Pantheon Inductions and Dissident Cinema Marathon Announcement

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. See any standard two D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. Sign up now on the Regal app or at the link in our description and use code film spot twenty six to receive fifteen percent off.

00:00:45
Speaker 2: What kind of a show you guys putting on here today? You're not interested in art? Now? No, Look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation. Hey, film spotters Adam and Josh. Here. We will have a full show coming Friday as usual, including a review of the drama. We haven't taped that show yet, Josh and I have no reason to suspect this will there be any drama on that show between us.

00:01:13
Speaker 1: I have an instinct that you liked this movie, Adam. Oh again, I don't. I'm not basing that on any evidence. Just yeah, something tells me. Did you know what I'm into? Yeah? And so I think we might have some drama. I'll say that interesting, okay.

00:01:32
Speaker 2: And you know what, I did have the same feeling about you, opposite of what you felt about me.

00:01:40
Speaker 1: So at this point interesting times.

00:01:43
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so we will discuss that and we will also share Forties Madness Sweet sixteen results including Yes, I did call it the Attorney's first upset. Will also give you the Elite eight matchups. Today, though, we're going to take care of some official business. We're going to induct a couple of films into the Film Spotting Pantheon, our Eclectic Movie Hall of Fame. It's our second year of doing it in this official fashion. We do have some other business to take care of first, and that is we have to share the lineup Josh for our Film Spotting Marathon. We do one of these a year. At this point, we have so much other programming and content that we need to fit in. But this is a process where we get on with the Film Spotting Advisory Board. You bring topics to the table. I bring topics, Sam brings topics our producer, and then we get feedback from the fab. We whittle it down and then the family gets to weigh in and their vote spoke the loudest. They told us what topic they thought our marathon should be, and it was a topic that you.

00:02:49
Speaker 1: Proposed, dissident cinema. That's where we're going this year, and it's a little different from previous marathons. Yeah, as came up among some of those conversations, hopefully to folks just hearing about this for the first time, it's relatively self evident by that title dissident cinema. We're basically going to look at acclaimed films that push back against state and political abuses of power. And it's funny, Adam, maybe sad funny, but this topic has come up as you detailed that process here and there, as we were considering options maybe a year for a year now off and on right, and every time it just keeps getting more timely. I feel like, and I think if put it in this perspective, I think when we did put the options up for a vote to the Film Spotting Advisory Board, that might have been before the United States launched this irrational war on Iran, yes, which is it was own to my mind, abuse of power. So yeah, we are unfortunately continually trying to wrap our minds around this in real time, in real life, and so I do think part of my thinking behind this proposal was that it may be helpful to look at movies from the past that have addressed such moments in history and cinephiles particularly, Maybe we'll have an avenue then for processing what we are experiencing. And I also think it might be helpful to do that from a non American vantage point, and where we did on the titles, Adam, which this is probably the first time we're actually revealing the titles. It is I think we're exclusively looking at films from a non US point.

00:04:31
Speaker 2: Of view, well, with the exception maybe of the first one right where we are.

00:04:37
Speaker 1: I suppose British filmmaker.

00:04:39
Speaker 2: But yes, yes, yes, depending how you want to look at it. But otherwise you are exactly right. And if you're new to the show, we have been doing film spotting marathons since the very early days, and like all of the best aspects of film spotting, it wasn't necessarily planned. It wasn't planned at all. It just organically came out of doing the show and came out of feedback from listeners. In this case, the feedback was, why aren't you guys smarter? Why don't you know more movies? You know, we would do these top five lists and people would say, I can't believe you left this off. I can't believe you left this off and we still get that feedback from time to time. And this was in the early days, myself and Sam of course as the co host, and what we were especially noticing is that, more than anything, we just didn't know Westerns. And I don't want to speak for Sam at this point, but it was, you know, my dad watched westerns. Of course, that was the generation that grew up on these John Wayne films in particular, and maybe as an act of rebellion, I did not care about these Westerns, and I wasn't far enough along in my cinophile journey apparently to care about Westerns. Now. I had to watch Stagecoach as a film student, and I could appreciate it on that level, but I wasn't diving in. I wasn't going back in and watching these Westerns. So we said, we really need to fill in these blind spots. Let's make it a segment, Let's force ourselves, let's make it a recurring segment. The first ever marathon was a Western. A week marathon. For eight weeks, we did a different Western, and Stage Coach was part of it, even though I had seen it, but the other seven were Westerns. I hadn't seen so over time we have done these limited series devoted to it might be directors, it might be genres, it might be regions of World cinema, or it might be these other themes like we have here in Dissident Cinema is going to be our fifty second marathon, And so maybe we don't get as many emails anymore saying why don't you guys have better lists? Why aren't you smarter? Because we've we have filled in over twenty years some of these blind spots, and we are a little more educated, we hope anyway.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: Well, and there always will be blind spots. But to your point, you know, I think there's one title, maybe maybe two in this marathon that I think.

