Riffing on Kim Gordon’s curation, we get into Lynne Ramsay’s atmospheric Morvern Callar (2002), a mixtape of a film whose cursed vacation vibes echo something of Barbara Loden’s Wanda and foreshadow Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun. Shout outs to Georgia Humphreys’ terrific essay “Another Girl, Another Planet” and The Mamas and the Papas’ unlikely club banger, “Dedicated to the One I Love.” The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and...

In honor of the 50th anniversary of its release this month, we're revisiting our conversation on Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), looking at the film through the lenses of surveillance and seclusion, Gene Hackman and Walter Murch, Catholic guilt and cool jazz. From its bird’s eye opening to the obliterative final shots, we get into the nuts and bolts of Coppola’s “personal” post-Godfather film and what it means to watch, fixate, deduce, mishear, and, despite everything, to...

Joining our spicy all-in-the-family March episode are substitute co-host Fran Hoepfner and BW/DR staff writer Sarah Welch-Larson. Listen as long-time Dune-thusiast Sarah absolutely schools us on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two (2024). We get into the finer points of adapting Frank Herbert, how all the Bene Gesserit are sexy, space gravity, Rebecca Ferguson’s jaw, the secularization of Chani, are thumpers biodegradable, and more. Special shout-outs to Sarah’s prescient piece on Dune (2021)...

On this month's micro episode, we get into Elliott Smith soundtracking a savory first kiss in Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997), a film that changed one of our co-host's lives forever. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. -- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is sponsored by our friends at Galerie. To find out more about Galerie—a new kind of film club—sign up for two free months at join.galerie.com/bwdr.

It’s still February in our souls. This month, we’re joined by writer and Letterboxd Senior Editor Mitchell Beaupre to revisit Mira Nair’s recently 4k-restored romance, Mississippi Masala (1991), starring Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury. We get into the film’s ever-timely exploration of diasporic longing, when talking on the phone looks like phone sex, first-gen trauma, a particularly memorable prelude to a kiss, romanticizing physical media, and the finer points of Mitchell’s...

The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we're chatting about expressive sound and slow motion in John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991), a pick by curator Reinaldo Marcus Green. To see the rest of Green’s hit picks, sign up at https://join.galerie.com/bwdr. * This episode is co-hosted by ⁠⁠⁠⁠Veronica...

This month we’re joined by writer, critic, and editor Nicholas Russell to chat about Bradley Cooper’s Maestro (2023). We get into: what makes a Bradley Cooper Film (thanks Fran), when weird voices work, that epigraph, tension as structure and provocation, what’s going on with the ending, getting moved by Mahler, and more. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman, and produced & edited by Eli Sands. Our theme music is composed by...

This month, we're looking at James Gray's Two Lovers, exploring its intimacy, specificity, complexity—and a fantastic Joaquin Phoenix dance scene. --- The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at ⁠⁠Galerie⁠⁠. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. BW/DR readers & listeners can use this special link to get two months of free access to...

Merry Cruisemas, from our home to yours! For our 3rd annual celebration, we sit down with bosom buddy, film critic, and podcast extraordinaire Blake Howard to discuss Doug Liman’s 2014 film, Edge of Tomorrow. We get into: time loops, Emily Blunt's triceps, Cruise's determined pathos, Liman's blockbuster craftmanship, McQuarrie's calibrations, repetition and rewatchability, three-beers-in movies, and more. -- Cruisemas 2022: Vanilla Sky Cruisemas 2021: Eyes Wide Shut Blake's podcast...

This holiday season, a very special holiday podcast treat: an audio version of one of our most popular essays of all time, Ethan Warren's A Grand Yuletide Theory: The Muppet Christmas Carol is the Best Adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Written and read by Ethan himself, with music by Ryan Pollie and art by Brianna Ashby. Happy Holidays from Bright Wall/Dark Room! -- This episode is sponsored by Galerie, a new kind of film club. BW/DR listeners can sign up using this link to get two free...

On this special episode, co-host Veronica sits down with critic Fran Hoepfner to talk high/lowlights of the 61st New York Film Festival. We get into: looking in vain for the element of surprise (All of Us Strangers), Bradley Cooper as crazy guy (Maestro), the Sunday-night-on-HBO vibes of Anatomy of a Fall, Elordi charisma (Priscilla), the biggest laughs in Last Summer, Janet Planet’s perfect execution of kid perspective, why Wiseman’s Menu-Plaisirs Les Troisgros is not The Bear, what to...

