Fifteen Minute Film Fanatics

Clouzot’s 1953 thriller may be the ultimate bait and switch, moving from a character study of four desperate men in limbo into one of the most suspenseful films ever made. The Wages of Fear shows us the triumph of human ingenuity much like Robinson Crusoe or Castaway, but it’s also a grim statement about how we all carry our deaths within us: the thing from which we try to flee every morning when...

Halfway through Casablanca, we learn why Rick Blaine is so cynical, angry, and embittered; we also feel glad at the end when he takes off his armor and begins that beautiful friendship. But how would we respond if we never learned why Rick acted as he does? The answer is that he’d be Dixon Steele, whom Bogart portrays so well in Nicholas Ray’s 1950 thriller In a Lonely Place. Join Mike and Dan for...

How much will a viewer tolerate? What if you took away all the quick and easy ways in which movies dole out information? What if you made the hero less-than-wholly-admirable and the villain less-than-wholly-terrible? Would audiences still come along for the ride in that brown Le Mans with Popeye Doyle as he tries to catch the sniper who missed him? William Friedkin bet that they would--and won. Jo...

“Drifting” seems like a great word to describe many of Robert Altman’s films, especially California Split, his 1974 buddy film with Elliott Gould and George Segal as gamblers whose friendship is strengthened by their losses. But Mike argues that the film has a deep structure—and one based on a Disney film that we’ve all seen a hundred times. Elliott Gould’s special brand of cool, how gambling reli...

What is it like to experience emotions without being able to identify their sources? What happens when a person feels intense self-loathing but cannot articulate why—even as his star rises? Join Mike and Dan for an extended conversation about Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese’s 1980 masterpiece and a film that it took the guys three years of podcasting to get the nerve to tackle. Dan explains why Ragin...

What’s the most edgy film you’ve ever seen—one that makes you uncomfortable and doesn’t tell you how to feel or react? We’d bet that it isn’t as close to the bleeding edge as Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 The Great Dictator, his first talkie and still highest-grossing film. Chaplin’s beloved Tramp fumbling with a soup spoon is one thing; his running from stormtroopers is quite another. Join Mike and Dan...

Ethan Hunt’s mission in this seventh installment of the series might seem as challenging as Tom Cruise’s: to get people back in theaters for an almost three-hour movie that they know won’t be resolved at the end. But is there anything Tom Cruise can’t do? Mike and Dan react to Dead Reckoning Part One and how it fits in the chain of the Mission Impossible films. Along the way, they talk about how T...

Do you possess ideas—or do ideas possess you? Is it better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied? Why is The Matrix so universally loved by people of all political, moral, and philosophical attitudes? Mike and Dan plug into The Matrix, the action thriller that surprised everyone who saw it in 1999 as well as first-time viewers today. What would have happened if James Cameron had directe...

When Mike casually remarked to Dan that he had just re-watched Ball of Fire, the 1941 Barbara Stanwyck / Gary Cooper screwball comedy co-written by Billy Wilder and directed by Howard Hawks, Dan replied that he had “always wanted to, but never gotten around to seeing it.” Mike made demands, Dan pressed play, and here’s their conversation about what it’s like when a friend takes one of your film re...

David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) is in the same neighborhood as Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd and asks us to think about similar ideas: the power of self-delusion, the seductive nature of fame, and what happens to a dead dream. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about what they call “red arrow videos” on YouTube and what good directors know about their audiences. We all know that movies are il...

Stella Dallas, the star vehicle for Barbara Stanwyck, hinges on a thought experiment: if you knew that by pushing a button your child would be happy for the rest of her life—but the cost of this happiness was that you could never see her again—would you do it? Mike and Dan talk about King Vidor’s 1937 melodrama as an example of what movies do so well: getting viewers to understand why people make...

How would you handle years of adoration and fame? Do you think you’d still be, essentially, yourself but with a better car—or would you become a different person? Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about Sunset Blvd, Billy Wilder’s 1950 look at the movie industry, the drug of fame, and what happens when the public no longer buys what a star is selling. Norma Desmond may be a figure of fun—but sh...

