It should come as no surprise that Magazine Dreams is being compared to Taxi Driver. Both films are about lonely obsessive unstable men that are prone to violent outbursts. At this point, what movie about lonely men isn’t inspired by Taxi Driver in some way? It’s almost lazy to make that comparison in 2025 but there are so many similar beats, moments, and shots between both films that it has to be mentioned.
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
Taxi Driver / Magazine Dreams
These are just the visual similarities. Both Travis Bickle and Jonathan Majors’ Killian Maddux have an unhealthy desensitized obsession with pornography (Travis frequents porn theaters and Killian casually watches online porn at home). A major difference between Magazine Dreams and Taxi Driver is the presence of the internet. Killian Maddux spends a good amount of time on online forums which is the film’s attempt at touching on incel culture and it’s negative effect on young men (casting real life bodybuilder Mike O’Hearn was a nice touch considering he’s such a meme-fied figure in online incel/sigma culture). It’s almost like Magazine Dreams is yet another movie showing you what Travis Bickle would be doing with his spare time if he existed in the age of the internet (Manodrome, The Beast, Fight Club, Paul Dano’s Riddler in The Batman, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, etc etc). The difference between Magazine Dreams and most of the aforementioned movies is that Killian Maddux is a bit more rooted in reality compared to The Riddler or The Joker. I say Magazine Dreams is a bit more rooted in reality and not completely rooted because at a certain point it starts to feel like a 2 hour snuff film. The basic story follows a mentally unstable young man obsessed with being a champion body builder. Being a young man comes with challenges. Being a young Black man comes with a few more potential challenges. Life throws you curveballs even when you coast through it on default mode. But as the movies goes on you start to ask yourself; “what else could possibly go wrong with this young man’s life” …and then it gets worse. I don’t want to spoil anything but if you list everything that happens to Killian in the movie, you sort of say to yourself; “Jesus christ. Is this guy gonna catch a break?” At a certain point it stops feeling like a movie and more like Black male struggle/torture porn. I’m starting to understand why the director of the Iron Claw chose to exclude Chris Von Erich from the tragic Von Erich story. Would anyone, especially non-wrestling fans, want to sit through a movie where five brothers all die in a short span of time? It really happened but it just seems so unbelievable that it could be seen as distracting. Killian Maddux is the insect slowly having his limbs torn apart or burned under a magnifying glass by a sadistic little kid. To be clear - that’s not necessarily a negative criticism. Perhaps that was the director’s goal. This isn’t the type of movie you watch to “enjoy” and not everything needs to be easily digested.
The Substance / Love Lies Bleeding / Magazine Dreams
This would pair well Love Lies Bleeding, The Substance, and other recent films that show the dark side of obsession. Love Lies Bleeding and Magazine are first cousins in that both movies use bodybuilding and steroids as a backdrop. But like I said before – Magazine Dreams is rooted in reality whereas the other films straddle the line between reality and total fantasy.
Love Lies Bleeding / Magazine Dreams
Love Lies Bleeding / Magazine Dreams
It also makes sense that Nightcrawler director Dan Gilroy produced this. At times, Magazine Dreams feels like Nightcrawler if Lou didn’t win in the end.
I feel obligated to share my thoughts on Magazine Dreams. I have an immense sense of hometown pride and the director is from my hometown (read my thoughts on Annie Baker’s Janet Planet while you’re here). I love seeing anyone from Amherst, Massachusetts doing great things. Due to Jonathan Major’s legal issues this movie almost got shelved which would have been unfortunate for all the other people involved in the making of it (they didn’t do anything wrong, so why should their work have to be “cancelled”?)
I don’t mind folks using this movie as a jump-off to talk about the Venn Diagram between mental health, gender and race as long as folks are aware this story is not in any way a representation of the average Black male experience. If anything, one could draw a parallel between the events in the movie and the issues surrounding Jonathan Majors' real life.
