PatrickGaertner

I've never really been a Star Trek guy, and I agree with a lot of Amy's points that Wrath of Khan is just okay, but I think Devin and Dave's points about historical precedent has pushed me over to a soft yes. I feel like I'm almost on Amy's side, that since it's a better TV series than a film franchise that we should like, put Star Trek in a television Canon and not this one, but it has just enough historical significance to get in.

Easy yes for me. This is probably my personal favorite Scorsese film of all time, and I completely agree with everything Devin and Amy said at the end. It's a great film, and I loved revisiting it.

Really excited about this one. This may be my personal favorite Scorsese.

Hard No for me. This was the first time I've ever actually seen this movie, after decades of hearing about it, and I just don't see the appeal. To each their own obviously, but this movie was aggressively insufferable to me. I didn't feel it was scary or entertaining. I didn't see any suspense, or dread in this supposed horror movie. It's just three annoying people wandering around and ensuring us that something scary is totally happening just off camera. Which can work if done right. Movies like Jaws that use their monster sparingly and let our imagination make it worse can really become terrifying, but there was something about the way they did this that didn't work for me. It felt less like they were letting us come up with what was out there, and more like they didn't have any ideas. I get what they were saying in the episode that these were good performances, but good performances of unlikable and annoying characters isn't that impressive to me, because I just couldn't wait for this movie to be over. The only notable aspects of this movie to me are the found-footage foundation and the annoying gimmicky marketing, which I don't think makes it Canon worthy. I've bought the "Historical Context" arguments in the past, but I don't see it for this movie. To me, this is a terrible movie, and all it did historically was make more annoying found-footage movies and creating some aggressive marketing, which I don't see as a good thing, nor really relevant to if this is a good film or not. I'm sure people will hate this opinion, and more power to you if you like this movie, but I personally can't stand it.

I have to go with 'yes' on this one. I agree with basically everything Devin said, and while I didn't agree with everything Amy said, she made some great points. I just think that the movie holds up as a classic, both as a coming-of-age tale, and as an examination of nostalgia. And yes, I definitely agree that this may be because I'm a guy, and can relate with these kids. My wife watched it with me this time, and she came down pretty close to Amy. That honestly may be a huge piece of this movie. But it worked for me. Oh, and while I'm not 100% sold on Devin's take with this all being told by Gordy and his lens, I had never thought of that and found it fascinating. I may have to watch it again soon with that in my mind.

I'm going no on this one. I feel like if I saw this as a kid I would adore this movie to this day. But as it stands, I only first saw it in my mid-twenties, and this movie doesn't do much for me. It's cute and fun, but it doesn't really feel like anything special to me. Yeah, it's technically impressive, and I'm always for great practical effects, but it's otherwise just an okay movie. Bowie notwithstanding there's not much in this that makes me think it's a great film.

Man, I feel bad, but I'm a soft no. Which was exactly how I felt with Re-Animator. I checked Pennies From Heaven out for the first time this weekend, and... well it certainly was an experience. It was certainly unlike anything I've ever seen before, and hearing Amy describe it as a beautiful mess is pretty accurate. But where she loves it, it kind of left me cold. It was a fascinating movie that had a lot to say, and honestly after hearing Amy's thoughts on the movie I feel like it would make an interesting double-feature with Anomalisa, but the issues just outweighed the good sides for me when it comes to the Canon. I think I liked the movie, and I certainly liked it more than Re-Animator, but I just don't think it was Canon worthy. PS, I loved Amy's thoughts on Fantasy being used to examine mundane concepts in fresh and exciting ways.

I feel like my opinion has changed a bunch as I've aged. When I was a teenager I was all about the hippie, counter-culture John, but then kind of learned what a creep he was and lost some of that. Then I really appreciated the pop-brilliance of Paul, but I think I'm currently loving George the most, the silent genius of the group. Sorry Ringo, maybe someday things will switch over to you.

One hundred percent yes for me. I grew up watching this movie constantly with my dad, along with all the other Mel Brooks classics, and I think that this movie breaks through the nostalgia that I may feel for it to prove that it's just a tremendous film. I think it's still timely, funny, and an extremely well-made satire of Westerns that just get better and better the more I become familiar with Westerns. But I think the thing that really makes me love this film is that I believe this may be one of the first and biggest examples of breaking the fourth wall that I encountered as a kid, at least in live action, and it really changed my views on what narrative can be.

This will be a yes for me. I've always been a Chaplin guy when I think of the three most famous slapstick guys, but this is the movie that really got me to undestand Keaton. I was kind of ambivilant to Sherlock, Jr, so I wasn't sure if I was ever going to click with Keaton, but this movie really showed me how great he was. It blended the humor, the slapstick, and the drama perfectly, and despite Devin's complaints about the trains, I thought they were great and seeing a train chase was surprisignly tense and exciting.

