sycasey 2.0

Did we just call an audible? Not doing Albert Brooks' Real Life?

Agents of SHIELD does tell jokes, just usually not well. Agent Carter was probably the funniest Marvel show, but that didn't last too long (personally I really liked it).

I vote yes. I acknowledge that it's not perfect (the middle section with the bacchanalia does run pretty long), but I agree with MZS that the more you sit with the film the more that stuff fades in importance. You're left with the terrific opening and the chilling ending, and the rest, in retrospect, seems like the necessary journey to get there.

Krysten Ritter sells it better than anyone, but it's still part of the same trend with these shows.

The other shows have moments of humor (even Iron Fist attempts it occasionally), but the overall tone I always find so serious and dour. It's not as poor a fit for the other other characters as it was for Danny Rand, but it's definitely a trend. It's weird how Marvel movies are perfectly comfortable doing goofy shit, but their shows try so hard to avoid that tone (and DC does exactly the opposite).

Really it all seems to come down to Marvel TV having no sense of humor whatsoever.

Isn't this more a problem of the people running the show, not the actor? If they wanted a goofy Iron Fist they would have written the character that way and directed the performance that way (and if Jones couldn't pull it off, cast someone else). Given the way it's sustained for an entire season, I'm thinking Jones is playing it angsty because he's told to play it that way.

Animated credit sequence for a live-action movie.

This was probably the most aggressively unpleasant movie I've ever seen. I'd also just like to point out one of the very first lines Captain Manzini speaks to Dodger: "Have I ever forbidden you to touch any one of my treasures?" He's definitely running a sex dungeon.

I wasn't sure how well this would hold up, but after watching it last week it was pretty easy to vote yes. It's not a film with impeccable execution, but it's generally solid (especially as compared to the confused remake). While I obviously recognize the feminist angle, what stood out to me was that The Stepford Wives also works beautifully as a general critique of "white flight" and suburban life. Moving out of the city means that you are disconnected from culture, new job opportunities, and the world at large. Yes, it's supposedly "safer," but there is a cost: you become bored and robotic. Even the men have little else to do but go to the "men's club," where they are indoctrinated into a sinister plot. Anyway, I could quibble with some dated aspects here and there, but The Stepford Wives is easily pushed over the top because of its obvious impact on the culture. Not just for having influenced a lot of other horror movies (Get Out being the latest example, and one of the best), but also the language. You come up with a description of "Stepford anything" and people instantly know what you mean. That tells me that future generations will definitely want to see this film.

Poor, forgotten Jeremy Renner.

This really shocks me that you can't find it anywhere. I remember seeing it in college and just assumed it was widely available.

I vote unenthusiastically for 9 to 5, but as stated in the "homework" thread I don't think either is a particularly worthy Canon film. I find the earlier film more worthy based mostly on cultural importance and the ubiquity of the theme song (yes, "I Will Always Love You" is also ubiquitous, but it's not particularly associated with this film and had been written and released before). I tend to be more interested in filmmaking and/or storytelling technique than "star power" in selecting my favorite films, and let's be frank: Colin Higgins is not much of a director. Even with some improvement in directorial technique for Whorehouse, it's still little more than mediocre competence, as studio musicals go. Back in the 50s they made big glossy musicals with more technical competence than this almost every week. 9 to 5 looks like a sitcom from start to finish. If there's a directorial stamp on it, I can't discern where it lies. Anyway, while I agree that the long action-comedy bits in 9 to 5 (the fantasy sequences, everything with Lily Tomlin stealing the corpse) are pretty bad and grind the movie to a halt, it does at least wrap up its thematic concerns in a reasonably satisfying way. I can see how this film makes a deliberate statement about sexism in the workplace and how it's still relevant. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, meanwhile, seems to be throwing ideas at the wall and by the end nothing sticks, it's just about getting the two biggest stars together for a happy ending. As disposable entertainment, it's fine, but doesn't rise above the pack.

Right now this is feeling like a "neither movie should get in" episode, but we'll see what the arguments are.

I liked that Crazy People was brought up on this podcast. It's also not a great movie, but the "truth in advertising" fake ads are hilarious. Worth a look.

I'm more positive than negative on the film (the seat-of-the-pants punk-rock style of it was charming and held my interest). But I'm glad that both hosts acknowledged that it's a messy film that doesn't totally hold together. Interesting as a conversation-starter and a historical artifact, but not good enough to be Canon.

