A Filmversation with Mike and Nick

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick step into their kitchen to cook up a mix of delicacy and debauchery. Trần Anh Hùng brings to life an intimate nineteenth century French countryside. Mike espouses the love for food contained in each frame. On the other side of the spectrum, Peter Greenaway grosses audiences out in an antithetical kitchen. Helen Mirren bares the brunt of an unhinged Richard Bohringer...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick go back to the Soviet Union and explore one their greatest unsung voices. Nick forces Mike into apocalyptic hellscapes baked in Cold War dread, Tarkovskian philosophy, and existential ruin. The lingering question that hangs over both films: where is god at the end of the world? Nick, to the surprise of no one, argues these films emphasize an absent god or a god recus...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick enter Ingmar Bergman’s imperial era. The two meditate on morality, memory, and the terror of self-realization. Digging into Bergman's internal and visual philosophy, the pair investigate how the director marries and juxtaposes intellectuality and emotional universality. Topics include discussions on dream logic, existential anxieties, and reflections on human fr...

Send us Fan Mail The rest of the hosts' respective top 10 lists are revealed: places sixth through first! More than previous years, potentially, the final lists offer some refreshing and underrepresented films. Always seeking out the best of the best, find out how rewarding this year's quest was. See if horizons were expanded.

Send us Fan Mail Now that the Oscars have come and gone, The Filmversation crew can give their final say. That's right, that special time of year is here. Mike and Nick present their top 10 lists for 2025. Find out what the pair was watching throughout the year. Which strange and unheard of films did Nick make Mike watch? Which surprises did Mike put on Nick's radar? As usual, these disc...

Send us Fan Mail The pair of hosts head back to younger years and visit a staple of vintage nerdom: Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi was an iconic animator in his own right who worked alongside a fellow great like Frank Frazetta. His work was heavily stylized and was a favourite of Nick's in his youth. See how Mike, with sober eyes, views these works and if Nick's loving opinions still remain true t...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick hunt aliens! The pair visit one of their modern favourite's most recent outputs to see if the magical weirdness still shines bright. Mike helps interpret the film's alien language for Nick as the pair explore various themes of corporate alienness and interesting empathy.

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick continue their journey through Bergman's work and finally land on his most lauded comedy. After Bergman suffered several box office failures, he risked it all on a more lighthearted (well, relatively speaking) endeavor to save his career. The immediate response and continued legacy seem to suggest this is the film which would save him and put him on the map. Usi...

Send us Fan Mail Nick makes a Pascalian wager to show Mike his first Éric Rohmer movie he hopes might be... Christmas-y! Enjoy all the festive talk about intellectualism, Marxism, sexual politics, and 60's France! Nick thought Rohmer might be a future favourite of Mike's. Find out if he's right. Happy holidays from your favourite amateur film snobs.

Send us Fan Mail Mike takes the pair to Hong Kong to dodge bullets, shoot guns, watch explosions, and move their bodies in every which way. The hosts observe the different characterizations of Hong Kong between decades as well as tonal contrasts. Both Jackie Chan and John Woo get their spotlight before their Hollywood careers. Find out if Nick's on board with the wackiness and physical comedy...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick return to their journey through Bergman's filmography. This time they explore the medial film in Bergman's "comedic" trilogy. One of the lesser regarded films upon its release, the pair wonder if the criticism at the time was warranted or if Mike's favourite magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma, was right to include this (along with two others, to Nic...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick dive into the kaleidoscopic prism of deep colour, fantastic soundtracks, and brutal murder at the hands of one of horror's most famous maestros: Dario Argento. Having only seen the remake, Mike compares the original Suspiria and how his feelings differ between the two. Both hosts try to make heads from tails in the narrative of Inferno and ponder if it's be...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick kick off their seasonal Halloween episode pair with a tribute to one of their favourite American filmmakers: John Carpenter. It never hurts to revisit the undeniable classic that is The Thing. But this time, Nick introduces Mike to one of his cult favourites: Prince of Darkness. Does Mike agree with Nick this deserves a second look? Find out what makes John Carpenter...

