As I said in the announcement piece, which you can find in our archives, I’ve always liked the idea of a book club. You pick a title, you read it, you get together, you talk about it. Easy. That’s what the Internet was when I first found it in ’95 and went to those Usenet groups and that’s what kept me there, that conversation with other film fans who I’d never met but who I instantly shared a language with. I think everything I’ve done online since then has been, in some way, an attempt to continue that conversation, and I like the idea that we can pick some worthwhile and interesting combinations of films and, once a month, get together in one place to really dig in.
My own parents called me to tell me they didn’t get why I picked one of the films here, and before we begin, I guess I’ll explain some part of my thinking about the movies.
I picked The Thin Man because I love Nick and Nora Charles. Deeply. I think they are a great couple. They love and respect each other, sure, but more than that, they are entertained by one another. I love to make my girlfriend laugh, and five years into our relationship, she still makes me laugh all the time. There is something essential about that because life will kick the living shit out of you. I watch The Thin Man, and it feels effervescent and giddy to me, but it’s definitely a product of its time, something we’ll discuss over and over as we have these conversations. Context matters. I’m fascinated by the non-stop boozing, something that was a huge part of pop culture for a long time. Dashiell Hammett had his demons, many of them bottled, and it’s so interesting to look at Nick and Nora as a sort of idealized version of Hammett and his own brilliant wife Lillian Hellman, their alcoholism rewritten as a superpower rather than a slow rot in their lives. Nick and Nora consume as much alcohol as Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, but it’s fine. Nick is at his sharpest when he’s one step from blotto, and Nora keeps up with him out of sheer stubbornness.
For those of you new to the film, what did you think? And for those of you who are already familiar with it, have you watched the rest of the series? If so, what’s your take on the series as a whole?
As I mentioned, my parents called me after watching the film, and they didn’t connect with it at all. Part of this is understanding that not every film is going to speak to everyone the same way. I can tell you what I see in the film, and why that matters to me, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to share those feelings, and the point of this club isn’t to create an echo chamber. I love my parents. I love it when I’m able to recommend something to them and they watch it and they love it, but I get it wrong as often as I get it right. We have very different tastes, and why wouldn’t we? My dad is turning 80 this year. My parents were alive during WWII. They’ve personally seen the ’40s, the ‘50s, the ‘60s, decades that I think of as “distant history.” When I was young, they showed me lots of films, but they also left me alone to navigate my own way through things, and I think even then, it was clear that I was drawn to different things in art than they were. Even with those profound differences, it’s never been contentious, and I wish that’s the way film conversation in general worked. And if you watch one of these films that I wax rhapsodic about and you feel nothing for it, feel free to say so. I’m just as curious about why it didn’t connect for you as I am about why someone else enjoyed it.
It’s a great mystery, a terrific supporting cast, and the first film in one of the first big studio franchises. If you ever visit my home, you’ll see Nick and Nora’s faces here and there. The film is clearly in my DNA. And now we’ve all got it in common, which is the best part of being in a club.
The Grey
I hadn’t seen this one in a while, and I picked it for a few reasons. It was on my list of things to watch for my End of the Decade piece(s), and on the morning I launched this site, one of the first guys to throw up an enthusiastic link was Joe Carnahan. Seemed like as good a reason as any.
Much of cinema stands as a testament to expressions of masculinity, whether intentional or not. Men love to make odes to what it means to be a man. But there are different notions of what that really means, and I think Joe Carnahan made one of the great recent movies about who we are when everything extraneous gets stripped away. The characters in The Grey are already guys who barely fit into society, guys who have found themselves doing hard brutal work in Alaska. When you take characters like these and you throw them at a situation as hard as this, you see what they’re made of because they break wide open. I once described the film as an Irish wake, this big weepy furious thing that feels broken-hearted from the very start, and a lot of that is because of Liam Neeson’s work here. His real-life loss was still recent when they made this, and you get the feeling he’s barely holding himself together as a human being long enough to stand in front of the camera. His grief practically radiates from him, and it gives this film this unexpected soul.
This is a pulp movie at heart, and I like that. I love it when you walk into a film expecting one thing and then it turns out to be something richer or more interesting, and that’s definitely the case with The Grey. The big thing to discuss here, and the thing I’m most curious to hear from you about, is how you feel about the ending.
Did you want that fight? Did you need to see that fight? There’s no wrong answer. It is an ending that drives people bananas, and I have to believe it ultimately held the film back at the box-office because of word-of-mouth. I had numerous conversations with people where I talked about everything I liked about the film and they just rolled their eyes and said, “But that ending…”
Endings are tough. They can make or break a film. They can be the thing you end up thinking about the longest when they get them right. For example…
Brazil
The first time I saw this movie, I walked out of the theater, bought another ticket, and walked back in. For a while, this was the movie I cited as my favorite film of all time. Even now, I hold it dear.
There’s a playful quality to the way Michael Kamen runs variations on Ary Barroso’s song “Aquarela do Brasil” throughout the score for Terry Gilliam’s haunting dystopian vision, which is strange since “playful” seems like a very odd word to use to describe a movie that contains one of the most brutally painful endings in movie history. But there’s very little about Gilliam’s film that is easy to categorize, which is one of the reasons it must have felt so terrifying to the Universal marketing executives who tried to smother it before being guilted into releasing it as the director originally intended.
Maybe it’s appropriate that Brazil was not born; it escaped.
Sam Lowry is a dreamer, and dreams are dangerous things, indeed, especially when the world is designed to crush those dreams. Gilliam’s not dealing with the real world here, instead offering up a heightened reality that isn’t a dystopia so much as it is a morass of bureaucratic inefficiency, an entire society choking to death on paperwork and rules and a total lack of freedom. These people aren’t being violently oppressed (for the most part), but rather smothered with mundanity. When Sam Lowry dreams, though, he is free, and as the film begins, he has reached a point where the dreams are starting to affect his waking life because he can’t carry around all of this desire anymore without figuring out what to do with it. Jonathan Pryce is terrific as Sam, always looking like he’s had a terrible scare, but with a smile that arrives like the sun after a rainstorm. On those rare occasions that Sam Lowry really smiles, the entire film seems to brighten around him. For the most part, though, Sam lives his life in clenched terror, just like everyone else, and he is doing everything he can to stay invisible.
It’s not easy. His mother (Katherine Helmond) wants to see him promoted because his status directly reflects on her, and she doesn’t understand why Sam would want to remain anonymous, under the radar. When you look at the world she occupies in the film, it seems almost eerily prescient these days. She lives in a bubble that allows her to see the world however she wants to see it. When they meet for lunch in a fancy restaurant, we see them carefully consider their options and order their meals. When they are delivered, they each come with a picture of what the lunch is supposed to be, the pictures standing in stark contrast to the strange multi-colored piles of goo they are actually served. This delusion, the ability to simply not see what is actually happening in front of you, serves them well when there’s a terrorist attack during their lunch. They continue to eat and converse even as they are surrounded by fire and screaming and broken glass and blood. If they do not see it, it is not happening, and therefore, it is not a problem. The same thing is true of the running plastic surgery storyline in the film. Sam’s mother and one of her friends are both constantly having work done, and we see her friend slowly fall apart over the course of the film as her complications get complications. And no matter what, every time they see each other, they ooh and aah over how wonderful the treatments are and what a huge difference they make, and it’s all just nonsense, a willful disregard for reality.
