screenwriter John August also drew on personal experience, having lost his father several years earlier. Their experiences helped give the film’s surreal adventures an unusually intimate emotional foundation.
The production also embraced practical filmmaking over extensive CGI. Burton preferred physical effects and camera tricks, including a giant rubber fish that Ewan McGregor had to wrestle with. Matthew McGrory, who stood 7 feet 6 inches tall, played Karl the Giant, while Daniel Wallace, the author of the original novel, made a cameo as a professor.
Yet the film’s real strength lies in its exploration of storytelling itself. Edward’s tales may be exaggerated, but they reveal how he sees the world and wants to be remembered. As actress Jessica Lange observed, family stories have a life of their own:
“That is how a person lives on: in the stories.”
Rather than relying on conventional vampire horror, Let the Right One In (2008) builds its unsettling atmosphere around childhood loneliness, bullying and emotional dependency. Director Tomas Alfredson himself had little interest in vampire fiction before the project; it was the human drama of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel that drew him to the story.
The film’s visual style drew inspiration from Renaissance painting. Alfredson explained: “I studied Renaissance painters; one, called Hans Holbein, has a very strange way of dealing with eyes.” Holbein’s Edward VI as a Child (1538) particularly influenced the film’s unsettling gazes and framing.
Filming in northern Sweden, where temperatures reportedly reached −30°C, was equally challenging; Alfredson suffered frostbite in two fingers and described the winter light as being “like knives.”
His approach to horror favored suggestion over explicit scares. He also avoided letting the young leads read the screenplay, explaining, “Child actors don’t go into character. They go into specific situations.”
Beneath the vampire story lies a darker question: does Eli save Oskar from his tormentors, or draw him into a world of violence and dependency? The carefully constructed swimming-pool climax exemplifies Alfredson’s restrained style, leaving much of the horror unseen.
Sergio Leone redefined the Western with The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), blending dark humor, striking visuals, Ennio Morricone’s iconic score, and morally ambiguous characters in a tale of greed and survival set against the brutal absurdity of the American Civil War.
Clint Eastwood’s Blondie became a cinematic icon, but Eli Wallach’s Tuco arguably steals the show with his cunning, comic energy, and unpredictability. When first offered the role, Wallach thought an Italian Western sounded like “a Hawaiian pizza.” He changed his mind after watching Leone’s work and went on to deliver one of his most memorable performances.
Leone’s meticulous visual style turns glances and close-ups into suspenseful set pieces. The production also had its share of mishaps: Wallach nearly poisoned himself after accidentally drinking acid used on set, while a bridge had to be rebuilt after being blown up before the cameras were ready.
Morricone’s score, especially The Ecstasy of Gold, elevates the film into something approaching opera. The climactic cemetery showdown remains a masterclass in tension, using close-ups, music, and prolonged silence to make every second count.
The film’s morality is equally unconventional: Blondie is no saint, Tuco is both despicable and endearing, and Angel Eyes treats violence as a profession. Rather than clear-cut heroes and villains, Leone gives us three different shades of human nature.
#Bales2026FilmChallenge
Oct 23: Movie with the best soundtrack
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
A perfect example of how music can become an inseparable part of a film's identity.
With Being John Malkovich (1999), Spike Jonze delivered one of the most original feature-film debuts of the 1990s. Teaming up with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he created a surreal comedy about identity, obsession and celebrity, in which a mysterious portal allows people to enter actor John Malkovich's mind for 15 minutes.
Jonze makes this absurd premise feel strangely believable through understated visuals and the wonderfully cramped office on floor 7½. Beneath the humor lies a darker exploration of people's desire to escape themselves and control others.
Hollywood initially struggled to embrace Kaufman's screenplay. One executive reportedly suggested changing the title to Being Tom Cruise, but Kaufman insisted on Malkovich. The actor himself was initially reluctant to play the role, even suggesting someone else could take his place. Eventually, he agreed to let Jonze turn his public image into the film's central joke.
Malkovich's deadpan performance perfectly complements Jonze's unconventional vision. The film earned three Oscar nominations, including Best Director, and established Jonze and Kaufman as major creative talents. Their collaboration continued with Adaptation (2002).
Married to the Mob (1988) is a crime comedy starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela De Marco, a gangster’s widow who wants to leave her old life behind but finds herself caught between a possessive mob boss and an undercover FBI agent.
With its extravagant costumes, gaudy interiors and larger-than-life characters, the film pokes fun at Mafia glamour. Director Jonathan Demme described it as “an escapist film, not a film about organized crime.”
Dean Stockwell is particularly memorable as Tony “the Tiger” Russo, a role he embraced so completely that he later joked, “Tony the Tiger, hey, I was that guy for three months.”
