bleary

First of all, it's been fantastic having Russ Fischer as a quasi-cohost for these four episodes. It almost made me wish he was a permanent cohost, but at the same time, the guest format has given us some truly magnificent, personal discussions, such as Matt Zoller-Seitz on Seconds or Cameron Esposito on The Matrix, and hopefully that continues next week with Ruben Östlund on Fat Girl and beyond (I'm still hoping my vision board can will an episode where Emily Yoshida talks about Persona into existence, since her piece on it last May was one of my favorite bits of film-writing in 2017). However, I would love to hear Russ as a regular guest, bravo and many thanks to him for these episodes. I don't have too much to add about these films, I think Amy and Russ summed it up pretty well. I find Gladiator to be a fine film, but Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is a better film. The action scenes in Gladiator are strong, proficient, and clangy, while the action scenes in Crouching Tiger are breathtaking and captivating. The relationships in Gladiator seem forced, while the relationships in Crouching Tiger seem incredibly natural and moving. And finally, more happens in 2 hours in Crouching Tiger than happens in the 155 minutes (171 for the extended version!) of Gladiator, without the pace ever feeling rushed. I greatly enjoyed the discussion of judging actors in foreign language films, because this is something I've thought about for years. Without understanding the language, I have no idea about how the lines are being delivered, not just concerning accent or pronunciation, but cadence and enunciation as well. Whenever I watch a foreign language film, I always wonder if someone is making a really weird acting choice that I'd never pick up on, like delivering lines with what amounts to a Christopher Walken speech pattern in that language, or taking a big accent swing, or something like that. So it's really tough to know how an actor is doing in their dialogue, but Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, and Chow Yun Fat all have such great emotional physicality in their performances that at times, even in dialogue-heavy scenes, you can know what's happening even without the subtitles. Again, without being able to analyze line delivery, I can't know for sure how phenomenal the performances were, but they all certainly worked for me. I get Russ's point about the cultural impact of Gladiator, but I'm inclined to discount it a little more than he did, because it was really just another cog in a long line of historical epics. After all, Gladiator had been preceded as Best Picture winner by Schindler's List, Braveheart, The English Patient, and Titanic. The years that followed gave us nominees such as Gangs of New York, The Pianist, Master and Commander, etc. Hell, The Patriot is another historical epic, and it came out within two months of Gladiator. Maybe Gladiator renewed the interest in the Greek/Roman times, but I'm not even sure I buy that since Disney's Hercules came out in 1997 and the Kevin Sorbo Hercules TV show ran from 1995-1999. Honestly, if we're looking for a patient zero that ties together 300 and Troy and Alexander with things like Gladiator and Gangs of New York and The Patriot, that patient zero would be Braveheart in my book. I feel like it really kicked off the trend of super bloody historical epics that sought to be taken seriously. (But even so, someone could rightfully point to Dances With Wolves as leading to Braveheart.) This comparison is notable in light of the fact that Mel Gibson was the first choice to play Maximus, but he felt he was too old for the part and went off to fulfill a similar revenge plot in The Patriot instead. All that is to say, I don't buy that Gladiator was overwhelmingly influence as far as what movies got greenlit. Since Crouching Tiger is the better film, it gets my vote.

It's also on Filmstruck if you have it! I've been thinking about watching this for years and never got around to it, so I'm excited that I'm finally being spurred to action now.