00:06:56
Speaker 2: You've seen, because two I've seen you.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: Have been able to catch them before. So as we get further along doing these marathons, sometimes we do have a few revisits for one or both of us, but generally they are legit blind spots, and that's that's the case for most of these.

00:07:11
Speaker 2: Here for both of us, it is and as we have talked about, maybe with the fab and certainly behind the scenes here myself, you and Sam, at some point you almost have to consider that if you haven't seen them in over twenty years, or maybe over twenty five years, And that is the case for me with these first two. These first two are the ones I've seen, but I saw them as a film student, and if it's been that long, then they might as well be blind spots. What's the point. I only haven't seen them in that long, but haven't I haven't written about them critically, I haven't talked about them critically, So we might as well watch them again. We might as well dive in. So we do have We'll say this, we had, we had six films planned. We did just discover last night, or Sam just discovered last night that the sixth film doesn't appear to be available anywhere, not not online anywhere, And so maybe when we get there, Josh, we can have this on air production meeting, whether or not we want to just sort of TBD it and decide later whether or not we want to add a six movie. That's that's option Option B would be whether or not we want to leave it open for listeners to suggest a sixth topic, a sixth film, which we're always open to and that's fun, or we might just decide to keep it at five movies, and there's two good reasons for that. One is, we are starting this marathon very late, a little bit later than we normally would. We'd usually be done kind of by the end of May as we're getting into summer movies. The other reason is, and I'm not going to spoil it yet, but I'm looking at what is the fifth movie in this marathon, and it's four hours and eleven minutes long. This is true.

00:08:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's gonna be that a lot to tackle.

00:08:59
Speaker 2: So okay, so you can go ahead and do the honors the first movie. We'll we'll just alternate here. What's the first film in our Dissident Cinema Marathon?

00:09:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're going to list these chronologically, so order of release. And we're beginning our journey in nineteen forty with Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. As you said, Adam One you saw a while back, this is the perfect excuse for me to finally see The Great Dictator, released as fascism was consolidating power across Europe, openly confronts authoritarianism and also, interestingly, I'm curious about this element as well. Chaplain's first fully sound film, so experiencing that placing it within his filmography, I think is going to be part of the learning curve for me, especially with The Great Dictator. Now it was a nineteen forty one Best Picture nominee. Chaplain was nominated for Best Actor here and if we want to tie this to one of our other projects that we have going on, and one of the reasons we don't do as many marathons quite frankly as we used to is we have fun things like film spotting Madness taking place every year. Right now, we are in the midst of the best of the nineteen forties Madness Tournament. The Great Dictator lost in the second round to the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But it's going to get win by being included in our marathon.

00:10:23
Speaker 2: There you go, and we and listeners are going to get a win as we continue this marathon because number two nineteen forty five Roberto Rossolini, an Italian cinema class I took Away Back when Rome Open City about a Roman resistance leader pursued by the Nazis. It was shot in post war Rome. It was shot amid real devastation, and it was Italy's first major film produced after the war, and it was the winner of the Palm Door at the nineteen forty six can Film Festival. And there there was one film, maybe a Sessione, that is usually looked at as the first Italian neorealism film, but this is the one because of the acclaim it got. In particular, it's the one Josh that is usually looked to as the one that launched Italian neorealism globally. Now, none of that helped it at all, unfortunately in the first round of Forty's Madness, as it did lose to the Grapes of Wrath. But it is being revived here for our.

