Phil Hoad

Netflix Pre-1980 Titles (Oct, 2025) NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) WILLY WONKA (1971) HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973) THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) JAWS (1975) TAXI DRIVER (1976) THE SENTINEL (1977) JAWS 2 (1978) ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) DRACULA (1979) THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN (1979) RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE IN CONCERT (1979)

Netflix has 12 pre-1980 films in October. They had as many as 21 in July.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is now their oldest American film.

List in alt text. #FilmSky #Streaming

Beef: Schwarzenegger v Stallone: chapter breakdown The guts of my anatomy of a rivalry.

From an exchange of floral fire at the 1977 Golden Globes to burger'n'fries detente at Planet Hollywood in 1991: the chapter breakdown of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE. bit.ly/4nB21Bn

(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)

Yep, great stuff !

I have actually never seen it. But I hear it is ... challenging !

YouTube video by Diablo GAGA Easy Rider - Airport dealer

Caught a bit of EASY RIDER, which I've not seen in years, on TV last night. For a movie from the smoked-out depths of Dennis Hopper's mind, the first 15 minutes are incredibly bold, lucid and largely non-verbal storytelling www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqvI...

We tend to think we have advanced and that progress is ever upward but the fact is, in the 1910s, the westerns were gritty, women wrote half the movies (and were the predominant action-adventure stars) and American films were extremely anti-aristocracy/kinda socialist.

Excellent piece

Marion Cotillard at 50: the actor’s 20 best films – ranked! We rate her most impressive performances, from Lady Macbeth to Edith Piaf to a Batman baddie

Spent some time ranking Mme Cotillard. The more real she gets, the more I like her www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

YouTube video by SBMSTeenPress PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, Director "Phantom Thread" & Award Recipient

Just taking the opportunity, since I haven’t seen it on here this press cycle, to share the most wholesome PTA interview youtu.be/lSqRJLh6vv4

That's just, like, your opinion, man !

If nothing else, ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER confirms Leo as the great dressing-gown actor of our times

Beef: Schwarzenegger v Stallone: Chapter I “It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it will absolutely not stop ever.”

Stallone goes country'n'western, while Schwarzenegger channels his inner robot. The first FREE chapter of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE.

(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.) bit.ly/4826qIL

Quite !

John Francis Lane obituary Actor, journalist, film writer and critic who was an expert on Italian cinema

This obit – of John Francis Lane, who wrote Claudia Cardinale's obit for the Guardian – is a life and a half itself www.theguardian.com/film/2019/ju...

The quip supremacy Why Mr Schwarzenegger was never in want of a bon mot before an act of casual murder

How Arnie ushered in the Age of Quips.

(Part of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE - pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)

bit.ly/4nDV16m

Couldn't help wondering what Tarantino might've done with CAUGHT STEALING. So monotonously paced that it evaporated most of the humour QT would have worked into the violence Aronofsky kept resorting to

Great to see this sensational film get a good critical shine-up

I dunno, I found The Electric State awfully secondhand. I much preferred Heads of State (though aesthetically, it definitely had that algorithm move look)

Cheers Jessica !

Celebrating publishing this by watching HEADS OF STATE, which apparently is quite a good streaming original

Bland, easy to follow, for fans of everything: what has the Netflix algorithm done to our films? When the streaming giant began making films guided by data that aimed to please a vast audience, the results were often generic, forgettable, artless affairs. But is there a happy ending?

I watched more Netflix Originals than is strictly healthy to bring you this exposé www.theguardian.com/media/2025/a...

If Tarantino was working now, Reservoir Dogs would have been bought by a streamer at Sundance and put on Netflix or Disney+ with tiny fanfare then perhaps gone viral for a few weeks before disappearing into the archive with no physical release. Pulp Fiction would never have happened.

Why am I writing about Schwarzenegger and Stallone? This time it's personal

Why am I writing about Arnie and Sly?

My latest post, in which a 49 y/o film writer begs his 14 y/o nerd self for an alibi.

(Part of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE - pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing) bit.ly/4mCQGjo

Very satisfying interview in covering all nooks and crannies, eras and regimes, of Hollywood

I have not ! Is it similar in some way to Wolf Children ?

Wolf Children review – Mamoru Hosoda’s tender werewolf fable is a minor masterpiece Childhood, single motherhood and the call of the wild converge in Hosoda’s most emotionally resonant film – a beautifully drawn tale of love, loss and letting go

My fourth five-star review - though it won't be news to anime fans bit.ly/4mEA2Qr

Pitfalls for the Slyologist Why are there so few Stallone biographies?

Why is there no decent biog of Stallone? My latest blogpost delving into a problem for the would-be Italian Stallion chronicler. (Part of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE - pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing) bit.ly/4mvW3Ri

I dug EDDINGTON. The big American canvas was a more fertile fit for Ari Aster's occultism than literal occultism, as in MIDSOMMAR. It was like a giant SOUTH PARK episode threatening to turn into SOUTHLAND TALES folly, with faint MOTHER!-type allegorical leanings

@outlawvern.bsky.social Hello, just hoping for a follow, so I can DM about something I'm working on ?

Aamir Khan: India’s movie legend on a cut-price mission to save Bollywood The superstar actor will release his latest film on YouTube so families who cannot afford cinema trips can watch

Interesting that the main (acting) players in Bollywood are a minority (Muslim), just as Jewish people originally drove Hollywood, and Igbos founded Nollywood bit.ly/4fnftWm