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T.D.

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Posts posted by T.D.

  1. Posted

    If we talk about this specific decade, I think it's important that the canon movies reflect the zeitgeist of our times. Therefore, I'd say stuff like... Nightcrawler don't have that much of a chance, since they could've been made 20 years ago and would be just as impactful.

     

    Holy cow, completely disagree on this.

     

    I literally described "Nightcrawler" in these terms within the past few days in a discussion with a friend on facebook-- I think it IS one of the great zeitgeist films of the early 21st century, and much like "Election" or "Network," it works as a terrifically sharp social satire that is not only relevant now, but is undoubtedly a prescient film that will only continue to grow in its haunting accuracy.

     

    It's also an essentially perfect thriller in its own right with expert direction and an impeccable sense of mood, featuring a landmark performance by Gylenhaal-- even aside from its frightening profundity, I would argue that it's a Canon-worthy masterpiece on those grounds alone.

    • Like 3

  2. Posted

    I could go for this.

     

    I also think Hayne's "I'm Not There" is potentially Canon-worthy. It would be nice to see more LGBTQ filmmakers discussed on the show (I'll also throw in a suggestion for the obvious-but-surely-inevitable "The Matrix" episode).

  3. Posted

    Network has come up a few times; it was discussed a fair bit in the "Election" episode.

     

    It definitely deserves its own episode at some point-- I'm not sure why "too obvious" would a disqualifier when The Searchers, It's a Wonderful Life, and Rebel Without a Cause (among others) have all gotten episodes to themselves. Sometimes the "slam dunk" discussions are among the best.

    Having said that, I'm always fond of versus episodes.

     

    The question then becomes, what could possibly be paired against "Network" that might have a fighting chance? My suggestion would be another socially-conscious, eternally relevant, television-themed pitch-black comedy-drama directed by Lumet that was released just the year prior: "Dog Day Afternoon."

  6. Posted

    I like the Ikiru suggestion a lot. It's an offbeat choice and criminally underseen.

     

    I adore Kurosawa's samurai flicks, but they've overtaken his reputation to such a degree that I'd love to see The Canon explore the fringes of his filmography. It's the same reason why I find it fun that the first Hawks film discussed on the podcast is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes rather than, say, Rio Bravo or His Girl Friday.

  7. Posted

    Oh I love this movie. I have people over for a weekly movie night and showed this recently. I was surprised a couple people didn't like it. They couldn't seem to get over it not being realistic. It's a fairy tale with elements of German expressionism. It's supposed to look that way. But maybe since there are some who don't get it, it might make a good Canon pick.

     

    It's definitely weird in a lot of ways. I showed it to my wife and she wasn't a fan.

     

    It's a crime movie... then it's a horror film... then it's a film noir... then it's a kids adventure movie...

     

    It's so nutty and twisty and it yet it absolutely nails every beat. Plus Mitchum delivers one of the all-time great villain performances. I'd love to hear Amy and Devin discuss this one.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

     

    If you were to try and pick THE Tim Burton film for consideration, what would it be? There are several good candidates. Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Sweeney Todd, Nightmare Before Christmas...

     

    Burton gets the fancy above-the-title-authorship credit, but I think the work of director Henry Selick on that film is criminally overlooked. To this day I'll meet people that have always assumed Burton directed it.

     

    Regardless, I'd absolutely go to bat for its inclusion in the canon, along with Scissorhands and Beetlejuice.

     

    Sweeney Todd is nowhere near Canon-worthy for me. It's a good-ish movie, but a pretty bland movie musical that plays into the weird modern trend of cutting the group numbers in a strange attempt at being realistic, I guess? Like the songs are framed as internal monologues, not actual musical numbers... that always feels like chickening out a bit, and not fully owning or fulfilling the potential of the musical medium.

     

    Aside from that, Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett have been iconic characters for nearly 200 years, and yet Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury still 100% own them in the public consciousness. In the grand scheme, I feel Burton's Sweeney is a footnote, and nowhere near a Great Film.

    • Like 2

  10. Posted

    This was a toughie for me. I initially figured Some Like It Hot was the obvious choice, and that largely came down to the fact that it's very high on my list of favorite, Canon-worthy Billy Wilder films (just behind The Apartment for me), whereas Gentlemen is quite a ways down on my personal Howard Hawks list.

