In this episode, the guys go totally 80’s with their top ten films from the decade that gave us hair bands, Ronny Reagan and zombies that danced to pop music. Join Erik, Nick and Chris as they discuss their favorite picks and spend a lot of time quoting one particular film about golf.
In this episode, Erik, Nick and Chris introduce a new feature!! Original Films and Their Remakes. They inaugurate with the 1947 film noir classic Out of the Past and its updated version, Against All Odds from 1984.
Here is the amazon page of Nick’s upcoming book! It will be released in July, 2015.
Here is the music video for Against All Odds by Phil Collins. It was written explicitly for the film and won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance in 1985. It was Collins’ first #1 hit!
In the latest episode, the guys (once again a trio) are back to discuss Jim Jarmusch’s masterpiece Only Lovers Left Alive. After waxing vampiric for awhile, Erik, Nick and Chris then discuss their favorite film podcasts, the links for which are below. Also, you can check out the thoughts of our friend and colleague, Dr. Steve Shaviro, on OLLA right here.
In this episode, the guys, along with guest panelist, Dr. Lara Hrycaj (who attended graduate school with the guys), discuss one of the more polarizing figures in modern cinema, Wes Anderson, director of Bottle Rocket, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and the recent The Grand Budapest Hotel. We discuss Anderson’s complete oeuvre as well as his influences, contemporaries and his lesser-known commercial work.
“He goes home, back to the cave. The first thing he does, he does a drawing of the mammoth. And he thinks, ‘ Boom! The first monster movie.”
In this special episode, Erik, Nick and Chris have a roundtable with Mike White and Rob St. Mary, hosts of the fantastic The Projection Booth podcast. The guys all discuss the question on whether or not film is still relevant. Over the last decade, technological, social, economic and aesthetic changes have forced filmmakers, studios, audiences, critics and scholars to address not only how cinema as an art form has been altered (especially with regards to its consumption), but how it remains germane in society’s collective conscious. No other art form has the potential to touch us in the same manner as cinema so the discussion is both timely and engaging.
Why Does Film Matter? – a pdf from Intellect Publishing that helped guide our discussion and gives perspectives from important writers and filmmakers on this topic.
Steven Soderberg’s Impassioned Plea for Common Sense in the Industry:
In Segment One of this epsiode, Erik, Nick and Chris talk about the MPAA ratings system, and specifically the film This Film is Not Yet Rated directed by Kirby Dick. The film (and our discussion) focuses heavily on the rather uneven and mysterious ratings criteria for Hollywood films and the fact that the MPAA seems to give all manner of violence a free pass while heavily censoring sexual content or assigning the dreaded NC-17 rating. They also mentioned a recent episode of the NPR program Here and Now that addressed the changing nature of the PG-13 rating.
In Segment Two, the guys give their recommendations of notable foreign films that listeners should check out. Chris talks about the Indian Bollywood film Taal; Nick discusses the Irish film Hear My Song; and Eric suggests the Norwegian film, Headhunters.
Enjoy the episode and, as usual, we love comments and reviews (at iTunes).