50 Shades of Chauncey Gardiner

I had a surrogate big brother who slipped films my way during my adolescence as my taste began to develop. Before dropping this on me, he described the infamous "Baby Ruth" sequence. To hear Tony's breakdown (right down to imitating Bill Murray and the WASPy old woman fainting), it was comedy perfection. Alas, the actual scene failed to live up to that recreation from my dear friend. The film itself. Well, as one who grew up with a healthy diet of 70's & 80's era comedies, I never got the appeal of Caddyshack. When your leads are all acting like they are in completely different movies, it's not hard to imagine how this is such a Goddamn tonal mess. Perhaps the older, more experienced Ramis (who delivered a comedy masterpiece in Groundhog Day just a decade later) could have made this work? Again, alas. A firm, hard no.

This "Scorsese only won his Oscar because he was overdue!" argument is revisionist history bullshit. His previous two films before The Departed (Gangs of New York and The Aviator) both made serious plays for Oscar gold. The former literally spelling it out during the award-season campaigning that it wasn't about the film itself but about Scorsese's career as a whole and they still went Roman Polanski instead. Side-note: the fact the Academy has now severed ties with Polanski because it's politically convenient cements how full of shit they are. Seriously, Academy, go fuck yourself. The latter marked off every checkpoint for the kind of film the Academy traditionally tended to honor. In fact before Million Dollar Baby came outta nowhere to surprise, it appeared The Aviator would be the film to give Scorsese his Oscar... until it didn't. The fact is The Departed came upon it's Oscar glory because everything else touted out to dominate by the same "Oscarologists" who are wrong nine times out of ten flamed out due to excessive pre-release overhype (Flags of Our Fathers, Babel and especially Dreamgirls). It was a major commercial hit with audiences and one of the top reviewed films that year. 100% independent of any chance of winning Oscars. Say what one will about The Departed (good or bad), but enough with the notion it's win was all about "overdue status." If the Academy wanted to give Scorsese his trophy just for the sake of doing so, they would have in 2003 and 2005.

I strongly disagree with the assessment Vernon is a bad teacher. The older I get, it couldn't be clearer he's a guy at his wit's end dealing with Bender, who make no mistake is a delinquent. We have no idea what has transpired before the events of The Breakfast Club outside of Bender pulling a false alarm, and the implication is this wasn't Vernon's first (or second, third, Hell even fourth) run-in with him. There's a wonderful moment that solidified this. After the showdown with Bender and the door slams (with Bender's yelling "FUCK YOU!"), Vernon just stops a moment and sighs. The sadness in his face said it all. He's not a bad teacher or a bad guy. He's just having a bad day and he's just as stuck there as they are. If anyone says they could handle this same situation with Bender better than Vernon, you're lying your ass off.

If one looks at full-fledged fantasy on film, the 1980's were not kind. Most overcompensated their lack of character, direction and story with top-notch production design, costumes, makeup and visual effects with few exceptions. THE NEVERENDING STORY is not one of them. Said exceptions include the likes of CONAN THE BARBARIAN, EXCALIBUR, TIME BANDITS and THE PRINCESS BRIDE - all great films that broke the mold. I must confess THE NEVERENDING STORY was never apart of my childhood growing up in the decade. But I am going to throw my vote to "Yes" out of pure admiration and respect to Amy.

My handle should tell you where my vote goes...

Have to second this choice. This screams out for HOW DID THIS GET MADE? John Boorman has this knack for making either amazing movies like DELIVERANCE, EXCALIBUR and POINT BLANK or amazingly terrible moves like EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC and ZARDOZ.

Amy and Evan are correct. Word-of-mouth on Back to the Future Part II was mixed and audiences felt ripped off at its cliffhanger ending. Thus while still a commercial hit, Part III suffered a severe fall compared to the original's gigantic $210 million and Part II's $118 million to a solid/respectable but disappointing $88 million. I don't think the acceptance of Part II for its uniqueness of traveling into Back to the Future and seeing key moments from another angle came until the 2002 DVD release. Zemeckis called it "the most interesting film I've ever made" and that caught on. As a kid who was first experienced the trilogy with II, III and then BTTF, the 2015 segment of Part II was the best to watch... and even with Zemeckis' remarks (while true), that remains the case.

As time has passed, Back to the Future holds the distinction of being the only major franchise to definitively end (save for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy)... and stuck to it. There is something to be said about that. Even by the mid-80's, it was becoming the norm to claim how a big hit movie was meant to be a trilogy. Credit to Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale for being straight-forward and not propping themselves up as "in the know" geniuses. I love and respect George Lucas but let's face it. His claims of Star Wars always being a giant nine-film series are provably BS, just by looking up old quotes he gave over the decades. At the risk of reading too much into the Biff material, his fate in the corrected 1985 is fitting. Getting knocked out by George McFly in 1955 left Biff emotionally-neutered and incontinent. He lives in terror of George "finishing the job" one day and has had nightmares reliving that moment ever since. Always waking up screaming in his own excrement every night for 30 years. He even looks like he's wearing a diaper in the new timeline. He's a shell of his form self. George turned him into a harmless, sexless man-servant to the McFly clan. To the topic at hand, Part II and III are rock solid, bringing everything together nicely and most importantly don't tarnish the original's reputation (Hello, Ghostbusters, Robocop and The Matrix). But Back to the Future is the one we all go back to for a reason - perfect example of "Right place, right time, right people." I prefer to give the original the slot in the Canon (We all know it will, no matter what) and leave those other two spots for other films... while acknowledging the trilogy as a whole works from start to finish.

Love the show, love Amy and this was a great film to discuss and yet this was the worst episode so far. Felt no pulse, no passion in the conversation and several times one could hear dead air.

That's a bingo. I knew of STAR TREK mostly through my dad, who grew up with TOS during its initial run. Even despite that, I only had a passing knowledge of TOS though I have memories of seeing it in daycare and thinking Spock was cool because he had pointy ears (I look back and amazed my daycare handlers played STAR TREK for us). But TREK was never religion for me like STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES and BACK TO THE FUTURE to name a few, like most geek-inclined wee lads born in the 80's. Over the years, I watched the movies and while the good outweighs the bad (Never liked or understood the "Only the Even Numbered Movies Work" fan theory considering the inclusion of SEARCH FOR SPOCK, a good movie), I honestly can not say any of them were great. In this case, fit the criteria for the Canon. In fact I would not even call WRATH OF KHAN the best TREK film (THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY). Listening to this was a repeat of the RE-ANIMATOR episode, and with that my vote goes with Amy's. A no (though I am not kidding myself - only an act of God would stop WOK from getting in).

Maybe one of the all-time great comedies.