KD^3C^3 - 20260614 A poor man once told me that he can't afford to speak

I was watching youtube, like you do, and I saw this video by Cathy aka GimmePuffSleves who made a short video about niche things she likes in movies. They tended to be specific character dynamics, or aesthetic choices like a character making significant eye contact. I thought it would be fun to also come up with a similar list of oddly specific things i like to see in movies. Because I'm a big structure guy, it probably won’t surprise you to see that mine tend towards structural choices, rather than character dynamics, but I am who I am and I like what I like. 

So here’s my list with some example movies worth checking out to see what ‘m talking about. 

So every movie is a little bit about itself, but I like it when they go farther and the movie itself has something to say about the fact that it is a movie. @ of my choices are documentaries, because it’s easier to do that in a documentary.

This is a movie adapted from a nonfiction book about orchids by Charlie Kaufman that is actually a movie about how Charlie Kaufman has no idea how to adapt a non-fiction book about orchids into a movie. Nic Cage plays both Charlie Kaufman and his fictional brother Donald, while Meryl Streep plays the author of the book, The Orchid Thief, and Chis Cooper plays the subject of the book, the titular orchid thief. For as much as the story twists about itself, it’s surprisingly legible and a fun, if somewhat stressful time.

I’m putting this here, both because I think it’s a good example, but also because it’s basically fallen off the face of the internet, and I would love to find a copy again. in 2012, the Hows Your News Team, a group of reporters with developmental disabilities travel to both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions during the run up to the 212 election between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney. They’re there like so many other journalists are, to cover the event, get interviews with big names, and shine a light on what happens here. The movie is about itself, because what happens is you see how doing any of that is incredibly difficult for these reporters. Not because of their disabilities, but rather because of how easy it is for people to not take them seriously. The number of times where a politician or celebrity (that you have heard of) is outright dismissive and does not treat these reporters with an ounce of respect is not actually staggering, but I wish it were lower. Anyway, if you have copy of this, get in touch. I have one but it’s partially corrupted and i can’t find another.

This is, kind of sort of, the 7th movie in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Except it’s also a movie about the star of that franchise, Heather Langenkamp being terrorized by Freddy Krueger in the real world. Robert England is in the movie as both himself and Freddy. It’s a spooky time, and if they ever make a Scream 7, I think it’s the direction they should probably go.

In the theater, the curtain line is the one someone says right before the curtain drops. They’re not a huge deal in most shows, but a last line that brings the house down is something I love. I have to be a little careful because I don’t want to say the actual lines that these movies end with, but trust me they all end strong. This isn’t as common as it used to be, but when they hit they hit.

This movie is a pretty famous one, right? People know this movie? It stars Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, the latter of two pretend to be women and join an all women band to hide out from mobsters. The whole movie is quite funny, but it ends on such a great punchline that I caught just thinking about it.

An elaborate heist film set on a train. A group of mustachioed men wearing glasses hijack a subway train demanding a million dollar ransom. It’s a tense film, and a clever on too. Again, you just have to trust me that the last line is apiece of beauty. 

Barbie was one of the most successful movies to have come out in the last few years, so I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell you much about it. Barbie is the childs toy who lives in barbieland with tall the other barbies, until she starts thinking about death and has to go to the real world to figure out what’s up with that. This is the only movie with a curtain line that sparked some discourse at the time the movie came out. I’m not going to repeat any of that discourse to prevent from spoiling in case you haven’t seen it, but I promise you it was all very silly at the time. 

This one is hard to pull off well and it a lot of work for an outcome that might not be worth it. Most movie musicals have the counteracts recorded separately from the filming of the movie. In many cases, the actors sing all the dongs in the studio first, then lip sync on set while filming. It’s the nature of the business and isn’t a huge deal. But I do think it’s a big deal when movies go the other way and make the actor sing on set and use that as the audio in the final movie. It gives the singing a lived in feel, and allows the actors to change their performance while they’re working though it, allowing them to try new and different things to see what works. 

This one almost doesn’t count, because it’s almost not a musical. The movie is about the broadcast of the radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which is a show with a house band and many musical guests each episode. But director Robert Altman went for authenticity and had the cast perform their songs live, which ended up in the movie and eventually the released soundtrack. The cast, while game aren’t all professional singers, and that roughness around the edge comes through and makes it feel more alive when they do. So you have things like Woody Harrelson and John C. Riley talking singing their way through their comedy songs. 

Julie Taymore’s Beatles movie. Takes some of the mot recognizable songs of the 20th century (and some more obscure ones too) and weaves them together into a story about an ensemble cast of characters going through the sorts of things twentysomethings got up to in the 60s. Sure all the music is great, but by letting the cast sing live on set, it gives the performances a chance to feel new and different from the versions you’ve heard maybe thousands of times. So many jukebox musicals of the 21st century have music that sounds exactly like the studio recording, because that’s what they used. It even became a joke in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, where they originally had Daniel Radcliffe sing the songs on set, but then had to overdub him with the original recordings, because that’s what the Freddie Mercury movie did. 

