Goodbye Shocktober, hello Noirvember.

Blade Runner 2049 gets the Star Wars treatment this month, along with It. (We also collected a wider round-up of Blade Runner Letterboxd reviews on our blog.)

We got along to a few events at the 55th New York Film Festival the other week, where Letterboxd asked Todd Haynes (Carol, Wonderstruck) for his three most life-changing film experiences from when he was a child. We also caught up with Call Me By Your Name’s director Luca Guadagigno, who shared a trio of favorite films about love. They’re surprising, anti-romantic choices, to say the least. Keep an eye on the blog for a NYFF round-up in the near future.

And we are relishing your enthusiastic weekly contributions to the Letterboxd Showdown. We release the newest topic around midday Friday Eastern Time via Twitter, Facebook and the main Showdown page. We’re also exploring a mechanism to allow the community to set up challenges in future. Stay tuned on that in the new year.

Happy watching,
The Letterboxd crew

Opening Credits

In cinemas and coming soon
Thor: Ragnarok
Thor: Ragnarok

Our superweirdo buddy Taika Waititi has unleashed his first blockbuster on the world (it opens in the US on November 3), and we’re a bit stupidly excited about Thor: Ragnarok. Partly because the Norse god seriously needed a humor makeover, partly because Paula, our favorite child welfare officer from Hunt for the Wilderpeople, is in it (as Topaz), and partly because have you seen the art? We can’t wait to go to Hela and back.

Lady Bird

Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age-in-the-early-2000s drama Lady Bird stars Saoirse Ronan as a high schooler on the verge of graduation, and its refreshing realness is coming through in your enthusiastic early reviews. Lady Bird opens Stateside the same day as Thor: Ragnarok.

Murder on the Orient Express

It’s well past time there was a remake of Agatha Christie’s much-loved Murder on the Orient Express, and the moustache competition is fierce in Kenneth Branagh’s new version, starring a whole bunch of A-listers (Pfeiffer! Depp! Cruz! Ridley! Dench! Dafoe! And Branagh himself as Hercule Poirot).

Phantom Thread

Daniel Day Lewis has not quit acting yet! The elusive star has teamed up with fellow triple-barrelled chap Paul Thomas Anderson for Phantom Thread, for which there is now a trailer. “I have things I want to do. Things I simply cannot do without you.” Us too, DDL, us too. Opens at Christmas.

A Prayer Before Dawn

And here’s a trailer for a film we’re excited to see. From A24, A Prayer Before Dawn stars Green Room’s Joe Cole as Billy Moore, in the true story of an British ex-pat who turned to Muay Thai boxing while incarcerated for selling drugs.

Star Wars

One star vs five stars, fight!
Blade Runner

Blade Runner 2049

★ “I did not enjoy this grueling, three-hour-long sci-fi catalog of every type of slavery: child sweatshops, sexual slavery (of both the forced prostitution and the objectified housewife variety), labor, etc. There’s a coming revolution mentioned at the end but it doesn’t help. If 12 Years a Slave was a sci-fi movie and a bit less cruel and a bit more pretentious, this would be it.” —noworst

★★★★★ “The original posited one simple question through its narrative that set a landmark for the history of sci-fi, and film in general: what does it mean to be human? Naturally, you must expect the sequel to expand upon that question in some meaningful way to merit its existence. Otherwise, it ruins the universe just as most sequels tend to do. But the expansion of this question was not only accomplished, it was performed masterfully.

“By delving into the role of a replicant three decades into the future, the lines between human and not are blurred even more, causing the question to dive deeper. The story is long and winding, taking its time through a journey that necessitates patience to appreciate fully. Each revelation must come slowly and naturally, as to not be contrived. The wonderment never ceases; each scene changes the game in some manner and keeps us thinking.” —Toby

It 2017

It

★ “Clowns aren’t scary. There’s nothing inherently sinister, supernatural, threatening, or violent about clowns. Their purpose is comedy. So to me, it’s annoying to see/hear conversations about It with the assumption that clowns are scary, without addressing at all the obvious contradiction in that concept: clowns are scary despite not being scary. There’s an irony here that no one wants to mention. Saying you’re afraid of clowns was the middle school version of a ‘hot take’—it’s performatively edgy and disingenuous.” —Danny Szlauderbach

