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ooh Tee Public has some funny designs too Here's them as The Beatles

And Queen

I loved it. I'm not sure what else I have to say about it, so I'm gonna post Emmett Otter gifs to warm the heart

As others have stated, what I like about this movie is it doesn’t just end with them getting everything they wanted. In a competition, as much as we may want the Otters to win, they really were fairly beaten. However, just because things don’t work out the way they planned, the ended up working out better in the long run. I think that’s a really important message for children.

Also, I just really dig how dark this movie starts with. We know Emmet's father is recently deceased and he and his mother are so poor, that he has to make a makeshift musical instrument out of a wash basin, but the loss of that might very well drive his mother out of business. Even so, there are no characters more capable, more together than the Otters. It's rather inspiring.

Well, grudlian, it only took us two years to get to your suggestion.

So, it's a winter Christmas movie and the big song everyone wants to sing is about barbecue?!? We watched...

It's been a few years since I last watched this and I'm going to get to it tonight. So, I don't have much to say now. But I think the River Bottom Nightmare Band put on a better performance.

I really liked this movie, now that I know I've seen it. It was very sweet and not a lived-happily-ever-after ending but accepting that things had improved. I was very worried when The Gift of the Magi short story was apparent in the plot but this wasn't as dark as I find Magi.

If you want the Barbecue shirt (and who doesn't?), TeePublic has you covered.

Good news? Hallmark is reinstating LGBT friendly advertising. So now we may have a counter-counter-boycott? https://www.glaad.org/blog/victory-hallmark-channel-will-reinstate-lgbtq-inclusive-advertisements-after-glaad-and-lgbtq

We've found Chuck's login.

Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, my affection for Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath, which I think the Nightmare Band is definitely inspired by, prejudice me towards them pretty heavily. I love the Jim Henson Universe version of heavy metal.

Gotti is amazingly bad and great for the show given how it was a dream project of Travolta's, which is almost a sure sign the movie will be a dumpster fire. Considering it too is on Prime for free, these two movies should be a live show double feature.

Is this a Hallmark movie? Are we breaking the boycott? And which boycott are we breaking? https://www.advocate.com/business/2019/12/13/advertiser-cuts-ties-hallmark-channel-pulling-lesbian-ad

I definitely agree that we are part of the problem. A lot of the recent years, especially the ones that are harder to narrow down to two favorites, I could have chosen something directed by a non-white man. I do like the idea of at least highlighting some movies directed by women and people of color even if they aren't my favorites. I'll at least limit myself to English language films of I don't do purely American films (since the AFI included clearly non-American movies) 2010: Submarine, The Arbor, Meek's Cutoff, Certified Copy 2011: Fast Five, Pariah, Higher Ground, Another Earth, Shame 2012: Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World, Ruby Sparks, Stories We Tell, Brave 2013: Gravity, Fruitvale Station, 12 Years A Slave, Enough Said, Short Term 12, Snowpiercer 2014: The Babadook, Selma, Beyond The Lights, Welcome To Me, 99 Homes 2015: Furious 7, Diary Of A Teenage Girl, Inside Out, Dope, Creed, Me Earl And The Dying Girl

Regarding toys for 4-year-olds, I think the caller might be stressing about it a bit too much. Like Paul said, kids that age really aren’t too savvy about what they want. To them, everything is new and you can never really tell what’s going to resonate or not. Even with my own kids, I’ve bought my kids stuff that I thought they would love only for them to be apathetic about it. Which, I agree with Paul, is almost worse than getting them nothing. I have also seen them fall in love with stuff that I never would have guessed. For example, I did a charity run a couple weeks ago and they gave us participation gifts (or whatever you call it) that included a cheap, plush Chik-fil-a cow. My youngest son sleeps with it every night I would suggest either doing what Paul suggests and ask the parents (even though that’s not even 100%) or just find something that looks cool to you. I would avoid licensed stuff unless you know for a fact the kid is into that specific character. Your best bet is to go with something arts and crafty. Something they can actually do something with. However, whatever you do, don’t get things that make noise. I have an almost identical story to Paul’s regarding a toy train. These things get so loud it actually hurts your ears when you turn them off. And when you finally get fed up and take the toy away because it’s “broken,” you have to deal with disappointed children - which is never fun.

