GeorgeHealy

It's a punishingly sad time all around. To me The Canon was always about grappling with movies in a multi-level, sophisticated way. It was about finding wisdom through a series of smart judgement calls about temporary value vs lasting value. I guess we're about to find out if that only works when facing a screen or if it can also apply to a community in the gap between when credits roll.

This is one of the things I really like about this podcast format - much like the film Sully there was no drama in the ending (I was always going to vote yes), but I'm surprised how ferociously yes I became after listening to Simon. He has to be the most thoughtful and articulate guest you guys have ever had on. He went on a tear about the originality of the small connective myths that fed into the larger Blair Witch mythology and I realized he's absolutely correct - this movie got something right multiple times that other horror FRANCHISES sometimes never get right once. But even outside the horror genre, this movie is the product of smart, talented artists who paid close attention to the path they were walking towards their own creation and you can feel it in a palpable way that very few movies (Hara Kiri?) could hope to duplicate.

This sounds right to me, but I mean this is so close. I guess I'm a no, but a soft one, one you could drop a safe on without damage. Movies should be rewarded for avoiding obvious flaws in execution, one could be forgiven, but bunches of them take a movie from great to good. I would so much rather see Ace in the Hole get in if there are limited Wilder spots. The powerful and quiet counterpoint of a small character like Leo Minosa is exactly what Lost Weekend is missing. And I just don't know if historical significance is enough. I feel like I'd be hypocritical to vote yes for Lost Weekend and no to To Kill A Mockingbird, and I just couldn't get myself to yes on Mockingbird I don't think.

Superman is almost certainly the stronger movie so I voted for Batman. I mean, if this was Rotten Tomatoes or a Best List I would've voted for Superman, but this is The Canon. Superman is an ultra-competent film version of THE ultra-competent super hero. There were some great points about aesthetics in this episode, but that's kind of the point to me. The aesthetics of Superman are comfortably in the wheelhouse of Richard Donner, but John McTiernan or Jonathan Demme or Robert Zemeckis probably would've made essentially the same movie if they'd had the luck of Christopher Reeve's casting. And by same I don't mean visuals but I mean their movie(s) likely would've been just a beloved as this one and their versions also would've triumphed in this Canon vote, by dint of what Superman inherently is and the fact that there was still tattered innocence in the air in 1978. Batman '89 is really flawed, doubtless. But the Batman character himself is more fragmented, harder to capture, which I don't think the movie necessarily should be penalized for. The fragmented nature of the theme of war (or just violence?) added flaws to Apocalypse Now that look like the same bruises that were pointed out on Batman's face during this episode's discussion. But most importantly, Burton broke the wheel behind him. A lot of directors remind me of the captain of The Demeter in Dracula, lashed to the wheel and trying to get the ship to shore desperately steering in a straight line, even if they are dead weight sometimes during the process (looking at you Zack Snyder). But Burton steered this character and comic book movies in general into a new current, snapped the wheel in two, and essentially vanished. By the time the ship's crew got around to electing some new captains, they were trapped in the current forever, or at least for a very, very long time. That maneuver feels Canonworthy to me.