Head Spin

They Live is an all-time favorite for me, and it sounds like that way for many in the thread. I'll listen to the episode with an open mind, but I may already be a hard yes.

There was another thread that contained the no-Kurosawa angst, but nothing wrong with another in my book. He's my favorite, and there's plenty of Canon-worthy material to choose from besides Seven Samurai or Rashomon. High and Low, Stray Dog, Yojimbo, Ikiru, and Ran would all be great picks; Kurosawa sometimes gets lumped into people's "dry foreign director" camp, and the first three of those in particular are as entertaining as they are representative of Kurosawa's greatness. I'm sure they'll get to him eventually, but I'm plenty happy to rock the vote.

If you were to try and pick THE Tim Burton film for consideration, what would it be? There are several good candidates. Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, Nightmare Before Christmas... I think mine might be Ed Wood. There's something straightforward about it that really captures Burton's whole deal. It might be his best, too. (EDIT: Haven't rewatched it yet).

I'm super ignorant about South American film, but I just want to chime in that I really love City of God.

I can't stand Birdman. And I'm far from alone on that. It's the film equivalent of the "cool" professor in a leather jacket trying to "blow your mind" with reality. And probably to cheat on his wife with a student.

Man, I felt claustrophobic spending time in the weird gender politics of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It's strange; stuff like Russell's dude-ogling musical number with the Olympians feels progressive today, but everything else...we've still got a long way to go with gender inequality, but watching this movie makes you appreciate what you have (and yes I know it's a heightened reality). The 50s especially have that really creepy thing where men and women romantically act like infants to each other. Marilyn baby talking Esmond while he acted like a pouty little boy to her is the stuff that dry heaves are made of. I didn't hate Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but a weight lifted when it ended. Is anyone else having trouble evaluating these movies on their comedy? I didn't feel like the comedy was bad in either, but I have to admit that Some Like It Hot was more a movie where I just smiled through the comedy. It's not the movie's fault, but 50s comedy doesn't really age well to me. Some Like It Hot has a ton going for it, and I did laugh at parts, but I really didn't find it all that funny and I don't think it's the film's fault. Comedy is just rooted in the moment. Or maybe it's more that I enjoyed the comedic performances and scenarios and physical stuff of Some Like It Hot but the jokes didn't do much for me. Idk, I'm just sort of parsing my feelings on the comedic stuff. I did like it a lot.

I still wonder about that one. I kind of get the feeling that it isn't leaving the mark that a lot of people thought it would. Still too early to call, probably, what its legacy will be. I personally think it's a solid, good movie, but I don't think I'd put it in the Canon. It's not "just a gimmick," but I felt like it only had some really powerful material for a few tiny scattered moments in the runtime.

Haha, that's clever. I'm into it.

