NathanGordon

Cannibal Holocaust would be the easiest to make a case against. Almost too easy, in fact. I think Antichrist is a ludicrous film, even by Von Trier's standards. I'd rather have an argument against a complicated piece of art like that, instead of something low brow like Cannibal Holocaust or Re-Animator. Creed is a much better film than Chi-raq, for fucks sake. Are we really going to have late period Spike Lee? I love him, but his lesser work shouldn't get a pass. First Blood went up against Rocky, which is a travesty because they're both very strong films. First Blood is every bit as important as The Deer Hunter, maybe even more relevant today -- I think the John Rambo of that film is more tragic and relatable now in the wake of the massive US deployment in the Middle East, as well as Columbine and the media fascination with shooters and domestic terrorists. Is there a master list of what's in and out? Polls here were adopted a little while after the transition from Wolfpop, so the forums here are missing a lot.

The first movie I purchased with my fancy new dvd player in 2002. I think it's a camp classic, and represents the point of no return for Shatner as a kitsch pop culture icon. But is it canon? I suppose if we're going to admit any Star Trek into the canon, it should be this one. I do think it's good sci-fi, performances aside. The restraint of the film relative to modern Trek is especially staggering. It'll be a long time before Neu Trek is able to manage anything as affecting as the final exchange between Nimoy and Shatner.

People give too much weight to aggregate scores like Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not sure that they could be more arbitrary indicators. There certainly is a less than precise correlation between "fresh/rotten" and a film's box office, to say nothing of the disconnect between critical reviews and general audiences. *also lol at "hipster backlash"

This is a horrible movie that gave us an X-Men Days of Future Past alternate timeline where Christina Ricci grew up to be Rosie O'Donnell. Melanie Griffith sends Thora Birch back into the past to kill Demi Moore but nothing changes and today Christina Ricci stars in Lifetime movies and is the voice of a Smurf. I wish it wasn't true ((((

It's been a bad couple of weeks for the Earwolf family; Kulap and Scott also lost their beloved Rocky last week. RIP doggo, I'm going to miss your fantastic Halloween costumes.

This was one of my earliest experiences with a bad movie. I remember watching it with my dad who was loudly complaining about how awful, tacky, and plain unfunny it was. I think that might have been when I realized that movies could actually be bad; you'd think Disney's Black Hole -- the first movie I ever saw -- would have convinced me of that. Has Dan Aykroyd ever done anything on his own that was funny, or at least not outright terrible? His best work was always as a straight man or foil to other characters.

No, it's not overrated. It really is that good.

Vanilla Ice didn't rip off Sugarhill Gang because Sugarhill Gang was covering a surf band called The Shadows, playing a song by Jerry Lordan. Which is, whatever, because hip hop is founded on sampling other artists. Vanilla Ice tried to claim his song was different so he could avoid paying royalties to Brian May and Queen, that's what was lame about it. Sugarhill Gang was cool because samplers hadn't been invented yet, and so their producer said "How about instead of a DJ, we just hire a band to play eight bars of Chic over and over?" It was a genius move.

I can't say that the movie depicts the navy in a good light. Literally every person is disobeying their orders at every point, and then get congratulated for it instead of being court marshaled and dishonorably discharged. Favorite line in the movie that isn't about peepee: "There's no blood in those quantum veins! An A.I. can't black out!"

Most of the Sidaris movies are fun as hell because they're totally self-aware. Sidaris knew exactly what he wanted in his films -- hot chicks with big boobs! tough guys with cool cars! guns and explosions! and then ninjas! -- and he created exactly that. He's one of the best directors of exploitation cinema in the 1980s and early 90s. His movies are the fever dream of a 12-year old boy whose parents let him rent R-rated videos -- just pure, unironic, dumb fun.