     

    But even though I'm sure Some Like It Hot is going to take it (and deservedly so-- there's clearly no wrong answer here), after listening to a GREAT episode full of excellent arguments, I have to throw my support behind Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

     

    As has often been noted by the hosts, The Canon is incredibly dude-heavy, and I really appreciate the discussion and focus on a film that is so incredibly dedicated to a female wish-fulfillment premise, which 60+ years later is STILL startlingly rare. As Amy and Devin discussed, the adoration and non-judgment of these characters is essentially unprecedented, and I love it for that reason.

     

    But boy, Some Like It Hot is great too. I absolutely love these versus episodes.

     

    As a side note, the brief discussion about Howard Hawks in relation to auteur theory was great; I was reminded of a review one of my favorite critics, Tim Brayton, wrote about Hawks overlooked 1939 gem Only Angels Have Wings (Another terrific contender for the Canon). It's a shame Hawks is often overlooked as an auteur because of how his filmography stretches across such a broad spectrum of genres-- he truly is one of the greats.

     

    Here's an excerpt from Brayton's review for those that are interested:

     

    It can be fairly said that Howard Hawks's ripped-from-real-life adventure story Only Angels Have Wings is one of the most influential films in history, although I haven't personally encountered that argument before.

     

    Here's what the logic looks like: it was the first Hawks film to really make a splash in France - not the first Hawks film to find release in France, of course, but the first one that was a smash hit. A while later, in the middle '50s through the early '60s, the gang at Cahiers du cinéma developed a new theory (or it might be better to say, they codified the rules of a theory that had been fluttering about amorphously since at least the 1920s), based primarily on the work of Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, that the director of a film was the individual most responsible for that film's meaning and overall quality, that it was possible to analyse a director's films largely in terms of how it fit in with his (or rarely, her) pet themes and characteristic style, and that it was therefore best to group films primarily by director. This was the famous and infamous Auteur Theory, and it remains the dominant force in film theory today, although I'm not certain that many of its most enthusiastic practitioners - fanboys - are conscious of it. But it's Auteurism, through and through, and nobody honest could say that they're free of it; we all know or are people who would see every single film that Quentin Tarantino directed, or Wes Anderson, Chris Nolan, David Gordon Green, Tsai Ming-Liang, Werner Herzog, David Fincher, Steven Spielberg - but can you think of a single person who would go see a movie just because Roger Deakins or Robert Richardson shot it? Hell, some of my best friends are cinematographers, and I don't think even they would go see a movie just because Roger Deakins shot it.

     

    So my point: a debased version of Auteur Theory is the dominant mode of Thinking About Cinema right now, there would be no Auteur Theory without a French love of Howard Hawks, and there'd be no French love of Hawks without Only Angels Have Wings. I'm not saying that OAHW"caused" Auteur Theory - there are other directors than Hawks who could have inspired the Cahiers crew to the same conclusions - but in our particular universe, it's certainly a major link in the chain, and as good a place as any to settle down to sing Hawks's praises - and by any definition of the term "director", whether Auteur Theory is true in its most far-reaching and ambitious form, or the director a film is simply a soulless professional whose job it is to make sure everything fits into place correctly, Howard Hawks is without doubt one of the finest directors in the annals of Hollywood.

     

    Full review can be found here

    • Like 2

  11. Posted

    This was a formative film for me as a kid; I had stacks of VHS tapes from movies recorded from TNT, USA, TBS... The Usual Suspects was one of those movies, and I watched it totally blind with zero knowledge that the film even HAD a big twist ending. I still remember those final moments absolutely bowling me over, my jaw hanging open during the entirety of the end credits. It absolutely blew my mind. I considered it my favorite movie for a while in junior high/high school.

     

    Years down the road, I'd seen the (uncut) version several times, and the film had really just lost its luster in my eyes. It eventually reached the point where I dismissed it completely as being cheaply shocking in service of a twist that renders the film pointless. I wrote off my love of the film as the crazed obsessions of a kid who was still developing taste and understanding of film craft. I was over it.

     

    Having listened to the episode and re-watched film the film this week, I've completely changed my tune.