The soundtrack features Q Lazzarus’s “Goodbye Horses,” which Demme would later use in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Pfeiffer earned a Golden Globe nomination, while Stockwell received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) is a haunting debut inspired by the real-life Starkweather–Fugate murder spree, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as two young lovers on the run.
Sheen was 31 when he played Kit, a killer who imagines himself destined for greatness. Malick gave him a curious piece of direction: “Terry called one night and said, ‘I want you to play the part.’” More revealing is Malick’s own description of Kit as someone who sees himself “as a subject of incredible interest to himself and to future generations.”
The production was famously chaotic, with crew conflicts, multiple cinematographers and more than a million feet of film reportedly shot. Yet Malick wanted something closer to a dark fairy tale than a conventional crime drama. As he explained, “I wanted the picture to be set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island.”
Perhaps the most revealing observation came from Sheen, who later recalled his reaction to watching the finished film: “I’d thought he was so romantic. I’d thought he was so charming. I’d forgotten he killed about twelve people.”
Nine (2009), adapted from the Broadway musical inspired by Federico Fellini’s 8½, follows Guido Contini, an Italian film director suffering from creative paralysis while struggling with the women in his life. The lavish musical features Daniel Day-Lewis, Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson and Sophia Loren.
Day-Lewis was surprisingly reluctant to take the lead role. “I'm not actually a big musical fan,” he admitted, even suggesting alternative actors to Marshall: “I gave him a few names, actually!” He eventually accepted the challenge despite doubts about his singing. Ironically, he later revealed that he managed to avoid conventional dancing.
Cruz faced a different challenge as Guido’s mistress, Carla. She trained for three months for A Call From the Vatican, often dancing four hours a day. The demanding rope choreography left her hands blistered and bleeding, but she recalled the experience enthusiastically: “I felt like flying!”
Another interesting detail: Kate Hudson’s character, Stephanie, was created specifically for the film, and composer Maury Yeston wrote Cinema Italiano especially for her.
Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) explores how military training transforms young men and the psychological cost of war.
R. Lee Ermey, a former Marine drill instructor, was initially hired as a technical adviser. His audition impressed Kubrick so much that he landed the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Kubrick later praised him:
“The greatest actor in the world couldn't have played that role better than Lee.”
Vincent D’Onofrio gained approximately 70 pounds to play Private Pyle, delivering a disturbing portrayal of a recruit’s psychological breakdown.
Remarkably, the devastated Vietnamese city was recreated at an abandoned gasworks in East London, transformed into the streets of Huế.
Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996) became one of the defining British films of the 1990s, combining dark comedy, surreal imagery and an unforgettable soundtrack. Shot in just seven weeks on a modest budget, it deliberately avoided conventional, grim portrayals of drug addiction.
The infamous “Worst Toilet in Scotland” scene transforms Renton’s dive into a filthy toilet into a surreal underwater fantasy. The filmmakers even constructed a toilet cut in half to achieve the effect practically.
Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life gives the film its exhilarating energy, while Lou Reed’s Perfect Day accompanies Renton’s overdose in a hauntingly ironic sequence.
Ewen Bremner, who had played Renton on stage, initially rejected the role of Spud after losing the lead to Ewan McGregor. He later admitted, “I let my ego get the better of me. Thankfully I came to my senses.”
Reflecting on the film’s legacy, McGregor said,
“It set the bar unknowingly high because it's been quite hard to match ever since.”
Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop (1987) combines science-fiction action, dark comedy and social satire in a story about a police officer transformed into a cyborg.
The film’s corporate executives treat human lives as expendable while pursuing profit and urban redevelopment. Its malfunctioning ED-209 robot and absurd television commercials satirize corporate greed, consumerism and sensationalist media.
Verhoeven initially dismissed the screenplay, but his wife, Martine, persuaded him to look deeper. As he recalled, she told him: “There’s enough there, soul-wise, about losing your identity and finding it again.”
That idea became the film’s emotional core. Murphy’s memories gradually break through his mechanical programming, culminating in an understated ending: when asked his name, he answers, “Murphy.”
The Last King of Scotland (2006) is a gripping portrait of power, paranoia and the nature of tyranny. Forest Whitaker immersed himself in Idi Amin’s world, studying archival footage, learning Kiswahili and meeting people who had known the dictator. Director Kevin Macdonald initially doubted that the gentle, introspective Whitaker could portray Amin’s explosive personality, but a frightening audition changed his mind.
In a 2006 interview with CBS News, Whitaker explained his approach:
“I wanted to understand the way he felt and what motivated him.”
