STONES OF ERASMUS — FILM & PHILOSOPHY
Eight Films to Watch Over and Over Again
Some movies invite a second viewing because I want to spend more time in their worlds. Others leave an argument unfinished. Following my earlier list of films worth returning to, here are eight more: a little science fiction, some difficult love, a dreadful disappearance, and a generous helping of comic trouble. On Friday evenings I've been watching one from the list below.
The list is inspired by my earlier list of films worth returning to; here are eight more: a little science fiction, some difficult love, a dreadful disappearance, and a generous helping of comic trouble. I created a simple chart and provided some quirky, philosophical capsule reviews of the 8 seemingly unrelated movies.
8 Quirky Films to watch on Fridays
| Date | Film | A question to carry into the screening |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Total Recall | Can a purchased memory become part of who you are? |
| 1997 | Contact (1997) | What happens when experience outpaces proof? |
| 1987 | Raising Arizona (1987) | Can longing for a family justify taking a child? |
| 1990 | Total Recall | Can a purchased memory become part of who you are? |
| 1997 | Contact (1997) | What happens when experience outpaces proof? |
| 1987 | Raising Arizona (1987) | Can longing for a family justify taking a child? |
Total Recall (1990)
Friday, April 17, 2026
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Some vacations promise a change of scenery. Total Recall offers a change of self. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, a construction worker tempted by a company selling implanted memories of adventures he has never lived. Naturally, the purchase goes spectacularly wrong. Paul Verhoeven turns that premise into a sweaty, grotesque carnival of Martian rebellion, corporate power, and bodies that refuse to behave. I love how the movie lets its philosophical problem wear the loudest possible costume.
What makes a memory yours? How much of an identity can somebody else manufacture? Even the action feels suspicious: perhaps the heroic adventure is exactly what Quaid ordered. Meanwhile, the struggle over breathable air gives the fantasy a blunt political edge. This is a world where survival itself has a price tag. Return for the outrageous effects and breakneck momentum; stay with the uneasy possibility that pleasure can make a convincing substitute for truth.
Film details: AFI Catalog.
Contact (1997)
Friday, April 24, 2026
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Contact makes listening look like an adventure. Jodie Foster's Ellie Arroway searches the sky for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, but the movie's deepest longing feels human: somebody, somewhere, might answer. Adapted from Carl Sagan's novel, Robert Zemeckis's film moves between radio telescopes, political maneuvering, religious conviction, and private grief. Foster gives the spectacle its center. Her attention is so intense that waiting for a signal becomes dramatic.
I am especially interested in the friction between what Ellie can experience and what she can persuade others to believe. The film sometimes announces its ideas too emphatically, yet its generosity toward wonder keeps pulling me along. Science requires evidence; being human also involves trust, imagination, and the ache of absence. Contact lets those demands trouble one another. Watch it again for the movement from cosmic scale to a single face, and for its insistence that curiosity can be an act of hope.
Film details: Walker Art Center.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Friday, May 1, 2026
Directed by Joel Coen; written by Joel and Ethan Coen
The Coen brothers give the American dream a stolen baby and send it running through the desert. Nicolas Cage plays H.I. McDunnough, a repeat offender who marries Ed, a police photographer played by Holly Hunter. Unable to have children, they decide a local family with quintuplets can spare one. Their reasoning is terrible. Their longing is painfully recognizable. Raising Arizona gets its energy from that collision: absurd criminal logic rubbing against a sincere wish to become better people.
I delight in the elastic camera, the runaway dialogue, and Cage's expression of permanent bewilderment. Hunter supplies an equally essential conviction; Ed treats this ridiculous enterprise with absolute seriousness. Underneath the diapers, chases, and escalating disasters sits a question about deserving happiness. Can wanting a family excuse what you do to obtain one? The movie keeps its affection for these fools while allowing their dream to look both beautiful and dangerously selfish.
Film details: Disney+ film details.
My Night at Maud's (1969)
Directed by Éric Rohmer
A snowy evening, an apartment, a conversation that refuses to end: Eric Rohmer understands how much suspense articulate adults can generate. Jean-Louis, a Catholic engineer, thinks he knows the shape his future should take. An encounter with the divorced Maud makes that certainty less comfortable. My Night at Maud's brings Pascal, probability, desire, and religious commitment into the same room, then watches people use ideas to explain themselves. Or to conceal themselves. That distinction is where the pleasure begins for me.