00:11:33
Speaker 1: Marathon and this is for me the biggest blind spot among all the titles we're tackling, so very much looking forward to seeing Rome Open City, all right. Next up a film from nineteen forty six, and honestly adam a movie from Akira Kurosawa that I was vaguely at best familiar with saying before we started doing the research for this. It is called No Regrets for Our Youth, and Kurrosawa made this obviously in the immediate aftermath of wartime Japan. It is about a young woman's pre and postwar political awakening. Here is a non political reason. I'm extremely excited about this. The movie stars Setsuko Haara, who I'm familiar with from Ozu's Tokyo Store and Late Spring. She was also in Tokyo Twilight, so that is going to be a real treat to see her on screen again in No Regrets for Our Youth. This is available via Criterion Channel if you're a subscriber. There also is free with ads on places like Plex and Fossome dot Tv. I haven't explored Fossome dot tv yet, Adam, but if you want to check that out, you can find No Regrets for Our Youth there as well.

00:12:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this one will be interesting to check out because we've talked about a few Kurosawa films recently, mainly for Film Spotting Family Members as bonus content, Drunken Angel, Stray Dog, and what we've talked about is the political nature of those movies, ultimately, the cultural commentary that is going on within these films that otherwise might be or might seem like gangster pictures. Right, and this movie is his most overtly political, that is how everyone refers to it. And so just I want to see that dichotomy on screen here, and No Regrets for Our Youth is one I'm eager to see. Number four. This is one that is long for me. Been a huge blind spot nineteen sixty nine Z from Costa Gavrais. This is a fictionalized account of the nineteen sixty three assassination of a Greek political figure and then the cover up by the Fascist government. The Grand Jury at Can gave it the top prize there it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Pauline Kale said, remember when the movie Adds used to say it will knock you out of your seat. Well, z damn near does so, Josh, I guess you know, get your seat belt out while you're sitting on your couch. And it's available on the Criterion channel but also HBO Max and other VOD platforms. That should be good.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: I love a good Pauline Kale quote. We don't do that enough here, No, we don't. You're right good to see that.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: All right.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: Here's the big one in terms of running time at least it is Marcel Offuls from nineteen sixty nine The Sorrow and the Pity, so documentary here one that chronicles life in France under Nazi occupation. It's a testimony that is known to reveal moral ambiguity, particularly more than any sort of heroic consensus. It was banned, interestingly, from French television for over a decade after its release, so we'll be very eager to dig into the history surrounding that as well as the text of the movie. Yes, two hundred and fifty one minutes. That's four hours and eleven minutes. I'm unfamiliar if it's broken up into distinct chapters that might make that a bit more manageable or how we're going to tackle it, but we are going to do it. The sorrow and the page if you want to play along. It looks like it is available VOD on most platforms.

00:15:28
Speaker 2: The movie that I only ever knew as the punchline in Annie Hall, you know, Alvm, I'm not sure for a four hour documentary about Nazis. That's how it was first on my radar. Now we are going to watch that four hour documentary about Nazis, and yes, I am eager to see it as well. Finally, so we may end it there. Josh, I don't know if you have an inclination about what we should do, but we did initially want to end this marathon by jumping ahead to two thousand and talk about The Circle from Ja'far Panahi, and Panahi is one of now I can say, my favorite filmmakers. And I have not seen every one of his films, including The Circle, but I've seen a lot of his films, many of them. I think three of them have made my top ten lists over the past decade or so. And it it fit are are thinking here, certainly, because it follows several women over the course of a single day and in Tehran, and it's about their kind of intersecting lives through their attempts to escape their various social constraints. And it won the Golden Lion at Venice. It was later cited as evidence against him by the Iranian government. And Josh, you've said that when we initially threw around, when you suggested this topic and were we were debating it for the the marathon, we had not we had not begun this incursion. But but when we were thinking of these film titles, we very much had. And that's that's why, very pointedly we were thinking about an Iranian film. We have discovered that it's not available, as I said, via vod or streaming, and if it's even if we can get it via our library to watch it, it just feels like if we can't get more listeners involved to watch it it, it makes it tough to include in the marathon. So we may just have to discuss this a little bit more behind the scenes, but we'll see.

