GrahamS.

Roadhouse! Casino Royale (not the Woody Allen one)! Skyfall! I’ll shut up now!!!!!

Oooh! F/X (it’s a thriller/action movie) Out of sight

Men In Black! Twister (it’s fucking stupid but it has Jami Gertz)!

POINT BREAK!!! So dumb but Kathryn Bigelow directs the shit out of it and it’s fucking great. Best unexpected use of a dog in any movie ever! Other films that made an impression on my childhood: it’s overused but The Terminator The Abyss it’sCheesy, but Backdraft (not the musical). Young Sherlock Holmes Die Hard (of course) Big Trouble in Little China (you got action, comedy and horror in that one) Beverly Hills Cop (not sure how that holds up) Trading Places i remember, even as a kid, Club Paradise being really disappointing. I think even Harold Ramis thought it sucked and he directed it. Odder choices: Batman Returns Beetlejuice Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure Any Not-American John Woo film (and Face/Off)

I thought her death knell was Hello, Again. Although Don’t Tell Her It’s Me literally SOUNDS terrible (especially that music score!) and I haven’t bothered to check the release dates yet. Incidentally, Steve Guttenberg was in an 80s Thriller called The Bedroom Window with Elizabeth McGovern and Isabelle Hupert (I think?). It was directed by Curtis Hansen and is a fairly entertaining movie, except it would have been better if someone else had played Steve’s role. Still, it’s his best movie, other than Diner (apologies to Police Academy completists).

It is the most original use of product placement (that I know of).

Haha. Make it a double-feature with Birdy.

I have not seen this yet but it looks FUCKING BONKERS!!! Here is the review from the Seattle alternative paper The Stranger: FILM/TV Is Color Out of Space Good-Bad or Bad-Bad? by Leilani Polk • Jan 22, 2020 at 8:45 am I didn’t go into Color Out of Spacethinking it would be great, or even very good. Starring Nicolas Cage and based on a story by HP Lovecraft about a weird alien presence/virus/organism/wtf that comes crashing in from space via meteorite, I figured it’d be entertaining at the very least. And that it was, but it was also tremendously, spectacularly bad, with some classic bad-acting Cage on tap. The set-up: The film's Gardner family has traded life in the city for a house in the country after they inherit a rural family estate located near Arkham, Massachusetts. They are very obviously city folk. Mom’s a commodities trader whose cancer is in remission, dad Cage is the patriarch who’s failed at his calling (he’s a painter who doesn’t seem to paint anymore and has turned to raising alpacas and gardening, where he’s also failing). The daughter is a Wicca-practicing witch who wears a cape, has purple streaks in her hair, and rides a horse earnestly, while her younger brothers are two-dimensional representations of younger brothers. The older is a smart-mouthed pothead (he gets his stash from the old hippie hermit who squats in a shack on their property, played by Tommy Chong), while the younger is barely a blip on a real-person radar, though he’s the first family member affected by the situation that arises after a meteorite crashes onto their front lawn. Of course, shit gets weird from the get-go. The thing in the yard has a strange purple glow before it cools, and then vanishes (or really, relocates). There’s a hydrologist / daughter love interest who seems to be the only one suspicious of the water being contaminated, and really, the only person who seems to give a fuck at all after the preliminary media buzz. It soon starts affecting the local flora (are the plants in the garden more bountiful or just plain bizarre?), fauna (which have disappeared or become skittish and/or vicious), and then, of course, the Gardner family, as matter seems to distort into a bizarre mutation. Is it an alien? A virus? An extraterrestrial organism? All of the above? The question is never answered, nor does it need to be. And really, the plot isn’t important, either. You’re not here for the plot. You’re here for campy-as-fuck sci-fi horror and Nicolas Cage, of which Color Out of Space has both in spades. It has the potential to be the next great (terrible) cult classic, and will definitely find a sympathetic audience in both die-hard Cage fans and D-level horror film enthusiasts. Also, the colors are pretty. IT ALSO HAS A CRITICAL APPROVAL RATING OF 90% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES!!! Here’s the preview:

Plus the Bioshock series is just fucking great (especially the first one). I’ve heard the films described and they sound punishingly long. There is a limit at which bad movies stop becoming fun (and some movies never even get there).

