“I’m not done wanting to work with great directors, but when you work with the lineup of directors that you just read, you’d really have to not be paying attention to not learn anything.” Still, he admits, the learning curve has been greater than he anticipated — not in terms of working with actors, but in terms of knowing how to artfully use a camera. “I was surprised by how little of the science of filmmaking I’d managed to absorb.” He adds, “I have no visual sensibility, it turns out.”

Remember, remember, the 5th of November.

Hi r/movies - I'm James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, starring Natalie Portman & Hugo Weaving.

The film is being re-released in theaters for its 20th anniversary on Nov 1 & 5 (including an exclusive pre-recorded intro by me!).

In the meantime, I'm stopping by later today to answer your questions.

• Theatrical re-release trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iW3f4Xu3Zw
• Tickets here: https://hubs.la/Q04zQQqP0

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Synopsis: Freedom! Forever! From the Wachowskis and Joel Silver, the masterminds behind The Matrix trilogy, comes another intriguing, action-packed fantasy-thriller. The premise: Great Britain has become a fascist state. Now, a shadowy freedom fighter known only as “V” (Hugo Weaving- The Matrix trilogy) begins a violent guerrilla campaign to destroy those who have embraced totalitarianism. In his quest to liberate England from its oppressive ideological chains, “V” recruits a young woman (Natalie Portman – Star Wars: Episodes I-III) he’s rescued from the secret police to join him on an epic adventure to execute a seemingly impossible task. Based on the DC Comics/Vertigo graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd. Before the movie, Director James McTeigue returns to V for Vendetta twenty years later for an exclusive introduction reflecting on the films & art that shaped it, the enduring mythology of V, and why its ideas of freedom, identity, and resistance continue to resonate today.

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Cast:

• Hugo Weaving
• Natalie Portman
• Stephen Fry
• John Hurt
• Stephen Rea
• Rupert Graves
• Tim Pigott-Smith
• Roger Allam
• Sinéad Cusack
• Natasha Wightman

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Ask me anything! I’ll be back at 12PM PT / 3PM ET today (Tues 10/27) to answer your questions.

I heard great things about this movie but never got around to watching it until now. For whatever reason this one didn’t become a cultural phenomenon as huge as Frozen and Moana, but IMO Tangled is the better movie, and it’s not even close. To me, what makes this movie reach new heights is Mother Gothel.

I don’t remember ever seeing a villain so unusually complex in a Disney animated film. She basically kidnaps this newborn and has to “perform” the role of a loving mother to Rapunzel for 18 years; Rapunzel genuinely loves her, and Mother Gothel is obviously cunning and manipulative but also – sort of seems to love Rapunzel in her own twisted way? Or at least she feels something for the girl.

There’s this one scene when Rapunzel tells Gothel that what she wants for her birthday is to see the floating lights, and Gothel refuses. Then Rapunzel, who was planning her escape, switches to asking for white paint made from shells, which Gothel says would take her three days to retrieve. But Gothel agrees to make the trip, and what's interesting is that the exchange isn't played entirely as cold calculation.

Gothel seems to register Rapunzel's disappointment and, for a moment, she appears almost sorry for Rapunzel. And then, rather than simply dismissing her, she agrees to undertake a genuinely inconvenient journey to get something for her. And she looks somewhat tenderly at Rapunzel before she leaves the tower.

Bottom-line is, I got the feeling that the Gothel character was incapable of loving Rapunzel unselfishly but indeed developed genuine affection for the girl she raised. I hope they don't screw this up in the upcoming live-action.

I'm 38 years old and now have kids. We've been working our way through watching movies I loved as a kid. My girls laughed alot along with me this time through. But I've found Sandlot to choke me up more than any other film from my youth.

I think it hits me hard because it sums up the innocence of boyhood, wanting to have friends and belonging, classic boy mischief, and how fleeting the time of youth really is.

It's also a thing of the past for a group of kids to spend all that time outside, no cellphones, or video games. Simpler times. They spent all their time playing baseball, not because they had to practice, they did it because they loved it.

The movie also has the message of kindness. Small's life was changed because Benny chose to be kind to the new kid in town.

I don't know, I was a bit taken back by how emotional it made me. During the end, the fun part explaining where each boy ended up, I couldn't help but think of my friends and how we've all gone different directions and how final that is. Youth is gone. And I pass that joy and privilege of youth onto my kids. And I'll say some cliche shit to them about how they need to "slow down you crazy child". (Billy Joel)

Anyways, thanks for reading yet another post about Sandlot= nostalgia.

Just watched “Strangelove” again over the weekend. Likely the best dark-humor film ever. I first saw this film under rather odd circumstances. Back in 1965, I was in the army in Germany, and our unit was training at one of the army’s big training centers there, Hohenfels.
We were told that if we wanted to, we could hike a couple of miles over to the Special Forces base in the evening, where there was a PX and… Movies!
So, just to get away from the mud and cold weather, I made the trip. No idea what was playing…. Turned out to be Strangelove. On a Special Forces base, in 1965. (And all the sneaky-forces guys LOVED it…)

Still holds up, and still pertinent. Sellers’ multiple roles. Sterling Hayden “Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink water?”
George C. Scott. “But he’ll see the Big Board!”…. Slim Pickens… “Hell, a guy could have a nice night on the town in Vegas!”

Watching some films over the weekend made me wonder about films where the actor's age isn't meant to be critical to the role, but it still changes how you see it.

* Tenzing - William Defoe plays the real-world figure of Colonel John Hunt. Watching it, while Defoe was still a fit man, I struggled to see how an old man would be leading such a mission in the 1950s. I later learned that the real John Hunt was 42 at the time of the climb.

* Mayday - OK, now I know this is meant to be breezy nonsense, but... given the comparison the film makes with Top Gun, I was just thrown by how this near 50-year-old man was still a Lt. Nothing in the film says the character is meant to be much younger than the actor. Which means if that is the case, the character was born in WW2.

With both of the films, you are just supposed to roll with it, but I was drawn out. Any similar experiences?

I don’t know if this is an original opinion or not. I’ve searched and while I’ve seen a bunch of posts related to the movie, I didn’t see one on the city it’s set in.

I’d grown up watching this on FX as a kid and hadn’t seen the film in close to decade before watching it Monday evening at my local Regal. It was fantastic! All the parts I loved held up and I got the chance to enjoy seeing the movie in HD on a big screen.

But what really surprised me is how nice LA looks. It’s a muted portrayal of the town. Absent the crowds, plasticity and bright colors that comes to mind when I think of the city, it conveys an empty sense of urban sprawl. The kind that characterized the town twenty years ago. It feels like world of Nighthawks in the lonely diners. It’s not a character in the film the way it is in Collateral, but it’s still pretty damn good. The night club, the bowling alley, the apartment buildings and numerous overhead shots of the city at night: they all coalesce into one beautiful picture.

It made me nostalgic for a place I’d never seen and, considering this was the first time Francis Lawrence had sat in the directors chair before, that’s no small achievement.