Shut Up and Watch This

Just in time for Halloween we have something a little creepy, a little campy, and a whole lot disturbing. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? quickly became a cult favorite in large part due to Bette Davis’s unhinged performance as aging former child star Baby Jane Hudson caring for her disabled sister Blanche (Joan Crawford). Hugely influential in popular culture, Baby Jane has been imitated and par...

This week we travel to gritty 80’s London via Neil Jordan’s MONA LISA . Our hero is the elegant and inscrutable Simone (Cathy Tyson), a high end call girl who has gained a degree of independence in her work. Our narrator is her driver/bodyguard George (Bob Hoskins), recently released from prison, who is looking to reconnect with his estranged daughter. George wears his heart on his sleeve, and Sim...

Is it noir? Is it a woman’s picture? Why not both? On this week's episode we talk MILDRED PIERCE . Joan Crawford is the hardest working woman in the greater Los Angeles area, at least. She cooks, she cleans, she founds a successful chain of mid-range restaurants through a series of increasingly strange real estate maneuvers, all while raising two daughters and fielding advances from various contem...

In the words of noted 90s philosopher, Jack Handey, “If you ever discover that what you're seeing is a play within a play, just slow down, take a deep breath, and hold on for the ride of your life.” Bertolucci’s 1970 classic THE CONFORMIST is similarly layered; a flashback within a fantasy within a frame story. Beyond the complex structure, this film is also rife with striking imagery, symbolism a...

Perhaps HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY is an odd choice considering our general weariness with sequels and franchises and Dave’s aversion to superhero films. But this is a different kind of sequel and Hellboy is a different kind of hero, and it doesn’t hurt to have Guillermo del Toro directing, too. Del Toro is clearly having a great time bringing all kinds of interesting and creepy creatures to life...

This week’s pick is about some ruthless people and some not so ruthless people acting in some very ruthless ways, but also some not very ruthless ways. Danny DeVito, Bette Midler, Judge Reinhold and Supergirl star in RUTHLESS PEOPLE , a 1986 revenge comedy with a whole lot going on. We’ve got attempted murder, kidnapping, failed blackmail plots, a history of stereo retail sales practices, and an a...

Film and other art forms are in near constant dialogue, influencing each other. This is particularly true in genre films, where quotations of influential works are used to draw viewers in. And so this week we have a film about a female tank driver in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is controlled by one man who has all the water, and all the power. But this is not Mad Max: Fury Road, it is TANK G...

This week we have a little truffle of a Truffaut film, romantic comedy-drama STOLEN KISSES . Third in Truffaut’s series of films about Antoine Doinel, this film concerns the misadventures of Antoine in his early 20s as he tries to figure out work and love, largely failing at both. With a cast of delightful side characters and involving the strange goings-on at a Paris detective agency, Stolen Kiss...

It’s Springtime in Austin, which means bluebonnets, beautiful weather and South by Southwest Music, Film, everything Festival. SXSW 2021 , like many festivals during the pandemic, was held entirely online and we were there on our couch watching it all (or some of it). Listen as we share our reviews of INBETWEEN GIRL , ISLANDS , THE FALLOUT , and INTRODUCING, SELMA BLAIR , plus a few other favorite...

Why don’t we have a word for a breakup comedy? Anti-romantic comedy doesn’t quite get the idea across in the right way. Maybe it's because breakups aren’t funny in the conventional sense. Maybe there just aren’t enough of them, but there should be more films like Ashley’s pick, CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER . Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a couple having the best breakup ever until complications c...

What do you get when you mix horror, comedy, and romance with martial arts, stop motion, and a ghost story. Something that feels a little like Evil Dead, a little like Princess Bride, and a whole lot like a kung fu Ray Harryhausen film. Dave’s pick this week is A CHINESE GHOST STORY , a Hong Kong cinema gem that never saw a wide release in the U.S, but has since become a cult film. This film is ja...

WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER (2001) was at one point in the mid to late 00’s required viewing for those interested in the comedy world, or at least it felt that way to someone who had just discovered comedy podcasts by way of Marc Maron. It certainly stars many up-and-coming actors and comedians who are now major names in television and film, including Amy Poehler, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter,  and…....

Two guys, one dog, a remote hot spring, and some palpable tension. This week’s pick, Kelly Reichardt’s OLD JOY , couldn't be more stripped down, just two old friends going on a weekend trip. And yet, the scenes are subtle and emotionally fraught. There is a lot going on just below the surface. At the end of the weekend it’s not clear that anyone had a good time except for Lucy the dog and maybe Da...

