Jason and the Movienauts

Michelle is back to continue Billy Wilder-Cast, this time with maybe one of the darknes movies ever committed to film, Ace in the Hole , and one of the most fun (but still kind of dark), Witness for the Prosecution. Do Jason and Michelle git whiplast from discussing these very different movies or do they find some intriguing common ground? (Spoiler: there is some common ground)

Shōhei Imamura's 1968 epic Profound Desires of the Gods is a brilliant, dizzying, extremely complex drama/satire focusing on a Japanese island in transition. The film focuses on one family on the island, a group of highly inbred people, and how the whole island reacts when post-WWI modernity starts to come to the island. In other words, Profound Desires is just the kind of strange, heady and o...

Eric is back this week, and the guys dive deep into Japanese film as they often do. This week, a look at two classic, contrasting takes on a Japanese legend, The Ballad of Narayama. Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 version is sylized Kabuki brilliance, while Shōhei Imamura's 1983 take on the same material is deliberately strange: alienating, surreal and often brilliant in its own way. Eric and Jas...

Shawn and Paul are back, which means it's time for the guys to wrap up their look at the Alien and Predator franchises with a review of Alien: Romulus and Predator: Badlands . Will the guys like the kids of Romulus and the family dynamics of Badlands ior will they demand the return of Sigourney and Arnold?

Michelle is back, so that means it's time again for our series looking at the films of the great Billy Wilder. This time: two of Wilder's silliest and most edgy movies -- at least, edgy for the 1960s -- Irma La Douce and Kill Me, Stupid! . Both films have a broad, wacky comedy sensibility, both involve some bed-hopping and other sexual transgressions, and both are very worthy of discussion...

When Paul Moyer joins Jason to talk movies, that means it's '70s dystopia times. This time: two different sci-fi visions of the future from the mid-1970s. Rollerball seems prophetic in some ways, a deeply intriguing tale of future sports that imagines a future similar to the one we're living in now. Logan's Run , on the other hand, seems a little half-baked and poorly thought through, a clever ide...

This week Eric Hoffman joins Jason to talk about two 1970s films that take on the idea of a pandemic in very different ways. In George Romero's The Crazies , a virus is loose in a small Pennsylvania town that makes all its residents crazy. Jason loves the low budget, handmade feel of the film while Eric was frustrated by its amateurishness. But Eric and Jason agree on No Blade of Grass , a heavy d...

Michelle is back to continue our discussion of the films of Billy Wilder. This time, two films which are on and around the second world war: the wartime prison drama Stalag 17 and the mapcap Cold War comedy One, Two, Three . Michelle has some nuanced takes on Stalag 17 that Jason finds fascinating, but no nuance is needed to know that One, Two, Three is an absolute wild delight. Good listening fro...

Yep, Paul and Shawn are back to continue our discussion of the Alien franchise, with a look at the controversial Hulu series Alien: Earth. This show takes the xenomorphs to our planet for some havoc and craziness, but the even more havoc comes from all the other aliens come to Earth, as well as all the different cybernetic people who are fighting for control of our planet. The guys have a lot to s...

Jason is just back from the very fun Orcas Island Film Festival and he ranks his favorites from the fest. What did he think of No Other Choice, Hedda, Sentimental Value and other films you’re interested in seeing? What was best and worst? Find out in this quick 30 minute rundown!

This is an episode near and dear to Jason's heart, as Eric and he connect again to discuss three movies by Jason's favorite director, Robert Altman. Eric loves Altman's work too, and the guys love to tackle the complicated movies from the great directors, so this week the guys are talking Altman's great mysterious trio of complex female centered dramas: 3 Women , Images and That Co...

Michelle is back again and she and Jason are once again discussing the brilliant films of the great Billy Wilder. This time they discuss the films which feature Marilyn Monroe. There's no question that Some Like It Hot is one of the greatest comedies of all time, a delirious, delightful, dizzy masterpiece of sheer lunacy. In other words, Jason and Michelle liked it. They also look at The Seven...

