The Projectors

We’re in our last stretch of BODY & SOUL and we’re discussing a bonafide BILLY of a movie. A “Billy” is a movie that made a billions dollars. There’s more than a few (20? 30something Billys out there?) and since today’s theme is all about Black Directors and Black Lead Actors there’s one prolific box office smash that catapulted a longstanding character into the mainstream pop culture zeitgeis...

BODY & SOUL month has given us a week of worthy modern noir and today is no exception in this discussion of British director Steve McQueen’s web of Chicago crime and politics. Three women are forced to pay back some money stolen by their husbands in a heist that led to them, and the money, going up in flames. The blackmail leads to them picking up where their men left off and plotting a heist...

It’s Neo noir week for this month’s theme of BODY & SOUL (black directors, black leads) and we hit up a very stylish feature film that was popular amongst the teens and college aged crowd when Bob was a youngster so many years ago. Hype Williams only feature film was paved the way by a plethora of rap, hip-hop & R&B music videos that he directed throughout the 90s. Hype expanded all of...

BODY & SOUL all February. Black directors with black leads and today’s discussion is of a dripping Neo noir that is sometimes insane and funny but always entertaining. Actor/Director Bill Duke dropped this crime drama in the wake of the success of films like “Boyz in the Hood”. While not as prolific as those, Duke’s 1992 film “DEEP COVER” starring Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum & Claren...

Happy Valentines Day, folks! Hope you’re out there getting freaked now if not sooner. Today’s lovely selection is a silky smooth flick about generational flaws made easier by very attractive people getting together.   Stella Meghie’s 2020 romance “THE PHOTOGRAPH” starring Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield & Chanté Adams has the feeling despite it being a story about emotional unavailability. But you...

Today’s discussion for February’s theme, BODY & SOUL (black directors black leads), comes from France by way of Senegal and was available in the US in 2020 on Netflix until several very well known and high ranking pedophiles in government decided that this film belonged in the culture war sphere of nonsense. Maimouna Doucouré’s coming of age film “CUTIES (MIGNONNES)” is an obvious critique of...

Black Directors & Black Leads for February’s theme we call “BODY & SOUL” and today we hit up a movie that has the distinction of being the highest budgeted movie by a black female director. While the movie did break even, it didn’t give Disney the sign to drain this property of all life ad nauseam. Ava DuVernay, director of “Selma” and the documentary “13th” has her praise out there but he...

BODY & SOUL. Black Directors & Black Leads and today’s discussion is among the early works for full length feature films directed by a black woman or at least the first in a while. There is a lot of Black Hollywood history lost to time as we discuss in this conversation about Kathleen Collins true life inspired independent film about the dissolving of a relationship. What the 1982 film “LO...

February is BODY & SOUL. That means Black Directors and Black Leads and we’re anxious to get back into it after last week’s “white Jamaican” debacle with an influential independent comedy featuring the beginnings of certain writers, directors and actors in prominent black comedies over the years. After maxing out credits cards and timing out film equipment rentals just right over the span of t...

NOTE: yeah we forgot to cut out the clip between deciding our rating and and adding it to our list. So you hear some "click clack" and the sound of Angela blowing her nose. It's about a minute long of extra RAW material. We're leaving it in. Fuck it. We were a mess on this one. But that's not the only mistake... OK we fucked up. When picking films for February’s theme, BODY AND SOUL, we aimed for...

BODY & SOUL this month. That means Black Directors and Black Leads and we follow up our kickoff with another actor/director movie. We couldn’t get through this month without puffing a Spike Lee joint so it’s time to discuss one of his most essential works and Spike Lee’s most significant lead performance in one of his own films is, of course, 1989’s “DO THE RIGHT THING”. This rich ensemble inc...

It’s a fresh month and we’re coming at you with the freshest theme that we’re calling “BODY & SOUL”. All month long is Black Directors and Black Leads and we’re gonna kick it off with the directorial debut of classic Black Hollywood royalty. When Sidney Poitier took over the director reigns for the 1972 western “BUCK AND THE PREACHER” he got bit by the director bug. Eighteen years later he dir...

New year, new overarching director theme! Last year we discussed every Lars von Trier feature film (that wasn’t a documentary). The process had its ups and downs. We may not have come out of that as better people. Wiser? Maybe. More traumatized? Sure. This year we’re hitting up another director whose filmography we will tackle over the course of 2025 and he might even be more controversial than vo...