I'm probably on board with the general tone of the thread so far, in that neither of these films would be a slam dunk pick for the Canon in solo episodes. I agree with Russ that the character of Miss Daisy is a real tough hang, and also that Bull Durham would be a more surefire Canon pick than Field of Dreams. But I also disagree with a lot of the criticism levied at Field of Dreams in the episode. First off, even though the beginning and ending focus on the relationship between Ray and his father, I've always thought of it less as a "father-son" movie and more as a "family" movie. When I first saw it on VHS as a child, it wasn't just with my father, it was my father and mother and brother and sister all together in the living room. Hell, it was probably my mom's idea to buy the VHS in the first place. (Costner's got that mom-appeal!) I think the film backs this up in a couple of ways. First, Amy Madigan takes what could be a bland cliche wife character in other stories and gives it so much strength and life. Even though Ray is the one driving the plot, I totally buy the idea of Annie as an equal partner in that relationship. She's plausibly enough of a hippie that she's generally willing to indulge Ray's mystical journey, and equally plausible as being pragmatic enough to voice her objections at times. Secondly, I think it's important that Ray has a daughter instead of a son, and I love the depiction of their relationship. I don't have any children, but I'm fascinated by the transition of a child from impulse monster to an actual conscious entity capable of considering the humanity of other people, and I'm touched by Karin's interest in learning about her father's passions for the first time and by Ray's eagerness to share it with her. And thirdly, schmaltzy as it may be, when told that heaven is a place where dreams come true, Ray focuses not on his baseball field or even his chance encounter with Ghost Dad, but on his family, laughing on the porch swing, as he admits, "Maybe this is heaven." (Yeah, it's overly sentimental, but so is Spielberg sometimes.) It also seemed like Amy had some issues with not understanding the rules or motivations of the magical elements, but I think this is a critical part of the story. I love that Ray and Annie and Terrance Mann don't understand any of it either, don't search for any consistencies, and just let things happen, whether it's voices in the cornfield, or a shared dream of Fenway Park, or a stroll back in time in Chisholm MN, or finally when a teenage Archibald Graham hops in their car. Costner and Jones play this last moment so well, with a mix of incredulity and complete acceptance of the absurdity of it all. I'm fine with the fact that they changed the author character from a fictionalized version of J.D. Salinger to a completely fictional character. For one thing, I'm sure that in 1989, more people saw this movie than had read any Salinger, a reality not lost on the author, who has said that many book readers thought J.D. Salinger was entirely his own creation. I would imagine that mostly anyone who would get the namecheck would also recognize that the character of the once-lauded author who disappeared from the world's view is an allusion to Salinger anyway, regardless of his name. Furthermore, fictionalizing Salinger into Mann more seamlessly allowed for the casting of James Earl Jones, which brings me to the next thing I love about this movie. James Earl Jones. If this were a solo episode, and there were one thing that were to vault this film into Canon-worthy territory for me, it's James Earl Jones. His performance makes me buy into so much in Field of Dreams that might have made me cringe in lesser hands. Everything from his delivery of "It's your finger!" to sell the gun joke, to his nervous/gleeful laughter as he fades into the cornfield, he makes things better than they should be. Crucially, this includes the grand monologue he delivers at the end, which, as Russ points out, is complete bullshit as written as on the page. For one thing, the idea that baseball has marked the times through America's turbulent history ignores the fact that the game wasn't played in the US until 70+ years after the Declaration of Independence, and no professional league existed until a decade after the end of the Civil War. The idea that it reminds us of all that was once good ignores the shameful history of segregation in the major leagues. And that's to say nothing of the cynical idea that the solution to their problems is to sell happiness and nostalgia for $20 a pop. Yet James Earl Jones recites this pile of lunacy with such conviction that it absolutely works for me! I can recite the whole speech by heart and some parts have even entered my normal lexicon. (Whenever considering a purchase of something I want but don't need, I tell myself that it's money I have, and peace I lack.) One could argue that making the author character a black civil rights advocate instead of a white J.D. Salinger makes it even more absurd for him to sweep past baseball's ugly history (and having Jones himself deliver this is an extra bit of irony, since he famously portrayed Troy in "Fences" for years on Broadway, in which his character's anger largely stems from narrowly missing his window for the integration of the majors). But like I said, Jones makes this work so much better than it should. In baseball statistics parlance, his WAR is off the charts for this monologue, and quite high for his work in the movie as a whole. In a lot of ways, the biggest problem about the film is that it involves baseball at all, given that its ignorance of segregation and glorification of a player who accepted money to fix the World Series (regardless of whether the film, or anyone else, thinks Jackson was or wasn't actively trying to lose, he's still guilty for taking the money!) are the most problematic aspects of the story. But at the same time, I'm glad it does. That's probably because I love baseball. I love the scenes where the players scrimmage and interact with each other, including that dig against notorious racist asshole Ty Cobb. I love seeing Jackson crush Ray's curveball. I love that Moonlight Graham was a real person, who played one inning in the major leagues and never had an at bat. If there's a case where sentimentality sways me on this film, it's less about the father-son stuff and more about how much I love baseball. (But at the same time, the baseball is as good or better in Bull Durham, A League of Their Own, both versions of Angels in the Outfield, and even possibly in the underrated For Love of the Game.) Most of the other high notes of the film have already been mentioned, but it's worth noting again that it was Burt Lancaster's final film and Gaby Hoffmann's first film, and the fact that the climax centers around an interaction between the two of them is such a nice idea in hindsight, in a story about generations. Meanwhile, Driving Miss Daisy is so bland. It's fine. It's well-acted. But I can't imagine anyone arguing passionately in favor of this film. If its largest cultural impact is that it made more people aware of Morgan Freeman (which was going to happen anyway with Lean On Me and Glory both coming out that same year), it's not a film of lasting importance. As mentioned by someone else above, the magical realism in Field of Dreams is something different, if nothing else. I don't think it should have won Best Picture, but it should win this matchup.

