sycasey 2.0

Tom Jones is one of the Best Picture winners I went back to watch and just scratched my head at how that won. Maybe you had to be there.

It really SHOULDN'T matter, I agree. I'm just acknowledging that given historical Oscar biases a movie like Roma has some things going against it beyond those of CTHD or Parasite.

Crouching Tiger is definitely the one that stands out to me. Roma is great but kind of esoteric: it's black & white, it's a Netflix movie -- hard to tell how popular it was. CTHD was a bonafide smash hit, the highest-grossing subtitled movie ever in the USA, and also a critical darling. Before Parasite that was the obvious time to award one, especially since the competition wasn't super strong.

I was also surprised that no one else on the stage had heard of the NBA Jam video game. That game was MASSIVELY popular in arcades and spawned a lot of sequels and imitators. But then again, June also didn't know anything about Street Fighter so perhaps I should not be surprised.

Amy & Paul yodel through 1965’s blockbuster musical The Sound Of Music! They learn the history of the real Trapp family singers, contemplate Julie Andrews’ post-Sound Of Music career, and ask if the story of the film holds up as well as the songs. Plus: Composer and lyricist Adam Guettel (The Light In The Piazza) talks about his relationship with his grandfather, Richard Rodgers. Next week Unspooled takes a break from the AFI list to discuss Best Picture winner Parasite! What foreign film do you think should have won Best Picture? Call the Unspooled voicemail line at 747-666-5824 with your answer. Follow us on Twitter @Unspooled, get more info at unspooledpod.com and don’t forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts.

Ahh, must have missed that part. Well, may as well provide the link for everyone.

Another thing not mentioned is that the original 1996 Space Jam website is still up and running, one of the few remaining relics from pre-2000s Internet. Give it a whirl: https://www.spacejam.com/

So I'm going to say the Tunes' comeback win over the Monstars isn't all that impressive. Why? Well, near as I can tell the Monstars are only fielding five players, the ones who stole the abilities of the NBA stars. Meanwhile, the Tunes seem to be rolling out a roster of 30 players or more, and all of them get on the court at some point (how referee Marvin the Martian is allowing this big a roster is unexplained). Of course the Monstars faded at the end of the game! Big scary monsters or not, anyone is going to get tired playing the full game with no one getting a break. Big tactical error by the Monstars there -- their coach should be fired.

Paul & Amy get ready for the Academy Awards by sharing their thoughts on this year’s nominees, and some of their other favorite films from 2019 that didn’t get nominated. They ask if this was a good year for movies overall, wonder if Joaquin Phoenix will get a chance to reprise his BAFTAs speech, and praise the careful balancing act of Marriage Story. Plus: The winners of The 2019 Spoolies, as voted on by the Unspooled listeners! For The Sound Of Music week, call in and sing us a bit of “Do-Re-Mi”! Use the Unspooled voicemail line at 747-666-5824. Follow us on Twitter @Unspooled, get more info at unspooledpod.com and don’t forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. Photo credit: Kim Troxall

Whenever I watch this I enjoy it up to the intermission and then find that the pace of the story flags badly all the way until the end (and the succession of great songs dries up too). So on a pure "cinephile" level I don't think it holds up. Not that it's bad, just that it's not one of the Top 100. Stuff like Singin' in the Rain and West Side Story seem to use the cinematic form in more interesting ways to communicate the themes and emotion of the piece. Aside from a few of the outdoor location shots, I don't feel like The Sound of Music is much more than a handsomely-mounted version of the stage show. Of course, in terms of "cultural footprint" this movie is clearly worthy of making the list. Everyone knows this movie and the songs and Julie Andrews' performance in it. It does seem like the movie itself is the reason the musical became so ubiquitous, so on that level I guess it should stay. I voted against it though.

I hadn't heard that, though anything's possible. I think the real answer is that Parasite was just that popular. It's worth noting that it and JoJo did win the Writers Guild awards as well, but Tarantino is not eligible for those because he's not in the WGA. (I don't think that hurts him, because he's got two Oscars for screenplay writing already.) And of course Parasite also won the SAG award for Best Ensemble, so that shows a lot of support from both the writers' branch and the actors' branch (the largest branch). This wasn't entirely out of the blue.