Well this is a first. I'm voting Yes despite the fact that I personaly can't stand this film. It's massivly important for all the reasosn that Devin and Amy explained in the podcast, and I can't in good conscience vote no on it. But man. This movie doesn't work for me at all. And honestly, having heard the podcast, I wonder if it's because I saw it too late. I've seen it twice now, once a couple years ago and this weekend, but I never saw it in highschool or college. And that may be why I kind of find the movie insufferable. It actually reminds me a lot of the Noah Baumbach movies that I also don't dig, where I just find everyone kind of annoying. They're just complaining about how life sucks in your twenties and you don't want to make decisions and grow up. And I don't really like that. I've only seen this movie when I've been either married or engaged, and living in a house. I had made my decisions and moved on from this stage of my life, so it's never really rubbed me the right way. Plus there's the fact, like Amy mentioned, that his is a massivly important film for young women, which isn't an experience I'm familiar with, so that never really dawned on me. My wife and all of my female friends don't like this movie, so I never really had experience with women that were enamoured with this movie, so I hadn't thought of it in that way.But that said, the movie deserves to be in the Canon for historical reasons, and my own personal thougths don't outweigh it's importance.

This is probably the hardest versus episode we've had yet. I love both of these movies. Paul Thomas Anderson is brilliant and I love every single one of his movies. But in the end, I'm going with There Will Be Blood. I love Boogie Nights. I've loved it every time I've seen it. It's a fastinating movie that I will continue to watch over and over again for the rest of my life. But There Will Be Blood is one of my favorite films of all time. And it honestly may just be when it hit me. I saw it for the first time in college, when I was just starting tor really think about film and stories in general, and it blew me away. I had never seen a movie quite like this until I saw it. The rise and fall of Daniel Plainview is one of the most engaging, dark, twisted, and beautiful stories I've ever seen. This may be my favorite portrayl of a villain of all time. So while I would love to see every Paul Thomas Anderson movie in the Canan (maybe not Sidney) I have to go with There WIll Be Blood over Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights is a great movie that guarantees a good time. There Will Be Blood changed my life. It's not really a contest. To Me.

This was a hard one for me, but I'm a soft No. I've never been a horror guy, and this was the first time seeing this movie. I feel like if I had seen it with some buddies late at night in high school I would love this movie, but it just didn't do anything for me. Devin came really close to winning me over to a soft Yes when he was talking about the idea of letting movies in because they're fun, and we don't pay enough attentin to fun movies, but I just agreed with Amy too much on this one. It just didn't think it was good enough to get into the Canon. Sorry Devin, I gave it a shot, but it just didn't gel with me, and I didn't see any extenuating circumstances to push it into the Canon.

I'm voting no on this one. Personally, I'm not an anime guy. Yeah, I know they tackle the idea in this episode that this may not really be anime, but whatever, I'm not into Japanese animation. It's just not for me. Generally the people I've interacted with who are really into anime are the most insufferable people I've ever met, and that's probably spoiled me on the genre. And I know people have told me that Miyazaki is different. "He's the Walt Disney of Japan," is usually what I get told. And I'll admit, I do like Spirited Away quite a bit. I've tried. I've checked out anime shows, other anime films, and none of it clicks. So I was hoping that maybe this would be interesting along the same way as Spirited Away. But it wasn't. This movie was a room temperature glass of water. It wasn't even that I didn't like it, it was kind of nothing to me. It looked pretty, but it didn't connect to me on any way. Hulk had some interesting point in the episode, but none of his opinions resonated with me. Yeah, I agreed with Devin about all the weird panty stuff and and obnoxious kid with the glasses that just stalked Kiki and pestered her into talking to him like a real creep, but even taking all that stuff out of it, this movie just did absolutely nothing for me. If you like it, good for you, but it's not for me, and even if it was, I don't think it deserves to be in the Canon.

Almost Famous

It's certainly not my favorite Carpenter, and it's not even a movie I even really love, but I still have to go with 'yes." I hadn't seen this movie since college, when I really liked it in a "yeah man, we're all being oppressed!" type of way, and it's crazy how well this movie fits in now. The corporate control, the violence, it all just mashes together to be a movie that's getting shockingly more prescient as it ages. I would never have though to look at it through the mass-shooter lens until Devin and Amy mentioned it (because I'm dumb I guess) but it's ridiculously accurate and really makes the movie that much creepier. Like I said, it's not my favorite, but I think it still deserves an entry into the Canon.

Easy yes for me. This is my favorite Burton film, and probably my favorite Depp film. It's a fascinating little look at passion, and the need to tell stories. As someone who would love to do nothing more in life than tell stories, and am not doing a good job at that, this movie is incredibly powerful and moving. One of the best movies ever made about movie-making and creativity, it hands-down belongs in the Canon.

