bleary

I'm surprised to see almost 30 films from the 2000s on the ballot, given only one ended up making the list. In light of that, it certainly seems like Sixth Sense and Lord of the Rings did not get on the list through recency bias.

Sadly, Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now are not currently streaming for free on any major US subscription streaming service that I can find. Gotta get out the credit card, or check your local library. E.T. is still on HBOGo and HBONow. High Noon is still on Amazon Prime and Hulu.

Just to follow up on this, Double Indemnity can now be streamed for free (with valid cable subscription) over at TCM on demand until September 8th: http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/73500

I really disagree with this. As Amy and Paul pointed out, the film is about communication: between Malcolm and his wife, between Cole and the ghosts, and most markedly in my opinion, between Cole and his mother. Their relationship throughout most of the film is cute, but it's built on lies. (Case in point: one of their happiest exchanges in the movie is when they're making up stories about what happened to them that day.) To me, the climax of the film is the scene in the car, where Cole finally has the courage to share the truth with his mother, and his mother, while skeptical, finds the compassion to accept his truth. Upon this week's rewatch, I found myself thinking that if the movie had ended at that scene, it still would have been great. As much as I think that the twist is one of the all-time great twists, it almost ends up doing a disservice to the rest of the film because it's the main thing people remember and the main thing people think about when watching. But I absolutely think there's a great film surrounding that. Whether it's a top 100 film... that's tougher to say. I think there are probably better films that could have taken its place on this list, but I'd call it a shoo-in for top 200. This is a great take. As much as I like the film, its narrative weakness is 100% the "resolution" between Cole and the ghosts. Like, that ghost in the attic that beat the shit out of him for no reason is going to talk out his problems with this kid?

Currently, E.T. can be streamed from HBOGo/HBONow, or through Amazon if you have an HBO subscription there. High Noon can currently be streamed on Amazon Prime and on Hulu.

FYI: Singin' In The Rain is currently available to stream on FilmStruck, The Sixth Sense can be streamed in the US on Netflix, and Taxi Driver can be streamed on Hulu. And if you're waiting on the Double Indemnity episode for lack of availability of the film, it's scheduled to play on TCM on September 1st, and I'm hoping TCM will add it to their online on-demand movies in the next couple weeks but that's obviously not a sure thing.

The 1933 King Kong can be seen online through TCM right now: http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/2690. I'm looking forward to rewatching it today with Amy's commentary track that she made with Devin Faraci for The Canon Commentaries.

Also, when a caller suggested that Magnolia was hard to find streaming, I may or may not have screamed aloud, "IT'S ON FILMSTRUCK!"