That's true, but Tarantino was also in that category and the Academy loves to award him there. So if Parasite was able to beat him and 1917 it was a very good sign.

When the actual best movie wins I think it must be some kind of mistake. Outstanding! And like bleary, I picked 1917 to win Picture and Director, but very happy to be wrong. When Parasite took the screenplay award, I should have known something was up.

Parasite getting 100% of the vote here so far. It blew out the other competitors in the Spoolies awards too, with over 51% of the vote (the runner-up got 15.5%).

Here's a list of the full "Spoolies" nominations and results, voted on by the Unspooled listeners. Winners in bold and runners-up in italics. (Many of these categories had more than 5 nominees because of ties during the nomination phase.) FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: THE FAREWELL - Lulu Wang KNIVES OUT - Rian Johnson MARRIAGE STORY - Noah Baumbach ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Quentin Tarantino PARASITE - Bong Joon-ho & Han Jin-won UNCUT GEMS - Ronald Bronstein, Bennie Safdie, Josh Safdie FOR BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: HUSTLERS - Lorene Scafaria (based on the magazine article "The Hustlers at Scores" by Jessica Pressler) THE IRISHMAN - Steven Zaillian (based on "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt) JOJO RABBIT - Taika Waititi (based on "Caging Skies" by Christine Leunens) JOKER - Todd Phillips & Scott Silver (based on DC Comics characters created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger, and Jerry Robinson) LITTLE WOMEN - Greta Gerwig (based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott) FOR BEST YOUTH PERFORMER: Kaitlyn Dever - BOOKSMART Jacob Tremblay - GOOD BOYS Noah Jupe - HONEY BOY Roman Griffin Davis - JOJO RABBIT Thomasin McKenzie - JOJO RABBIT Archie Yates - JOJO RABBIT Julia Butters - ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Shahadi Wright Joseph - US FOR BEST VOICEOVER PERFORMANCE: Jonathan Groff - FROZEN 2 Billy Eichner - THE LION KING Tony Hale - TOY STORY 4 Tom Hanks - TOY STORY 4 Annie Potts - TOY STORY 4 Keanu Reeves - TOY STORY 4 FOR BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN: 1917 - Dennis Gassner KNIVES OUT - David Crank LITTLE WOMEN - Jess Gonchor ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Barbara Ling PARASITE - Lee Ha-jun FOR BEST COSTUME DESIGN: DOLEMITE IS MY NAME - Ruth E. Carter HUSTLERS - Mitchell Travers LITTLE WOMEN - Jacqueline Durran ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Arianne Phillips ROCKETMAN - Julian Day FOR BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: 1917 - Thomas Newman LITTLE WOMEN - Alexandre Desplat MARRIAGE STORY - Randy Newman STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER - John Williams UNCUT GEMS - Daniel Lopatin US - Michael Abels FOR BEST ORIGINAL SONG: "Into the Unknown" Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez - FROZEN 2 "Show Yourself" Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez - FROZEN 2 "Catchy Song" Jon Lajoie - THE LEGO MOVIE 2: THE SECOND PART "(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" Elton John, Bernie Taupin - ROCKETMAN "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)" Mary Steenburgen, Caitlyn Smith, Kate York - WILD ROSE FOR BEST SOUND MIXING: 1917 AVENGERS: ENDGAME FORD V. FERRARI THE LIGHTHOUSE ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD UNCUT GEMS FOR BEST SOUND EDITING: AD ASTRA AVENGERS: ENDGAME FORD V. FERRARI THE LIGHTHOUSE PARASITE UNCUT GEMS FOR BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING: 1917 BOMBSHELL DOLEMITE IS MY NAME JUDY LITTLE WOMEN ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD US FOR BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: 1917 AVENGERS: ENDGAME THE IRISHMAN JOJO RABBIT THE LION KING PARASITE STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER FOR BEST STUNT COORDINATION: 1917 AVENGERS: ENDGAME FORD V. FERRARI FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD US FOR BEST ENSEMBLE CAST: AVENGERS: ENDGAME THE FAREWELL THE IRISHMAN KNIVES OUT LITTLE WOMEN ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD PARASITE FOR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: 1917 - Roger Deakins A HIDDEN LIFE - Jörg Widmer THE LIGHTHOUSE - Jarin Blaschke LITTLE WOMEN - Yorick Le Saux ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD - Robert Richardson PARASITE - Hong Kyung-pyo FOR BEST FILM EDITING: 1917 - Lee Smith KNIVES OUT - Bob Ducsay LITTLE WOMEN - Nick Houy PARASITE - Yang Jin-mo UNCUT GEMS - Ronald Bronstein & Bennie Safdie FOR BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: FROZEN 2 - Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee I LOST MY BODY - Jérémy Clapin KLAUS - Sergio Pablos & Carlos Martínez López MISSING LINK - Chris Butler TOY STORY 4 - Josh Cooley FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM: AMAZING GRACE - Alan Elliott & Sydney Pollack AMERICAN FACTORY - Steven Bognar & Julia Reichert APOLLO 11 - Todd Douglas Miller FOR SAMA - Waad Al-Kateab & Edward Watts KNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE - Rachel Lears FOR BEST FEATURE IN A NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE: MONOS (Colombia) - Alejandro Landes PAIN & GLORY (Spain) - Pedro Almodóvar PARASITE (South Korea) - Bong Joon-ho PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (France) - Céline Sciamma TRANSIT (Germany) - Christian Petzold FOR BEST FIRST FEATURE FILM: ATLANTICS - Mati Diop BOOKSMART - Olivia Wilde (tie) THE FAREWELL - Lulu Wang (tie) THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO - Joe Talbot QUEEN & SLIM - Melina Matsoukas (And yes, it's true that The Farewell is not really Lulu Wang's first feature, but it got so many votes that it was allowed in anyway.) FOR BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Tom Hanks - A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD Al Pacino - THE IRISHMAN Joe Pesci - THE IRISHMAN Sam Rockwell - JOJO RABBIT Taika Waititi - JOJO RABBIT Willem Dafoe - THE LIGHTHOUSE Brad Pitt - ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Song Kang-ho - PARASITE FOR BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Zhao Shuzhen - THE FAREWELL Jennifer Lopez - HUSTLERS Scarlett Johansson - JOJO RABBIT Florence Pugh - LITTLE WOMEN Laura Dern - MARRIAGE STORY FOR BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Joaquin Phoenix - JOKER Adam Driver - MARRIAGE STORY Antonio Banderas - PAIN & GLORY Taron Edgerton - ROCKETMAN Adam Sandler - UNCUT GEMS FOR BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Awkwafina - THE FAREWELL Elisabeth Moss - HER SMELL Renee Zellweger - JUDY Saorise Ronan - LITTLE WOMEN Scarlett Johansson - MARRIAGE STORY Florence Pugh - MIDSOMMAR Lupita Nyong'o - US FOR BEST DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes - 1917 Lorene Scafaria - HUSTLERS Rian Johnson - KNIVES OUT Greta Gerwig - LITTLE WOMEN Bong Joon-ho - PARASITE Quentin Tarantino - ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD Bennie & Josh Safdie - UNCUT GEMS Jordan Peele - US FOR BEST MOTION PICTURE: THE FAREWELL JOJO RABBIT KNIVES OUT LITTLE WOMEN MARRIAGE STORY ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD PARASITE

Loser is a pretty bad movie, and pretty stunning that Amy Heckerling made it. IMO it's the version of The Apartment that actually endorses all the terrible "nice guy" behaviors I was worried about finding in the older movie. It has characters who just kind of have stuff happen to them, rather than characters who are making their own active choices like in the Wilder film. But yeah, it's instructive as a way of seeing why small changes can make the same story work well or work poorly.

