AlexChristianLovendahl

I don't think that's true at all. We've still voted those films in as a community. Guests who have nothing to do with the show long term, like Bobcat Goldthwait, have nominated films. I think it's fine.

The extended silence and general strangeness regarding how this has been treated should be enough to indicate that it was not a sarcastic reply.

Agreed. So long as we maintain respect and keep to the rules of these forums, and so long as no one expect that anybody involved in the making of this podcast take any opinion, majority or minority, as mandate, this seems like the place to discuss this. I trust Earwolf and those involved in the production to make the right decision regarding their podcast, even if it means I will be leaving its audience.

I would simply like to say that I have no intention of listening while Devin is still hosting. Should Earwolf or Amy like to continue the show without Devin, I would be interested in that pursuit. I like this show, this community, and am sad at the idea of saying goodbye to it, but I have no expectation that things must change, regardless of whether or not I would like them to change.

I have nothing against Cannibal Holocaust's presence (again, haven't seen it!) but I also would say there's probably room for both. Chi-Raq is FASCINATING, and there are incredible conversations to have about that film, but I'd have voted in Creed or Tangerine in over it if I'd been around to do so.

I haven't seen Cannibal Holocaust, but this is easily solved by inducting the phenomenal Texas Chain Saw Massacre into the canon. I'm okay voting out Working Girl despite the diversity argument because it isn't even representative of women's voices, it's a fairly sexist Mike Nichols movie. Let's get in some (more?) Sofia Coppola, Ava Duvernay, Agnes Varda, Kelly Reichardt, Lina Wertmuller. Hell, while we're talking Nichols, let's get Elaine May!

Sadly not at my local library. I've not even heard of this film! Curious!

Belongs in the canon simply because it's a really great movie. Sure, okay, it's not his most iconic work, but by the same token, the literary canon would lose Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent, or Hemingway's In Our Time. The same way that canon would lose a lot by not having Melville's Redburn or Pierre, even if they're thematically very linked to Moby-Dick, we'd lose a lot here by not having one of Scorsese's very best and most distinct. There's so much to dig into here, on the script, on the set, and on the screen. It's one of those cases where because nobody's done the work to make the analysis of this movie super easy to digest (maybe this podcast will help it get there!) there might be a concern that it's not as thematically rich as something like Taxi Driver, but that's bupkes. Escorting The King of Comedy into the canon (maybe by inducting it into The Canon) will reveal this movie's greatness, especially as film professors get sick of reading the umpteenth undergrad essay comparing Taxi Driver to Drive. (I also think the movie that most echoes it in our current film scene, Nightcrawler, would still be a great canon choice, partly because it divorces Lou Bloom's work from his personality, and partly because Gyllenhaal's youth by comparison heightens the tension that some day he might be running it all. These are distinct movies for sure, and I hope people don't get reductive in the thread about that fact!)

I actually am on board with this sentiment, though I've been pretty vocal about rooting for Blair Witch Project. I want to see the canon-worthy movie built off Labyrinth (though the Canon audience determined that was Pan's Labyrinth some time ago!) but simply accepting a movie is the best of the style, theme, or content so far isn't enough to guarantee canon-worthiness. If that style's all the way dead, that's one thing, but I wouldn't count any genre or style out for long.

The only time an audience was able to turn me against a film was Payne's NEBRASKA. They were laughing their heads off while I was sitting there thinking the dialogue was some of the worst I'd ever heard.

But that's the thing, the structure of the lore, the camerawork, the performances (especially by Heather and the townspeople,) and all the things discussed in the episode are other things the film offers than "a gimmick" and "scares." You can say none of it works for you - that's fine, I feel the same way about A Clockwork Orange and American Beauty - but there are too many elements to this film that have been laid out both in the episode and the thread to reduce it to a gimmick.

I'm rolling this one out for the first time and already I kind of can't believe that this movie exists and I hadn't seen it yet, wowza. EDIT: Just finished up; this is probably my favorite movie I've watched to keep up with The Canon. (Blow Out competes for favorite new-to-me Canon movie.) Really looking forward to the episode.

I've seen this movie twice; once in 2012 at around 2 in the morning in my dorm room alone, and once in 2013 at midnight in a theater. The first time, it terrified me. The second time, I found it tragic, if not especially scary. Both times, at the movie's ending, I turned cold as death. I walked out of the theater shivering and stunned. I could barely speak. It was like I'd seen a ghost. My comment was that there was something powerful and evil in The Blair Witch Project, something uncanny. Hard yes for the canon; this is a film with some sort of power over me, years divorced from zeitgeist and meta-campaigns. Heather is fantastic. How about the editing? ...I'm kind of due for a rewatch this October, but I think I'm gonna put it off a year.

I wanted to throw in a quick thought on the nature of representation in The Canon as it's very much been a focus of the thread. In essence, the claim that there is an unfair bias towards men's films over women's is a valid one. I don't think it's necessarily The Canon that's at fault, though; rather, years and years and years of unfair representation, and underfunding of films depicting the underprivileged, have ultimately resulted in the collection of minority groups' films strictly by the numbers offering less Canon candidates. Again, to be clear, I'm not saying that the candidates are any less great or worthy, but there are more films about, by, or for straight white cis American men than at least almost any other group on the planet (I'm not sure how Bollywood output compares or competes with the pre-Bollywood period.) I don't think that means we should lower our standards for those films which have more even representation. Rather, I think we should hold the history of film accountable for not doing well enough as it's being written. Now, I will filibuster till I'm blue in the face in saying that The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Only Yesterday are the superior Takahata films to Grave of the Fireflies for aptly discussing the treatment of girls and young women by the cruelty of patriarchy, and I'm a firm Beasts of the Southern Wild fan over Stand By Me (and I loved King as a kid!) But if a film doesn't get in because it isn't meeting our standards for canon-worthy, rather than be mad at the standards for the canon, we should be mad at a film industry that so underserves its people. Or, y'know, the (very reasonable) argument that Working Girl sometimes feels like a movie that hates women. Recognizing the Canon's insufficiencies should serve as inspiration to fill in gaps. Now, as for Labyrinth? I think T.D. and his quotation from fursa saida both eloquently state why Labyrinth itself is canon-worthy, partly because it tells a woman's story, but more importantly because it tells that story with some goshdarned brains, tact, and thematic resonance from its details to its importance.

Curious; do people think the 1930s film of the same name (Bing Crosby!) informs this movie at all? Should we try to dig up the '78 BBC series (Bob Hoskins!) that inspired the film we're looking at? I literally know nothing about this movie and am fairly confident I won't get to watch it this time (busy week ahead) but when I get around to it, I want to know what there is to know.