On the BiTTE

Movies. You love 'em, right? Now more than ever? The romanticism of cinema. The elegance of the silver screen. The pretentiousness of simply making money in Tinseltown. Yes! We are here for THE PLAYER.  Robert Altman crafts a piece of fine art with this twisty m**der mystery about Griffin Mill, a high-level movie executive, who gets embroiled in a vendetta with a writer whose idea he didn't greenl...

And like that, we're coming out of another "Spooky P**is Month" and back to the drudgery of season... Shorter days. Colder nights. Christmas. It's all downhill from here. SO CHERISH THESE MOMENTS!  We're covering one of cinema's brightest stars and a film he wishes to have absolutely no association with WHATSOEVER! Yeah, we're covering Ti West. Of course, people will scream from the mountains, "Gu...

It's that time of year once again! It comes every year! SPOOKY PENIS MONTH! And we're hitting it hard with a "classic" in the form of John Irvin's GHOST STORY!  I don't want to diminish it; it is a classic. It has some memorable moments and a scene that we uncover that we got very excited about. The way it's put together and how it's presented really make it. But other than that, it's about a bunc...

Keeping secrets...In the shadows... Or something more descriptive/funny/entertaining, etc.  This film is the very definition of "twisty-turny", full of characters waiting to double-cross or double-cross those double-crossers. Maybe the twistiest, turniest film we've ever covered. More so than WILD THINGS. A very serious film about the Dutch Resistance fighters during the Second World War made by P...

Ryan was born quite a long time ago, and he is really old now. Since this is his "birth month", Laura allowed him to pick one of the movies for September, and this felt incredibly "literal". Yes! Sir. Stephen Frears, revered and celebrated British film director, hits it out of the park with this Dame Judi Dench/Bob Hoskins vehicle about "tasteful nudity" in theatre during wartime! With a host of o...

Alas, we have neared the end of our exclusive "FEMALE" August season, and we've taken this chance to usher in this close with a special guest.  Laura and Ryan know next to nothing about the work of John Waters, which is both abhorrent and indicative of our glaring ignorance. That's why we invited Josh, who basically said we should have invited someone else if we wanted to talk about John Waters. ...

Who knows how far this episode will reach with something like "FEMALE" in the title, huh? Oh, we're only joking, YOU know why.  In part 2 of our "August-Where-We-Cover-Films-With-Female-in-The-Title", we're looking at Susan Streitfeld's FEMALE PERVERSIONS. A film of theatrical quality and its own distinct style, it may not appeal to everyone. It may alienate others, and generate wonderment for som...

We're hitting August, and it's all about the FEMALES: which means we're covering films with "FEMALE" in the title. And if you couldn't get enough of individuals assuming someone else's identity in one episode, wait until you get your eyes on SINGLE WHITE FEMALE.  Following in the footsteps of THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, we replace opulence and popularity with questionable haircuts. They really test t...

Many iterations of this character have found their way onto our screens - some great, some not so great. This happens to be one of the good adaptations. Starring a cast of the best-looking people of the 90s: Matt Damon, Jude Law, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Cate Blanchett. Enjoy this "twisty-turny-journey" from the "Ripliad"!

Now... There is a fair amount of controversy surrounding this film ever since it was first screened at Cannes back in 2003, and I'm not talking about his dated belt. Roger Ebert slated the film. Gallo called him "fat". Ebert did not relent. Gallo cut the film down from 114 mins to 98 mins. Ebert rejoiced, awarded it a 3/4, and seemingly forgot everything Gallo called him. But that isn't really tha...

If there's anything you're bound to enjoy, it's a good fight movie! This doesn't have "FIGHT" in the title, but adopts the more measured and assured term "SELF-DEFENSE". Fighting shouldn't be encouraged or promoted, but looking after yourself should, respectfully. That brings us to Riley Stearns' 2019 black comedy THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE, which follows a "weak" man who gets beaten up, decides to l...

Back in the 1970's in the United Kingdom, there was a sole female Director of a movie. It was an avant-garde, cinematic depiction of the person's stage work and a perfect example of "Panic" Cinema. That film is THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNDERNEATH. It's a cinematic journey we could not take on our own so we brought back Josh and Kat of Uncomfortable Brunch to bring a bit of academia to the table. We a...

