This March, if you have been following along on our Instagram, we have been doing a March Movie Madness bracket. Our criteria here are not based on which are the “better” movies but which are better at selling the madness and / or giving you the feeling that you are losing it.

We had 32 movies we started from. In the first round, we lost 16 of them. In round 2, the competition heated up and we lost a couple of surprises. Let’s look a bit more at who we lost:

• The depraved “artist” of House that Jack Built lost to mother!.

• Melancholia, with its stunningly accurate portrayal of depression, lost out to Black Swan’s study of the line between genius and madness.

• Fight Club’s inner struggle lost to The Shining, a favorite to win it all.

• Evil Dead is the better movie but Smile 2 won for driving us mad.

• Requiem for a Dream dropped to the now Oscar-winning Substance

• Dark City couldn’t compete with the unrelenting Mad God.

• Lovecraftian vibes battled as The Endless dropped to The Lighthouse.

• Finally, Cage took down Cruise as Vanilla Sky dropped to Mandy.

This gets us to our Elite Eight. But let’s get this down to our Final Four we will discuss on the podcast. First up:

• mother! vs Black Swan. In this match up, mother! gives us a great rollercoaster of a nightmare but Black Swan ultimately wins out with with its dream-like blending of reality and madness.

• The Shining vs Smile 2. Smile 2 puts up a good fight with its unreliable narrator but ultimately, The Shining’s Jack’s madness affecting both himself and the audience is hard to top.

• The Substance vs Mad God. If you want to peer into the mind of a madman, watch the Mad God. However, The Substance wins out for dragging us along on someone’s path to detachment from reality.

• The Lighthouse vs Mandy. as a character study of two men pushing each other to the brink and beyond vs one man’s journey for revenge. Madness wins as The Lighthouse takes this battle.

We are down to Black Swan vs The Shining and The Substance vs The Lighthouse. To see who wins, check out this month’s podcast! 

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2021 - NR (but R) - 10/10 - A descent into some version of Hell.

A weird, repulsive, grimy, gritty, oozing, festering, decaying mess of a movie. Filmed over decades with Tippet and an unending descent into madness being the only constants. All done with stop motion and real photography, there is a visceral quality you can’t shake. If I had to make a comparison, I would say this is like the movie version of the Saturn Devouring His Son painting. Possessed, hard to look at, harder to look away. Amazing challenging art. 10/10 BUT if you are not sure this is for you, it isn’t.

2024 - R - 7/10 - Another Caveat-like puzzle box.

Heretic is a claustrophobic little movie with a couple of Mormon missionaries being asked to question their faith. To get them to do this, they are locked in a house with a would-be convert played by Hugh Grant whose challenges puts them through a harrowing experience. The excellent use of the square footage of the house is reminiscent of Caveat as we find out what is behind every door. I am a sucker for great production design and this one-location puzzle-box house subgenre is winning me over.

2025 - R - 6/10 - Not a live action Charlie the Unicorn.

It is hard to not give any movie with Paul Rudd a couple of bonus points for his likability alone but, ultimately, this movie was just alright. Light on the jokes and themes and characters… there is fun to be had here but it feels like more fluff than substance. Not bad but not something I can’t see us rewatching a lot. That is basically all I have to say about DoaU so, while I have space, you should really check out Wanderlust if you haven’t seen it. Great R-rated comedy with Rudd at his best.

2024 - PG - 8/10 - Another great Pattinson project.

While some of Mickey 17 is predictable given the premise, it is hard to describe this movie as anything but suprising. Given some of Bong Joon Ho’s movies you may not expect this to be as silly as it is. Putting in another “I can’t imagine anyone else as this character” performance, Pattinson owns this role with a surprising amount of physical comedy, heart, and humanity. Spoilers but, I have to say, having Pattinson confirm a scene that reminded me of Ren and Stimpy was inspired by the duo was hilarious.