They often space out/keep episodes in reserve, I guess. On the evening they did Fateful Findings in Seattle, they also did The Visitor. Both shows were awesome, only Fareful Findings has been released (which is odd, since it’s incredibly hard to find, unless you want to buy it, which I can’t wholeheartedly recommend). Those shows were from last September.

And welcome to the forum!

Every opinion counts. I don’t HATE the Michael Bay thing as a gag but I’m not thrilled they picked this movie, especially because Paul has admitted he finds the series boring (no argument from me). I just won’t watch it because I already saw it in the theaters with friends (we all thought it sucked, not in a good way) and I have more valuable things to do with my 21/2 hours, such as staring at a blank wall.

I think this may be the episode that I’ve agreed the most with Amy about anything. I voted to keep it on the list but I admire it more as a cerebral work of art (and as a film that helped define a genre) than as a well-told film. I agree with Amy that Ridley Scott’s films often feel like they were made by a replicant. There is an atmosphere of cold detachment on all of them for me, really, which sometimes is most apparent on pop corny films like The Martian when the crowd-pleasing moments feel really calculated (I liked The Martian despite those moments). It’s a reason why most of his films—except for Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise (although that has some tonal change-ups that are pretty jarring) and The Martian— don’t really work for me. If I had one fairy-tale wish, it would have been that Tony and Ridley Scott would have made films together like Joel and Ethan Coen. Somehow I feel like their mix of high-brow and commercial filmmaking would have resulted in films that were more balanced on a storytelling level. But we’ll never know. As for the cowboy name for next week, I’m basing my name on a real person, so it might be cheating, but it just jumped into my head. The name is Boots Riley (if going by the real name) or Boots O’Riley (the altered version).

I haven’t watched the movie yet and don’t know if I will if it had a lot of cop violence this week. Will probably listen to the episode. I’m just voting for V8 because it’s a theoretically healthy drink and also just for the fuck of it. Right now my side has 100% of the vote!

Yeah, it’s normally up by late Thursday. You’re probably into something (although I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t judge based on that).

Microphone check one-two...what is this? We watched:

I have a theory that—although Q-Tip didn’t initially like how he came off in the movie—seeing things from Phife’s POV might have eventually opened him up some. At times during the film, he does seem a bit dismissive of Phife’s troubles, even though he also agrees to help him with the tour in 2008. It’s also possible that Phife saw—in his own words—that they were both holding on to their petty bullshit. Part of my reason for this theory is that Q-Tip does have a lyric in which he references their adventures being captured cinematically (on their last album). If he’d continued to have a problem with the film, I don’t think he would have mentioned it. I think I mentioned this Q-tip interview earlier but accidentally didn’t post it. He talks about a variety of topics, including Prince and Phife. It’s a long interview that’s visually dry, but content-wise is very worthwhile (especially, I imagine, if you work in the music industry). Q-tip is laid back and very articulate, doesn’t give brush-off answers.

I would make a cocaine-related joke, but that might be in poor taste. I’m not having a Jason day today, I guess. Maybe tomorrow!

There’s an app called Reelgood that does a pretty good job of showing where—or if—a movie is streaming. Apparently right now it’s only on Epix or is rentable.

I haven’t read the book but I did see the doc in theaters. It was interesting and Evans has produced some great films, but I remember being a little turned off by the self-aggrandizing, which I suppose comes with the territory. Another book that I really liked about Hollywood in the 60s and onward was William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen trade and its sequel. I don’t know if they’re still in print. i also really liked Noah Baumbach’s doc on Brian DePalma, called (weirdly enough) DePalma.

