Deep Cut: A Film Podcast

With special guest and friend Thanmye Lagudu we come together to crown a new king. Mani Ratnam completes his magnum opus with Ponniyin Selvan: Part II and we're back in the theatre again for more palace intrigue, romantic entanglements, and some of that signature Ratnam flair. Can Ratnam one-up himself with part two? We discuss PS2's visual glow-up, the challenges of adapting a literary cl...

As part of his coverage for HKIFF 2023, Wilson interviews Japanese director Daishi Matsunaga, a day after the Hong Kong premiere of his new film, Egoist. Director Matsunaga talks about the film's moving story, the specific visual language he uses, his thoughts on iPhone footage, and so much more. A massive thank you to dear friend of the pod Fumiko Nago for helping interpret this interview. Fi...

As Cannes wraps up in the South of France, we bring you a dispatch from another festival halfway across the world. An exhausted Wilson joined Ben and Eli in the middle of his festival marathon to dish about the movies he saw at this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival, and talk about the experience of officially covering a festival for the podcast for the first time! Includes interviews w...

Rise. Roar. Revolt. Review. Here it is. Our long awaited Deep Cut Upkeep episode on the S.S. Rajamouli worldwide phenom RRR, and it’s a doozy. Hear the Deep Cut Trio talk about why Rajamouli’s brand of action filmmaking has entranced audiences, and why Ben and Wilson have this film at the top of their 2022 year end lists, while Eli explains why he prefers Rajamouli’s previous outings. Most importa...

Another year has wrapped production, and the production assistants are here to clean up! Just in time for the 2023 Oscars, Ben, Wilson, and Eli mop up the mess left by superheroes and conductors, stop motion shells and Na’vi, interdimensional travelers and cannibals, mourners and partiers. By breaking down the year’s big trends–– directors fictionalizing their autobiographies, Marvel sinking slowl...

We conclude our series on Miranda July's filmography with her divisive sophomore feature, The Future. Tune in for a feisty episode where Ben tries desperately to defend his deep cut choice while Eli and Wilson have their limits tested by July's storytelling tendencies. See the future in our free Patreon, discord server, and all our links @ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠www.deepcutpod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

))><((  We continue our journey through Miranda July's filmography with her debut feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know. With a large cast of supporting characters, Ben finds the thematic ties across the film's vignettes, Eli praises its winning child performances, and Wilson investigates the film's place within the realm of the "web-of-life" film.   Find connection...

Deep Cut returns to regularly scheduled programming with the decidedly irregular films of American independent director/writer/actor/multi-hyphenate Miranda July. You might even call them quirky.  We begin our series by learning about her long list of artistic endeavours and discuss the connotations of "quirk" in the context of July's films before diving in to her most recent and mos...

Wilson, Ben, and Eli are once again joined by director and friend of the podcast Russell Goldman to talk about his experience and the best movies he saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival! We get a chance to preview this year in independent American and international cinema, talk about the state of Sundance in its first in person year, and dig into some Letterboxd discourse. You can check out R...

Listen up Wiseman-heads, oh do we have a treat for you! The Deep Cut trio are joined by the man himself, Frederick Wiseman, to talk about his new film A Couple (2022) and his expansive documentary filmography. The discussion topics include Nathalie Boutefeu’s arresting performance as Sophia Tolstoy, the secret meaning behind filming in a garden, and Fred’s views on life and death. It was an honor...

Can you say " Deep Cut Upkeep A Couple " ten times fast?? Legendary, prolific American documentarian Frederick Wiseman has returned with one of only 3 fiction films  in his 55 year career. A Couple finds Nathalie Boutefeu performing monologues from the letters of Sophia Tolstoy in the beautiful Brittany coast.  The DC Three admit defeat to the literary gods for not having read a Tolstoy...

In a long-awaited bonus set of episodes, Ben, Wilson, and Eli go over their 2022 movie-watching summers, where each of our co-hosts maintained an audio diary of all the films we saw over the summer. Come along on our summer movie adventure, as we cover watching highlights from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, to Jurassic World Dominion. List of films (and TV) discussed in this roundup: Ben: Donkey Skin (Demy), W...

Welcome to Eli's summer film watching audio diary!  Over the summer of 2022 each of us recorded little audio snippets reviewing every film that we watched, and these are Eli's! You can listen to our combined discussion of our summer movie watching in our roundup episode. We recommend you start there!   Wanna tell us about the films you're watching? Come join our free Patreon, discord s...

