NathanGordon

Hey, that's what I was going to recommend! Faculty of Horror is a very smart, fun podcast about film with a feminist angle that is really refreshing. It's probably my favorite movie podcast; I only wish new episodes came out more often.

I'll never get over the fact that the Charles Laughton who directed this film is the same person parodied with the king character in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon "Shishkebugs". It's the one where Yosemite Sam is (somewhat inexplicably) the king's chef, and needs a rabbit to prepare hasenpfeffer. It's apparently referencing a notable stage performance by him as King Henry VIII. p.s., Night of the Hunter has one of my favorite images in cinema ever, when Shelly Winters is shown resting at the bottom of the river. It's absolutely haunting.

The film missed a golden opportunity to reference J.Lo's awful turkey line from Gigli.

I liked how the cop was like "Yeah, he was probably drunk. Or it could have been faulty brakes. I guess we'll never know! It's not like we had the body and did an autopsy and toxicology report." Although I do believe him when he said they were killed instantaneously -- that van exploded (!!) the second it touched that truck. I thought maybe it was hauling gasoline or something, but nope, just pipes. I guess they should have paid attention to those Chevy recalls. Also, cutting someone's brakes seems like a REALLY imprecise way of killing them. I'm having trouble thinking of a worse way. Maybe hiring someone and then taking them out to celebrate with drinks during happy hour, hoping they get tipsy enough to hit their head on the toilet and drown.

Yeah right. Lanthimos is a genius artist. This would be like trying to shit talk David Lynch. Lobster is my #1 film of the year, and I don't see it changing.

WHAT THE CHRIST THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I DON'T READ THE MINISODE THREAD BECAUSE IT'S FINALS WEEK!!!;;1111~~~11¡¡¡!!!!

I used to be a huge gamer in my youth, and continued buying and collecting well into my 30s, but no modern games hold my interest at all. For the longest time, video games were trying to be cinematic -- many people may remember the success of Final Fantasy 7 in 1997 as a win for the convergence of Hollywood storytelling and Japanese style games. It's taken a couple of decades but the tables have turned; games regularly outsell big budget pictures, and now it's mainstream movies that are trying to be mimick games. There's stuff like Hardcore Henry (basically a non interactive FPS), or the hip 8-bit references of Scott Pilgrim, or joyless cutscenes without gameplay like Sucker Punch, and in the many other would-be tentpole CGI shitfests like Gods of Egypt that SHOULD be video games instead. Anyways, what I'm saying is that finally video games got their wish -- they can now tell garbage stories full of ham fisted melodrama, pseudo intellectualism, shifting moral centers, and regressive sexism -- JUST LIKE HOLLYWOOD. I long for those innocent days when the most complicated plot you could get across in a game was "Shoot UFO for mystery bonus" or "Our princess is in another castle". We won't get any more interesting video game movies -- they're scripted, directed, and acted by the same people who make Marvel blockbusters. The reason the Super Mario Brothers movie is so satisfyingly bonkers is precisely because it was so lacking in narrative. That a group of people could take some thin concepts like pipes and koopas and expand it into a psychedelic cocaine nightmare world is actually fairly impressive. I don't imagine you'll see a similar gonzo creativity at work in this summer's Assassin's Creed movie. Anyways, /rant. I agree that the first Silent Hill is a decent little horror film with great atmosphere and almost feels like a throwback today, with its lack of teenagers and somewhat restrained violence.

The 2001 Final Fantasy film would make a really interesting case study for this discussion, being a movie not actually based on a game but in the general spirit of the franchise.

If you can trace back bad/good cinema viewing -- and by extension, the modern ironic b-movie movement (Space Cop, Kung Fury, Turbo Kid, etc) -- to a single film, it's surely Plan 9 From Outer Space. I wonder if Ed Wood would be as artistically lost as Burton seems to be in the new millennium.

I love Ed Wood but honestly I wish we were welcoming Plan 9 From Outer Space into the canon. I think it deserves it, as one of the most cited (if not THE preeminent) "so bad it's good" films of all time. As much as I enjoy Burton's empathetic portrait of the man -- and I agree it's a shoo-in -- Ed Wood films have given me just as much pleasure. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the wonderful and flawed Ed Wood should check out the excellent book Nightmare of Ecstacy, which was used as the basis of Burton's film. You can't but admire Wood's enthusiasm for his craft, which really does come across in the great performances of the 1994 biopic -- special mention must be made of Martin Landau as the aged Bela Lugosi, to say nothing of the rest of the supporting cast (pro wrestler George Steele bears an uncanny resemblance to Tor Johnson).

I am 100% certain Jubes was introduced not to bring female readers into the fold, but to add some much needed levity and comic relief to a VERY angst heavy storyline, angstier than usual X-Men. It was the end of the Australia/Reavers arc, and Jubilee showed up to save a crucified Wolverine -- after Storm had been killed, Longshot had left, and Rogue gone missing. Dark times call for fireworks! She brought out Wolvie's paternal side, as well.

Yep, Jubilation is awesome and what I wouldn't give for a road movie with just her and Wolverine, cracking wise and cracking skulls. The banter between them was always fun, and it's a much better surrogate father storyline than anything Professor X does. I liked Deadpool but I just don't have the emotional connection with the material like I do the X-Men. I was never a huge comic nerd but that was the one series whose mythology I dug deep into; even though it wasn't a great film, it threw enough skeeballs that some landed in that 100 point nostalgia hole for me.