He even maintained Amin’s accent between takes, admitting, “It took me a while” to shake off the character after filming. Co-star James McAvoy recalled that when Whitaker entered the set in character, “you’d just see everybody tense up totally.”
Although the film takes liberties with history, its fictional Scottish doctor provides an effective entry into Amin’s increasingly terrifying world. Whitaker’s remarkable performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Remnants of the Past retweeted
Hollywood treats anime like a lowly idea factory borrowing (aka stealing) scenes frame-x-frame giving little or in most cases absolutely no credit or compensation of any kind . . . Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue vs Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream & Black Swan.
PERFECT BLUE with a tangent . . .
xitter.cf/RealEOC/status/1120083…
Darren Aronofsky’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and Satoshi Kon’s PERFECT BLUE similarities brings the question is it right for Western/Hollywood directors to use anime as an idea factory, without paying its overworked creators a dime?
Ethics in Cinema
Black Swan (2010) is a haunting psychological thriller about perfectionism and the destructive price of artistic ambition. Inspired by Swan Lake and Dostoevsky’s The Double, it follows a ballerina whose struggle to embody both the White and Black Swan becomes a battle against herself.
Natalie Portman trained intensively for over a year, while Mila Kunis underwent months of ballet training despite having little prior experience. Darren Aronofsky used restless, handheld cinematography, drawing on his approach to The Wrestler, to capture the physical exhaustion behind ballet’s apparent beauty.
Interestingly, Aronofsky admitted that he tried to create rivalry between Portman and Kunis to mirror their characters, but the actresses remained friends. In a 2025 Vogue reunion, he also revealed that Portman contributed the film’s final line: “I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect.”
That line captures the film’s tragic paradox: Nina achieves artistic perfection at the cost of her own well-being.
Chinatown (1974) is much more than a brilliant neo-noir detective thriller. Inspired partly by the real water wars surrounding Los Angeles’s expansion, it explores corruption, greed, and the relationship between wealth and power.
Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning screenplay originally had a different ending: Evelyn would survive, and her father, Noah Cross, would face justice. Roman Polanski insisted on a bleaker conclusion, arguing that conventional justice would undermine the story. Towne eventually admitted the director was right.
Despite their creative clashes and the turbulent production, they created a masterpiece featuring Jack Nicholson’s superb performance, John A. Alonzo’s evocative cinematography, and Jerry Goldsmith’s haunting score.
Ultimately, Chinatown is about the limits of individual power against entrenched corruption. Jake Gittes uncovers the truth, but he cannot change the outcome.
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
Few endings capture the devastating realization that knowing the truth doesn't mean you can defeat those who control the system.
Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le Fou (1965) is a sun-drenched tale of escape that blends romance, crime, political satire, and pop art into one of the French New Wave’s most daring films. Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, it transforms a lovers-on-the-run story into a meditation on freedom, alienation, and the nature of cinema.
Filmed shortly after Godard and Karina’s divorce, its troubled romance carries a personal resonance. Godard mixes literary references, advertising slogans, vivid primary colours, and sudden violence. When asked about the film’s blood, he famously quipped: “Not blood, red.” For him, cinema was not simply life reproduced, but life transformed into images.
American director Samuel Fuller makes a memorable cameo, declaring: “Film is like a battleground. There's love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word, emotions.”
Beneath its carefree surface, Pierrot le Fou is a melancholy portrait of two people seeking freedom but unable to agree on what it means. Both a breakup film and a radical experiment in filmmaking, it remains one of Godard’s most captivating works.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946) masterfully blends espionage, romance, and psychological suspense, featuring outstanding performances by Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains.
Bergman plays Alicia, recruited by American intelligence to infiltrate a group of Nazi fugitives in Brazil. When she marries their leader, Sebastian (Rains), her mission becomes complicated by her love for Devlin (Grant), the agent who recruited her. Hitchcock transforms a spy thriller into a fascinating study of jealousy, sacrifice, and betrayal.
The famous kissing scene between Bergman and Grant lasts approximately three minutes. To bypass Hollywood’s censorship restrictions, Hitchcock had them repeatedly kiss, embrace, and whisper while moving around an apartment, creating one of cinema’s most sensual romantic sequences.
The plot revolves around uranium hidden in wine bottles, anticipating the atomic age. Hitchcock considered it a MacGuffin, something that drives the plot while the real drama lies in the characters. Meanwhile, Rains makes Sebastian unexpectedly sympathetic, leading Hitchcock to suggest that he might love Alicia more than Devlin does.
Hitchcock later explained his approach to suspense with a simple principle:
“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”
That philosophy runs throughout Notorious, where a stolen key, a dwindling champagne supply, and unspoken emotions become instruments of suspense.