00:17:29
Speaker 1: I have a proposal on that that's related to the library actually, and we can see how it plays out. And if we don't sense a lot of traction on this, as you said, we have a lot of good stuff to get into here already and maybe we leave it behind, but I will look into the library availability around me, especially when I get back home to the States. I would encourage listeners to do that. Check out your local library. And here's what I would propose is, if it's not there, because this is the last proposed title in our marathon, go ahead and ask your library if they would buy it. And I know this from We have so many listeners who are librarians, and so I know this from them. You know, W's a librarian, so I know a little bit about how libraries work, and in some cases not all. But your library has a budget for purchasing media, and they love getting some direction from the people who actually live in their towns and their villages and use their library. They love to hear you say, hey, I've always wanted to, you know, watch this or read this. You don't have a copy? Now, is there any chance you could possibly order one? I mean, if we get enough people to do that and the orders are placed soon enough, I don't know, maybe we can stock the shelves with the circle in about you know, a month or so. Here if it doesn't work out. Yeah, again, we've got so many great films, but it's just a good reminder to check your library for any titles like this if you don't immediately find them on streaming. It's it's a resource. We mention a lot on the show, but isn't necessarily top of mind for a lot of people.

00:19:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem to be available via canopy, but I can get it at the University of Iowa library and that that will be how I would check it out. So there you go. We we do encourage you to do that. I think that's great advice. Josh, And you can look for the Dissonant Cinema Marria to start at the end of April. We'll have more details about that at film spotting dot net slash episodes, and of course we'll have more details about that marathon and all of our marathons at film spotting dot net slash Marathons, or go to film spotting dot Net. There's a link right there at the top of the page.

00:19:43
Speaker 1: Since the Pyramids Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: Two films will join the Film Spotting Pantheon today, Josh, I don't feel like we have dressed up enough for this occasion. It should be a more a more formal one somehow.

00:20:02
Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting better at least formalizing it structurally for the show. This used to be quite haphazard, yes, leading to us forgetting what movies were even in the pantheon. So at least, at least by doing it in this manner, I feel like we're giving it a little more honor. But at some point, yeah, maybe maybe we get together Adam and do a live announcement.

00:20:25
Speaker 2: Will we dress a little bit better? Okay, yeah, that would be good, though I hate to break it to you. Maybe now it's not a good time, they're going to be changes coming to the process.

00:20:38
Speaker 1: But but here's the good news. Of course there of course they're here. I think we've had I think we've had the like six month lull of actually doing what we said.

00:20:47
Speaker 2: It's high time we actually in all in all honesty, it doesn't upend it, and it actually totally streamlines it. You'll you'll be on board. It makes it makes it way easier, It makes it way easy. Well we'll get to that later. The film spotting pantheon currently fifty seven films from two thousand and one A Space Odyssey to the Wizard of Oz and everything including Midnight Run in between. So the brief history lesson is, initially this was all about just the film Spotting Top Five. When the show began, there there were three titles we knew or thought we knew would come up too often in the film Spotting Top fives, myself and Sam, so we just set them aside. They were sort of in the forever penalty box, like Citizen Kane and The Godfather, and you know, of course we revere Citizen Kane, but it's not like, realistically Citizen Kane was probably going to come up that often. So the whole thing was folly from the beginning. Now the Godfather that was more realistic, you know. And then there were movies we also love, like All the President's Men and Glen Garry, Glenn Ross, and so those were put in the pantheon. After that movies were just kind of added a little bit willy nilly. And so then last year we said, how how do we formalize this process. How do we make it so we stop asking each other questions about what the pantheon is and how movies get in. How do we make us a listeners stop asking us questions about it, and how do we also turn it into something where we can we can get some content out of it, generate some new content, some new reviews. And the biggest thing, you know that Sam brought up is and he was he was so right about it, is we just have all these great movies sitting over there that some people listeners have said, you know, I'd love to hear you talk about these movies, and actually by putting them in the pantheon, we've kind of said we're never going to talk about these movies. They're never going to come up in a top five. Could we actually do a project where we force ourselves to talk about these Pantheon movies and the irony is stupidly you know, I was wrong, not not surprisingly, I was wrong. I thought, well, what am honestly, what am I going to have to say about? I was going to say Raging Bull, which we haven't talked about yet, What am I gonna have to say about Chinatown? What am I really gonna have to say about all the President's Men? All these films that are just I just know they're great, and you know, I'm just going to say how great they are for for thirty minutes or whatever. And then it turns out, of course we talk about these movies for fifty minutes to sixty minutes and they're they're of course, they're so rich, and of course it's like seeing them again with fresh eyes, and they're some of my favorite conversations we've ever had in the show's history.

