Movie Club General Discussion

This is the official thread for Movie Club! I think having a dedicated thread could be a cool way to encourage extra discussion should we need the space, and a fun way to just...post things! Yeah! So, let's get to it.


Since August 2023, Cocoa and I have been streaming movies from a list we jokingly called "The Flyterion Cocoallection", a pun on the Criterion Collection of DVD releases. It was a shortlist of movies we made while on vacation that we think serve as a fun primer of movies that range wildly in quality, genre, themes, and more, all with the same goal in mind - they'll give you something to talk about.

The original list of movies was as follows, with the ones we've shown since the start crossed out:


The first movies we showed were New York Ninja and Barton Fink, a wildly-different double feature that we thought showed the variety this idea had to offer. It was great! That said, we are in no means beholden to the list! A lot of great movies have come around since the creation of this list, and as Movie Club has continued we've realized that sometimes we can really go out of the box and pull out plenty of surprises, while also cooling down on our original enthusiasm for others. Plus, other club regulars like Tougon and Nova have busted out movies to share as well along the way. It's a fun, communal experience!

For a complete list of every movie we've shown as part of movie club, Nova has a really handy Letterboxd list here.

The goal of Movie Club is to get talking! Get dissecting and understanding art, engaging with it in a fun and low-stakes way, curating all kinds of emotions and experiences to help the viewers find new meaning even in pieces they've seen. Most importantly, though, it's something anyone can join no matter your level of film literacy or experience. You don't even have to be in the streams! In fact, I always encourage people to, if the stream time doesn't work for them, find the movie themselves and post about it after the fact. It's all meant to foster conversation and fun.

Streams are advertised in the Discord, but they're always on Thursdays at 8 PM EST in the #movie-marathon text chat and voice chat. That's the only time I can make time to make this happen, and it's been the time and day for over a year, with the exception of two Tuesday streams due to prior commitments. The Discord events always show times adjusted to your local timezone, so keep an eye on that.

This October we will be showing movies every Thursday! We started with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and will be following up with Ready or Not, The Masque of the Red Death, Jason X, and The Return of the Living Dead. It should be a great, spooky time - people really enjoyed TCM and had a lot to say, which I always enjoy.

As always, thank you to everyone who has helped make this little movie club experiment a huge success. To anyone who hasn't been part of it, think about joining, even if you don't make the streams! And for now, we can use this thread to post our longform thoughts on any movies that are shown, general discussion about the club, or even just fond memories and chat.

now this is cinema

Ip Man 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the collection list?

Oh man, the Movie Club is gonna be in for a ride when they eventually get to those four. The movies got me tearing up first time. They are among my most favorites, starring my most favorite martial artist actor

Reisuke said:

Ip Man 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the collection list?

Oh man, the Movie Club is gonna be in for a ride when they eventually get to those four. The movies got me tearing up first time. They are among my most favorites, starring my most favorite martial artist actor

Click to expand...

The spinoff, Master Z, is one of my all-time favorites for silly personal reasons as well as because it's so much fun. Cocoa and I are probably going to eventually do a month with the whole series like we did with the Cornetto Trilogy, but uh....not for a long time. We're very excited for October but it involves a lot more planning around Life than one would expect.

We're excited!

I think this would be a great space to do sort of reviews after the live reacting in Discord on movie nights

Looking at the list, and I didn't realize y'all streamed Power Rangers (2017). Missed out on that one, but there are plenty of movies we didn't get to yet, that I'm looking forward to

Inspired by Letterboxd Challenges of a similar nature, Cocoa and I put our heads together to come up with a list of challenges of our own. Basically, we thought it would be fun to create a list of prompts for those of us wanting to watch more movies, or find movies off of the beaten path. You don't have to watch all of these consecutively or anything, we just thought a guided path of funny prompts, often containing little in-jokes from the server, would make for a good time. If you're struggling with something to do, why not spin the wheel and try one of these 40 prompts? Introducing...


1. "The Man Called X": Watch a Movie Based On A Video Game.

2. "Vinegar Syndrome Challenge": Watch a movie released by Vinegar Syndrome.

3. "That 'Other' Challenge": Watch a movie released by Criterion.

4. "If I Ran Criterion": Rewatch a Movie you want in the Criterion Collection, and explain why in the notes.

5. "Isekai Movie": Watch a movie where a character is transported into another world, where they struggle to survive. Examples:

6. "Queer Horror": Watch a horror movie with queer themes, OR made by a queer director. Examples:

7. "Tubi Blind Watch": Find a random movie on Tubi and add it to the challenge.

8. "A Timeless Film": Watch a predominantly black and white movie from any era.

9. "#ReleaseTheSchumacherCut": Watch a film written or directed by Joel Schumacher.

10. "The Circle": Watch a film of Davd Lynch or the 94-minute pilot episode of Twin Peaks.

11. "A 'Wrestling' Picture!": Watch a movie starring a Pro Wrestler OR about Pro Wrestling.

12. "His Name Is Cabal": Watch a fantasy-horror film.

13. "Sister Street Fighters": Watch a martial arts movie starring a female protagonist.

14. "Zach, do you remember...": Watch a movie mentioned by name in the video games MGS3, Deadly Premonition 1 or 2, OR one of the Takeshi Miike movies namedropped in No More Heroes 3.

Examples:

15. "Ba-ba-boom!": Watch a movie featuring a primate or a CGI primate.

16. "It's called anime, and it's art.": Watch a non-Ghibli Anime Movie.

17. "The Agent Cody Banks 2 Challenge": Watch a film that's a sequel to another movie that you haven't seen.

18. "Demo Reel": Watch a film that's about movies, contains satirical elements, and/or features an actor playing themselves.