Thanks for the reply, thejlar. I enjoy the discussion too. It's possible that we've already reached the "agree to disagree" portion of it, so forgive me if my pressing on feels pointless. It's hard for me to draw the line between when a film's made a mistake and when its content just doesn't agree with me. I'm no film critic, and I bet they have specific vocab words for it. For instance: this was my second time with this movie, and I didn't like it the first time. Last time the character of McManus was obnoxious. This time I thought it was fun and complimented the movie's tone. But in your first post you called Byrne's performance "dead-eyed," and said it did nothing for you. I was captivated the whole way through. In fact, the only way I agree with your argument in the second post about how the twist prevents emotional investment in the characters is that I did feel a little cheated in the case of Keaton. Now, I also enjoyed what it left behind, which is that Kujan's personal mystery about the character of Keaton remains unsolved, but even that may be a time when the ambiguity falls short of what a more straightforward story could have done. Now, we had two opposite reactions. The McManus example of myself is a matter of my experience. I disliked it once and liked it twice. It agreed with me this time. In our Keaton example, what do we make of that? You'd call it a flaw and I'd call it a success of the filmmaking. What's a flaw and what's just "not your thing?" This question almost had me stop at "agree to disagree." I don't have an answer to it. I'm fine with you not liking a movie I liked. And I don't think it "matters" on an emotional level to either of us if we disagree about how the film is flawed. But for our interest in the discussion of it, I'll continue even though it has to, by necessity, at least speculate about how you experienced a piece of art, which I don't presume to know at all. My second post was a response to a synthesis of several points in the thread that claims that the twist was an example of "weak construction." Someone else called it lazy, not you. But you said that "Singer essentially ends his film with “It was all a dream,” one of the worst ways to end anything." That bit of it was for you. I'd like to keep it to your second post, but we butt up against that "flaw vs. experience" problem (I really wish I knew how to describe that better). You say that the twist hurts the film, and you disagree in two main ways. First you say that so much of the film's content is from Verbal's perspective that those huge sections of the film are rendered pointless, or at least impossible to care about without any anchors of corroboration. I just don't see how the film's ambiguity about the truth makes it less interesting. You liked the Shutter Island twist because it explored and expressed DiCaprio's mind. I like The Usual Suspect twist because it's a functional creation of Verbal Kint. It's his own work and his own mental expression knit together from bits of truth and lie and names from a cluttered bulletin board. Even if it contained none of the truth - and it's silly to think that he didn't use portions of real events for his con - it's interesting in either case because it's something he thought up for Kujan. You're not meant to have solved the mystery at the end, you're meant to have enjoyed finding a new one in the exact same place. We know something happened, and it's interesting even if Kint (for some reason) avoided 100% of the truth in his testimony. But that's minor to your second point, where you claim that the twist precludes the viewer from investing emotionally in the characters, since they're pretty much all within the Verbal testimony zone. Now this doesn't just make me think "I don't know what to say, I was invested before and after the twist." Having read both of your posts it leaves my totally unclear about how you felt about The Usual Suspects. In your first post you run it down pretty thoroughly. First you run down the construction of the plot and the twist. Then you run down the cinematography as vacant and poorly lit, and usually guilty of poor camera placement. Finally you run down the "atrocious" performances, ending with Baldwin's (after stopping yourself from running down the script too). Actually you say that Baldwin's character and performance undermine the plot which undermines the twist. You even go on to reemphasize in the second post that "As a viewer, I can pretty much take or leave the plot. I don't actually care about what 'happens.'" You couldn't be more clear that this film failed on every level for you. But your first post, on its face, is fine. I disagree almost entirely, but you give examples, and it's as fair to claim flaws in a film as it is for me to claim strengths in them a few posts later. But in this second post your respond to me defending the quality of the twist, and elaborate on how it "harms" the film, by claiming that the twist makes the characters impossible to invest in by eliminating proof of their actions. You can't argue to me that the twist harms investment in the characters when you personally claim that the performances, script, and characterizations turned you all the way off before the twist. You specifically say that a character (Baldwin) ruins the plot, and then turn it around to say the plot ruins the characters in this second post. If you were loving the movie up until the twist and felt betrayed by it then fine. If you knew the twist going in and it made it hard for you to get into it then fine. But you couldn't be clearer that these characters repelled you. This movie repels you. You can't claim to me that the movie's twist harms investment in the characters when I was invested throughout and you were uninvested throughout. That's not a flaw, that's a difference in reaction. And that's fine, but that's not the movie's problem. I think this movie either has you or it doesn't. And although the 2:1 voting in the film's Canon favor shouldn't be considered evidence in a discussion, it makes it hard to believe all of your points about how the film makes it impossible for people to invest. They did. The bottom line is this: As an outsider, I'm taking both of your posts together and getting the impression that you're mistaking your bad experience with this film for flaws within the film. And I'm sure as hell not saying that this film's flawless because holy shit; nor am I saying that you're wrong top to bottom. But I think somewhere you crossed the line from fairly to unfairly critiquing the film on its merits. It's fair to not like this film at all, but it's unfair to paint this film as so extremely flawed and in contradictory ways. I stand by my defense of this movie and of the twist's strong construction.

Jodorowsky's Dune is a really special movie to me. It's great in many ways, but it's a beautiful enough thing to just capture the weird charisma of Jodorowsky. Haven't seen Amour or Spring Breakers yet. I'll put 'em on the list.

I'm looking forward to seeing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I've seen Some Like It Hot once before and wasn't super into it. I love my WIlder generally, so I hope a rewatch gives me a new perspective on it.

