Leaderboard

Sorry I completely missed the discussion y'all (and I'm admittedly going to be one of those people that says they're not gonna go back through multiple pages), but Tootie was in fact the most interesting character in this whole film and it was genuinely like watching a prequel to Halloween. The next movie we see she finds a new mask and her "killing" turns a little too real. It was so wild that no one in her family ever thought to punish either her nor Agnes for the wild extremes they went to.

Santa clearly came when Tootie was busy demolishing the snowpeople. Her tantrum, single-handedly saving her family from the tenements of NYC, I suppose Santa had her on the "nice" list.

Okay I didn't care for this movie at all. The music was good, directed with a deft hand, it was beautiful to look at but it was just so...empty. Maybe it's because I've just started production on a stage version of Little Women (which I have similar problems to as this movie) but there really is no story here, no teeth, no...nothing. Tootie was cool though.

Those elves worked awfully quickly to make new toys instead of the bag of coal she was going to get. Also, how did they afford so many dolls that she could keep burying ones?

I really did have an issue with those bangs!

Not sure if anyone will find this interesting but me... but one of my favorite things about period movies is that we as creators and viewers are unable to accurately see our current fashion properly. Because of this, period movies often are way more influenced by current fashion than the period in which they are trying to portray. Meet Me in St. Louis is no exception. A lot of the fashion in the movie does make a great effort to be accurate... the mom is the best example, but costume designer Irene Shariff was seemingly not going to put her star in the dowdy, matronly fashions of the time. The early 1900s is best known for women trying to achieve a "pigeon chest" that pulls their bosom way down almost to their waist. I put a little picture together here that shows what the more ideal look for the period would be, next to stills from the film, and then images of 1944.

The Boys talk to CEDRIC YARBROUGH about his career and try to do a show with him.

"I've been eating a lot of spicy food and screaming..." THAT I can relate to! terrific ep!

Kevin's story just may have justified his presence existence

cant believe that earwofl forum doesnt have a reminder to vote on the top of it. im not going to vote now

YAAAS - I hope many of you agree, but this movie is so freaking beautiful to look at.

You remember how bad it was? Guess what? It's actually WORSE.

We had this debate elsewhere on here about the one film standing in for the rest in the series but I think that could very well be the case for Fellowship more so than any other of the series. It comes down to the simple fact that despite being broken down into three books the Lord of the Rings is actually just one massive book telling one continuous story. I first read it in this format and it wasn't until many years later that I reread it as three separate books. When people complain that the first part in the Shire is so long, it is if you just look at the first book but on a whole it's pretty standard amount of time to establish the main characters. The actual story is so massive it is near impossible to contain in one book let alone a movie. Now as much as I love Star Wars I have never once believed that George Lucas had the whole thing planned out. He may have had notes of backstory and ideas but based on what I've heard and how I feel I believe he was making it up as they went. After the success of the first then he was free to plan out another sequel or two. As a result the movie are more self contained. Time passes and they have adventures we don't see and we just see these milestone events. When you watch them back to back it's not one long movie it is three separate stories that tell an overall story. Lord of the Rings though if you watch them back to back it literally is one ten hour movie telling a singular story. By this same process I don't think you could put a singular Harry Potter film on the list as a representation of the whole series. LotR is also a singular vision from Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson. They made the films at the same time with the same cast and crew. The looks and feel and tone doesn't change. Harry Potter while from Prisoner and Goblet on you have a more unified look and tone, each director brings something different to the series. Just that visual and tonal difference I think disqualifies it from having one to represent them all.

Late to the party, sorry, but will start out with the fun fluff. I have been told on numerous occasions that I am a Sam and I have no problem with that. Of the core group he is my favourite character but I always found Boromir the most interesting. He's an easy character to dismiss but after you meet his family in the later books and realize that it was pressure from his father in combination with the corruptive powers of the ring he really is a tragic hero. According to Buzzfeed I am an Ent.