Driving Miss Daisy is on maxgo.com right now too if you have access to a Cinemax subscription.

Even more than most versus matchups, this seems to just be a matter of taste. Both of these films are well-made, and both were ahead of their times in different ways. Midnight Cowboy ushered in a new cinematic era in terms of story and direction, while Butch Cassidy influenced screenwriters for decades. This has always seemed like one of the most interesting years in film history to me, with these game-changing films being joined by Easy Rider and Z and The Wild Bunch and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? among others. Meanwhile, although their era was coming to a close, the nominees were still riddled with musicals, with Hello, Dolly! getting 3 wins in 7 nominations and the score category including Paint Your Wagon, Sweet Charity, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. And as mentioned in the episode, westerns galore. In this context, I love how Midnight Cowboy directly addresses the relevance of westerns in modern times by having Joe's cowboy persona seem so out of touch, even in Texas. (I also love the irony of Voight's portrayal of this character going head-to-head against lifelong fake cowboy John Wayne, who somehow managed to win the lone Oscar of his career here.) I see Midnight Cowboy (and Easy Rider, which I feel is a great complement to Midnight Cowboy) as confronting the changing times by juxtaposing past with present while simultaneously developing a new cinematic language. What I'm really getting at is that, as good as Butch Cassidy is, it could have been made in 1959 or 1979 and it wouldn't make any difference; it wouldn't be any better or worse of a film. I'm sure some would argue that this is a point in its favor, and I could understand that argument. But I'm partial to what Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider say about the time they were made. Plus, (and this goes back to my original statement about taste), I get bored in the second act of Butch Cassidy. These are both remarkable films, and I think both are Canon-worthy, but I'm going with Midnight Cowboy.

I said "memorable," not "great," and I stick to that. If you ask me in a year what songs are from My Fair Lady, I highly doubt I'll come up with more than "Rain in Spain" and "I Could Have Danced All Night," and it's very possible I'll forget the latter because, although it's the best song in the show, there's nothing in it that specifically ties it to My Fair Lady in my memory. The most iconic movie performance of "I Could Have Danced All Night" was by Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, and Hank Azaria in The Birdcage. Again, I feel like this is a Lerner and Loewe trend. Brigadoon has "Almost Like Being In Love," a thoroughly recognizable song, but not one that I associate with Brigadoon. Gigi has "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" and "I Remember It Well," which I don't associate with Gigi as much as I just generally associate them with Maurice Chevalier. I give Lerner and Loewe credit for writing some all-time classic songs, but I don't think their songs do service to their shows and films in the same way that the Sherman brothers' songs do.

I don't particularly care for Lerner and Loewe musicals as a general rule, and I think the thing that infuriates me about My Fair Lady is the same thing that infuriates me about Gigi, which I also recently saw. Both films introduce these really great, energetic female characters, then spend way too much screen time on the men around them that totally suck, and ultimately handcuff them to these crappy men at the end. If you argue that this is the point, then I argue that it takes far too long to arrive at that point, and the ending undercuts that point. On the other hand, Mary Poppins is just the best. For one thing, it's absurd how deep the bench is in terms of great songs, which particularly contrasts with the Lerner and Loewe trend of one or two memorable songs per film. I mean, the Sherman brothers were unstoppable earworm machines for their entire careers, but for my money, this is their best full assembly of songs. (In fact, I would be hard pressed to name ANY musical with a better collection of songs than Mary Poppins, full stop. "Supercalifragilisticexpialodocious" is actually low-key one of the worst songs in the film, and it's an all-time classic. Meanwhile, as an adult, I still sing "Chim Chim Cher-ee" to myself on a regular basis.) There's not much to say about Mary Poppins that wasn't already said either in the episode, or above by sycasey 2.0 and Johnny Pomatto. I will echo above comments that disagreed with Russ's read on the suffragette material. In some ways, I think the film takes similar views toward both parents, in that it respects their non-family responsibilities, but suggests that both parents should make time for family. Mrs. Banks is not necessarily a bad mother for devoting time to the suffragette movement (important!), and Mr. Banks is not necessarily a bad father for devoting time to providing for his family financially (also important!). Mr. Banks' epiphany that the bank is not worth being miserable over is certainly played as a bigger moment than Mrs. Banks contributing her sash towards the family kite, but I believe the film intended them as parallels. Finally, I just want to say that I'll happily take a film whose notion of darkness and conflict is a man getting his hat punched through over a film whose notion of romance is the phrase "I've grown accustomed to her face." Mary Poppins all the way.

