Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
On Sunday evening, I watched Southern Comfort.
Which is a film about how @hydroacetylene spends his weekends.
No, seriously - Louisiana Nat'l Guard in the 1980s. This film is, essentially, an attempt to re-make Deliverance with, I guess, a more military patina. It doesn't do a great job and mostly survives on a sloppy thriller plot and some competent to good performances by a very young Powers Boothe and Keith Carradine.
It isn't a great film, but it is an okay-to-good film that wants to be great.
So, my low stakes question for Sunday is: What are other films that are good, not great, but really want to be great?
I would say Christopher Nolan's entire career after the Prestige (maybe bar Inception. I think it's held back by Leonardo DiCaprio, but I recognize I'm in the minority in not thinking he's a very good actor). I've really liked all his movies since, but there's always been something that held them back from being great (the Dark Knight's disjointed third act, the general sloppiness of TDKR, Insterseller's "love is the greatest force of all" cop out, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer's focus on practical effects to the detriment of their stories and Oppenheimer's reliance on an unnecessarily elaborate non-linear structure. Tenet was just a swing and a miss.). It feels like Nolan's always one glaring issue away from making a great film, and really wants to be more than just another action director, but can't quite recapture the magic of his early career.
Another one that's closer to my heart is Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. I really love the director's cut, but the combination of a miscast Orlando Bloom and overly on-the-nose War on Terror commentary makes it impossible for me to recommend it without reservations. Scott was this close to making an all-time great historical epic, but it's just too incredibly 2005 to ever be a timeless classic.
It's amazing how stacked a resume Orlando Bloom built off of a couple year span after Lord of the Rings before people realized his limited range wasn't just an acting choice for Legolas.
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