NRoberson86

It's an easy no. Glad it was only an hour and a half, though it could've been half an hour.

People I trust seem to praise Exorcist III. This podcast is doing what I like about it most: forcing me to get around to it.

Not to step on our lovely moderator, but I saw on Twitter that this will be the live versus with Tom Lennon. It's streaming on Shudder, and available for rent from the usual places.

Reference was the wrong tern to use. I wrote that furtively at work. Guess I just meant recognition. Look, there's Bowman. He didn't join the Avengers until the 19-whatever. Ah yes, Robert Downey, Jr. You see, there was a time when Tony Stark was an alcoholic and... Oh, Nick Fury? You see in Ultimate Marvel they based him on Samuel L. Jackson... Oh that guy from the credits? That's Thanos... And so on. A 19+ film franchise based on having an idea of what happens next and giving you a tiny dopamine hit when you get it right. I'm 100% with Amy on this one. These movies are not special, and I think their success reveals a lot of problems with our society. That's a tangent from my original points, but yeah. Nostalgia is dangerous. Fantasies become dangerous when you project them onto reality. A combination of both? Yikes. And yeah, you could make the argument that Hey, these are for kids. Except that now when one of these fuckers comes out there's a petition drive to release the NC-17 version with deleted scenes that actually feature a dog dying. OK, I'm exaggerating. And I know, that's more of the DC brand. Regardless, men unwilling to let go of their childhood are what drive these movies to billion dollar box office returns. I say this as a total hypocrite who saw The Last Jedi six times.

The Marvel movies are worse for this one, as it introduced the annoying smarmy Joss Wheadon dialogue into an already awful stake-less franchise. Yeah, I'm no fan of these movies. I get that they're huge. I get that they're in the culture. Yet, everything people hate about Ready Player One is also present in the Marvel films. They're entirely predicated on a comic book geek going to the movie, recognizing things the movie references, and then feeling smug superiority in explaining these things to people who stopped listening five minutes ago. Congratulations! You got the reference! The Canon is about cinema, and Marvel movies are anti-cinema. They're all about satisfying expectations and playing it safe. A hard and firm no from me. Keep this dreck out.

Forgot to say what others are already hitting on: there are better Eddie Murphy candidates.

I agree with most of Amy's reasoning on the podcast: this movie is incredibly bonkers with some good, fun scenes sprinkled in. Also, so much of this seemed to be Eddie Murphy wrestling with his personal demons. A fascinating film to watch, but definitely not canon-worthy. Also, fun trivia nugget on the cast not mentioned: this film also features two James Bond secondary villains (henchpeople?) with Geoffrey Holder and Grace Jones. Holder played Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die, and Jones was Mayday in A View to a Kill. These films are the bookends of Roger Moore's period as Bond. I should also take the time now to say that I love Grace Jones just being Grace Jones in this. My brother got to unexpectedly have a drink with her a few years ago at a pub in London--a coworker simply said, "Hey, want to grab a beer with my aunt?" Turns out that aunt was Grace Jones. He had only nice things to say about their brief meeting.

That could be. Been awhile here too. Regardless, I still think Bigelow would do best to try more things outside of the war/national security milleau.

It's the torture providing results that made me make that, admittedly, hyperbolic statement.

In terms of a fun action movie with great visuals, Point Break delivers in spades. It really did have a huge part to play in defining the action genre for the decade to come. However, there is one category that disqualifies it from the canon: performances. I'm not looking for earth-shattering acting in my action movies, but Keanu is dreadful in this. Directors had yet to realize that he works only for certain roles with very limited dialogue. We all love John Wick for this precision. John C. McGinley is also too over the top in this, putting way too much sauce on the asshole chief archetype. As for Bigelow, like Amy I want to see her masterpiece. Post-Hurt Locker, I fear though that she's become the War on Terror's Leni Riefenstahl. Detroit was a messy and failed attempt at shedding this image, and I worry that its failure will have her return to the jingoistic well.

Already voting yes as I press play on the episode. Edit: Now having finished the episode, I have to say: Amy, your suspicions are correct. You are a space alien. Loving The Greatest Showman and not swooning over The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is all the proof I need.

