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So in the audience someone asked about Princess Michael of Kent. Princess Michael of Kent's father was a know member of the Nazi party. So right off the bat fuck that family. The brooch in question is a " blackmoor" brooch . Blackmoor jewelry depicts exoticized figurines of Africans and are in really bad taste. She claims to have done it as a " mistake " but this is the same bitch who yelled at a group of African American diners in New York to and I quote (from her correcting the media) " I did not say “back to the colonies,” I said you “should remember the colonies.” Back in the days of the colonies, there were rules that were very good.” Because you know that's not weird and fucked up. You know the colonies a time of SLAVERY. then there's THE FUCKING TIME SHE ADMITTED TO PRETENDING TO BE BLACK "I even pretended years ago to be an African, a half-caste African, but because of my light eyes I did not get away with it, but I dyed my hair black.” She also added that she spent time in Africa with “absolutely adorable, special people.” I HAVE NO WORDS. From a 2005 interview to show off her Nazi heritage "The English take the breeding of their horses and dogs more seriously than they do their children. God forbid that the wrong drop of blood should get into their labrador. But their children marry everywhere.” And the fact she apparently owns two black sheep named Venus and Serena.... so yeah I think she know exactly what that brooch meant. She may be one of the worst royals in living memory and we had one who was a legit Nazi fan during WW II. Thank God he fucked off with Wallace Simpson (another Nazi sympathizer).

So much to add to what's being said, but always late to the game LOL Just to add to the "why him" and presumption of motives for Mrs Robinson, I'd offer something regarding recent psychological studies regarding predatory behavior. These find that perpetrators are driven less by sexual attraction and more by the power dynamics. That tracks in Mrs Robinson's case, fictional as it is, in that she is/has been trapped into her marriage (and really, the whole "old world" the film is indicting) and finding some semblance of control by manipulating and maintaining the relationship with Benjamin. (Tangent- at least once later calling him Benjy as a diminutive) The one time she can't control him starts as Benjamin demands a conversation, and that's the tipping point. In the last act, she tries the same tactics, with calling the police, the story of rape, etc., but Benjamin has overcome this. The theme of control defines Benjamin too, from the first shot of him on the belt, literally drifting through life at the pool, and then the (really terrible!) pursuit of Elaine. In fact, it's all about control. The only (?) reason that he wants Elaine is precisely *because* she is wrong, because she is the one thing that she's been told he *can't* have. All other aspects of his life don't seem to really be a choice, not even something like a career. The true choice is in not choosing, or better yet rejecting the false choices. I guess Elaine kind of does that too, at the end.

At least the Schindler scene (and the flash-forward to the real Schindler Jews) works better because the whole movie is actually about Schindler trying to save people. Trying to transfer that kind of earned emotional climax over to a character who was absent for most of Saving Private Ryan just wasn't going to work. Maybe if the old man had been revealed as Ed Burns (as Goldman thought it would be) or Jeremy Davies the scene still would not have been great, but at least it would have made sense. On the characters commenting on the stupidity of the plot: I think that can work too, if the point of the movie was to be cynical about the war and how soldiers were treated. But again the sentimentality of the bookends basically destroys that reading. I also have Platoon and Apocalypse Now above this on my list.

Agreed on all counts. I was pretty hard on Platoon, but I think Platoon mostly holds together better than this. (Although I might change my mind again when I rewatch Platoon and hear Charlie Sheen's stupid voiceover work again.) There's a couple things in the screenplay that I think are really bad. First, I think it's such a weird move that one theme of the movie is the characters talking about how stupid the plot of the movie is. You've convinced me, characters of the film: the idea that General George Marshall would alter his war strategy to appease a mother in Iowa IS a pretty dumb premise. Secondly, relatedly, after they go through the dog tags, and they're talking about how hard it might be to find Ryan, Miller is basically like, "Maybe if I just call his name, we'll find him, wouldn't that be stupid? LOL." And then Miller calls his name and immediately gets the information needed to find him. And it is stupid. Also, you get the sense that the writer learned the phrase FUBAR while writing this and was just fucking tickled by it. Then the Spielberg schmaltz doesn't help either. John Williams' score comes off as more manipulative than moving, and Old Man Ryan's breakdown has echoes of the worst scene in Schindler's List, when Schindler inexplicably breaks down about not having saved more people. The comic relief bits didn't really work for me on this rewatch either. For example, though the Nathan Fillion fake-Ryan scene is funny, it's 100% meaningless to the film and is only in there so that the film could be 10 minutes longer and a small amount funnier. At any rate, I agree with what seems to be the prevailing opinion so far, that this film shouldn't be on the list. Is there anyone out there who wants to argue that this is one of their top 5 favorite Spielberg films? I'm pretty sure it's not even in my top 10. No disrespect to Spielberg, who I believe has made more masterpieces than anyone on the list other maybe Kubrick, and has a deeper bench of near-masterpiece films than anyone on the list other than maybe Wilder and Hitchcock. But this film is not one of them.