Being that the nomination didn't come with its own episode, I would say that was a non-canon Canon nom.

Well, I think it's clear that Amy is not alone in not being overly charmed by either of these movies. Count me among those who would probably select a "neither" option if one existed (although I also am in favor of keeping such an option nonexistent). That said, I do like one of these movies quite a bit more than the other. Before I get to that though, these last two comments claiming that Harold and Maude originated the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope are giving me an angry eye twitch. As someone who has written thousands of words on the MPDG, I can tell you without reservations that regardless of the definition you use, this is not the MPDG prototype, which has its cinematic origins in screwball comedies and probably has literary origins going back centuries. I usually point to Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby as the earliest good example that I can think of -- and honestly, Natalie Portman's quirky scatter-brained Sam in Garden State has way more in common with Susan Vance than with Maude. Enough about MPDGs and Garden State though. However, speaking of a mediocre movie with a great soundtrack, let's talk about Harold and Maude. Amy might be right that it suffers from a syndrome of only connecting with those who saw it before a certain age. I saw it for the first time this week, and its charm was completely lost on me. I found Harold just insufferable, and every closed-minded or cruel thing he did throughout the film made me hate him more. He is actively trying to emotionally hurt his mother by taunting her with his death. He is refusing to take his therapy seriously (even though, big surprise, when he finally opens up to Maude about the reason for his fascination with death, he has a breakthrough, imagine that!) Then even when one of his mother's blind dates ends up calling his fake death bluff in a really great way, he's too much of a sourpuss to even recognize her admirability in meeting him as his level, much less appreciate her or enjoy her in any way. Then finally, as Amy points out, he even refuses to allow Maude to die in the way that she wants! Then there's no evidence that he's changed in any way at the end. It seems unlikely that he has any desire to reconcile with his family, given that he decides to just drive his gift car off a cliff for no particular reason. Harold reminds me a lot of Holden Caulfield, in that I can see how he'd appeal to a 15 year old, but I don't understand how anyone in their 20s or 30s or beyond can see them as anything but immature, privileged assholes. (I say this as someone who loved "Catcher in the Rye" at age 15.) I will say that Maude is a much better character, and in particular, I love how so much about her character can be gleaned from such small details. I found myself admiring that Ashby just lets the concentration camp tattoo speak for itself and doesn't feel the need to hammer the idea home. However, I really didn't buy the relationship between them, and I sort of got the sense that she didn't really deeply care about him in the same way he cared about her. He was someone to spend some time in her final weeks, but little more than that. In short, I don't understand at all how this lands on a list of romantic movies, what with its utter lack of romance. Also, even though I love Cat Stevens as much as the next fellow, the discord between the songs and the film was really terrible. It almost seemed like happenstance when a song choice managed to actually make sense with the story on the screen. But again, my ambivalence towards this movie is largely rested on my contempt for Harold as a character. On the other side, I really like Being There. If there had been a solo episode for it, I quite possibly would have been a soft no, but there's so much in it that I really do enjoy. Off the top of my head right now, I can't think of any film that does a better job of epitomizing white middle-class male privilege than this, the idea that a white dude in a nice suit with proper diction is automatically granted the right to be taken seriously, regardless of the nonsense he spews. I love the scene with Louise calling him out, and I fear that if the movie didn't have this scene, many viewers wouldn't realize that this was being satirized at all (like the satirization of fascism in Starship Troopers). I like that, unlike in Forrest Gump, you're not artificially compelled to view Chance as any type of hero. You can pity or admire his simplicity, but it's just as easy to see him as a bad guy, albeit one who doesn't know any better. I also adore Nate's reading of the ending as turning this satirization back on the audience: what assumptions do you as a viewer make about something regardless of all evidence to the contrary? There's no walkway or pier, why do we assume there is? There's no depth to Chance's gardening aphorisms, why do they assume there is? And lastly, I kind of appreciate that it COULD appeal to someone who completely misses the satire, and I chuckle at the idea that there's some Forrest Gump lover watching this and thinking how neat it is that Chance can give such wise advice to such powerful people despite only knowing about gardening. (I completely understand how someone could look at that as a major negative of the film, but that's a level of stupidity that's somehow charming to me.) I do agree with Amy that the bits with Chance and Eve are real tough. I'd prefer just cutting much of that out and shortening the film by 8 or 10 minutes. But the rest of the film really works for me. It would be a harder decision if this were a stand-alone episode, but as a versus, this is an easy choice for me. I'm voting for Being There.

