Shut Up and Watch This

This month we explore REPO MAN , the endlessly inventive 1984 cult movie by Alex Cox. Dave remembers catching the movie on late-night cable as a teen, but it was a true blind spot for Ashley until we sat down to watch it together. Emilio Estevez stars as Otto, a bored LA punk who falls under the spell of veteran repo man Harry Dean Stanton. Along the way, we encounter rival repo gangs, government...

This time, Ashley chooses HAPPY-GO-LUCKY and it's a Mike Leigh rematch! Long ago on Ep.8, Dave chose Leigh's NAKED (1993), which featured male characters so repellent that Ashley found the entire viewing experience to be extremely unpleasant.  Now six years later, we discuss a Mike Leigh film she adores, longtime favorite HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, a seemingly lighthearted comedy simmering with tension and d...

Introducing our lost episode! Three years ago, we started prep work for a rewatch podcast about the groundbreaking 90s teen series, MY SO-CALLED LIFE , which ran on ABC-TV from 1994 to 1995. The plan: record and bank a few episodes before committing to the launch. Then life happened…you can guess the rest. Just in time for the 30th anniversary of the series, here is Episode 1 of our MY SO-CALLED L...

We were going to introduce Jonathan Demme’s SOMETHING WILD by saying that not a lot of movies start with the kidnapping of the main character in the first five minutes, but according to Wikipedia’s “Films about Kidnapping” list, that isn’t true. And our main character, straitlaced banker Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels), isn’t exactly kicking and screaming when he’s picked up by Lulu (Melanie Griffit...

Five years ago on a drive back from Lubbock, we came up with the concept for this podcast. Here we are, celebrating 100 episodes, by switching it up, with patience and love. Dave picks a movie Ashley adores, COLUMBUS (2017). Ashley chooses RASHOMON (1950) for Dave. Are we in for a Kogonada/Kurosawa rap battle? Or just a kinder, more generous show? No enforced viewing this time. Just the gift of ti...

We're back and it's Ashley's choice! Joan Rivers was known in her later years for over the top plastic surgery and for participating in the celebrity bullying culture that was rampant in the early ‘00s. The documentary, JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK sought to look beyond this image to better understand River’s place as a groundbreaking comedian, and possibly the hardest working person in show busin...

In what is turning out to be a very existential few months for the podcast, this month we take a close look at Akira Kurosawa’s IKIRU , in which we follow a lifelong civil servant played by Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura as he comes to terms with his impending death, and maybe, just maybe figures out what the point of all of this is. And in the third act, Kurosawa, ever the keen observer of huma...

If you're like Ashley and remember from the height of the blog era a Tumblr called “Sketchy Bunnies," then you might be a little intimidated by the hero of this week’s pic, a 6 foot 3 and a half inch invisible rabbit named HARVEY . But it turns out that Harvey and his best friend Elwood P. Dowd have a lot to teach us about what is important in life: like being kind to others, finding joy in simple...

There are some who believe, and we’re among them, that the creative spark is what makes us human, but making art is frequently hard, emotionally taxing and the results often fall short of our ideal. So is it any wonder that some would-be creators might lose themselves in hedonistic pleasure seeking, rather than doing the work to find meaning? This is perhaps the central question of Dave's choice,...

Intriguing, enthralling, enigmatic and ultimately moving, words that go some ways towards describing this month’s pick, CERTIFIED COPY (2010). Directed by Abbas Kiarostami and starring Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel, the film depicts two people with an undetermined relationship to one another as they spend the day in Tuscany. And so questions arise: What is the exact nature of their relation...

We're back from our hiatus with an all-new deep dive into Dave's pick. This week we're talking about TOOTSIE (1982) and we have questions: Can someone who disguises himself as another type of person really understand what it's like to be that kind of person? And more importantly, did the screenwriters of Tootsie actually intend to convey a subtle message that indeed you can not understand what it...

A LETTER TO THREE WIVES is an odd film; it begins with the film’s villain, who we never see, providing character introductions, then proceeds to tell the story largely in flashbacks. Flashbacks are introduced by what we can only describe as an early vocoder effect that seems strangely out of place in a post-war drama. But the actors and the script really draw you into the domestic drama, most nota...

