grudlian.

I've seen talk online that the audience score is manipulated by fake accounts. The accusation stems from the polarizing difference between critics and audience but an unusually high number of reviews. Gotti has 400+ reviews but only made $2 million. Incredibles 2 has 1500+ reviews but made $269 million. It's lead some people to question why Gotti is getting 40 times the response of Incredibles 2 (which I picked randomly). It certainly seems suspicious. Rotten Tomatoes insists the score is accurate and from active accounts. Obviously, they can't admit abuse because then their entire credibility is destroyed which ruins any user score and functionally killing the site. But we know vote brigading happens and it happens on Rotten Tomatoes for sure. Ghostbusters has a not particularly hidden group tanking its score and The Last Jedi has people openly admitting to lowering its score (absurdly high number of user reviews for both). So, I'm not buying Rotten Tomatoes' story.

I remember telling my college roommate, who somehow escaped the 80s without having seen The Goonies, to not bother watching it despite my own deep, personal love of The Goonies. I just knew I wouldn't respect him if he said he didn't love it and I knew no one could love it after age 12 or so.

My favorite part of this episode, besides getting to be in the live audience, was Paul calling the twins Xamot and Tomax. I saw part of this movie in college and that's what we called them. A movie of Paperboy would be even crazier than Rad. The game has the literal grim reaper try stopping you from delivering newspapers. Can you imagine Cru getting stopped on the Hell Track by death himself?

THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH! THANK YOU

I wasn't intending to imply, as the person who wrote the "winner" post, the sole or main reason for a backlash was misogyny. That definitely doesn't come across clearly in my post. I was more glad it was just being addressed and acknowledged. I think the idea posited by Amy and Paul that James Cameron being a jerk is the reason is honestly a bit silly. I bet the average person isn't aware Cameron wrote personal rebuttals or knows much about him other than his filmography. If you're going to talk about the backlash, I think not bringing up sexism is almost purposefully ignoring it. Of course, I also recognize sing a movie backlash is based on sexism is a great way to invite trolls. So, maybe that's not something they want to deal with and I don't blame them for that.

I'm not accusing anyone here of disliking Titanic because lol teenage girls. There is valid criticism of Titanic and certainly James Cameron. It's totally valid to dislike Titanic regardless of age and gender.

I think sexism is a notable part of the backlash though probably not all of it. I think the reason movies like Clueless and Mean Girls don't suffer the backlash is because Titanic is deemed important and was the highest grossing movie of all time. If Clueless and Mean Girls won Oscars and made Titanic money, there would be some kind of backlash. But they are lesser in some way so people don't feel the need to take them down.

I don't think some women disliking Titanic doesn't necessarily negate its reputation as a movie "for teenage girls." There are a lot of "guy movies" that a lot of guys don't like. People don't have to like a movie because they are the perceived target demographic of the movie. I definitely remember a ton of flak thrown toward Titanic specifically because it's "for teenage girls." I think what really made a lot of people double down on it because it was the highest grossing movie of all time. Whatever is #1 is automatically drawing some criticism of some kind as we see with Citizen Kane. "Is this really deserving of being the best" kind of analysis where people over scrutinize whatever it is.And I definitely remember a big criticism at the time being "it's only the highest grossest movie because so many teenage girls saw it multiple times." We don't see that kind of criticism toward highest grossing movie in the USA, The Force Awakens, where teenage boys and adult men saw it multiple times on opening day. So, yes, I definitely think being a movie loved by teenage girls at the time is part of the backlash. That doesn't invalidate people's opinions who don't like it because Billy Zane is cartoonishly evil or the dialogue is repetitive and bad. It's not the only reason that there is a perceived backlash. It's definitely part of it.

I think three is a little bit of validity to this. Cameron went to the level of detail to get the actual wallpaper for the Titanic and then fabricated a love story. There's a part of me that thinks there's enough real life stories on the Titanic to make a movie without Jack and Rose. As I recall, A Night To Remember stays fairly accurate but it's not half the spectacle Titanic is.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

Listen. I'm team Twizzlers ALL DAY EVERY DAY but Red Vines are fine.

I don't know that I would chalk up the response to hated of James Cameron except maybe movie insiders. Does the average person know about James Cameron as a tyrant enough to affect their taste in one movie? I'd argue that no, they don't. Certainly not in 1997/98 the way we do now. As I recall, Mythbusters did an episode on whether Jack could fit in the door. The door want buoyant enough to hold two people.

I wouldn't draw the line that early for Spielberg. He still had stuff like ET and Raiders to come which still have some visceral emotion in them. You've definitely nailed what I've never been able to figure out what's missing from modern Spielberg. Bridge Of Spies has some of it but it's more nuanced than 70s or 80s Spielberg. This for sure. I know I said I'd never watch this again, but they kind of made me want to.