I think Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal is one of the best television shows to come out in a very long time. It’s funny, weird, interesting and a genuine attempt at trying to do something unique (especially for HBO). Everything that’s good that needs to be said about it has already been said over these last few years. We don’t need another review gushing over how great Nathan Fielder is. This isn’t a review or a critique of the show. This is just a random observation/coincidental connection I noticed after rewatching the last two seasons.
Much like my Joe Pera/Chantal Akerman post, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Fielder’s work and the films of Peter Watkins. Specifically, his Edvard Munch biopic.
Edvard Munch / The Rehearsal
Peter Watkins is hardly the first director to utilize cinema-verite/mocu-mentary style zoom-ins or shots of characters looking directly in to the camera. But the fact that Edvard Munch and The Rehearsal both fall under that fake documentary style of filmmaking that we’re all so familiar with today (The Office, Parks and Rec etc), makes the coincidental connection slightly more stronger in my eyes.
If you’re a fan of recent stuff like The Rehearsal, How To with John Wilson or even Nathan For You, you might want to delve in to the cinema of Peter Watkins. I haven’t found any evidence that Nathan Fielder is familiar with the work of Watkins. He probably doesn’t even know who he is. I just think it’s kind of cool how similar some of the shots are and how Fielder could be a potential gateway to other lesser-known filmmakers…
Much like My Winnipeg and Cowards Bend The Knee, Brand Upon The Brain serves as a personal journal for Guy Maddin. On one level we’re watching him work out some unresolved childhood traumas. The basic premise of the film concerns a young man (“Guy”) returning to the orphanage he was raised in to confront his past. On another level, Brand Upon The Brain is another Guy Maddin cinematic collage in the vein of something like Pulp Fiction where he proudly and openly wears his cinematic influences on his sleeve.
As much as I love this movie, there isn’t much to say about it that hasn’t already been said in previous posts (click here & here to my thoughts on My Winnipeg and Cowards Bend The Knee). I’m just using this post as an excuse to share all the cinematic comparisons I’ve made that have been wasted on twitter over the years (I’m permanently shadowbanned so almost no one sees what I tweet anymore).
It makes sense that Maddin is so heavily influenced by David Lynch (click here to read more). If you watch Lynch’s early short films you can see a lot of premature ideas that would eventually turn in to features like Eraserhead, Lost Highway and Inland Empire. The same applies to Guy Maddin. Maddin will make a short film but will still cut & paste the same shots or lines of dialogue in to his features. Lynch revisits a lot of same territory over and over from a slightly different perspective. Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are almost the same thing with different actors and slightly different approaches. Lynch has gone back in to the Twin Peaks universe multiple times over the last 30 years and the protagonist in The Grandmother looks quite similar to Robert Blake’s mystery man in Lost Highway.
The Grandmother / Lost Highway
Maddin is always referencing his childhood (My Winnipeg & Brand Upon The Brain), his loyalty to Canada (Cowards Bend The Knee and Saddest Music In The World), his not-so hidden sexual perversions and his love of David Lynch.
he [David Lynch] is kind of doing what painting has been doing for years, and I’m not saying that his images are painterly, but that he is doing with narrative what painting does - Guy Maddin, ScreenAnarchy.com
my first inclination was to kind of remake Fellini’s I VITELLONI - Guy Maddin, Slant Magazine
I Vitelloni / Brand Upon The Brain
I watch a movie and I pretend Luis Buñuel is sitting beside me - Guy Maddin, TheAVClub.com
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
Un Chien Andalou / Brand Upon The Brain
Mexican Bus Ride / Brand Upon The Brain
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
I feel kind of Buñuelian - Guy Maddin, Offscreen.com
The Criminal Life Of Archibald de la Cruz / Brand Upon The Brain
Un Chien Andalou / Brand Upon The Brain
I love Murnau more than anything - Guy Maddin, The Columbia Journal
The Haunted Castle / Brand Upon The Brain
Brand Upon The Brain is most definitely not an intro or even a mid-level Guy Maddin film. It's jumpy, chaotic, silent and intentionally schizophrenic. If you can make it through stuff like Saddest Music In The World or My Winnipeg, then this should be the next level.