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at ⁠Galerie⁠. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. Privacy, intimacy, and conspiracy are all at play in this month’s moment from George Stevens’ 1951 tragedy, A Place in the Sun. --- The BW/DR Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and ⁠Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠Eli...

This month, author and Cinephile: A Card Game creator Cory Everett joins us to talk about Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). We get into the elasticity of the western, what constitutes pure cinéma, Claudia Cardinale thirst, Big Screen Movies and the garages that screen them, Leone the minimalist and maximalist, and more. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by ⁠Veronica Fitzpatrick⁠ and ⁠Chad Perman⁠ and produced and edited by ⁠Eli Sands⁠. Our theme music is...

The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25 is a series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we chat about a musical moment in Charles Laughton’s spellbinding Appalachian noir The Night of the Hunter, a pick by curator Duke Johnson. And we’ll be hosting a live discussion on the film on Saturday, October 28, at 2:00 pm ET/11:00 am PT. To join the...

It’s nearly spooky season and we’re waxing nostalgic for The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996) with Los Angeles film critic and podcaster extraordinaire Katie Walsh. We get into crushing on Robin Tunney, the 90s, the death of subculture, slow-motion hallway walks, where are their parents—and stay tuned for Katie’s on-air pull from the Rachel True tarot deck. -- The Bright Wall/Dark Room Podcast is co-hosted by Veronica Fitzpatrick and Chad Perman and produced and edited by Eli Sands. Our theme...

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series of bite-sized episodes in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month we bid goodbye to summer with Robert Altman’s hallucinatory 3 Women (1977), a Palm Springs take on Persona. For info on upcoming live movie discussions hosted by Galerie, and to read Emma Cline’s languid essay on 3 Women, sign up at...

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Each month, we pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month, in concert with Mike Mills' curated list, Chad and Veronica look at The Cameraman (1928), reflecting on the impossible beauty and precision of Buster Keaton, bodies in motion, and the pantomime scene at Yankees Stadium that makes Chad smile from ear to ear...

Your mission, if you choose to accept it: in concert with this month's “Heists” issue, we’re talking across Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), and Mission: Impossible (1996) with brilliant Vulture and New York Magazine critic—and platinum-tier BWDR supporter!—Bilge Ebiri. We get into the [redacted] of Ilsa Faust, when plot makes no sense, Tom Cruise playing himself, lyricism in action films, Fallout = sex, what the M:I franchise is...

This episode was recorded during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film discussed in this episode wouldn't exist. To learn more, visit the WGA strike hub and read about the SAG-AFTRA strike here. This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the...

We’re proud to feature our June issue’s guest editor, poet and PhD student Spencer Williams, in conversation about a pair of films that hearken to our theme of trans cinema: Canadian Billy Tipton doc No Ordinary Man (Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt, Canada, 2020, now streaming on Criterion Channel) and the incendiary short American Reflexxx (Alli Coates, 2015, on YouTube). We get into: why this double feature, the perils and profits of visibility, improv as queer praxis, did MoMA’s audience...

This is The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month: in concert with actor Taylor Russell’s library, we look at the relentlessness and romance of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (2002). A movie so pretty, we just want to smash it. For info on upcoming live discussions (with you, for you!) hosted...

Joining us this month to wax rhapsodic about Katharine Hepburn is film professor, author (Mike Nichols: Sex, Language, and the Reinvention of Psychological Realism), and Hepburn devotee Kyle Stevens. Listen as we get into George Cukor’s 1940 film adaptation of The Philadelphia Story: the oppositional coherence of the love “square,” getting radicalized by late night TCM, why Hepburn wasn’t hot on Meryl Streep, wishing Mike and Dex would kiss, the remoteness of worship versus the proximity of...

Welcome to The BW/DR Podcast: Frame 25, a new series in conversation with, and sponsored by, our friends at Galerie. Every month, we’ll pick a title from Galerie’s curated library and zoom in on a single moment to better see the whole. This month: in concert with director Mike Mills’s library, we look at Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966), directed by Věra Chytilová and co-written by Ester Krumbachová. Like a surreal Czechoslovak precursor to the music video for Aerosmith’s “Cryin’.” For info on our...

It’s been a minute but we’re back! With writer and Bright Wall OG (literally, she wrote essay 1 for issue 1) Karina Wolf to discuss Wim Wenders’ iconic Wings of Desire (1987), a film that bridges “road movies” and “siblings” (trust us). We get into the essential decency of Bruno Ganz, Peter Falk’s warmth, transformative romance, whether angels have grandmas, Henri Alekan’s dignifying vision, Wim Wenders’ lack of strategy, how particulars turn universal, and more. Here is Karina’s terrific...