Film Trace

In episode two of our Manhunt series, we explore two international films. From South Korea, New World (2013), a topsy-turvy crime drama. From New Zealand, the playful and whimsical, Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). Crime dramas have been a staple of cinema since its inception. We find comfort in categorizing characters as good or evil. It provides order in a convoluted world. Actual morality is o...

We kick off a new season of Film Trace exploring Manhunt Movies with Longlegs and Trap . In this season of Film Trace, we will dive into movies about being hunted or being the hunter. While these hunted vs hunter films span a wide breadth of genres, we start with the most tried and true model, the serial killer thriller. Longlegs made a huge splash this summer. A true indie made for under 10 milli...

We conclude our Camp Cinema season with our eighth episode covering Johnny Guitar (1954) and Imitation of Life (1959). In our finale, we delve into the origins of Camp Cinema in the 1950s, spotlighting Nicholas Ray's flamboyant western Johnny Guitar and Douglas Sirk's melodramatic Imitation of Life . Johnny Guitar subverts the traditional male bravado typical of most westerns by pitting two powerf...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our seventh episode covering The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and Barbarella (1968) Special Guest: Manish Mathur, host of the It Pod to Be You, covering romantic comedies from classics to modern hits and everything in between. French director Jacques Demy embarked on an ambitious project to create a film in which every line was sung. What initially appeared a...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our sixth episode covering The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Day of the Locust (1975). Special Guest: scholar, artist, author, and curator Marisa C. Hayes of the wonderful Afterimages podcast and book series. The first film discussed needs no introduction, though Dan and Chris could have used one since the Jim Sharman-directed camp classic was a fir...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fifth episode covering Hairspray (1988) and Xanadu (1980) Special Guest: Gavin Mevius and Louie Rendon from the great Mixed Reviews podcast John Waters is the prince of camp. We simply had to choose one of his films for our season on Camp Cinema. The lucky winner was Hairspray . While Waters is known for his deft ability to push the boundaries of taste and...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our fourth episode covering To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) and Magnolia (1999) Special Guest: Returning Guest, Rotten Tomato approved film critic, Natasha Alvar from Cultured Vultures When watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar , there is an overriding sense of what could have been. Coming out in the mid 1990s, a sur...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our third episode covering Sugar and Spice (2001) and Vanilla Sky (2002) Special Guest: Good friend and frequent guest, Molly The early Aughts was a bizarre time in American culture. The heady surge of the late 90s into Y2K was quicky benzo'd by 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our two selections for the 2000s were written and produced before the big...

We continue our Camp Cinema season in our second episode covering The Love Witch (2016) and Black Swan (2010) Special Guest: Filmmakers Emily Gallagher and Austin Elston of Fishtown FIlms As the dust begins to settle on the 2010s, the topsy turvy decade begins to come into focus. At the start of the decade, Darren Aronofsky released Black Swan (2010) to critical acclaim. I saw it in a packed NYC t...

Welcome to the first episode of Season 13 of Film Trace. In this season, we will explore the notion of Camp in Film. Building off of Susan Sontag's foundational 1964 essay, Notes on Camp , we will explore two films each episode we think demonstrate Sontag's concepts of naive camp and intentional camp. First off is the financial and critical disaster of Madame Web (2024) . We argue this film is a g...

We felt like doing an Oscars show, so we did: Topics of discussion 1. Intro: 2023's Film Trace movies. They stood the test of time, but were they awarded upon release? 2. Nominated film most obviously conceived specifically with little gold men in mind? 3. Nominated film conceived originally with absolutely no award hopes in mind? 4. Nominated director/writer/DP/actor most obviously groomed t...

In the eighth and final episode of our Future Wars season, we discuss the sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) alongside the b-movie stunner Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Alas we have come to the finale of our Future Wars cycle. It has been a long season with a super-sized eight episode run. Sci-fi is often a real bummer. Most of the movies we covered this season depicted h...

In the seventh episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the classic Dr Strangelove (1964) alongside a bizarre artifact from the French New Wave, Alphaville (1965) Special Guest: Good friend of the show and onscreen performer Harry Brammer, dialing in from Tokyo. Here we have two masters, Kubrick and Godard, spinning tales of future conflict and war in the mid 1960s. Slipping in their polemics...