I was out of state all last week, so I missed this discusion as well as the Boyz In Tha Hood episode. I probably should continue to miss this one, since I can't decide either way, but I wanted to say so. I do love the idea of being forced to choose between two. There's a fun tension to that. But I'm also with the others that if you want to be invested in what goes into the Canon, then you're bothered when an Animal House is "forced" into the Canon just because one has to go in. When I can't decide, I don't vote in the poll, and in fact I'm doing it in this one. Maybe that's an implicit vote for keeping it as is. ...But I have a proposal! Tell me if I'm full of shit with this one. On a versus episode you put up TWO polls: One for the versus, and a separate one for "should we put neither in the Canon." 1) The first poll would act as normal. Whoever gets the majority of the votes wins and goes into the Canon 2) The second poll would determine, independently, and without splitting votes, whether neither deserve entry. If you think one or both do, you vote against it. If you think both options fall short, you vote for it. The innovation is this: The "Neither" vote requires more than 50% to pass: it can be as low as 60% and as high as 75%. Maybe 80%. Let's say it's 75%. It's Animal House vs. Revenge of the Nerds and both polls go up. Everyone votes for which one they think is better no matter what. Then they separately vote whether both should be tossed out or not. This 2nd vote wins in a landslide 90% vote because both of those movies are average-to-awful. If either movie in this system has a fighting chance at support then it won't pass the high "Neither" threshold, and no votes are split. It retains the shape and the tension of the status quo while giving us an emergency veto option. If this sounds legit please reply to it. Or with vicious takedowns, but I think it'd fit the podcast well.

Man I couldn't agree less with people who say the twist renders the film's events meaningless. Many films make that mistake, but this film avoids it in several ways. Party Pizza, thejlar, Chuck, and devilmaydance: I don't mean this post with any venom or heat. I mean is as a discussion and not an argument. But I think your dismissals of this movie are totally unfair. First, the film sets up an "outside the lie" bubble. The post-climax events are all delivered as inherent fact. There are pieces to grab onto and try to place together. Edie Finneran was executed. The Hungarians knew about Keyser Soze and identified Verbal. There was political pressure from on high to protect Verbal. There was no coke, but there was an Argentinian mole aboard. And ultimately there was some byzantine criminal plot for Verbal or Pete Postlethwaite or someone to gain from. These and other events are not thrown in doubt by the twist. It's a firm anchor in reality to contrast against the lies. Secondly, most of the events Verbal speaks on are directly corroborated by the police. The lineup happened. Edie was in the lawyer's office. The NYPD Taxi ring bust happened, as did the jewel heist. I may be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure they said that Fenster was found dead where Verbal said. There are tons of anchors of truth in this film; as broad as you can imagine Verbal's lies to be, the fundamental procedural plot of the film happened as described. Thirdly, and this is getting into subjective territory, but the "dream" is a con. It's a sophisticated lie directed at another character within the film. It serves the same function as other unrealiable narrator-style twists, but it provides a way richer context. I cited Shutter Island in my first post, and often do for examples of bad twists, to contrast a good twist from a bad one. In Shutter Island you watch 90+ minutes of film, maybe more, only to find out that entire chunks of the film are complete fabrications. DiCaprio's character is shown to be doing some things in the twist's reveal that don't remotely correspond to what the camera showed us. It surpasses riffing on the details or characters, it's just the impression that the camera could've shown us any goddamn thing - cartoons maybe - for the majority of the film, for the big twist to be that those cartoons had no bearing on this world's plot or characters. The twist is "your-name-is-actually-an-anagram-of-someone-else's-name" level stupid. The movie's twist is that nothing actually happened in the movie, until after the twist where they try to shoehorn in a dumb tragic ambiguity. There are almost no anchors to the plot. It sounds like The Usual Suspects felt like that to some of you. But the difference is that Suspect's lies are specific, compartmentalized, and functional; they aren't (totally) some director jerking off on film for a while just for him to announce later that he just made you watch jerk-off footage. It's a lie, from a character to another character and the audience, to achieve his in-plot grifting goal. It doesn't reject examination of the film's text, it invites it. It at least interrogates it. The film goes out of its way to ensure that "large swaths" of the film aren't rendered entirely bullshit by sprinkling small truths throughout. The largest chunks of the film that could be entirely fabricated would be the counterattack on Kobayashi and Verbal's interactions with Keaton. Even removing all of that doesn't throw the film into the "lazy storytelling" realm of the cheap dream twist. And the body of the film isn't anchored just in plot, but the film, more subjectively, roots the lies in the truth of the characters. There's little direct corroboration, but I believe the film means to communicate that the supporting characters of the film were as described by Kint, with the exception of himself, Kobayahsi, and the possible exception of Keaton. Verbal could easily have misrepresented Keaton just to fuck with Kujan. But either way I believe the film anchors the film in genuine characterizations as well as many concrete plot facts. When Verbal told Kujan that McManus said "Oswalt was a fag" over the comms, was he lying? Maybe he wasn't, and that was a truth among the lies. An expression of McManus. Maybe he was, and Verbal just made up something that McManus would say. Or maybe what McManus did wasn't part of the lie at all. Perhaps only the audience saw it, and that element was Singer presenting the scene outside of Verbal's lie. To me that's interesting; but the bottom line is that a movie with a cheap narrative twist couldn't support that question. You can ask the little questions about the plot because the movie anchors its narrative with truthful elements; you're invited to find the truths and speculate about how frequent and thorough the lies are in between. Look, part of this is subjective. I'm not arguing against people having a negative reaction to the film. But I do reject the blanket criticisms of the twist as cheap. It wasn't "all a dream". Some of it was a con, and that's a meaningful distinction in the film's favor.

