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sycasey 2.0

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Everything posted by sycasey 2.0

  1. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 160 - Tommy (w/ David Fear)

    Respectful no. I understand the intent behind this movie, but at some point I find the extreme audio-visual stimulation more exhausting than thrilling. It's tough to make a logical argument for or against this movie. You either feel it or you don't. I can see an argument for voting Tommy in, given that I'm not sure we'll ever have a chance to induct a "rock opera" again.
  2. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    Are you trying to make this movie LONGER? Don't give James Cameron any ideas.
  3. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    Would have been great if Old Rose had replied with:
  4. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    I don't think he did either, just that for a time the movie gained a reputation for being one (due to Leo's popularity with that group).
  5. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    IMO the phenomenon has faded over the course of 20 years. Leo DiCaprio is mister serious Oscar winner who does Scorsese movies now, not the heartthrob on the cover of every teeny-bop magazine like he was in 1998. So these days I don't think the movie has the same stigma that I recall from the time.
  6. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    Yeah, I don't think the "old fashioned storytelling" reasoning excuses Cal, because Jack and Rose are just as much from that same storytelling tradition but get a lot more shades and colors to their personalities (also the actors are better). I put Cal right there next to the Snidely Whiplash villains Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang played in Avatar, who also drag that movie down IMO. A Terminator being a one-note killing machine is fine (that's literally what it is), but a human villain needs a little more nuance than James Cameron seems to be willing to deliver. Maybe Burke in Aliens is the best he's done.
  7. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    Clueless and Mean Girls are also comedies that make fun of teen girl subculture, so they aren't really asking you to take them seriously. Breathlessly earnest romances like Titanic or Twilight are in a different category. (And then reboots that reimagine nostalgic childhood properties with more women in the cast, like Ghostbusters or Disney Star Wars, are yet another.) Anyway, to reiterate my argument, I was admitting that some of MY original dislike for Titanic was almost certainly rooted in sexism (perhaps forgivably so, given my age at the time), something I've recognized in the years since. I also think that I was probably not alone in carrying that bias at the time. That does not, of course, mean that everyone who disliked the movie did so solely because of sexism. That would be silly. (I've also recognized that there was probably some latent sexism in the rampant hate for the Twilight series, while also still thinking those movies generally suck.) This is the trouble when trying to talk about a widespread sociological phenomenon: people see an argument about the leanings of a particular group and think that it's directed at every individual in that group. For example, you can say that on the whole, white people supported Donald Trump. That does not, of course, mean that every single white person voted for Trump . . . but it's still true that out of all racial groups, he got by far the most support from that one. That's useful for studying his popularity from a sociological perspective. Similarly, I can posit that sexism might have contributed to the Titanic backlash (including a poll naming it the Worst Movie of All Time, come on now) without saying that everyone hated it for the same reason.
  8. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    I'm surprised Amy didn't bring up the sexism angle! Maybe she didn't want to be seen as biased, given that she was once a superfan.
  9. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    By the way, The Simpsons also did a riff on what if Roger Corman had made Titanic.
  10. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    I held very negative opinions about this movie for a long time. I didn't see it in a theater, and I'll admit that some of this was probably motivated by sexism -- I didn't want to go see a "girls' movie," though of course I willingly paid to see Roland Emmerich's Godzilla later that summer (and by the by, I think sexism towards something teenage girls liked also accounts for some of the extreme Internet hate directed at Titanic). I then later saw it on pan-and-scan VHS (because I guess I "had to" now that it had won all the awards). I hated it because of the dialogue and the rote narrative, and also I was 18 and supposedly knew everything. Those things I disliked are still problems, but that was also entirely the wrong attitude to take into this movie and entirely the wrong way to see it. This is a spectacle. It's really good spectacle, as James Cameron is wont to deliver. Seeing it on a big screen is best, but at least get a high-quality widescreen version if you're seeing it at home. You need to see the visual storytelling (ALL of it) for the movie to work. The story delivers very familiar beats, but it is structured well so that they are all adequately foreshadowed and delivered with clarity (as Paul and Amy pointed out, as stilted as the framing device might initially seem, it's also doing a great job presenting you with the geography of the ship and the circumstances of the sinking). One of the callers criticized the movie for reducing a disaster where thousands died to a dopey love story, but in watching it again I was struck by the ways in which it does NOT do that. The movie spends a good deal of time on the Captain's story, on the architect's story, and so forth. You can track random passengers' storylines as the movie goes on, if you're watching carefully in the background and catching the small moments in between the main plot. It's actually pretty impressive how this movie foregrounds the stars but also gives a sense of the variety of experiences had by people on the boat. As I've gotten older, I've also kind of given up on criticizing narratives for being too "cliched" or whatever. Some tropes just work; that's why they get used so often. No need to be snobby about it. The problem is when a film isn't committed to doing what it's doing or keeps trying to apologize. Titanic doesn't apologize for being big and melodramatic, and Cameron is nothing if not committed. The only thing that slightly throws me out of it is that Cameron's dialogue often sounds too modern for the period, particularly what he gives to Jack and Rose (and Cal . . . oh, Cal). But on some level that works too, given that the narrative is about Rose being a more modern and adventurous woman than society wanted her to be. So hey, now I'm in your corner, Titanic. It's not in my Top 100, but I get why you were so popular. That said, I still have no defense for the Billy Zane character or performance. He feels like some teenage actor trying to do a "posh" accent in a high school production of a period drama. The character is one-note to the extreme. Cameron's villains are best when they're monsters or killer robots, but his human antagonists are blah. I could do without Cal Hockley.
  11. sycasey 2.0