Send us Fan Mail Nick has been wanting to show Mike Jean Cocteau for a long while, thinking he may be one of Mike's "guys." The pair discuss the poet's most famous films, how interesting Cocteau was, and the wonder behind the visuals. Find out if these lived up to the hype for Mike as well what Nick likes so much about these, to Mike's surprise.

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick continue their journey through Bergman's major and minor works. Hot off the tails of Sawdust and Tinsel, the director makes a pivot into more lighthearted humour, offering, in his words, a comedy for adults. The hosts debate if the humour works; which host falls where may... not surprise you. Mike gets to the bottom of the lesson in love and Nick commiserates wi...

Send us Fan Mail Nick descends upon Mike's hometown to celebrate his favourite time of year: Bleak Week! A festival started in Los Angeles, now expanded to other states, brought Nick across state lines to attend the festival in Portland Oregon at the Hollywood Theatre. Along with colleague of the show, Jackie, the group discusses their different bleak week exposures with heavy emphasis on the...

Send us Fan Mail Kinuyo Tanaka is likely best know for her tremendous acting career performing in great works of directors like Kenji Mizoguchi. But she also had a shorter directing career. Filmversation hopes to shine a light on this lesser known director, as the second Japanese female director in history and the first Japanese female to helm director of a movie solo. The Moon Rises reminds both,...

Send us Fan Mail The Bergman retrospective continues with one of the director's first widely-recognized works. What is it about the circus setting that is so unsettling? Nick argues this is Bergman's first masterclass example of the close-up.

Send us Fan Mail Go back in time with Filmversation. A time of innocence and beginnings. A time of earnestness and naivete. Go back to your youth. Mike discusses his early memories of saving the rainforest and Nick is flabbergasted by Tim Curry's unhinged performance. Nick waxes poetic about The Land Before Time and Mike tells Nick about the savage butchery the film suffered behind the scenes...

Send us Fan Mail 2024 was quite the year. Some people, like Nick, think this was the best year in film in almost a decade. Mike snubs and surprises Nick with some of his picks while Nick continues to make Mike watch movies no one has heard of. The pair detail their top five of the year with the some added honourable mentions. The moment you've been waiting for, the presiding experts in film f...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick are joined by good friend, Jackie. The three dive into Robert Eggers' newest iteration of Nosferatu. They examine one of its predecessors and direct influences, Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. With Jackie's help, the gang dives into the nuance and experience of the films' colours, shadows, and psychosexuality. Find out why Mike thinks these a...

Send us Fan Mail Happy Halloween! The Filmversation crew decided to make a pact with the devil this Halloween. We're hoping to sell our souls to get access to the Criterion Closet. In return, we watch two movies about devil intervention and power acquisition. William Dieterle brings the old folk tale to life when a poor farmer makes a deal with devil to secure gold and good luck. 1941's...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick celebrate spooky season with two classics of silent horror cinema. What better way to kick off the festivities other than travelling back in time? 1926's Faust sees FW Murnau retell the classic tale of making a deal with the devil. 1928's The Man Who Laughs sees Paul Leni channel Conrad Veidt (of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fame) to tell the tragic love sto...

Send us Fan Mail Nick leads Mike to the monumental film that is Andrei Rublev. Tarkovsky uses the 15th-century Russian icon painter to explore theology amidst a world of medieval hardship. Nick dives into the religiosity of the film and the challenges the movie presents for atheists. The pair discuss how some of Tarkovsky's most famous motifs make their first fully realized appearance in this...

Send us Fan Mail Mike and Nick revisit Bergman's Summer lens through one of the director's first big "hits" : Summer with Monika. The pair explore themes of isolation, youth, and escaping society. Nick comments how he thinks this is the cinematic answer to all romantically ambiguous endings in film. The pair contrast American attitudes at the time toward sex with Sweden's....