Nothing else to say
Only a few days ago did I finally get around to seeing Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center from 2006, dealing with the true story of two men recovered from the wreckage (played by Nicholas Cage and Michael Peńa).
Stone is definitely one to take risks, but even he was in murky waters when tackling a film that centered on the one day that signified all other days of the 21st century (and five years later, no less).
It is odd to think of, but Marvel is almost going to have more movies than I have in years on this planet (according to wiki, they will have caught up to me by 2027).
(This of course does not include the TV shows, Limited Series, and what not).
While I have no proof of it, it does seem like the advent of social media has made people more hypersensitive to spoilers.
While my dad famously never wanted to know anything about the movie he was going to see aside from the start time and theater number (he did not even want to know the title), this was most apparent to me in 2019, when I saw a little movie called Avengers: Endgame. One of the biggest cinematic events of my lifetime, I was unaware of the fact that just mentioning the fact that the film dealt with time travel spoiled it (at least for a friend of mine).
When you think about it, there are some things in life you would not know about if it weren’t for certain movies.
I’m not talking about historical/biographical films, but more about films that get into the daily lives of people you never knew about.
There is a moment in the classic Citizen Kane where elderly Jed Leland (Joseph Cotten) says to the young reporter “I remember everything. That’s the greatest curse ever inflicted on the human race: memory.”
This quote ran through my head not long after the opening of Warfare, which tells us that what we are about to see is not based on any documented story so much as it is the memories of those who engaged in it. It won’t take long to have you agree with the idea of memory being a curse after the events unfold in the film.
For many a reason, I avoided a lot of horror films during the first decade of the century.
This is not to say because I was fearful, but mainly because all the films I heard I had heard of ended up being lousy (it was only until much later that I would finally go back and see the likes of the first Saw film, Let the Right One In, and some of The Conjuring films).
In the 1988 classic Cinema Paradiso, one of the last pieces of advice that Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) gives to young Salvatore (Marco Lenardi) is not to give in to nostalgia.
When one sees that movie (and one should), one realizes a sense of irony, so much of the film is about nostalgia (pumped up by an immaculate musical score by Ennio Morricone). It is this type of sentimentality that drove me to an idea of sorts as I approached 2025: my top 25 movie milestones from the first 25 years of the century.
In the last decade of Disney Live Action Remakes, there was a time where I thought remaking Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was forbidden.
The House of Mouse would not even exist today if the 1937 classic (the first of its kind) did not prevail the expectations, so naturally one would suspect that all of Disney knows that some form of respect is due it.
I never thought I would say this, but I am now steadily considering watching the Twilight series.
The casting of Robert Pattinson of Edward Cullen (as well as his relationship with co-star Kristen Stewart) was thankfully not the first I had seen or heard of him (he of course was Cedric Diggory in the Potterverse), but it was not until the last few years in films like The Lighthouse (2019), The Batman (2022), and (in voice over) The Boy and the Heron (2023), that I realized the obvious truth: he is a rather proficient actor.
“Don’t die. Copy that.”
This is more than a repeated piece of dialogue that Joaquin Torres’ Falcon says to Sam Wilson’s Captain America. It could also be reflective of the MCU offices these days, making sure their movies (and TV shows, for that matter) are not being sent out without a thought of survival.
Nothing else to say