I'm almost certain that there's an El Santo film that covers both genres. With all the seriousness I can muster, I agree with the sentiment that an ideal canon should be as completely culturally representative as possible -- which includes everything from The Beatles to Last Temptation of Christ to Blair Witch, from John Waters to Chantal Akerman to Werner Herzog and beyond. Even bottom shelf genre junk, even pornography, because it's often the stuff at the fringes that is the most revealing and illuminating. Maybe this is an overly optimistic view of the medium, or maybe I'm doing away with the very point of having a canon in the first place. At the end of the day, this isn't the Smithsonian and this canon seems to be "films that Amy and Devin like". Each week, there's discussion of how we should define the canon -- is it films that are artistically superior, technically masterful, culturally significant? Only one of those qualities, or all three? I don't think it was an oversight that Devin neglected to strictly define this for the listenership in the beginning.

Jerry, there are few things that are certain in these turbulent times, and your unwavering appreciation for Nicholas Cage warms the cockles of my heart.

In the glory days of 1989, it seemed like this movie was always on cable, along with Big Trouble In Little China.

Now that we know how Professor X went bald, perhaps future films will give us the origin story of Beast's mild to moderate plaque psoriasis or Quicksilver's struggles with bleaching his roots.

I like the story a lot, but it doesn't quite work as a film because we see these different versions of the character. Keeping an element of surprise means a different actor is used for some of the parts, which allows the reveal(s) to be surprising but requires a greater suspension of disbelief -- and handwaving the physical difference as sci-fi cosmetic surgery is a cheap trope. None of this is necessary in literary form. That said, the lead actress was great in this. It's a lot of fun just wrapping your head around the whole puzzle, in a way similar to Primer (another confusing time travel story). Not a capital "G" great film, but I don't see how anyone can say it's a bad movie at all.

In a 1997 New Yorker profile, Trump's favorite movie was Jean Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport.

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake..." "Hitler made a mistake!" This is one of the funniest things ever written.

There's a long tradition of the epistolary novel -- Dracula being the most relevant example, and a couple decades before Lovecraft. People forget that it's not a traditional narrative but instead composed of personal letters, shipping logs, newspaper articles, etc. It's an interesting parallel to found footage films that I hadn't thought of before.

Thanks, I didn't know about that. Now I want an 80s teen movie about X-Men that's doesn't even have any fighting in it, more of a John Hughes kind of thing.

I mean, I think it was supposed to be romantically tense because that's all in the comics, but because of the actual actor's age difference (as opposed to ageless comic book characters) it came off as super uncomfortable. On the other hand, Wolvie is supposed to be this frightening beast, especially at that moment in his story. Honestly that scene was the least of that movie's problems.

One of my favorite theater going experiences was an event called All Freaking Night, part of the Olympia Film Festival. It was five or six horror films -- classics, gonzo b-movies, and franchise slashers -- in front of a sold out audience all night long. It was the best crowd I've ever seen, and probably my single favorite cinema moment ever was seeing Sleepaway Camp there. Most of the audience probably had never seen it (this was around 2002 or so) and they lost their minds at the ending reveal. YouTube reaction videos are a poor replacement for the cinema experience.

And then for good measure, includes a little Indiana Jones-style map flyover just so all you dummies know this is Tajikistan and not Alaska (we get a map for that, too).

I've been dying to try them since hearing multiple guests on Doug Loves Movies gush about it. It seems like it'd perfectly complement something like Fast & Furious, but it's really interesting to hear how involved the Blair Witch director was. I'm curious, too.

Man Bites Dog is a very good film, one of the darkest comedies ever, and weirdly underrated these days. Sadly, the director committed suicide ten years ago. I keep meaning to pick up the Criterion DVD (or a Blu-ray, should they ever release one).

What a waste of Oscar Issac. The action was so poor compared to Civil War; even Bats vs Supes had better choreography (I guess because it had less characters onscreen). In Apocalypse you mostly had a bunch of people standing around shooting different colored beams at each other. The Quicksilver scene was an obvious attempt to bank on his scene from Days of Future Past, but it was still the most fun and inventive part of the film. I wish they'd figure out how to do more set pieces like that, with characters using their powers in interesting ways. The only other time was Nightcrawler teleporting everyone.