I can't believe nobody brought up the epic takedown of "Saving Private Ryan" by none other than William Goldman, which originally ran in Premiere magazine and is collected in his book "The Big Picture." Goldman loved most of the first two-thirds of the movie (with a few important exceptions), but goes into terrific detail on why the third act is "phony manipulative shit." Here's a blog post that reprinted it: https://achtenblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/saving-private-ryan-goldman-essay.html

It’s a good film, but with five Spielberg movies on the list I feel like one could be cut, and this is the one. The battle sequences are brilliant short films into themselves and certainly unimpeachable on a technical level, but the whole thing is hurt by that framing device with Old Man Ryan, which seems to come from a different movie and confuses the film’s message about war. In interviews, Spielberg once said he saw Jeremy Davies as the audience surrogate and the character he most identified with. Now, that's an interesting idea and makes for an interesting conclusion to that guy's story: he argues for saving the German soldier early in the film, then is too scared to try saving his comrades in the final battle, then comes face-to-face with the same soldier at the end and shoots him. That's an interesting, complex, slightly cynical take on the war. But then after that we have to return to Old Man Ryan for the final sequence. Ryan was never the audience surrogate! He was the MacGuffin! What is this framing device doing here? I think Paul is right about Schindler's List feeling like a much more personal story for Spielberg and this feeling more like he just wanted to work within a genre. He does some amazing things with that genre, but as an "all time great" I think it's hurt by the muddled story focus.

I think we’re on the same page - although I ranked this higher than Platoon and Apocalypse Now on my personal list. It felt very manipulative to me. I mean, it’s effective, but kind of cheap. I remember watching this movie the first time and it was so obvious which characters were going to die and when. It’s like whenever a character revealed anything about their past, they were painting a target on their back. I mean, when Ribisi tells the story about his mother, who didn’t predict that he was next on the chopping block? The movie (almost) seems to be aware of this too - what with Miller withholding his past from his men. Like the reason he’s survived so long is because he’s kept his past private. And once he reveals his past... I like it, but I’m not completely sold by it either. ETA: After thinking it over, I just dropped it below Platoon.

I was worried the Saving Private Ryan ep would be overly focused on minutiae of filmmaking (sound design, etc.) but am very happy with the direction the discussion did go. I pretty much agree with Paul & Amy here, but go a little further - I question this story and basically don't like it much at all. When thinking about it, I keep coming back to Vin Diesel's death scene. Instead of just being dramatically shot, Spielberg and the writer have to wrap it all in this scene with the little girl and how she reminds him of her niece and then he gets shot. To me it's like, you spend all this time on accuracy but then it's telling these emotionally manipulative scenes, which to me is the opposite of accurate. They don't fit together. Even the whole story of saving Ryan, as Paul said, it's about pleasing the mother which is a strikingly cheesy way to frame the whole thing. I'm no big fan of war movies, and the others we've seen on this list weren't my favorites either, but I'll say I vastly preferred Platoon and Apocalypse Now to this one. In fact, it's making me look at those two a little more favorably than I previously had.

