sycasey 2.0

I mean, kind of yeah? Or I'll put it another way: if a movie isn't saying anything, then in my judgment it's lacking. The best films have something to say. Yes, even seemingly light entertainments like Star Wars. Now, it's entirely possible the movie doesn't intend to say anything about historical events and is instead a commentary on something else, but whatever else I can think of seems kind of muddled and inconsistent to me. Like the "floating like a feather" idea. It's nice, but do the events of the movie actually support it? There are several occasions where Forrest makes active choices: disobeying Lt. Dan and going back to save people, buying the shrimp boat, running across the country, etc., that result in further fame and fortune for him. He didn't completely float through life. So what is the movie saying here? If he truly did float through and got by on pure luck, that might amount to a consistent statement about life or humanity, but the movie keeps hedging its bets.

Amy & Paul squeeze out 1940’s Dust Bowl-set John Steinbeck adaptation The Grapes Of Wrath! They ask if Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad is more of a character than an icon, explore the film’s impact on music, and learn what attracted the conservative John Ford to this film. Plus: Labor activist Randy Bryce explains why this is one of his all-time favorite films. If you’re a Forrest Gump fan, call in to defend your love for it! 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. Photo credit: Kim Troxall

Yeah, that's why I say "a lot" of his work, but not everything. Back To the Future definitely has a lot of heart. Over the years I do notice an increasing focus on technical wizardry over anything else, though.

This is an issue I've had with a lot of Robert Zemeckis' work.

Historically the Boomer generation was always a pretty even split between liberal and conservative, with the older half of it leaning liberal and the younger half conservative (Vietnam protesters and flower children are the most visible examples, but just as many were fighting in the war or becoming born-again Christians). Boomer infighting is pretty much what has defined the country ever since they took political power starting with Clinton. So yeah, I think you're right here. I don't find the movie specifically liberal or conservative, I find it trying to play itself down the middle in a kind of unsatisfying way. But on the other hand, I also find it very entertaining and watchable in a moment-to-moment sense, so it's not really "terrible" either. It's like 3.5/5 stars for me.

I'm glad Paul ranted about how much the movie stretches credulity in all the events it depicts. Forrest is: 1. An All-American football star at Alabama. 2. A war hero who mooned the President during a medal ceremony with cameras everywhere. 3. A star ping-pong player who went to China and got sponsorship deals and went on Dick Cavett. 4. A millionaire shrimp company owner who also invested in Apple Computers. 5. A guy who ran across the country multiple times and garnered thousands of followers and constant media attention. And yet, everyone he talks to on that bench seems totally baffled about the stories he tells. None of the above broke through to them? And every time he gains more nationwide success, the news stories still just talk about him as some unknown guy we're just now learning about. Really, none of them looked any of this up? I get that this is supposed to be a fable about Americana or whatever, but it also involves real historical events so the discordance between that and the world of the film is jarring. If that's supposed to be some kind of satirical commentary on Americans and their short memories, then I don't think the film's tone carries that off well enough.

I think it's very well-made and well-acted pap, but ultimately it's pap. Doesn't really have much to say about anything, and in terms of story it has some really good sequences that have little to do with one another. Whenever it threatens to do some actual satirizing, there's a sentimental sequence right around the corner to disabuse you of that notion. I did read the book after seeing the movie and was surprised to find a much more sardonic and caustic tone, one that makes it much clearer to the reader that Forrest is more idiot than savant and that his success is an indictment of society. The book is definitely a satire of American culture and history. The movie is mixed messages all the way through. I didn't mind watching it again, but it's not listworthy. The acting is probably the most praiseworthy thing. I think all of the principals are quite good, but Robin Wright and Gary Sinise should be singled out for recognition (Sinise was nominated, Wright was not).

Looks good! No problem, we start our own threads all the time.

Hey, you started the topic, but we need a poll. Does it stay on the list, yes or no?

And now Marty has explained himself further re: his comments on superhero movies. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html I don't agree with everything here, but I don't have a problem with the thrust of his argument.

I thought this movie would feel like homework (maybe because it's based on a book often assigned as homework), but instead I was really impressed with John Ford's filmmaking and found it to be a masterpiece of visual storytelling, even above and beyond its basic power as a narrative about working people trying to find their place. I'm not sure why Amy isn't impressed by the filmmaking here? That opening shot of Henry Fonda at the crossroads is iconic and oft-imitated. The Greg Toland cinematography is amazing in its use of shadows to highlight the drama. I think this is a legit classic on those grounds alone.

