Trylove

When Warner Bros. released James Wan’s THE CONJURING , audiences ate up its pared-down setting and classic jump scares to the tune of more than $300 million. As of this episode, it’s the highest-grossing horror franchise of all time. But hey, it’s a horror movie from the 2010s. It can’t actually be THAT good anymore, right? Dan Nagan comes back to help us pick and poke at what still works here, wh...

SUSPIRIA is cooking — A BIG CAULDRON OF INNOCENT BALLET GIRLS, that is! You’ve never seen anything like Dario Argento’s 1977 giallo classic… and yet, it’s so immediately evocative that Luca Guadagnino’s 2018 spiritual remake had no choice but to go a different direction with its visuals. You simply can’t outdo what SUSPIRIA is doing! With Velma Rent, Trylon board member and longtime volunteer, we’...

“Foolhardy.” That’s how director Chantal Akerman described her 1974 film JE TU IL ELLE , which she also wrote and starred in. Her partially autobiographical character drifts at an emotional distance from herself, rearranging her room and binge eating and drafting letters to lost love, for the first 30 minutes. On paper, it sounds pretty flat. Those extended scenes of mundanity are punctuated by li...

The wistful, self-aware reflections highlighted in movies like THE LONG DAY CLOSES earned Terence Davies the unique moniker of ‘cinematic poet’. He grew up Catholic, discovered his queerness young, and came of age during British postwar austerity, but it’s not so much about his upbringing as it is about his recollection of his upbringing. It makes sense when you watch it. Abbie Phelps designed the...

Seven years, eight months, and eight days ago, we published the first episode of Trylove. It was about François Truffaut’s THE 400 BLOWS (1959), the critic-turned-director’s debut film and a monument of the French New Wave. We joked about doing it again for episode 400 of the show. Well, References: Trylove Episode 1: THE 400 BLOWS (1959) Check the calendar, preview upcoming series, and buy ticket...

Sequels tend to suck, but not this one! PSYCHO series star Anthony Perkins had the reins of the third entry, and BOY did he use ‘em. While PSYCHO III does little to upset the apple cart of the series — Norman Bates is dodging suspicion for another murder, another precocious blonde rents a room at the Bates Motel — it’s got a certain gaudy, beautiful ‘80s sleaze that opens a couple interesting path...

Alfonso covets Cristina, the wife of his friend Eduardo, and she enjoys the attention. The trio’s sudden stranding at a monastery full of silent monks only hones their illicit affection… And hastens the return of a lustful monk whose sin cursed him to haunt the monastery forever! Unknown numbers of movies were lost in the early years of Mexico’s film industry, especially before the country’s cinem...

After being forced from their home, two Guatemalan refugees have no choice but to flee north. Lured by the sheen of capitalist excess in the pages of Good Housekeeping, siblings Rosa and Enrique make the dangerous trek across the US/Mexico border, only to find the dream lives they were promised are nearly impossible for people like them to achieve. EL NORTE director Gregory Nava traveled to Minnea...

There’s a hole in the floor of an apartment in Taipei. It’s an absolute mess for the occupant and his downstairs neighbor. Though they’ve never really met, they discover each other through their awkward circumstance, with each episode inspiring irritation, which turns into hatred, which turns into… Well, you’ll have to see the movie. Tsai Ming-liang wrote and directed THE HOLE as an experiment, br...

With STREETWISE , director Martin Bell, producer Cheryl McCall, and photographer Mary Ellen Mark created a singular documentary, one that gave voice to Seattle’s street children, rather than pumping in a ton of voiceover and context. The fact is that Seattle was hit pretty hard in the 1970s, with unemployment reaching as high as 13% in the early ‘80s (three times the national average) and weakenin...

With COOLEY HIGH , screenwriter Eric Monte and director Michael Schultz put the experiences that defined their youth on the screen. Preach (Glynn Turman) and Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) are fast friends and comrades in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing projects. Like Monte and Schultz, they spend their days rabble-rousing, chasing girls, losing friends to senseless violence, and the u...

We’re no strangers to Orson Welles on this here podcast… Or are we? Welles first-timer* Tony Wagner returns for a doozy documentary/film/essay from the inimitable auteur himself! Orson Welles was hired to direct a documentary his friend had filmed on an art forger. But Welles, mired in the endless production of what would become his posthumous THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND (2018), couldn’t let it go...

