sycasey 2.0

Raising Arizona isn't that high on my personal Coen list, but I'm a probable Yes vote because it's the early film that defined their comedic style and probably influenced a generation of comedy filmmakers. And it's also a great movie, even if it's not my personal favorite of theirs.

And now Orpheus has gone ahead again by 1 vote, so I'll say it's a fair assessment to give the spot to that movie, in a squeaker.

Enjoyable movie, and I definitely see the influence on modern filmmakers (that's the strongest argument for canonization, IMO). I tilt slightly to the "no" side, in that I consider it another good movie that falls short of greatness. It also probably doesn't help that I watched a YouTube version with not-so-great picture quality, but those are the breaks.

Amy called Black Orpheus the winner. I suspect she last looked at the poll around the time of my last post.

OMG

Black Orpheus takes the lead by one vote! This has been the most exciting Canon vote in a while.

I'm having trouble following your argument here. You think that Justin's critique of City of God echoes Amy's critique of GoodFellas, but this time you don't think it's effective while Amy's was? Why? Is it just because GoodFellas is the more popular movie and you wanted it taken down a peg? If the argument is that City of God is narratively and stylistically different from GoodFellas in any significant way . . . I must disagree. This film clearly owes a huge debt to Scorsese.

It was interesting to read that Black Orpheus has been criticized over the years for presenting a false and fantastical version of Brazil for Western audiences. Having never seen or heard of the film before last week, it honestly never occurred to me that this was a problem. Whether or not that speaks to my own ignorance as a well-off American is up for debate, but I will say that part of the reason it didn't occur to me was the mythological framework. I mean, you literally have characters named "Orpheus" and "Eurydice" and "Hermes." It's clearly meant to be a heightened, fantastical story set in Brazil. I wouldn't consider this a realistic portrayal of Rio de Janeiro any more than I'd consider Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet a realistic portrayal of Los Angeles teen culture. Maybe the "cultural appropriation" critique was more valid in its time, when there were literally no other Brazilian films to see, but given cultural progress since the 1950s, it doesn't seem like as much of a problem today. So taking Black Orpheus on its own terms, I thought it worked very well. It's light on its feet and lyrical throughout, remarkably assured in its filmmaking. Seems like a worthy Canon entry. City of God I do remember seeing upon release. At the time I thought it was a pretty good crime movie, but nothing I hadn't already seen from Scorsese and the like. It did surprise me a bit that it became such a popular success. I hadn't revisited the film since seeing it in theaters. After viewing it again last week, I can see where Chang's criticism comes from: that opening sequence is really off-putting to my mind, show-offy fast-cut editing that doesn't help tell the story. I got worried that the film would come off even worse this time around. Thankfully, the filmmaking becomes less show-offy and as the story takes hold it becomes much more engrossing. The way the narrative loops back around to the opening sequence again provides better justification for the in-your-face nature of it (you need to remember that scene when they come back to it), but I still think it's a bit overdone, a tendency that would plague Meirelles in subsequent efforts. I'm still not sure that there is a message here more interesting or resonant than what GoodFellas already provides, and I do still think that City of God clearly owes a LOT to Scorsese's gangster movies, but it is well-made enough to stand on its own. Canon-worthy? I can see an argument for it, but the negatives probably keep it out of that realm for me. I do agree with David and Amy that the film suffers after losing Benny, who is probably the most interesting and sympathetic of the gangster characters, and that its portrayal of women characters is not very strong (trotting out the old trope of raping a woman solely for a male character's development has dated it particularly poorly). So my vote goes to Black Orpheus, but it was a tough choice. Tougher than I thought after my original viewing of City of God.

I don't see how you talk about the politics of a film without your "personal" politics being part of that discussion. Even if you aren't trying, it's going to be obvious.

I'll be honest: this sounds pretty much impossible and mostly a bit of tortured reasoning in favor of your desire for the damn feminists to shut the hell up already.

If you thought feminism wouldn't be a large part of the discussion of this movie, given who hosts the podcast, I don't know what to tell you. Art is not so easily divorced from politics. If you find that alienating, maybe examine your own.

Yes, this comment by Matarazzo raised my eyebrows too. I can see plenty of women in the audience also wanting Close's character to die, especially at the time this film was made. It wouldn't be the first time women were harder on the behavior of other women than they were on men.