00:23:17
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's it, and you know it's intimidating, Let's be honest. That's part of it too, is to think of some of those titles and realize all of the great writing, you know, all the great work that's been done thinking about these what are we going to add, and you know, we'll let listeners say determine how much we actually added, but I think I would agree with you. The act of digging into them in a formal review has been incredibly rewarding and has yet really justified this as an entire project, at least at least from our end.

00:23:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the nomination process the last two years has been and we just wrapped it up this year with our conversation about Meek's cutoff. We come to the table on a show, we have a nomination segment where you bring three movies. I bring three movies. Sam brings three movies. The structure is simply that each one of us has to pick a movie from a past film spotting marathon. We want to tie it to the show's history, so a film spotting marathon one has to be a film spotting Sacred Cow, so it's just a classic film review. And then there's a wildcard. We've got to bring something new to the table. Any movie that we want to suggest and the only catches it has to be at least five years old, so maybe we've reviewed it before. Right. It could be like, for example, we could nominate Parasite even if we've reviewed it before, but we've never given it that full sort of sacred col in depth discussion. But we can't talk about a movie one battle after another can't be nominated for the Pantheon. Now that's right. In four years, in five years, it could, it could come up potentially. So last year we nominated those films. We put those together, those nine films on a ballot the Film Spotting Family. Film Spotting Family members part of their membership benefits, they get exclusive voting rights, they get to shape the pantheon. And we had our ballot, Josh me You and Sam. We had the Film Spotting Family ballot, and we compare those two and basically the top vote getter on each one gets in. Those are the two films that get in. If there's overlap, we go to the next one on our list. And in this case, Singing in the Rain was the top vote getter on each list, and so it became Singing in the Rain and Sherlock Junior from Buster Keaton. Those were the two last year that went empty last year, so we then renominated between us three films from last year when we did the nine this year. Agnes vardas Cleo from five to seven William Wiler's The Best Years of Our Lives, Ilo Pontakorvo's The Battle of Algiers. We then had some new nominees. We had Akira Kurosawa was Rashomon, Kelly reicherts Meek's Cutoff, Jonathan Demi stopped making sense of Boss Kiristami's close up, john Ford's How Green Was My Valley? Barbara Kopples Harlan County, USA. How about that for a list of nine candidates for the Pantheon.

00:26:11
Speaker 1: Can't go off of the variety there and love thinking about those conversations We had about some of these and really enjoyed the recent ones. So yeah, we talked recently. As you said about Meek's cut Off. We took a look at Raschoman for the first time together, believe it or not. Yes, And then john Ford's How Green was My Valley? It was the other recent conversation. We had to put those films in the mix with all the others you mentioned.

00:26:37
Speaker 2: And How Green Was My Valley probably would have had to have been the Cinderella here to make it all the way into the Pantheon of the nine you degree, and it was your nominee. The longest shot. Unfairly, it seems, we would both say, because we had a great conversation about it, and I loved the movie, unfairly derided because it beat Citizen Kane for Best Picture. And it does turn out that in this ballot it's definitely not getting into the Pantheon, because it did finish last in both our ballot, the critics ballot, if you will, and in family voting picked up.

00:27:17
Speaker 1: There were not a surprise to me after, so I was, you know, initially thrilled to see on letterbox after we did our review it popping up here and there, how green was my valley, and some folks even referencing they were watching it because of the Pantheon projects. So loved that. But not all of those reviews were glowing. So I had a sense that this one didn't get a shot. But as you say, I'm just so thrilled that you came to love it as much as I had already. So that was worth it for me, even though it didn't farewell.

00:27:49
Speaker 2: In the voting. We do have, what we think here at Film Spotting is good news to report. We're very happy with how this worked out because we are adding and the pantheon needs this. We are adding two foreign language slash international films to the Pantheon from two of our all time favorite filmmakers who are currently not represented in the pantheon. The top finisher in the film spotting ballot, so this is across me, you, Sam our ballot, and it had a weighted rank of one point zero, which means that you, me and Sam all had it at number one. I think that's fairly decisive. Josh officially going into the pantheon where she belongs Agnes, Varda, and Cleo from five to seven.

