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Glad I finally watched this and I can check it off my pop culture to-do list. At first, I wished they had played up the mystery/detective angle a bit better, but I guess it's befitting his his "fool" image? Also, I was hoping the special fruit trees that were developed for the island was something cooler than apples And...I just have to say I kept being distracted by Howie's ear hair.

Yea the worst Bond movie! (I know a few of you disagree.) I finally watched this last night/this morning, and I don't even know. It's just SO weird and unique, I can't even get my head around it. I enjoyed it though, probably because of that. If it was this story but trying to shock or be more frightening instead of just slightly askew, I wouldn't have enjoyed it half as much. I definitely do not consider it a horror film, but in looking up some things I see that "folk horror" is a thing and I am curious to see more of this. I'm not a horror fan but these definitely would be more my bag. Here's the definition: Folk horror films are typically Horror movies that focus on the fear of pagan folklore by a mostly orthodox Christian society. The heathen traditions are presented as enticing and liberating, in contrast to the puritanism of mainstream religion, but at the same time they degenerate into increasingly darker rituals, involving sacrifices to unspeakable entities, black magic and sexual obscenities. This brand of movies takes cues from other horror genres but is fundamentally different. Unlike Supernatural Horror films, folk horror movies very rarely feature actual paranormal events, in order to focus more on the actions of the people rather than on uncanny apparitions. The evil is usually entirely human and the horror is carried out by ordinary members of the society. The so-called "unholy trinity" of folk horror films are Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973), the latter often cited as the most popular one.

Did anyone else recognize the actress Britt Ekland who plays Willow is also Mary Goodnight, a Bond girl from The Man with the Golden Gun? And guess who plays the main villain, Scaramanga?

I also think Wicker Man is a horror film. Granted there’s no blood/gore or supernatural forces, some of the scenes were genuinely unsettling and creepy af. Since we’re on this topic, Thunderball is my least favorite Bond movie. I’ve watched it the least because it’s so boring. Even thinking about it now is boring the shit out of me.

Oh, don't get me started on THE WITCH. I love, love, love that movie. And Folk Horror is a genre I really enjoy, one often unexplored. For more Folk Horror Goodness (though certainly not as good as THE WICKER MAN) featuring Christopher Lee, check out.... And as much as I adore Christopher Lee, Britt Eckland, Roger Moore, and Hervé Villechaize, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN is my least favorite Bond film. It could have been so much better. Anyway, I definitely consider THE WICKER MAN a horror film, especially because I have a rather inclusive definition of the genre.

The weird thing is that I recognize Britt Ecklund but didn't appreciate Christopher Lee with Golden Gun at all. You might want to check out The Witch. It doesn't quite fit the definition of folk horror you have here but it's pretty close. I was just okay on it but everyone horror fanatic I know can't praise it enough.

I'm two weeks behind on podcasts so bare with me as I make some comments. 1. Paul, I believe you kinda swept up our feelings about Snow White into the wrong points. While yes we did acknowledge there is some problematic things that don't hold up and can be sending out bad messages to kids, most of us had actually avoided that conversation because it's way too easy to only pick out those areas in a movie from the 1930s when obviously times have changed in the last 80 yeas. Instead our conversations really centered around whether or not this story was good enough on it's own to make the list, because to me the animation isn't the only thing worth noting. 2. I definitely got their yin & yang vibes from the get go. To me, I believe that they became one entity because of that! They filled in each other's gaps with this story so well that they became one person easily referred to as Woodstein. I think Robert Redford was easily recognizable as buttoned up and more respectful to the people they were interviewing, and very obviously respected women more, and Dustin Hoffman portrayed that sleazy womanizer (that we now know he was in real life *insert kermit tea gif here* but that's none of my business) rather well too. If Woodward was the lesser writer but the better one to gather hard provable evidence, then I think they do a great job of showing Bernstein as the direct opposite - the one who gathers some shady evidence that's harder to prove but writes much better. 3. Paul mentioned at the beginning that he didn't think this would have the same emotional weight as it did in the 70s because of the time away from Watergate, but I wholeheartedly disagree. This was a good 15~ or so years before I was born, the movie being ~13 years before, so this is not something I ever got to experience, but it would be remiss for me to say that I am not experiencing this now. They definitely draw on the parallels between then and now, but this movie honestly opened my eyes to what actually happened, and it scared me slightly to see the exact parallels to our country today. Because of this I think this movie now more than probably 10-20 years ago this movie holds waaay the fuck up. Also, it's sad to think that I learned more about what happened from viewing this movie than I did in school, because everything about American, Texan, and world history needs to be condensed into one year every time. I don't think it was actually even mentioned until I was a junior in high school, and even then I think it got so heavily condensed that I certainly didn't learn all of it.

I already am! https://letterboxd.com/almostaghost/list/bond-james-bond-007/ I have two Bond films left in my ordered rewatch

What's with the new guy? He sounds like he's going to hurt himself with his exaggerated guffawing at everything.

I need to watch the Nic Cage version. It's a comedy, right?

soup's on

I’m listening to the episode right now, and I’m trying to word this carefully as I can as I don’t want to come off as too critical. Please understand, I’m not trying to be an asshole. Just something I wanted to get off my chest. So, I love the show. I love the hosts. But what kind of disappoints me is that when they choose quotes from listeners, whether it be from here, Facebook, or Twitter, it feels like lately they’ve only been choosing from people that agree with them. I’m not saying that shouldn't ever pick posts that agree with them, nor am I suggesting that they should only pick posts that disagree. And I really don’t feel they should have to relitigate their position at the top of every episode. I guess I just feel like if you say, “Most people disagreed with us” then it’s a bit lame to go out and pick out posts that agree with you. We’ve already heard you speak for over an hour about why you think such and such movie deserves or doesn’t deserve to be on the list. And that’s great, that’s why we’re here, but in order for people to grow they sometimes need to have their assumptions challenged. In my experience, Unspooled listeners tend to be an intelligent lot and it would be nice to hear other points of view rather than the just the same points of view reiterated. Of course, this is just my opinion. Others may feel differently.

So, I made a Corrections and Omissions theme song. It is short, but probably not short enough. Peace.

I'm a huge fan of Unspooled and Paul & Amy, but I had a hard time with the dismissiveness of this episode. All The President's Men is a movie that requires patience, and I wonder if that's why the hosts found it frustrating. I've noticed that Unspooled has a sometimes less than critical enthusiasm for directors like Spielberg and Disney, brilliant artists whose seminal works are sentimental and deeply manipulative. At any given moment of Snow White and E.T., the viewer is told exactly how to feel and when to feel it. No patience is required and nothing is left to chance. The central promise of Spielberg and Disney is the escape of an eternal childhood. All The President's Men is about being a grown-up, how mundane and ordinary efforts can - with tremendous persistence - achieve extraordinary, historical results. Pakula forces us to spend a couple of hours being Woodward and Bernstein as they slog through mountains of lies and paper in a quest to get to the truth. All The President's Men is that rare mainstream Hollywood film that pulls back from conventionally obvious dramatic tropes as it asks its audience to work. That's not to say that Paul, Amy, or anyone else should pretend to like the movie if they don't. But I noticed that the cultural significance of this film - X Files, Zodiac, just about any police procedural on TV, the list goes on - got shorter shrift this time around, and received a less than fair hearing. Paul was right: Snow White is a kids' movie: it appeals to the eternal child in all of us. That's a beautiful thing, but it would be nice to see a movie like All The President's Men get credit for being brave enough to ask us to be grown-ups.