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Poor Nancy really got the short end of the stick here. Her boyfriend for FIVE YEARS up and leaves her for a girl he met two days prior, and she had just agreed to marry him too (Their engagement talk was a little confusing, I don't know if they were engaged, or just agreeing to become engaged)! They seemed happy prior to Giselle appearing in their lives, though not overly emotional or romantic. But they probably would have been fine if they had married, she seemed nice and lovely. I think she just gave up after he reacted so quickly to Giselle's poisoning, like 'why fight it?' Also James Mardsen was perfect casting as a Disney cartoon come to life. He's too good looking to be a real person. This is also why he makes sense as a robot in Westworld

Quick thoughts: This is the first time I've seen this, and I was impressed. At first, I didn't think I could take 2 hours of Giselle, but Amy Adams struck just the right tone that I found her downright charming and lovable. That character could have so easily been just a cloying heap of saccharine. I'd also been watching (and just finished) "Sharp Objects" on HBO, and its quite the contrast. I do so love Amy Adams! James Mardsen was also charming, though he'll always be Teddy to me. The music was fun and the performances were great, though I expected more songs. Also, how do you have Idina Menzel in a musical and not have her sing?! Maybe not to upstage Adams? Lots of lost opportunities there.

I'm not saying that it didn't take some time to get used to, but personally, I've been loving the new forum setup. Well done and thank you to Shannon and everybody else involved in the upgrade

A fairytale in New York and no Pogues to be seen. We watched...

I enjoyed this too, especially Amy Adams and the songs. Had some good laughs, esp. when she showed up in New York by emerging out of a sewer manhole. Haha. But as I wrote on Letterboxd, I agree with Snakes saying there are lost opportunities here. This could have been a really sharp satire, the premise is perfect for it -- wouldn't even have to be mocking at all, it could just be an insightful look at these Disney tropes. I have a sense it started that way, and then they decided to take it straight, and now it's just another Disney princess musical like all the others.

I thought this was really good. Is a really fun idea. If Amy Adams, James Marsden, Timothy Spall (and his costumer for all his disguises) weren't so great, this would have been a total failure. Then you have Patrick Dempsey who is just there.

Hi Esther, Was it hard picking between two handsome podcast hosts (or a handsome podcast host and handsome sidekick) for a romantic interest in your show or was it a no brainer and was it because one didn't know what offer only was? Follow up, how is hot chicks been?

Singin' in the Rain definitely sticks very clearly to the central theme of being a movie about the transition from silent to talking pictures. All of the primary conflicts in the movie are centered around that. It's not the most complex thing in the world, but it introduces a major conflict between major characters near the beginning (Don vs. Lena) that is resolved at the end. Swing Time is all over the place, by comparison. They introduce a major plot element (leading man needs to get married), and at the end the whole thing is hand-waved away in baffling fashion. There's no real resolution; it just ends. On dance sequences alone, it can certainly compete with Singin', but for plot and characters it's no contest.

Adam's moment of realization after getting aggravated with Scott's dismissal of "Houston" and "Mr. Richards" from Scott's super-album mix is one of the finest moments of this whole endeavor they've created here.

https://imgur.com/1TzIWUn I modified some kind of home decor that I found in the trash and I think the results are catchphrase worthy.

Jumping to the end, what prompted Nancy's sudden turn? She was glaring all through the "other partners" dance and all of a sudden she's ok with him kissing Amy?

I think I said this somewhere else in the past, but I think they should just lose the 'one band' focus and just talk about music. They could do a Radiohead episode, a couple of Prince ones, a "favorite songs of the 80s," Adam's wedding mix, "favorite concerts we've been to," etc. etc. There's a million themes/ideas they could easily delve into and be entertaining and see how their lists clash and the show could last as long as they felt like it.

Sorry to get political up in here, but this is important.

The best part of waking up is Folgers in your butt

Not to mention naming Pennies From Heaven as your favorite musical, even though that is also a jukebox musical in which the actors literally lip-sync, and one that also wears its influences on its sleeve as much or more than La La Land does. As a long-time Canon listener, I'll just say here that sometimes Amy will get something stuck in her craw about a popular movie and make some bizarre arguments to support a negative take on it. It hasn't happened much on Unspooled, given that we're dealing with some widely-appreciated classics, but just wait until we get to Goodfellas.

It's arbitrary and subjective, but yes I've always found Singin' in the Rain a more consistently entertaining and enjoyable watch than either of those (not that those other movies suck or anything).

Guys. The stickers on podswag! I want a whole sheet of “how’s yo dick?” and “where does the butt start?”. I feel feel like a bad fan but what is the horse tapes one from?

Maybe he's just trying to launder some money.

