sycasey 2.0

Just remember what to do when you feel agitated.

That's kind of how I feel about it. Compelling, but maybe a bit shallow in its message? Amy makes a good case, though I do NOT agree that this film does the same things Taxi Driver or The Graduate do and I'd keep both of those on the list before Midnight Cowboy. But the latter is clearly a very influential work so I'm not mad about it staying on the list. I'm kind of with Roger Ebert on the Andy Warhol party scene. I've always found that part pretty dull.

(link) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Towboy

One correction for Jason: There are no polar bears in the Antarctic! Only the Arctic! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

Definitely was. I think he's the only bear speaking voice to appear live in the movie, and by the way, the voice actors here are no slouches. Besides Bader and Haley Joel Osment, we've got James Gammon (a.k.a. the surly manager from Major League), Brad Garrett, Stephen Root, and Toby Huss. As I understand it, the DVD commentary track features the film's real director and also Bader and Root playing their bear characters, commenting on the movie. That sounds like the kind of meta-humor the actual movie could have used more of. Per the Onion AV Club, the commentary track is apparently quite funny.

Here's a good article on Disney rides turned into movies: https://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20180408/33790/ride-screen-8-best-and-worst-disney-movies-based-rides First of all, even calling Mission to Mars an adaptation of the Disney ride is a big stretch. Secondly, I notice that all but one of these was made BEFORE Pirates of the Caribbean. That's right, at one time Disney figured The Country Bears was a better bet than friggin' Pirates. Sometimes our corporate overlords are dumb.

I did happen to see Smash Mouth live once, and I can confirm that they did put on a very fun, energetic show.

I was able to get into the Berkeley show, but tickets did appear to go fast. The only ones I could get were way up in the balcony and I logged on within the first hour of pre-sale. Could be that more will get released over time.

I'll cut Phil Nobile some slack, since he said he came up with his pick very quickly (Get Out) before checking the actual list and didn't realize stuff like The Exorcist wasn't already there. Otherwise, yeah, most of these picks (except Amy's) shouldn't get bumped to the front of the line over the likes of The Exorcist, The Shining, Alien, Halloween, Rosemary's Baby, etc. As to what defines a horror, I've had as my rule of thumb that there must be some kind of malevolent physical threat to the central human characters in the story, and that threat is what drives the narrative. The threat can be something supernatural (ghosts, aliens, etc.) or it can be a human killer (a "slasher"), but it's got to be something out of the ordinary. That's kind of what rules out The Sixth Sense and why the applause seemed tepid for that one: it has ghosts, but they are not an actual threat to the central human characters. I'm not sure where serial-killer narratives fall here, since sometimes they definitely are about the horror (Halloween has got to be considered a horror movie), but sometimes they are crime dramas and mysteries without a direct threat to the main characters hanging over the story (I personally would say Seven isn't horror, since for the bulk of the movie they're just investigating crimes that have already happened, not under direct threat from the killer).

I also have kept my rankings in stone since I started doing them. Though if we went again from the beginning, they might be different! https://boxd.it/1YEKo

I was originally not the biggest fan of Vertigo among the Hitchcock canon, probably because I was trying too hard to follow the plot and figure out the mystery and found that a bit wanting. (I do put some of this down to viewing experience -- the old pan-and-scan VHS presentation tended to condition you to just look for story and dialogue, because the full frame wasn't being shown and someone was choosing what the most "important" information on screen was.) Coming back to it this time, already knowing the plot very well, I was able to appreciate that the mystery isn't really the point. It's revealed pretty early in the story that Judy is really Madeline, because that leaves Scotty's condition and mental state as the only truly "unresolved" issue in the audience's eyes. That's what the movie is really about, how he thinks he can control everything (especially Judy) but can't. It's not my favorite Hitchcock (Rear Window, which addresses some similar themes, still holds that title), but I get the Vertigo love. It's pretty sumptuous.