Welcome to Ben's summer film watching audio diary! Over the summer of 2022 each of us recorded little audio snippets reviewing every film that we watched, and these are Ben's! You can listen to our combined discussion of our summer movie watching in our roundup episode. We recommend you start there! Wanna tell us about the films you're watching? Come join our free Patreon, discord serv...

Welcome to Wilson's summer film watching audio diary! Over the summer of 2022 each of us recorded little audio snippets  reviewing every film that we watched, and these are Wilson's! You can  listen to our combined discussion of our summer movie watching in our  roundup episode. We recommend you start there! Wanna tell us about the films you're watching? Come join our free Patreon, dis...

After a brief summer hiatus, the gang (and special guest Thanmye Lagudu) are back to discuss India’s biggest box office draw of the season, and the first part of Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus: Ponniyin Selvan: I. Our first Mani Ratnam Deep Cut Upkeep episode gets heated, and battle lines are drawn between hosts. Is this movie Ratnam’s bold execution of a timeless historical epic, or did Ratnam buckle...

How does the king of beeg cinema go small? Trick question, he don’t! Small in scope but still big on imagination, we’re (mostly) abuzz with praise for Wilson’s Deep Cut pick for Rajamouli, 2012’s Eega. Eli praises the positively fly performance of Sudeep, a villain you love to hate, Thanmye highlights Rajamouli’s overlooked talents as a director of comedy, and Wilson celebrates Rajamouli's max...

Long live Deep Cut ! The DC Trio welcomes back distinguished guest and friend Thanmye Lagudu to launch a discussion on the legendary Masala blockbuster director S. S. Rajamouli (of this year’s international hit, RRR ). There’s no better a popular pick than the renowned historical fantasy duology, Baahubali: The Beginning and Baahubali: The Conclusion , based on the Sanskrit epic poem Mahabharata....

Deep Cut rounds out its study of Malian/Mauritanian master director Abderrahmane Sissako with his first two fiction features: Life on Earth (1998) and Waiting for Happiness (2002). The documentary-fiction hybrids provide an illuminating keystone in understanding Sissako’s later, more complex works. Wilson prefers the deep well of sadness in Waiting for Happiness , but Eli adores the celebratory si...

Abderrahmane Sissako sets his late father’s backyard as a courtroom for the injustices of economic neocolonialism in his 2006 drama Bamako , our second of three forays into the work of the Malian/Mauritanian master director. In a work that inextricably binds the political and the personal, Wilson notes how Sissako creates a sense of place that makes an intellectual argument emotional and Eli sugge...

Deep Cut begins a special three-episode run on Malian/Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako with his poetic, vibrant tragedy Timbuktu (2014). Wilson contextualizes Sissako’s most well-known work within Sissako’s varied and inventive filmography, Ben considers the humanizing characterization of the film’s jihadist characters, and Eli breaks down one of his favorite shots in cinema history. Siss...

Stock up on some rosé and lose the shirt because we're going to FIRE ISLAND, baby! We are so delighted and honored to have director Andrew Ahn (SPA NIGHT, DRIVEWAYS) back on the podcast to preview his upcoming feature FIRE ISLAND. Coming to Hulu on June 3. Andrew shares with us his experience directing a studio rom-com, fighting to keep the film’s gayness, collaborating with Joel Kim Booster (...

We’re not on our Lonesome anymore with special guest and friend, Graham Brown. Graham is an Assistant Preservation Officer at the George Eastman Museum and he has graced the pod with his extensive knowledge on the process of film preservation. Join us as we learn about Lonesome’s film preservation journey, and discuss the first silent film (okay… part-talkie) featured on the podcast! Wilson celebr...

Welcome to 2046 : a place that you can never leave, and an era in Wong Kar-wai’s filmography that will never return. Wilson opens up about how his Deep Cut Pick is a forlorn love letter to Hong Kong, his "city of heartbreak." Meanwhile, Eli shares the pop music playlist that Wilson made the DC trio, and Ben shocks them both with his opinion on what may be Wong's last great film. Tune...

Shhh, don’t tell the neighbors we cheated… because Ben’s Deep Cut pick isn’t really a deep cut at all! We enter the forlorn, romantic world of Wong Kai-wai’s most critically acclaimed film: In the Mood for Love (2000), starring the incomparable Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Ben tries his darndest to find the flaws in his favorite film of all time, Wilson admires the impeccable craft of Wong and al...