Man, I seem to have had an opposite reaction to a lot of people on the board. I had seen it once before in high school, and looking back it may be one of those movies I went into with a bad attitude. I went in the first time knowing the twist, and knowing the people who liked it among my friends were the kinds that repeated the "Oswalt was a fag" line in their daily lives. So with a contrarian attitude, and a disdain for twists, I think I went into this ready to dislike it back then. I succeeded. Rewatching it yesterday, I was completely sucked in from start to finish. The things that may have seemed "too-90s-teen-pleasing" felt right in the moment, and the camerawork, score, pacing, script, and performances all sang. I read that they had to secure Chazz Palminteri to have enough star power for investors to go for it. That seems insane looking at the cast list in 2016 (and no disrespect to Palminteri, who's fantastic in this). Amy and Devin really said it all for me this time, and the commenters seem to largely split on whether this rises above being a touchstone for lame immature guys or not, which i totally get. I felt the same way about Reservoir Dogs, but I saw a lot of exceptional stuff rewatching this. One thing I want to highlight is the twist. I used to be on the anti-Shyamalan bandwagon, and that fed into me having an irrational twist hatred for a long time. But to cut to the chase, I think a twist is great if it makes the film more interesting, and terrible when it makes the film less interesting. Plenty of times a twist will feel contrived and trivialize everything that came before it (I'm looking at you, Shutter Island). When a movie's juice ends with the big reveal, there's an issue. The Usual Suspects is a prime example of a twist making a movie way more interesting. Twists of the "unreliable narrator" variety often just make everything that came before it feel like just a waste of time before the author decided to clue us in on the banal truth. But The Usual Suspects doesn't just set it up in the front-end with a couple of clues. The story is spun in a format that lets the audience really savor every detail retroactively with a new mystery. It's not a cheap twist, it's a revealing of deep narrative depth. Which isn't to say that The Usual Suspects is the deepest film ever made, but it is a clever, original, and exceptionally crafted crime thriller. The kind of lower "g" great that belongs in the Canon for sure.

Righteous.

Those were exactly my feelings. There's plenty of compelling "no" arguments to be made. Shout out to GeneShallot above who just put up a great counter-argument post. No matter which way you vote I think Se7en invites a lot of good discussion, and I feel like Amy didn't go into depth on what about the film felt short for her. I don't mind episodes where things get heated, but I do feel like it's a waste when the arguments dwell on "for-argument's-sake" topics and miss most of the interesting territory, and I think both of them are at fault for getting hung up on small details this time. I love them both, love the show, but I felt this episode was a bit of a letdown once the sparks began to fly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And I'd like to briefly disagree with GeneShallot on his final point. Great post, but what I enjoyed about Se7en is how I think John Doe's plan works within the heightened reality of the film. Maybe my biggest pet-peeve of the last decade or two of film is the "mastermind plot." When the villain knows everything, has a completely unrealistic and arbitrary omniscience, and is pretty much god-on-high for no reason other then to make the plot work. Then, because the movie has to end, he usually gets defeated in a way that totally clashes with his superhuman smarts from the rest of the film. It makes the villain flat and arbitrary, it usually makes the hero look like an idiot for a majority of the film, and it feels like a film puts a poorly conceived plot on display when it does that. Se7en stays just enough within plausibility for a few reasons. First, the detectives lose. The smarter-than-God villain angle goes down a lot easier when he doesn't have to get beaten by Joe-Schmoe at the end. Second, the detectives get a win before the climax when Somerset tracks down his apartment. Doe escapes, and the plot doesn't really change all that much, but the film at least gives our heroes enough credibility to keep us invested in their investigation. Otherwise it'd be obvious that watching them is just a bunch of wheel spinning before their arbitrary climactic win.Thirdly, Doe's plan is mostly completed before the police even start investigating. There isn't the dumb trope where the mastermind is captured but has them "right where he wants them" and escapes. The plot doesn't hinge on him being able to predict the police response down to the letter. He plans every murder before, commits three of them before the police are even looking for him, and does the rest in a very short period of time while the police are flailing to get their shit together. His plot isn't based on overmuch on predicting the future precisely until that final kill. And although Mills' murder of Doe does fall in the "perfect prediction" category, it really only hinges on Doe believing that all of the psychological warfare he's committed on Mills works, and Mills actions come as the result of an emotional journey he's been developing the entire film. I can get not being into it for sure. I usually hate mastermind plots. But I think Se7en does much better job then most films at making that element work smoothly within the four corners of the film. And it's another example of Se7en showing a certain care and restraint to its costruction where people like to paint it as a "sledgehammer."

