AlmostAGhost

I would say it's probably the acting. But yea I'm not sure that's enough. Hepburn is incredible in this, shifting her character in subtle ways. She's totally different depending on who she is talking too. I found it quite impressive. But a film does need much more for "greatness"; it's not a list of best acting performances.

First I'll say, I haven't listened to the ep yet, so maybe it will convince me one way or another. But, I totally loved this movie. And I'm not sure at all if it should be on the AFI list. It's really messing up my current rankings of the films. I'm really not sure anymore what this list is for. It took me 61 movies to have an existential breakdown.

Yea I saw it on there when I was poking around, but some of the more famous musicals I figured most of you all have probably seen. Also was considering Hair and Little Shop of Horrors (both versions). Coincidentally I watched Corpse Bride last night so I also almost picked Sweeney Todd. But I decided something maybe a tiny bit more esoteric and increase the chance more people haven't seen it... and also this one has Sophia Loren so that swung my choice.

We've been picking a lot of more obscure, b-movie, HDTGM-style musicals lately and I wanted to go with something maybe a little more impressive? I haven't seen it either so we'll see if that worked out.

Amazon Prime works for everyone? My choice is streamable for Prime members

Just got a ticket! There are still seats available. Anyone here going? I kind of wish it was a movie from the list, but I'm going to support the show and Paul & Amy. Gonna be fun. https://drafthouse.com/los-angeles/show/unspooled-live

I just came back from this I don't know if it will be an actual Unspooled episode or not, though they did say it was recorded. It was a lot of video clips though, so it may not be the most scintillating in audio form? Still, it was a good time. Won't spoil it too much but Amy gave a fun presentation on the history of a famous stuntman Yakima Canutt (we've seen him Gone With The Wind, for example). Then a modern-day stuntman told some stories about doing stunts nowadays (for Michael Bay, hmmm). Then Paul showed some stuntwork clips from Cool As Ice and Gymkata and I was like, "the Paul Sheer movie universe has collapsed into itself." They said they may do these type of live shows a bit more too, so LA people keep an eye out! Also I had the official Unspooled drink which was pretty tasty

I pretty much agree with @sycasey 2.0, and also voted for it to stay. Looking at my rankings of the 60 movies so far, it is right on the borderline for me as a film that I would keep on the list. So it could easily go the other way for me if say Casablanca or other films shove it down at all. So it was sort of "yes I guess so" vote as opposed to any strong stance. I think as a noir, there's just so many better ones out there after it (a few of which we've seen on the list). Amy mentioned the lack of a sense of location and that stuck out to me too. Early movies rarely have that, but when you look at how the cities are characters in Vertigo or Chinatown or whatever, it's really missed here. I never loved Citizen Kane quite as much as most people, and mainly it's because I never really forget I'm watching a film. I'm not sucked into it in that way the best movies pull me in. That's sort of what happens here too, actually. I like them both, they're well-written and made, but they sort of keep me at a distance a little more than I want the 'best' movies too.

8/15 The Maltese Falcon 8/22 Philadelphia Story 8/29 Network 9/5 Lawrence of Arabia 9/12 On The Waterfront don't know when the live episode I'm going to tomorrow will slide in there tho

Yea, not direct refs. As both Sycasey and Amy indicated, there probably isn't one of those. Pulp Fiction is surely a descendant of Nashville too though, so I'm going to continue to double-down on 22 Short Stories being sort of Altman-esque.

I was born in '76 and I like it a lot, but I'm also a giant NBA fan and have been since I was little and think it's fun for that. I haven't seen it in a little bit though. It's definitely just a product placement commercial at its core, though - but certainly there are worse offenders at that too.

Yea, doing Space Jam in Chicago seems kind of crazy. Maybe it's along the lines of "does this movie we loved as a kid still hold up?" angle? The two Seattle movies seem insane, judging by the posters only. I look forward to those!

I'm #TeamSanity on this film. It's not that fun to sit through. There's good characters and some great scenes, but it just doesn't add up for me. Paul did sell it pretty well, and I think critics like it because it's fun to dig in to after the fact, but I feel like the #TeamFred side here is a bit too focused on the technical process on display.

Sure ok, less short story-ish in Nashville, but it's still a ton of characters somewhat interwoven to tell the tale of a city. I still think it works!

22 Stories from Springfield seems like it may have been influenced too

Is this gonna be another Rockula situation: one that demands HDTGM to cover it?

I feel sort of convinced by both sides of the debate, and found this episode a blast to listen to. On the other hand, somehow, the two sides of the debate as presented have made me like the movie even less than I already did.

As I said on my Letterboxd, it reminds me of the absurd improv podcasts I listen to all the time. "What's a one-word phrase and a movie style?" "'Leopard' and romantic comedy". It's an Improv4Humans sketch and I'm here for it! I'm charmed by this movie. I like Hepburn's annoyingness, it makes me laugh a lot. I will probably watch it many more times over the course of my life (last night was my 2nd viewing). But.. I voted no. I just don't get how or why the AFI gravitated to it. (It didn't win Oscars, didn't make good money, and had pleasant but not great reviews. What were voters basing this on?) Most of the comedies Paul mentioned, I wouldn't put ahead of this one, tbh, but I do think there are a ton of comedies I'd place over it. This one was amusing but I just don't think it quite had the comedic craft of the best ones of all-time (we've seen that craft in City Lights and Duck Soup, for example). What I think the discussion here comes down to is, it's hard to judge comedies on this sort of historical level. "How much you laugh" should be the ultimate guide for a comedy, but that's too different for everyone, and ignores most other clues of what makes good cinema. But then if you judge stuff like this like you would a more important drama, it falls apart for lack of logic or weird acting.

What movie is next up?

Oh haha, i just woke up so I didn't catch on

Hmm that seems unlikely to me - you don't usually know songs until they come out. But maybe Bruce played some of them live first. Still what I meant was, they basically told his story before he became a megastar, which is interesting.

Also maybe it's worth pointing out, this movie came out a year before Born In The USA made Bruce a super-mega-star. Obviously, he was still pretty big with "Born To Run" and stuff, but "Glory Days" and all the singles from USA came out after this movie.

Yea that's odd. Berenger should have been seen as the great lost musician! He was the Brian Wilson of this group. Even though they were all dead rips of Bruce and nowhere near what anything in 1964 would've sounded like, the music was pretty great.

The point seems to have been to steal everything from Bruce Springsteen