I may have missed the cutoff for the end of voting, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in anyway. As it seems with a few people here, I'm not going to be voting for my favorite of these three films, which would be Magnolia. Magnolia seemed to have a sort of mythos around it in my eyes during the many years between its release and when I finally was able to see it for the first time. I knew it in the early 2000s as that three-hour film with so many actors I liked, and that many people seemed to think was the best film of 1999, an all-time great film year. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, after seeing There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love and The Master, I had ridiculously high expectations for Magnolia, which now seemed to me to be an epic movie in the early career of an all-time great filmmaker. However, I still didn't see it until I had moved to Los Angeles, and American Cinematheque was doing a Philip Seymour Hoffman retrospective in March 2014 at the Aero Theatre. Even though my expectations were impossibly high, Magnolia completely surprised me and blew me away. Boogie Nights is probably the PTA film I rewatch the most, and Blood is the PTA film I most admire for its merits, but Magnolia is probably my favorite PTA film. A caller in the episode (maybe Johnny Pomatto? I can't remember) pointed out that Magnolia is PTA's tribute/homage to Robert Altman, one of his directing heroes. However, I can't help but prefer Magnolia over all of Altman's work that I've seen, as Anderson masters the intricate plot work and emotional character work of Altman's films and adds in dazzling visual storytelling and camera work, which I've always found lacking a bit in Altman's films. So emotionally, I'm with Magnolia. However, I don't think we need three different Paul Thomas Anderson films in the Canon. Although the films that are in there now are not the first ones I would choose, I still think they offer enough encapsulation of PTA's strengths that putting Magnolia in would be mostly redundant, despite how much I love it. Next, I quite frankly don't think David Fincher is a director that the Canon needs to include at all, so the fact that Se7en is already in also makes me less interested in supporting Zodiac. Don't get me wrong, I find Zodiac to be a great film, and I agree with many people here that Zodiac is Fincher's best film, but I don't find it Canon-worthy. Maybe I'm just bitter about Se7en getting in, but despite its appeal and merits, Zodiac runs a distant third for me in this matchup. Finally, we have a director in Edgar Wright who has not yet been put into the Canon. In many ways, I see Edgar Wright as a comedic parallel to Paul Thomas Anderson, as both were excellent at both writing and directing at extremely early ages. And honestly, the best argument against putting him in the Canon now is that it is all too possible that his best film is still yet to come, even after how impressive Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim, The World's End, and Baby Driver are. (Can anyone name a primarily-comedy director who had a better stretch of five consecutive films? Maybe early Woody Allen, though his films tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth these days.) Like with PTA, anyone can make a solid case for any of Wright's films being their favorite. My personal favorite of his is Scott Pilgrim, though I absolutely feel that the film that best shows his gifts is Shaun of the Dead, which I see as his There Will Be Blood: you may be into it or you may not be, but you can't deny the prowess on display. (Stupid aside: if Shaun is his Blood, then I suppose Scott Pilgrim is his Boogie Nights, Baby Driver is his Magnolia, Hot Fuzz is his Punch-Drunk Love, and The World's End is his Master.) So I'm throwing my vote at Shaun of the Dead. But I'll say what others have already said, that all three of the these movies are fantastic, and I'd probably vote yes on any of the three of them in solo episodes.

I'm not drawn to most horror films, but I especially don't like slasher films. And the first half of Scream played to me like a standard slasher film, and therefore was as disturbing/uninteresting to me as a standard slasher film. The second half of the film was much more enjoyable to me. I liked the Scooby-Doo mystery aspects, and I thought the meta-commentary worked extremely well, particularly given how tricky meta-humor can be to pull off. I also enjoyed the slapstick aspects of it, as Ghostface's many pratfalls satirizing the unstoppable killer trope so effectively that Scary Movie could only copy it rather than parody it. I was mostly won over by how fun the second half of the film was, but I'd probably be a soft no just on the film itself. However, the influence this film had in resuscitating a fading genre and inspiring movies for decades to come is substantial enough for me to give it a yes vote.

With tomorrow's contenders being announced as Shaun of the Dead vs Magnolia vs Zodiac, it is worth mentioning that Zodiac is available to watch on Amazon Prime and Magnolia is available on FilmStruck. All three are also rentable through the usual means.

I'm glad this episode finally prompted me to watch Grey Gardens, which had been on my watchlist for some time. And it's an easy yes from me, based on the influence this film has had on other documentarians, and the reasonable influence on pop culture as a whole. Beyond that, the questions it raises about objectivity in documentary filmmaking and exploitation of subjects is really interesting. Can you exploit someone who wants all the attention that such an exploitation would entail? If Little Edie knew the joke was on her and didn't care, is the joke really on her? And then of course, there's the levels of emotional abuse between these two women that makes this such a sad, and yet fascinating story. If the shot of the mirror does represent the camera turning away from discomfort, I can certainly understand that impulse. Canon-worthy all around for a number of reasons.

I guess the general sense I'm getting is to leave nothing for later and treat this as a series finale (who knows how long this hiatus could last). That also motivates me to nominate only films that won't eventually be discussed by Amy and Paul on Unspooled (sorry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?). We already have a Fellini in the Canon with Nights of Cabiria, so I don't know if I absolutely need 8 1/2 to be nominated, even though I love it. Ditto with Lynch and Mulholland Drive. My favorite Bergmans are Wild Strawberries and Persona, with the latter being more of a gut favorite, while I believe the former to be the better-made film. I'd love to have either one of those nominated. I think the Kurosawa to nominate has to be Rashomon, though certainly many of his films are excellent. Similarly, I think the Godard to nominate has to be Breathless. My favorite Tarkovsky is Stalker, though others have nominated Andrei Rublev and The Mirror, and Solaris probably deserves some thought too. My Sergio Leone pick would be The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. For more recent picks, I'd love to see Charlie Kaufman considered. I really couldn't quibble with almost any of his scripts, but I think his best film is Adaptation. I love Villeneuve, and would nominate Incendies from him. That's all I can think of right now.