19. "20/20s Vision": Watch a film from the 2020s that was nominated for any award. This includes any official award ceremony, including but not limited to The Academy Awards, Golden Globes, Razzies, Saturns, and the MTV Movie and TV Awards.

20. "Rain and Grain": Watch a film noir.

21. "Funky Fanfare": Watch an exploitation movie OR A film from the 1970s.

22. "The Curious Case of Nosferatu": Watch a movie with Sherlock Homes and/or Dracula in it.

23. "We've Gotta Have It": Watch a Spike Lee Joint. Oldboy (2013) is not eligible, on account of being 'A Spike Lee Film'.

24. "Mr. Melancholy Will Return...": Watch a film produced by A24.

25. "Live. Die. Repeat.": Watch a movie about time travel OR a time loop.

26. "John Neutral Goodman": Watch a film starring John Goodman.

27. "Around The World Challenge": Watch a Korean OR a French film.

28. "Kick-fuckin'-ass I got a Mastercard": Watch a movie set in Wisconsin.


29. "X vs. Y": Watch a movie with a 'vs.' in the title.

30. "Fuck Your Marketing Team": Watch a film with six or more words in the title.

31. "Danganronpa": Watch a film with a death game as the main focus.

Examples:

32. "Not Another Music Biopic Movie": Watch a documentary about a musician OR a concert film.

33. "Destroy All Movies": Watch a Kaiju OR Tokusatsu film.

34. "The Man Who Sold The World": Watch a film starring David Bowie.

35. "Nicolas Kim Coppola": Watch a film starring Nic Cage.

36. "The Swiss Army Man Challenge": Watch an atypical romance film.

37: "The Vile Theodore Spinelli": Watch a biopic about an inventor or scientist.

38: "The Y2K Problem": Watch a movie made from 1999-2002.

39: "You Wouldn't Download A Car": Watch an Illegally made film. Either shot in places without getting permission, based on a non-public domain property without permission, or heavily using footage or music belonging to someone else.

40: "Technically Eligible For Kingdom Hearts": Watch a strange or otherwise unlikely movie with rights held by the Walt Disney Company.

It's the new year! And we have a BRAND NEW challenge! That's right, with the success of last year's list we whipped up another one.

The Experience Point Movie Challenge! 2!
1. "The Movie - The Game": Watch a movie with a tie-in video game.

2. "Live From New York": Watch a cult comedy movie (one that bombed either critically or financially)

3. "PLANE": Watch a movie with a one word title

4. "Good Fellas": Watch a mafia or a yakuza movie.

5. "Abstract Art: Watch a film by Harmony Korine OR Radu Jude

6. "What We Do In The Shadows": Watch a movie from Hammer Film Productions, or Amicus Films.

7. "Support Your Local Library": Find a movie for free on Hoopla or Kanopy OR get a movie from your local library.

8. "Electric Western": Watch an atypical western film, or an atypical musical film

9. "Smell-O-Vision": Watch a film originally filmed in 3D, or with an unusual gimmick.
Examples of movies with weird gimmicks

10. "Show Me You're A Real Monster": Watch a Steve Buscemi Film.

11. "Combo Meal": Watch a film with food in the title. Bonus points if they eat the food mentioned in the title at any point.

12. "Rest Area": Rewatch a comfort film, and say why it's a comfort film in the notes.

13. "National Lampoon's Amityville": Watch a film released in the Amityville or National Lampoon franchises

14. "The Old Guard": Watch a film starring any of the top 5 actors or actresses on the AFI's 50 Greatest Screen Legends list (Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Aubrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Marlon Brando, or Fred Astaire)

15. "How Hard Could It Be?": Watch a movie directed by an actor.

16. "Judge By Its Cover": Watch a movie exclusively for its poster, or cover art.

17. "Queen of the Indies": Watch a Parker Posey film.

18. "Honor Among Thieves": Watch a sword and sorcery or heist flick

19. "For James Whale": Watch a film released pre-hays code (pre-1934)

20. "Electric Boogaloo": Watch a movie from Cannon films.

21. "An Exercise in Taste": Watch a John Waters film, or a queer film.

22. "Cultural Exchange": Watch a western made film based on an eastern IP, or an eastern made film based on a western IP

23. "Jury Duty": Watch a courtroom drama.

24. "No, Not That One": Watch a movie that shares a name with another movie you've watched. It can either be a remake, or an unrelated movie with the same title.

25. "A Challenge Walks Into A Bar": Watch a movie that's existence seems like a joke.

26. "20XX": Watch a movie takes place in a future time from when the movie released

27. "Not Canon Friendly": Watch an anime film based on a manga or anime series

28. "Scavenger Hunt Free Space": Watch a film in one of your mutual's top 4 that you haven't seen

29. "A Film For All Seasons": Watch a holiday movie. It can be any holiday.

30. "We're Gonna Watch...": Watch a Disney Channel Original Movie.

31. "Fun Down Under": Watch an Australian or New Zealand film.

32. "REAL OR FAKE?": Watch a documentary or a mockumentary.

33. "The Substitute Teacher": Watch a film you would have watched in High School

34. "Our Anniversary": Watch a movie released in your birth year.

35. "Criterion for Grindhouse": Watch a movie with a release by 88 Films OR Indicator Films

36. "This Challenge, If The Beatles Made It": Watch a film starring the Beatles, or predominantly using Beatles music

37. "Accented Cinema": Watch a film from east or south Asia

38. "Dark Side of the Rainbow": Watch a silent film, or a film on mute with your choice of soundtrack. Explain the soundtrack choice.

39. "Honey, I Blew Up The Challenge": Watch a movie with a tiny person, or a giant person.

40. "Literally Letterboxed": Watch a movie without a DVD or Blu-Ray release. Examples.