Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

The 50th episode arrives! Everyone remembers Roman Polanski's 1968 Rosemary's Baby as "the devil baby movie," but it's so much more. Mike and Dan talk about how much the film resembles Parasite in terms of "Zillo porn" and its portrayal of people who would do anything for a good breakfast nook. It's also like Vertigo with its midway-through reveal which sets up the viewer for the final, more troub...

Mike and Dan discuss Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2011) as an antidote to the horror films that Hollywood churns out year after year. Mike talks about how much the film resembles other work by Joss Whedon as well as (thanks to Bradley Whitford) The West Wing; Dan praises the film as something other than a simple parody. Both contend that the viewers are like the Ancient Ones, eager for t...

While the rest of the US spent time cooking and eating with family and friends (quarantine permitting), Mike and Dan recorded this week's episode on An American Werewolf in London (1981), the John Landis horror-comedy that set the standard for transformation scenes. Dan compares the film to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Mike talks about why London is the perfect setting for an American Werewolf...

After the grueling experience of Hereditary, Mike and Dan talk about something lighter: Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988). Was Michael Keaton Jim Carrey before Jim Carrey? Does the film stand up on its own and not simply as a "seasonal" TV rerun? And is Tim Burton really like a blind squirrel who found a nut with this project? Give it a listen! Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podc...

Mike and Dan gather the courage to talk about Ari Aster's terrifying and deeply unsettling Hereditary (2008). After a conversation about whether or not Aster could be the next Kubrick, the guys get into an argument about the last thirty seconds of the film: are they necessary? Or does the "treehouse scene" undermine the tension and release some of the dread that the film has created over its first...

For years, Mike has been urging Dan to see Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973)--and Dan finally has. Topics of discussion include Deliverance, the blessings of low-budgets, self-immolation, movie marketing, Santa Claus, Hitchcock, Dostoevsky, A Clockwork Orange, how phones work in movies, The Planet of the Apes, the 23rd Psalm, Full Metal Jacket, and the film's brilliant merging of a detective sto...

Run away from the light! Go into the light! Whatever you do, check out this episode. Mike arrives demanding an apology from Dan for what he complained about in It Chapter 1 but doesn't mind in Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982). Dan meets him halfway. The guys haven't seen this since they were 10 or 12 and talk about why the film holds up and how it's different to watch it as an adult. Topics of dis...

Is Andy Muschetti's It: Chapter 1 (2017) a monster movie or a horror movie--and why does that matter? The guys talk about he absence of any good adults in Stephen King's world, the way that the film treats adolescence, the lack of genuine fear in movies, and the analogy Tim Curry: Bill Skarsgard:: Jack Nicholson: Heath Ledger. Dan also mispronounces Hereditary as Heredity, but give him a break: he...

Mike and Dan kick off season 3--one devoted to horror, suspense, and monsters--with Netflix's The Devil All the Time (2020). One of the pair admires the performances; the other argues (with a secret list) that the film contains everything wrong with contemporary movies. Join Mike and Dan as they board the Netflix Original Movie bandwagon. Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts...

Dan and Mike finish Season 2 with a Film Fanatic's Favorite: Jonathan Demme's 1991 The Silence of the Lambs. What makes this movie so rewatchable--despite its having all of the elements of every other serial killer movie? Mike offers his Theory of Three Villains, Dan points out something he noticed about camera placement, and the two of them talk about why Buffalo Bill is much more terrifying than...

Dan and Mike talk about the Coen brothers' second film, Raising Arizona (1987). Dan compares the opening to that of Up and Mike talks about H.I.'s attempt to sound dignified. Are, as Dan claims, the light touches and moments funnier than the jokes? Is, as Mike argues, the car chase one of the best in movie history? And what about the letter grades that the guys give to each Coen brothers film?  Pl...

Is Godfather 3 all that bad? As Michael tries to redeem himself, can a viewer find anything redeemable in Coppola's 1990 conclusion to his trilogy? Mike and Dan talk to their first guest: Professor Jon Lewis, author of Whom God Wishes to Destroy: Francis Ford Coppola and the New Hollywood. They ask Professor Lewis about his take on the film and wether it suffers from what Mike calls a "lack of urg...