As my photo broadcasts, I agree completely. It's hard to say that I have just one favorite film, but it's one of a handful of films I consider perfect, and it's been fun reading everyone's thoughts about it.

I don't understand what this call-in show is. When Amy mentioned it on the podcast, it was in the context of clearly Canon-worthy work that hasn't been discussed on the show. So then is the point to put up five slam dunk movies, give them 10 minutes of conversation rather than a whole episode, and then send all five into the Canon? Or is this going to be a battle royale in which only one film makes the Canon? If that's the case, then I don't see the incentive to nominate clearly Canon-worthy work. So then are we going to put forward a few different big-name directors and give them each a nominee, sort of like FictionIsntReal is alluding to? If so, should we then be looking at their most traditionally lauded films, or should we look at more borderline films in their repertoire, as sycasey 2.0 suggests? Or is this the fan version of the indulgence picks Devin and Amy made, where we put forth out-of-the-box films that we find interesting but that wouldn't be found on an AFI or IMDb top films list? Any of those options are interesting to me, but I don't know which one is going to be used.

Agreed, but in the film and opera, Tommy's message always came off as living a more stripped down life, but that could just be me. Also, I think the film/opera are very critical of Frank and Mrs. Walker (her name is Nora according to imdb?) for their exploitation of the crowd, but the crowd doesn't seem to turn on that aspect. They are willing to part with their money easily enough, and their rejection comes when Tommy suggests that they make a more substantial change in their lives than that. That's why I suggested the mob had a pro-capitalist tint, but I suppose that might be a stretch. At any rate, I definitely see the mob at the end as the "bad guys," and in that context, the song bums me out by giving them the perceived empowerment.

I got really into The Who sometime around middle school or early high school, and the album Tommy was probably the album that I listened to the most in high school. For that reason, I can't judge the film Tommy in any sort of way that separates it from my feelings about the original album. For that reason, I found it really ironic in the episode that David lamented music videos ruining personal visualization of a piece of music, and then saying that Tommy avoids this problem, which he of course feels largely because he saw the film before hearing the album. As someone who listened to the album a lot before seeing the film, I will say definitively that Tommy does not avoid this problem at all. Although this was the first time I've seen the film, I saw a performance of the rock opera sometime in late high school or college, and the differences between the plot of the film/opera and the plot of the album as I visualized it really bummed me out. For one thing, I always liked the ambiguity in the beginning of the album, where it's unspecified what Tommy actually witnesses that triggers his psychosomatic symptoms. Having Mrs. Walker meet someone else, leading to a conflict with the surviving Captain Walker is a fine answer to that ambiguity, although the idea of Bernie's Holiday Camp and the appropriation of the album's song "Tommy's Holiday Camp" retconned for this purpose seemed unnecessary to me. And moreover, even if it is a fine solution, I felt a little robbed by losing that mystery. In my opinion, the high points of the film coincide with the high points of the album, being "Pinball Wizard" and "Go to the Mirror." Elton John's performance of "Pinball Wizard" is great, and Nicholson's performance of "Go to the Mirror" worked for me, unconventional as it was. In the album, "Go to the Mirror" is the lynchpin that makes the whole thing work, in that it functions as connective tissue that advances the story, introduces key themes both narratively and musically, and also is just a really good song. It features the diagnosis and concerns of the doctor and the mother contrasting with the desperate pleas of Tommy's subconscious to be seen and heard, and then crescendos towards a resolution in the form of the "Listening to You" theme that is later reprised in "We're Not Gonna Take It." This lead into and introduction of the "Listening to You" is one of my favorite pieces of rock music ever. So of course, I was very disappointed that the film completely drops this from the end of "Go to the Mirror," and instead crescendos without resolution. And lastly, the film/opera have the critique of capitalism as a central message, while that isn't present at all in the album. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against a solid rock and roll criticism of capitalism (including The Who Sell Out), but that was never what I thought Tommy was. The added songs that reinforce this do nothing to me, though I have admiration for Ann-Margret for doing everything she could to sell them. The biggest casualty of this change of point of view was the final song, "We're Not Gonna Take It," which I always interpreted the way that Townshend originally intended, as a song of rebellion against authority in general and fascism in particular. However, the film/opera pulls a 180, and seemingly makes it a song of rebellion against... anti-capitalism? Guruism and hero worship? Religion in general? At any rate, because Tommy is the hero of the story, it means the audience is predisposed to be against the crowd singing "We're Not Gonna Take It" instead of for them. More than anything else, that fundamental change left me so disappointed when I first saw the opera. So like I said at the onset, I can't judge the film on things like acting and design and direction, because everything about the adaptation from album to opera leaves me with bad feelings, and I have to vote no based on that. At the same time, I understand that someone who either saw the movie first or had a visualization of the album that aligned with the film's interpretation could adore this film. I happen to love the film version of Pink Floyd's The Wall, but I could see someone easily having the same problems with it that I have with the film Tommy.

