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I agree, I had no real idea what I was picking, but I had this film highly praised and recommended by a playwright I respect, who said without hesitation that it was his favorite musical ever. That's a big claim to make, so I think I had the expectation of that ringing in my ears as we went, and was glad I did this instead of Sharpay's Big Adventure... Also, a few days ago, I was doing basement karaoke with my kids on my daughter's karaoke machine, and while waiting for my song to begin I wrapped the cord around my neck and started doing Mr Venus. So now my kids sit at dinner and every time there is a lull in conversation, they whisper 'vat's inside is yust a lie'. 10/10 parenting right there.

vatsinsideisjustalie

I still think they’re holding them back. By Paul’s admission, even the recent “in studio” episodes recently were taped awhile ago. Cellular was done back in November, and while he didn’t say when, Paul said they recorded Little Italy some time ago. Without getting too deep with the speculation, I would guess one or more of them plan on being busy for awhile and they’re stockpiling episodes so there’s no lull in the content. For example, I don’t know how large Zouks’ role is in John Wick 3, but maybe he needs to do promotion and won’t be available. Or, maybe more likely, Paul has something coming down the pipe. I mean, they’ve done episodes without Jason and June (at the same time even), but if Paul isn’t around, I doubt Jason and June would record an episode. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. Unless something got messed up in the actually recording (worse even than Top Dog and Theodore Rex) I’m sure they’ll be released someday. And I doubt it will be through Stitcher Premium. The only reason Valerian was exclusive is because it was part of a festival. As cool as they’ve been about rotating their back catalogue from behind the paywall, I seriously doubt that they’re going to start holding back live episodes just for subscribers. That’s never been their style.

I just wanted to say, everything Colman Domingo (Mr Franklin/Joop/Mr Venus) did was amazing. The whole “Arlington Hill” number (“Coward’s ain’t got shit. Cowards only have...consequences”) was incredible. I also thought Eisa Davis (Mother) was pretty great. I feel like that could have been a pretty thankless part - considering the things everyone else got to do - but she imbued the role with so much gravitas and humanity. It was lovely work.

“Exquisite. Like an orgasm in reverse.” We watched:

This was Dark Heart's only appearance - IIRC (my little sister was very into these movies), the first movie had an evil book (Don't read, kids! Watch cartoons instead!), and the third movie took them to Wonderland. But the "Twilight" vibe on him is strong; he's totally the 80's toy version of a supernatural teen crush.

I agree that Spike Lee really did a lot with the camera work on this. On my first viewing I came in during the LSD scene, and I think he really captured the mood of the piece in a way that you couldn't get just by being in the audience. Also, yes, the way he captured the emotion in people's faces. I take it as a credit to the piece itself that he decided not to adapt it for the screen. This isn't something that I think would translate at all to cinema because I think you need the physical space of the stage, and Stew in the background, and part of the band. You also get the shots of the audience participating and singing along in the aisles. I think he brought some of the best benefits of camera work to a theater piece. Per the Wiki page, he used something like 17 cameras over three performances to capture everything. Oh, not to mention the actors were able to emotionally go there with their performances with all the cameras around them in ways they aren't normally. That said, I found some of the actual music tiring by the end of Youth's time in Germany. It seemed to all run into each other and sound the same. But maybe it was my particular mood when watching it, or maybe that particular sound isn't my style. Though I really loved the punk song and "vatsinsideisjustalie." I'm on the fence on this one. I really appreciate it as an interesting marriage of cinema and theater, but I don't know that I'll be revisiting it often...

I think Lee did quite a lot with this. Yes, the material and performances are excellent. But Lee was able to get cameras really close and intimate to capitalize on that energy. But I never saw a camera in any of the shots. Even when they had a camera right in someone's face, in a wide shot, I didn't see the camera filming the extreme close up from earlier. I think that's great filming and editing. The planning on filming this must have been pretty deep. I've seen filmed plays that basically have 2-3 cameras filming wide shots from a couple angles. I would have liked the content of Passing Strange if it were just a single camera on a wide shot but Lee was able to get us in on the action.

My goodness, Dragon Blade was boring - boring and incomprehensible. They should have cut out half the battle scenes in order to do a little more explanation on what was going on elsewhere in the movie.

I was amazed at how the actors switched characters so easily. I knew it was an actor playing the character each time because they can't change their look but they all changed mannerisms, way of walking, moving, etc. so fluidly that it was easy to get involved. Given that Youth and the mom stayed the same character throughout I thought the whole play was going to be the youth choir and Mr. Franklin. I was never happier to be wrong. That was INSANE!