There are tiny nods to the Marx Brothers peppered throughout the film, not the least of which is all of the weird exposed ductwork everywhere, a riff off the “Why a duck?” routine by the boys. That makes sense. After all, this feels like someone asked the Marx Brothers to make their version of Orwell’s 1984. There’s an oppressive quality to the world around Sam, and Gilliam takes full advantage. It’s the most playful the-world-is-ending movie I’ve ever seen, and it’s one of the reasons the film hits so hard. After all, it’s absurd from start to finish. We see arrest warrants being printed out while a guy chases a fly around the room, trying to kill it. When he finally does, the bug drops into the printer, and there’s a momentary glitch, changing the name “Tuttle” into “Buttle” on one of the forms. From that single typo, Sam Lowry’s entire undoing is kicked into motion, and the film often makes you feel like screaming and laughing at the same time. In a world as crazy as this, Sam’s retreat into fantasy makes perfect sense.
The saddest thing about watching Brazil this time for me was how it feels like the world around us has not only caught up to the world onscreen but passed it in some ways. One of the problems I’ve had with dystopian fiction was the inability to imagine how we would get from the world we occupy now to the world glimpsed in these stories. Surely we wouldn’t give away our civil rights or our security over fear, right? I mean, just because there’s some phantom enemy we can’t see out there landing punches on us, we wouldn’t flip out and elect lunatics who would strip us of even our most basic rights, would we? Sam’s attempts to stay out of everything and simply live his life quietly doesn’t work because we don’t get to just opt out of life. The only reason he ever agrees to the promotion his mother forced on him is so he can hunt down his dream girl, Jill Layton (Kim Greist), who he spots in real life when he tries to deliver a refund check to the widow of the innocent Buttle. Sam finds his dreams and his waking life are merging, and he eventually just throws himself into it.
I love the film’s supporting cast. Robert De Niro plays Archibald Tuttle, the man the government was really after, and we meet him when he responds to a distress call Sam places with Central Services about his broken air conditioning. The idea that paperwork has become such a problem that you have underground plumbers working outside the system is hilarious, and De Niro plays the character perfectly. He’s very funny, but you can tell that in his head, Tuttle thinks he’s Errol Flynn. Ian Holm plays Sam’s boss, and he’s a great little shambles of a man. Jim Broadbent makes a strong impression as Dr. Jaffe, the “knife man” who is working on Sam’s mother. I especially love the work by Michael Palin here. I’ve always thought of him as the best actor in the Monty Python troupe, and his work here backs that up. He plays Jack Lint, a friend of Sam’s, and whenever Sam runs into him, he’s all smiles and handshakes and chatting about the kids. But late in the film, Sam comes face to face with Jack doing his real work, and the moment is terrifying and heartbreaking, and Palin plays it all beautifully. There is a creeping horror to the film. While it is frequently absurd, the forces at play here are genuinely scary. Because of the Buttle/Tuttle mistake, an innocent man is taken from his home in the middle of the night and tortured to death. Even worse, he’s charged for the costs of his arrest. When Jill starts poking around, trying to get the government to admit its mistake, all she does is turn herself into a target, too. There are no mistakes, and if there are, they are wiped away and forgotten quickly.
Sam realizes that Jill has put herself in danger, and he sees an opportunity to finally become the hero in life that he’s always been in his fantasies. The distance between those things becomes clear, though, once Sam starts actually poking around in things. The system isn’t designed to give people what they want. It’s designed to crush them, to crush their questions, and to keep everyone in their place. When we see Sam’s fantasies, they’re beautiful. I think aside from Miyazaki, Gilliam might be one of the few people to ever get flight this right on film. The practical effects work in this film is gorgeous, and the whole thing feels hand-crafted. Gilliam uses every trick in the book to stretch his budget, and it’s one of the most beautifully-realized dystopias I’ve ever seen. It feels lived in and real, everything breaking down and second-hand, and you can see how easily our world could devolve into this one.
Gilliam is given terrific support by his cinematographer Roger Pratt, his amazing production designer Norman Garwood, and especially composer Michael Kamen, who has never written a better score than this. Watch the moment where Sam and Jill finally kiss. The way Kamen holds his score, and holds it, and holds it, and then BLAM! As soon as their lips touch, the score blows back in at full force. It’s just one tiny detail, but the entire score is like that. By the time the closing credits roll over a haunting image that I would describe as the happiest sad ending in the world, we are exhausted. Gilliam stages the last twenty minutes of the film as a desperate scramble through Sam’s psyche as he struggles to find some way to escape. He does eventually find a way out, and I find that even now, thirty years after I first saw the film, the sight of Sam sitting in that chair, smiling, his eyes a million miles away, is still enough to reduce me to tears.
Gilliam wants to believe in happy endings, but the script he co-wrote with Charles McKeown and Tom Stoppard doesn’t let us off the hook that easily. Brazil is a bitter pill to swallow, because it is not a movie about how the dreamers can stand up and beat the system down through sheer force of will. In Gilliam’s world, evil is a bland, faceless thing, paperwork and inertia and fear all transformed into the chains that hold the everyman down. Sam Lowry may dream of swords and combat and escape, but those are just dreams, and they’re not enough.
In Gilliam’s world, as in ours, sometimes the bullies win.
Closing Thoughts
I think a month is too much time for me to give you guys to watch these films. Instead, I’ll announce the next titles on Sunday, February 9th, and that’ll give you three weeks to watch them, so we can meet back here on March 1st for the next edition. There’s an urgency that dissipates when you have a whole month between these.
I’m so curious to see who participates and what happens, so I’m going to hit publish and get this party started. Welcome to the club!
Brazil is my #1 movie of all time and it has been since I first saw it in 1985... for the life of me I can't remember what theater I saw it but it probably was either in Bridgeport or Norwalk, CT cause I wasn't living in NYC at the time. I bought my first DVD player when I learned that there was a Brazil Criterion DVD set with different versions of the movie, and yet, I will still see it almost every time it plays at one of the local rep theaters. In 2013, when I was diagnosed with leukemia and ended up in an Ohio hospital for a month (to start), a friend sent me a DVD of Brazil and it gave me a lot of happiness during a tough couple weeks. I probably have that DVD fairly close by as I do like watching once every year or two. (I'm probably due.) Been way too long since I've seen The Grey and not sure about the Thin Man but I'll try to figure it out...
LOVE The Thin Man. Delightfully witty "drawing room comedy with dead bodies" that may be the only film with two alcoholics where you'd go "Yeah, its pretty much #relationshipgoals."
The Grey sounds like the type of film my parents would love: Action & Liam Neesons. But that ending was a divisive one when I watched it with them. I loved the overwhelming dread of the film and it's cliffhanger ending; for me we didn't even need the open-ended credits stinger, as soon as he reached acceptance and faced death it was over. But my dad needed to know and it upset him at the time. I think we all three respect the film now, but my fondness for it remains. As a lifelong Alaskan, it's haunting and does NOT help with my phobia of bear/wolf attacks (bear attacks increased here a few years ago due to a shorter summer and it freaked me the fuck out.)
Recently, one of my coworkers shocked the office by listing the classic 80s films she hadn't seen yet. This prompted us to list off essential films for her to watch. But I went with underrated, but essential films you wouldn't necessarily associate with THE 80S. So I brought her my copies of Raging Bull, The Breakfast Club, Blue Velvet, Raising Arizona, & Brazil to watch. And she loved Brazil in all of its weird sad exciting glory.