It seems like the dialogue surrounding the romantic relationships between Black men and White women are being negatively sensationalized more than ever. A professional athlete is seen with a White wife and everyone loses their mind and assumes this is not only the norm but something bad (fyi - 85%-88% of Black men that are married are married to Black women). A lot of prominent Black films and tv shows have some Get Out-ish subplot where a White woman tricks a clueless Black man in to ruining his life. There’s a very specific lane of chronically online White guys that deal with what appears to be Black male penis envy by going online to call White women with Black male partners or biracial sons things like “mud shark” or “race traitor”. As a Black man with a White wife and a biracial son, I sometimes find myself fascinated by this. When I have some down time I take a couple of minutes to comb through the comment sections of various tweets, tiktoks and IG posts thinking to myself; “I never come across these people offline”. It's weird.
On the opposite end of the bench is a very specific lane of pro-Black online pseudo activist who’s entire personality is dick-policing and penis-watching Black men in relationships with White women. They swear they don’t care who dates who but they always write some thesis-level explanation as to why they supposedly don’t care then constantly give their thoughts and opinions on interracial relationships that don’t concern them. That’s an interesting way to not care about something. And I as I stated in my review on Sinners, it’s almost always only a critique on Black men with White women but silence on just about any other interracial combination. Funny how that works. You’ve got meme-fied online figures like Dr Umar Johnson who has officially become the face of straight Black male dick-policing. Last time I checked, it’s odd behavior for straight men to concern themselves with who other straight men date. That’s something gossipy girls do. Men aren't supposed to do that. But perhaps I was just raised with a different set of values.
I say all this because Nicolas Provost's 2011 film The Invader addresses all of this and more. The basic premise follows an undocumented construction worker that becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman (it also isn’t clear if he has mental illness or is just really immature). I'm just not sure it succeeds at the end of the day. The signals are very mixed.
I saw this at the Toronto film festival 14 years ago and got so caught up in the overt racial commentary concerning Black men and White women that I completely overlooked the cinematic influences and the obvious commentary on the growing fear of African and Caribbean migrants (men specifically) entering Europe. The movie is literally called “The Invader”. I’m not sure how I missed that.
It’s been a long time since I watched this movie from start to finish but every once in a while a random scene from it will pop up in my head. Again - I don’t know if this movie is a success but there's clearly something thought provoking about it. I guess any movie that takes an unflinching and naive/borderline unrealistic look at interracial relationships and immigration is going to leave an impression.
A big chunk of The Invader is shot like a Hitchcock movie. The film's main character spends a lot of the movie stalking a woman like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo...
Vertigo / The Invader
Vertigo / The Invader
Vertigo / The Invader
the people who brought me the most are Hitchcock, Lynch and Kubrick. To me they are the most important masters. They made me dream the most – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
Psycho / 2001... / Blue Velvet / The Invader
The Invader also shares a lot of coincidental similarities with Steve McQueen’s Shame and Lodge Kerrigan’s Claire Dolan. From a subject matter standpoint – The Invader would pair well with Claire Denis’ No Fear, No Die in that they’re both clearly about the fear of Black migrants coming over to Europe…
Shame / The Invader
No Fear, No Die is a much better execution of what Nicolas Provost tried to do with The Invader. A lot of the shots in Denis' film are Black migrants holding and man-handling the French national animal to represent the fear of outsiders taking over Fracnce/Europe. A little on the nose but it still works...
