AlmostAGhost

Here you go, they were on twitter

Oh oops my bad! Yea, not as a replacement of our weekly things. I enjoyed seeing what weird holiday movies everyone dug up, thought we could keep it going on different ideas.

I mean, the way I'm picturing it is there's no commitment. Just do it as you can. Certainly not to get in the way of HDTGM, Unspooled, Musical Mondays at all. No coordination, or rules. I enjoyed having Holiday movies to fill my time/mood in December and wanted to carry that on. Anyway I'll start a thread tomorrow if we do want to share any thoughts on films watched.

There's plenty to choose from still... I have noticed a whole mess of Clint Eastwood films on Amazon Prime I'm stoked to check out. I'd say, make the pick and if anything, we can adjust the 'watch by' date a week when we find out on Friday what's up for sure

Even though nobody seemed super interested, my theme for January is going to be cowboy/westerns. Follow me on Letterboxd to see what movies I dig up. (I'm basing this off Unspooled's first two picks for January being westerns. I'm going all in this month.)

I still think they should go through that full 400-film AFI ballot from which the top-100 were chosen, but yea some international stuff would be quite welcome on my end

If TCM wants to be on top of things, they should match up with Unspooled. Like put all the Mr. Tibbs movies up there this week, maybe another Jewison movie or two, and they'd monopolize my viewing for sure. Throw Searchers and a handful of John Wayne classics up next week, etc. I always wish I had more time to explore the movies adjacent to the AFI/Unspooled (by director or content), but we only get a week before the next movie and that would be so handy. Also when are Paul & Amy going to host some programming on there? And Paul & June & Jason too. There's some untapped potential for TCM! Call me TCM

I would argue the opposite: this is still wildly relevant today. People still look at people of color and women in their jobs as they did Mr. Tibbs - a range of disdain to low expectations. Very little has changed. I mean, he got arrested solely for reading while black, which still to this day happens constantly (and have triggered the Black Lives Matter movement). What I like about the movie is what they said in the episode: it's not full of monologuing or preaching or whatnot. I found the police case to be realistic in that regard too -- instead of showing a racially charged murder to condemn racism, the movie focuses on a regular murder and shows the racism all around that. It's in the autopsy, in the coworkers and boss, in the victim's wife, in the interrogation suspects. If Tibbs showed up down there and solved a KKK murder case or something, that starts to push into melodrama. Instead, it reflects reality, showing us how deeply racism is embedded in the everyday routine. That's also why I believe it gets a balance in not just being about racism. It is about a murder case. The comments on society just come along with that.

from twitter

I had never seen this movie before, and I loved it. It was very satisfying, like slapping an old racist. I even liked it as a procedural. There's a few styles of procedurals - and this is the sort of old-fashioned version, in how the viewer doesn't know what it is going on and so you have to just take the evidence as the detectives discover them. It can feel random or convenient. More modern versions either let the viewer puzzle it out via clues, or just flat-up show you the crime first, so you're ahead of the detectives (cat & mouse style). I don't really have a preference myself, and when the focus is pretty much purely on the detective the old version is more than fine.

So while we wait, I was wondering... do people want to do "theme months" like how a few of us were binging holiday Christmas romance movies through December? I know a few you were doing horror movies in October too. We could come up with a new theme every month. We don't have to watch the same stuff, no set amount, nothing strict: just in your spare time and maybe we just have a thread to share what we've found/like/dislike? I liked having a theme to make my choice of what to watch easier lol. Themes could be anything: genres, countries, "starts with a certain letter," an actual specific theme, anything that has enough choice to keep it interesting. Should we keep this going every month?

As I've been watching all these terrible mostly-charmless holiday movies, I think we need to move to get Earwolf improvisers in more of these. They'll still be pretty bad movies, but the charm level will certainly improve a million times. Danica and Lacey are just stealing jobs from Wild Horses if you ask me.

12/27 - In The Heat Of The Night 1/3 - The Searchers 1/10 - Unforgiven Let's kick off 2019 with some cowboys

Was that the Joy Division one? That was awesome

Depends if in those 2 minutes you know you're going straight to the bone zone or not

I once saw my neighbor, who I just would amiably small talk to around the building, unexpectedly at lunch during work when we didn't realize we worked so close. We didn't acknowledge each other because we were both confused by it and were like 'huh what' until we brought it up a few weeks later. I sort of agree that Cinderella isn't the most interesting of fairy tales. I'm also sort of always wishing for an explanation as to WHY the Fairy Godmother helps her. I guess just because she's a good person? But I need more back story about the Fairy Godmother. The adaptions I've preferred are maybe a little darker in showing just how abused/miserable her life is at the beginning (the 1914 version I posted does this well, they show her sleeping on sticks and stuff). None I've seen really make me FEEL the love between Cinderella and the Prince though. It just happens because. I feel like there's a lot of room to flesh this fairy tale out but nobody really does.

Quick someone set up a rabbit screening of something for right when Gigi gets home

My deep dive into Cinderella adaptations led me to this, which so far is my favorite. It's a silent version from 1914 starring Mary Pickford https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Cinderella_(1914).webm

I think there was probably a conscious decision that race doesn't exist at all, which just goes to show that it does matter to some extent

Yea this happens in every version of Cinderella I've seen (and I watched 6 different ones this weekend haha) so it's just part of the lore. I keep waiting for at least one version to explain it.

Yea I did watch it in the '90s and then again last week (though it took me like 3 or 4 sittings). I don't love it, but I think it's ok. Very basically, I think my criticism is the lack of artistry/poetry in the filmmaking side of it. It does feel to me less like a movie open to arguing about though, for sure. I feel like anything critical I think, I have to also go "but I do recognize this and that..." But then, that does sort of match how I feel about it -- I do really like the emotional tale of Schindler and how it builds to his ending scene, but really am not so sure I'm behind the filmmaking used to tell it. A lot of positive reactions note how beautifully shot the film is, but I just don't think it's interestingly shot at all. I get that being 'plain' or making it feel like a documentary/reality is a valid way to go, so I don't particularly hold this against the movie. But I don't know what people are seeing there?

Along those lines, I have found there's quite a few much more nuanced critiques out there than the Mamet one brought up on the show, which are quite thought-provoking about the nature of art. https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/85945/listless

Yea this was amazing, a great cap to the year

Nah that's still your phone, which is fine. I think we mean watching on the back of the seat in front of you, where films are edited, squished into the square, seemingly lower resolution, etc.