And it's on FilmStruck.

I've had FilmStruck/Criterion Channel a little over a year, and I love it. The only real negative is that the website's flash-based system is a bit inelegant, and it makes browsing the collections more time-consuming than it needs to be. But the big plus is its library. While films rotate in and out, they tend to stay for a much longer time than on something like Mubi. They're well-curated into smaller collections, such as weekly groups dedicated to a certain actor or director. I've also recently been diving into their short film collection, which has allowed me to discover a few gems I'd never heard of. So I'd recommend that you look at the library and see if it has enough of what you'd want. I'd guess that over half the AFI 100 list have been on FilmStruck (or the Criterion Channel part of FilmStruck) at some point over the last year.

As always, comedies are tough because different people laugh at different things. Personally, I find Caddyshack generally hilarious, as Dangerfield, Chase, Murray, and Knight all work well comedically for me. However, story purists will rightfully point out that the film is a structureless, arcless mess. As becomes clear after watching A Futile and Stupid Gesture, the writers likely didn't intend any of their films to have any structure or arcs and instead threw in whatever made them laugh. As a result, the comedy is all there is to judge it on. (That and the Kenny Loggins use, of course.) As far as the connection to the use of ad-libbing in 2000s comedies, I don't put the blame on this film specifically as much as I put the blame on Bill Murray, who ad-libbed the majority of his lines not just in Caddyshack, but also in Stripes, Tootsie, and the Ghostbusters films. And in all, with Animal House and Ghostbusters already in the Canon, I don't think we need anything more from this era. Personally, I prefer Animal House over Caddyshack and I prefer Stripes over Ghostbusters, but my strongest vote would be for another nice long moratorium on episodes covering 80s comedies.

I'll echo Tom's feelings about how captivating the first half of the film is. However, I'll also echo his feelings that the second half is a bit of a letdown, and ultimately I'll echo the votes of Johnny Pomatto and sycasey 2.0 and say I'm also a respectful no.

Those matchups would be so cruel, particularly the latter. Wild Strawberries and Persona are both probably among my top 30 favorite films ever.