★★★★★ “Bill Skarsgård’s performance as Pennywise is what makes it unforgettable. Skarsgård is as entertaining as he is deeply psychotic and sick. His voice gets under your skin, his eyes gaze straight into your soul, and I’m telling you I’m gonna find it hard to look at a clown’s face without thinking about his deranged smile now. Skarsgård makes Pennywise the first cinematic horror icon of our century worthy of being compared to Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger. He’s extremely funny, and he’s terrifying, and sometimes he’s both at the same time.” —Gabe☆Danvers

Old School

Recent reviews of the classics
People on Sunday

People on Sunday

“The portraiture sequence is stunning: a montage of ordinary faces break into smiles—at what? Perhaps nothing more than the camera. It’s in these honest moments of joy, most often limited to the documentary sequences, that People on Sunday soars. The editing feels alive, cutting actions to reactions, and moving with the energies on screen.” —Harrison Wade

Bride of Frankenstein

Bride of Frankenstein

“An iconic sequel. For a character that is barely in the film, the Bride herself remains rightfully iconic, both in design, the way she is filmed (and her creation scene is a more poetic and cinematic version of that in the original), and the way she is brought to life by Elsa Lanchester, all bird-like movements, and unique vocalisations… And I haven’t even mentioned the thematics of outsiderism, of the desire to belong, and our very human need for companionship no matter our differences… I’m sure a book could (and has) been filled about this film, one of the true marvels of cinema.” —jeves23

The Vault

Recent reviews of the obscure, weird and seldom-seen
FM

FM

“Tom [Petty] is in this likable 1978 film about a successful L.A. rock station, the soundtrack of which reached a much wider audience than the actual film (hitting the Top 5 on Billboard’s album chart and going platinum). It contains what are now several classic rock standards, including Petty’s ‘Breakdown’, helping to expose the song and man to a wider audience at the time. Including me…

“It’s one heck of a snapshot of a specific time, place and music. As I was watching this over the weekend, and it came to Petty’s scene, I was thinking ‘Damn, Tom Petty was always cool’. Goddamn right he was. R.I.P. Tom. Thank you for a lifetime of amazing music.” —Mandrakegray

This Is The End

Jaws

Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn put out this list of 50 of his favorite horror films just in time for Hallowe’en, and was very happy to see that his original post on Facebook had been recreated on Letterboxd. Gunn adds: “ I should note, as usual, this is my list of favorites. It does not mean these are the best. They are simply the horror films I get the most out of personally.”

Alone in the Dark

As Shocktober comes to a close, did you leave your list of fright films too late? Want to make a Hallowe’en marathon of it and looking for recommendations? Take a peek at these few for inspiration: Dana Danger has focused on films she has instant access to. The Futurist’s list is set delightfully in the past. And of course there’s the granddaddy of all horror film challenges, Hoop-tober. Oh, and this and these.

What We Do in the Shadows

“Alt-horror? Post-horror? It’s all kinda babadook to us.” We enjoyed this feature by local film writer Philip Matthews, which investigates the latest so-called renaissance in horror films (with a New Zealand spin).

Alamar

It’s not all horror-slasher-gore around here. Doug Dillaman’s list of “pleasant people doing pleasant things and there’s not much drama and you just kind of feel lovely about the world” is pleasingly popular right now.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

On the occasion of the release of Noah Baumbach’s Netflix Original The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), check out Andre’s list of films in which typically comedic actors play dramatic roles “and smash the f**king sh*t out of them”. He’s open to suggestions.

Riley Rewind

Wow, our eyes! We design nerds are suckers for a beautiful list, and this one is quite the prettiest, most neontastic thing we’ve seen lately: BadKitty’s list of movies she wants to watch just because she likes the cover.

Paprika

What are you doing in Japanuary 2018? Oh, me? 映画を見に行きます.