Oh well that awesome then. I’ve bought a few of their releases now and been very happy, don’t have any Criterion because they’re region locked. Still only needed one Rififi though =(

Frank – you brought up The Real McCoy and made my heart brim with nostalgia and happiness. Re watching this week. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks for the show. Keep being awesome, Junkers.

Piranha could also be saved for a Directors Roger Corman Helped Get Their Start premium:

Grand Theft Auto (Ron Howard)
Piranha (Joe Dante/John Sayles (screenplay))
Piranha 2: The Spawning (James Cameron)
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich)
Dementia 13 (Francis Ford Coppola)
Caged Heat (Jonathan Demme)
Boxcar Bertha (Martin Scorsese)

Never would happen, and not sure I’d really even want one, but there’s something there. If nothing else, I would love for Frank to have an excuse to see Targets, which I think is the only legitimately great movie from that bunch.

The Mant! scenes are the best parts of Matinee.

I was going to email this in but I thought I’d save you the trouble of deleting it because of the length. Thanks for the show it was amazing this week, especially the intro.

Jay mentioned a few times that great films ‘rise to the top’ via recognition from some collective filmic community and are eventually accepted into a widespread legacy. I think this is off base for a number of reasons but I’ll only point out one for brevity. I think the films that gain this legacy are the ones that boil down the interesting elements of truly subversive art and package them into a more digestible work.

Two examples: Manoel de Oliveira’s Aniki Bobo does almost everything The Bicycle Thief (and all Italian Neorealism for that matter), Little Fugitive, and the 400 Blows would go on to do, and in the case of the latter two it did so at least a decade earlier. However, Oliveria’s films rejects convention in a number of ways Little Fugitive, etc does not and rips apart the social standing of Portugal. The works of David Lynch are often times largely an loose amalgamation of Kenneth Anger, whose art lacked form and narrative.

I THINK Oliveria and Anger’s films are more bold and challenging than say Little Fugitive or Blue Velvet, but they are largely forgotten. I don’t think it is fair to say because they are forgotten or aren’t held up by critics today that they aren’t ‘great’. If you get tunnel vision and only focus on what critics love or films that are repackaged on criterion you could miss ones that also mattered in their own way. Blue Velvet is an incredible film, of course, but it doesn’t exist singularly in the vortex of ‘great’. This idea of objectivity only goes as far as your knowledge takes you. So really, because nobody can have total knowledge of film, and there will always be someone smarter than you the idea of chasing some ineffable truth about cinema is futile at most and silly at least.

All of this is to say I agree there is objectivity in film but I think it has to come down to one’s ability to express this themselves. Too often people rely on the words of others as proof of quality. I see mostly where Frank is coming from though, in that I always appreciate the visceral reaction I have to a film rather than making myself go through the mental obstacle course of figuring out how ‘great’ something is. I think that takes quite a large ego. I don’t always agree with Frank but his ability to throw his hands up and say “I just love this because I love it and I love it more than X even if X is better” is really great, especially when so much of the blogosphere is dictated by quantifying things.

Anywho, sorry for the long response. Thanks so much for all the hard work you guys do. I was thinking maybe a Spielberg premium for when his new movie comes out. I know you guys have covered a lot of his work in premiums before but there is a lot you haven’t, and the discussions birthed from his filmography are always funny and enjoyable.

You want to sell it to me? I would like a copy, and as far as I can tell we are both Swedes.

Cool! That doesn’t matter to me. Just tell me where to send the money (and the amount) and I’ll send you my adress.

Schysst! Ingen brådska.

Wait, what?! Where can I download episode 349??? I never got a USB and I didn’t think older episodes were available.

There’s a pay service for “some” of the older archived episodes somewhere but you can also listen to it on MixCloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/filmjunk/film-junk-podcast-episode-349-mission-impossible-ghost-protocol/ If you feel guilty you can always donate $0.99 to Sean’s Film Junk Paypal account anyways.

Yeah I think I talked a little about this when I watched Casablanca a while back. The impression I get is that there is a fair amount of randomness when it comes to determining which movies end up standing the test of time and which ones don’t. I believe that most of the “classics” are indeed great movies (could be my classitosis talking). However, as you said, there are also a ton of great movies that simply didn’t have people championing them and ended up fading into obscurity anyway. And just because a movie isn’t collectively considered “great” doesn’t mean it deserves to fade into obscurity either. The bad movies give context to the good movies. And sometimes they get re-evaluated years later and are declared classics. It’s definitely a complicated thing.

I would much rather continue debating the parameters of what makes a film “great” over simply declaring the idea of a “great” film as indefinable due to subjectivity. That’s too easy.

I agree that once you get down to comparing great films against each other, the conversation becomes a little more complicated. But in regards to the discussion on the show, my argument is mainly pushing the idea that there is a natural selection process that for the most part, manages to separate the “great” from the not-so-great. But within those groupings, there’s still going to be debate. Casablanca vs. Citizen Kane is the example that’s already been mentioned. But It’s unlikely anybody will seriously pit Citizen Kane against Cedric the Entertainer’s 2005 remake of The Honeymooners in a fight over which film is truly “great.”

That’s not to suggest that there aren’t many great films that will be overlooked. That is bound to happen. It doesn’t mean they can’t still be considered “great.”

As for ego, I think it’s more egotistical for somebody to boldly claim that no film can be labeled “great” simply because they disagree with the nominees or don’t have the toolset (or are too lazy) to articulate what makes THEIR “great” film choices worthy of the title.

You can scroll down the podcast section to find past episodes. I believe 2012 episodes and newer are still free. Many older episodes are available for a small fee. The talkshoe website still has many of the 2007 episodes available for free.
http://podbay.fm/
show/215006325

Ustream still has some miscellaneous videocasts available
http://www.ustream.tv/
recorded/2567947

episode #349 turns out to be great companion piece to the ‘Mission: Impossible’ Premium with input from Greg and Reed as well.

I agree with everything you are saying. However, you are barking up the wrong tree when you bring up the “Bewitched” remake.
Nicole Kidman has never previously, or since been more beautiful than in that movie and for that reason alone, that is a great movie to me…that is the literally the only reason that it is a great movie, but I feel justified in that reasoning. Just saying.

Enjoyed MI5 — about the Fast & Furious vibe, I did notice the word “friends” popping up in the script more often as the movie progressed, a la the F&F “family”. Predicting at least a dozen “friends” references in MI6….

I completely agree with Frank’s review of MI5. My summation word, excepting the motorcycle chase, is “lackluster.”

Also, there’s something disturbing about Tom Cruise not showing any gray hair. My eyes kept switching between his hair, which doesn’t coordinate with his weathered face, to his teeth. Sad, but true.

du kan skicka ett mail till persson.j.daniel(a)gmail.com så skickar jag adress tillbaka. Så kan du säga hur du vill få betalningen också.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2wK-HyeJQ

5 mins in – The best lampooning of Frank and Jay’s blu-ray manifesto yet.