Cronopio

The Soviet adaptation by Grigori Kozinsev is better cinema than either of those, and there's also Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well.

I just found out today that the Canon was back. I missed all you guys.

Some (but by no means all) suggestions of canon-worthy films directed by women: The Hitchhiker by Ida Lupino Cleo from 5 to 7 by Agnes Varda An Angel at My Table or The Piano by Jane Campion Beau Travail or 35 Shots of rum by Claire Denis Mi Vida Loca by Alison Anders Salaam Bombay by Mira Nair Lost In Translation by Sofia Coppola The Headless Woman by Lucrecia Martel The Babadook by Jennifer Kent Fat Girl by Catherine Breillat American Psycho by Mary Harron And since we like 80's genre so much: Blue Steel or Near Dark by Katherine Bigelow

It's been fun, everyone. I'll catch you on the flip side.

Well, yeah. I for one don't think this is the best place to ask all those other questions - questions which are undoubtedly more important. The court of public opinion is notoriously flawed, and this is a forum about the podcast, not a jury room.

Given his personality, I suspect there won't be a lot of sympathy for Devin in some quarters. I imagine quite a few people will indulge in schadenfreude. I won't be one of them. I just want to say, "Say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so."

I always felt Rhodes was more of a template for right-wing talkshow hosts, than for politicians. But in that they are both populists demagogues, sure, there are parallels.

One argument in favor of this film as a cultural marker is that its name is used to describe a category of film. You can walk in and pitch a film by saying "it's a Bad Seed movie" and everybody knows what you're talking about.

It's right up there with the egregious tacked-on endings to the original "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Murnau's "The Last Laugh" and Fritz Lang's "Fury" in the canon of endings that ruin the film. The only solution is to stop the film at the moment it should have ended and pretend that the rest doesn't exist. Not sure where I fall on this one either, but Rhoda is one of the most terrifying villains in classic Hollywood film, right up there with Gene Tierney's character in "Leave Her to Heaven."

This is one of my top ten American films - as relevant today as it was then. Looking forward to hearing Amy and Devin's discussion.

Speak for yourself.

You might as well say, "if these were two unicorns..."

This thread is full of commenters, like myself, who are either trekkies or at the very least admirers of the Star Trek series, and who are still voting no. So I think that what is central in this discussion is that it is undeniable that a knowledge or understanding of the Star Trek phenomenon is essential to understanding late twentieth century American culture. It is also undeniable that it is necessary to watch Wrath of Khan to be culturally literate - you don't want to be the person at the dinner party who can't catch the Khan reference - but the feeling among some here is that even granting all that, it is probably not essential to watch Khan in order to be film literate. Even in 1982, there are three other sci-fi films that are more influential and hold-up a lot better in terms of their design, cinematography, performances, narrative, and overall vision. Those are Blade Runner, The Thing, and E.T. - all of which happen to be in the canon. I completely get the love for these movies - I was 13 years old in 1982 and I saw all those films in the movie theater (multiple times, I might add) and I I have owned all of them in VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and now BluRay - but how many 1982 sci-fi films do we need in the canon?

I would argue the opposite - American cinema is rife with movies that transcended the confines of their particular genre - whether it is sci-fi, western, musical, romantic comedy, noir, thriller, horror, etc. - and become culturally and artistically significant. Since the genre we're talking about here is sci-fi, I'd say there is no shortage of films that achieve what you describe, films that drew many viewers outside of the sci-fi audience. Just off the top of my head: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Forbidden Planet, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Planet of the Apes, 2001, The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner, Terminator, Robocop... I voted no because I believe that the banal directing style of this film prevents it from fulfilling the "great film" part of the equation which I think has to complement the "cultural impact" part of it.

I don't know that it's dismissive - Television has great influence on the culture, and the Star Trek TV shows are far superior to the movies. One can make the case, as Amy does, that you don't HAVE to have Star Trek in the canon of great films, even if the television show deserves to be in the canon of great TV. As films, the Star Trek movies are mostly mediocre, whereas the shows were magnificent television, and Star Trek's cultural impact comes mostly from its television incarnations.

I brought it up a few threads ago, and Devin commented that it's about appealing to the demographic that listens to podcasts, which is fair enough. I was a teenager in the 80's so these are the films I grew up with, and there are a lot of great films there (and the nostalgia factor), but it would be hard to argue that it is the most canon-worthy decade.

