Call It, Friendo

It’s the final episode! We run through our top 5 films and a bunch of other stuff we discovered over the last few years, both good and bad. It’s been fun, folks. Thanks for joining us along the way!

This week, we discuss two films from celebrated Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai. The first is Chungking Express (1994), The film consists of two stories told in sequence, each about a different lovesick Hong Kong policeman mulling over his relationship with a woman. The second is In the Mood for Love (2000). The film follows a man (Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) in 1962 who discover that...

This week, we discuss two WWII films from Polish director Andrzej Wajda. The first is Kanal (1957), the first film made about the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, telling the story of a company of Home Army resistance fighters escaping the Nazi onslaught through the city's sewers. The second is Ashes and Diamonds (1958). The film takes place in 1945, shortly after World War II. The main protagonist of the fi...

This week, we discuss two films from director Carl Franklin. The first is Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), a smoky noir set in postwar Los Angeles, where a seemingly simple missing persons job pulls an everyman detective, played by Denzel Washington, into a web of corruption, racial tension and moral compromise. The second is One False Move (1992), starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, a slow-...

This week, we discuss two films about political assassinations. The first is I for Icarus (1979), directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Yves Montand. The film is a fictionalised account of the JFK assassination, with the state attorney, played by Montand, investigating a potential conspiracy. The second is The Day of the Jackal (1973), directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel by Frederi...

This week, we examine two films shaped by the influence of Franz Kafka. The first, Kafka (1991), directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Lem Dobbs, intertwines biographical details of Kafka’s life with motifs drawn from his fiction. The second, Brazil (1985), directed by Terry Gilliam, is frequently cited as one of the most profoundly Kafkaesque films ever made.   Timestamps What we’ve...

This week, we discuss two American thrillers connected tenuously by their titles. The first is The Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by Charles Laughton and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. Mitchum plays a murderous preacher pursuing two young children. The second is Night of the Juggler (1980), starring James Brolin as an ex-cop trying to get back his kidnapped daught...

This week, we discuss two films from acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos. The first is Poor Things (2023), written by Tony McNamara and based on the 1992 novel by Alasdair Gray. It follows Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman in Victorian London who is brought back to life via brain transplant. The second is The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), which follows a cardiac surgeon, played by Colin...

This week, we discuss two surrealist yakuza films from Japanese director Seijun Suzuki. The first is Tokyo Drifter (1966), which follows the reformed yakuza hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu, played by Tetsuya Watari, who is forced to roam Japan while avoiding execution by rival gangs. The second is Branded to Kill (1967), which follows contract killer Goro Hanada as he is recruited by a mysterious woman nam...

This week, we discuss two films from Australian director Peter Weir. The first is Witness (1985), starring Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis and Lukas Haas. The film focuses on a police detective protecting an Amish woman and her son, who becomes a target after he witnesses a brutal murder in a Philadelphia railway station. The second is Gallipoli (1981), starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee. The film rev...

This week, we discuss two films from American director Jules Dassin. The first is Topkapi (1964), a heist comedy based on the 1962 novel The Light of Day by Eric Ambler. The plot follows a small-time con artist who gets roped into helping a gang of international art thieves steal an emerald-encrusted dagger from Istanbul's Topkapı Palace, while he is simultaneously forced to spy on them for the Tu...

This week, we discuss two films from Italian director Matteo Garrone. The first is Gomorrah (2008), based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Roberto Saviano. It depicts warring factions in a Camorra family in a rough neighbourhood of Naples. The second is Io Capitano (2023), which follows two cousins making the perilous journey from Senegal to Italy and the terrible hardships they must ov...

This week, we discuss two films about young women forced to become assassins. The first is The Villainess (2017), directed by Jung Byung-gil, starring Kim Ok-vin. According to Jung, the movie was inspired by La Femme Nikita, which he watched at the age of 10. The second is La Femme Nikita (1990), written and directed by Luc Besson. The film stars Anne Parillaud as the title character, a criminal w...

