Surprise, surprise, the Crit Club is watching a French movie this week. The 1973 post-new wave drama The Mother and the Whore follows a young man named Alexandre as he talks, meets women, talks to them, and meets more. Written and directed by Jean Eustache, this movie is highly regarded as one of the best films of the 1970s and a unique meditation on youth, romance, and relationships. Come and hear what we thought! Join us next week for a Coire pick, where we’ll watch the 1985 anti-war drama...

This week the Crit Club is traveling way back, and way forward, in time as we watch the 1936 science fiction film Things to Come. This early special effect juggernaut is looked decades into the future with a script by H.G. Wells, and posits questions about humanity, progress, and peace. Were we left wishing for futuristic art deco toga clothes, or did this movie make us want to be shot out of the space gun? Listen and find out! Join us next week for an Angela pick! We’ll go back to France...

The Crit Club is a brave bunch, no stranger to tackling any movie, whatever its reputation. To prove our courage, this week we’re watching the notorious 1987 box office bomb Ishtar, written and directed by Elaine May. Its plot is a goofy buddy comedy starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as aspiring songwriters who somehow find themselves a gig in Morocco. But the film’s legacy is one of reported mismanagement, studio interference, and deep-seated grudges, which led to a reputation as...

It’s a real date night week here at Crit Club where we’re watching the often-banned, taboo-breaking In the Realm of the Senses from 1976. From Nagisa Ōshima, this fictionalized account of a Japanese true crime incident that happened in the 1930s follows two lovers as they fall down the well of each other’s hedonistic appetites. That “date night” thing mentioned earlier was sarcasm, and all sorts of trigger warnings should be applied to a viewing and discussion of this cinematic...

That train whistle blowing you hear is the Crit Club hustling their way to watch 3:10 to Yuma, Delmar Daves’ classic 1957 western based on an Elmore Leonard short story (which you can read here). This compact story puts a modest rancher in an unexpected position with an infamous gang leader, telling a timeless story of morality, humanity, connection, and dread. Did we find the ride comfortable or would we have rather been tied to the tracks? Listen and find out! And join us next week for a...

The Crit Club spent this week trying to ward away dread with the 1981 Hong Kong martial arts, action, comedy/horror movie Dreadnaught. This physical masterpiece tells the story of two warring schools, a sheepish launderer, and, why not, a murderous, face-painted psychopath. Directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping, Dreadnaught is a full on, nonstop, slapstick bonanza. Did we find it as watchable as the film certainly thinks it is? Listen to find out! And join us next week, where Angela is...

Bonjour mes amis! This week, the Crit Club is heading back to France, riding the first swells of that New Wave with François Truffaut’s 1959 The 400 Blows. Routinely lauded as one of the best films ever made, this small, active movie follows the adolescent discomfort of one young Antoine Doinel as he struggles to find a place in the trappings of school, his home, and society at large. Did we find it to be one of the best films? Did we long for a simpler time in the post-war Parisian school...

Crit Club here with our first documentary in a long while, with Hearts and Minds, a devastating depiction of the Vietnam War. Told in a relatively modern way, Hearts and Minds is a wide-ranging film that explores the war through D.C. insider interviews and crushing footage from the invaded country. Join us next week for a PP (peter pick), where we will watch François Truffaut's 1959 coming of age movie, The 400 Blows. You can follow the whole of our podcast, aided by ⁠this helpful...

The Crit Club is traveling through time into the distant future of 2021 with the help of the 2003 film It’s All About Love by club-fave Thomas Vinterberg. This surreal, sci-fi-esque movie revolves around the disintegrating relationship between Claire Danes and Jaoquin Phoenix amid a world of people dying of broken hearts and gravitational distortions. All wrapped around Polish-ish accents and ice skating. Sound intriguing? Well give a listen and see if we were warmed up by this ice age...

This week, the Crit Club is giving in to their inner Goth by watching Ken Russel’s 1986 Romantic-era, maximum freakout, psycho-sexual drama Gothic. This movie follows a super wholesome and fun-looking evening based ever so loosely on true events, where Lord Byron hosts Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and a few others, encouraging them to dive into the sickly depths of their souls’ darkest fears. Just a chill night in. What did the Crit Club think? Well. you’ll have to listen, dear reader! And...

The Crit Club is riding this wave of late stage capitalism right back to 1989 so we can learn how to better ourselves with the help of Bruce Robinson’s black comedy How to Get Ahead in Advertising. This satirical bit of consumer culture backlash examines the lengths to which the pressure of a pitch can get to one specific ad man, and we watch him unravel in a pretty unique way. But what did we think? You’ll have to listen to find out.  We’re going to take a week off to celebrate Coire’s...

Deep in the heart of a brittle northern winter, four friends (the Crit Club) decide to attend a Danish 60th birthday party as we watch 1998’s The Celebration. The first of the famous (infamous?) Dogma95 movies, The Celebration has us descend on a wealthy manor for a patriarch’s special day and leaves us stranded in stark reality to watch the family’s dirty laundry fill the whole space with an unforgettable stench. Come and listen to what we thought of this fascinating movie and its place in...

