AlmostAGhost

I love Casual Gods! HUGE St. Vincent fan too. (You can see me in the crowd shot on her MassEducation album liner notes (the piano version of Masseduction).) She's a modern Bowie imo. I went to the St. Vincent/Byrne tour and it was really fun. Maybe not spontaneous enough for my liking, it was highly choreographed and robotic. But when they broke into a couple of Talking Heads songs at the end, it was a revelation. Esp for those of us who never saw TH live. I went to a Byrne solo gig once ages ago too and I don't think he played any!

Yea. Remain In Light is famous for this too. There are some traditionally structured lyrics ("Nothing But Flowers" is on Naked and it has a definite point-of-view) but mostly yea, he wanted to challenge form and what was in a pop lyric.

That's interesting, because David Byrne is famous for basically writing phrases, tossing them in a hat, and picking them out. That may be somewhat apocryphal, but he definitely tapped into a stream-of-consciousness art school vibe for a lot of his songs. He does have some stories though, "Once In A Lifetime," "Psycho Killer," "Big Country," etc. But he's avoided formula as a rule. Brian Eno brought that vibe to Bono too. Eno produced both TH and U2; it isn't Bono's natural tendency to write that way.

I don't think those two things are incompatible, are they? 1. Audience reactions can be out-of-sync to what's on screen (granted, I don't know if this is true) 2. Having an audience helps lift a band's performance

Here's an almost entirely different live TH experience... I probably love it even more than Stop Making Sense. The camera is right on stage and the crowd is going wild and it feels rawer to me.

NO MORE NON-CHECKS ON THIS

Good timing with RU Talking Talking Heads To My Talking Head podcast just starting!

Definitely more card games

Trailer Park Boys don't do it for you in the Canadian pride department?

Yea, people can't read. Kate in the Facebook made it very clear what the prompt was and there were so many that were like 'How about Boyz N The Hood?' I told her on twitter I hope she culls it down and removes all those, so when we vote on the final choice it's out of just school-based things. But that's up to her. I also think she should lose some of the things like Carrie, which fits, but may be better served saving for a horror set. Amy called it "Unspooled's school-movies miniseries" on twitter if that's any extra guidance. My main point was to just compile everything so there's a nice big overview of the genre (even if it has a wider focus than intended or necessary). Having read through all the suggestions on FB and on twitter, the ones that come up most frequently seem to have been Eighth Grade, Elephant, Book Smart, something by Linklater, any of the Hughes films, and Hoop Dreams

There's a big thread in the FB group about people suggesting nominations for the 7th movie I compiled them all in one big list if anyone wants to use it to watch things https://letterboxd.com/almostaghost/list/unspooled-school-movie-suggestions/

hmm oh yea. i'm gonna see if i can get a reply from Paul about this

Yea, looking at the image they posted, they're asking for simply a "high school movie" Hopefully they get some more international selections too. Do you guys know any good ones there?

I read it as, you didn't like I put it and 400 Blows together, so I took you dismissing one and not the other. Well now I'm curious what you think we were doing for the last two years?

perhaps i'm a hypocrite for not defending House Party in the same way as Mean Girls, i dunno. still if you aren't happy with the movie choices that's fine too, i'm not trying to argue that. i think they slot in nicely with the point of Unspooled myself, and expand our palette a bit too, at least this first batch does.

Uhh no, neither of those, I just meant 'reconsider' as in the same way we reconsidered all 100 of the AFI movies. Wasn't that one of the points of the last 100 weeks? And turns out, they only thought like half of them were still great, so it's worth doing. I'm sure 400 Blows will come out positively, but it's still worth taking a look through new, modern eyes. And your automatic shrug to Mean Girls is why it should be looked at and I think the point of season 2. Let's also look for movies that aren't traditionally filling out the role of 'greatness', and see before we decide? Maybe there's room for new definitions. Mean Girls is very popular, influential, made into a musical, etc. Maybe it satisfies, maybe it doesn't, worth a discussion. Why is it not an equal to 400 Blows? Who says? Break down those traditional definitions.

I was worried about that too and even told Paul about it; he responded that he thought the DNA of having a 'great' movie every week would still be there. That was my hope for season 2. My concern was they'd just be doing like, say, House Party on the regular. I wouldn't stick for that either. But these seem all borderline notable and worth taking a closer look. House Party shouldn't. 400 Blows? Mean Girls? Those are worth a re-consideration for a new more modern pool of 'great' movies.

Yea maybe, but I took it as more similar to Amy's other podcast The Canon, and they will decide if something is worthy of inclusion just of a vague 'great list'. They have found a lot of things for this via the AFI list, and now time to diversify. I guess we'll know after the first ep when they conclude their thoughts on Mean Girls.

I am glad we're getting other countries. The AFI isn't really part of this anymore, I don't think.

Season 2: Genre Exploration! First up, the genre of 'Back To School' Coming Of Age films 8/20: Mean Girls 8/27: Stand and Deliver 9/3: 400 Blows 9/10: Rebel without a Cause 9/17: Cooley High 9/24: Fast Times at Ridgemont High 10/1: (use #BackToUnspooled suggest the last movie) (suggestions for the last one that they mentioned: Grease, Battle Royale, Election, Dazed and Confused, Back To School)

my picks Best Picture: 2001 Best Director: Charlie Chaplin Modern Times Best Actor: Marlon Brando A Streetcar Named Desire Best Actress: Barbara Stanwyck Double Indemnity (I don't know if this is a crazy pick but as I was looking over the movies, she was calling me) Best Supporting Actor: Ian McKellan Lord of the Rings Best Supporting Actress: Ingrid Bergman Casablanca (almost picked Carrie Fisher) Best Screenplay: Spike Lee Do The Right Thing

As Paul and Amy ended the series, they're asking us to cut the top-100 to 50. They also ask for our top-10 and bottom-10. Share your ideas here! Discuss.