One criticism you can apply to Terry Gilliam is that he excels at world-building but struggles at consistent storytelling. But I'd like to submit to the jury, evidence to the contrary, EXHIBIT-FUCKING-A: Brazil. It's a lot to process, and quite honestly, what can be said about it has already been said a thousand times over. But what I will say is this: It's a goddamn privilege whenever you witness a visionary's magnum opus.
I can't remember which Thin Man movie it is, but there's a shot where Nora goes into a kitchen as Nick comes out of it, giving her a quick kiss, and the shot is with Nick -- Nora is out of the scene. But the kitchen door is a swinging door, and in the background, if you look, when the door swings open again, you can see Myrna Loy, who surely thought she was off-screen by then. And Myrna Loy is BEAMING. To me, that made the whole series -- this secret little peek at how much they adored being together.
You wrote in a recent post about how there are certain movies you haven't seen in years but there are certain sequences that you find you remember perfectly. That was Brazil for me. I saw it many years ago, loved it, but thought I had forgotten most of the details. Turns out it came rushing back as I was watching it. I can't think of another movie so angry in its storytelling yet so joyful in exploring every nook and cranny of its universe. I think Fisher King remains my favorite Gilliam, but this is a very close second.
I hadn't seen the other two before this but loved them both. They've both been on my watch list forever, so it was great to have an excuse to hunt them down. It did take me a little bit to settle into The Thin Man. I found I had to wrap my ear around and grow accustomed to the language for a few minutes , almost like seeing a Shakespeare play. But once I was in, I had a great time. And I thought The Grey was a haunting but beautiful exploration of broken people. There's a world in which the "killer wolves" premise plays as hokey, but Neeson and company totally sell it.
I watched The Grey sitting on the floor of my then girlfriend/now wife's apartment. Her and her friends tuned out and even napped. But I was enraptured. One of the true masterpieces about grief and how we fight through it even when we're broken. A reminder Neeson turned action star but never stopped being a titan actor.
So glad BRAZIL is one of the movies to start with. I recently remembered that I saw it first (on a Beta tape) around 14yo, along with VIDEODROME and MISHIMA on a binge weekend. And every one is still in my Top 10, to this day.
Looking back now, there’s a strange connection between them all - with leading men on the fringes, but driven by a need to push into or be recognized by the mainstream — for success, or acceptance, or to fill some void.
Yet the more they try, the more they find themselves even further outside, and by the end, well beyond reality and even life.
Gonna savour your essay, then jump back in. Thanks for the club. I think many of us need this these days.
This was the first time watching The Thin Man. My wife and I loved Nick & Nora Charles. It's amazing that no one has tried a remake of the series on a streaming service. Who doesn't want to watch a wise-cracking, alcoholic, carefree couple, solving crimes? It really should sell itself (though I'd gender flip the leads). Then again, the non-action based crime genre is a hard sell in the modern era. Hopefully the success of Knives Out and upcoming Perry Mason series, might push things back in that direction.
Brazil was an obsession of mine in the my early 20's. To the point a copy of The Battle of Brazil sits on my bookshelf (excellent read) and a copy of the Criterion version of the film graces my collection, and I watched every second of extras. I don't have the enthusiasm for it I did twenty years ago. It's still a visual masterpiece to watch, but as I've gotten older I've put more value in films that move me emotionally and Brazil stopped doing that, sometime in my early-30s.
The Grey however, I will never get tired of watching. Let's get the non-Nesson stuff out of the way first. Joe Carnahan is a criminally underrated director. Narc, Smoking Aces, The A-Team remake, all films that for any short comings were well directed.
Now, Nesson. This is peak Nesson. This is tragically, the most honest look into this man's soul we will ever get on film. He is working out his feelings on death on that screen. It's in every moment of his performance. You are watching his therapy and it's brutal, honest, and shakes me to my core. I'll never know how this film plays for people who don't know of his wife Natasha Richardson's tragic death in '09. For someone with knowledge of it, and knowing in interviews later, how hard it was for him to deal with it; this film is art hiding behind the mask of a survival film.
I like joking that The Grey is Liam Nesson fights wolves (and that ending is prefect, as everything that needed to be said on survival and death had been said. What happens after, isn't important), but I love talking about how amazing Nesson is in it.
Cheers on doing this Drew. Great group of films to start with.
Brazil is a film I know to be great, but have never really connected to in any way. Terry Gilliam has always been the Python I feel the least attraction to. I've always been much more a Terry Jones fan from that hallowed troupe. I know Gilliam co-directed Holy Grail, but it's as much Jones's film as it is his. Even when I watch something of Gilliam's that really does grab my attention, like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, there's always something missing for me. Even 12 Monkeys or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I just can't... invest in them. In that way, I feel very much like your parents and The Thin Man. A movie I happen to love.
I owe my love of The Thin Man to your always talking about it. I first watched the movie on cable about 12 or 13 years ago. I immediately fell in love with Nick and Nora Charles as a couple. The witty report they had with one another. I love many of the films made in this era. There were many things they couldn't do or couldn't show, and the writers and directors had to find clever ways to get around the censorship rules, and it's always fun to see the hows and the wheres. Also, think how much the formula perfected here has been copied over the years. There was a Thin Man TV series starring Peter Lawford. Then there were shows like Heart to Heart, Moonlighting, and Remington Steele. Even Bones and Castle owe much to Nick and Nora Charles. Also, before seeing the film, I always thought The Thin Man was Nick, never realizing that it referred to the victim of the case. I've not had a chance to see any of the sequels, so maybe you can explain how they're all called some variation of The Thin Man, Drew. Hah!
I'll always remember The Grey as being the movie where Liam Neeson punches a wolf. That was of course, my take-away from the trailer and though I wanted to see it, a friend told me it wasn't that great, so I never did, until now. I texted my friend the other night to ask him why he didn't like it because I did, and of course he had to be reminded what the movie was. Why did I take his advice again? Sigh. I generally like the man-against-nature genre, and have no problem when man loses. Movies like Cast Away, Into the Wild, The Edge (criminally underrated movie, by the way), The Revenant, and hell, even JAWS is a man-against-nature movie. I know you have a bear attack phobia Drew, and as someone with a shark attack phobia, I see absolutely nothing illogical about that. The themes of The Grey really spoke to me. When they talked about believing or not believing in God, and what that means when faced with unrelenting danger. God may have set us up to be the apex predator, but when our advantages are stripped-away, our man-made weapons and machines, we find ourselves outmatched by the evolutionary, biological machines God and nature has created to live in this world along side us. There's also this idea that when it's our turn to die, if we find ourselves staring death in the face, it's better to go out fighting than whimpering. It's one thing to be scared, but it's another to just give up and give in to your fate. It makes me think of a friend of a friend who has stage four breast cancer, and how she continues to look for new treatments, she continues to fight against the odds that she knows she has no hope to overcome, but she won't ever give in to her fate. She's going to rage against the dying of the light. This was a good movie, and I'm going to add it to my physical library. I'm actually angry I missed seeing this in the theater, as I imagine it would've been an even better experience.
Great choices Drew. All I’m familiar with to different degrees. Nick and Nora took me by surprise initially. I expected a fast talking screwball situation but what I didn’t expect was how witty it would be or how engaging the mystery was. Both got my hooks in me and it’s an absolute hoot. My wife is a maniac for the whole franchise which makes it extra special.