This week, we discuss two pioneering British folk horror films. The first is The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971). Set in early 18th-century England, it follows the residents of a rural village whose youth fall under the influence of a demonic presence after a local farmer unearths a mysterious deformed skull buried in a field. The second is Witchfinder General (1968). The film is a heavily fictionali...

This week, we discuss two films dealing with colonialism in Africa. The first is Cobra Verde, directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski, in their fifth and final collaboration. Based upon Bruce Chatwin's 1980 novel The Viceroy of Ouidah, the film depicts the life of a fictional slave trader who travels to the West African kingdom of Dahomey. The second is White Material, directed by Clai...

This week, we discuss two New York police films from 1981. The first is Nighthawks, which follows Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams as a couple of undercover detctives tasked with taking down a ruthless international terrorist played by Rutger Hauer. The second is Fort Apache, The Bronx, which stars Paul Newman as Murphy, a veteran street cop who faces numerous daily challenges in one of t...

This week, we discuss two crime films from director Richard Brooks. The first is Looking for Mr. Goodbar, based on Judith Rossner's best-selling 1975 novel of the same title, which was inspired by the 1973 murder of New York City schoolteacher Roseann Quinn. The film stars Diane Keaton, Richard Gere and Tom Berenger. The second is In Cold Blood, based on Truman Capote's groundbreaking 1966 nonfict...

This week, we discuss two films about people imprisoned overseas. The first is A Prayer Before Dawn (2017), which tells the true story of Billy Moore, a British boxer and heroin addict who spent a number of years incarcerated in Thailand in brutal conditions. The second is Papillon (1973), starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The film is based on the autobiography of Henri Charrière, a safec...

This week, we discuss two crime films set in Jamaica. The first is The Harder They Come (1972), which stars Jimmy Cliff as Ivanhoe Martin, a young man who, after failing to make it as a musician, becomes an outlaw. The film’s soundtrack is famed for bringing reggae to a global audience. The second is Yardie (2018), which tells the story of a young man named D who moves from Jamaica to London in th...

This week, we discuss two films from American director John Sturges. The first is Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), which stars Spencer Tracy as a WW2 vet who uncovers a dark secret in a small desert town. The second is Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), which retells the story of the infamous 1881 shootout featuring Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the Cochise County Cowboys in the town of Tombstone, Ariz...

This week, we discuss two films from American cult horror director Fred Dekker. The first is The Monster Squad (1987), co-written by Shane Black, which sees a group of young kids take on the Universal monsters. The second is Night of the Creeps (1986), where two uncool college students find themselves at the centre of an alien invasion that turns people into zombies.   Timestamps What we’ve been w...

This week, we discuss two films from French director François Ozon. The first is In the House (2012), which follows a precocious student who infiltrates a classmate’s family life through storytelling, blurring the line between fiction and reality. The second is Swimming Pool (2003), a tense psychological mystery where a reclusive writer’s quiet retreat unravels into a game of seduction, suspicion...

This week, we discuss two films from American director John Milius. The first is The Wind and the Lion (1975), which blends adventure and political intrigue as a Berber chieftain kidnaps an American woman, sparking an international incident in early 20th-century Morocco. The second is Conan the Barbarian (1982), which charts the mythic rise of a warrior seeking vengeance in a brutal, sorcery-laced...

This week, we discuss two films that explore the uncertainty of growing up. The first is Diner (1982), which captures the camaraderie and coming-of-age struggles of a group of young men on the brink of adulthood in 1950s Baltimore. The second is I Vitelloni (1953), which follows five idle friends in a small Italian town as they face the slow, reluctant transition from youth to responsibility.   Ti...

This week, we discuss two films that quietly explore isolation, beauty and the passage of time. The first is Vigil (1984), which follows a young girl in rural New Zealand as she navigates grief, and a mysterious new presence, after her father's death. The second is Days of Heaven (1978), which captures the tragedy of a love triangle set against the sweeping landscapes of the American frontier.   T...