CharlieWork

Armond White

7. Hard Eight 6. Inherent Vice 5. Magnolia 4. Punch Drunk Love 3. Boogie Nights 2. There Will Be Blood 1. The Master

Favorite Winner: Two-Lane Blacktop (Was introduced to it through the episode as well) Favorite Loser: The Lost Weekend (Even though I agree with its rejection) Least Favorite: Mad Max: Fury Road (It was okay)

If you enjoyed A Most Wanted Man, you'd probably like Anton Corbin's other stuff. The American and Control are both worth watching. As far as obscure cinema, it really depends on who you are as to what I would consider obscure. Setting my Letterboxd library to sort by popularity, the least rated things that I'd recommend are Bill Plympton's surreal greaser love story Hair High and Steven Okazaki's way too real HBO doc Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street. Bill Plympton is widely known for his debut film which he single handedly animated. He gets weird and poignant with it. The heroin documentary is self-explanatory. It follows the lives of a bunch of junkies over a period of months. You see their ups and downs. Really grungy.

I don't see a reason to differentiate between a movie made for television and any other movie. I'd say they're already viable. As far as miniseries go, this is a podcast about cinema. Television that exists in feature length versions such as Bergman's Fanny and Alexander or Kieslowski's The Decalogue also already should be viable, but television is a separate beast and better reserved for consideration on their own rather than in comparison to film.

PTA also aped off of Altman's The Long Goodbye for Inherent Vice. I wouldn't say it's a bad thing necessarily. The 70s were the height of American Cinema and Altman was one of the people at the forefront. The Master is just as heavily steeped in New Hollywood without borrowing too heavily from any one predecessor.

I'd probably try to shove in Michael Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat (2006), a modern holiday classic, or maybe something more divisive like Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy (1999). This is assuming that directors such as Andrezj Zulawski and Hiroshi Teshigahara could enter the canon on their own. Oh, and Mean Girls.

While I personally find The Master more compelling than either, both are certainly Canon worthy. I'd probably throw my hat in for There Will Be Blood given how heavily I think Boogie Nights apes off of Altman's Nashville. Look no further than the black cowboy for a superficial homage. The dynamic is wholly reversed where instead of exposing the underbelly of a seemingly harmless industry, you're humanizing one with a thick dogma surrounding it. To digress, TWBB is a near flawless picture that's really much harder to argue against. If I'm not mistaken, it's the first film that Johnny Greenwood scored for PTA and he did tremendous work. The whole oil derrick set piece carries so much momentum thanks to those weird jangling chains and stick percussion backing it. My only real gripe is that Paul Dano playing both brothers adds a little confusion for no reason. It was an on set decision as the actor cast to play his twin dropped out or got sick or something, so it's excusable. Oh, I am kind of sour that it's the only PTA film without a PSH cameo. He would've fit the period effortlessly.

Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers is far from perfect, but I really enjoy what they do with Angela Baker's character even if I don't necessarily like the actress they chose to portray her. The slasher is the main character with an entire warped philosophy fueling her. Really a one of a kind personality.