Haha! I THINK you mean so long as I DONT log on solely to complain about her (seems like you accidentally dropped a word there)? Thanks. I have commented on a few Unspooled episodes here and there and have avoided commenting on episodes—like Goodfellas—where I figured she was getting a ton of shit flung at her anyways. There are areas that I do agree with her (like how there are too many Marvel movies—and I do like some of them, but it does seem like having a handful of them per year is kinda excessive) and I like how she champions independent movies. I like their -best-of-the-year eps. She does an amazing job at research (as does Paul), which is often the most entertaining part of the shows. I admire the fact that they are forcing themselves to sit through some of the films on the AFI list with an open mind (there are a lot of films on the list that I either have seen so many times I don’t want to see them again or are just not my bag). So—to make a long story long—my reaction to the podcast is of two extremes: agreeing /accepting her POV as interesting 2/3rds of the time, and 1/3rd wondering if she set out to pick apart a film inch-by-inch. RE: Cameron’s point, I also would rather watch The Mummy (or Big Trouble in Little China, or The Guest, or Tango & Cash, or other fun pulp) than A Clockwork Orange—I’m no big celebrator of “the classics” as being timeless or a fan of blanket-labeling directors as “geniuses” (for example, as a writing major forced to read a lot of Shakespeare and have open-mindedly tried to watch a lot of Shakespeare plays—and was even in one in middle school—I’ll freely admit that I find a lot of Shakespeare to be boring. I also think Kubrick stopped being a genius filmmaker after his 60s period and that the sequel to The Shining is a much more well-written movie than The Shining.The Shining is iconic and entertaining...but emotionally hollow. What can I say, I’m a heretic). I’m in no way looking for Amy to validate my point of view and she’s absolutely entitled to rip on as many celebrated films as she wants. I just sometimes think her complaints are superficial to her detriment.

I listened to their last album right after I finished watching the movie. RE: Jarobi, I absolutely agree. I totally agree with that as well. Films do need to be re-evaluated and I agree with both her and Paul’s take on that. I guess my reaction to her nit-picking comes from my creative writing background. Constructive criticism is valid and useful, but sometimes I don’t think her criticisms are constructive, they come more from what she wishes something could be, which severely undercuts whatever valid points she might make. It’s like me wishing Bob Dylan had a better singing voice. It might be something I personally prefer, but it’s completely irrelevant to his cultural significance and his work. does that point make sense? If I were to stay on topic and make it more focused on her, I just sometimes find it convenient that she’s willing to nitpick how realistic Goodfellas is and it’s casting and then adore Titanic (which I won’t bash on the whole, but Billy Zane and his subplot, c’mon), which offers up a pretty romanticized version of history. You can dislike/have issues with Goodfellas all you want—everyone’s taste is subjective, after all—but she raised so many inconsequential points on that episode (in my opinion) that I was surprised she didn’t think think the title should be changed to Good Fellows.

All fair points. I think when you have a group that iconic, it’s pretty much impossible to cover what everyone wants in a feature-length doc that’s not a filmed performance (ala Stop Making Sense). There should really be a Netflix/Hulu/Hbo/whatever season-length documentary about them. Something like what Wu-Tang got (my phone keeps wanting to call them “Will-Tang” for some reason, which makes them sound like a Will Smith backing band). COMPLETELY unrelated tangent: are any of you fans of Unspooled? Sometimes I like it—and I’ve liked their YouTube shows—but sometimes I find Amy’s opinions so nit-picky as to be cringe-inducing and damn near unlistenable (thinking specifically of the Goodfellas episode, where she seemed to take issue with what the movie WASN’T as to what it actually was. Don’t get me wrong—we don’t have to universally value something as a classic, but comparing the actual version of a film to an imaginary version in your head just reeks of BS to me. I couldn’t finish that episode because she did that so frequently that it undercut any valid points she had and it drove me nuts). Just curious.

Ok, I’ll post one more thing. Here’s Can I Kick It?

Yes, that’s true (I didn’t post the music video for that because they had to change the track and it’s not as good). It’s a great song.