No Fear, No Die
No Fear, No Die
No Fear, No Die
I’m kind of glad The Invader came out in 2011 instead of today. If the right/wrong people caught wind of it, we would have gotten some of the most insufferable commentary from people who’d use this movie to fit their personal agenda. That’s sort of the problem with this movie. To be clear – it’s incredibly well-made and very thought provoking. But it’s one of those movies where the audience should be required to read at least one interview of the director so you could see where his head was at when making it. But that’s obviously unrealistic. Most people aren’t going to make the effort to read an interview with an obscure arthouse Belgian filmmaker. Nicolos Provost is incredibly liberal and anti-racist. He also doesn’t appear to be anti-immigration.
I wanted to create a feeling where this story is not just an anti-hero story. It’s also about our projection on immigrants. It becomes the monster that we project on immigrants, sometimes. I’m not trying to judge anyone. That’s what I hope is clear with the film, that I’m not taking parts. I’m not trying to come up with a voice for the immigrants, and I’m not blaming the Western world. It’s a tragic situation – Nicolas Provost, filmmakermagazine.com
But without doing some quick research on the director and his personal views, one might think his film was an anti-immigration/anti-interracial relationship propaganda movie. This is potentially dangerous. That doesn’t necessarily make it Provost’s fault. Most people are either very stupid or disingenuous or a combination of both. Like I said earlier – people are way more in to making art fit or speak to their own personal agendas. Someone could watch The Invader and think it’s a nationalist tool to promote hatred towards Black men and their “invasion” of Europe. If you’ve been keeping yourself up to date with current events, then you know immigration is a hot topic all over the world (especially concerning darker-skinned migrants). Folks online, specifically the archetypes I laid out at the start of this entry, want to believe those negative stereotypes about migrants. They want to believe the taboos concerning Black men and White women. The Invader is the type of film that might give those people validation to go “I KNEW IT!”. The opening scene alone, where the lead Black male is ogling a naked White woman on a beach, is enough to fuel their insecure beliefs.
At the end of the day this movie kind of leaves you wondering “so…what was the point of all this? The message seems a little mixed.” Normally, a mixed message or something left up for different interpretations isn’t always a bad thing. But when you take the director’s own words and put them up against the movie itself – certain things don’t align.
No matter how much of a mixed message this movie sends, I certainly encourage any and all viewers with the ability to think abstractly to seek it out. If you’re able to find a digital copy and come out confused, I think that’s perfectly understandable. If you’ve seen this and think I’m off or missing something, please let me know.
Check out the latest episode of Within Our Gates to listen to myself and Mtume Gant chat about Sinners, American Fiction and the "Get Out-ification" of modern Black American cinema.
Over the last two years I’ve been struggling with the idea of homages and references in modern movies after an appearance on a movie podcast that will probably never see the light of day. If you’ve been following this blog for the last 15 years or keeping up with my Twitter/X activity, then you know homages and references are pretty much all I do outside of the occasional non-PINNLAND EMPIRE article. I will never hide the fact that I find similarities between films fascinating but at a certain point are modern directors getting carried away? Does anyone want to try and make something “new”? Is that even possible? At the end of the day everything is influenced by something but most new filmmakers aren’t even trying to find their own voice.
In the case of Joel Potrykus I guess this is to be expected. I’ve written about most of his films on here and he never hides the fact that his films are often heavily influenced by older filmmakers. His latest movie is no exception.
Potrykus pays homage to some of the same scenes he’s referenced in the past.
Some people hate the ending of ALCHEMIST COOKBOOK. I get it. Obviously, it's ripped from 400 Blows (and Body Snatchers remake). I stick by it - Joel Potrykus, twitter
The 400 Blows / Invasion Of The Body Snatchers / Alchemist Cookbook
we see the same technique/homage in Potrykus' latest film...
