gene_shallot

Having just seen this... YES. Given its pedigree, it's almost hard to describe how terrible this is (yet bizarrely entertaining!) Directed by the guy who wrote The Departed & Kingdom of Heaven! It's got Mark Wahlberg & Walton Goggins! Even Oscar Isaac is bad in it. OSCAR ISAAC, people! Yet oh so watchable.

Don't mean to further derail this into the 'dump on Devin' thread (maybe we need a new Subforum! I kid.), but I do feel like he was in 75% troll/25% actual debate-mode in that argument. Kinda like with Working Girl. I get the feeling he's the type who likes to take the piss out of friends, but I can see how that might be grating. The only thing that actually gets to me is saying "you're not watching the movie right"*. There's no one specific, right or wrong way to interpret a movie, as long as you can back your argument up! * may not be exact quote

Oh haha, just appreciating the comment/username synergy. I've heard that's a great podcast, gotta check it out.

Weird, you're right. Maybe MTV never released it, the hot take was too hot for them.

*looks at user name, nods*

As much as I think Collateral is unfairly slept on, I can imagine this would be a pretty one-sided vote. Maybe Heat vs The Town? Both botched heist movies with a great sense of place (but even then, I think it's still pretty one-sided). Heat is one hell of a movie is what I'm saying.

I will reserve judgment until I see the movie, but just wanted to say I hope the eventual late-80's/early-90's follow up is "Birth Ritual". I just wanna see what Linklater does with that movie title. Or "Kuntz" (apropos to Devin's album recommendation). ... because the movies are named after era-appropriate song titles, you see.

Agreed this is actually one of the more enjoyable of Candy's cinematic turds (maybe I'm just a sucker for high concept 80's hijinks). It's knowingly silly.

It's not a great movie but honestly not HDTGM-level bad imho. If it didn't star everyone's favorite whipping-boy Hayden Christensen this would've been long forgotten.

If this implies the other 'best of the year' nominees lose the chance to get into The Canon, I'm going to have to say (unless we really are just talking the 'Devin & Amy #1 fave picks kung fu-ing each other' option... I'm totally into that)

While I totally get what you're saying and mostly agree, I love hearing Amy & Devin discuss and dissect those 'obvious choices' so much, I'd be sad to lose that.

Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. Sorta like The Thing or Evil Dead 2, critical consensus seems to have (rightfully) settled on 'horror masterpiece'. And if it were Texas vs Psycho, I feel most would feel obligated to vote the latter... I mean c'mon, we're talking Hitchcock here! TCM and Halloween seem more the same wavelength; I'm not even sure which way I'd vote. The cheesiness of the sequels may have overshadowed how great the first Nightmare is. Agreed, it's totally Canon-worthy.

Oh, must've missed that! Either way, would love an episode on it. Even if it's not particularly cinematic, surely it must win by sheer virtue of being The. Most. Quotable. Movie. EVER.

Not necessarily. True, there is some of that (for example, the cheesy green screen roof scene in The Room... or basically the whole conceit of The Room in general) but you can find poorly crafted elements in good & bad films alike. Still, how many 'bad' movies have screenings to this day like The Room or Troll 2 do? It's hard to put into words, but I feel there's something more to these movies. You don't need someone cracking jokes over them - they are genuinely interesting to watch, and I don't that's true of all their ilk (like the aforementioned Birdemic, Transformers sequels, or, say, Manos: Hands of Fate, but ymmv). My theory is it's the cinematic equivalent of the uncanny valley. As pop-culture consumers from birth, we have an innate expectation of how movies should look and behave. These films refuse to conform to those expectations, while still resembling 'legit' cinema enough to keep stringing the viewer along. They're weird, and they keep finding new ways to be weird, sheerly through skewed perspective or approach. So kind of like how humor is basically expectation of a certain outcome followed by surprise, maybe the best of these movies tickle that same part of the brain. To me Holy Motors-by-accident is just as fascinating as Holy Motors.

This could be fun. I have a weird feeling the hosts won't be quite as keen on it as most people I know are.

There sure isn't, and I thought it was kind of weird that one guest (edit: Michael Lerman) seemed to think there was.

Was it though?

I wouldn't mind them nominating this just for the conversation alone. Devin might frame his argument in a 'this is mean-spirited', or 'an insult to the filmmaker', or a 'how am I supposed to apply my semiotics to this?!' light, and maybe some people do watch purely for mean-spirited reasons (Birdemic springs to mind), but for me their appeal is something harder to quantify. I legitimately don't hate these movies, so "hate watching" doesn't feel apt. There's a huge difference between these and movies that are boring-bad or forgettable-bad. These aren't cynical crash grabs like Transformers - they're often passion projects, by artists with a slightly skewed point of view. It's outsider art. It's irreproducible. It's lightning in a bottle. When a "bad" movie somehow loops back around to being entertaining, what's wrong with celebrating that? I would feel totally comfortable voting a film like Plan 9, or The Room, or, say, Troll 2 or The Apple into The Canon.

I remember this suggestion from the old forums, and it's still genius. Hell, why not make it even tougher and do a 3-way versus with The Producers!

Would love this as well! I think you could make a case for almost any, but if I had to pick one I'm parrtial to Mother. Amazing film.

Severe lack of Kurosawa (even though I think nearly all would be shoo-ins).

Whoa, what? When did either of them say they hated it? (Unless this is an elaborate joke? In which case, haha, good one!)

Ooh this sounds fun: Favorite in the Canon: The Thing Least Fave in the Canon: tie - Animal House & Cannibal Holocaust Favorite that didn't make it: Mission: Impossible (Edit: it was fun!)

No Batman without Superman? Not buying it. Even without Superman it is entirely conceivable a Batman movie would come along eventually. I don't think Batman took much from Superman either (except maybe that it needed an awesome score? I love both, actually); the film is so Tim Burton-y I could see it turning out exactly the same even without Donner's Superman. Amy & Devs are right, Burton is hyper-focused on visuals & style... just like a comic book! I'm a visual guy, so Batman 1 has always appealed to me for that exact reason. Even rewatching it recently (but before the episode), I didn't notice the "careless" mistakes y'all did at all; in fact, I think you're crazy. I just loved the bold way Burton frames shots and moves the camera. Well, any time Batman's on-screen (the whole chemical factory sequence especially)... the rest er, maybe not so much. Uh, did I mention the score? Sure, Batman Returns is probably better made, but it's just so unsatisfying on many levels, in ways the first isn't. Just like with The Dark Knight, the villian(s) take over the movie. Sure, Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing, but Batman just fades into the shadows. Batman fights actual penguins more than he does The Penguin. The whole last act is just sort of a bust for me. And how come Batman doesn't dance anymore? Superman - a good film, and the best version of Superman, but mostly hokey and just doesn't hold up for me. I'm voting Batman. Did the movie always make sense? No. Did Superman? And Arli$$ and Vicki Vale? Don't mind them at all. In Batman, everyone is either nuts or wants to get nuts. (C'mon! Let's get nuts)

Wah??! Not sure if you're trolling or not. Would love to hear more on that.