In a Borda count system, I agree that Last Jedi would be doing better and mother! would be doing worse, but I also suspect that Lady Bird would have a decent shot at beating Get Out. If we used the system that the Oscars use for Best Picture (instant-runoff, which is essentially a single transferable vote system) I have a tougher time predicting it, since the current 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place films are so close together. It would largely come down to those voters who put Star Wars 8 as their #1, since that would decide which of the films in the middle got eliminated next. If those voters all put, say, Florida Project as their #2, then Lady Bird would get eliminated next (or vice versa, or insert mother! in a similar situation). And then once it's down to Get Out and another contender, Get Out would only need about 1/3 of the ballots that didn't vote it #1 to at least have placed above that other contender. But again, depending on what that contender ended up being, it could be interesting.

Agreed, but there's no simple way to make this poll so that it isn't first-past-the-post. It would have been cool to see everyone rank their choices here in the forum, but a relatively small percentage of voters tend to leave comments.

This is a tough one, down to between 3 films for me. I'm not voting for mother!, my least favorite movie on this list and perhaps my least favorite of all films I saw in theaters this year. I know it's getting a bunch of votes here, but it's certainly not for me. Part of it is that I've never enjoyed goofy Aronosfky, when things get so absurd that they trend towards parody. I felt that way about the Ellen Burstyn plotline in Requiem for a Dream, and for short spurts in Black Swan. I generally think he's a very fine filmmaker other than this issue, as I greatly enjoy most of Black Swan, as well as The Wrestler and even The Fountain, which I think has unfairly gotten a bad rap over time. However, I feel like mother! sees him indulge his worst tendencies. On the surface, I really like the idea of the movie: exploring the relationship between God, the Earth, and humanity in the form of this marriage. (Also as an aside: really fantastic sound mixing in this movie. It won't get any nominations for sound mixing, but it totally deserves them in my opinion.) But when things go off the rails, it ventures firmly into parody for me, which leads to such a dissonance in tone. I mean, was I supposed to be laughing at this woman's baby being torn into pieces? Because I was, due to the absurdity of everything else! And to me, that undercuts any supposed deep allegorical meaning of the film, because no matter who/what Jennifer Lawrence's character represents, I don't think the intention is for the audience to laugh at her pain by the end. (Also, if, as some people have speculated, the story is partly about Aronofsky's relationship with Rachel Weisz, that means he's painting himself in the role of God, to which I say, eff that guy.) I'm also not voting for Star Wars 8, although I did really enjoy it. It's getting underrated because it's more or less just another Star Wars movie. It's getting overrated because it ended up being the best Star Wars movie in 37 years. I think in time people will see it for what it is: a very fun movie that breathed new life into a 40 year old franchise, but also ultimately a blockbuster with some major screenplay problems. I find no joy in tearing it down though, so I'll move on. This leaves Get Out, Lady Bird, and The Florida Project. Any of these would be a great addition to the Canon. Of these, Lady Bird is my favorite. The Florida Project is the film that blew me away and defied my expectations the most this year. But I think that Get Out is the one that will be most relevant and most remembered in the future, so that's what I'm going to vote for. Someone saw it as a retread of The Stepford Wives, but I see it more as a worthy companion to that and other classic psychological horror movies, while saying something new about 21st century racism in such a unique voice. As much as I love Lady Bird and The Florida Project, I foresee Get Out being the film I revisit and rewatch the most out of these.

I'll buy the argument that Life of Brian is a more cohesive film. I won't be upset if it wins this vote. But Holy Grail seems to be clearly more Canon-worthy in my opinion. It has had a larger cultural impact by far, with things such as "shrubbery", "I'm not dead yet!", or "African or European swallow?" being instantly identifiable pieces of pop culture. (I remember when people were arguing for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes on the basis of the iconography of the pink dress; how many more people have heard, or said, "It's just a flesh wound" than could identify that dress?) And as good as Life of Brian is, it's still a rather ordinary film (with over 10 times the budget of Holy Grail, by the way). Meanwhile, Holy Grail truly is, for lack of a better phrase, something completely different. That's what I want to see in the Canon.

I'll throw in a second for Columbus, which unexpectedly blew me away.

Happiest of holiday seasons to forum readers, and the firmest of "no"s to Love Actually!

Gotta agree with HoldenMartinson that Get Out is the film from this year that will live on the longest. Of the consensus awards fodder that I've seen, I think Lady Bird or Florida Project would be the top competitors against Get Out, but there are still a bunch of the new releases that I've yet to see. I'd also love to hear a Get Out vs. Big Sick episode, but I think it's clear that Get Out needs to be part of the conversation.