“The Grey” is great but I also go out of my way to watch Carnahan movies. I’m a Sacramento boy and I’ve been aware of him since his “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane” diy film made its rounds. Capturing very 90s Sacto locales. I like some of his movies more than they deserve (hello, “Smoking Aces”) but the Grey is great. Pulpy with pathos.
“Brazil” is the gift that keeps on giving. An example that someone can be up their own ass with all the philosophical and artistic themes they can cram in to one movie and still make it endlessly entertaining . And all the different version of this movie make it fun for “alternate versions” nerds like myself
I actually laughed out loud when you selected Thin Man, because I had literally just bought it on streaming for my wife and I to watch on New Year's Day. I really enjoyed it, and it's the sort of thing I would describe as "frothy" in the very best way. It walks a really careful tonal tightrope, keeping things feeling fun and light without making the mystery itself seem irrelevant. And I found it really fun how naturally they could frame the progression of the mystery around cocktail parties, and how those moments show the progression of Nick's engagement with the crime (in the middle the party he's hosting is getting more and more disrupted by it, while the final dinner party he orchestrates specifically to nab the killer). Powell and Loy have a ton of chemistry, and beyond their clear ability to entertain each other as Drew mentioned, they also clearly admire each other; Nora respects Nick's detective mind, and Nick respects Nora's moxie and stubbornness. Very, very fun.
The Grey is a movie I remember really hitting hard for me when I saw it, and I've been meaning to rewatch it forever. It's one of the few movies to really drill down into my soul and dredge up what I find most uncomfortable and unsettling about death, in a way that still lingers with me just from the first viewing years ago. Honestly I love the ending, and I feel like people who didn't must've been too caught up in expectations from the marketing or the Liam Neeson Action Renaissance to forgive the lack of Neeson-on-wolf action. But I feel like that ending is akin to the cliffhanger from the Angel series finale; the climax isn't the fight, it's the decision. It's about facing down the inevitable, come what may. As much as I enjoy things like Stretch and Smokin' Aces and their zany absurdity, this is my preferred mode of Carnahan, and it's kind of a bummer that this and Narc are the only real examples of it.
Brazil is one of those movies that I respect, and I feel like I get it, but for whatever reason it doesn't fully connect with me. I've always enjoyed the aesthetics of Gilliam movies, that pre-GDT/Tim Burton ability to make something completely surreal feel completely tangible, and the cast here is the right sort of odd for each of their roles. But there's always been something about Gilliam that leaves me cold.
Also on a meta level, I sometimes get jumpy watching dystopian/authoritarian yarns these days, as I imagine people taking whatever message about personal freedom in the face of oppression and thinking "Yeah I should be able to fly free and not be restrained by society... which means I should be able to say racist/sexist shit whenever I want!" which is not really the movie's problem but is something that weighs me down sometimes. I think Gilliam's latest turn at being a crank didn't help me here either, tbh.
It’s funny but until now I’ve never considered that the ending to The Grey could be divisive. To me it’s one of those endings that feels exactly right. First time round I remember thinking “of course this is where it’s been headed all along”.
Brazil was a watershed movie for me. I rented it on VHS at 14 because I heard it had some Pythons in it, and it proceeded to blow me away. I often regard it as the first "film" I ever saw. It redefined for me what a movie could be, and it opened my eyes to a much larger world of cinema. It always hovers near the top of my list of favorite films.
The big issue with The Grey was the marketing. People aren't wrong to be disappointed that there was no big wolf fight at the end. That was exactly what the trailers sold the movie as - Neeson with glass knuckles fighting wolves. It wound up being way, way better for not being that (imo) but the reaction was entirely predictable.
I’ve got a four month old so I’m not watching much of anything at the moment. Fortunately I’ve seen all three of these and love them all for different reasons. My grandmother showed me THE THIN MAN. Effervescent is a perfect description. And BRAZIL, I found on my own because TIME BANDITS had made an impression. It’s so goddamn weird but brilliant and pure Gilliam. As for THE GREY, I saw it in the theater and found it profoundly moving and, in parts, wondered how in the hell Carnahan was able to pull off what he and his team did (the last scene with Dallas Roberts is absolutely visceral to say nothing of the plane crash which has to be one of the best in film history down to the sound design and editing alone). As for the end? I’m one of the people who found it perfect for the tone of the film. And hey, we got that post-credits coda to let us know how things played out. Love it.
I love love love all 3 of these films. I feel like The Grey is an underrated masterpiece. Joe Carnahan is all too often overlooked and he’s had so many projects that never quite happened that sounded amazing. His gritty Daredevil movie, Bad Boys 3 and ESPECIALLY his take on James Ellroy’s White Jazz are all films I lament we’ll never get to see.
The Thin Man is pure perfection. It has maybe some of the best banter of any movie ever made. Funny enough though it’s one of those movies I recommend to everyone but find myself getting a lot go blowback on, even from people that love that kind of movie. A lot of people I love and respect think it’s too slight and airy. I don’t see that at all but I’ve always found it fascinating.
As for Brazil I can’t wait to show my boys Terry Gilliam’s opus. My oldest is probably still a good 4 or 5 years away from being able to digest it but I really feel like he out of all 3 of my sons will most connect with the weird, beautiful wave length the movie operates on.
I love the ending of the grey. It's the perfect kind of ambiguous ending. you absolutely do not need to see the fight bc in the end, the fact that he's even fighting at all is all that matters. Joe's crowning achievement thus far and one of my favorite movies ever. When I did my top 100 of the decade, the grey cracked the top 10. I find myself saying the poem in this movie a lot these days. Truly one of my favorite movies. Love this movie.
The Thin Man has always been one of my favorites, only eclipsed in its own series by the first sequel with a fine Jimmy Stewart. There's a breezy quality to Nick and Norah that makes each plot only an excuse to spend more time with them, his strange friends, and her stranger upper crust family. I watch it every Xmas just for Nick's assault on their tree.
This was my first time watching The Thin Man, and I thought it was pretty wonderful. A friend of mine has been trying to get me to work on a similar idea for a while now and seeing this finally crystallized the approach he was going for in my head.
I've been fascinated by Brazil ever since I became aware of it via Cinescape magazine's list of "Best Sci-Fi and Horror DVDs" list (that's a weirdly specific memory!). It was still some time before I actually got to watch it, but I remember just taking all of my high school graduation money and spending it at Best Buy one summer on a bunch of the classics I hadn't seen, and that was on the list. I ended up writing a paper on it in college (for a film noir class, of all things), but I haven't seen it in a while now. I would say the dystopian state of the world right now has discouraged me from revisiting it, but I've watched Fail-Safe at least three times since 2016 so that's definitely not the issue.
The Grey is one I haven't seen since theaters, but I remember thinking it was incredible. The ending didn't sit well with me at the time, but I've aged into more of an "it's the journey, not the destination" approach when it comes to films, so I'm pretty sure a revisit would bring me all the way around on it. Either way, I think it's Joe Carnahan's best and I keep hoping he'll turn out something along those lines again.
I really enjoyed "The Thin Man." The film is quick, but also takes its time to unfold, allowing the characters room to develop, and the story a chance to reveal itself. I completely understand why you love it so. I couldn't help but think of "Knives Out" by the time Nick was explaining everything by the end- such a fun "here's how it all played out" scene.