I voted yes, because I really enjoyed watching this movie, even the talky parts before the big showstopping musical numbers started. The story is simple and predictable, but moves along at a fast, breezy clip with lots of good one-liners. Cagney and Blondell are a great pairing. Lots of complaints about Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler on the podcast, but I can't say I was bothered by either at any point in this movie. (I liked Powell's singing especially.) The racial caricatures are obviously "problematic" in a modern sense, but I am in the camp that tends to let this stuff go in older movies unless it's really blatantly KKK racist or something that is shoved in your face for the entire running time (I don't think this movie qualifies). Blackface and yellowface were common things back then. Does that make them okay? No. Can any movie from that period be automatically disqualified from Canon status because of containing instances of such? Also no. Anyway, I was won over based on the hosts' enthusiasm for the movie, the iconic "waterfall" number, and the argument that this is a rare chance to see Cagney being great in a musical role.

I thought it was all great fun, very breezy and watchable, with of course some showstopping numbers at the end. I lean towards yes, but I also realize that this is one of several films featuring famous Busby Berkeley numbers from the same time period. I'm not informed enough to know if this is truly the best example of such, so much will depend on the podcast arguments.

I first saw Marie Antoinette during its original theatrical release and came away vaguely disappointed, feeling like it was a relatively shallow take on a historical character. After a re-watch last week it played much better: the shallowness of the character is clearly the tragic point here. As Amy and Stephanie say on the podcast, she doesn't know what she doesn't know. I've also attained a greater appreciation for Kirsten Dunst as an actress in the intervening time (thanks to Melancholia and Fargo), so again the "shallowness" of her performance here feels more like a deliberate choice than any vacancy from the actress herself. I also re-watched Lost in Translation for the first time in a while (it was one of my favorites of the year when it originally came out). Some of the comedy bits have aged poorly (the "lip my stocking" scene being the most egregious), but by the time Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson go out on the town in Tokyo, the film just hits a groove and never lets up; it's still absolutely entrancing from that moment on. I'd also argue that the charges of "racism" or "insensitivity" tend to fade out during this segment, as our lead characters start to find things they can enjoy about this place they previously felt "stuck" in. I think it becomes pretty obvious at this point that the discomfort of the early scenes is less about race and culture and more about the lead characters feeling adrift. (Full disclosure: I am half-Chinese by heritage though American born and raised, so I am sensitive to portrayals of East Asian characters on screen, but don't necessarily have any special understanding of Japanese culture.) So which do I prefer? Both are good films, but to me the message of Marie Antoinette feels more intellectual than lived-in, perhaps a consequence of making your film primarily about the superficiality of a bygone era. Lost in Translation pulses and throbs with its central themes: the visual style and music seems perfectly married to the characters and situation at nearly all times. As I mentioned in the "homework" thread: it's the kind of cinematic alchemy that doesn't come along very often. Some have argued that Marie Antoinette is more representative of Sofia Coppola as an artist. If you're looking at it strictly on a textual level, I can see that (lead character as stand-in for Sofia herself). But I'd say that what makes her unique is really her presentation of the text, not the text itself: the audio-visual approach that only she can bring. On that level, I'd say Lost in Translation is more representative. On a stylistic level, I'm not sure Marie Antoinette is all that differentiated from a lot of other period costume dramas, save for the occasional music-video flourishes (and it's not like Scorsese didn't already do some of this stuff in his period films). Lost in Translation feels like all-Coppola, all the time. That gets my vote.

Right now, my feeling is that I appreciate what Marie Antoinette is doing intellectually, but Lost in Translation in its best moments (which are plenty) just casts a spell. That's the best way to describe it, a kind of perfect alchemy in the way sound and image come together. Movies like that don't come along too often.

White privilege/cultural appropriation was one of the backlash-y criticisms for Lost in Translation, as I recall. I didn't fully agree, but some scenes could support such a reading. (I still thought it was a great film.)

I'd also never seen this movie before (having studied Oscar history, I knew of it, since it got a bunch of nominations/wins), but this viewing did not disappoint at all. Highly engrossing and effective, and the large cast is well-chosen; you can easily tell people apart from each other by their type and bearing. The editing at times feels like something you would have seen in the post-MTV era, pretty impressive to see it used effectively in something from 1969. I don't know that I accept the argument from the hosts that admitting this means that all other political thrillers must therefore be excluded, but I do say that Z is strong enough to stand as one of the prime examples of this kind of film. Extra points for being about a country not often well-represented in cinema and for having a legit real-world impact. Definite yes.

The Big Lebowski takes at least two viewings to see the genius.

I would probably put something like 10 Coen films in the Canon, so arguments about which Coen comedies might be better don't sway me much. I'd also personally have this lower on my list of personal favorite Coen comedies (I laugh at The Big Lebowski, Burn After Reading, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? more), but it's still really good, and I give it extra points for coming so early in their careers and being so tight and well-made. I also feel like the lead characters + the evil biker have managed to enter the cultural lexicon in some way, as instantly recognizable figures in cinematic history. Perhaps they are not as pervasive as the characters in Lebowski, but as Coen comedies go this is probably the next most famous. I vote yes!

Some people moved around a lot as kids/teenagers. It might not be cherry-picking. Though it would be nice to get some explanation here.