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.

I now realize that Melancholia may not be eligible, since it's an entirely European production (with some American actors). So my replacement would be The Tree of Life.

I was truly flabbergasted that Jazzy's downfall never paid off, especially after falling in love with the mysterious, bad boy known as Paolo. 1. When Jazzy started showing up late for class after meeting her new man... I immediately thought, "Okay, here comes her addiction to pain medication that Paolo introduced her too." = Nope 2. Oh... Jazzy is warned to be safe on Paolo's motorcycle... "here comes the late night accident that will sideline her for a long time." = Nope 3. Jazzy is too tired in the morning and can't get out bed.... "Here we go! She. Is. Pregnant!" = Nope And another thing, "fuck you Jazzy" for not wanting to get out of bed towards the end of the movie. The headmistress LITERALLY told you the day before that you have no more chances of fucking up. You should have made your full character turn at that moment. Why isn't Jazzy waking up Ruby; which would bring a nice turn in their relationship.

My Top 20 for 2011 (some are not American, of course): 1. Drive (Nicolas Windig Refn) 2. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier) 3. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick) 4. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) 5. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig) 6. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) 7. Bernie (Richard Linklater) 8. 50/50 (Jonathan Levine) 9. Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard) 10. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar) 11. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen) 12. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher) 13. A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg) 14. The Descendants (Alexander Payne) 15. The Guard (John Michael McDonagh) 16. From Up On Poppy Hill (Goro Miyazaki) 17. Attack the Block (Joe Cornish) 18. Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston) 19. The Future (Miranda July) 20. Moneyball (Bennett Miller)

2010: Black Swan, The Social Network 2011: Drive, Melancholia 2012: Django Unchained, The Master

So what's everyone's 2 top choices for 2010, 2011, and 2012? I will admit that these years were in the depths of my anti-movies phase, where I mainly just watched things I previously knew/liked (like Harry Potter or Coen Bros. etc.). So a lot of my knowledge of these years either came in watching stuff later, and there's still plenty of holes. That said, here's my ideas, am curious what you guys choose here. 2010 I think I'd probably agree with Amy and go with The Social Network, though looking at my ratings, it's probably my 6th or 7th favorite film of the year. But I think above all, it can be the one that's elevated to a thing like an AFI list. My personal top-rated film of 2010 is Toy Story 3, though, and I think if they wanted to represent the series or Pixar with it, I'd be fine with that, but I do think it's odd to pick the middle film of a series, so I'm not picking that. But out of the other things that I like and wouldn't mind elevating, I'd lean to either Never Let Me Go (though unsure if it's because I like the book) or Black Swan. 2011 Whoa, looking at my rankings for 2011, I have not seen much that's worth noting. (I've mostly just rated HDTGM movies haha.) When Amy picked Young Adult, I was like, it's good but, AFI good? And I have it as my 3rd fave film of the year. Still don't think it's AFI good though. And looking across some of the 2011 films in general that I haven't seen, very few of them stand out to me. My personal best-rated films are Yelling To The Sky and Scorsese's George Harrison documentary; neither of which I'd pick for this. So I think my choice is going to be Bridesmaids too, and maybe Drive (but I'd like to watch that again before saying definitively). I basically have to punt this year for need of more exploration. Give me suggestions please! 2012 So my fave film of 2012 is definitely Moonrise Kingdom, but again it's maybe my 5th fave Wes Anderson and wouldn't choose it for this purpose to rep him or the year. There were some good blockbusters (The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, and Skyfall), even big things like Lincoln. I think though I'm leaning to picking Frances Ha to represent mumblecore first, and on the other side of that spectrum, I'll go with one of the big mainstream ones: Lincoln. I remember going to see Lincoln right after the 2012 election, for which I'd spent like 13 months working for the Obama campaign and the movie really felt right to come out then. I'm hardly a huge Spielberg guy, but this one I loved. tl;dr my choices 2010: Toy Story 3, Never Let Me Go 2011: Bridesmaids, Drive 2012: Frances Ha, Lincoln

Pour one out for Sal. Danny Aiello died last night .