00:28:45
Speaker 1: There we go. Sam's especially being the hugest Varda fan, is going to sleep y so much she's represented in the pantheon. But I love this. This is great.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, Now we'll build up the suspense a little here, because this is how the family voting shook out, and we can separate it quite nicely into tears. As I already mentioned, Tier five all on its own, How Green was My Valley? Then we had Tier four, These three films bunched together, and man where they bunched together very close meeks cut off Harlan County, USA, and close up those three or separated by point two seven from the first one to the third one. Okay, in the weighted rank, right, so it's a ballot. You rank them one to nine, and that's that's how much was separating them very close already.

00:29:34
Speaker 1: My mind here is trying to like make connections among these Like is there is that like an austere slash realism sensibility that they share, that that maybe voters just lumped them together. I don't know. I'll try not to psychologize our voter.

00:29:51
Speaker 2: I am really glad you said that because it allows me to bring in a quick bit of feedback and you know, we don't have to dig into it, but i'd love just your initial thought. We got this email from Damian Cannon who said hied him and Josh. I just wanted to drop you a line about the Pantheon Pantheon candidates. It's a really interesting project, and I like how you've come up with quite the range of choices. How However, I'm wondering if Josh and Sam have a subconscious love for coal mining. Since Josh broke forward how green was my valley while Sam came up with Harlan County, USA. The funny thing is that you could barely have two more polar opposite films. On one hand, How Green Was My Valley romanticizes the lives of those Welsh miners with their male voice choirs and beautiful verdant hills, while in Harlan you have grinding poverty, open warfare, and the bleakness of being exploited by a local monopoly employer. And yet they both show the weary struggle of striking of scab workers and the cost of fighting for basic human rights. Tough choice then, especially as a blend of both, would be outstanding. While separately they have issues, Harlan County suffers by not having someone at the center who you can root for, while How Green Was My Valley skates over the institutional brutality of coal mining. Still great choices though which I would likely never have watched without film spotting to nudge me along, So big thanks for that. There you go.

00:31:05
Speaker 1: Damien was way ahead of me on making some of those connections. I'm not gonna argue with them. Damien came to the London meetup last December. Smart guy, so yeah, kudos for the work done there.

00:31:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he I think ultimately, I mean here we could get into it and really parse it, and we're not going to I think he probably if you can do this broadly gets at the nuance correctly. There that yes, how green was my valley. Obviously much more romanticizes the life of a coal miner than Harlan County, USA does, but both speak to the brutality of it and the exploitation of it in their own way, right, very different stuggles. Yeah, so in tier three we have all alone in the middle. Stop making sense the Jonathan dem Talking Heads documentary. Now here's where it gets really interesting. These were all very close not only to each other, but to the number one spot in that tier two the Best Years of our Lives the Battle of Algiers and Cleo from five to seven. So the listeners were not far from us Josh in wanting to anoint Cleo as well. They just also had Algiers in the Best Years of our Lives in the mix. From the first one of those to the third one, there there was only point twenty nine separating them. Okay, in the weighted rank point two nine. So these are all just in the like the way to rank of three overall, three out of nine and then there's only point three to one, separating number two from the number one choice. If you're paying close attention, you know that the title I haven't mentioned the one that is going into the pantheon. Akira Kurosawa. Congratulations, what an honor for you. You are going into the film spotting pantheon. Ra Schoman, is the film going into the pantheon.

00:33:04
Speaker 1: You are finally officially recognized as one of cinema's all time greats. Yes, with that, with that induction, and seriously like probably the heavyweight title among all of those, I think it's fair to say so. I like these two as a pair. Adam Our inductees twenty twenty six Cleo from five to seven and Raschaman because Cleo is although very well known and loved and regarded, you spoke to it. With the Vardic connection, I feel like this is a film spotting particular. Yes, pick we did a Varda marathon. Cleo wasn't a part of that just because you and I had seen it previously, but just really came to fall in love with her as a filmmaker, and she's come up so often over the years. So to have Cleo in there make sense for film spotting and Raschaman is just one of those like, what are we doing here with this Pantheon if something like Raschamon isn't in it? So I think we covered two good bases here. We still made it kind of a personal sort of pick. And also we're legitimizing the project with something like Raschaman.