We’ve arrived at the end of January with an episode we actually recorded not long after the movie was released in theaters. This marks the end of a month of 5 DIRECTORS and the last of SIR RIDLEY SCOTT’S LAST FOUR and it stays historical with a sequel to his Oscar winning smash hit from over 20 years ago. Hanno, like anyone who isn’t Roman, hates Rome. They killed his wife and, as a child, pretty...

We’re nearing the end of week 5 of our director theme for January and it’s time for the third of “SIR RIDLEY SCOTT’S LAST FOUR” and this historical biographical epic certainly seemed, on the surface, like a lay up for award bait. It made money but didn’t do much inspiring. Sure it’s weird as hell having English accents pretending to be French but we know how this Hollywood shit does. We didn’t dis...

NOTE: this was published previously with most of it missing for some reason. Here is the full preview. This February we discuss films made by Black Directors with Black Actors as leads. The theme is called "BODY & SOUL" (bed music for this recording by Robert Glasper for the film "THE PHOTOGRAPH") Here's a link to a much more visual and entertaining version of this preview: https://youtu.be/Dp...

We’re closing down January’s 5th week of it’s directors event with “SIR RIDLEY SCOTT’S LAST FOUR” and it’s a lot of historical but we go more into the more recent fashion history / true crime territory. The kids love their fashion. Gucci is practically an institution with how successfully it has sold its version of class and wealth to the middle classes and under. Maybe some over the top character...

What a fun month it’s been exploring some directors so for the final week we’re hitting up someone who is easily our most prolific, is very well known and has some beloved works under his belt. We’re talking about Tony Scott’s brother, Sir Ridley for week 5’s sub-theme “SIR RIDLEY SCOTT’S LAST FOUR”. The first of Ridley’s last four did not light up the box office and he was pretty sore about it. H...

We’re at the end of week four this January and that means the last discussion in what we’ve dubbed “NANCY SAVOCA’S ITALIAN HEARTS TRILOGY”. We’re discussing a film that got a 4K re-release in independent theaters last year and is available on DVD over at Kino-Lorber if you’re interested in such things. Nancy Savoca’s first three films didn’t incinerate the box office but it’s with great pleasure t...

Week four of January’s theme of “5 DIRECTORS” is very heartfelt because we’re analyzing Nancy Savoca’s first three feature films in this week’s sub-theme that we’ve dubbed “NANCY SAVOCA’S ITALIAN HEARTS TRILOGY”. Criminally underrated in their time but film fans are re-evaluating Savoca’s movies today thanks to re-releases by Criterion and Kino-Lorber and are finding that their vibrant tenderness...

We’re onto week four of January’s theme of “5 DIRECTORS” and we hit up another underrated filmmaker who has been getting more of her flowers in hindsight with some key film re-releases in the last few years but her first film we’re discussing did manage to beat our “Sex, Lies and Videotape” that year at Sundance. Today we’re discussing the first film of what we’re dubbing “NANCY SAVOCA’S ITALIAN H...

Thanks for everything, David. (Note: This discussion is also a part of our upcoming "True Love" episode that drops January 20th)

January’s theme is “5 DIRECTORS” in which we analyze films by a different director each week and we end Nicholas Ray week with a technical marvel that deals with something that isn’t often focused upon during the Hayes code. Addiction. James Mason produced and starred in this story based off of a true to life article from the New York Times in which a man is diagnosed with a fatal condition. Fortu...

It’s a loaded week of Nicholas Ray spanning the years 1952 to 1956. He actually made 6 films total at this time so we had to narrow out the fourth one between this deep cut film and a James Cagney western. We already discussed two genre bending Nicholas Ray Westerns this week so we turn our attention to what is easily the deepest cut film we will discuss all month. We couldn’t even find a trailer...

The third week of January is devoted to Nicholas Ray movies from 1952 to 1956 and we’ve arrived at what is easily his most iconic and infamous movie and it might have been like other Nicholas Ray movies, acclaimed and retroactively appreciated on a cult film level, but in less than a month of it’s release it’s lead perished in a fatal car crash. Fates collide to make Nicholas Ray’s 1955 film “REBE...