I have loved this film for thirty years, but that's not why I am voting yes (I also love Stand By Me and Labyrinth but voted no on them) - one reason I am voting yes is because I think this is one of those films that even though it's cultural impact isn't felt in an obvious, lets all wear the t-shirt, make a meme, and put gifs of it on tumbler kind of way, it is a film that weaves its influence on the culture in a different manner, by influencing writers and directors, most notably Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant whose comedy of discomfort "The Office" (and its American spinoff) undoubtably bears the imprint of this film. Devin and Amy touched upon the obvious subtext after the John Lennon assassination, and the attempt on Reagan's life, and I am hard-pressed to find a film other than "La Dolce Vita" that captures our modern culture's obsession with celebrity as well as this film does, but it came along at a time when audiences were probably exhausted by some of the excesses and the darkness of American auteur films of the seventies - this is the era of Ronald Reagan, after all. And the film was probably affected negatively by the success and the expectations created by another film, which came out the year before, and that is Tootsie, another film about an aspiring performer in New York who is forced to take desperate measures. The King of Comedy is a bizarro Tootsie - the performers at the center of both stories both feel they are being over-looked, and in the case of Tootsie it just happens that he is extremely talented. The Sandra Bernhard character is the mirror image of the Teri Garr character - a woman who shares his obsession and who he pushes aside, and Jerry Lewis grounds the film in reality in the same way Sydney Pollack provides the anchor for Tootsie as the only characters who really understand the world these narratives exist in. And in the end, both characters' transgressive actions gain them a certain measure of fame. But audiences and critics wanted the Tootsie version and were turned-off by the King of Comedy when it didn't deliver the same kind of experience. The film has always worked for me, at the most basic level, because as pathetic and extreme as Rupert seems, he is portrayed with great empathy and understanding by De Niro, and Scorsese's less kinetic, more patient style works to develop the character. As far as the ending goes, whether it is real or not - the film's previous fantasy sequences have very specific cues. The bloody handkerchief, and that vary symmetrical head-on shot of Rupert waiting in the offices. The ending doesn't have that. It has Rupert being driven away why a wise-cracking detective, in a wide-shot. I think it's real because there was never any ambiguity about what is real and what isn't. An aspect of the film that I find extraordinary is the costume design by Richard Bruno, especially when it comes to dressing the guys. The jacket that Rupert wears on the air is inspired - and probably terrible for television, with its incredibly busy pattern - but you can tell that Rupert has been saving this for a special occasion. Okay, that was rambling. But I voted yes. I don't think this is a film that surrenders all its treasures on a first viewing.

I totally agree with you. I think my post about wrestler movies and beach party movies is being misinterpreted as deriding both genres, whereas I am a fan of both.

I grew up in Mexico City in the 1970's - Santo movies on a blurry television screen were my daily bread. We need the ultimate versus episode: "Santo versus The Vampire Women" versus "Santo versus The Mummies of Guanajuato"

Does that mean we get to have a beach party movie and a Mexican wrestler movie too?

On the subject of gimmicks, I think it's fair to criticize a film for being gimmicky when it doesn't transcend the gimmick by offering something beyond the stunt - whether its through its visual style, its thematic approach, the performances, the narrative structure. Obviously in the case of The Blair Witch, the gimmick is very up-front and central to the entire film, as it affects both form and content. Some feel it transcends it through the background mythology, the performances, and the ending. Some don't. I'm in the latter camp, but as I said in an earlier comment, I was so turned off by the film on my first viewing in 1999, that don't think I can give it a fair shake. In my opinion, the best found-footage horror film is [Rec]. The question is, would [Rec] have existed without Blair Witch? Hard to say. It seems like in the digital era, somebody was inevitably bound to stumble upon the concept. (And The Last Broadcast did it first)

I'd say the Don Siegel version from 1956 and the Philip Kaufman version from 1978 are the ones worthy of consideration. The ending of the 1956 version was ruined by studio interference, but if you stop the film right before the tacked-on happy ending, it's just as good as the 1978 version.

I thought this forum was a safe space for snobs. I'm triggered now.

A cringe-inducing masterpiece! Can't wait to re-watch for the umpteenth time, and listen to the episode.

When Devin said that in 1999 everybody walked out of that film feeling scared, I feel he is exaggerating. I almost walked out of the theater feeling bored, about 30 minutes into it, and everybody I knew talked about how the marketing duped us into shelling out our hard-earned to go see something mediocre. So, the marketing is definitely canon. The film, I'm not so sure. I"m not going to vote either way because I tried watching it again and this time I did stop so I can't give it a fair shake. It seems like it's going to sail into the canon on the strength of it's cultural impact, and I guess that's fine.