I'm late to the party, but yeah, this movie is garbage like The Goonies. I once had an exhausting weed dealer who loved this movie and GnR--in 2007, approaching age 35. It seemed appropriate for him then, and still does now.

I'm glad I watched this. I appreciated the insight into the life and development of young women. The ending did shock me. That said, I've been drifting to the preference of a more narrow Canon lately. It's another very good but not great nominee for me. I'm a soft no.

As a Florida boy turned New Yorker, I've come to really appreciate the value of theaters and the theatrical experience. My Museum of the Moving Image membership has been a treasure the past few years, and proximity to all their wonderful screenings will be highly factored in to my next apartment hunt. This episode stressed the importance of the theatrical experience even more. Like Amy, I'm a latecomer to Harold and Maude. I watched it on DVD last year. I'm also a latecomer to Being There. I watched a 35mm screening at the MoMI, also last year. I was left thinking of Harold and Maude as a movie not-so-deserving of its reputation. Perfectly enjoyable, but nothing truly spectacular. Being There however was a religious experience. Sure, the climate last year definitely influenced my perception of the film, but I was aghast when Amy and Nate said the laughs didn't play. The audience was getting such a kick out of Sellers. All the laughs were thunderous. I was in love with the two guys on a date behind me, one trying to laugh even harder to show how funny his favorite film was. It was infectious and electric. So my vote goes to Being There. See it in a cinema if you can. It holds up well, and it's a riot to boot. Also, as I told Amy on Twitter: I saw The Last Showman. She is 100% a space alien.

This is an easy yes. I got lucky, seeing a pristine 35mm print for my first round with this amazing film. It's never left me since. Every time I see a pool table in this bar I think back on those "eyes you can tell are blue in black-and-white," shining with a pretext of confidence that masks so much self-loathing.

This is a tough slate to choose from, but I'm going with The Florida Project. The Florida Project is very personal to me. I spent the first 25 years of my life living somewhere in the Orlando area. This film captures one of its ugliest and soulless areas with such grace and vitality. The International Drive/US-192 area was always a place you avoided. Nothing but tourist traps, budget motels, and bootleg Disney merchandise stores. A cancer growing out of the Magic Kingdom. Sure, sometimes there was nothing better to do as a teenager with a car than wade through the endless traffic to go play mini-golf with your friends. You could gawk at fanny-packed Midwesterners or beet red Britons in need of sunscreen. After 2008, the vista changed. You saw people who weren't on vacation in this area built solely for vacationing. The person handing you your putter at Pirates Cove wasn't a high schooler looking to make some extra scratch, but someone in their mid-20s, maybe their 30s. Outside the walled confines of gaudy entertainment along these roads were people visibly struggling to survive. Orlando is a place that requires a car for survival. The area surrounding the theme parks, the location of The Florida Project, is one of the few places in the city that could accommodate life without an automobile. Not that such a life is easy, as we see in the film. One thing Baker missed in his depiction is the insufferable heat. Seeing mom and daughter have to hoof it around felt extra painful to me, knowing that this is a world that exists only due to the advent of the air conditioner. You move from your car's A/C to your job's to your home's in the summer. He tried to convey this with the melting ice cream, but we could have used his characters drenched in sweat. That's the reality. Clearly from what I have mentioned above, I did not grow up living out of a kitschy Disney-adjacent motel. Yet, I did have to see my sister and her daughter living out of a place like the Magic Castle for a stretch. (No purple paint, but the lobby did have all those brochures.) This film dug into that wound, reminding me of the hardship and futility I left behind in the Sunshine State. Sean Baker reminded me of a terrible phenomenon I was doing my best to forget. This is a film about class, at a time when we need to be talking about class more than ever. 2008 devastated so much of the world around me that it made me vow to escape it. I'm now sitting in an office in Manhattan, wondering if my rent will go up, wondering how much more I'm going to pay in taxes now thanks to the new legislation. I did not grow up in the Magic Castle, but questions of class and maintaining my class in a volatile environment continue. The Florida Project forces me to confront current anxieties as well as ghosts of a very specific past. It's the best of 2017. (Also, Amy, that wasn't a giant cupcake. It's an ice cream cone! Twistee Treat is a Central Florida chain of ice creameries, all in the shape of giant ice cream cones--of various flavors. The one on 192 is strawberry. My local one was vanilla/chocolate swirl, and is forever linked to movies in my mind. It was across from the local theater, and was often a treat after the movies for me as a kid.)