I went with Some Like It Hot. And I'm going to be honest here, I don't really like Marilyn in either. She's okay. And she certainly has a very naturalistic acting style that can endear you to her ditzy characters, but after revisting Some Like it Hot and checking out Gentlemen Prefer Blondes for the first time, she really didn't do much for me on either film. So it came down to the rest of the films. And while I really like Jane Russell in Blondes, that movie just didn't work for me. Musicals from this era can be very hit or miss to me, and this one was a bit of a miss. Whereas Some Like it Hot gets better and better to me each time I see it. It's hilarious. Everything works great in Some Like it Hot. It's an amazing and hilarious movie. Amy argued for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes really well, and I totally understand a lot of her point, but to me personally, this wasn't even a contest. Some Like it Hot will win every time.

I'm voting yes. It may be because I'm kind of sick, but I don't even really have anything to say about the movie. It held up well, and I agree with basically everything Amy and Devin said this week. I dig it.

This is a tough one for me. I really agree with Devin that it's not a particularily well made film, but I do kind of give it a pass for being such an early film in Singleton's career. This thing that really works for me though, and what pushed me over to a yes, is the historical importance. Hell, the first time I saw this movie was in a criminology class in college, where my professor, a person who researches and has written papers about crime and gangs, said that this was the best representation of life in the ghetto, and the struggle of avoiding gangs when you live in this world. It's important. I don't know if I particularily like the movie from a cinematic standpoint, but I think it's Canon worthy.

I was super on the fence about this one going into the episode. I used to love this movie when I was a teenager, and this viewing I was really feeling how tarnished the movie feels now that culture has appropriated so much of it's style. It feels kind of hokey now, which is absurd, but so much of it's bite and shock have been taken and used by so many people that it felt hackneyed, when it's just foundational. Devin's arguments and the historical context have pushed me over the line, although I'm going to say it's a soft yes. And man am I glad to hear an episode where they seem at each other's throats. We've had a lot of agreement lately. Although I really want to hear an episode that Amy is stumping for and that Devin can't stand, we haven't had one of those in a while.

I think it would be really interesting to look at these two movies, which I feel kind of jump-started the idea of a Slasher movie. Both feature knife-wielding serial killer that investigates their psychology more than something like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. I feel like these movies are oddly comparable and could create a pretty great debate between Amy and Devin.

I'm voting yes on Marathon Man, but I feel like after the first time I saw the movie, I would have been more in line with Amy. Seeing it on my TV it didn't really blow me away, and just didn't work for me. But last summer I got to see it on the big screen with a packed audience, and for some reason it all clicked for me, and I loved it. It's so tense, frightening, and well paced, and something about seeing it with people really made that come out for me. Yeah, Babe is still a fairly dull character, but there was something magical about seeing the dentist scene on the big screen that really made it all come together for me. And that scene with Olivier wandering around the diamon district while that woman screams in horror that her own personal devil may be escaping yet again? Harrowing. And checking it out again this weekend on my TV kept some of that magic for me, and led me to vote yes on the Canon. Side note, the novel is really good as well, but I wouldn't recommend reading it soon after seeing the movie, because they're so similar the novel loses some of it's power.

I actually agreed a lot with Amy in this episode. I'm going to vote yes, but a soft yes. A yes that's more based on the historical significance than the actual movie. The movie was certainly well acted, and amazingly emotionally impacting, but for some reason the film itself didn't quite click with me. This was my first time seeing the movie, having grown up with it as "the gay cowboy movie." And it was much more than that. It was this weird punchline for most of my life. I'm 27 and the movie came out when I was in highschool, which isn't exactly your most broad-minded time in life, so I just kind of ignored it. And I'm glad I finally saw it. It's a very important movie, and I agree with Devin, a much better movie than Carol while dealing with a very similar topic. But the thing this movie really has on it's side is the historical significance. It really is a huge mile-stone in America being okay with a gay couple, and seeing that it's all just about love. It's really sad that most of the country is still struggling to realize that it doesn't matter what other people are doing, it's their own business, and this movie is a really interesting artificat from a time where things were starting to change. I'm not sure why this movie didn't quite work for me though. I thought it was good, just not great. But who knows, that could just be my own personal preference, which shouldn't get in the way of the fact that this movie does belong in the Canon.

I would vote yes for Pather Panchali. It was my first time seeing it, and my first ever forray into Indian cinema. It's a fascination slice of life from a culture I know next to nothing about, but the story it told was so universal and believable that I completely identified with it, and understood everything that was happening. The film practically felt like a documentary, it seemed so much like real-life and was just a beautiful film.