After the success of The Deer Hunter in 1978, Michael Cimino wrote and directed Heaven’s Gate, the 1980 film that has been grouped with Ishtar and The Bonfire of the Vanities as an example of artistic self-indulgence that led to financial disaster. The film was universally panned and Cimino’s career never recovered. Since then, Criterion has released Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, which corrects...

George Orwell said, "By fifty, every man has the face he deserves." To what degree does David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980) respond to the idea that our appearances define our moral selves? Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about the ways in which the story of John Merrick resonates in contemporary reality-TV and how Meririck is trapped in a series of performances. There's a sense that Lynch...

Can a two-hour film accomplish what it takes several seasons of a TV show to do? We're talking to you, Sopranos. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday (1980), a film that they call the "spiritual cousin" of The Sopranos and The Friends of Eddie Coyle. They talk about how the film avoids the intuitive trap of offering a day in the life of its protagonist a...

Mike has been badgering Dan for years to reevaluate Kiss Me Deadly, Robert Aldrich's now-canonical 1955 noir. Mike always loved it; Dan always thought it was overrated. Does he still think so after a fresh viewing? Join them for a conversation about how the history of a film's reception may only be partly due to the film's quality, the ways in which Kiss Me Deadly works like a dream, and the degre...

Citizen Kane isn't the only film in which the lead character dies in the beginning and sets an audience in pursuit of what to make of his final moments. Mike and Dan talk about The Killers (1946), Robert Siodmak's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short story and a terrific noir, right down to the clackety-clack shoes. As a reformed English major, Mike talks about the "gimmick" of the film but also...

Mike asks, "Have you ever seen a movie that tackles time travel better than Primer?" The answer is no. Tenet might handle it sexier, Back to the Future might handle it funnier, but no other film matches Primer as a compelling thought experiment. Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about "red arrow videos" on YouTube, the ethics of time travel, and the ways in which--all considerations about timel...

What does it mean to be happy? Why do movies have such a hard time dramatizing genuine adult friendships? And why is Mike so adamant against seeing movies like Tetris or Air? Join the guys for a conversation about Ford v Ferrari, James Mangold's 2019 portrait of the artists as co-creators of something beautiful. Project managers' lack of imagination, the reason why we chase what some call a "state...

Everyone loves Paths of Glory, Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film too-often described as "anti-war." Mike and Dan talk about how this incredibly cynical film is more "anti-human" than "anti-war" and get into an argument about the ending--their first knock-down debate since they did Cold War about two years ago. Which of them is correct about the meaning of the singing German? Storm the Anthill and find o...

Orson Welles watched one film over and over as he created Citizen Kane--this one. If there's a movie that works as a clinic on how to create tension, suggest character, manage exposition, and entertain a viewer, it's John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). Join Mike and Dan for a conversation about all the things the film does so well, how Thomas Mitchell as Doc Boone works as the movie's bellwether, and w...

How good of a friend are you? Would the dependable character actor play you in a movie--or are you often resentful and jealous of your friends? Do you have that one friend with whom you've lost touch but won't call because you're too stubborn to pick up the phone? Mike and Dan talk about Mickey and Nicky (1976), Elaine May's incredibly bleak and fascinating study of a friendship gone bad. If you h...

What's it like to reveal yourself to another person? Terrifying! That's one of the topics discussed in this week's episode on Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson's 2002 film that more people should have seen then and should see now. For a film about someone who has unidentified psychological issues, it's one of the most psychologically and emotionally realistic films about the common human expe...

This is this," says a clear-headed Robert De Niro in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), a film that resists the urge of writers, directors, and even audience members to assign grand symbolic significance to human experience. Join Mike and Dan as they talk about the film's structure, controversial ending, and the ways in which a brand of non-Hollywood love can rescue a person from a world tha...

If you had the chance to break out of the movie in which you are stuck, would you take it? That's the question that propels Jackie Brown--the person and the film. Join Mike and Dan as they talk about Jackie Brown (1997), which Mike calls Quentin Tarantino's best movie. Dan talks about what makes a terrific adaptation (and offers his nominee for most perfect adaptation in film history); Mike explai...