Good day to everyone. The Crit Club has the heat turned up so we can kick off our shoes and watch 1954’s Golden Age drama The Barefoot Contessa. This movie examines the spectacular rise and sudden fall of a Spanish dancer as she is absorbed into increasing levels of high society. Did we dance to the this film’s tune or pull our booties right back on? You’ll have to listen to see. Next week, join us for a Coire pick as we watch the 1998 Dogma 95 movie, The Celebration. You can follow the...

Hello listeners and Happy New Year! For 2024, the Crit Club made the joint resolution to ride off on a magic carpet and never look back. To help us in that endeavor, we watched 1940’s epic fantasy adventure The Thief of Bagdad. Plucked from 1,001 Arabian Night, and subsequently used as the inspiration for Disney’s Aladdin, this special effects-heavy spectacle follows a usurped king on a quest to find a lost love. Listen along and see if this was an oasis in the desert of January, or a...

Howdy partners, this week the Crit Club was roped into watching the incredibly named, 1954 Joan Crawford western Johnny Guitar. It’s a psychosexual drama of bitter rivalries, NIMBY politics, and someone named the Dancin’ Kid. Come give a listen and find out whether we rode off into the sunset with this one or left it tied to the railroad tracks.  For next week, it’s a WIZARD PICK™, and we’ll be watching the 1940 historical fantasy film The Thief of Bagdad. Watch along with us! You can...

If you think Crit Club is above challenging themselves with a three-hour, near-incomprehensible dreamscape, then our watching of David Lynch’s 2006 epic Inland Empire should prove you wrong. From a Polish barbeque attended by circus performers to a nightmare sitcom starring anthropomoric rabbits, we sat through it and then tried to piece it together. Come listen to how good of a job we did!  And come listen next week where we’ll switch things up dramatically, with Joan Crawford’s 1954 tour...

Tis the season! The WEDDING season, that is. This week your Crit Club pals are hitchin' a ride to watch Tricia get hitched in 1971’s surrealist satire short film Tricia’s wedding lovingly staged by a coterie of irreverent drag performers. Come listen and see whether we renewed our vows to this classic piece of queer performance art, or if we stood it up at the altar. Join us next week for a Coire pick, where we’ll watch David Lynch’s last (and long) movie, 2006’s Inland Empire.  You can...

October might be done with us, but we’re not done with October. This week, the Crit Club is clinging on to the last vestiges of spookiness with Abel Ferrara’s 1995 vampire horror film The Addiction. This heavy film, which uses everyone’s favorite Twilight characters as a metaphor for drug addiction, insists that it has a lot to say about free will, human cruelty, and redemption. Were we drawn into its worldview, or did we kick this film cold turkey. Listen to find out.  You can follow the...

During this spooky month, the Crit Club decided to take yet another trip to an isolated location, specifically a desolate island in the north of Sweden for a chill bit of insomnia with Ingmar Bergman’s 1968 horror thriller Hour of the Wolf. This surrealist nightmare about art, existence, codependency, and self-perception follows a quiet, expecting couple making a home away from others, until the husband’s claustrophobic fears call down his internal demons to wreck the lives of them both. Come...

They said it couldn’t be done. They swore up and down there was no way four nerds could record 50 podcast episodes about the Criterion Channel streaming service. Well, after three years and one pandemic, Crit Club is here with a 51st Episode Extravaganza to prove them all wrong.  Come listen to Angela, Coire, Peter, and Wizard Chris talk through the highs, the lows, and the lasting impressions of our first 50 episodes. You can follow along with this helpful spreadsheet that documents the all...

Predictably, the Crit Club couldn’t stay away from France for long. This week, we joined a sloppy movie production for 1996’s Irma Vep from Olivier Assayas. This sly, meta commentary on the state of French films at the time stars Maggie Cheung playing a version of herself as she plays the titular Irma Vep in a haggard director’s lackadaisical attempt to reboot the silent classic Les Vampires. It’s a bit playful, a bit navel-gazy, and a lotta French. Did Irma Vep steal our hearts in the same...

Oh this? Why yes, the Crit Club is wearing a new immaculately tasteful and exquisitely handcrafted new movie, specifically 2022’s The Blue Caftan from writer/director Maryam Touzani. A quiet family drama of a husband and wife managing a tailor shop in Morocco, The Blue Caftan has volumes to say (albeit in hushed tones) about love, family, identity, and devotion. Did your Crit Club faves learn from the lessons imparted, or did we just take the caftan and leave? You’ll have to listen to find...

Your Crit Club pals are taking an extremely dangerous and existential road trip this week as we hitch a ride with 1953’s The Wages of Fear. This intense thriller from Henri-Georges Couzot tells the story of a collection of downtrodden drifters from around the world, stuck in a South American oil company town. A chance for escape comes when four of these rascals get hired to drive tons of highly volatile nitroglycerine 300 miles across mountain roads. Did your beloved Crit Club survive the...

If you feel that brisk air blowing in, that’s just the Crit Club taking an early fall trip to the British seaside to watch the 1978 psychological thriller The Shout. When a mysterious man chooses to insert himself into the marriage of a bored rural couple with metaphysical vagaries and black magic, who knows what might happen. Or what the Crit Club thinks about it. Well, you can know, by listening to this podcast!  Join us next week for a Wizard Pick™ (cue screaming guitar lick), where we’ll...