Yeah, we talked about this with Taxi Driver, that people think of Scorsese that way but really he has an extremely varied filmography. Only roughly one quarter of his movies are mob or mob-adjacent. They mentioned it in the Grapes of Wrath episode that Coppola did expand on his statements and said something closer to what I said above (that his problem is with franchises crowding out everything else), so good on him for that.

Might be my favorite movie of the year, really great. Unlike Joker, this is a movie that pays tribute to a bunch of different genres while actually making a coherent examination and statement about social class.

I wondered if maybe they didn't even have air conditioning in there. 90-degree weather that lingers past sunset is a real rarity in the Bay Area (though maybe not anymore with global warming). Tough night to be a balcony monster!

But my point is that the 70s movies it's trying to emulate DID flesh out the supporting characters. Taxi Driver plays with distorted reality too, but not at the expense of the other characters. I still have a strong sense of who they are in a way I don't in Joker. I would argue that having the "snap" come so early actually does hurt the pacing. If it's a slow-burn approach then actually do that and don't get nervous and feel like you have to get to the "money shot" right away. If it's well-made enough then the audience will come along -- again, see Taxi Driver.

Yeah, we may as well talk about the Coppola/Scorsese comments about superhero movies. I think they're kind of right and kind of wrong. They're right that there is a problem and that Marvel movies are the most obvious example of it, but I think they're wrong in diagnosing the problem (or at least how they phrased it, which may have something to do with the kinds of questions they were asked in interviews). The superhero genre itself is not the problem. It's a genre like any other, including those Coppola and Scorsese themselves have worked in, and even more so those that their contemporaries like Spielberg and Lucas worked in. Some of the movies are good and some are bad. People will try to replicate the hits, to varying degrees of success. That's no different than westerns or musicals or gangster movies or sci-fi or horror or anything else. I think to say the genre itself is the problem and somehow "not cinema" is a reductive argument that hurts dialogue about the art form. The problem is more about franchising, and franchises being almost the only thing studios want to pay for these days. Franchising is nothing new either, of course, but the degree to which it dominates has certainly changed in the last couple of decades. https://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice2.html If you look at the top hits from 2000 onward they tend to be dominated by franchise entries, in a way that they were not in the previous decades (more of a mix of original stuff and sequels). That is a genuine concern about the health of the art form, if original work can no longer break through and we're just recycling the same material for higher profits. Marvel isn't even necessarily the worst example of this, just the most visible. I would hope that someone like Scorsese would probably acknowledge this if you could have a real back-and-forth dialogue about it, because his history of supporting a wide variety of cinema would not suggest a person with a reductive viewpoint about what great art can be.

Kind of true, but the idea of even making more MCU movies was entirely dependent on Iron Man being a hit. At the time, Iron Man was not household name even among comics fans, and Robert Downey Jr.'s career was . . . fine, but not really superstar-level.

Mmmmm . . . organized crime.

No topic yet, so thought I'd start one! Amy & Paul pay tribute to 1972’s mobster epic The Godfather! They praise the film’s incredible rich cinematography, wonder if Michael makes his character turn too quickly, and debate whether this is truly the second greatest American film ever. Plus: Gianni Russo, who plays Carlo Rizzi in the film, shares stories from the set. Next week is Godfather Pt. II – tell us one of your deepest secrets! Don’t worry, you can use a fake voice, just call the Unspooled voicemail line at 747-666-5824.

Even if you personally can't stand mob movies, there really isn't an argument for keeping The Godfather off any list of the greatest American films. It's clearly one of the most successful, most critically lauded, most influential movies ever. I wouldn't say this about too many movies, but this is one of those where if it's not on the list then the list loses credibility. Anyway, as to the complaint about Michael's arc not quite tracking . . . I'm not sure this is actually a problem. Part of what I love about The Godfather is how much it plays like a Shakespearean tragedy. In those plays, there's always a lot of ambiguity as to what really drove the main character to his fall. For example, did Macbeth become a bad guy because of the witches' prophecy raising his jealousy and ambition, or was it because he was always violent by nature and was going to do it anyway? The answer isn't in the play, it's the thing you puzzle over. I think there's something similar with Michael Corleone: did he transform into a cold mob boss because of circumstance (his father being hurt and no one else being good enough to take charge, finding potential happiness in Sicily but having it ripped away, etc.), or because that coldness was always in him? The movie purposely leaves this open to interpretation.

Lots of spoilers in it.

(Technically that last one there is from Godfather Part II, but otherwise they are all from the first movie.) (A familiar tune at 0:56.)