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Although The Shop Around the Corner is indeed a fantastic movie, I think It's a Wonderful Life is my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie and my favorite Jimmy Stewart performance. It really hits my Golden Ratio of being a 90% dark parade of human misery with a 10% juicy center of hope and optimism. At least I would never say I like any Stewart movie of performance better than It's A Wonderful Life. ANYWAY, Meet Me in St. Louis is one of those Landmark Films that I have never seen, so I am excited for this one!

GIVE ME THAT BABY

LENNON PARHAM joins The Boys to help out Chef Kevin.

I have seen a baby start bawling for no reason other than because my dad had a goatee, and let's face it, Jason has a LOT of facial hair.

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It feels personal with my kid sometimes, though.

My baby would poop all over him. It wouldn’t be personal, though. He just really likes to poop.

I don't have a baby nor do I want one but do you think Jason would accept my cats to hold? (Why do I feel like I'm asking what kind of tribute I should be bringing Jason as a sacrifice to hold?)

Everybody keeps saying that Chaka Khan but nobody stops to ask if Chaka Should.

Did anyone notice that at around 12 27 minutes in, (while Kirstie Alley and Olympia Dukakis are sitting outside having bagels & coffe), they cut to Kirstie Alley's father. He's ostensibly teaching the kid to do math, but he says "yeah, six, six, six dollars" I'm not a religious person, but I still wouldn't chant 666 to a child.

No need to apologize! If we had rank genres of music I would put Christmas squarely at the top. There is just not enough time in December to listen to and talk about it all!

I've been so busy lately that I've barely had time to keep up with HDTGM, let alone Musical Mondays, but I'll tag in for this even though it's waaaaaay too early for the holidays. My wife [Borat voice] loves this movie but I've never seen it. She'll be floored when I tell her I want to watch it.

Has anyone else noticed that "My Favorite Things" from The Sound Of Music has been playing everywhere at Christmas? That song is not about Christmas in any way... except that it lists material things that could possibly be interpreted as a Christmas list? Kind of Bizarre. BTW- All apologies for so much Christmas talk in October. The season is getting earlier and earlier.

I'm not really arguing It's A Wonderful Life isn't a Christmas movie. I'm just using it as an example of a Christmas movie that doesn't spend a lot of time at Christmas. There is a Harry Nilsson song called Remember (Christmas) that literally never mentions Christmas. The story I've read is they added (Christmas) to a song titled Remember because that helps sales.

Cool pick! Haven’t seen this in forever and I’m excited to watch it in HD for the first time. I’ve read her red dress was velvet and maybe now I can finally see some texture

So, in my big rambling initial post I did make the point of feeling the best movie comparison so far to Apocalypse Now, thematically, still feels like Aguirre, so I strongly agree with Snakes' post (actually addressing the topic a lot better than I feel like I could at this point; partially because it's been too long since I've read Heart of Darkness). I will point out, my one vague recollection of HoD not yet discussed was, the conflict was an inner conflict and the point being such conflicts can be just as dramatic as external conflict. As such, the story is supposed to be fairly absent of physical action (but it has been so long ago, I really can't remember most if it, so I don't know if what I'm recalling is entirely true*). So, when people talk about Platoon showing what it was like to be "deep in the shit", I can't help but think, that kind of distracts from the original theme. Though, it's not like AN didn't have a battle scenes and external conflict, so that's something didn't necessarily kept; though the focus of the theme was still there. Granted, I wasn't here for the Platoon discussion, and while I didn't watch it for this podcast, I did see it for the first time in the past year or so, and while there were things I appreciated about it**, I felt the moral conflict at the center of it felt very ham-fisted to me. Maybe it suffered compared to every other Vietnam movie I've seen in that I saw everything else when I was much younger. But I also suspect it's a style issue and Stone's clearly stated moral dichotomy usually just doesn't work for me. *: It sounds like there are people here who have read it much more recently than me, so correct me here if I'm wrong. Like, this is an old enough memory, it could be totally wrong. **: Interesting how it's AN being compared to Platoon, since Full Metal Jacket failed at the box office and it's believed it's primarily due to Platoon coming out the previous year and people didn't like how FMJ was shot on a back lot as opposed to in the jungle like Platoon. ETA: To explicitly answer the original question if I could only keep one... Well, unless there's some gem on this list that I haven't seen that blows me away (actually, it's been forever since I've seen The Godfather movies or Raging Bull, so they have a chance to raise from where they are in my memory), AN would end up 3rd on my list behind 2001 and Kane as well, and the other I described as feeling ham-fisted in its moral dilemma, soooo, I guess it's obvious I'd keep AN.

Also, the voiceover in Apocalypse Now is SOOO much better than the voiceover in Platoon.

The Wizard of Oz has almost become a Christmas movie, too, because it is so often aired on TV during the holidays, but I think that's because it's a great family movie that everyone can enjoy. Otherwise, basically any movie that has Christmas at any time in its plot seems to become a "Christmas movie." BTW, the better of the Jimmy Stewart Christmas Movies is easily The Shop Around the Corner. Love, love, LOVE that one.

I don’t know, though. Even if Christmas isn’t essential to the plot, I do think it’s crucial to its impact. I just don’t think It’s A Wonderful Life would work as well if it were set at any other time of the year.

Why was x-1 afraid of y/7x? Because math is stupid.

Why won't this podcast that I voluntarily listen to just totally echo everything I already believe?

I have to touch on a couple of things that Jason brought up, first up the notion that Travolta as a pilot isn't making enough and has to drive a taxi as a second job is firmly rooted in reality. Most starting pilots make less than $20,000 a year, so thats perfectly believable to me. The other is him noticing how macabre the cartoon that Mikey is watching and being confused as to how a parent could let a kid watch that. Growing up, one of my parents bought a Tex Avery collection of cartoons on VHS that I watched endlessly. You want to talk about some questionable shit, you should try watching Screwball Classics sometime and see how not well thats aged. The cartoon in question is actually an old school Betty Boop from the 30's. And the art style of the cartoon should be familiar to anyone who's played the absurdly difficult Cuphead. They were directly inspired by the old cartoons from Max Fleischer. The full cartoon is below, which is actually really interesting, especially how well they animated Cab Calloways dance moves.

I have to disagree with June about something. Although I won't argue that it's tasteful or chic, I absolutely love the style of their apartment. The way I see it, they are raising their kids in a 2 bedroom apartment in Manhattan (yes? Is that right?) They don't have a yard, or a basement, or a lot of room to play, so how does one make up for that? By making a small sad apartment seem like a place a kid would love. That apartment is joyous and fun... Poppy colors, interesting lighting, fun prints and patterns. And ridiculous basket or whatever... I don't care, those glass-front, up-lit kitchen cabinets are dope.

I wonder if anyone made Amy the E.T.

Rubber is great, moderator please delete this thread immediately.