frank darabont – Smug Film (1/7/13

Advice Column #11 (10/11/13)

I’d really like to see a truly scary, yet beautifully put together movie with psychological elements and plausibility, but maybe some surrealism as well. Something like Eyes Without a Face or Suspiria. Where the fear is more from the vibe than from the definable foe and allures me so that I can’t look away from it even while it’s unsettling. — Chloe P.

Editor’s Note (12/4/14): We no longer answer movie questions through our advice column. We answer them in the mailbag segment of our podcast. Send them to Cody@SmugFilm.com and we will answer on the show!
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The 10 Nicest Movies Ever Made (If These Movies Don’t Make You Cry, You Have a Black Heart)

Field of Dreams. The undisputed king, for sure. But here’s ten other great ones.

It was a really tricky thing putting this together because they’re ranked on niceness, not goodness. Number two and number five are the best movies on the list. But they aren’t the nicest.

Niceness is even harder to define than coolness. Niceness is a warm and fuzzy feeling that a lot of art can generate. Probably the most popular example would be Norman Rockwell paintings. Niceness, like coolness, taps into our primal brains somewhere. We’re wired to feel it because it connects us to each other. But the problem with niceness is that it borders so heavily on cheese. Cheese done right is transcendent. But cheese done wrong is, well, cheesy.
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The Guy Who Made ‘Kundun’

As you can probably tell by my posts here so far, I don’t like many movies. Movies suck. But even an old curmudgeon like me can’t help but love Martin Scorsese.
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