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I was also curious about when this episode would drop so I asked Paul on Twitter and he said that instead of releasing an episode on Friday the 20th, they'd be releasing this Christmas one on Monday the 23rd.

Late to the party here, but for anyone still curious about the difference in violin-playing ability between the two main actors... check this out! If you don't watch the whole video at least check it out from 10:20. They demonstrate what the music would really sound like based on the visuals. Hilarious.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I just want to point out that "Strings and Dance" competitions are not a thing. Sure, there are dance competitions. But they dance to something called MUSIC, not any one particular instrument. Why distinguish strings from, say, woodwinds or percussion? Are they judging the playing or are they judging the dancing? If they're supposed to be judging the overall symbiosis between the two art forms, then who gives a shit what kind of instruments are playing the music? What happens if Group B had the best dancing but Group C had the best violinist? There were 3 judges on that panel. We would assume that at least one was a dance expert and another was a violin expert. How would they be expected to agree on anything? it's like speaking different languages. There very much do exist string competitions...there are competitions for every instrument. But the judges are experts on that instrument, and aren't going to be distracted by another discipline which they know nothing about. On America's Got Talent the 4 judges have different backgrounds or areas of expertise, but the point is they are judging based on commercial appeal across the board, not artistic merit as they would do in a conservatory. Add to these complications the fact that the three groups were performing completely different styles. In fact, the only thing they had in common was that there was a dancer and a string player. One had ballet and a back-up orchestra. The other was faux-hip-hop with an urban dance crew. With all those variables (and only three entrants) it's a miracle they picked anyone. Finally, if Johnny was so against formal classical training, why did he have "sforzando" tattooed on his arm, an Italian term only used in formal classical score-reading?

I believe this was a conservatory, modeled after Juilliard, as opposed to a performing arts high school a la Fame. Schools like Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, your state university School Music or Dance, etc. are standard 4-year college programs with a Bachelor's degree (they also offer Masters and Doctorates). Almost all of the courses are arts-related (private lessons, group classes, rehearsals, ensemble, theory, music history, ear training, etc.) but you may have to take one humanities per semester. The little Asian kid was probably a pre-college student. Most of these schools offer lessons to students younger than college age to help pay the bills and recruit for their degree programs. At a prestigious school like Juilliard the pre-college program is widely seen as a foot-in-the-door for acceptance through the highly competitive admissions process.

Don't forget that jerky violin boi was borrowing the school's bow. The lender guy literally said, "You break it, you buy it." You would think that, after he broke his own bow merely by playing Bartok, he would choose to avoid other violent bow-related activities such as, I don't know, whacking someone else's bow in a game of Fiddle Fencing.

I just added a Spoiler option to the text editor toolbar. Just select the part of your post you wish to obscure and click the button that looks like an eye.

I think that's it. The dominance of white male directors on the list is not so much about the bias of the listmakers, more about the historical lack of opportunities for anyone else leaving few available choices (especially in America, since we can't reach out to filmmakers from, say, Japan or India for this list). It's only VERY recently that the opportunities for black directors have started to match their percentage of the population. For women it's improving but still not close to 50/50 as it probably should be. And of course, better representation doesn't mean you have to stop putting white male directors on your lists of favorites! There still ought to be some of those that speak to you too!

I agree. I've tried to make the point before that I'd like the to be more people of color and women represented but I genuinely can't think of any movies I'd consider putting on the list before the 1970s. It's purely because they were shut out of the industry (though women and people of color were still making movies just in much smaller numbers and with much less support). If I listed my top 10 per year as opposed to 2 or 3, we'd start seeing more non-white men. There are a few more difficult to rank years whe I could swap out a white guy for more representation but my knee jerk choices are what they are. So, I guess that's more proof of white male control even very, very recently in Hollywood. I think the rest of the decade will be heavier on non-white men but I haven't looked too closely yet.

One thing I'm kind of curious about is representation of women and people of color. We've talked about lack of representation on the AFI but long at our best of decade lists (which still has more years to go and more people to post lists). But we aren't really putting up many directors that aren't white men and neither are Amy and Paul. Obviously, we're limiting ourselves to American films and Hollywood is still largely white men. There could be some movies we've nominated that I assume are by white men that aren't. I think it's interesting/problematic that we're all aware of this issue but our suggestions largely don't resolve issues we've all discussed.

Awesome, thanks for getting an answer to this. Can’t wait to roast some chestnuts by a trash can fire and listen to this.