There is a lot more to John Frankenheimer’s SECONDS than a synopsis or even first viewing can convey. First of all, what is it? Is it sci-fi à la The Twilight Zone or pre-Cronenberg body horror, or a thesis on man’s search for meaning? As it turns out, it’s a little bit of all of this, and maybe some other things too. Beautifully photographed and masterfully paced and edited, Seconds turns a relat...

To celebrate the changing of the seasons, we have an introspective look at how family death impacts the life of a young man, causing his retreat into a fantasy world that includes flying murder balls, corpse theft, slave labor on a mysterious red planet, and a tall man filled with what appears to be nacho cheese. Actually, maybe PHANTASM isn’t very introspective at all. This cult horror film is od...

Can we ever be sure of the motives of others? Can we even be sure of our own? Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION explores how emotions like greed, pride and fear shape our actions through the eyes of Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a professional wiretapper who wrestles with the implications of the information he is supplying. Lives are at stake, nothing is as it seems, and it may be Harry who loses his soul....

While we certainly can’t claim to be in the know about all things mainstream, THAT THING YOU DO! (1995) seems to have been one of those flash in the pan films that came and went from the popular consciousness. Which is fitting since the film follows The Wonders, a fictional band that writes one catchy song and then fades away like so many Surfaris, Lemon Pipers, or Mysterians. Tom Hanks does an ad...

We open on a snowy plain, a tiny figure approaching from the horizon. What follows is a 32 part quasi-biography of the eccentric 20th century pianist told in the style of a multi-part TikTok video. Made in the early 90’s, THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD is clearly ahead of its time with its fractal storytelling. We get bits of music, interviews, sketches, animations and audioscapes that e...

Before the surge of coming of age films in the late 90s/early 00s, there weren’t many films that addressed adolescence from girl’s perspectives the way that films like STAND BY ME did for boys. So it is perhaps no surprise that the 1995 film NOW AND THEN captured the imaginations of a generation of girls. It has everything: relatable stories of growing up, a killer soundtrack, a passable mystery,...

Where does Alice live? Not Socorro, NM anymore. Ellen Burstyn plays a recently widowed housewife looking for a new start for herself and her son in ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE . Martin Scorsese, master of urban violence, brings a sense of danger and isolation to this otherwise heartfelt story. Highlights include the very authentic relationship between mother and son. It's not easy to be a sing...

Times are dark, but while we can still choose our podcast topics, Ashley chose 2022 gay Pride and Prejudice adaptation, FIRE ISLAND , written by and starring Joel Kim Booster. This film is clever and snarky, expertly updating P&P’s major plot points while incorporating lots of in-jokes and pop culture references. Even if you aren’t an Austen fan there is a lot of humor and heart that make this fil...

There’s no question that THE PIANO is a very good film–everything from photography, to music, to performances, and story casts a spell. Writer/Director Jane Campion is at the full height of her formidable powers as a storyteller. She expertly revives and inhabits the emotional landscape of novels like Jane Eyre, offering us glimpses into the mind and will of our heroine. But this is a modern story...

Dave has missed out on a good number of the musical spectacular films from the mid-twentieth century. And maybe it’s not such a loss to miss out on OKLAHOMA or HELLO, DOLLY and the like, but there is something interesting about MY FAIR LADY . Maybe it is the classical subject matter by way of a George Bernard Shaw play, Audrey Hepburn’s charming performance as Eliza or Rex Harrison’s odd talk-sing...

If you’re like Ashley, you have probably seen the posters for the THREE COLORS TRILOGY floating around video stores, movie theaters or dorm rooms most of your life. But maybe, also like Ashley, you have never quite gotten around to seeing what BLUE , WHITE and RED are all about. And maybe the words “Polish,” “Independent,” “Film” don’t have you rushing out to plug the holes in your film knowledge....

Here it is: the ultimate podcast about the greatest martial arts film of all time. Wilson, Carr and Lee (Bruce Lee) give it to you straight. In this episode, we discuss ENTER THE DRAGON , Bruce Lee’s entrance into the American film industry and the last film completed before his untimely death. We can’t get enough of Bruce Lee as star, co-writer and fight choreographer. But this film has more to o...

Many films tell stories of people who when put in precarious situations are miraculously able pull themselves out at the last second. Andrea Arnold’s FISH TANK doesn’t attempt this kind of cliched hero’s journey. Here the danger to 15 year-old Mia (Katie Jarvis) is real and hope takes the form of the freedom offered by a boy and his car. And yet in spite of this more subdued take on storytelling,...