I'm mad at you CaleBug. I watched Sharpay's Big Adventure for nothing?!?!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I loved Passing Strange - the acting, the staging, the heart and humor. I love the music and the way it all kind of washes over you. They’re maybe not the most sing-a-longable, but it completely immersed you in the emotion that’s being conveyed. This is the kind of movie where I really appreciate Musical Mondays as this was completely off my radar. I’m glad CakeBug picked it or I would never have known it existed.

It was a movie entirely made of red (blue?) herrings

Critics rate superhero movies (well, not the DC ones) very well. If you look at Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes, the MCU have great scores. Even if critics are tired of the over abundance of superhero movies, they are still rating them as individual works. I really agree with Tom Heidecker's take on how to view a film. I think Roger Ebert expressed similar sentiments for film criticism. "Does the movie accomplish what it set out to do?" But, to expand that, does that mean a movie is suddenly part of the conversation for the canon of films? For example, I loved Crazy Rich Asians. It's a perfect romantic comedy. It belongs in the canon of romantic comedies. But does it belong in the top 100 American movies of all time? I don't know. I kind of disagree with what I think the AFI did of making sure every genre is included. There's a difference, in my mind, between "the best American movies" and "the best representation of what American movies are". For the former idea, I wouldn't consider Crazy Rich Asians. For the latter, where I'm compiling a budget style of genres, I would.

Yes, but couldn’t you say there are parts of all jobs - no matter how glamorous - we’d all rather not do? If that’s the case, then shouldn’t the critic’s responsibility be to judge a movie based on how successful it is at achieving its goals within its particular genre? I keep going back to what Tim Heidecker said in The Odd Life of Timothy Green episode of HDTGM. He says something to the effect of, while it’s not necessarily a great film for him personally, he can’t exactly judge it against high cinema or anything because that’s not what it’s trying to be. All you can ask is: is it a good kid’s movie? If the answer is ‘yes,’ then the movie did it’s job. So, to me, and feel free to disagree, it shouldn’t really matter if a critic personally likes superhero movies. They just need to ask themselves, “Does Black Panther achieve, or maybe even surpass, what a superhero movie should achieve?” To me, it’s kind of like how many of us view the AFI list. We may not like, say, Westerns, but we can judge each individual movie against other examples in the genre to make an objective argument as to why it should or should not be included on the list.

She didn't really say there were the two best things though. It was more, what would most likely go on the AFI list from the top 20 grossing films - a quality that she even mentioned early in the podcast, started to really go down the tubes since about 1999. And most of the other films were disqualified because they were part of a franchise whose earlier, more notable entries (e.g. Halloween and Jurassic Park) aren't on the list, so obviously these wouldn't. Some were dismissed because she felt they were garbage. The other remaining two were in genres, that like the franchise possibilities, have other examples that deserve to be on the list more. So once you factor in all of those qualifiers, it's almost like she basically said, the top 20 grossing films, a category that has gone downhill in the last 20 years and has been over-represented by a genre that historically has not had very good entries, after dominating popular culture for the past 20 years is still in the phase of improving. Which, if you break it down that way, I guess makes sense (it's better than what happened with the horror franchises of the 80s, where they went the sequel route, devolved into self-parody, and by the 90s, and well, I'll just say, the 90s is not remembered as a golden age of horror). I do wonder if they should have completely restricted themselves to 2018. Maybe they should have used 2018 first, but then used it to talk about other blockbusters of the past 20 years (or 30 years). e.g. Okay, Fallen World won't go on the list because JP isn't on the list - but should JP go on the list? CRA and ASiB won't go on the list because there are other, better entries in the romantic-comedy and romantic-drama entries. Were there any top 20 films of the past 20 years in either of those genres that they felt should go on the list? Or maybe, "be considered for the list" might be a better starting question. Well, too late now! How did Amy find the box office stats for the entire AFI list? When I was trying to find them the list comparison posts, past a certain boxofficemojo didn't seem reliable or didn't even have the years (more the latter), so finding this stuff was a pain and gave inconsistent data. I also wonder if the top 20 box office stat is going to hold with movies after the year 2000, though I'm more curious about the top 5 instead of the top 20, which could be a data point acting as confirmation of her assessment that the box office rankings went downhill around that time - though well, only as strong of a data point as one puts stock in the AFI list.