1. Double Indemnity 2. Some Like It Hot 3. Sunset Boulevard 4. The Apartment Keep all four.

I loved this movie when I first saw it back in high school, but since then I've heard more than a few negative opinions on it, much along the lines of the negative reviews Amy read off in the podcast episode: that CC Baxter is just too much of a cowardly schlub to root for and therefore the happy ending feels too false and cynical. So I was a bit wary going into this revisit. I can see where those criticisms are coming from (Baxter definitely embodies a lot of the characteristics of what we've now come to know as the false "nice guy," the guy who pretends to be nice but is actually frustrated and resentful that women won't sleep with him), but by the end I thought the movie had pretty beautifully sidestepped them. I think the movie is about precisely that: a guy who thinks he's a "nice guy" but comes to realize over the course of the film that he's not actually helping anyone with his niceness. He's become a doormat. Only after he finally quits his job and starts packing to move out of his apartment is he truly ready to receive Fran's admiration. The other nice thing is that this also works from the female lead's perspective: Fran Kubelik is also a "nice" person who is not doing herself or anyone else any favors for just going along with whatever Sheldrake wants her to do. She's trapped in a bad relationship because she lacks respect for herself, much like Baxter. Only once she's willing to stand up and leave that is she ready to try starting a potentially healthy relationship. The other thing I love about the ending is that I don't think it's framed as "happily ever after." It's presented as a new beginning, after midnight on New Year's Eve. The last line is so memorable because it also represents a reset, and two reborn people just taking a chance on each other (over a card game, a game of chance): "Shut up and deal." It's not asking you to buy this as a romance for the ages, just a positive step. This movie seems to have inspired a lot of modern rom-coms (When Harry Met Sally seems to have lifted the ending almost wholesale, just with a gender swap), but most of them don't have the same depth of character and theme this one does, nor are they willing to go to the same dark places The Apartment goes to. But of course, you can't have rebirth without going to a dark place first.

Anyway, this was a VERY close vote for me, but ultimately I went with no. I think it's a quality film, well-made and engaging. Stylistically it does seem to have been an influence on later work, but at the same time I find it hard to disentangle this from the influence coming from a bunch of other movies from the same year: Bonnie and Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Midnight Cowboy. Seems like collectively all of these films had a big influence on the subsequent decades, and if we have those on the list already, do we need this one too? I guess the big stylistic difference here is the use of slow-motion violence, but honestly . . . that goes all the way back to Kurosawa and Seven Samurai. One argument in its favor would be that it's the only Peckinpah. True, though I'm not sure Sam Peckinpah quite rises to the level of a filmmaker that absolutely HAS to be represented. It's nice if he is, but not a requirement. Is it the best "revisionist" Western that actively forces audiences to confront the violence inherent to the genre? I think you can make an argument that it is, but for me this film's take on the idea has since been eclipsed by Unforgiven, which IMO feels like a much more laser-focused critique than the relatively scattershot thematic approach in The Wild Bunch. So I think we keep that and let this one go. This is something I could change my mind on in the future!

No Simpsons clip, but in honor of the late Terry Jones let's have a look at Monty Python's parody of Sam Peckinpah.

I'm surprised Amy and Paul were so high on it, because I find this the weakest of the Chaplin movies on the list. Some very iconic scenes (eating the shoe, the bread roll dance) and technically impressive filmmaking, but IMO it doesn't hold together as well as City Lights as a story or as well as Modern Times as a thematic/artistic statement. I voted to take this one down and leave the others on.

That's right, McCartney, COME AT ME BRO.

To comment on the other Beatles movies . . . Ringo tended to get a lot of focus because he was the best actor. He's the only member who had any kind of career as an actor after the Beatles. But it is kind of incredible that a band formed entirely on their own and just to play music (like, not a boy band where some producer is picking "types") wound up with four guys who were all also charming personalities who could hold up on screen. AND the music was also consistently great. We'll probably never see anything like that again.