Jean-Louis Trintignant and Francoise Fabian make intellectual exchange feel intimate, competitive, and faintly dangerous. The beautiful black and white photography gives their talk room to breathe. Pay attention to the pauses as carefully as the arguments. A person can construct an elegant account of his principles while remaining obscure to himself. Another viewing invites us to hear what these characters reveal when they believe they are being perfectly clear.
Film details: The Criterion Collection.
Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) (1974)
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Two lonely people dance, and suddenly the room seems to belong to everybody judging them. Rainer Werner Fassbinder builds Ali: Fear Eats the Soul around Emmi, an older German cleaning woman, and Ali, a younger Moroccan migrant worker. Their attachment exposes the racism and possessiveness of neighbors, coworkers, and family. Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem give the relationship a tenderness that makes each hostile stare hurt. I find the framing devastating: doorways, staircases, and empty spaces turn ordinary places into instruments of exclusion.
Yet Fassbinder also follows prejudice into the relationship itself. Loving someone does not automatically undo the habits a society has taught you. That complication gives the film its enduring force. Its bright colors and deliberately arranged scenes invite us to look closely at behavior we might otherwise accept as ordinary. Return to the dance, then watch how difficult it becomes to sustain that shared space.
Film details: The Criterion Collection; additional context.
Spoorloos (The Vanishing) (1988)
Directed by George Sluizer
A roadside stop, a missing woman, a man who cannot stop searching. George Sluizer's original The Vanishing takes an ordinary interruption and makes it feel like a tear in the fabric of daily life. Rex's determination to discover what happened to Saskia becomes the film's terrible engine. What unsettles me is the patience. Sunlight, family routines, and reasonable behavior remain visible while something monstrous takes shape among them. The movie shows us enough of the abductor to redirect our curiosity, making knowledge itself feel increasingly dangerous.
We want an answer because Rex wants one, and that identification becomes a trap. I would keep the ending unspoiled for anyone approaching it for the first time. For a return visit, notice the construction: small gestures, rehearsals, and casual details acquire a dreadful weight. This thriller understands the appetite for certainty so precisely that it makes the desire to finish a story frightening.
Film details: The Criterion Collection.
La Cité des enfants perdus (The City of Lost Children)(1995)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro
Imagine a fairy tale assembled from rusted machinery, green fog, and the contents of a troubled toy box. Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro make The City of Lost Children a place you can almost smell. Krank, a scientist unable to dream, steals children in an effort to appropriate their dreams. Against his machinery stand One, a circus strongman played by Ron Perlman, and Miette, a resourceful girl played by Judith Vittet. Their unlikely partnership gives the elaborate nightmare a beating heart.
I enjoy the film's willingness to be excessive: strange faces, impossible inventions, and images that seem to have escaped from sleep. Beneath that abundance sits a simple cruelty. Adults want something from children and build an entire apparatus for taking it. Tenderness becomes a form of resistance. Watch again for the details crowded into the frame, but keep your attention on the trust developing between these two vulnerable allies.
Film details: Sony Pictures Classics; additional context.
3 Ninjas (1992)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
After all that metaphysical uncertainty and European anguish, I am making room for three brothers who can handle a kidnapping attempt with martial arts and teamwork. Jon Turteltaub's 3 Ninjas follows Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum, whose grandfather trains them while their FBI agent father pursues an arms dealer. The setup turns family tension into a child's fantasy of competence: grownups underestimate you, danger arrives, and the skills you practiced suddenly matter. Victor Wong gives Grandpa the warmth that holds the silliness together.
The jokes are broad, the villains broader, and subtlety rarely enters the room. I appreciate the uncomplicated pleasure of watching siblings become allies. Their bickering makes cooperation feel earned, even when the action cheerfully abandons plausibility. On another viewing, the appeal is less about suspense than rhythm: training, trouble, improvisation, escape. Sometimes a movie earns its place through the generosity of letting children imagine themselves capable together.
Film details: D23: Disney A to Z.