The one thing that struck me about the Christmas ending is how late at night it was to be celebrating Christmas. Now we know from Halloween and earlier scenes that the Smith family keeps oddly late hours, but this must have been like midnight about right? After Tootie explodes on the snowmen and the father reconsiders the move they all cheer and realize "Oh hey it's Christmas now!" and proceed to start opening their presents. Isn't this like the middle of the night? Why is nobody like "can't we wait until the morning?" It is just decided "we are all up and the clock now says it is Christmas day so let's get going." Also Tootie was up waiting for Santa and then she goes and opens her Santa present. Just when you think dad redeems himself he goes and ruins Santa for Tootie.

YAAAAAASSS - MOAR MMISL FAN FICTION!

Deleted scene/alternate ending: Alonzo (entering work the next day): Hey boss, I've decided that I'm not going to move to New York. Boss: WHAT?! You were supposed to leave this morning! Why the hell not? Alonzo: Well, my wife and several daughters weren't too keen on the idea, and one of my girls had a tantrum and decapitated a bunch of snowmen, so I thought ... Boss: Your wife and daughters?! This is 1903 America ... we don't care what women think! Alonzo: Sir, if we moved to New York, there's no telling how much passive-aggressive corned beef shaving I'll have to endure in whatever awful 6-bedroom tenement we wind up in. Boss: You're fired.

Yeah - something like that. If you notice a strip club is called a "gentleman's club" that's what that means... they don't want regular ladies to distract from the ladies making money. I had a friend who was a stripper and generally disliked women customers because - as she described it - they were usually there with their man as some act of foreplay and never really spent any money. Go figure.

Forgive a personal recounting (and mostly a reposting from my Letterboxd review) but ohhhh boy, I have a history with this movie. I just wanted to share this here because this podcast provided part of the impetus for me to revisit 'Fellowship of the Ring.' When it came out, I loved it, and I have wonderful memories of seeing the trilogy over the holidays with friends and family, of reading Tolkien's writing and reflecting on it with the films. But almost immediately after 'Return of the King's came out, I began to turn away from them. By the time I was 22 or 23 it would be accurate to say I hated them. I thought they were an oversimplification to the point of bastardization of Tolkien's themes and characters, I thought they turned the wonder of Middle-Earth into a carnival showcase of CGI buffoonery. Even then, however, I would be conscious of how... disappointed I was that I felt that way. I loved each and every cast member and believed each actor was cast perfectly for his or her role. I was in awe of the art direction, the set design, the locations, and the music, so what the hell was my problem? I suppose I made it easier on myself by focusing my antipathy purely at the visage of Peter Jackson, that his writing and direction was so wrong-headed that it sunk the entire saga for me. I couldn't even say he was inept, which would have been easier to forgive. He clearly executed his vision for the films as he saw fit, perfectly recreating his version of Middle-Earth, but that version revolted me to the point where I found the Lord of the Rings movies far more unwatchable than movies I objectively knew were far worse. Recently, however, I have been re-evaluating films that I feel I have been getting in my own way of enjoying fully, from Horror to French New Wave to Anime. I have also been thinking a lot about Tolkien's work, about the way he intertwined his own lore with pagan mythology, with Christian imagery, and with the English experience of fighting and coming home from World War I. So because I love Middle-Earth so much, and with the knowledge of my own fallibility becoming more apparent with every film I revisited, I enlisted the help of one of my dear friends, someone who loves both the movies and the books with unabashed enthusiasm, and I watched the extended version of 'Fellowship of the Ring' for the first time in probably 12 years. I don't know what ingredients changed in me or how precisely my tastes shifted, but I loved almost every second of the experience. Everything that I was conscious of being "good" while still being averse to the films as a whole, I was able to enjoy as part of the whole experience. I'm sure part of it was the company, that I was privileged to share the film with someone I care about, but it's also indicative of how a person's personality can change over that time, how art can help us reflect back on our own selves and our lives. I know my twenties were not TOTALLY lost to cynicism, but I am thankful I have both great art and great friends in my life now to help me see the world for the beauty that it has, especially when that world is Middle-Earth. And because, fuck it, I had such a good time with this film, and wanted to immortalize the moment I re-entered Middle-Earth with my friend (me, on the left with the weird face, him with the beard), here is us being nerds:

Turns out the author, Sally Benson, based Meet Me In St. Louis on her own life. Tootie was based on herself and Sally was called Tootie as a child.