I feel like this will change based on my mood, but here's mine also: https://boxd.it/1ZqAQ

This is my first time posting over here on the Unspooled message board, but since Double Indemnity is my absolute favorite movie of all time I thought I'd chime in with some of my thoughts regarding the film. 1. Every time Edward G. Robinson is on the screen in this film does for me what I often hear people who discuss Heath Ledger' s Joker does for The Dark Knight (and deserving so: Ledger was a revelation in that roll of course). One of my favorite aspects of Keyes' character is that, true to his last name, he's able to gleefully unlock Phyllis and Walter's scheme (up to a point), even going so far to realize that Mr. Dietrichson wasn't even on the train, but rather a "someone else" posing as him. Papa's got it all figured out. 2. Paul questioned a couple of times why this movie has never been remade, but it actually was. In the mid-70's Double Indemnity got a hilariously abyssal, shot-for-near-shot made-for-TV update starring Rambo's William Crenna. It came as a bonus disc with the remastered Universal Legacy Series edition of Double Indemnity, and deserves a HDTGM outing all its own (the TV version, that is). One of the most entertaining scene in the remake is when the main characters "attempt" the famous "How fast was I going, officer?" scene, and it just deflates right there in front of the camera before the scene gets going, as if the actors just got tired and gave up. 3. When he wasn't ripping off Quentin Tarantino's early films wholesale, British director Guy Ritchie would find time to lift and mutate lines of dialogue from other famous films as well. For example, here's a line of dialogue from Benicio Del Toro's Franky Four Fingers in 2000's Snatch "I am not in Rome, Doug. I'm in a rush," which is a simply variation on Keye's "Well, we're not in Medford now, we're in a hurry." Revenge for what we did to The Office? Who knows? 4. Billy Wilder's follow-up, The Lost Weekend is a direct jab at Raymond Chandler, as the character in that film is supposed to be Chandler himself.

All joking aside, I think you are right that Neff thinks much more highly of his intellectual abilities than he should. In the scene where Keyes comes in to offer the promotion I think we get a very good look at Neff's over confidence in himself and his abilities. Keyes is offering him a job, but it's not just a job it is a job that puts him on a path for the future. He'll work under Keyes, then when Keyes moves on, Neff takes his job, and so on and so forth and he's on the fast track up the ladder. Rather than be a salesman who has no real advancement opportunities but makes more for the time being. Neff thinks himself too good to be "an assistant" at a lower pay level while missing the actual implications of the offer he's being given. You could probably drawn something from this about Neff thinking more of the now than the future which ultimately plays a large part of his downfall as well.

I guess I just don’t think Neff is smart (sorry, Paul) so much as he thinks he’s smart. I think Paul Referred to his hubris in the episode, and I’d have to agree. He’s so confident in his knowledge of the ins and outs of the insurance racket that he’s either ignoring the fact that Keyes knows far more than he does or feels like he can prove himself as the better man if he can outsmart him. Either way, he’s giving himself far more credit than he deserves.

I can't recommend Ed Brubaker's work highly enough. He just wrapped up Kill or Be Killed which was fantastic but if you are a fan of noir and classic Hollywood check out his story The Fade Out which is a murder mystery about a writer during the height of McCarthyism who awakens from a blackout drinking session to discover in his room the dead body of an up and coming starlet in the studio system and him trying to unravel who did and why,

I off hand joked about it in my letterboxd review but I'll expand upon it here. To me one of the things that sold this movie to me was how similar in formula and story it was to Columbo but rather than Peter Falk as the frumpy detective we get Edward G Robinson as the the little man with hunches. To me growing up one of the things I loved about Columbo is that you start off with the murder. You see it every step of the way, and you know the bad guy is going to get it in the end so your job as the viewer is not so much who did it or how did they did it but where did they go wrong. When Columbo suspects the murder he never confronts him directly with it, rather he needles him with little things, just shows up and waxes on, slowly unnerving and making the murderer sweat and start to double guess themselves. In the end this leads the murderer going back to recover something or over explaining crucial details or something like that. To me in a way Edward G Robinson was that part. From the moment the little man in his stomach told him something was wrong he suspected Neff, but he couldn't prove it. Later on when Neff over hears him talking about his suspensions over Neff being erased, at that point he never acted prior like he suspected Neff. It made me question whether Neff over hearing him was intentional or not. True this movie did lack a PI but an insurance claim investigator is close enough right? If anybody has ever seen the pilot for Columbo Peter Falk is more clean cut and wearing a nice suit. In addition he is a bit more quicker in speech and more direct. This pilot version of the character is similar enough to Keyes that is makes me wondering if that was the inspiration. When Columbo was ordered to series the character become more unkempt and unassuming, but I'm willing to bet that this movie was a major influence on the show.

All right, I finally went ahead and did this. https://boxd.it/1YEKo