Paul and Shawn are back to continue our look at the movies in the Alien and Predator franchise. This week we're stuck looking at two of the most infamous movies of their era, Aliens vs Predator and Aliens vs Predator: Requiem . Can the guys who found goodness in the Twilight films find things to like in this one? You might be surprised to learn the answer is actually yes! Tune in and see if yo...

Eric and Jason have been discussing some complicated and depressing movies, so they felt like it was time to take a mental break and talk about two classics from Woody Allen, Purple Rose of Cairo and Zelig . Coming in the middle of perhaps Allen's richest and finest era, both movies take on ideas of identity, fiction versus reality, and fame in ways completely unique to Allen. In other words,...

Michelle is back, which means it's time to talk Billy Wilder again. This time the pair discuss the films Wilder made with the luminous Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina and Love in the Afternoon . As it turns out, these films have more in common than just their lead actress and they're a perfect contrast thematically and emotionally for each other. As always, Michelle and Jason dig deep and have som...

Eric is back with some more fascinating recommendations among Japanese directors. This week the guys start their look at the films of   Keisuke Kinoshita with a shared look at Twenty Four Eyes and The River Fuefuki . Both are intriguing, deeply heartfelt looks at the ravages of war and time on small Japanese societies. Both are worthy of deep discussion. And both stirred up real passions for both...

Paul and Shawn are back! And we're continuing our discussion of the Predator series with two of the best movies of the series, Prey and Killer of Killers . Will the guys all agree on a movie for a change? Will they look forward to, or dread, Predator: Badlands ? Tune in to this fun show and find out!

Michelle is back to continue our look at the films directed by the great Billy Wilder. This time, we look at the film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and the film which should have won the award: the slightly less classic "problem drama" The Lost Weekend and the truly classic prototypical film noir Double Indemnity. Michelle and Jason both did their research on both films, w...

It's finally happened: after watching all 31 films in the long career of the movie master Masahiro Shinoda, Jason and Eric have finally had a chance to get together and compare notes on the man, his filmography and where he stands in the pantheon of great directors. And the answer, after all this work is: yes. Yes, indeed, Masahiro Shinoda is a director unlike any other and a man who deserves to b...

Paul and Shawn are back to continue our exploration of the Predator franchise. This time, the not very well loved Predators and The Predator . You might say Richard Rodriguez and Shane Black didn't deliver great Predator movies, but we make the counterarguments here - Shawn especially thinks The Predator is really not too bad... join us and see if Shawn makes his case well...

Jason's been fascinated all over again by a rewatch of the HBO Max series Irma Vep, So Keith proposed to Jason they watch several other great Olivier Assayas films, including Personal Shopper, Summer Hours and Clouds of Sils Maria , each a more stunning work of comic art than the one that came before it. Give a listen to the guys rhapodize about some of the finest films of the millennium.

Shawn and Paul are back to continue our discussion of the best of 1990s action films. This time the guys discuss Predator and Predator 2 . One is a true classic, the other is a strange oddball 90s action flick, full of contradictory ideas but which is ultimately kind of fascinating. Join the guys as they try to untangle all the threads on these wild and often awesome films.

Paul Moyer joins Jason to discuss two paranoid thrillers of the 1970s. The Parallax View and All the President's Men are dark looks at America's secret, terrible underbelly. Both directed by the great Alan J. Pakula in the early '70s, these films are just as spooky and compelling today as the day they were first made. Join Jason and Paul for an intriguing 50-minute, SPOILER FILLED look...

Michele is back again as she and Jason continue their journey into the films of the great Billy Wilder. This time they look at one of his greatest, most popular and most profound films, Sunset Boulevard (1950), and plumb so much of its hidden depth. Along with that, Michele and Jason take a look at a much deeper cut in Wilder's catalog: Fedora (1978), the shaggy-dog, slightly misbegotten appro...

Sometimes the least watched movies reveal the most information about a director. Such is the case with two of the final films by the great Masahiro Shinoda, Spy Sorge and Moonlight Serenade . Eric and Jason watch both these films and find them to be tremendously watchable and kind of brilliantly made. Listen in and get the argument for you to add these to your exploration of Japanese cinema.