I agree with others that this was a frustrating episode to listen to, though that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. The frustration for me came because I don't love Grease as much as Adam does, nor do I hate it as much as Amy does, and I don't love Hairspray as much as Amy does, while still disagreeing with some of the faults Adam found in it. Overall, I found myself agreeing with Adam more. Hairspray definitely has that distinctly John Waters camp to it, and like Adam, I don't think that's a bad thing. However, I see Amy's point that it does have a different feel than many of his other films, because it has a more clear point of view and uses Waters' cutting wit only against the racist characters, as mentioned by sycasey 2.0 and others. While there are still jokes at the other characters's expenses, it feels much more like we're laughing with them than at them. Contrast that with Female Trouble, where every single character is a joke and the film is almost daring you to sympathize with any of them so that you can be the butt of the joke too. So while the camp elements are still there in Hairspray, they are deployed in a much different (and more digestible, in my opinion) manner. I also agree with Adam that it's not super fair to compare these two films just on the basis that they have similar time frame and plot elements. That'd be like comparing Tropic Thunder to the documentary Hearts of Darkness: both are films about the struggles of making a Vietnam War film, but they are so different in their goals and themes and executions that to say that one is better than the other feels silly. 1988's Hairspray is not a musical, and to put it up against a musical means you aren't putting it just up against a particular film, but up against the whole genre of musicals, which some people just hate. So while the people who think one of these movies is good and the other is bad won't have any problem making their decision in this versus, the people who think both are fine examples of what they're trying to be are going to have trouble deciding what makes one more Canon-worthy than the other. Now, I have a long relationship with Grease, as it was the musical that got my little sister interested in musicals, which resulted in her constantly singing lyrics like "lousy with virginity" at the age of 6 around family friends and embarrassing my parents. She watched this film dozens of times in those years, which means I probably saw it at least five or six times in that span (as well as The Music Man and all the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical films). And perhaps because of that, I think most of the songs are genuinely great, and I can't understand Amy's dislike of them (except that Los Angeles karaoke is a bit of a shitshow with way too many people taking it way too seriously, and I could imagine that a romantic couple singing "Summer Nights" sincerely would be a drag. Having done "Summer Nights" at karaoke solely with platonic friends or my sister and solely comedically, I've always thought it's a solid standard in the vein of "Total Eclipse of the Heart" or "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" in that it's cliche and overdone, but it's overdone because it's good. I have a lot of feelings about karaoke.) So I very much enjoy most of the songs, even as I've always been a little horrified by the climactic plot turn by Sandy. But here's where one of my own personal Canon philosophies is going to come out: I don't think that a film based on a book or play or another film deserves to make the Canon unless it adds something special and new, be it technical aspects, great performances, or a new plot twist. So with that in mind, I don't care about the plot of Grease and I don't care about most of the songs in Grease, at least in the discussion of its Canon-worthiness. Unfortunately, that's really all that Adam talked about, with the exception of his defense of a couple nice camera shots. So what did the film add? As far as I can remember, the songs in the film that weren't in the original stage musical are "Grease" (which I think is pretty terrible), "Sandy" (which isn't a great song, although like Adam, I love the 50s movie ad hot dog in the background), "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (which I'm not a fan of), and "You're the One That I Want" (which I think is legitimately great). The film added the racing scene, which apes Ben-Hur, and adds little more substance than that, though I always loved driving over the section of the Los Angeles River where it was filmed. I honestly don't know how much of the choreography was original and how much was derived from the stage version. Certainly some of the "Greased Lightning" choreography has become iconic, and I think the dancing in "You're the One That I Want" and "Hand Jive" is great too. (Amy mentioned that she felt that the movie ground to a halt during "Hand Jive", but I felt that way during every single shot of dancing in Hairspray that lasts more that 5 seconds. In particular, that line-dancing scene early in the film seems to go on forever, and it's the same boring moves over and over again.) Finally, there aren't many pieces of camerawork that are noteworthy. Adam mentioned the scene where Rizzo reveals her pregnancy and we see the gossip spread, and that's a fun little bit, but nothing special in my opinion. The most unique (for good and bad) shot is probably the final shot of the car flying away, which has been parodied many times since. I've always thought that last second dive into surreality was more of a bug than a feature, as if it was thrown in as an afterthought to give viewers a look at something they couldn't see in the stage play. So all in all, while there's no doubt that the musical Grease belongs in the Canon of all-time classic and influential musicals, I don't see enough here to say that the film Grease belongs in the Canon of all-time classic and influential films. Meanwhile, Hairspray is great. I'll also mention that the musical version of Hairspray is also great, and I find those songs to be spectacular as well. Putting Grease up against the 2007 Hairspray would have been a much more interesting battle, since both are actually musicals and both have Travolta at the two bookends of his career relevance. I would have voted for Hairspray in a solo episode anyway, and I think Amy is putting her thumb on the scale a bit to ensure it gets in by making it a versus episode against a love-it-or-hate-it film in a love-it-or-hate-it genre, but I'll vote for it nonetheless. However, my big regret from this episode is that Adam didn't get to talk about Persona. Almost 200 different films have been debated on The Canon, but not a single Bergman! Someone needs to do Persona!

