sycasey 2.0

This whole movie reminds me of Life of Brian. I kept waiting for someone to shout, "Bloody Romans!" Seems like this was the prime material for the Pythons' parody there.

Oh now, THIS is an interesting one. Nice choices!

When watching these big studio productions from the 1950s, I find there is something about the pure technical competence on display that makes the movie watchable, even when the story is not the best. This is especially true of musicals from that decade. Ben-Hur certainly has that. Everything about it is well-mounted. The problem was when the Academy kept trying to award this "kind" of film, into the 60s and 70s and even into the 90s, when there was much more interesting work being done elsewhere.

Pretty sure it did.

My reference here makes me think that Hamlet could be the longest film I've watched (242 minutes, longer than Ben-Hur at 212). I did also see The Best of Youth, but it was broken up into two parts (two different theatrical showings).

Oh yes! Lots of iconic stuff in there. Also a nice one to see after Citizen Kane, with Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles playing against each other again.

I haven't seen everything here, but from this list I'd say The Third Man is the best movie. I know there is some question of how much that is an "American" film, though. So of the purely American productions I'd go with Close Encounters.

I'm surprised by the vitriol directed at this film by the hosts. I don't disagree with any criticisms about the plot or the characters (both are very thin), but I do disagree with their take on the visuals and the tone. It seemed to me that the filmmakers wanted to do a homage to cheesy 1930s serials, which means dumb jokes, nonsensical plots, fake-looking effects, and so forth. It's not supposed to look realistic. And IMO, the director did a fairly decent job of framing the live actors against the fake backgrounds. Perhaps if this had remained a small independent project as it was originally conceived it would have been taken in that mode, but the big-name actors make it seem like it "should" be a prestige project angling for awards or big box office. As for Roger Ebert's review, long-time readers should know that he was notorious for giving unusually high ratings to films when he loved the visual style, even if he knew there were big story problems. Sky Captain fits right in that pattern.

Hah, I completely forgot that Angelina Jolie was only in this movie for about five minutes.

Haven't listened to the pod yet, but whenever I see the title of this movie I have this scene in my head, so I must post:

I thought the best usage of Charlton Heston was in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, when he plays an actor in the play-within-a-play. His stagy presence works perfectly there.

Spartacus probably also has its share of bloat, but definitely still holds up as a good movie.

I watched it again last night (first time since theaters) and I largely agree. It's not great, but visually it's creative/interesting and as a narrative the worst you can say is that it's "stock" -- filled with cliched situations you've probably seen before. I definitely see why this didn't catch on, but I'm also not sure I'd call it a "bad" movie exactly. (Also, The Spirit was SO much worse than this.) As for Downton Abbey, I'd say the early seasons (especially the first) had more going on than "nice BBC dress-up" but as it went along it pretty much became that.

I was reading the forums around that time, but perhaps not participating as much as I do now. Must have missed this whole thing. I just thought it was something to do with Steinman himself, like he'd been caught up in some controversy of stealing people's material or something. But nope, it's an inside joke about the forum. Thanks for the explanation!

Not just you. At least The Departed vs. Infernal Affairs provided an interesting discussion, even if I don't think either is particularly close to Canon. Seems like we've had a lot of "Let me bring you my weirdo personal favorite" episodes lately, rather than serious nominations that could actually get in.

I . . . don't understand this reference.

Man, get in line.

Sure, the movie isn't literally saying that Roark built those buildings all by himself. It's more about the philosophy behind the movie being bullshit: that this somehow gives him the right to just destroy the thing on his own (something that other people worked on and have money invested in), and that a unanimous jury would agree with him! Same if you apply it to the movie business: yes, Rand used the same approach in demanding full control over this movie. But the outcome was that the film wasn't well-received and she never wrote another movie script again, not her being regarded as a conquering hero. I think the reality is that the filmmakers who we think of as "singular geniuses" (who produced multiple great films) actually did a better job of fostering a collaborative atmosphere on their movie sets than the legends about them would suggest.

I do enjoy this movie and have spent time defending it, but I should say that I do acknowledge the flaws. Some of the squabbling between band members is pretty predictable and uninteresting. The side characters are way more entertaining than the leads. They probably do go with the "massive product placement" joke a little too often. I enjoy the satire, but it depends on your expectations. It's trenchant for this kind of movie, meaning something aimed at pre-teens and based on Archie comics. It's not terribly edgy if you compare it to Dr. Strangelove or something. I'd put this movie more in the "pleasant surprise" category than "best of the year" category.

It's long been my opinion that "overrated" is the single worst word to use in artistic criticism.

It's a brilliant Brechtian device: foregrounding the actual plot of the movie so that the audience pays attention to the "why" instead of the "what." I'd also note that the movie certainly makes the same point Joel did here: It's all right there up front for you, but the movie still feels like a mystery where you're trying to find something. That's what makes it so great.

Yes, I think that's how it's played. She's a good singer who can carry a tune, but she's not a top-shelf opera singer . . . not even close.

This is my idea of punk rock.

I vote no, mostly because it's just not that good a movie. The technical filmmaking is nice, and I think the actors do what they can with the material, but Rand's script is simply terrible as drama. It makes no sense from scene-to-scene, there are no coherent character arcs, and everything just seems geared towards delivering Objectivist philosophy in didactic and unfettered fashion. That's not a very entertaining approach. Even taking The Fountainhead purely as an "idea movie," it falls apart because the world of the film has no internal logic or believable connection to the real world. Roark just seems to succeed in between scenes and then we're told that it happened. Would a guy who keeps rejecting decent business offers really be able to do that? Even as a metaphor for filmmaking, it seems like complete bullshit -- nobody makes a movie by themselves. Great auteurs (like, say, the Coen Brothers) succeed because they can make a large team of people commit to a collective goal, not because they do literally everything themselves. I can see an argument for the book being part of the literary Canon, but the movie doesn't seem to be remembered for much, other than as a footnote in the careers of people like Vidor and Cooper. Easy no vote for me.