JonathanCovey

(Apologies if someone already said this.) To Amy's argument about "Khan" borrowing from other works (i.e.Moby Dick) and not having an identity for itself, my counterpoint: hip-hop. Hip-hop was built on a DJ taking a sample from a certain song and looping it over and over while also combining that beat with a sample from another song to create a whole new song. All while an MC raps poetry on top of it. Does Public Enemy have their own identity even though their music is made up of pieces of other artists' work? What about Grandmaster Flash or GZA or Dr. Dre or Kendrick Lamar or Madlib? To keep the argument in film, what do you say about Tarantino? His entire aesthetic is an amazing amalgamation or some of the greats in cinema from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. You could say the same thing about Steven Spielberg only swap out the decades with 30's and 40's and 50's and so on. The point still stands that even if you're lifting direct quotes from some other work (which, granted, "Khan" does a bit too much), that doesn't really mean it's not making its own point. "Khan" is using Moby Dick and Tale of Two Cities to tell its own story. Those quotes are there to support a larger theme, much in the same way Kendrick Lamar uses beats from old jazz standards or how Tarantino uses crash zooms in "Kill Bill". It's not unoriginal or "lazy", it's purposeful and apt.

While I really enjoyed the movie, I'm with Amy on this. Specifically when it comes to having some "standards" to this incredibly, super for real serious list of the Greatest Films of All Time we call The Canon! But really, she's got a point. Not every fun movie deserves to be held up above any other movie just because it's fun. The Force Awakens was fun, but I don't want it in the Canon. Neighbors is fun, but it shouldn't be Canon worthy. This list should be a "best of the best" kind of thing. There are movies that are legitimate masterpieces that are just as fun as Re-Animator and lumping those greats with the not-so-great-but-still-really-goods kinda ruins the whole point of this stupid... I mean profound list, I think. So, while I agree with Devin in that fun could definitely be a factor in what should get into the Canon, I don't think Re-Animator has what it takes. It is fun, but not fun enough to single it out from anything else. If we're going to look at a film that is so goddamn fun that that in and of itself is enough, the gold standard should be something akin to Buckaroo Bonzai. Even then, I'm not sure if that one's a sure thing and it's one of my favorite movies. So, with that, I say nay. Edit: Also, I disagree with Amy on comparing this movie to Ed Wood movies. This is a *good* movie, not a "good" movie.