I didn't get to listen in time to vote, but I did have to say: THIS MOVIE IS PSYCHOTIC.

Sorry to just now get back to this. I was on vacation. As my crankiness indicated, it was much needed. Sorry I misinterpreted you. I get that feeling, and I reckon with it a lot in terms of my desires for the future.

These were the first films I was obsessed with. Yet now, I can only justify enshrining the first part. The other two are very fun, and I love them for many reasons, but neither part II nor III can stand on its own. The first one is a perfect movie, while the other entries have many flaws discussed on the show. Off-topic note: Sorry to be the political crank, but early on in the episode there was some of the rehabilitation of Bush 43 going on. I know this isn't a politics podcast, and I really don't expect the best politics to come out of LA--sorry, the track record just isn't there--but this grinds my gears. Bush 43 put us into an unnecessary war based on a lie that resulted in the rise of ISIS and the outbreak of civil war in Syria. He normalized a surveillance state. Trump is a product of Bush 43. If you're not a fan of the blustering idiot, don't long for the previous jackass that made his ascension possible.

This was one of my favorite discussions ever on this podcast. It opened my eyes to a lot of themes I missed. I think it's a crime The Fly had to go up against The Thing (and I voted for The Thing) so any good Cronenberg deserves to get in. I easily voted yes.

This is only the second Bong Joon-ho film I've seen, the first being Okja. Not really interested in seeing any others at this point. The bad CGI takes me out of it. The pace and tone is wildly uneven. And yes, I'm talking about both films. I'm a hard no.

I'm with most people, this is fun, glad I saw it, but not Canon-worthy. Without the gimmicks this is another plodding and uneven horror film that doesn't get interesting until the last half-hour. As for the discussion on Castle being correct regarding unconventional theater experiences, I don't see much love for the whole Regal 4DX nonsense. For those unfamiliar, this is where your seat jostles, scents are released, and you get misted during the course of a film--all related to the action onscreen. To me, movie theater gimmicks like 3D and 4DX keep failing, and rightly so. At the end of the day, I think most of us want good cinema, not some novelty that adds nothing to the storytelling and emotional experience. Sleep No More and a movie theater are two different settings and mediums, and I see this separation existing for most people. The Tingler is interesting to look back on, but there's a reason the seat buzzers and dangling skeletons never caught on. It's fun to look back on a failed experiment, but there's no need to canonize the exercise.

I'm a yes vote. I was a bit weary starting this episode. I am a queer man, and I am not usually enamored with Cameron Esposito. While I agree with many of her points on queer experience, I don't find her to be very funny in delivering them and comedy is the context in which she often presents her observations. But that's just me. Don't worry, this takes a turn: I found her very good for this discussion. The queer theory lens on The Matrix recently came up on another film podcast, The Next Picture Show. I hadn't heard it before, but it made a lot of sense given what we know now about The Wachowskis. There was a lot of talk on this episode about how original this film was in terms of its concepts and themes, and in terms of solely the film world, sure. However, the idea of a physical cyberspace world existed over a decade prior to this film in William Gibson's novel Neuromancer. The Matrix owes a lot to that novel, but The Wachowskis deserve a lot for realizing its heady concepts on screen. Essentially this is a mix of Gibson's world with a veiled narrative on the closet and self-acceptance. That I can agree on. The end of the episode veered into typical L.A. politics that I find frustrating as a leftist (a few queer and/or POC will make millions! WE DID IT!) but overall I was glad to hear the queer theory reading throughout.

There is a man taking a shit with ridiculous foley work. Twice. It's a comedy.

Jesus fucking christ.