I've only listened as far as the intro, but I'm going to have to go ahead and call a bit of shenanigans regarding the Mrs. Robinson Incident (MRI) from last week. I take issue with the hosts basically dismissing what was said by saying, "that's not what the filmmakers were intending" and how they wouldn't have "viewed it as sexual assault." I'm sorry, but even so, isn't applying modern day moral attitudes to historical films pretty much what this podcast has been doing since day one? The listeners and the hosts. Every episode begins with Paul specifically stating that they are watching these movies to see if they stand the "test of time" and if they are worthy of inclusion on a list of the all time best American movies. This, to me at least, suggests that there should always be at least some discussion on how the themes and plots of these movies relate to present day. To just say, "well, that's not how it was originally intended" could basically be used as the argument for EVERY movie they have discussed so far. (e.g. "Stingo was a creep." "Yeah, well that's not what the filmmakers were intending, so...") I just find it disappointing. What happens in The Graduate is absolutely relevant to the #MeToo movement - which is happening right now. In my opinion, I enjoyed the movie even more because of those parallels. And I'm not saying, and I don't think anyone was suggesting, that the whole episode should have been devoted to it, or that the hosts would even have to agree, but I feel like to completely ignore it or dismiss it a huge oversight. Also, a huge issue people had wasn't just the idea of the sexual assault, but the suggestion of "why him?" Even if the filmmakers' intention wasn't to show sexual assault, I really don't think their intention was to write How Mrs. Robinson Got Her Groove Back, either.

Right, and I think you can be manipulative without it being maudlin or cheesy or stereotypical or basic. E.T. is probably also highly manipulative, but it isn't hackneyed. Maybe there's subtle differences and we can all tolerate this to our own thresholds though. My take here is not so much that manipulation is awful in of itself, but that it severely clashes with the documentarian style and does lead to a somewhat nonsensical narrative.

I'm glad whoever did this didn't put them front and center.

Spielberg's technique papers over a lot of problems, always has.

People really, REALLY don't like it. Neither do the animals for that matter.

Yeah, I think the biggest reason it doesn't work as well as it should is that it doesn't have the right focus within the narrative. If this were the actual climax of the story then maybe it would have more impact, but at the same time the movie is busy giving similar focus to Ed Burns and Matt Damon because . . . reasons.

Oh, man. I HATED that! It had been awhile since I've seen this, and I had totally forgotten about this moment. It was just too convenient. Or, if you'll forgive me, a bit too "cutesy." It's one of those things where someone will point out, "Oh, but something like that actually happened," but it's also one of those things where writers (should) go, "Yeah, but no one will believe it." It took me right out of the moment when I was like, "Wait! Isn't that the guy..?" Like you said, I like the idea behind it, but in execution, I found it to be a bit clunky. I also agree, if you're going to take off a Spielberg movie, this is the one I would take off.

This was great and comforting to hear. Thank you Howard for doing this.

Sounds fine to me! I've started looking for Rabbit alternatives.

Honestly, I'm pretty much done trying to figure this out - lol. I'm trying to accommodate everyone the best I can. I appreciate what you did, but at this point, I'd just say let's stick to the schedule above and we can circle around and maybe do Supes 3 in June if we feel like it.

I believe the headdress is called a wimple. Has anyone ever seen nuns and Daleks in the same place at the same time?

This has nothing to do with lefties or gingers but everything to do with nuns. When my mom was in like 2nd grade the nuns at her school switched from the full habits and veil headdress ( I don't know what anything is called I'm a sacrilegious heathen ) to the more modern skirts and she ran home screaming terrified to my grandma "The nuns have hair and legs!!!!!!" I guess she thought that they sort of glided and that their headdress WAS their hair?

How the hell did I miss that? I think I was in the wrong episode! I scrubbed back and forward through that damn thing and never found it. Well in exchange let me give you Sean Clements in Netflix's LOVE at 15:50 (S03E15 - You're My Gran Torino) https://www.netflix.com/watch/80185317?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C8%2C13de4ea4-24ea-4ac5-936c-902b23119194-9331926%2C%2C Aww and now looking back at CBB I recognize Doughboy's Mitch who I never knew before... it's all so incestuous!

S5E15 at the 15:10 mark

I ran into this article on Wired about how ridiculously well The Social Network has aged, possibly more so than anyone could have predicted, and remembered this thread.

Before the update I would get messages that they weren't allowing me to share video because there was only one person (me) viewing it. Once another person arrived in the room they would start the broadcast. Now I'm not even sure they'll do that. I know I can open a public room but am not sure about it. One other alternative might be to create a private group on Facebook and host a Watch Party there. I will have to look into what that takes.