Discussion about the novel, 'Heat 2,' written by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner, which is a sequel to the 1995 film

interview with Nicholas Meyer about the "Lubitsch touch"

Robert Bresson's book on filmmaking, with guest Keith Fraase, editor of 'Past Lives'

"Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins

The only features Peyton Reed has directed for the past decade have been Ant-Man films for Marvel. Before that, for a brief period in the late aughts, he was the studios go-to for adult romantic comedies. Before that, his finest (two) hour(s) — all due respect to Bring It On — was the Rock Hudson/Doris Day riff, Down With Love, a period parody filled with a digitally ’60s Manhattan and pre-sexual revolution, pre-Mad Men glee. On this episode, guest Lani Gonzalez and I discuss: - Pillow Talk,...

Why have there been so few episodes this year? Because I’ve been directing a low-budget feature film since February! And Monday, we launched a crowdfunding campaign alongside a promo for the film! This episode contains a brief description of the film of influence for the feature. But also, check out the promo on YouTube

It’s been a year-end tradition that me, Aaron Smith, and Ted Haycraft usually meet sometime after Christmas but before New Years at an IHOP or Denny’s, recap the year among friends, and eventually get into an argument as to whether Richard Lester is the father of the music video. It happens. Every year. For the third podcasting year, we’ve continued away from in-person dining to the podcast episode, where the three of us talk: - why Ted after three years of doing this, forgot to make a list...

Roughly since 2007, the assertion that Die Hard -- a movie that takes place at Christmas -- is a Christmas movie has been met with either strong support or opposition. On this episode, along with Ted Haycraft and writer/director Tyler Savage, we discuss the history of the heated debate, while also debating ourselves: - has this debate ever happened IRL, off of Twitter?;- if so, were the debaters online journalists or bots?;- have any of these IRL debates lasted any longer than three minutes?-...

Sight & Sound magazine and the British Film Institute put out their once-every-decade poll of greatest films. The top ten: 1. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles2. Vertigo3. Citizen Kane4. Tokyo Story5. In the Mood for Love6. 2001: A Space Odyssey7. Beau Travail8. Mulholland Dr.9. Man with a Movie Camera10. Singin’ in the Rain The poll, which first started in 1952 and had come to be the definitive film list, now has a controversial and brand new #1 film for this decade:...

Though it had been widely predicted to happen sometime later this decade, China managed to surpass North America during the pandemic 2020 — during the first year of decade — in domestic box-office. A big part of that was the fact that China had built more movie theaters than North America. Permalink

Dale Pollock is a journalist, film producer, professor, and festival programmer. Along with writing the biography Skywalking: The Life and Times of George Lucas, he’s also written for Daily Variety, the Los Angeles Times, Life, People, and Esquire. He’s executive producer 13 films, including A Midnight Clear and Blaze, taught at both USC and the University of North Carolina School of Arts in Winston-Salem, and ran the RiverRun International Film Festival. Permalink

Hiatus over! When Mad Max: Fury Road came out in 2015, a 30-year gap since Beyond Thunderdome, its breathless and near-universal reception as — already — one of the greatest movies of the decade and — already — one of the greatest action movies of all-time, automatically erased the two-decade lead-up to the film’s execution and completion, erasing previous versions and false starts. Yet, once the final studio greenlight came, that only began the film’s arduous production. On this episode,...

After 32 features, Steven Spielberg has finally directed his first full-fledged musical! The director whose camera has visually danced compositionally on screen more than any other for almost 50 years, it all begs the question: Why did it take so long? And what other attempts at the musical form has he made over the years? I’m joined by Ted Haycraft as we discuss: Why the most obviously salvageablely revelatory sequence from 1979’s 1941 is its muscial Jitterbug dance sequence; the cut-off...

In his magnificent second book on comics, the great critic Douglas Wolk has synthesized 60 years of continuous storytelling from Marvel Comics authors and declared it, collectively and thusly, the longest, greatest, most sustained narrative in human history — longer than any daily soap opera, Remembrance of Things Past, or the Mahābhārata. From its origins, written and drawn by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and Jack Kirby, multiple creators have expanded and expounded its creation to synthesize...

Which is your favorite Beatle(s’ documentary about making their last released album, one that ultimately documented simmering tensions that would lead to the band’s breakup within a year)? The Beatles originally planned on following up their White Album recording sessions by getting back to their roots, recording without studio trickery or overdubs, and film the proceedings from January/February 1969 for a TV special. It didn’t end up that way. The footage didn’t show until well after the...

Though comic book writer Alan Moore has officially finished his final projects and begun a well-deserved retirement from the medium of sequential art, he has also full turned his eye to, among other mediums, film — which, at least in adaptations, has treated him poorly. After a cycle of hometown prequel short films, some of which were gathered in the anthology feature Show Pieces, Moore’s collaboration with Northampton director Mitch Jenkins was finally released in cinemas and VOD this fall:...

The workman Master of Horror, John Carpenter’s career has been checkered by commercial successes and, in the midst straight-forward meat/potatoes storytelling, some truly unnerving and unsettling filmmaking. None more than his self-named “Apocalypse Trilogy,” all three of which have been punished with box-office disappointment and eventual reassessment. On this episode, editor Keith Fraase joins me and Ted Haycraft to discuss: - Why Ted, a genre-lover who was buying tickets to these films as...

We finally (finally!) have a good cinema version of Dune! Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel has been the beneficiary — often “of a doubt” — of many film adaptation attempts over the years, all trying to nail its details and maximalist world-building, only to be left with the accusation of being “unfilmable.” But was this complex narrative always destined to be this way? Ted Haycraft is back for this episode to examine Dune’s many big-screen attempts and iterations over the years. We discuss: - What...

Our second Ridley Scott episode! With his newest theatrical film, The Last Duel (at least, for two more months, until House of Gucci), already coming and going from theaters despite solid reviews, it became notable that Scott’s first feature film also has “duel” in the title — The Duellists. Ted Haycraft joins this episode to talk Scott’s forgotten films, both his recent outing with a Affleck/Damon (and Nicole Holofcener!) script, and his pre-Alien debut. We discuss: - why even the most...

After several delays, the newest James Bond film, No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s final outing, was finally released. It’s gotten solid reviews, an emotional reaction (from, at least, us), and the most amount of references to what has become considered in the last few years the finest Bond outing: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. On this episode, Bond fanatic Ted Haycraft joins to talk his favorite franchise and both of these outings from it. We discuss: - when exactly did OHMSS go from...

During the pandemic, most of us wanted comfort content to get us to sleep. But did we err too far away from fulfilling art, and towards escapism? On this episode Terra Fernandez and I debate a now-36-year-old book that seems to have gained — or maintained — relevance recently in the world of social media, using a debate between George Orwell (and his 1984) and Aldous Huxley (and his Brave New World) as the modern precipitator to the media environment we currently face. We discuss: - the...

Working from home, Jamie Kirkpatrick edited a solid, tight Western script that was proposed to him as “a Wal-Mart movie,” only to realize from the dailies that it was actually turning into a great movie. Months later, after successful reviews from the Venice Film Festival, writer-director Potsy Ponciroli’s Western is in theaters and one of the year’s best movies. In particular, one of the influences for the movie discussed between editor and director was Kevin Costner’s underrated, last...