The main comparison I think is the issue of the unreliable narrator. I think Fight Club actually pulls this off reasonably well cinematically, though I never read that book.

By far, this is my favorite documentary about Paul Ryan. But seriously folks... It's a soft no for me. Like Lolita, I felt like this is a situation where the film loses something from the novel, which is particularly hard to avoid for a story in which so much happens inside the main character's head. For example, the long chapters about Phil Collins and Genesis make it clear that Bateman actually is psychopathically obsessed with bad 80s music, whereas in the film, as pointed out by Amy and April, it's uncertain whether that's just another mask he's putting on. I do give Turner and Harron credit for keeping the satirical aspects of the novel, and although they definitely made the murders and tortures much more vanilla, I think I'm mostly okay with that. On the one hand, by not showing some of the more disgustingly heinous things he does in the book, it allows the film to sympathize with Bateman more. But on the other hand, I don't think he should be a sympathetic character, and leaving a lot of the violence out works to neuter his malice, for better or worse. I also liked that they tried to keep the ambiguity of the novel with the ending, but it's not entirely successful in my opinion. I blame this predominantly on the general difficulties of doing unreliable narrator stories on film, which again, goes back to the difficulties of adapting any story that spends so much time in a character's mind. Considering the film separate from the novel, I do think there are good performances here, including Bale's Bateman and Cara Seymour as Christie. Reese Witherspoon is also great as usual, but I would have liked more of her character. I thought Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Jared Leto, and Matt Ross were solid as the generally indistinguishable finance bros. I felt like it was kind of a bummer that Willem Dafoe is essentially just playing a less interesting version of the murder-investigator character he played the year before in Boondock Saints, and I felt like his arc was a little incomplete in this. I did like the camerawork, particularly in the apartment scene with Leto, and I was surprised to see that Mary Harron hasn't gotten more work doing features after this, though she's had steady work in television. Overall, I think it's enjoyable, and I think the book is Canon-worthy, but I didn't think this adaptation gives enough that is interesting in its own right to be Canon-worthy.

It's also been airing on Cinemax recently and is on maxgo.com for any subscribers.

I'm with Amy, in that I'm voting no on pasta salad. Also, if no one gets in on the "actually" before me, I'll point out that although Amy said that this would be the first Mike Nichols film in the Canon, we did successfully induct Working Girl, much to Devin's chagrin! As for Carnal Knowledge, this is another film where I was a soft no going into the podcast and reconsidered my position while hearing their arguments. I won't say that I didn't like the movie, but I'll slide laterally and say that I didn't enjoy the movie, which is probably an intended outcome. Jack Nicholson's Jonathan ranks as one of the most despicable characters I've seen. I thought it was interesting to hear Amy and Molly say that they thought Jack Nicholson has natural charm that he brings to all his roles, because I feel that he seems to bring a bit of natural vileness to all his roles. And I think this is him at his vilest. But then again, as Molly suggested, his vileness seems to be coming from nurture rather than nature. He has these terrible, societally-induced preconceived notions of how men are supposed to feel and behave sexually, romantically, and domestically, and he allows them to destroy his life. But I still don't feel sorry for him, because seriously, fuck that guy. What happened to the part of growing up that makes you embarrassed of the asshole you were at 18? Jonathan's behavior in college, while not really forgivable, is at least understandable. His inability to learn anything over the course of his life is sad in an abhorrent sort of way. I sheepishly admit that I did feel bad for Art Garfunkel's Sandy, at least for around 2/3 of the first act. Maybe I empathized with his frustration with the "nothin' to it" attitude of charismatic people who look down on those who struggle with social interaction. Maybe I felt betrayed on his behalf when his ostensible best friend tried to seduce his girlfriend and lied to him about it. It really wasn't until his awkward, whiny, pleading sex scene with Susan that I realized: ah, no, this dude is gross too. And in hindsight it's clear that anyone who buys into the ethos of someone like Jonathan can't be as harmless or sensitive as Jonathan or Susan or even Sandy himself think he is. Sandy reminds me of the moronic "men's rights activists" of today, rigidly subscribing to a dumb pop-culture idea of relationship dynamics with all the intellectualism of a 6-year-old watching Disney princess movies. Jonathan might be the devil on his shoulder telling him to take what he deserves, but it's still Sandy who feels he deserves it. My biggest issue with the film is that the second act spends too much time with Jonathan and not enough time with Sandy, and perhaps that's due to Ann-Margret deserving as much screen time as possible. Although I thought she gave a solid performance, I wasn't as drawn in by this chapter of the story as I was by Susan's chapter, and I think Candice Bergen's performance was even stronger. But Sandy's absence made things feel unbalanced; note that we learn more about Cindy's character in her scene with Jonathan than in anything else. I would have liked to see more of Sandy and Cindy's relationship. Finally, in the last chapter, I'm left wondering how the film ultimately judges Sandy. On one side, he seems to basically reject Jonathan's rancor, but at the same time, he's still bringing a girlfriend over to meet Jonathan at all, so how much has he really learned? Is his rejection of Jonathan meaningless, since he's on the road to repeating his same pattern with Jennifer, just playing a different game than he used to? All in all, I'm glad Molly suggested this, as I knew nothing about this film and I'm happy to have seen it now. It's hard to argue that this film is culturally important (which we'll likely see by the drop-off in votes this week; prove me wrong, everyone) since it's among the least talked about Nichols films. But at the same time, perhaps it should be, because I think it illustrates the acid sprinkled on relationship dynamics by patriarchal beliefs in a way that is painfully still relevant. Also, count me in the ranks of those who think The Graduate is overrated, although it's still a movie I enjoy. For me, Nichols' best is Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which is probably in my top 20 favorite movies ever. But I also enjoy Closer, which I think is very much informed by this film, so again, I'm very glad to have seen it. So with the presupposition that the Canon will likely get 1 or 2 more Nichols films after this, I'll happily vote yes on Carnal Knowledge. Plus, I just really hope Molly comes back and does another episode, as she's one of my favorite writers and podcasters, and if voting this into the Canon on this increases the chances of her coming back, that's almost enough reason right there to vote yes.