So it seems here the argument for Canon status is more in the larger conversation surrounding the movie than with the movie itself. I can see why someone would be swayed by that, but for the most part I am not. To me this conversation only really becomes fruitful when you start reading against text: getting into how the movie was changed from the original script, looking at how different this is from what kind of movie could be made now, etc. All of that is indeed interesting, but it also makes me wish the movie were as interesting as the conversation. As is mentioned in the podcast episode, the final act makes Fatal Attraction into a fairly simplistic slasher movie, a development that feels at odds with the slightly naughty, emotionally complex relationship that had been built up by the earlier scenes. It's not a surprise to learn that this was a reshoot in response to test audiences, and while I'd be interested in seeing the movie that they originally set out to make, that's what wound up on the screen. There are praiseworthy elements: good acting performances (Glenn Close especially), some effective scenes, etc. But I'm a "no" on this largely because it's not quite good enough as a film unto itself, however interesting it may be as a conversation starter.

I suggest he nominate Jacob's Ladder.

If Devin were still around, I could see him making major hay out of this verbal tic.

And you should be able to watch it On Demand if you have those channels.

Not trying to come down on you personally, but I do want to use this quote to build on a point . . . I dislike that accessibility was seemingly taken for granted as a "trap." Why is that a trap? If you're an artist, on some level you do want to make your art for an audience, right? There's nothing wrong with being accessible. To me, a filmmaker who sometimes goes into surrealistic/abstract territory is usually helped in my mind if I have a certain confidence that they know what they are doing. That they actually do know the "rules" of how to do standard storytelling but are breaking them for a reason. I am more willing to ride with Kubrick's weirder stuff in 2001 or Eyes Wide Shut because I know he's able to do Paths of Glory or The Killing if he wants to. I feel similarly about Lynch. I've seen The Elephant Man and The Straight Story, so I know he can do that if he wants. When he goes weirder, it's for a reason. Blue Velvet is right there on the line and has elements of both his "straight" filmmaking and his abstraction, so I vote for that. Both hosts seemed to agree that it was the better introductory film for Lynch, and I think that makes it better qualified for Canon status. Not sure I would be as much of a fan of Eraserhead if I hadn't been primed by his other stuff first (though even that film does have some kind of underlying narrative grounding it).

I think Devin did tend to drive the focus of the discussion towards cinematic and/or storytelling technique, which I appreciated. It may also be that because of the rotating series of guests, it's harder for the discussion to get as in-depth as it did with two professional critics who were more familiar with each other's styles of argument. In older episodes with guests, the guest was often given the opportunity to stay "above the fray" and remain friendly while Devin and Amy went at each other. It's still an enjoyable show, and could well find more footing as the new iteration goes along.

I'm liking this, not because I fully agree with the sentiment (I didn't hate the movie), but because I like seeing confirmation that Waters' style is polarizing. Would have been weird if this thread was across-the-board support.

I'll probably go with Blue Velvet, partially because I prefer having a somewhat concrete storyline to go with the abstract weirdness, and also I think it contains more of what we'd broadly describe as "Lynchian": an over-the-top scary villain, examination of the dark underbelly of 1950s Americana, fetishizing the female form (and commentary on such), Kyle MacLachlan. If you want to get someone into David Lynch, I think you start there. But as always, I'll wait to hear the argument for Eraserhead.

I vote no, but I'm also not perturbed if it gets in. This is probably something that has to strike you in the right place at the right time. Intellectually, I understand some of the appeal here. It's just not my style; I tend to prefer more polished work (if Hairspray were up it would be a yes).

Picture quality on the YouTube version isn't great, but it is free! I watched it on Amazon.

I side with Amy as well. Solid well-made noir, but not sure how it clearly rises above the pack. The clumsy ending hurts the message, and while it's not entirely fair to hold that against the movie (given the restrictions of the Hays Code at the time), there are other films from that period that managed to tap-dance around studio-imposed restrictions in more impressive fashion. Good movie, not Canon.

Part of it is that TV comedy has gotten a lot better. I feel like most of the talent is going there now. If you're doing a big-screen comedy now it has to be wrapped up in some major franchise, like Guardians of the Galaxy.

I think this all just goes to show that what is actually "Canonized" is not the real point of the show. It was always just a chance for critics to discuss different kinds of films and what makes them great (or not). The voting is a fun hook for listeners, not something the hosts take seriously.