I don’t particularly like Les Miserables (the movie) but i do have to say that the live on-set singing is a key part of the movie creating the atmosphere its trying to have. Anne Hathaway singing I Dreamed a Dream in a single unbroken take live still stands head and shoulders above the rest of the movie. Speaking of which…

The Oner, as it’s known, a long unbroken single take scene or shot in a movie is absolutely a chance to show off. it’s usually unnecessary, it’s flashy and almost never enhances the story. They did a whole episode of Seth Rogen’s tv Shoe The Studio about it. That was also shot in a single unbroken take because, lets face it ones are so cool. ANd to go further than that, movies that are shot in a oner are even better. There are only a very small number of movies that actually did a true one-take production, and a few more that faked it as wells they could. I like both, even though the former gets more respect from me.

This is a true oner. One camera, one take thousands of actors wandering through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. It feels like a dream, and there’s not much story to speak of, rather we wander through different rooms and experience Russian history through a mosaic. it’s enchanting to watch, and the had to try 4 times before they got the final one that worked.

This is both technically a cheat, and one I consider to be as close to the real thing as possible. Alfred Hitchcock filed this in a series of 10 minute takes, ending each not with a camera pan over some static object (like a person’s back) so they could swap out the film. Each film canister only hold 10 minutes of film, so they couldn’t do a true one take wonder, but they got as close as they could. The story itself is also very tense. Two young men kill a third, and then host a dinner party in their apartment while the corpse is hidden in a trunk. It’s all very tense, and takes place in roughly real time (which is another one of my niche things i like in movies, but isn’t included in this list). James Steward plays the professor of the two young men who suspects something is awry, but isn’t sure what. worth seeking out.

This one is a full fakeout, because it would be basically impossible to door real, and not just because of the time travel. Oh yes, this is a one-take movie with timey-wimey shenanigans thrown in too! The owner of a small cafe learns that his computer monitor shows what will happen 2 minutes in the future in his cafe. He uses this to interesting effect, especially when he brings the computer into the cafe so it becomes almost a time loop. The whole thing is shot as if it is one take, but there are behinds the scenes things that make it clear they faked the effect. Nevertheless it takes two great ideas and mashes them together in an incredibly satisfying way. 

Like the above one about curtain lines, I have to be careful here because talking too much about the movie veers into spoiler territory. Even knowing there’s a hard turn could be considered a spoiler for some. If that’s you, feel free to skip this section. A Hard left Turn is different than a twist. A twist at the end reveals something new that changes what you thought you knew about the movie. Things like the end of The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects, which make you reconsider the whole thing before now. A hard left, is when the movie changes what it’s about part way though. You go in expecting one thing, but it turns on a dime and becomes about something else entirely. When it works well, the two parts are in conversation with each other in a way that elevates both and they still feel part of a collective whole. When done less well it just feels like two movies stapled together. As such, my descriptions of these will be brief.

Barbarian is a movie about what it would be like to be booked in the same airBnB as a stranger. Until it isn’t.

Red State is about a group of idiot teens sneaking into the property of a Westboro Baptist-like church and getting punished for it. Until it isn’t.

Lost Highway is a movie about a saxophone player getting strange vhs tapes sent to his house full of footage of his house. Until it isn’t.

Aspect ratios, that is to say the exact shape of the rectangle you’re viewing the movie through, have a big impact on how the movie feels. For a long time, there were default ratios based entirely on the nature of the film being used. But picking the respect ratio for a movie can and does have an effect on how it feels to watch. super wide screens can make landscapes feel vast, while narrower screens can evoke the past or allow close ups to fill the screen. SO its even more fun when movies play with the aspect ratios throughout the runtime. It’s a subtle thing, but it can make a real difference.

This movie uses multiple framing devices to tell its story. It’s stories on stories, almost to the point it could be in that first category above. But each frame story has a different aspect ratio which allows you got quickly understand where we are and what part of the story we’re getting. I’m led to believe Wes Anderson does the same thing in The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I haven’t gotten to that one yet. 

Sinners was shot in multiple aspect ratios and on different film stocks to go with it. The wider-screen shots take up most of the movie, but occasionally (and I’m still not always sure why) it jus into the larger/taller max format to really fill the screen. It’s impactful when it happens, and is one of the rare movies I wish I had seen on a giant IMAX screen. 

This is my favorite movie to ever play with aspect ratios. The movie itself is a lot of fun, a loving tribute/satire of Star Trek and its fandom. The aspect ratio changes are also really cool. The movie starts off in a 4:3 ratio matching what a typical 80s era TV show would be, because we start by watching a clip from an 80s era (fake) TV show, then we pull back to a more standard 16:9 ratio, which is wide screen, but not ridiculously. It’s basically what most TVs are set for. But then in ta key moment, when Tim ALlen’s character realized just how deep he’s gotten himself, the frame widens out again to give the movie a more cinematic feel. This was absolutely mind-blowing to me as a teen in the cinema when i saw it for the first time. It felt like the whole world opened up and I couldn’t exactly tell you why. Sadly the DVD version removed this second aspect ratio switch and so I though tit was gone for good. But I watched the version available for streaming recently and it restored all three aspect ratios, which made me very excited to see.