The Secret Agent is indeed very good.

Also recently, Privilege by Peter Watkins, also very good. As an American I'm always impressed how much public funding goes into film in other countries.

Pavements

I enjoyed it in a nostalgic way, but it’s waaaay too long and too ambitious. They were a simple as hell band and a simple straight up doc woulda done the job - the theatrical story also left me pretty cold

Anyhow - will be working thru the whole catalog today I expect… it’s been many years since I bothered - so the film has done its job in that respect

I watched the Springsteen biopic and also Blue Moon, Linklater's Lorenz Hart movie, with subtitles but no sound on an ATL-PDX flight yesterday.

Never need to watch the Springsteen movie again, but I'll be re-watching Blue Moon at home. Ethan Hawke was amazing.

enframed wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 1:09 am The Secret Agent is indeed very good.

Also recently, Privilege by Peter Watkins, also very good. As an American I'm always impressed how much public funding goes into film in other countries.

Watched The Secret Agent yesterday, finished it, and immediately wanted to start it over again.

Kinda hard to describe my feelings aside from, "This might be the best thing I've seen in a couple years."
What hit me hardest was how instantly fleshed out every single minor character was. You got, like, years of backstory with everyone in seconds.

My kind of sweaty film, as opposed to Challengers, which was NOT my kind of sweaty film. If that tracks at all.

Isaac wrote:
What hit me hardest was how instantly fleshed out every single minor character was. You got, like, years of backstory with everyone in seconds.

Yes! I'm thinking about the assistant to the Tailor.
(And now that I think about it, I think the tailor was the only actor I recognized in the whole movie?)

The thing I loved the most about Secret Agent was the almost perfect Show Don’t Tell narrative. There’s so much going on but initially I was just glued to it wondering when the penny was going to drop. It drops so slowly, you discover what’s going on by having to actually think really hard.

The Gleaners & I, great.

Good Fortune, with Aziz Ansari, Keanu Reeves, and Seth Rogan. It's cute.

Sirāt, without subtitles. Would watch again with subtitles. Looks and sounds great, story is pretty devastating. I've been wanting to go to Western Sahara for many years, and this did not deter that desire. Actually, I would also like to watch this with a soundtrack of Tim Hecker tunes to accompany, and without hearing any dialogue at all. I think it could work.

The Beasts, by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. I wanted to watch this because supposedly Sorogoyen was talking shit about Sirāt, and Laxe talks some shit about Sorogoyen as a director.

These two Spanish films are so different they aren't worth comparing in any way except that they are both made by Spanish guys.