Cam Bert

I don't want to go against Amy and Paul too hard but it makes me cringe slightly to hear that this movie should be possibly dismissed because of the second half. It is akin to me to those that say "Full Metal Jacket is great until they leave boot camp." It is so dismissive of the great stuff that happens just because pop culture has made the key cultural moments mostly in the front half. Now if you say "the second half isn't as memorable as the first half" I again half to challenge this because as stated what are the things people know about this movie? The shower scene and Norman Bates is his mother. The later of those is the final reveal, so dismiss the second half you dismiss this reveal and major twist as well. Also you praise Martin Balsam but all his stuff is in the second half. Not to mention the iconic shot of him falling down the stairs or even his introduction with the giant close up of his face. They also mention Norman and Sam Loomis interaction and his change in character. Odd that this is remembered because it's in the "I don't remember anything" second half. Now you could argue that Sam Loomis and Lila Crane aren't as interesting, and that is a fair argument to be made but to actively dismiss and write off the second half as "nothing happens" is crazy. If you criteria for dismissing it is "I don't remember a lot from the second half" just think about half these movies on the list and how much we don't remember that's not there because of pop culture referencing it to us.

As a non-American my knowledge of St. Louis is very limited. I was not even sure where it is really. The main thing I know about it is that outside of the arch it's not so nice and has a high murder rate. So at the end of the film when they have the "The sun will never set on St.Louis" type ending it made me laugh a little. We already found out that the fair stuff didn't stick around so when did things for St. Louis really start heading south?

We had this debate elsewhere on here about the one film standing in for the rest in the series but I think that could very well be the case for Fellowship more so than any other of the series. It comes down to the simple fact that despite being broken down into three books the Lord of the Rings is actually just one massive book telling one continuous story. I first read it in this format and it wasn't until many years later that I reread it as three separate books. When people complain that the first part in the Shire is so long, it is if you just look at the first book but on a whole it's pretty standard amount of time to establish the main characters. The actual story is so massive it is near impossible to contain in one book let alone a movie. Now as much as I love Star Wars I have never once believed that George Lucas had the whole thing planned out. He may have had notes of backstory and ideas but based on what I've heard and how I feel I believe he was making it up as they went. After the success of the first then he was free to plan out another sequel or two. As a result the movie are more self contained. Time passes and they have adventures we don't see and we just see these milestone events. When you watch them back to back it's not one long movie it is three separate stories that tell an overall story. Lord of the Rings though if you watch them back to back it literally is one ten hour movie telling a singular story. By this same process I don't think you could put a singular Harry Potter film on the list as a representation of the whole series. LotR is also a singular vision from Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson. They made the films at the same time with the same cast and crew. The looks and feel and tone doesn't change. Harry Potter while from Prisoner and Goblet on you have a more unified look and tone, each director brings something different to the series. Just that visual and tonal difference I think disqualifies it from having one to represent them all.

Late to the party, sorry, but will start out with the fun fluff. I have been told on numerous occasions that I am a Sam and I have no problem with that. Of the core group he is my favourite character but I always found Boromir the most interesting. He's an easy character to dismiss but after you meet his family in the later books and realize that it was pressure from his father in combination with the corruptive powers of the ring he really is a tragic hero. According to Buzzfeed I am an Ent.

The one thing that struck me about the Christmas ending is how late at night it was to be celebrating Christmas. Now we know from Halloween and earlier scenes that the Smith family keeps oddly late hours, but this must have been like midnight about right? After Tootie explodes on the snowmen and the father reconsiders the move they all cheer and realize "Oh hey it's Christmas now!" and proceed to start opening their presents. Isn't this like the middle of the night? Why is nobody like "can't we wait until the morning?" It is just decided "we are all up and the clock now says it is Christmas day so let's get going." Also Tootie was up waiting for Santa and then she goes and opens her Santa present. Just when you think dad redeems himself he goes and ruins Santa for Tootie.

What got me thinking after the fact was to attend the dance you had to come with somebody. So who did all the nerds that were on her dance card come with? Is there just a whole group of relatives hat were brought along as dates at this dance?

I'd feel like a bad Canadian if I didn't post this. This is what was shown to us in Canada growing up during cartoon commercial breaks.

I'm wondering if I missed the part that explained why Tootie was so obsessed with death and dying? It was explained her brother taught her the songs, but that doesn't explain why for fun she buried her dolls and things like that. My theory was that their grandmother must have recently passed and that's why grandfather is alone and why Tootie, being so young, is obsessed with death. It is how she is dealing and cooping with it.

But they do skip to my lou

I feel the same as my fellow Cameron. It was an enjoyable movie but ultimately it was just so light in story that I never really felt that invested in any of the character except Tootie who is the real star of the movie. I was more interested in the fact that this movie was the birthplace of one of my favourite Christmas songs and seeing it in the movie adds a whole new layer to it.

And she took real good care of his hat

No need to apologize! If we had rank genres of music I would put Christmas squarely at the top. There is just not enough time in December to listen to and talk about it all!