Oh, it absolutely goes both ways. I feel the same way about The Last Jedi. It really didn’t work for me as a film. So it was really obnoxious being on Twitter or wherever and seeing a bunch of people whose opinions you generally respect saying things like, “The only people who don’t like The Last Jedi are a bunch of basement dwelling, misogynistic, racist, incels.” Neither I, nor my wife, liked the movie, and we are none of those things. We just thought it was kind of boring. However, I know a lot of people here loved it. I don’t think they’re stupid for that. I don’t need our opinions to be 100% in alignment all the time. It doesn’t hurt anyone if someone likes it and I don’t. As long as we can be civil and not being dismissive, we’re cool. We can have a real dialogue about it’s merits or faults. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of assumptions and name calling.

For sure this. If Taylor Anne's argument is that people shouldn't exclude movies based on popularity, then I've definitely been presenting a different argument. That's my bad. I've been arguing about my personal belief on the merit of the movies. As a annoying teenager, I might have done so, but 2019 grudlian would never say a movie doesn't deserve a place because it was popular. Amy and Paul even bring this up in the episode. The majority of this list is made up of big, hit movies. It's not a compilation of obscure critical darlings the public missed. But, idk, maybe it's because we're in the thick of the superhero genre and I'm being a pretentious ass snob who'll reassess everything in 20 years to find I was wrong. Because I honestly don't think in a fictional universe where the AFI made a list in 1978, they'd include Star Wars on the list let alone at #13. I do want to address your last point about dismissing people's opinions. I've definitely had it happen elsewhere and in real life. People will completely dismiss and invalidate my opinion because I don't like something. I've had people accuse me of elitism for disliking Jurassic World 2 and the defense boils down to "you're too cool for dinosaurs fighting?????? just turn off your brain!!!!!!" There are moments I've deserved being put in my place as a snob. Then something like that happens and I think it's not always fair that having an unpopular opinion immediately puts you in that camp.

I feel like the conversation has gone in the direction of whether or not superhero movies are good, but from what I gathered from Taylor’s initial response that’s not really the issue she had. I think everyone can agree that some superhero movies are better than others. I feel like the issue isn’t so much an argument against their quality and more against their popularity. For me, people reacting against superhero movies for being popular is a lot like people turning their noses up against pop musicians in favor of some secret, brooding indie artist that they personally enjoy. No, a lot of pop musicians aren’t exactly pushing the envelope artistically - at least, not outside of their particular niche - but neither are they necessarily aspiring to. Furthermore, I find the people who like to turn their noses up at popular culture in favor of their esoteric favorites, are usually the first to turn their backs on their favorite artists the moment they achieve a modicum of commercial success. It’s all very high school. It’s claiming all the popular jocks are a bunch of morons, but because you harbor an affinity for early 19th Century Romantic Poetry it makes you “deep” (i.e. better/smarter.) It’s outsider chic; a means to justify misanthropy. “I’m not a nerd. I’m cool because I’m into this thing and you’re dumb because you’re not. And, no, I won’t even attempt to learn anything more about you that might shatter my narrow, two-dimensional perception of you.” Ultimately, who cares if something is popular? No one’s forcing anyone to enjoy something they don’t like. And certainly, no one should be getting distressed over people liking a specific type of movie. That’s silly. Enjoy or ignore them as you see fit. But don’t dismiss something that people like just because it doesn’t work for you personally. Nobody likes pretension.

My old theater prof/Dungeon master (D&D, not B&D) was in Dragon Blade as Agrippa and he kept us posted as it was filming, saying we would not BELIEVE the scale of the thing. When it came out, a bunch of us who knew him got together to watch it and he was right, it is bananas. Just...so much. Also, he said Adrian Brody was lovely. But seriously, watch it. It is insane.

Right?! Now, whether or not he says something should be entirely dependent upon what his current relationship is with his sister. If they're close enough, I'd say go ahead and have a heart-to-heart, but don't say, "why are you marrying this dud?" Say something like, "I just want to make sure you're happy and are doing this for the right reasons. Are you happy?" And if she says she is, then try to be happy for her. You're not the one marrying him. If she loves him as he is, let her do it. OR, let her make her own mistake. I'm sure she's probably already picked up that her brother's response to the hubby-to-be has been less than enthusiastic. But it's really her choice and not yours. You love your sister, Respect the autonomy, even if you don't like the guy. I say this as a sibling to someone who married worse than a dud. We talked about it before. He knew how the family felt, but we accepted his decision. He's divorced now, but they were together for 15 years.

If the guest is Dan Radcliffe I will lose my shit. (See this movie’s thread in bad movie recommendations.) Also, was I the only one who thought Cody was a man? I am shocked. Worried about the caller who thinks his sister’s fiancé is a dud. Like maybe she has a lot going on and a boring person is what she needs? Or maybe she doesn’t think he’s a dud? I love that the first Little Italy caller’s theory was basically “sex pollen.”

Him?

Paul should 100% be a wrestling manager.

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