In the sixth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the last man on earth romp The Omega Man (1971) as well as the bonkers fever dream that is Zardoz (1974). Special Guest: Sean Patrick from the great Everyone’s a Critic podcast The 1970s were a trip. The Omega Man is a zany, over-the-top apocalypse movie that is helmed by maybe the worst possible choice for the role, Charlton Heston. Zardoz...

In the fifth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we tackle two giant films from the action sci fi maestro James Cameron: The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986). Special Guest: David Riedel, film critic and co-host of the great Spoilerpiece Theatre podcast. James Cameron is a master filmmaker. This two film run in the mid 1980s is iconic, legendary, and ground-breaking. When we think of this cycle's...

In the fourth episode of our Future Wars cycle, we explore two late 90s classic, The Matrix (1999) and Starship Trooper (1997). Special Guest: Evan Crean, film critic and co-host of the great Spoilerpiece Theatre podcast. Here we have two films with diametrically opposed authorial voices. The Matrix is self-serious, pointelty intellectual, and so cool that it borders on frigid sterility. Starship...

In the third episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss Spielberg's bad guy alien film, W ar of The Worlds along side the bleak and desolate Cormac McCarthy adaptation, The Road. Special Guest: Film critic and co-host of Spoilerpiece Theatre and The Slashers, Megan Kearns. The world doesn't end with a whimper. It ends with loud alien tripods and a nuclear winter. Spielberg had already made two a...

In the second episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss with George Miller's gonzo-apocalypto in Mad Max: Fury Road alongside the low budget middle-brow of The Purge. Special Guest: Tommy Thevenet from the fantastic Haven't Scene It: A Movie Podcast As we dip a little further into the last decade, our Future War cycle begins to take shape with the genius Mad Max massively outshining the sophomo...

In the first episode of our Future Wars cycle, we discuss the new Gareth Edwards sci-fi epic, The Creator , and Denis Villeneuve's recent attempt of adapting Dune onto film. Our Future Wars cycle is focused on how the conflicts of tomorrow were depicted in the past. Over this 8 episode series, we will review 16 films spanning from the 1950s through today that attempted to predict how mankind might...

In the final episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we cover two classics, Cool Hand Luke and Rebel Without a Cause . We have come to the end of our 1950s cycle, and we are struggling to find a thread that weaves through all of these films. The films we covered all use the 1950s in different ways: set dressing, pastiche base layer, dreamscape, hommage, coming of age background. Each film is a crea...

In the sixth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we discuss Peter Bogdanovich's coming of age story, The Last Picture Show (1971), along with the Lenny Bruce bio pic, Lenny , directed by theater great Bob Fosse. Special Guest: Andrea G, co-founder of filmchisme, X: @alifebydreaming The 1950s has never been known as a gritty decade. We wanted to find films that demonstrated some of the hidden re...

In the fifth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we discuss the 1980s hidden gem Desert Hearts and the highly lauded Diner . Special Guest: Friend and frequent guest, Molly, who led us both to the existential oasis that is Desert Hearts We often try to choose two films that create a discourse between them, but here I think it is safe to say both films are talking past each other. Desert Hearts...

In the fourth episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we cover the 1990s neo-noir LA Confidential along side the coming of age tale in This Boy's Life. We dive into two different worlds of the 1950s: the glam and seedy glitz of Los Angeles vs the cold and wet solitude of rural Washington. LA Confidential won high praise upon its release in the fall of 1997. It's stature has not faded much in the 25...

In the third episode of our Set in the 1950s cycle, we compare two hommages to the post war decade: Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven and Frank Darabont's The Majestic. Special guests: Brian Eggert from Deep Focus Reviews, Rotten Tomato Approved and frequent KARE 11 guest film critic What started out as a random pairing of two 1950s period pieces from the early Aughts became a rather interesting juxtap...

In the second episode of our cycle Set in the 1950s , we look at two auteurs who swing for the fences with Terrence Malick's Tree of Life (2011) and Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (2012) . Special guests and friends of the show Molly and Ryan join us to discuss what happens when Malick and Anderson get the creative freedom and financing to direct the movie they always wanted to make. Tree of Li...