2013 - 12 Years A Slave, Her The only reason I'm not picking Gravity instead of Her is because I think part of the greatness is the theater experience in 3D. I don't think a truly great movie needs to be seen in specific circumstances. That said, if you ever get the chance to watch The Walk in 3D, DO IT! The movie is not good but the actual walk between the towers is, without question, the best 3D I've ever seen. 2014 - Heaven Knows What, Whiplash Part of me would love to see An Open Secret (a documentary about child molestation in the film industry) get on the AFI list but that would never happen. 2015 - Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Inside Out 2015 is the hardest year for me. There are a ton of great movies like Green Room, Anomalisa, Tangerine, Brooklyn. I would put Grandma on the list, but I'm still angry Sam Elliott didn't get nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

My picks! 2013: 12 Years a Slave, Gravity 2014: Boyhood, Guardians of the Galaxy 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out 2013 seems especially strong to me, as I could also stump for Her or Inside Llewyn Davis or Before Midnight.

I take it you're not looking forward to the sequel, "High Cs", where a bunch of young opera singers cut loose by crashing neighborhood Karaoke bars?

It's all very lazy and confusing because there is contemporary dance, and then there is contemporary ballet. As a ballet dancer, one would assume that "contemporary" in Ruby's case meant she had to learn contemporary ballet, where you're still on pointe but not limited to the classic French moves. So maybe, giving this movie more credit than it deserves, the judges were shocked to see straight-out urban hip-hop style dancing, where the Crew weren't even on pointe.

Correction: Just bought and watched it so I have seen it.

OK, here goes. I loved the storyline overall. I was so afraid it was going to be pure hokum or so artificial as to be unbelievable. For instance, Singin' in the Rain's meet-cute is entirely coincidental. If Gene hadn't run from his "adoring" fans at that moment and chosen that route to run away and landed in Debbie Reynolds' car then the rest wouldn't have happened. As it is he only was attracted/intrigued because she gave him as much sass as he gave smarm. (One of those "She doesn't want me?!? I'll show her!" deals.) I was afraid that's where SS was heading but was happy to be wrong. I didn't much care for all the troupe interplay and stuff. Tighten it to a "love triangle/4some" for tension instead of just how long it's going to take for everyone to come to their senses. The Abigail/Orville love story was fun the first time but definitely felt tossed in just to quickly (not neatly) resolve that scenario. Also Orville fetching Abigail wouldn't have stopped the show. Not sure what he thought that getting Abigail would accomplish. (He also didn't seem to know anything about his family's influence and friends and such. He could have contacted some of his suppliers in New York and had them help look for Abigail instead of "going all over New York". That was also a lousy shot at her, blaming his trying to find her as the reason his plan might not work.) I did LOVE the stage lights number and dialogue. It was much more organic and I could see it happening in real life. Lots of discussion of the various aspects of acting, the stage, makeup, the excitement, etc. SitR has Kathy stand on a ladder while Gene tells her about all the excitement and such. He turns the fans on to breeze her hair and the fans magically make no sound when he starts to sing. SS had sound in all the right places, ESPECIALLY that wonderful solo dance with the paper and the squeaky board. Wow was that awesome. I understand Moses Supposes wanting to show up the diction coach but a whole dance number just fell a little flat. I was perfectly on board with Make 'Em Laugh being a physical number.because Donald O'Connor was showing how far you had to go sometimes but the result made the effort worth it. The whole actors-on-a-farm thing was not needed. They only had 36 hours for crying out loud before the big barn dance/Historical Society meeting! Judy just expected them to know what was needed for each task and sort-of-laughed at them when they did it wrong. They were doing you a favor by agreeing to your terms (added after the original request which is unfair). Be considerate or they might walk out too. Hers wasn't the only barn in New England. I guess the time frame is what does me in overall on repeat viewings. We went from her being flat broke to the stage folk being completely part of the farm at the time of the dance and the dance was only the next evening from the movie's opening! Everybody took to everything too quickly, on both sides of the divide. Judy really should have given the actors the condition of helping on the farm before offering to let them stay. Gene should have talked to his actors first instead of agreeing. I am glad they addressed that a little with Judy dressing him down for browbeating Abigail. I have more but we've moved on. I did buy this instead of renting it and will definitely watch it again. It's also a fun one to listen to while cleaning at home or listening at work. It's a great pick and I am grateful to Cam Bert for the introduction.

Ask not what those you know half as well as you should like can do for you, ask what you can do for the less than half of those you like half as well as they deserve.

It's like someone said "You know that Lego movie from five years ago that was such a big hit and great advertising for the brand? What if we did that, but with our knockoff toy that's about 20% as popular?" It's even combined live-action and animated. Then the second Lego Movie just barely broke even and they came up with the $5 gimmick, possibly also after this one didn't do well overseas. RT score of 17% and their Critic's Consensus is "Much like the toys it advertises, Playmobil: The Movie seems sadly destined to be regarded as a superficially similar yet less desirable alternative to the competition." FWIW, the toys appear to be German, not French, but it's not like anyone cares that much about them.

I saw a preview before Knives Out. The way the preview played it seemed like a made-up joke. They didn’t even turn the sound up like the other previews. I didn’t know it was real until I saw it listed on RT,

I missed yesterday! Double post incoming!