     

    It's a GREAT movie. An iconic movie. A defining movie for Spacey, the 90's, the crime genre, and the pop culture lexicon.

     

    Absolute yes for the Canon.

  12. Posted

    Interesting topic, although I don't know what you're referring to when you say "A Trip to the Moon" ruined Meiles career. It's my understanding that it was released at the height of his popularity; his decline didn't begin until at least 3 or 4 years later.

     

    I also think it's an odd stretch to suggest "The Great Dictator" ruined Chaplin's career, as it was one of of his biggest hits both commercially and critically. Politically, it is tangentially related to the things that caused his ousting from America, but if I were to choose a film that served as the best representation of his personal/professional troubles and eventually downfall as a filmmaker, I'd go with his next film "Monsieur Verdoux."

     

    "The Great Dictator" is a terrific choice for the Canon though (one of my personal favorites), but I'd rather hear it debated in its own episode or, if in a versus, pitted against another Chaplin film (Like maybe "Modern Times," his other most blatantly political Canon-worthy film), or another politically-charged satire, like Lubitsch's "To Be or Not To Be" or "Duck Soup."

     

    The other two films you mentioned seem to better represent the "Ruined a Director's Career" label, but I don't believe either of them are Canon-worthy (although I am aware Heaven's Gate has had considerable re-evaluation in recent years and is regarded as a masterpiece by many so I'm sure it would make a fascinating episode regardless).

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    This is maybe a bit of an offbeat suggestion, but since I think we can all agree these are both "slam dunks," as Devin would say, I thought it might be interesting to pair them up.

     

    In the past, the "versus" episodes have been some of my favorites. The films have been linked as entries within a franchise ("Star Wars" vs. "Empire"), as remakes ("Let the Right One In" vs. "Let Me In"), as those made by the same filmmaker (Peckinpah) as those covering similar subject matter (The Christ films, "Batman" vs. "Superman"), and as those related according to their place within the history of film special effects ("King Kong" vs. "Jurassic Park").

     

    So along those lines, I thought it might be interesting to hear a discussion with two films linked according to their place within the history of film criticism, specifically as they relate to the famous Sight and Sound poll. "Citizen Kane" has gained a reputation among even the most casual movie-goer as the generally accepted "greatest movie of all time"-- I would argue to the film's detriment. It has become a movie nearly impossible to take on its own terms, without the baggage associated with that lofty status.

     

    It's also been interesting looking back on "Vertigo" and how the perspective on that film has also changed since its release, until finally topping that very same poll. In fact, I only watched Vertigo for the first time after the most recent Sight and Sound poll, and at first I was sort of let down, not fully grasping the full extent of the film's power. I've since come around on the film, but I think this is a common experience amongst MANY filmgoers, both casual and hardcore alike-- watching a classic, well-regarded film and thinking "Really? That's it? What's the big deal?"

     

    So perhaps these two films simply deserve their own dedicated episodes (There's certainly plenty to pick apart and discuss with both of them), and they might be too "safe" or "obvious" choices-- but personally, I'm less interested in a "correct" Canon that includes everything that "should" be included, and more interested in eliciting discussion about what the Canon is and why certain films are valued above others: Why was Vertigo ignored for so long as a canon-worthy film? What is it about Citizen Kane that cemented it as the standard-issue choice for "Greatest movie of all time"? What has changed in the last 60 years to sway the general opinions of critics? What are the forces that influence critical taste evaluation?

     

    I think both films offer interesting counterpoints to one another, and rather than speaking to which film actually IS "better" than the other, I think instead there is interesting discussion to be had about the reasons WHY people regard one film as "better" than another.

    • Like 2

  14. Posted

    I love the Beatles, though I can't see Hard Day's Night being canon-worthy. Would be interesting to hear their take on it though.

     

    Wow, really?

     

    Even if you don't personally like it that much, I'm surprised anyone would think it's not worthy of the canon. It's got a 99% on RT from 100 reviews, Time named it one of the best movies of all time, Roger Ebert added it to his Great Movies list, and it contains some of the most iconic, influential visuals of the 60's.

     

    I'd absolutely love to see a "vs." with Yellow Submarine.

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