If the question is what Cary Grant film is most Canon-worthy, the answer is unquestionably The Philadelphia Story. If the question is what my favorite Cary Grant comedy performance is, I might have to vote third-party for Arsenic and Old Lace. While I appreciate His Girl Friday, I'm not actually much of a fan. Part of it could be, as Amy mentioned, that the murder subplot is so uninteresting. Take that away, and the rest of the movie seems to just consist of Cary Grant being a jerk. I don't find him charming enough in this to excuse his terrible behavior. (I don't particularly find him charming in The Philadelphia Story either, but he does win me over in Arsenic and Old Lace and in Bringing Up Baby.) And though I like Hildy as a character, I don't think Rosalind Russell's performance drew me in enough that I really cared what she did in the end, and I sort of felt bad that the movie presented this binary choice between Cary Grant and Ralph Bellamy as her only options. (Speaking of Ralph Bellamy, my favorite line in the film hands-down was when Walter Burns referred to Bruce as looking like "that actor, Ralph Bellamy". I wish they would have talked about it in the podcast, because I don't really have a sense as to whether it was more common or less common back then to make meta references like that.) But it seems to me like this is the main problem behind the "comedy of remarriage" subgenre, that you have to make the ex-husband unappealing enough that you see why she left him, yet charming enough that you still would for her to take him back, while simultaneously making the new suitor appealing enough that you see why she'd be interested, but have some sort of flaw large enough that you excuse him stepping aside or being tossed aside. Both His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story suffer from this, but I think The Philadelphia Story acquits itself slightly better. In His Girl Friday, I certainly see why Hildy left Walter, but I can't understand (a) why she would want him back, (b ) why she would want to marry Bruce, and (c ) why Bruce more or less just gives up. I can these things a little bit more clearly in The Philadelphia Story, though I suppose I still don't see why Tracy would want to marry Dexter, particularly when all of her best interactions in the film were with Mike. As for why The Philadelphia Story is better -- does it really need to be said? Katherine Hepburn + James Stewart + Oscar winning script give The Philadelphia Story immediate advantages. And as mentioned in the episode, the bench is deep as well, with great performances out of Ruth Hussey and Virginia Weidler, among others. Whether it's the script or the performances, I care so much more about the characters in The Philadelphia Story than I do in His Girl Friday, and it's a movie I can watch over and over, whereas His Girl Friday is way more of a slog for me. So without question, I'm going with Philadelphia Story.

Bruckheimer was the only guy who ever called him in the first place.