    Titanic

    You can't tell me what to do!
  12. sycasey 2.0

    Listener Rankings

    I've come around on Titanic. There are still elements I dislike (Billy Zane), but over the years I've come to appreciate its visual spectacle and James Cameron's effective manipulation of basic human emotions. It wouldn't be in my personal Top 100, but I understand the popularity.
  13. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 159 - Caddyshack (w/ Alex Schmidt)

    I'm also a person who doesn't "get" why Caddyshack is seen as an all-time classic comedy in some circles. I do think it might be one of those "you had to be there" things. The anarchic comedy of the 70s probably felt like a breath of fresh air after the staid stuff these guys had grown up with in the 50s and 60s, but to me a lot of it feels TOO unmoored (Monty Python excepted). I see the comparison to the modern comedies of the Judd Apatow school, but to me the best of those movies have refined the approach and given it better shape. They are heavily improvised, but most of these movies are at least somewhat organized around a theme and a central plot. Anchorman is about Ron Burgundy learning to respect women, his new co-host Veronica in particular. The 40-Year-Old Virgin is about a group of friends trying to help the main character get laid and/or find love. Bridesmaids is about a female friendship starting to fray because of depression and jealousy, but that comes back together in the end. In these movies, all of the funny scenes are in some way related to this central plot. They might digress for a little while, but they always get back to the point. Not sure I see that in Caddyshack; if anything, the movie seems to actively avoid ever having a plot to follow, like when Danny's girlfriend reveals she's pregnant and then the next time we see her she's not . . . and that's it. Maybe that's the point here, mucking with all our narrative expectations, but for me it hurts the movie to not have a strong through-line to follow. I find some of Caddyshack funny, mostly the stuff with Dangerfield and Murray, but it's never risen to the level of greatness for me. I considered voting Yes anyway, just because the movie and the group that made it heave clearly had a strong influence on future film comedies . . . but as mentioned on the podcast, Animal House is already in. Not sure I need to vote for another Lampoon effort unless I truly see it as a great film. I'm voting No.
  14. sycasey 2.0

    The French Connection

    Amy does read stuff from the forums on the Canon podcast (which does not have minisodes -- she does a quick recap of the previous week's comments before talking about the new film), so I think both shows have set a bit of an expectation that forum replies are the best way to interact. That said, it is of course their choice how they want to handle this one. There's no voting like there is in The Canon and no weekly "Winner" like for HDTGM. I'm on Twitter, but mostly a lurker. Not much interest in commenting there.
  15. sycasey 2.0

    The French Connection

    Yes, but nothing entirely in a foreign language like Z.
  16. sycasey 2.0

    The French Connection

    Right, duh. Sometimes we type before thinking.
  17. sycasey 2.0

    The French Connection

    The movie feels very shambling as a narrative, but the ending (even with the tacked-on stuff) helps tie it together as a statement about the futility of the drug war. I enjoyed it. The centerpiece chase sequences are great. It doesn't deserve to be on the list over The Exorcist. Or Z.
  18. sycasey 2.0

    The French Connection

    ( ) http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Springfield_Connection
  19. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 190 - Hurricane Heist: LIVE!

    Must have been tough with all the lezzos around.
  20. sycasey 2.0

    Swing Time

    I've been trying to look this up. It seems like Ginger Rogers did say some nasty stuff about Communists in her old age, but it looks like her mother was the one who actively participated in the blacklist and whatnot. But maybe there is more?
  21. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 158 - The Talented Mr. Ripley (w/ Tom Bissell)

    Also, on Cate Blanchett: The year before this, she got an Oscar nomination for Elizabeth. She was definitely a known up-and-coming actress when this movie came out (maybe not when it was cast).
  22. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 190 - Hurricane Heist: LIVE!

    I was also hoping the skull head would be the dead father trying to communicate with his sons, like Mufasa, or Bleeding Gums Murphy.
  23. sycasey 2.0

    Episode 158 - The Talented Mr. Ripley (w/ Tom Bissell)

    The first thing that struck me about this movie was how nice it was to see some beautiful cinematography that didn't seem to have been color-corrected to within an inch of its life. No teal and orange nonsense here! It looks like the real world, just nicer! I like this movie a good deal, and honestly I'm not too convinced by the argument that the visual motifs and signifiers are "too obvious" -- that kind of argument inevitably sounds a bit snobbish to me (especially when levied against a movie like this that is trying to expose the evil shallowness of a snobbish upper-class lifestyle). Are some of Minghella's visuals obvious? Yes, but I don't think they are inappropriate. They're showing you things the script doesn't directly state outright. Though I do agree that this film takes an inevitable dip after Jude Law's character exits the story, it never loses my interest. The young actors are all great in it. Like Johnny Pomatto, however, I'm also going to vote a respectful "no" for Canon status. I'm not sure where it's proven itself an essential watch. The Talented Mr. Ripley is a classy, well-made thriller that effectively calls back to Hitchcock and classic Italian films. Maybe we should induct one of those films instead.
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