This annoyed me so much, because in a two hour plus movie that took time out for that unnecessary Weapon X scene and even bothered filming that petty dig at a ten year old movie, they couldn't call Jubilee by name or include this cool little nod to Dazzler -- who I hope is put in an X-film soon because her mutant power is literally turning DISCO MUSIC INTO LIGHT, which is so much cooler than eyebeams from the Punch Dimension (Scott, you are the most boring X-person, in every medium. BTW Wolvie slept with your GF). Otherwise this was the second best comic book movie this year, but Civil War was better in every regard. The choreograpy in that film was incredible, while Apocalypse just had people shooting different color CGI lasers. p.s. my dream X-Men movie is something from the Australian Outback arc, when the team was down to about half a dozen and basically just dicking around in the desert, licking their wounds.

To me, that is not "fun", it is lazy filmmaking. There is nothing in the film that suggests this sort of choose-your-own-adventure interpretation, either. Narrative "facts" are either true or not in a story, and having a vague miasma of possible truths is even worse than saying "it was all a dream".

Only one of these I can agree with is Beasts of the Southern Wild. I think that it's still too soon for the rest of them. And before we start talking about The Act of Killing, there's other documentaries that need to enter the conversation -- Titticut Follies, Grey Gardens or Salesman, Les Blank, the work of Shirley Clarke (Portrait of Jason), etc. Such an amazing piece of art, and so far, the best "school shooting" film we have (eat my shorts, Van Sant). One of the great films about guilt.

It's still adored, at least in the circles I've traveled in. It's not quite so campy and therefore probably not as well loved as it was decades ago, before Hedwig, Mommie Dearest, Valley of the Dolls, Rocky Horror, etc etc. In more culturally conservative times, there weren't many films which approached, even in a broad manner, the idea of non-straight sexuality. You used to really have to dig for subtext, which I think irritated many mainstream critics in the 1980s and 90s, less so today. (The idea that Ben Hur is a gay story, for example.) Some Like It Hot was the rare early movie that didn't need such a close reading. For further research, I highly recommend the documentary The Celluloid Closet, which is about this very subject. I would hope that "I Wanna Be Loved By You" via Marilyn Monroe is still in the vast drag queen repertoire.

I pretty much cosign this. The details Amy and Devin remarked on being rewarding for repeat viewing hold no weight because it's all just an in-universe lie -- which is fine, cinema is all about clever fictions, but the reveal in Usual Suspects invalidates nearly everything the viewer has seen. In me, it just invokes a response of "okay, so who cares then", especially since the film has nothing else interesting of note beyond the narrative; it's not technically engaging or particularly well crafted. The whole thing feels, to me, like "it's just a prank, bro". The other observation is that Bryan Singer's subsequent career didn't produce another film noteworthy of anything but its commercial prospects, which makes for an interesting contrast with John Singleton. Boyz N The Hood and The Usual Suspects are both flawed films and not technical marvels, so you're left with their respective legacies -- which I think is telling. Singleton's debut is remembered as a touchstone of black cinema, while The Usual Suspects is now reduced to a pop culture reference, the equivalent of a humorous gif. And the character of Kobayashi is still mildly offensive and stupid, at best.

I recently went on a date with a woman who, in the course of our conversation, revealed that she had a Possession tattoo. We spent the entire rest of the night excitedly talking about Zulawski's terrifying masterpiece and film in general, and I think she's a friend for life now. That is the kind of film Possession is; seemingly inscrutable and incomprehensible, brutally visceral, and I can't imagine not having a passionate response to it. I worry that it is too obscure, though it has a surprisingly high number of votes on IMDB. I'm not sure of its impact; to me, it's always been a film for avant-garde fanatics, art weirdos, and lovers of bizarre horror. I actually wouldn't be surprised if Amy or Devin hadn't seen it.

And people say that art is dead! That's amazing.

I'm curious if any of the people in this thread that disliked it knew the reveal before watching? I only ask because this is definitely a film with just that one trick. I feel like the twist in Usual Suspects is especially cheap because it does not reward repeat viewings -- knowing the plot is essentially made up by one character doesn't add any meaningful layers or enrich the story in any way. Unlike, say, Memento or The Sixth Sense or Les Diabolique, which also hinge on late reveals, but the film is further colored by this information and can be enjoyed again as the viewer is now in on the secret. The Usual Suspects is an overly convoluted setup with a punchline that feels more like a prank, and isn't interested beyond that "gotcha!" moment. Pete Posthelwaite's character, makeup, and accent are stunningly awful, even if it's supposed to be a person Verbal made up. Terrible choice.

What is there to possibly hate about Harmony Korine? He's an affable, creative dude who makes art from his heart. I don't like all his films, but I'm puzzled why you would hate him, even kind of. Knee jerk cyncism like this bums me out.

I have to add my voice to this chorus -- Menace II Society is THE great hood opera. ... One of the biggest points of contention in nearly every episode of The Canon is if a film needs to be both cinematically significant and culturally important; Devin seems to argue for the former while Amy often sides with cultural relevancy. There are great, seminal works of art which are also flawed, especially when removed from their context or viewed in hindsight. Is Spike Lee a better director? Yes. Does Boyz N The Hood lack nuance? Sure. But the impact of this film in America cannot be understated. It's a landmark film and it can't be ignored as such, despite the amateur at times direction -- let's get real, though; this is an incredible accomplishment for a 22-year black kid in 1991.

Diana Rigg has worked mostly in British television, although fans may have spotted her along with Tim Curry and a very young Fairuza Balk in one of my favorite classics of so bad it's good cinema, The Worst Witch. (which of course is clearly the prequel to The Craft, but that's another story...)

Me too! And now I have a high paying career doing important work respected by all my peers! Surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet, but the original British TV series initially focused on Steed by himself. The decision was made to increase viewership by adding an attractive woman, and they winked at this by naming her Emma Peel, or "m. appeal", meaning male appeal.