Easy yes. I've been with Amy a lot recently, and I usually agree with her when the two strongly disagree, but I am 110% with Devin on this one, top to bottom. I'll just touch on a few things that didn't make it into the discussion. What I love about Se7en is how David Fincher manages to have it both ways by creating this overbearingly scummy aesthetic but still make it feel, as Devin alluded, just grouinded enough for the emotional and thematic beats to land. Even in the visuals, Fincher really only cranks it to eleven in the background set touches and a few of the murders. And he manages several achetypally familiar, but well portioned characters for the harshness of the plot to bounce off of. Se7en wouldn't work if exaggerated elements bounced off exaggerated characters; they instead bounce of Paltrow, a very downshifted R. Lee Ermey, and Freeman. Freeman's Somerset is my favorite example where Se7en shows restraint when it must have been tempting to go full-bore. Walker allows Somerset to pick up and set back down many "older cop" archetypes. He's by-the-book, but he'll still bribe a contact for information that almost snares the killer. He's an old vet, but he tries to mentor Mills to not taint evidence by busting into Doe's apartment. He's stoic, but he laughs hysterically at the Mill's dinner. And he's the wise old man at the library, but even that's turned on its head. The movie starts to set Somerset in contrast to the rest of the world by having him study in solitude in the heavenly-by-comparison library set. But just after he knocks the security staff for shrugging off the library's value, they surprise him by playing classical music to their poker game. And when Somerset approaches his literature as some purer kind of wisdom, the film luxuriates in showing the brutality of Doe's inspiration. The "classics" are shown in montage as a litany of pictures and text of mutilations, rapes, and injustices. Even these are foul. It's a direct humbling of Somerset in its editing, and I'm unsure coming out of it whether he even realizes it. I love that the film uses this scene not just to shade Somerset's character, but to widen the thematic scope past one particular era in a fictional city. Se7en is suggesting that this awful city isn't some happenstance in time or place - it's the reflection of the same horror of existence everywhere, always, and unchanged since life began. Somerset feels so familiar, but I'd argue he's a totally unique creation. You just don't see a character respond to a hostile world in the way he does; it's at once cowardly and dignified. The movie opens on Somerset beginning his day, and it reflects him perfectly - it's simple and methodical. You understand immediately, and are reassured throughout, that Somerset is a man who has found the order, the habits, the outlook, and the emotional investment appropriate for him to be able to function in this world in a way that's tolerable. You can see that he may have been a Mills-level idealist once, suffered the trauma of living, and has now compromised and compartmentalized his life in a way that gets so close to a full surrender, but preserves just enough of his humanity, quietly, in a way where he can feel like he's resisting this world in his own small way. If he had given up his humanity entirely he could've done the job in perpetuity, coldly, like his homicide cop partner from the opening murder. But he can't resist any more, and he can't live with how little he's doing, so he begins the film determined to quit. He believes in the fight, somewhere, but he's too burnt and knows better than to commit himself to it ever again. The film pairs quiet restraint with grim excess throughout, and that culminates in the film's crowning achievement: The Doe/Somerset/Mills car ride to the desert. This scene alone deserves a full discussion, and I hope it happens in the comments. But it's the next best example of Se7en's restraint. So many films before and since feel obligated for it's dumb villain to have a "sympathetic" goal or some kernel of pathos to invest the audience in their pain. And it's to the movie's credit that when Doe goes into his screed about how sinful and apathetic the world is, you can simultaneously understand and recoil in recognition of how he can see himself as a vigilante hero. The viewer of Se7en shares disgust for this world with Doe, and all three characters in the car share a desire to see it vanquished, albeit by different means. But it speaks to the light touch of the film that it sells that understanding and its grossness with Somerset, Mills, and the viewer. I definitely concede to Amy that there are moments of empty style, and I think the movie has a huge flaw in the characterization of Mills. The film goes way too far to pile on how annoying a man and terrible a cop he is. It's packed with moments designed for Mills to disappoint us, and it crosses the line well before the halfway mark of the film. Pitt's performance doesn't help; he nails the dramatic moments but clutters Mills with too many irritating affectations. The true villain of this film isn't Doe, but that goddamn basketball tie Mills wears throughout, introduced tied on a hangar to drive home that a grown man and a homicide cop of five years can't even tie his own tie. The movie's true gratuity goes to Mill's characterization as debilitatingly immature. This movie is a perfect example of what the Canon should be. Amy has a point - this movie can be over-praised. It isn't one of the Greats. Fincher's only made ten films and I can easily name four of his that are better. But it's a lower-case great, and one that easily passes the Canon bar. It has flaws, it has shortcomings, but it's exceptional in several ways. It's not a sledgehammer, as Amy put it - it's a Trojan horse. Se7en plays its brutal tone and art direction against delicate performances, themes, and characters. The results sing, and dismissals of this film's depth may be the greatest slothful sins of all.