I rewatched "Brazil" with a friend last year when we did a double-feature of that and "Time Bandits." I've seen "Brazil" three times over the years, and my affection for it has grown each subsequent time. The fantasy and dark comedy in this film is so perfectly calibrated by Gilliam, and he gets such great work out of everyone in this movie. (Gilliam is an underrated director of actors. Jonathan Pryce has given two great performances under his direction between "Brazil" and "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," and this probably should have been the first indication of how great DeNiro could be with the right comedic material.) And I agree with you on Kamen's score- it's the very best one he ever did.
Haven't watched "The Grey" since 2012, but I remember really liking it. If I get a chance to watch it this week, I will reply here.
Brazil I usually say is my favourite movie and the Thin Man series as well, the first ones are the best. “serve the nuts! I mean, serve the guests the nuts. “
I have the Criterion box of Brazil and the Thin Man boxset, but both on region 1 and no working r1 player at the moment so I haven’t watched them in a long time. I want Blu-ray version of them both though.
Thin man is one of the most entertaining films ive ever watche and it was just as much a delight this time as it was the second time around and yes I love Nick and Nora they dont make on screen or real couples like that anymore. Sadly i have not seen any of the other films in the series but would love to watch them.
The Grey remains my favorite Liam Neeson movie especially of the era of him being am action star, even though this movie is so much more than that. I love the ending and does not bother me one bit that we dont see it and leave up to our imagination if he made it or gave in. A great film about masculinty that isnt completely toxic. Doesnt give me warm feelings abput taking my Alaskan cruise this summer.
Brazil is maybe my favorite scifi movie and definatley my favorite Gilliam film. I own the Criterion and wrote a paper on why it should be in the National Film Registry. I love the mix of fantasy with dystopy and paperwork and mundaness of government work is a true killer. Sadly i agree Drew this movie is frightnely more relevant than it was 35 years ago.
I have seen Brazil and The Grey numerous times, so I wasn't excited to revisit them. They are both great films, don't get me wrong. They're just not my favorites. I mean I have a huge list of movies I consistently rewatch but, I tend to lean towards discovering new movies. That being said I was definitely excited to watch The Thin Man. I found it streaming on Roku and holy smokes, I was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. Nick and Nora are exceptional characters but, Aster was my favorite, I love that dog. Most of my movie watching has been the 60's through to current and I have been trying to go back and discover everything before that time period. So many amazing films to discover.
I only got a chance to revisit The Grey this time around, but I'm glad I did. I hadn't seen it in several years, and I don't think I truly understood or appreciated it at the time. I'd been spoiled on the ending, and thought it was the right way to end it, but found the rest to be kind of a slog. Which, in retrospect, is kind of the point.
What struck me on rewatch is how spiritual I found it. I don't typically bring that line of thinking into what I watch, but it was tough to ignore for me. There are so many instances of characters searching for something, either tangible or otherwise, that really resonated. The scene where Ottway helps James Badge Dale's character let go is moving, but what sells it is when one of the others says something to the effect of "I felt him go."
I also latched onto the whole idea of the movie as metaphor for life and the search for meaning. The protagonists are dropped without warning into an unfamiliar and hostile environment with few resources and no idea where to go or what to do, so they just...go. They start walking and one by one they either find what they were looking for or don't. Either way, their fate is the same; what mattered was what they did with the time they had.
(Side note: The day after I rewatched this I got another look at Jojo Rabbit, and maybe it's just because of the epigraph at the end, but I found some curious similarities between the two films).
Wish I had a chance to revisit The Thin Man. Fell in love with that one first time I watched it, on a trip home to visit my parents that led to us watching the first two in the series back-to-back on TCM. It's a favorite of my dad's, and getting to share it with him was a joy.
Re: Brazil - I owe it to myself to give that one another shot. I watched it for the first time 3-4 years ago and it just didn't connect with me at all. But tons of people whose opinions I respect and admire swear by that film, so I want to carve out time to try again.
I spent a few hours re-reading Hammett’s ‘The Thin Man’ before watching it this time, and it’s remarkable how much personality and chemistry William Powell and Myrna Loy pump into the story. No question why the team was so well loved. In particular, they perfectly capture the book’s characterization of Nora and her boundless confidence not only in Nick’s abilities, but also in the security of their relationship, as every other woman in the story beats herself silly for his attention like moths against a lightbulb. The Charles’ thrown expressions to each other, behind backs and over shoulders, are as charming as anything I’ve ever seen on film. Hard to believe it came together as quickly as it did.
It’s embarrassing, but despite years of cinephilic enthusiasm and a specific admiration of Gilliam’s other work, somehow I had never gotten around to seeing Brazil until this prompt. In fact… just between us? All this time, I thought it was a straightforward comedy. As if Gilliam would make anything straightforward. But I never expected it to play quite so horrific. The way this world steamrolls Sam is just brutal — perhaps moreso nowadays than when it was released, considering the state of the world. What a beautiful bummer. Special mention to the incredible sets, which feel remarkably real even by modern standards and sell the world so very well, regardless of the swell of its madness. And a soundtrack as good as I’ve ever heard. I daresay it makes the film.
The Grey turned out to be much more affecting than I would have anticipated from a gritty little pulp survival story. These guys could have all been cartoons so easily, but somehow no one comes across that way. The action stays simple, and the characters broaden over the course of the story in a way that never feels false or forced. And Neeson is just as raw as it gets. That moment by the river when he’s finally left alone, and he calls out to God in desperation before muttering, “Ah, fuck it — I’ll do it myself,” is as fist-in-the-air awesome as any fight that might have followed. And the fact that Carnahan-as-God immediately flips him the cosmic bird with the reveal that he’s been on a beeline for the wolves’ den THE WHOLE MOVIE just makes the resignation and badassery of that ending all the more perfect. Loved it.
I utterly adore The Grey, sometimes the tone and execution of a film just finds you at the right moment and time. Without writing a dissertation on it, all I can say is that film speaks to me.
I saw it in the cinema, I remember watching Neeson start the prep work for the final fight and as that scene built up it dawned on me that the film was probably going to end on a smash cut to black. Because thematically in the context of the film, the outcome of the fight doesn't matter, it only matters that Ottway was prepared to stand and fight. For that reason, to me, it's the perfect ending for the film.
Now, others in the cinema didn't see it that way. On the cut to black, a guy immediately jumped to his feet and screamed 'WHAT THE FUCK?!?' at the screen. And I laughed, quite a lot.
Brazil is my #1 movie of all time and it has been since I first saw it in 1985... for the life of me I can't remember what theater I saw it but it probably was either in Bridgeport or Norwalk, CT cause I wasn't living in NYC at the time. I bought my first DVD player when I learned that there was a Brazil Criterion DVD set with different versions of the movie, and yet, I will still see it almost every time it plays at one of the local rep theaters. In 2013, when I was diagnosed with leukemia and ended up in an Ohio hospital for a month (to start), a friend sent me a DVD of Brazil and it gave me a lot of happiness during a tough couple weeks. I probably have that DVD fairly close by as I do like watching once every year or two. (I'm probably due.) Been way too long since I've seen The Grey and not sure about the Thin Man but I'll try to figure it out...
LOVE The Thin Man. Delightfully witty "drawing room comedy with dead bodies" that may be the only film with two alcoholics where you'd go "Yeah, its pretty much #relationshipgoals."
