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joel_rosenbaum

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Everything posted by joel_rosenbaum

  1. joel_rosenbaum

    identifying with an opposite gender lead

    I'll have to be honest, I can't think of too many films where I did make that connection (with an opposite gender lead). I don't know what this says about me, probably nothing good, but in my defense I don't think I connect with a lot of male leads, either. Off the top of my head, I can think of Marjane in Persepolis and Ronna in Go.
  2. joel_rosenbaum

    Trainspotting

    Not really, since the drive of the film is Renton leaving his friends behind. The sequel indicates that he failed. And you can blame Irvine Welsh for that; he wrote the sequel. It was called Porno. I'm far from certain that the sequel will be very good. In fact, I'm pretty certain that it won't be. For one, the source material is not as good. Another is McGregor's penchant for appearing in terrible movies over the last decade or so.
  3. joel_rosenbaum

    Trainspotting

    Not much of a teaser trailer, but:
  4. Regarding that outstanding five star review, has the world arrived at the (correct) consensus that Gran Torino is actually a terrible movie?
  5. joel_rosenbaum

    Episode #87: THE GENERAL

    Addressing the discussion at the beginning of the episode, what was the first movie that told a Civil War era story favorably disposed towards the Union? The Lost Cause permeated throughout Hollywood, and still does to a certain extent. Pretty much any early movie set in the Civil War or the period around it featured confederate or ex-confederate heroes. Genuine american heroes, like the abolitionist John Brown, were presented as villains (Sante Fe Trail, 1940). To my memory, the first movie that was unambiguously told in favor of the Union and/or the abolitionist cause was Glory (1989), although someone here can assuredly correct me. Okay, sidetrack over.
  6. joel_rosenbaum

    Dream a Little Dream (1989)

    Excellent choice. Marks two shitty movie checkboxes at once: a film featuring the Coreys, and a body switch movie. Does anyone remember how many body switch movies there were in the late eighties? Off the top of my head we had this movie, the George Burns one, the Judge Reinhold/Fred Savage one, and that Kirk Cameron/Dudley Moore one.
  7. joel_rosenbaum

    The Fog of War

    Arguably the greatest Errol Morris documentary, one that humanized Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara while at the same time putting forward a strong but not sanctimonious anti-war message. I think Morris' work deserves consideration for the Canon for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is his technical contribution: the two-way mirror system, called the "interrotron", that induces interview subjects to converse directly with the camera. I recognize that documentaries have never been considered for the Canon, and that may never happen, but Morris would be a great place to start.
  8. I can't believe that no one has mentioned Matt Damon, whose physical transformation for the Bourne movies was almost absurd. Even his face changed quite a bit. It convinced me that steroid use wasn't limited to the provinces of professional sports and weightlifting.
  9. joel_rosenbaum

    Your Indulgence Picks

    Roger Waters, although a John Waters version would be ... something. It would make for an interesting indulgence pick as the movie was famously hated by almost everyone involved in creating it. It's also endured better than the movie musicals produced by the Who, or even Yellow Submarine. Setting the Wall/Tommy/Quadrophenia aside, most of those movies would be uncontroversial choices for Canon discussion -- I think the idea of the indulgence pick is that you don't feel said pick is actually worthy of enshrinement. Perhaps you don't, but you'd have a hell of an argument convincing me that Seven Samurai (for example) is both a movie that you like and one that doesn't belong in the Canon.
  10. joel_rosenbaum

    Top Gun

    Top Gun was marketed and received as a serious action movie in its time. I think that disqualifies it as "campy". The kind of over the top goofiness in the scenes you describe was par for the course around that time, especially in action movies:
  11. joel_rosenbaum

    Episode 86: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

    Weighing in late here, but this really was a great episode. Touched on a lot of the same thoughts I had about this movie during the exact same period of time (nineties). I had determined, then, that I would never revisit this movie but my mind is completely changed.
  12. joel_rosenbaum

    Top Gun

    Maybe, maybe not. But it does make me feel old as fuck. I think people forget how many military/aviation themed movies there were in the Reagan years (Iron Eagle, which is all kinds of terrible, came out the same year).
  13. joel_rosenbaum

    Original movie versus a parody

    Other than Walk Hard -- a straight parody of Johnny Cash / Walk the Line -- pretty much every parody here covers an amalgam of movies, musicals, and other pop-culture references. I like the Frankenstein idea, though.
  14. joel_rosenbaum

    Recommendations for critics of color?

    Wesley Morris, formerly of the Boston Globe, and currently of the NY Times? I mean, he doesn't write from an explicitly "black" perspective, but he is certainly a black person.
  15. I want the knife... please. It's really too bad that you guys didn't do a back-to-back with The Golden Child.
  16. joel_rosenbaum

    Tropic Thunder

    I was pretty nonplused by Tropic Thunder. I figured a lot of the positive critical reaction was due to the insider-y nature of the jokes. I get that, but that stuff did not resonate with me at all. Apparently Ben Stiller was adamant that the film wasn't just a spoof, but that's how it come across. Nothing wrong with spoofs, but they are (by definition) derivative works.
  17. joel_rosenbaum

    When Harry Met Sally vs. Die Hard

    We did it everybody!
  18. joel_rosenbaum

    Episode 84: RE-ANIMATOR

    This is most definitely a "genre-leaning" Canon, which is fine by me. If I wanted a retrospective of highbrow fare, there's countless places to do that. I might not like everything that makes it in (an understatement) but what draws me to this show is the idea of expanding my palate a little bit, and to give me fresh eyes when reviewing movies that I had seen before.
  19. joel_rosenbaum

    Your Indulgence Picks

    Verhoeven probably deserves a film in the Canon, right? I would have to think Robocop would make it, but Total Recall is in some ways more enjoyable.
  20. joel_rosenbaum

    Todd Solondz

    Storytelling was so damned on the nose, especially with the Paul Giamatti storyline. Happiness was fairly subversive and quite a bit better than Solondz's later stuff, which is basically unwatchable. But it lacks the humanity that made Welcome to the Dollhouse an interesting/enjoyable movie.
  21. joel_rosenbaum

    Terry Gilliam Showdown: 12 Monkeys vs Brazil

    Has Munchausen been reformed yet? I always enjoyed that movie, but I haven't watched it recently.
  22. joel_rosenbaum

    Coming To America vs. Trading Places

    Great minds think alike.
  23. joel_rosenbaum

    Episode 84: RE-ANIMATOR

    I'm going to weigh in with a pretty plain "no" here. I don't have a lot more to add to the argument, but like some others in this thread, I enjoyed Amy's string of arguments against during the middle of the episode. Perhaps the most succinct of these was:
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