Sounds like someone needed a VHS rewinder to use while you started the second tape.

I know a lot of people here don't like Titanic. I think it's a good movie but I'm not sure it is in the top 100 American films good though. I think my issue with it is, as the caller said, it feels like a movie written by someone who has never been in love. Amy and Paul talk about the foreshadowing and plot structure and so forth. I obviously want a well made, well planned movie, but, to me, Titanic feels too calculated. On the other hand, it is so well calculated that it still worked on me every time I saw it. I'm curious how many times every one here saw Titanic since they bring it up and Titanic is kind of known for people seeing it so many times in theatres. I saw it once in theatres and once on VHS.

That said, I'm definitely not watching it again for the podcast...or probably ever.

I haven't seen Titanic since the 90s probably but I remember it being mostly good. Not top 100 movies all time good but at least worth seeing. Certainly not "so bad"

Never watch What's Up, Doc. Barbra Streisand bothers Ryan O'Neal into marrying her with even less motivation than here.

I wasn't really big on this movie, in part, because I find movies where a woman annoys a man into loving her super annoying. There are a couple moments I really liked though. Barnaby and Cornelius go to town to kiss a woman. Knowing nothing about the history of Hello, Dolly!, I assumed this wad just an old timey movie and "kiss" was a euphemism to placate the puritanical masses. Then later the two woman make a blowjob joke with a banana. But my absolute favorite moment is at the beginning of the song Hello Dolly when she says the whole world sways, then the waiters and get sway in unison. God, I loved that.

Neither of these are primarily surfing but Point Break and Back To The Beach

This is crazy to hear about the script. Not that the movie wasn't expected to be a hit but that it was written on the fly. It's such a tight script. There's hardly a line that doesn't develop character, lead to a plot point, or payoff some previous line. Maybe you don't need every line or every scene, but you can't remove one without needing to remove another somewhere. Every time I watch Die Hard, I think about the script and try to find scenes that aren't necessary. I think the last time I was thinking "you know, all this stuff with the newscaster is nice, but is it necessary?" Then comes the scene where Holly sees her kids on tv which lets Hans know she's John McLane's wife. So, yes, we needed the scene with the reporter arguing with the anchor to make him go out the interview the kids. Regarding Casablanca, there's a story that supposedly someone shopped the script around in the 1980s under its original name. It was turned down by all the studios for various reasons saying it wasn't good enough.

This is the saddest thing I've ever read.

I see where you're coming from but I guess I see this as showing more realism than Fletch was trying to do. Most cop movies that I can think of up to that point show them just succeeding the whole way and nabbing their man. This shows that it doesn't always work like that. Since this movie is based pretty closely on a true story, I'm sure a lot this stuff really happened. I suspect probably not all on the same case or even the same guys. But I bet it's an amalgamation of collected true stories like how the events of Platoon probably happened but not all to the same platoon. I think the aimlessness is probably how working a real international drug case feels for the cops involved. Some days you get the big action days and some days you're sitting around not doing much. I think this might be me justifying its tonal issues because I like this movie though. So, whatever. As an aside, I think Fletch is a really good mystery movie that kind of suffers because of the comedy elements. I like the comedy and I like the mystery but doesn't quite work together. I'd argue Fletch is more ahead of his antagonist than Popeye and Russo are. I'd recommend the first couple books in the series as fun, quick reads. The first one follows the movie pretty much exactly but without the Chevy Chase comedy bits. I think this is exactly why Die Hard isn't on the list. I think a lot of institutes/critics/awards shows don't want to include popular movies because it makes them seem less important.

I'm kind of surprised at the number of people who aren't into French Connection. I think the movie is undeniably great. It's maybe not always enjoyable since it shows a lot of police brutality and racism. The characters aren't likeable and there really is no hero in this at all. But I think the redeeming factor of this is that the movie, in my mind, doesn't glamorize them or make them feel like heroes at all (and I'll definitely use that as my main criticism for hating MASH whenever it comes up). There is so much palpable energy in this that just flies off the screen. Movies rarely have this kind of energy. It feels alive. Movies before this (and few after) feel like you are just in this thick of it like The French Connection. I'm not saying the movie needs to be near the top but I'm totally fine with it being on this list. If we're going with the idea that AFI included a few token movies for certain genres/film archetypes, what would people put in French Connection's place? It doesn't have to necessarily need to be gritty cop movie but something similar in genre. A suggestion I have for some people (maybe only those who liked The French Connection) is To Live And Die In LA. It's a gritty cop movie from William Friedkin with a car chase that is comparable to French Connection and, in my mind, a bit better. I'm sure there's another, earlier example but the first color movie I can think of off the top of my head is Carrie. I'm not sure when it became the industry standard but certainly by the time slasher movies took hold in the 80s.

Without everyone watching, this would have been one of the worst movie experienced of my life.