We're not even disagreeing on Canon-worthiness, since we both voted yes! I guess I'm just surprised that so many people here seem to think The Room has a wide following and a large cultural footprint, and I just don't see it! But if all we have are anecdotes, I'd like to invite everyone to share their own. When did you first hear about The Room and how? Like I said before, I only learned of its existence in 2009 when I saw a flyer advertising a showing of it around LA somewhere. When I found out that the Landmark Regent in Westwood did regular monthly screenings of it, I initially thought that that meant it must be a good movie. I don't know how long it took me to figure out its actual reputation, but I know that despite walking by its poster on Broxton Ave regularly for 7 years, I never had a friend bring it up to me until early 2016, after The Disaster Artist had started filming. So kudos to everyone who had friends who clued them in early!

I mean, that's fine that you're combatting my anecdotal evidence with your anecdotal evidence. I introduced the IMDb numbers in an attempt to give a quantification to the claims you're making, but if you have another way to quantify them, I'd like to hear it. I wasn't trying to cherry-pick numbers; I genuinely disagree with your suppositions and want to see some proof one way or another. Also, you know as well as I do that being the subject of watching parties or having something mindblowing is not actual evidence that a particular movie has priority in the hierarchy of greater consciousness. I'm not discounting your personal experiences, I'm just saying that experiences vary and I wonder which of us would get the "results not typical" disclaimer.

This feels like one of those votes that is less about the movie being discussed and more a vote on what the parameters of the Canon should be. Sometimes those votes infuriate me, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this one turns out. So let's dive into it! Is this a Canon of good movies? As sycasey 2.0 points out, The Room is bad. It would not belong in a Canon of exclusively well-made movies, so I can't blame anyone who votes no based on that. Paul brought up in the episode that one should really see The Room among a group of friends, or in a theatre. Is this a Canon of movies, or of movie experiences? I have consistently felt that the movie should be judged on its own, separate from the experience. I voted no on The Tingler, because I think that if I need to be in a theatre with a seat giving me electric jolts in order to enjoy the movie, then it's not a successful movie. I voted yes on Rocky Horror Picture Show because I can appreciate the merits of that film watching it alone just as well as in a group or at a theatre. Now, I watched The Room for the first time alone, and if you're going to try to tell me I did it wrong, that argument won't work on me. And then a common thing in Canon discussions on iffy movies is this "larger impact" topic. HoldenMartinson compared the impact of The Room to that of Frost/Nixon, War Horse, Up In the Air, and Birdman. Although it might not feel this way, all of those films were more widely seen than The Room, with the IMDb pages of those four movies having two times, three times, seven times, and ten times as many votes as The Room, respectively. The Disaster Artist will probably play in more theatres in its limited release week than The Room will ever play in, period. I had never heard of The Room until I moved to LA in 2009, and I have to assume that had I never lived in LA or NY, I wouldn't have heard of it until The Disaster Artist surfaced. So I have to say that I don't buy the "larger impact" argument. And certainly, no one is out there trying to make movies like this, for good reason. It can only happen by accident. So in summary, it's a bad movie with relatively little greater societal impact, and you're not selling me on the communal experience aspect of it. For these reasons, I was a pretty firm no before listening to the episode. And yet, against all my instincts, I think I'm going to vote yes. The crux of the matter for me here is how much the artist's intention should be taken into account. This is something I've gone back and forth on. One of my knocks on Ghostbusters was the inconsistencies between the apparent intentions of the different actors/writers/director. Conversely, I argued for Top Gun on the merits of some deeper thematic threads which were just as likely not what Tony Scott intended. Any then of course there are headier filmmakers like Lynch, who certainly have at least one interpretation of their own work, but their work allows for many other interpretations as well. So in the end, I think I'm now going to fully take the side that discussions springing from a piece of art are always worthwhile, even when those discussions go vastly beyond the artist's intention. Because let's face it: Tommy Wiseau did not set out to make a deconstructivist study of narrative film. Yet, he kinda made one anyway. To paraphrase Paul, by making every possible wrong choice, we can watch and think about whether those "choices" are choices at all, or whether they're just the prescribed ways of doing things, and should they be? We can think about plot: certainly there are plenty of movies with what we call plot holes, and there are abstract movies with an absence of plot, but this is something altogether different -- a script with more holes than plot, like a inverted swiss cheese. The off-center camerawork, the softcore-porn score, the inscrutable casting. And most of all, the line deliveries by Wiseau that are so bad in such a fascinating, irreplicable way. I'm not saying that a film should get points for defying convention when that's really a euphemism for it being terrible. But in this case, it's so terrible that it puts conventions on trial. It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer fails to assemble a barbeque pit correctly and is hailed as an abstract artist. I'm not about to hail Tommy Wiseau as an abstract artist, but at the same time, I see some art in this failed barbeque pit of a movie. So there it is, I'm voting yes.