The 400 Blows / Invasion Of The Body Snatchers / Vulcanizadora
It doesn’t take much to realize I lift the openings to all my films from Clarke’s Made in Britain and Haneke’s Funny Games. The opening to those films make me want to punch someone in happiness. I want anarchy in character motivations and story structure - Joel Potrykus, rapportoconfidenziale
Made In Britain / Funny Games / Vulcanizadora
Gummo / Vulcanizadora
I’m also convinced there’s a few nods to Buffalo 66 (Potrykus has mentioned Gallo as an inspiration in the past)...
Buffalo 66 / Culcanizadora
Buffalo 66 / Culcanizadora
Outside of those moments, the movie itself is sort of an unofficial/loose remake…
So I love Gerry. The first time I watched it, I misinterpreted it and thought it was about something other than two guys lost in nature. And I was like, “Oh I thought they had a mission in that movie!” I thought Gerry missed it, and I was going off on what it could’ve been and where Gerry could’ve gone after the main event happened. I was like “I’m going to make that movie” - Joel Potrykus, Hammertonail.com
Gerry / Vulcanizadora
In addition to being a sequel to his 2014 film; Buzzard, Vulcanizadora is Potrykus doing his iteration of Gus Van Sant’s Gerry. Much like how Rick Alverson wanted to make his version of Two Lane Blacktop with Entertainment (2015) or how Steven Soderbergh wanted to make what he felt was a more digestible version of Tarkovsky’s Solaris, Potrykus is doing something with Vulcanizadora that I’m sure a lot of filmmakers want to do but wouldn’t want to be disrespectful to their heroes. I’m sure most cinephiles (especially filmmaker cinephiles) have those movies that they wish they could tweak or change to benefit their own personal taste. That’s what Joel Potrykus is doing. Personally, I enjoy this unofficial retweak of Gerry and he approaches Van Sant’s material with the utmost respect.
Gus Van Sant is no stranger to this either. Not only did he have the balls to remake a classic like Hitchcock’s Psycho, but years after it bombed he brought up the idea of remaking his remake as an experiment.
Every few years I get on a heavy Van Sant kick.
I rewatched Gerry and I had kind of forgotten all about it. It ended at a place where I thought it started to really get interesting. I was like, "I thought these guys were going out there on a mission. I should write that movie instead." That's what this movie is - Joel Potrykus, Variety
Both films follow two friends out in the wilderness on a vague mission that ends with a fatality. The difference is Potrykus really delves in to what happens when the credits roll. Van Sant was never interested in that. Some might think remaking a film just so you can resolve something that was never meant to be resolved is a little arrogant. That’s perfectly understandable to think that. Are you really interested in seeing what happens when Jeanne Dielman finally gets arrested for murdering her john? Do you want to know what’s in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Do you want a more literal explanation of Mulholland Drive? Probably not. But there is some serious grief and self-reflection that would come along with the actions that take place in Gerry/Vulcanizadora (strangely enough, the average person that does want an explanation for open-ended/abstract movies probably wouldn’t like this).
Potrykus also seems to pull from the final moments of Van Sant's Last Days...
Yeah, I love, I love the Gus Van Sant death trilogy of Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days (2005). Man oh man, every time I watch one of those… I’m always trying to make a movie like Gus Van Sant’s death trilogy. He’s a master - Joel Potrykus, theseventhart.org
Last Days /
Vulcanizadora
At the end of the day it’s really up to you if you want to sit through another loose remake/homage-heavy new movie or not. It’s understandable if you don’t, but I found this movie and its approach interesting and it sort skates around my growing cynicism towards comparisons, similarities and references.
Captain America: Brave New World is one of those Marvel movies that you sit through just to get to the mid and post-credit scenes. I know that sounds harsh, and it’s not like it’s bad, but this is one of those movies that feels like a minor puzzle piece for the next ensemble Avengers movie rather than a memorable standalone story (it makes perfect sense that this was released in February instead of the summer). This isn’t exactly disposable but it’s one or two levels away from that.