Alfonso Cuarón’s breakout road comedy sex dramedy thing Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN is a rich text that can be read on many levels. We can only get to some of those without help, so we’re joined by first-time Trylove guest Lauren Haun, who’s spent the better part of this century thinking about this movie! In Mexico during a time of great social and political change, divorcee-to-be Luisa joins Tenoch and Jul...

THE RED SPECTACLES is one entry in a long-running multimedia dystopian sci-fi series by the guy who made GHOST IN THE SHELL (1995). It’s one of the wildest, most tone-swingy things we’ve ever seen at the Trylon. It almost feels impossible to fully encircle, one of those flicks that takes hairpin turns just when you think you’ve got a handle on it. Amidst the confusion, our friend and film writer M...

A mythologized decade, a souped-up Challenger, and the man behind the wheel are running out of time in Richard C. Sarafian’s 1971 amphetamine-fueled road trip movie VANISHING POINT !  With 15 hours to make it from Denver to San Francisco in a new white Dodge Challenger, the former cop/driver/motorcyclist/boyfriend actually takes up a bunch of stops. Each detour exposes him to another unique charac...

Music industry veteran Lou Adler’s second and final directing credit, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS predated the riot grrrl movement by close to a decade. It effectively pioneered the aesthetic behind the feminist punk movement that took off in the 1990s. Three anxious teens (Diane Lane, Laura Dern, and Marin Kanter) form The Stains, taking the stage in scandalizing outfits and outrage...

Four girls in a Japanese school prepare for their performance at the school festival with one sub-in: The Korean exchange student who doesn’t know the songs. The new shape of their group, and the uncertain shape of their lives to come, casts a weird malaise over the days leading up to the show, broken only by their moments of youthful camaraderie. LINDA LINDA LINDA holds a special place in the boy...

CISCO PIKE was Bill L. Norton’s directorial debut, Kris Kristofferson’s first screen credit, and just another Coked Up Crazy Ass White Boy role for Gene Hackman. A musician turned drug dealer wants to pull a 180 and go back to the music biz after a stint in the pen. But he spent the Summer of Love behind bars, and when he gets out, he finds out the ‘70s ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. Karen Black...

We’re thrilled to have Emma Youndtsmith back to discuss a longtime favorite of hers and many millennials’: The movie that made Edgar Wright’s career, SHAUN OF THE DEAD ! We discuss the enduring love for this quirky movie, the comfort of regression, our favorite jokes, and our preferred zombie-fighting weapons (Emma’s legitimately surprised me). Then, we’re pitting seemingly random dead celebrities...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K SURPRISE! We’ve got one more Kinuyo Tanaka movie in the tank, because Cody and Jason weren’t able to get 80s Action Extravaganza tickets this year. With Cody out anyway, we’re covering DRAGNET GIRL , our first silent film directed by Yasujirō Ozu. It has a very, VERY different energy from his better-known works with color and sound (for...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K The Trylon’s series on Kinuyo Tanaka’s acting roles ends with a bang: Keisuke Kinoshita’s THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (no, not the 1983 version that won the Palme d’Or). It’s a dire tale: Tanaka plays an old woman on the cusp of 70, at which point she’ll be taken to the top of a mountain to die alone so her village can conserve food. And Blea...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K A governor in 11th century Japan is exiled, and his wife (Kinuyo Tanaka) and two children are sold into slavery. And it only gets crazier from there! The young boy (Yoshiaki Hanayagi) and girl (Kyōko Kagawa) come of age in the service of the local administrator Sanshō (Eitarō Shindō). Disgraced, each member of the shattered family surviv...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K When a single mother’s son falls ill while awaiting her husband’s return from the front, she turns to prostitution to cover the bill. After his return, Tokiko (Kinuyo Tanaka) comes clean to Shuichi (Shūji Sano), whose reaction jeopardizes their otherwise stable relationship. In 2022, we covered several movies directed by Kinuyo Tanaka. A...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K Years ago, we covered Alfred Hitchcock’s first surviving feature film, THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925). The final movie he made before his death, 1976’s FAMILY PLOT , is on the other side of one of the most storied careers in all of film. It’s also… fine. Eager to cash in on the bounty, a pair of small-time hustlers (Bruce Dern, Barbara Harri...

Help the Trylon afford a 4K projector! https://trylon.org/4K A funny thing happens the first time you see Michael Mann’s MIAMI VICE . The funny thing is that you don’t really like it very much, and it’s kind of confusing and… just kind of off. You know how I know that? Because people who absolutely LOVE it will tell you this. MIAMI VICE is more than a filmmaker looking back at his old work. It’s a...