#1: You know it's not looking good for the film's chances when the most interesting discussion in the forum is about the differing views of WWI media from different countries instead of anything having to do with the movie. (That's not sarcasm, I think it is an interesting discussion!) #2: Unlike MadScientist above, I am not a history buff, but I still raised my eyebrows at Helena being depicted as an up-and-coming city in the 1910s. Helena was the most populous city in Montana from the 1860s until around 1900, at which point it was the other nearby towns like Butte and Great Falls that began to flourish. Anyway, through no fault of this film, I am currently suffering from fatigue of the sprawling family epic, having recently watched Giant, Howard's End, and Cimarron within the last 3 weeks or so. Therefore, I naturally placed Legends of the Fall into that category, rather than viewing it as a melodrama or a girl movie or a boy movie or anything. (In that respect, as alluded to by Johnny Pomatto, it falls rather short of Giant as a film.) So many of the beats are so predictable that I didn't even think of them as a question of "if," but "when." And furthermore: This is a spot-on analysis of what keeps the movie from having any chance of being great. To be fair, I think it knows it wants to be a film about family, but it digresses in frustrating ways. World War I is used as an excuse to deep-six Samuel and really little more than that. Sure, the film tries to draw parallels to the conflict with the American Indians, but it's very clumsy. The prohibition and bootlegging are used as an excuse to knock off Isabel Two, and also serves little more purpose than that. The result is that we get a Forrest Gumpification of this family, where the turning points in their lives happen to coincide with turning points of history. It's at least unnecessary, and at worst a bit laughable. I kept having the feeling that there was some deep symbolic meaning that I was missing that Kendra and Amy would bring up in the episode that would make me reevaluate the plot, but apparently not. That said, I'm not as low on the film overall as a lot of other people are. The score, if slightly derivative, worked well in my opinion. Well-shot views of the northern Rockies are always welcome. Anthony Hopkins gives a great performance, even if it's almost surely not in his top 5 greatest performances. I'm always a proponent of putting First Nations people and Native Americans in non-stereotypical roles, though I wish the characters of One Stab and Pet were given a little more to do in that regard. And overall, I found it to be a reasonably fine movie. But Canon-worthy? Nothing stuck out to me to make me feel that way. I'll vote a soft no on this one.

Someone in the forums led off their review of Cry Uncle! with "What the hell did I just watch?" I have to say that was my reaction after watching The Fountainhead. As pointed out by everyone in this thread, the film's plot and screenplay are so absurd, illogical, and ill-conceived that it's hard to find words to describe it. As Susan* pointed out above, most of the characters just state their feelings, goals and personal histories as if that's a normal thing to do. The idea that the man who blew up a low-income housing project is portrayed heroically as being literally on top of the world in the closing scene is, well, if not Kafkaesque, certainly Lynchian. Moreover, just the idea that every single character in this film (and perhaps every citizen of New York?) has such insanely strong, stubborn views about modern architecture feels like something out of an absurdist comedy sketch. During Roark's courtroom speech, I half-expected a "South Park" style subtitle to pop up saying, "This is what Randians actually believe." And yet, as pointed out again by everyone in this thread, the film is technically stunning. I must admit, this is the first King Vidor film I'd seen, so the craftsmanship present in this film took me by surprise. And the amount that the actors really commit to the nonsense script gives it such a surreal quality. I think Larry Karaszewski was spot-on when he described it as a fever dream. It's so disconcerting, particularly in today's political climate and particularly knowing that so many people who have so much power buy into the nonsensical message. So in the end, this read as a beautifully shot unintentional horror film, and in that sense, it kind of worked for me. I don't think the yes votes will carry this one, but I'll throw a yes in, provided its Canon entry's plaque clarifies that we all realize just how bananas this script is. But in an evil way. Evil bananas. That's the world we're living in right now, after all.