This movie had some minor/medium-sized issues out the gate thanks to the “anti-woke” and so-called “woke” audiences. It’s unfortunate that movies with Black actors in them cause so much reactionary nonsense from both sides because there is some worthy dialogue and critical analysis to be had about this movie. Instead, you have some people on one side mad because a Black guy is playing Captain America while folks on the other side of the argument are disingenuously invested because they’re motivated by antagonizing racist people. You know the type - the ones that care more about upsetting hypothetical Maga Bros than enjoying a piece of art and/or entertainment. This is a bigger issue that extends beyond the MCU. Everyone is motivated by disingenuous reactionaryism now more than ever, and it has spilled over in to art like never before. Instead of people deciding on their own if they genuinely like or dislike something, they wait and see what their opposition thinks and then they base their decision on that. Art is suffering because of this. Everyone is putting nuance and intellectualism aside in favor of poking at people that already don’t like them. It's like everyone is still stuck in this Jr. High mentality...
The ingredients were there for a potential fresh new chapter. Part of the new Captain America story picks up with the Isaiah Bradley/O.G. super soldier storyline from the Falcon & Winter Soldier show from a years back. All that stuff along with the inclusion of Giancarlo Esposito’s portrayal of the mid-level villain; Sidewinder should have been the sole focus. In the same way that the Doctor Strange sequel was it’s own standalone attempt at a fun horror movie or Shang-Chi was an attempt at a martial arts movie, Captain America: Brave New World could have been it’s own standalone action genre movie with Sidewinder as sole the villain. But for some reason Marvel felt the need to tie up the loose ends to a 17 year old movie that I’m pretty sure most people forgot about. As I stated in my last entry on the Thunderbolts, Brave New World is an unofficial sequel to The Incredible Hulk (2008) except without The Hulk. The storylines concerning Thaddeuus Ross’ Red Hulk and the re-emergence of Samuel Sterns/The Leader certainly deserved to be explored but why not just do that in an actual Hulk movie? I get the sense that Marvel studios isn’t interested in making another solo Hulk movie (they haven’t done one since Ed Norton). If that’s the case – just leave it alone. Sure there will be some unresolved loose ends but I don’t recall too many people asking about the return of Tim Blake Nelson’s Leader over the last 2 decades. The present-day MCU has far too many characters and storylines. I try to keep to up with all of the Marvel movies and shows but I’m not a comic book reader or too involved with all the MCU internet discourse. I'm a casual fan. Maybe I’m in the dark on this but were people really clamoring for Shang-Shi on the big screen or the Marvels or a post-mortem Black Widow solo movie? The problem is for as uninterested as I am with those projects, they are connected to other projects that I did find interesting like Thunderbolts* or Wandavision. So I guess you have to take the good/somewhat interesting with the bad/uninteresting.
The storylines concerning Isaiah Bradley and Ross/Sterns are connected in a clever way, but with a few easy changes to the script they could have been two separate movies. The writers managed to craft a clever way for Cap to defeat Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk, but at the end of the day that isn’t an interesting matchup. A big part of the new Captain America storyline is that Sam Wilson/Falcon isn’t a super soldier or a mutant. Yes he has a special suit with wings and vibranium upgrades, but it’s nothing on the level of Ironman's suit. He’s an exceptional soldier but still has regular abilities at the end of the day. A showdown with someone like Red Hulk seems like a bit of mismatch. But that’s just my opinion.
It would have also been nice if Giancarlo Esposito embraced his loud goofy side when playing Sidewinder but I guess we have to accept that fact that he'll be playing some slight variation of "Gustavo Fring" for the rest of his career.
Captain America: Brave New World is kind of two movies in one which is unfortunate because the load has been blown. I was never totally opposed to revisiting the loose ends from the 2008 Hulk movie but they should have started on a smaller scale with Sidewinder/Isaiah Bradley and worked their way up to a bigger film with Thaddeus Ross/Red Hulk in a buddy film with the new Captain America teaming up with David Banner/Hulk.
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