Laura88

I usually enjoy the movie picks for the essential shown with Peter Bogdonovich. However, (and a lot of people may get angry at me for this), I'm not crazy about westerns. And just now, "Fort Apache" aired. Can somebody please explain to me why that movie is an essential? Personally, I'd argue that the movie on now, "The Horse Soldiers", could be an essential. I'll admit, the casting is interesting; Shirley Temple, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, and some interesting irish actors, but, an essential? Someone shed some light onto this for me please, thanks.

True, there has been a lack of good movies out there today, but be careful comparing the quality of recent flicks to those made in "yesteryear." You're talking about two very different styles of direction, lighting, storyline, genre, and type of audience even! It is like comparing John Cage to Amadeus Mozart (zuccinis to oranges). Besides, remember in third grade when your english teacher discussed the difference between a fact and an opinion. Now, let's not argue over nonsense here class: it can be a personal preference to like older movies better than those made today. Sure. But you cannot make it a general statement. You can't because you need statistics, numbers and facts behind one. And to my knowledge there are no such resources that measure the quality of movies from "The Jazz Singer" to "Hostel." Especially since people have many different opinions on what makes a quality movie to begin with. (And to you smarty-pants who think they know a statistic, I really don't believe box-office grossings don't count as a statistic of movie-quality, do you think the amount of money made at McDonalds dictates the quality of the food there?) Now if you guys are going to have a very riviting, keyboard-jamming, battle of wits and blogs, and debate the opinon of whether older movies have better quality than new ones, oy-vey. That's your problem. I think I gotta leave this thread, the lunacy here is making me dizzy.

Whether you like Miyazaki or not, this thursday-night-anime-marathon will only last for the month of January, so quit crying. There's one more thursday night of this left, and if on January 26th you feel you can't watch an anime film, then put "Casablanca" in your dvd or vcr player. Remeber, TCM not only plays films on t.v., but they also advertise for classic movies on dvd. They make money when you buy their collections, like the Film Noir collection. So, they're not "selling out." One could say they're making quite a profit by making all of their viewers put "Stormy Weather" into their shopping carts on their way out of ****'s every thursday, because they need something else to watch that night. Don't get me wrong, I do like anime, I'm just not super-crazy about it. But I do appreciate it for what it is. And I understand how abstract anime can be to the average American to understand its importance. (you guys had to deal with speed racer for like 10 years right?) But you really should try harder; the rest of the world has come to understand this form, shouldn't you? A true film critic is always open-minded to new and different forms of cinema, because they expand the capabilities of art form in film. And I also believe that calling years of an artist's meticulous efforts on hand-drawn work as "crap" as a truly borish, appalling, and an unfortunate remark to hear.- Thank You