00:34:07
Speaker 2: And even though we did leave Cleo out of that marathon, we did talk about Cleo and loved it, raved about that film. If you would like to hear that conversation and understand why we ultimately do see it as paid Pantheon worthy, you can find that in the Film Spotting archive if you're a Film Spotting family member that was a wild card nominee last year as part of this Pantheon project, and now Cleo from five to seven is in the Pantheon. The perks and privileges of being a Pantheon movie, you're no longer eligible for Film Spotting Top fives.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: And you and I have to remember that when we make our top five list, or you know, just take the step of going to the website and looking at the Pantheon page.

00:34:50
Speaker 2: Actually looking at it. For some reason, I.

00:34:52
Speaker 1: Rarely do, but yeah, we gotta let these sink in now they're ineligible.

00:34:57
Speaker 2: Moving forward. There you go. The Pantheon Project continues with reviews of current Pantheon titles celebrating anniversaries. This year, we do intend to get to Citizen Kane. Yes, talk about the granddaddy's of them all, Citizen Kane turning eighty five now Fargo. We had on the calendar earlier to correspond with its actual release date and have had to push it back. We're hoping to get to it that turns thirty this year. The Tree of Life, one of our younger Pantheon project reviews at fifteen years. And then David Lynch has two movies in the Pantheon that have anniversaries this year, Blue Velvet at forty and Mulholland Drive at twenty five. So those are five movies that are all penciled into the schedule this year that you can look forward to. More about the Pantheon at Film spotting dot net slash Pantheon And I'll just tell you this real quick. The quick proposal to augment the marathon or the process to the Pantheon, I should say, is to keep it nine movies and to keep it where we each come in with one wild card new title, and we each come in with one classic film title from film Spotting history. It just can be either a Marathon or a Sacred Cow, which was getting a little tricky anyway, right, Yeah, the only difference is that it's a three by three by three approach, where the other third set of three movies is we do have three movies that hold over from the previous year's ballot, essentially the three top vote getters that feel like the three most urgent, the three most popular films that sort of deserve to be held over, right, And I feel like with a couple of the titles in particular that you heard that were very high in the voting, and we're certainly high on both our list and the Film Spotting Family list, there's really no reason why one or two of those titles shouldn't for sure be held over onto the ballot next year and considered.

00:37:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, roll them over, wrinkle question you don't have to answer if this hasn't been discussed, But do they have a number of times yes, where that's part of a rollover and then are no longer eligible at all.

00:37:18
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, what we've decided is what the thought is is we're calling it the soft sabbatical, which is to ensure to ensure that it doesn't get too boring of hearing the same ones for ten years potentially or whatever. Is that after three years of being held over, if it doesn't get voted in, it does have to automatically come out. But it's not banned forever. If a host wants to renominate it, they can after a sabbatical after a year, though I mean again, now maybe the host never will, but they can't. Right, it's not banned forever. Yeah, makes sense. So I think we've got to figure it out. I think it will work. I think this process is working moving forward. Obviously, the four films that we've nominated in terms of what we want to achieve, getting great conversations, well, we're having fun with the conversations again the listeners can decide, but having really fun conversations about six movies that we haven't talked about in depth, the two of us before over the past two years, and then getting four exciting films into the pantheon over the past two years. It's checked those boxes.

00:38:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great it's a great start with this mix of four so far.

00:38:27
Speaker 2: Absolutely reminder more about the Pantheon at filmspotting dot net slash Pantheon and Coming Friday, our review of the drama and Forty's Madness Elite eight.

00:38:39
Speaker 1: Film Spotting is independently produced and listener supported. You can support the show by joining the film Spotting Family at film spottingfamily dot com. You can listen early and ad free. You'll also get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the entire show archive. Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Desso and Sam Vanhlgren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Special thanks to everyone at wbeazy Chicago. More information is available at wbeazy dot org for film Spotting, I'm Josh.

00:39:14
Speaker 2: Larson and I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore

00:39:23
Speaker 1: Inde in the case