Tootie was hands down the best thing about Meet Me in St. Louis. The songs and Judy Garland were great, but Tootie was such an unexpected joy. Also, I was surprised that, with all the talk about and anticipation of the World Fair, we never really got to see it.

the movie, keeping with its artistic feel of a postcard, does make for some sweet gifs

So guys - Rabbiting this last night with some of you was so much fun. I have seen this movie countless times since I was a kid since it was one of my mom's favorites. It still is and we still find time to watch it every Christmas. As strange as this is going to sound, it never occurred to me just how peculiar Tootie is until I was seeing it through your eyes. I always thought it was one of the reasons this movie aged well because it had a little goth kid in it that felt kind of current... know what I mean? Tootie is Wednesday Addams, Lydia Deets, or even Louise Belcher? I don't think I realized that pretty much everything that comes out of her mouth is about death and shit... but I just cracked-up everytime she was on screen because I knew what she was going to say next but wasn't sure how you guys would react. You all did not disappoint! Which leads me to a suggestion - if we ever get sick of "Musical Mondays" just having "Favorite Movie Mondays" might be a great substitution. The person who's turn it is picks a favorite movie that they don't think the group has seen and leads everyone through it. Experiencing one of my favs through you was endlessly enjoyable for me. Thank you guys - SO MUCH!

I don't think I mentioned this before but Paul and Amy make it sound like having a cornfield in your back yard is crazy. It's very clear they did not grow up in the midwest.

What's up jerks. I haven't seen a best of or recommendation list made in awhile so here I have broken them down in a top 5 for each year of the show. I have also included the best of 2018 so far. I really hope this gets people to listen to episodes they haven't listened to for whatever reason or have skipped. I get it, I held off on a lot of episodes because I wanted to see the movie first but it looked too awful to sit through. So here are my top 5 in each year of the show that I recommend watching that are worth your time for at least the absurdity of it or the breakdown of them in the show. (Note I've excluded both Crank movies and big budget flops like Wild Wild West and Batman & Robin because they either fall in the, no duh they are great or are just well known failures. I wanted to focus on my favorites that people may have not checked out.) Enjoy you monsters 2011 Drive Angry Gigli All About Steve The Tourist Punisher: War Zone (HM: Sucker Punch, I Know Who Killed Me, Skyline, The Back-Up Plan, Jingle all the Way) 2012 Reindeer Games 88 Minutes Tiptoes Liz and Dick Birdemic (HM: Sleepaway Camp, Roadhouse, Abduction, Cobra) 2013 Nothing But Trouble Hudson Hawk Fair Game The Devils Advocate Halloween 3: Season of the Witch (HM: From Justin to Kelly, Over the Top, Deck the Halls, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles) 2014 Staying Alive Color of Night Mr. Nanny & No Holds Barred Rhinestone Monkey Shines (HM: Winters Tale, LOL and A View to a Kill) 2015 (Had to do a top 10 because there were too many good ones) Zardoz (Part 1&2) Face Off Hercules in New York Perfect Maximum Overdrive Runaway Lifeforce Death Spa Island of Dr. Moreau Xanadu (HM: Deep Blue Sea, Con Air, Tango and Cash) 2016 Hell Comes to Frogtown Vampires Kiss Streets of Fire Grease 2 Teen Witch (HM: Can't Stop the Music, Mannequin 2 On The Move and Gods of Egypt) 2017 (Another top 10 for this one) Hard Ticket to Hawaii XXX: The Return of Xander Cage The Fate of the Furious Miami Connection The Last Dragon Virtuosity The Wraith Body Parts The Jazz Singer Sleepwalkers (HM: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, The Lake House and Highlander 2: The Quickening) 2018 (as of Sept 2018) Never Too Young to Die Adore Body Rock Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf Beautiful Creatures (HM: Beastly, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Second Sight, The Meg, Rockstar)