What does a person need to be happy? To answer this, the guys discuss the first animated film of the podcast, Michael Dudok de Wit's The Red Turtle (2016). After offering some allegorical readings of the film, Dan insists that they "talk turtle" and get into how the film does what Thoreau did at Walden: reduce life to its lowest terms. All of us are, in some way, on that island being taunted by th...

Yes, the episode goes long, but the subject is, after all, a masterpiece: Vertigo (1958). Mike explains why it's the second-greatest time-travel film of all time, Dan argues that the film has the best kiss in movie history, and both talk about how the most convoluted plots can help great artists explore the most basic, recognizable emotions. It takes one's whole life to watch Vertigo, so think of...

Dan and Mike tackle Alexander Mackendrick's 1957 Sweet Smell of Success. Mike gives his reasons why the film should not work on paper--but does beautifully--and Dan recalls previous episodes about character-driven suspense and how the film makes the seduction of a cigarette girl more suspenseful than any secret agent disarming a bomb. How the film nails the culture of celebrity and how "we get the...

Mike and Dan go long on this one, but ask for your pardon--they are, after all, discussing Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and have a lot to say. Much of the episode is an argument about how the viewer is meant to regard Travis, part of which results in Mike asking, "Well, then why does Travis look in the rear-view mirror?" and Dan responding, "BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU DO WHEN YOU DRIVE." Is T...

Mike and Dan square off in this episode about Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands. Dan admits to never having seen it before Mike asked him to watch it for the podcast. What follows is one of the few complete knock-down arguments in the show's history, all recorded here for your pleasure or fury, depending on how you regard the movie.  Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts a...

Continuing with the concert-movie theme, Dan and Mike discuss Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978). No arguments here: the two gush over the movie and how it serves as a fitting elegy of the Woodstock era. They evaluate the guest stars, talk about their favorite songs, and carefully use the word "peak" when discussing Bob Dylan. The show ends with some talk about Robbie Robertson's claim that t...

Mike knew that Dan liked Talking Heads and Dan knew the same about Mike--but this is their first conversation about Jonathan Demme's 1984 concert film. Mike analyzes "Naive Melody" as he compares David Byrne to a fun uncle showing you a magic trick and the two come up with a theory on why this is the best concert movie of all time. (Note the lack of qualifiers and caveats in that last sentence.) P...

A perfect quarantine film, Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter (2011) examines the struggles of a man trying to protect his family from an unspecified natural disaster. Dan and Mike talk about how the film dramatizes the protagonist's struggle with schizophrenia--or the burden of being a prophet. Either way, it's an impossible situation in a harrowing film. Please subscribe to the show wherever you get yo...

Mike and Dan have a secretly-recorded conversation about The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 examination of wiretapping, privacy, and conscience. Dan notes that the film takes its spiritual themes seriously; Mike talks about Gene Hackman's remarkable performance. Dan confesses to thinking there was a mistake in the screenplay but then realizing that what he first assumed was lazy writing...

In the previous episode, Mike doubled-down his Pacino bet and challenged Dan to watch Heat (1995) for the first time in 25 years. Dan did and surprises Mike with his reaction. Dan talks about the cleanliness of the film, Mike explains why it could be renamed Oceans 1 and Dan asks why we sometimes qualify our praise with phrases like, "a great crime movie." Is Heat a good movie, period? Listen to f...

Mike suggested that they cover Pacino's 1989 thriller Sea of Love. Before he watched it, Dan texted Mike everything he remembered about the film, based on the last time he saw it 31 years ago. Of the seven things he remembered, one became a source of debate. So is Sea of Love a great "popcorn movie?" Or is it a cringefest of Pacino missing the mark for 90 minutes? Does playing a detective involve...

During a quarantine in which long, depressing movies are mana from Heaven, Mike and Dan discuss Prince of the City (1981), Sidney Lumet's sprawling morality play about a corrupt cop who flips and tries to have his moral cake and eat it, too. Dan applies one of Mike's remarks on Lawrence of Arabia to this film, which they both heartily recommend as a movie that reminds the viewer of The Shield and...

Mike comes out swinging, stating his "fierce loyalty" to David Lean's 1962 epic. Dan throws some softballs: is it too long? Does Lean insist upon his hero's greatness more than he dramatizes it? And is Lean unable to really articulate what the story of Lawrence is "about?" Mike responds to all of these and more while carrying a man across the Sun's Anvil! Please subscribe to the show wherever you...