This is the same judgement I use to discredit Wham!'s Last Christmas as a Christmas song. Literally the only thing that song has to do with Christmas is the word Christmas. Change it to birthday or Valentine's or Arbor Day and works just as well, therefore not a Christmas song. On an unrelated note this was on my list of "Christmas movies" to watch last year but didn't get around to it. In fact I forgot about it. Look forward to getting the holiday season started early.

If we could only put one Vietnam war movie on the list (I believe we also have Deer Hunter coming up later) which would you choose, Apocalypse Now or Platoon? I'm conflicted on this. I would much rather watch Platoon and I think because we do get more of a clearer character arc it is more relatable. It is also much more straight forward which I think makes it a bit more approachable for most people. On the other hands Apocalypse Now is an incredibly made film. Just what all they accomplish visually and the effort that went into making it shows on screen. All that said I personally ranked Platoon a bit higher. I already know war is hell and Vietnam in particular was a mess so I'll take the character piece of Platoon.

So I watched both the theatrical version of this movie and followed it up by watching the Redux version of the movie. I am of two minds about director's cuts in general. Sometimes there is studio meddling or just time constraints that prevent a movie from being what the director fully intended. A good example of this would be Brazil. Then you have some directors that want to change things because of personal reasons and this is where you get the George Lucas or even the god awful Richard Kelly Donnie Darko director's cut. The thing that most of these do wrong is add in scenes explaining things that didn't need explaining or adding extra scenes that add nothing to the overall film. If the scene adds nothing, why bother to go back in and include it. Redux is a weird combination of both of these. A lot of the scenes added don't really need to be in there. As mentioned the French plantation scene is quite long and is more expository that the rest of the film. However, for me the reason I enjoyed Apocalypse now is I enjoyed the journey. It's a series of vignettes that make a tapestry of what the war was and wasn't about. In theory most of these scenes are unneeded in the sense that they don't really move the story or add anything to the core plot, however they add to what the film is trying to show and the message. Yes the USO show or the battle of the bridge doesn't help them get to Kurtz or show us anything new about Willard, but it does show us something about the war. In that sense I can forgive some of the scenes added back into Redux. They all go into enriching the journey the characters are on. Is it worth the extra hour it adds back into the movie? Probably not. I don't know if I'll ever watch the movie again but if I did, I think I would watch the Redux version.

There is a slight possibility I can make it. The weather is suppose to turn real bad and if it does the sports festival will be pushed back a day. If that's the case I might be able to make it.

While I understand the wanting to belong and sense of brotherhood I guess, again maybe partly my misunderstanding of frats, but aren't there other fraternities on campus? I guess I just stuck on the idea more so of why he had to be a "gamma" and not like say and "alpha" or "delta." He pledges to the fraternity of his cousin's seeming rival and as result puts him on the outs with him and have to interact in private. He is also put through more because of his relationship to Dap. If he went to a different fraternity things would have been different for him I image. Dap would probably still be against him being part of any fraternity most likely. I was just expecting or thought there might have been more to why he wanted to be a Gamma beyond "creates conflict and drama". Like that's where his father went, or a notable person was one or something.

Also what maybe this is just me watching the movie late last night but why was it so important for Half Pint to get in the fraternity? Was it just that he wanted to be accepted? He could have easily hung out with Dap and his crew but I guess they don't carry the same clout so it is also a status thing as well. I think that's the other reason I had getting into his story in the movie because I didn't get why it was so important to him.

As someone who has no idea about this kind of thing, are the benefits you get out of being in a frat worth all the hazing?

I try telling the kids that being good at tug of war and flag dancing will get them nowhere in life

I'm late to the party and don't think I have that much to add. Like everybody has said I found the movie to be more frustrating than anything else. So many good ideas but they are just kinda peppered in and forgotten or picked up so far apart you forget about them. I was not really interested in the Half Pint stuff because frats and all that are so foreign to me as a Canadian so that stuff went on way to long and I wanted to see more of the other stuff. That said there are lots of things I like. I really enjoyed the football scenes because it was clear they had maybe fifty extras but made it seem like a proper game that you actually never see any of.

Add me to that list as well. I was explaining to a friend why the other day. I liked Breaking Bad but they seemingly turn Walter White bad pretty quick. It's suppose to be this slow descent but it doesn't always feel that way. On Breaking Bad Jimmy even when doing shitty thing you still know deep down he's a good person and so conflicted and his relationship with Kim grounds that character and when he does fully turn it is going to be so tragic. Also people are quick to praise Mike and Chuck and that but Kim is the star of the show.

And I will never stop! Sadly my school's sports festival is that morning so I won't be able to make it.

I picked my top three from the list (Rocky Horror, Singing in The Rain, and Ted Neeley) and got Opening Night then I went back and put in all the ones I liked and got The Last Five Years. I think these are the only two options. Secret confession time: I've still not listened to the Hamilton soundtrack. Please don't hate me.

Fun fact: There is a Japanese remake of Unforgiven that came out about six years ago or so. I found it a fascinating idea at the time considering how many famous early westerns were remakes of Japanese samurai movies. I was eagerly awaiting to see how they might play with this idea in reverse, but they didn't really. I agree though. I think it is important to have Western movies represented on the list as they were such a huge part of film history but not sure if Unforgiven is the best choice.