This is an old favorite. Mainly audio, and only 61 seconds. Ought to be perfect.

It can be the 2010 True Grit vs. Night of the Hunter in a "Who best uses 'Leaning on the Everlasting Arms?' match."

That is one of the more creative casting wins I've ever seen. It's so counter-intuitive, and then so perfect.

Haha, I share that enthusiasm! I think it's a well-regarded and relatively popular choice, so it's not like it's some hidden gem that needs tons of exposure. But it's one of my very favorite movies, I still think it's a not-too-obvious candidate, and it's just goddamn great. Love to get some discussion on it.

I'm with the above in desperately wanting to see some Kurosawa. He's my very favorite filmmaker, and I think he's been unfortunately claimed by snobs. I'd love for him to get some Canon exposure. I think High and Low, Stray Dog, or Yojimbo would be great choices. They're really good, they're not the obvious choices, and they're all accessible while really showing off what Kurosawa could do. As for Ran and Throne of Blood, I think that's a great idea but maybe not the best choice for the first Kurosawa discussion. However there should be a Shakespeare episode either way, and either would be a fantastic submission. What I've read on B.M.D. leads me to believe that Devin loves his Shakespeare movies.

And I wanted to share a thought about the idea of the Big Canon vs. the Small Canon. I personally don't see a point to a Big Canon in the grandest sense. If the Canon accepted films that were "good," or "solid," or "fine with a great element or two," I feel like the process would lose it's meaning. The Canon would come nearer to a pass/fail system, and that's pretty much Rotten Tomatoes. That's a covered area. A movie doesn't have to be great to deserve praise and recognition, it's true, but the fun of voting in the Canon is about a deeper evaluation of the films among the fans, and that demands a certain bar for there to be any tension. Devin and Amy mainly nominate films that are obviously at least solid, with the occasional film that they both strongly dislike. In a Big Canon that means every film would likely get a easy pass until every tenth film got an easy fail. Occaisionally there's a Blade Runner, but it's hard to see a large Canon having much meaning or juice for the fans. Devin often says that the rub for him is not about what gets voted in or out, but the discussion that the podcast creates. I agree fully, and I think that philosophy lends itself to a Canon that allows itself to be somewhat exclusive. A film can be recognized and praised by being discussed, even if it falls short of the Canon. And most importantly, I don't think that anyone here wants a Small Canon in the sharpest sense either. I'm confident that the fans who listen, vote, and comment are here to express their affection for cinema. They're not in it to say "no," and I don't believe that anyone wants the Canon to just be a roundabout way to isolate the best 100 films or so. There's a middle ground. An Inclusive Small Canon would vote in great films. Not all-time greats, but greats. I don't want to vote in every film that's "good," I want to celebrate exceptional film by voting them into the Canon. As Devin alluded, a place for all lower-case greats, not just "The Greats." The most exclusive I'd ever consider making the Canon would be to exclude "garden-variety" greats. Some movies you watch, log as high quality, and forget forever. Maybe that's why I like the word "exceptional" to be my personal smell test for if a movie deserves the vote. Is a movie exceptional as a whole, or in one particular aspect to a degree that it distinguishes itself as Canon-wrthy? I think that's the model for Canon worthiness. I just saw Green Room over the weekend. That's a great example of a movie that isn't an all-time great, but absolutely deserves a slot in the Canon for being just an exceptionally made suspense/thriller. Much in the way that Marathon Man isn't. Sorry if it's annoying to have typed as much as I have today.