BIG omission to not mention that Sybil Danning (the woman with half her boobs covered) was also Stirba in Howling II, another HDTGM classic. Also, it seems like this movie is a weird rip-off and amalgamation of virtually every popular fantasy adventure from the few years prior. I see obvious echoes of Clash of the Titans (1981), Excalibur (1981), and Conan the Barbarian (1982). This would fit pretty neatly with the usual Golan & Globus method: take the current popular thing and try to do it cheaply.

Honestly, I find that if the filmmaking is strong enough (and for folks like Hitchcock or Kubrick it generally is), then the movie plays well no matter what kind of screen you're watching it on. Sure, the big-screen theatrical experience is ideal, but the movie will work no matter what. (The only exception is that you do need to actually be able to see and hear everything, so watching a movie cropped from its original framing or otherwise edited for content is a big no-no for me.)

That was not me on the phone, so definitely an Earwolf person reading one of the forum posts.

A bit, but they also note that Atticus is supposed to come off as an educated guy, someone who is set apart from the rest of the town in that way, so it kind of makes sense.

Was that in a larger city, though? I wonder if people in small towns (like in the movie) are more likely to have strong accents.

Right, if it's just that you personally don't feel good seeing this person on screen or paying money to see them or whatever, then that's fine. I don't share that feeling, but I understand. I bristle when the argument becomes: "I'm not supporting this person, AND YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER because you are enabling them!" I just don't find that very convincing when you're talking about a $4 rental of an old movie.

Yes, I have given it a lot of thought and decided that I'm okay with it. I think that holding a hard line on something like this would ultimately result in closing myself off to too much of popular culture, for the sake of (in my view) a pretty non-impactful boycott. Again, just my own thinking on it, not trying to impose. I also won't knock anyone who doesn't want to watch it, just based on personal preferences. I only offer my own rationale into the dialogue.

That contribution seems very minor, though. Like, so minor as to basically not matter or have any real impact on their future career prospects. But this is also something I very much care about: being able to view and study past works in a medium I love (film). To me that overrides whatever minimal impact an iTunes rental might have on someone's pocketbook.

I understand not wanting to support new work from these people, but for old stuff I've decided that I'm fine with watching it. If I had to cut out all old artwork from potentially abusive people I would be missing out on a lot.

I was curious about Sean Penn's neon-colored wardrobe and wanted to make sure this was actually a historical anomaly for the time presented or if maybe I just wasn't aware of neon clothing in the 1930s. https://thekit.ca/style/clothing/history-of-neon-clothing/ From what I can find, it looks like while neon SIGNS were in existence at the time, there's no evidence that neon or fluorescent colored clothing ever existed before the 1960s at the earliest, and of course it was not widely popular until the 80s.

By screen time you're right of course, though this time I thought about how much time the movie devotes to Hannibal Lecter's character development. Take that long sequence of Lecter's escape: that scene is entirely about him (not about Clarice at all) and helps make the case for him as a "co-lead" character -- Hopkins isn't on screen for most of that, but his character is driving the action. He's the protagonist for a significant stretch of the film. Then you also have the scene where Chilton brings Lecter to the Senator, which again is mostly about Lecter's development and motivation within the story and doesn't involve Clarice. The film also closes with Lecter on screen, not Clarice. I would still probably call him a supporting character, but the case for him as a lead is stronger than I thought.

I wasn't sure if I was going to vote for this one, but a re-watch confirmed it. They touched on this in the podcast episode, but I do think Silence of the Lambs was the precursor and original inspiration for all of the "true crime" and serial-killer movies that happened in the 90s and beyond. The entire visual style of The X-Files seems lifted from this movie, something I hadn't really understood before (though I certainly could tell that Agent Scully's first-season hairstyle was inspired by Clarice Starling). The stuff with the trans/cross-dressing serial killer is still a bit problematic, but honestly I expected that to play worse than it did. I noted that they do have Clarice and Hannibal discuss Buffalo Bill's particular psychology and state outright that real transsexuals tend to be non-violent and that Bill is something else. So it's more sensitive than you might think, if you are paying attention to the details.