Ricky, Ricky, Ricky! We're back with our first episode stalwart, Richard Rush! We always knew we were going to return to the world of Rush, this time in his most notable film, THE STUNT MAN. Starring Peter O'Toole, Barbara Hershey, and Steve Railsback, this film tells a tale about a wanted felon who stumbles onto a film set and 'just begins working' as a stuntman, and everyone loves him. As you mi...

Oh boy. We've found ourselves in a bit of Barney Rubble, eh? However hard we try, we seem to find ourselves back in prison. And in this episode, you can listen to us in "real-time" literally figuring out how many "prison movies" we've already uncovered, and it's alarming. We're back with Mr. Mackenzie after we did YOUNG ADAM all those episodes ago, and it's another pretty bleak and disheartening p...

Hitting the tonnes with something "special". Episode 101 sees us covering SALÒ, or THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM, with our friends from UNCOMFORTABLE BRUNCH: Josh and Kat. This is a film that, even describing it in any way, will make us look like freaks. We promise that next time we'll cover something funny(-ish). Buckle up buttercups! If you've watched the film, you have an idea what to expect. If you ha...

Look at where our tenacity and dedication have gotten us. All the way to episode 100! It is true what they say: if you stick at something long enough in a sequential order, you will eventually reach EPISODE 100. Don't quote me, but I think Mark Maron said that. But what an episode 100 this is.  We look at the seminal work of a visionary, David Lynch, who passed away earlier this year. Starring Kyl...

Starring Mark Rylance, Kerry Fox, and Timothy Spall, directed by Patrice Chéreau, this film is about the silent sexual encounters of two people amidst the lonely landscape of a dark-set urban London. This is quite a 'big' entry in the pantheon of our OTB legacy, and we take a slightly different tact with this one. It comes out that we quite like this one even if people don't. Isn't that the way it...

Who'd have thought that answering a magazine advert to be a man's "wife" on an island, fending for yourself for an entire year, would be a terrible idea? They have to live off the land, free from outside influence, a true escape from the monotony of city life in London. We believe this feeling of "escape" is a very "Western" idealist concept. In that respect, it's a very throwaway idea. But these...

I hope that none of you have ever experienced the intrusion of some bad neighbors. Certainly not to the point that they force you to rent out your prospective second library and refurbish it to become a garish 1970s Post-Modern monstrosity. This is the crux of the film CONVERSATION PIECE, written and directed by master filmmaker Luchino Visconti. It stars Burt Lancaster as the central character. T...

DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM! Heed the sound of the Valentine's drums for the ultimate date night movie! Not really. We're slap bang in the middle of 16th Century Europe where violence and assault run rampant across these lawless lands. Mercenaries are storming castles and war is rife in the region. This is the landscape of Paul Verhoeven's fantasy/romance/drama: FLESH + BLOOD. It's definitely an oddly pl...

"Oh my God! You're the absolute worst for that!" Yeah. Have you ever heard that before? Maybe a bit too much? Well, this film will test your moral compass (somewhat) into whether you think any of these people deserve that title. We don't believe so, by today's messy standards, when there is some true evil out there in the world presently but Joachim Trier's highly successful THE WORST PERSON IN TH...

What's cool, full of vibrant colors, gets pretty sexy but also is a bit annoying to the point where you question the integrity of the central relationship? That's probably Jim McBride's remake of the 1960 Nouvelle Vague classic À BOUT DE SOUFLE (in English): BREATHLESS. You might have thought: the most stringent of cinephiles would not touch a remake of this film with the longest of barge poles! I...

A new year. A new us. Well, not really. It's the same show basically, just a little older and tired. We're the podcast equivalent of just wanting to go to your bed and having a lie-down. Kinda like the old saps in this fourth (and final) mainline installment of the AMERICAN PIE film series (we're not counting all the straight-to-DVD films either). This is AMERICAN REUNION! And we're back with this...

In the second part of our seasonally titled "DESCENDING INTO DARKNESS", we take you on a trip into a very whimsical murder. A faux documentary crew who follow a serial killer as he maims, murders, assaults, and offends his way through Belgium. The blackest of black comedies and not for the faint of heart, actors and principal crew Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel and Benoit Poelvoorde's MAN BITES DOG em...

Ho Ho Ho Ho-ello there! It has come upon us once again: the Christmas season. And as was aforementioned, its getting darker. We must let you know that this was not planned... or our tolerance levels are so out of whack that we've blackened our souls and have detached ourselves from societal norms... Annnnyyyywwwaaaayyyyyy, there's nothing more Christmas-sy than Lars Von Trier! And this film; starr...