I think Amy summed it up when she said that she finished the movie and didn't really feel like she had much to say about it. PhilH above, too. Where I get Devin's side is that Marathon Man is a movie with a great deal of craft, and I think Devin is getting a lot more from the craft then me. He's right on the money that this movie establishes a world, and that usually sends me over the top for any movie. When a film can put you in a vital setting where you feel the world is much larger then the frame of the shot, it's transcendent. And I think the movie's disaffected grimy 70s New York is nearly transcendent. Nearly. The film's craft gives us a lot of evocative details. I didn't notice that the water treatment plant had its own shot near the top of the film, and it didn't even half to. For me, when Babe apprehends Szell the film cuts to this ornate looking building with an open door, and before you can start to wonder what this place is and why this place is our next setting, a jogger runs by, and you understand in an instant that this is just a place that Babe passes every day, and he's just moving within his limited comfort zone. The film has a lot of interesting details and deviations from the norm. However, I do feel that this movie is feast or famine. I think it has a handful of great scenes, but I don't think it excuses that the movie is a famine in between to a Canon-worthy level. I love the opening scene with the two old men killing each other in their road rage. I love every scene from Babe's abduction from his apartment through his true escape on the freeway. And I love the Szell-on-the-street sequence, and the climatic scene in the water treatment plant. Those scenes pack such tension. The opener in particular feels like a great Hitchcock sequence where the movie savors the machinations of Szell's brother, and thrills in keeping the viewer in the dark as to what it all means. But the movie really shines when the movie is turned over to Olivier near the finale. The hosts mentioned the street scene, but I also loved Szell going to the bank. The movie uses the tension of Szell's vulnerable position, but also takes a moment to see it wiped away when he finally sees his diamond fortune all together for the first time. Olivier is just a marvel, making a Nazi's joy as he witnesses his exploitation spoils infectious to the audience. I think that many movies may be Canon-worthy is they have three great scenes, but this one is an example of why the whole movie needs to be considered. Intrigue carries the first act, but once it wears off the film is unbearably flat outside those scenes. I like Dustin Hoffman, but I shared Amy's reaction to his performance in this movie. I like that the movie made this unheroic weirdo the action star as a choice, but in practice I just didn't care about the guy. In fact I think that only Olivier really made his character vital on screen. The film didn't investment me in the non-Szell plot in the film. I didn't care for Babe, I didn't really care about Doc, and I couldn't stand the love interest or the stories that she was involved in. And everything about their father, from the groanworthy classroom scene with the "cool professor" to the pointless suicide flashbacks were plain bad. I enjoyed this movie tremendously in fits and starts, but it was interminable in between those fits. I had heard of this movie before, but I was shocked to hear Devin talk about the films cultural impact, particularly the "is it safe?" line. I may be in a bubble, but I don't think this movie's impact survived in any ways to the present day. I'm 26, was anyone around my age group familiar with any element of this film surviving in the culture? In any case, this is another Lost Weekend situation to me. It's a fine film, but well short of great. But where I think Lost Weekend was consistently solid, I think this film contains some truly breathtaking wins spread across a field of huge losses. I can't vote it into the Canon. Also, I just wanted to say that Brokeback Mountain was really terrific. I ran out of time to comment about it last week. That's a film with incredible dramatic depth and huge cultural impact, especially in my high school when it came out.

Thanks man! I appreciate the variety. Piku, Sholay, Johnny Gaddaar, and Mughal-e-Azam are shooting right to the top of my list.