The Grey sounds like the type of film my parents would love: Action & Liam Neesons. But that ending was a divisive one when I watched it with them. I loved the overwhelming dread of the film and it's cliffhanger ending; for me we didn't even need the open-ended credits stinger, as soon as he reached acceptance and faced death it was over. But my dad needed to know and it upset him at the time. I think we all three respect the film now, but my fondness for it remains. As a lifelong Alaskan, it's haunting and does NOT help with my phobia of bear/wolf attacks (bear attacks increased here a few years ago due to a shorter summer and it freaked me the fuck out.)
Recently, one of my coworkers shocked the office by listing the classic 80s films she hadn't seen yet. This prompted us to list off essential films for her to watch. But I went with underrated, but essential films you wouldn't necessarily associate with THE 80S. So I brought her my copies of Raging Bull, The Breakfast Club, Blue Velvet, Raising Arizona, & Brazil to watch. And she loved Brazil in all of its weird sad exciting glory.
One criticism you can apply to Terry Gilliam is that he excels at world-building but struggles at consistent storytelling. But I'd like to submit to the jury, evidence to the contrary, EXHIBIT-FUCKING-A: Brazil. It's a lot to process, and quite honestly, what can be said about it has already been said a thousand times over. But what I will say is this: It's a goddamn privilege whenever you witness a visionary's magnum opus.
Fear & Loathing In Metropolis.
Kafka & Orwell on acid.
A nightmarish Vertigo.
And what a beautiful nightmare it is.
I can't remember which Thin Man movie it is, but there's a shot where Nora goes into a kitchen as Nick comes out of it, giving her a quick kiss, and the shot is with Nick -- Nora is out of the scene. But the kitchen door is a swinging door, and in the background, if you look, when the door swings open again, you can see Myrna Loy, who surely thought she was off-screen by then. And Myrna Loy is BEAMING. To me, that made the whole series -- this secret little peek at how much they adored being together.
You wrote in a recent post about how there are certain movies you haven't seen in years but there are certain sequences that you find you remember perfectly. That was Brazil for me. I saw it many years ago, loved it, but thought I had forgotten most of the details. Turns out it came rushing back as I was watching it. I can't think of another movie so angry in its storytelling yet so joyful in exploring every nook and cranny of its universe. I think Fisher King remains my favorite Gilliam, but this is a very close second.
I hadn't seen the other two before this but loved them both. They've both been on my watch list forever, so it was great to have an excuse to hunt them down. It did take me a little bit to settle into The Thin Man. I found I had to wrap my ear around and grow accustomed to the language for a few minutes , almost like seeing a Shakespeare play. But once I was in, I had a great time. And I thought The Grey was a haunting but beautiful exploration of broken people. There's a world in which the "killer wolves" premise plays as hokey, but Neeson and company totally sell it.
I watched The Grey sitting on the floor of my then girlfriend/now wife's apartment. Her and her friends tuned out and even napped. But I was enraptured. One of the true masterpieces about grief and how we fight through it even when we're broken. A reminder Neeson turned action star but never stopped being a titan actor.
So glad BRAZIL is one of the movies to start with. I recently remembered that I saw it first (on a Beta tape) around 14yo, along with VIDEODROME and MISHIMA on a binge weekend. And every one is still in my Top 10, to this day.
Looking back now, there’s a strange connection between them all - with leading men on the fringes, but driven by a need to push into or be recognized by the mainstream — for success, or acceptance, or to fill some void.
Yet the more they try, the more they find themselves even further outside, and by the end, well beyond reality and even life.
Gonna savour your essay, then jump back in. Thanks for the club. I think many of us need this these days.
This was the first time watching The Thin Man. My wife and I loved Nick & Nora Charles. It's amazing that no one has tried a remake of the series on a streaming service. Who doesn't want to watch a wise-cracking, alcoholic, carefree couple, solving crimes? It really should sell itself (though I'd gender flip the leads). Then again, the non-action based crime genre is a hard sell in the modern era. Hopefully the success of Knives Out and upcoming Perry Mason series, might push things back in that direction.
Brazil was an obsession of mine in the my early 20's. To the point a copy of The Battle of Brazil sits on my bookshelf (excellent read) and a copy of the Criterion version of the film graces my collection, and I watched every second of extras. I don't have the enthusiasm for it I did twenty years ago. It's still a visual masterpiece to watch, but as I've gotten older I've put more value in films that move me emotionally and Brazil stopped doing that, sometime in my early-30s.
The Grey however, I will never get tired of watching. Let's get the non-Nesson stuff out of the way first. Joe Carnahan is a criminally underrated director. Narc, Smoking Aces, The A-Team remake, all films that for any short comings were well directed.
Now, Nesson. This is peak Nesson. This is tragically, the most honest look into this man's soul we will ever get on film. He is working out his feelings on death on that screen. It's in every moment of his performance. You are watching his therapy and it's brutal, honest, and shakes me to my core. I'll never know how this film plays for people who don't know of his wife Natasha Richardson's tragic death in '09. For someone with knowledge of it, and knowing in interviews later, how hard it was for him to deal with it; this film is art hiding behind the mask of a survival film.
I like joking that The Grey is Liam Nesson fights wolves (and that ending is prefect, as everything that needed to be said on survival and death had been said. What happens after, isn't important), but I love talking about how amazing Nesson is in it.
Cheers on doing this Drew. Great group of films to start with.
Brazil is a film I know to be great, but have never really connected to in any way. Terry Gilliam has always been the Python I feel the least attraction to. I've always been much more a Terry Jones fan from that hallowed troupe. I know Gilliam co-directed Holy Grail, but it's as much Jones's film as it is his. Even when I watch something of Gilliam's that really does grab my attention, like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, there's always something missing for me. Even 12 Monkeys or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I just can't... invest in them. In that way, I feel very much like your parents and The Thin Man. A movie I happen to love.
I owe my love of The Thin Man to your always talking about it. I first watched the movie on cable about 12 or 13 years ago. I immediately fell in love with Nick and Nora Charles as a couple. The witty report they had with one another. I love many of the films made in this era. There were many things they couldn't do or couldn't show, and the writers and directors had to find clever ways to get around the censorship rules, and it's always fun to see the hows and the wheres. Also, think how much the formula perfected here has been copied over the years. There was a Thin Man TV series starring Peter Lawford. Then there were shows like Heart to Heart, Moonlighting, and Remington Steele. Even Bones and Castle owe much to Nick and Nora Charles. Also, before seeing the film, I always thought The Thin Man was Nick, never realizing that it referred to the victim of the case. I've not had a chance to see any of the sequels, so maybe you can explain how they're all called some variation of The Thin Man, Drew. Hah!
I'll always remember The Grey as being the movie where Liam Neeson punches a wolf. That was of course, my take-away from the trailer and though I wanted to see it, a friend told me it wasn't that great, so I never did, until now. I texted my friend the other night to ask him why he didn't like it because I did, and of course he had to be reminded what the movie was. Why did I take his advice again? Sigh. I generally like the man-against-nature genre, and have no problem when man loses. Movies like Cast Away, Into the Wild, The Edge (criminally underrated movie, by the way), The Revenant, and hell, even JAWS is a man-against-nature movie. I know you have a bear attack phobia Drew, and as someone with a shark attack phobia, I see absolutely nothing illogical about that. The themes of The Grey really spoke to me. When they talked about believing or not believing in God, and what that means when faced with unrelenting danger. God may have set us up to be the apex predator, but when our advantages are stripped-away, our man-made weapons and machines, we find ourselves outmatched by the evolutionary, biological machines God and nature has created to live in this world along side us. There's also this idea that when it's our turn to die, if we find ourselves staring death in the face, it's better to go out fighting than whimpering. It's one thing to be scared, but it's another to just give up and give in to your fate. It makes me think of a friend of a friend who has stage four breast cancer, and how she continues to look for new treatments, she continues to fight against the odds that she knows she has no hope to overcome, but she won't ever give in to her fate. She's going to rage against the dying of the light. This was a good movie, and I'm going to add it to my physical library. I'm actually angry I missed seeing this in the theater, as I imagine it would've been an even better experience.
