sycasey 2.0

Don't worry, folks. In five years we'll all forget that Green Book won.

Not defending any of the other problematic stuff, but I will say that this much is made clear within the film.

Though in Clooney's case, this has now made it to American shores.

Just watched and now have to add Private Life to this list. Also, ditto to those who mentioned Burning. I wasn't sure how much we were including foreign films here.

Possible correction/omission: The actor who plays the blind kid is named Jozef Waite, and per his bio he is "English-Chinese" and born in England (though raised in China since the age of 1). Per this photo of his family, looks like he's half Chinese, half English by parentage. Apparently he and his sister are both pretty popular kid actors in China. I'm guessing he was the whitest child actor they could find in China, so they threw a wig on him and put him in this movie.

Agreed wholeheartedly about Buster Scruggs. Also, dismissing a Coen movie upon first glance has tended to not hold up well over time (unless you're talking about The Ladykillers).

For the Oscars I think it has to have a commercial release (not festival) in L.A. before the end of the calendar year. I know this because a Charlie Chaplin film from 1952 managed to win an Oscar in 1972, because it actually hadn't played in an L.A. theater until then! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limelight_(1952_film)

My guess is that this would be eligible for next year's Oscars and whatnot, because it didn't receive a full theatrical release in the U.S. until 2019.

Oh man, that was a rough one.

For what hasn't been discussed (I'll count Roma as having been at least mentioned), here are some of my faves: Won't You Be My Neighbor? (this was pretty popular for a documentary, so you've probably heard of it) Minding the Gap (another doc!) Tully Monsters and Men Blindspotting Mid90s Game Night I wouldn't say these are all GREAT, but I'd unreservedly recommend them.

Anyway, on to some of the commentary (and even if we disagree sometimes, I still loved the discussion, Amy and Paul!): -While I agree on some points about BlacKkKlansman not really being the best Spike Lee movie, I do think the commentary about its faults was missing the mark a bit. The juxtaposition of "triumphant" and "depressing" scenes seems intentional to me, not a mistake. Spike is making a point about how victories over America's racial struggles aren't total. There's always more to overcome. -Similarly, I thought the criticism of If Beale Street Could Talk for being "too beautiful" was missing what Jenkins was going for. The James Baldwin book is telling what is, at root, a pretty depressing story. The visual style is counterpoint, to demonstrate that there is STILL beauty in these people and their struggle (and I think it's also an attempt to translate Baldwin's poetic prose into a visual format). None of these filmmakers are putting American race relations into a little box for us, and I like that! The issue is multifaceted! -I kind of agree with the criticism of Hereditary and the final act not going to the interesting place I hoped it would. Honestly, I felt the same about Mandy. Some of this might just be me. I've found that there are an increasing number of critics who will heavily praise the latest horror movie effort for showing some style and really "fucking you up" emotionally, as an end unto itself. I tend to be disappointed if it doesn't seem like all of that stylish horror was in service of something else at the end. I think there is a "horror movie gene" that I wasn't born with that causes me to demand more out of entries in this genre. -My favorite of the year was Roma, but of the group discussed here my faves are First Reformed and Eighth Grade, so I'm glad both of those were appreciated by both hosts!

Well, between the "Blockbusters" and "Critics' Picks" episodes almost all of the AFI list got covered anyway. The only one not really discussed was Green Book, and given they're also doing an Oscar show we'll probably get some commentary on that too.

Right. I think my issue with something like Paddington 2 is that I basically can't find anything about it that's American. Not the setting, not the cast, not the writer or director, not the studio. A fine film, but definitely wouldn't be eligible for the AFI. For some of these other examples you can fudge a little.

I kind of agree with that too, but at least Warner Brothers was the primary studio. And Stanley Kubrick was American-born.

And I say if I have to go that deep to find something American about it, it is NOT AMERICAN! (Which has nothing to do with how good it is, but if The Third Man got knocked off the AFI list . . .)

Hmm, on Wikipedia the only production studios I saw were Heyday and StudioCanal, which are not American. But I guess funding can come from all over the place.

Not to mention Paddington 2, made with a completely British cast and British filmmakers and filmed in Britain. I don't think the studios that funded it are American either. Roma is actually more American than that movie, despite not being in English.

And also some of them are not crap! Fast Five is a legit good action movie, IMO (once you accept that it's going to keep the ridiculous implausible physics of your typical action movie).

Yeah, and while the kerfuffles over Wonder Woman or the Ghostbusters reboot or whatever seem to have mostly subsided as those movies get further in the rear view, the Last Jedi anger seems to have continued rolling along. There's also this ludicrous effort to "remake" the movie, entirely by disgruntled Star Wars fans. https://www.cnet.com/news/star-wars-fans-start-campaign-to-remake-the-last-jedi/ Yeah, it's baffling. I personally really liked the movie, but if I hadn't I would have moved on by now.

It also seems just so 1990s to me. Now, back in those days I think there was a fair argument that if you wanted to find that esoteric stuff, it was actually hard: you'd be scouring through the back shelves of used book stores or record stores or video stores or whatever, or tracking down bootleg copies of stuff. It took some work. Given that, you could also argue that if people JUST SAW this other thing, they'd be converted away from the mainstream crap (though let's be honest, deep down you knew that probably wasn't true). Now that everyone has the whole Internet at their fingertips, it's relatively easy to find whatever oddball, esoteric thing you'd like to see. It's not hard to find something that plays to your particular tastes. So what's the point of carping against the popular stuff?

IMO, he's like that because that's what Dick Cheney is like.

And I agree with Paul. I think Bale's performance is pretty great, but in a mediocre movie. I was most impressed when he was playing the younger Cheney (not in much makeup) and I could still see the same character. Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody seems more like pantomime to me (entertaining pantomime, but pantomime).

I disagree. I think most of the "intro" movies to a given character can stand on their own. They're not all great, but they are stand-alone stories. (That's the secret to why the MCU got so popular. They hooked audiences with good individual stories first, so now you're willing to buy tickets for the team-ups.)

I think about this on another level: what does it mean that superheroes are the dominant pop genre? What did it mean when it was westerns? My sense is that the public is looking for a "hero," and more specifically, a team of heroes. The splintering and polarization of our current government and political system has resulted in audiences wishing to escape into a world where there are just good people who will take care of problems. It also seems to me that westerns dominated when we had a stronger centralized government and a more conformist culture in public life, reflecting a desire to see movies emphasizing individualism and freedom.

I'll just give a thumbs-up to the sentiment expressed here. I find the scoffing at superhero movies more tiresome than the current glut of superhero movies. There are always popular genres that dominate the marketplace! These are not that different from Westerns or slasher movies or disaster movies or whatever. The thing I will grant is that the current trend towards remakes and sequels is a bit disturbing. The Marvel franchise at least allows for some originality in its individual entries, but the overall remake/sequel trend is unusual. I would have been interested to hear them talk about how this might also be influenced by the atomization of content delivery: with so much new and original content coming out on Prestige TV, streaming services, etc., the big studio movies have to work harder to be the "safe" option that will get you to actually haul your ass to a theater. But at the same time, there is still a lot of original content on those other services, if you want to look for it.