If there is any movie that proves that how you feel about art can change over time, or even during the course of a single conversation, it is Ashley’s pick, Alexander Payne’s ELECTION (1999). This pitch black comedy features a usually likable Matthew Broderick playing teacher, Mr. McAllister against a difficult-to-love Tracy Flick, an against-type Reese Witherspoon. Though this seems like a simple...

This week we are reviewing WITNESS , the 1985 film starring Harrison Ford and directed by Peter Weir. Not, The Witness, not Witness for the Prosecution, Witness for the Defense, and definitely not Silent Witness or Hostile Witness. Name confusion aside, this film has a lot more to offer than one would expect from what seemed at first to be a Harrison Ford thriller, but is actually a more subtle ex...

DON’T TELL MOM THE BABYSITTER’S DEAD is perhaps a strange choice for a podcast that has covered such illustrious films as Notorious, Seven Samurai and Pan’s Labyrinth. It is very much a B movie, but there is just something about this film. Certainly part of it is Christina Applegate’s charming performance, and David Duchovny’s standout turn as a general slimeball. But also, this story subverts exp...

We open on an unveiling ceremony. The genteel folk of the city are dedicating a monument to “peace and prosperity." Speeches are made, benefactors are thanked and the sculpture is revealed. A man lies sleeping in the lap of the central statue. He wakes to the sound of the disapproving crowd, tips his hat politely and begins to make his way down. This is our first glimpse of The Little Tramp in Dav...

Have you ever found yourself in some remote place where you suddenly realize that you don’t know all the rules, or that the rules are different than you thought? Perhaps you felt unmoored and uneasy. (Perhaps this has lasted roughly 4 years?) In this week's pick, 70’s horror classic, THE WICKER MAN , we follow Officer Howie (Edward Woodward) as he tries to find his footing while investigating the...

Thirty-five years is a long time between viewings of a former hit TV show, especially one that leans heavily into “battle of the sexes,” as Dave discovered with his pick this week, the 80’s screwball detective series, MOONLIGHTING , which ran from 1985-1989 on ABC. Starring Cybill Shepherd and rising star Bruce Willis as bickering partners in the Blue Moon detective agency, Moonlighting was once m...

Luminous, sumptuous, rich, devastating. If this already sounds like a list of overused words from literary book reviews, you’re right. But they also describe this week’s film, Ashley’s pick, THE WINGS OF THE DOVE (1997). Helena Bonham Carter gives one of her best performances while positively draped in rich velvets, silks and handmade lace. This film definitely has a look, and Dave and Ashley thin...

It seems incredible that we’ve made it to episode 59 without featuring a David Lynch film. Dave is a documented super fan of Twin Peaks, after all. But Ashley had already seen most of his major works, excepting WILD AT HEART , which had the potential to invoke a Naked -type reaction (see episode 8 ). But the time has come. Join us for a winding discussion of dream logic, terrifying mother figures,...

This one’s for the millennials raised by Nickelodeon, and anyone else who enjoys good things like songs with unintelligible lyrics, golden autumn light, endless summers, and personal superheroes. This week Ashley’s pick is 90’s television series THE ADVENTURES OF PETE & PETE . Dave is struck by the wonderful oddness of the world inhabited by two brothers named Pete. Ashley is just happy to be able...

That thing where you avoid seeing a film or films because the trailers and descriptions make them sound too sentimental and cliche. That. This is how Ashley felt about Terrence Malick’s films, and studiously avoided his work outside of a viewing of BADLANDS some 15 years ago. So it was with some trepidation that we approached this week’s film, Dave’s pick DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978). Will Ashley’s fears...

Let us hope that serial lateness with a podcast is not a homicide level offense. It might be for the hero (?) or villain, rather, of this week’s film, John Water’s SERIAL MOM (1994). Kathleen Turner stars as happy, unhinged homemaker Beverly Sutphin in one of Waters’ most mainstream films. This dark comedy parodies the rising obsession with true crime, and turned out to be astonishingly prescient...

This week we’re talking nuns, and not just any nuns, 1940s Himalayan nuns. The nun movie genre is kind of a mixed bag ranging from horror, to comedy, to drama, and is a genre that Ashley has largely been skeptical of, excepting Sister Act, of course. But BLACK NARCISSUS is singular among them all for its otherworldliness and veiled eroticism. The haunting use of Technicolor and incredible matte pa...