Great choices Drew. All I’m familiar with to different degrees. Nick and Nora took me by surprise initially. I expected a fast talking screwball situation but what I didn’t expect was how witty it would be or how engaging the mystery was. Both got my hooks in me and it’s an absolute hoot. My wife is a maniac for the whole franchise which makes it extra special.
“The Grey” is great but I also go out of my way to watch Carnahan movies. I’m a Sacramento boy and I’ve been aware of him since his “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane” diy film made its rounds. Capturing very 90s Sacto locales. I like some of his movies more than they deserve (hello, “Smoking Aces”) but the Grey is great. Pulpy with pathos.
“Brazil” is the gift that keeps on giving. An example that someone can be up their own ass with all the philosophical and artistic themes they can cram in to one movie and still make it endlessly entertaining . And all the different version of this movie make it fun for “alternate versions” nerds like myself
I actually laughed out loud when you selected Thin Man, because I had literally just bought it on streaming for my wife and I to watch on New Year's Day. I really enjoyed it, and it's the sort of thing I would describe as "frothy" in the very best way. It walks a really careful tonal tightrope, keeping things feeling fun and light without making the mystery itself seem irrelevant. And I found it really fun how naturally they could frame the progression of the mystery around cocktail parties, and how those moments show the progression of Nick's engagement with the crime (in the middle the party he's hosting is getting more and more disrupted by it, while the final dinner party he orchestrates specifically to nab the killer). Powell and Loy have a ton of chemistry, and beyond their clear ability to entertain each other as Drew mentioned, they also clearly admire each other; Nora respects Nick's detective mind, and Nick respects Nora's moxie and stubbornness. Very, very fun.
The Grey is a movie I remember really hitting hard for me when I saw it, and I've been meaning to rewatch it forever. It's one of the few movies to really drill down into my soul and dredge up what I find most uncomfortable and unsettling about death, in a way that still lingers with me just from the first viewing years ago. Honestly I love the ending, and I feel like people who didn't must've been too caught up in expectations from the marketing or the Liam Neeson Action Renaissance to forgive the lack of Neeson-on-wolf action. But I feel like that ending is akin to the cliffhanger from the Angel series finale; the climax isn't the fight, it's the decision. It's about facing down the inevitable, come what may. As much as I enjoy things like Stretch and Smokin' Aces and their zany absurdity, this is my preferred mode of Carnahan, and it's kind of a bummer that this and Narc are the only real examples of it.
Brazil is one of those movies that I respect, and I feel like I get it, but for whatever reason it doesn't fully connect with me. I've always enjoyed the aesthetics of Gilliam movies, that pre-GDT/Tim Burton ability to make something completely surreal feel completely tangible, and the cast here is the right sort of odd for each of their roles. But there's always been something about Gilliam that leaves me cold.
Also on a meta level, I sometimes get jumpy watching dystopian/authoritarian yarns these days, as I imagine people taking whatever message about personal freedom in the face of oppression and thinking "Yeah I should be able to fly free and not be restrained by society... which means I should be able to say racist/sexist shit whenever I want!" which is not really the movie's problem but is something that weighs me down sometimes. I think Gilliam's latest turn at being a crank didn't help me here either, tbh.
I should probably start watching that copy of "The Thin Man" that I haven't seen yet.
Also, "Brazil" has one of the best jokes that fly under the radar.
"How are the twins?"
"Triplets, actually."
"My, how time flies."
It’s funny but until now I’ve never considered that the ending to The Grey could be divisive. To me it’s one of those endings that feels exactly right. First time round I remember thinking “of course this is where it’s been headed all along”.
Brazil was a watershed movie for me. I rented it on VHS at 14 because I heard it had some Pythons in it, and it proceeded to blow me away. I often regard it as the first "film" I ever saw. It redefined for me what a movie could be, and it opened my eyes to a much larger world of cinema. It always hovers near the top of my list of favorite films.
The big issue with The Grey was the marketing. People aren't wrong to be disappointed that there was no big wolf fight at the end. That was exactly what the trailers sold the movie as - Neeson with glass knuckles fighting wolves. It wound up being way, way better for not being that (imo) but the reaction was entirely predictable.
I’ve got a four month old so I’m not watching much of anything at the moment. Fortunately I’ve seen all three of these and love them all for different reasons. My grandmother showed me THE THIN MAN. Effervescent is a perfect description. And BRAZIL, I found on my own because TIME BANDITS had made an impression. It’s so goddamn weird but brilliant and pure Gilliam. As for THE GREY, I saw it in the theater and found it profoundly moving and, in parts, wondered how in the hell Carnahan was able to pull off what he and his team did (the last scene with Dallas Roberts is absolutely visceral to say nothing of the plane crash which has to be one of the best in film history down to the sound design and editing alone). As for the end? I’m one of the people who found it perfect for the tone of the film. And hey, we got that post-credits coda to let us know how things played out. Love it.
I love love love all 3 of these films. I feel like The Grey is an underrated masterpiece. Joe Carnahan is all too often overlooked and he’s had so many projects that never quite happened that sounded amazing. His gritty Daredevil movie, Bad Boys 3 and ESPECIALLY his take on James Ellroy’s White Jazz are all films I lament we’ll never get to see.
The Thin Man is pure perfection. It has maybe some of the best banter of any movie ever made. Funny enough though it’s one of those movies I recommend to everyone but find myself getting a lot go blowback on, even from people that love that kind of movie. A lot of people I love and respect think it’s too slight and airy. I don’t see that at all but I’ve always found it fascinating.
As for Brazil I can’t wait to show my boys Terry Gilliam’s opus. My oldest is probably still a good 4 or 5 years away from being able to digest it but I really feel like he out of all 3 of my sons will most connect with the weird, beautiful wave length the movie operates on.
Drew, I love this and keep it coming!
I love the ending of the grey. It's the perfect kind of ambiguous ending. you absolutely do not need to see the fight bc in the end, the fact that he's even fighting at all is all that matters. Joe's crowning achievement thus far and one of my favorite movies ever. When I did my top 100 of the decade, the grey cracked the top 10. I find myself saying the poem in this movie a lot these days. Truly one of my favorite movies. Love this movie.
The Thin Man has always been one of my favorites, only eclipsed in its own series by the first sequel with a fine Jimmy Stewart. There's a breezy quality to Nick and Norah that makes each plot only an excuse to spend more time with them, his strange friends, and her stranger upper crust family. I watch it every Xmas just for Nick's assault on their tree.
This was my first time watching The Thin Man, and I thought it was pretty wonderful. A friend of mine has been trying to get me to work on a similar idea for a while now and seeing this finally crystallized the approach he was going for in my head.
I've been fascinated by Brazil ever since I became aware of it via Cinescape magazine's list of "Best Sci-Fi and Horror DVDs" list (that's a weirdly specific memory!). It was still some time before I actually got to watch it, but I remember just taking all of my high school graduation money and spending it at Best Buy one summer on a bunch of the classics I hadn't seen, and that was on the list. I ended up writing a paper on it in college (for a film noir class, of all things), but I haven't seen it in a while now. I would say the dystopian state of the world right now has discouraged me from revisiting it, but I've watched Fail-Safe at least three times since 2016 so that's definitely not the issue.
The Grey is one I haven't seen since theaters, but I remember thinking it was incredible. The ending didn't sit well with me at the time, but I've aged into more of an "it's the journey, not the destination" approach when it comes to films, so I'm pretty sure a revisit would bring me all the way around on it. Either way, I think it's Joe Carnahan's best and I keep hoping he'll turn out something along those lines again.
I really enjoyed "The Thin Man." The film is quick, but also takes its time to unfold, allowing the characters room to develop, and the story a chance to reveal itself. I completely understand why you love it so. I couldn't help but think of "Knives Out" by the time Nick was explaining everything by the end- such a fun "here's how it all played out" scene.
I rewatched "Brazil" with a friend last year when we did a double-feature of that and "Time Bandits." I've seen "Brazil" three times over the years, and my affection for it has grown each subsequent time. The fantasy and dark comedy in this film is so perfectly calibrated by Gilliam, and he gets such great work out of everyone in this movie. (Gilliam is an underrated director of actors. Jonathan Pryce has given two great performances under his direction between "Brazil" and "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote," and this probably should have been the first indication of how great DeNiro could be with the right comedic material.) And I agree with you on Kamen's score- it's the very best one he ever did.
Haven't watched "The Grey" since 2012, but I remember really liking it. If I get a chance to watch it this week, I will reply here.
Brazil I usually say is my favourite movie and the Thin Man series as well, the first ones are the best. “serve the nuts! I mean, serve the guests the nuts. “
I have the Criterion box of Brazil and the Thin Man boxset, but both on region 1 and no working r1 player at the moment so I haven’t watched them in a long time. I want Blu-ray version of them both though.
Thin man is one of the most entertaining films ive ever watche and it was just as much a delight this time as it was the second time around and yes I love Nick and Nora they dont make on screen or real couples like that anymore. Sadly i have not seen any of the other films in the series but would love to watch them.
The Grey remains my favorite Liam Neeson movie especially of the era of him being am action star, even though this movie is so much more than that. I love the ending and does not bother me one bit that we dont see it and leave up to our imagination if he made it or gave in. A great film about masculinty that isnt completely toxic. Doesnt give me warm feelings abput taking my Alaskan cruise this summer.
Brazil is maybe my favorite scifi movie and definatley my favorite Gilliam film. I own the Criterion and wrote a paper on why it should be in the National Film Registry. I love the mix of fantasy with dystopy and paperwork and mundaness of government work is a true killer. Sadly i agree Drew this movie is frightnely more relevant than it was 35 years ago.
I have seen Brazil and The Grey numerous times, so I wasn't excited to revisit them. They are both great films, don't get me wrong. They're just not my favorites. I mean I have a huge list of movies I consistently rewatch but, I tend to lean towards discovering new movies. That being said I was definitely excited to watch The Thin Man. I found it streaming on Roku and holy smokes, I was not prepared to enjoy it as much as I did. Nick and Nora are exceptional characters but, Aster was my favorite, I love that dog. Most of my movie watching has been the 60's through to current and I have been trying to go back and discover everything before that time period. So many amazing films to discover.
I only got a chance to revisit The Grey this time around, but I'm glad I did. I hadn't seen it in several years, and I don't think I truly understood or appreciated it at the time. I'd been spoiled on the ending, and thought it was the right way to end it, but found the rest to be kind of a slog. Which, in retrospect, is kind of the point.
What struck me on rewatch is how spiritual I found it. I don't typically bring that line of thinking into what I watch, but it was tough to ignore for me. There are so many instances of characters searching for something, either tangible or otherwise, that really resonated. The scene where Ottway helps James Badge Dale's character let go is moving, but what sells it is when one of the others says something to the effect of "I felt him go."
I also latched onto the whole idea of the movie as metaphor for life and the search for meaning. The protagonists are dropped without warning into an unfamiliar and hostile environment with few resources and no idea where to go or what to do, so they just...go. They start walking and one by one they either find what they were looking for or don't. Either way, their fate is the same; what mattered was what they did with the time they had.
(Side note: The day after I rewatched this I got another look at Jojo Rabbit, and maybe it's just because of the epigraph at the end, but I found some curious similarities between the two films).
Wish I had a chance to revisit The Thin Man. Fell in love with that one first time I watched it, on a trip home to visit my parents that led to us watching the first two in the series back-to-back on TCM. It's a favorite of my dad's, and getting to share it with him was a joy.
Re: Brazil - I owe it to myself to give that one another shot. I watched it for the first time 3-4 years ago and it just didn't connect with me at all. But tons of people whose opinions I respect and admire swear by that film, so I want to carve out time to try again.
I spent a few hours re-reading Hammett’s ‘The Thin Man’ before watching it this time, and it’s remarkable how much personality and chemistry William Powell and Myrna Loy pump into the story. No question why the team was so well loved. In particular, they perfectly capture the book’s characterization of Nora and her boundless confidence not only in Nick’s abilities, but also in the security of their relationship, as every other woman in the story beats herself silly for his attention like moths against a lightbulb. The Charles’ thrown expressions to each other, behind backs and over shoulders, are as charming as anything I’ve ever seen on film. Hard to believe it came together as quickly as it did.
It’s embarrassing, but despite years of cinephilic enthusiasm and a specific admiration of Gilliam’s other work, somehow I had never gotten around to seeing Brazil until this prompt. In fact… just between us? All this time, I thought it was a straightforward comedy. As if Gilliam would make anything straightforward. But I never expected it to play quite so horrific. The way this world steamrolls Sam is just brutal — perhaps moreso nowadays than when it was released, considering the state of the world. What a beautiful bummer. Special mention to the incredible sets, which feel remarkably real even by modern standards and sell the world so very well, regardless of the swell of its madness. And a soundtrack as good as I’ve ever heard. I daresay it makes the film.
The Grey turned out to be much more affecting than I would have anticipated from a gritty little pulp survival story. These guys could have all been cartoons so easily, but somehow no one comes across that way. The action stays simple, and the characters broaden over the course of the story in a way that never feels false or forced. And Neeson is just as raw as it gets. That moment by the river when he’s finally left alone, and he calls out to God in desperation before muttering, “Ah, fuck it — I’ll do it myself,” is as fist-in-the-air awesome as any fight that might have followed. And the fact that Carnahan-as-God immediately flips him the cosmic bird with the reveal that he’s been on a beeline for the wolves’ den THE WHOLE MOVIE just makes the resignation and badassery of that ending all the more perfect. Loved it.
Thanks for this!
I utterly adore The Grey, sometimes the tone and execution of a film just finds you at the right moment and time. Without writing a dissertation on it, all I can say is that film speaks to me.
I saw it in the cinema, I remember watching Neeson start the prep work for the final fight and as that scene built up it dawned on me that the film was probably going to end on a smash cut to black. Because thematically in the context of the film, the outcome of the fight doesn't matter, it only matters that Ottway was prepared to stand and fight. For that reason, to me, it's the perfect ending for the film.
Now, others in the cinema didn't see it that way. On the cut to black, a guy immediately jumped to his feet and screamed 'WHAT THE FUCK?!?' at the screen. And I laughed, quite a lot.