Jason and the Movienauts

Paul and Shawn are back to talk about cinema's best loved aliens, well, the Alien franchise. Join the guys for two hours of chat about whether Prometheus is deep or pretentious, about whether Covenant is a good film, and especially abouy how amazing Michael Fassbender is onscreen.

Blaize is back one more time to talk Paul Schrader with Jason. This time the guys go deep into their top 11 favorite films Schrader directed. There are some major disagreements here, which of course makes for great listening. Please let us know how you enjoy, and share your lists with us!

Blaize and Jason worked our wat through all the films directed by Paul Schrader. So to sum the effort up, we had to rate his films from worst to best. This week: part one of that rating. There's a few surprises and disagreements in here and we'd love to hear your opinions on these films too!

Shawn and Paul are back again to continue out look at the Aliens series of films, this time to look at Aliens3 and Aliens: Resurrection . Knowing what a fan the guys are of the movies, it's no surprise they have a lot of praise for these two films. But do they stand up to rewatch? And what do we think of the alien baby in Resurrection anyway?

Michelle is back for yet another fantastic discussion of films directed by the great Billy Wilder. This time she and Jason discuss two woefully underrated films in Wilder's auspicious filmography, Five Graves to Cairo and A Foreign Affair . The friends discuss the excellent way Wilder portrays gender, the depiction of history as it happens, why sometimes it's better to cast relative unknow...

Paul and Shawn are back to start a new series, this time examining the Aliens franchise. And what better films to start with than two of the greatest science fiction films ever, Alien and Aliens . As usual the guys dig deep into the films for a sometimes wild and always freewheeling chat about some brilliant moments on the screen.

Fans often sleep on the late films of Hiroshi Teshigahara , the man who directed Woman in the Dunes and The Face of Another . But, as guest Eric reminds us, Teshigahara's late films are equally as powerful. Rikyu and Basara: The Princess Goh represent a magnificent and unexpected late career peak from the master filmmaker. They are the kinds of masterful films one would expect from a Kurosawa...

Michele joins Jason again for a new project: a look at the films of the great Billy Wilder. This week the pair discuss several films Wilder co-wrote before he took up the directing reigns: Ball of Fire, Arise My Love, Ninotchka and more -- and find them to all be pretty special films. We think you'll enjoy the insight the pair bring, and have fun thinking through your own watch of these sublim...

Eric is back and this time he and Jason are talking about the brilliant short films of Hiroshi Teshigahara (or at least the ones which are actually available). Teshigahara⁠ may be best known for his features like The Face of Another and Woman in the Dunes , but his short subjects are beautiful meditations on art and the power of the arts. As usual, Jason and Eric connect the dots and really bring...

Michelle is back to conclude our conversation about the remarkable films of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, this time with looks at the brilliant A Matter of Life and Death and Thief of Bagdad. Then it's time for the really good stuff as each of us rate the P&P films - and agree on our top choice. As always, we think this is a fun and interesting listen.

Eric is back again. He and Jason got to chatting about David Lynch and his brilliant legacy, and got on the topic of how Lynch's Lost Highway is an examination of the legacy of the OJ trial. They got onto the idea of other films which discuss the Simpson story and talked about Natural Born Killers as well. Turns out the two movies created a fascinating contrast and a good conversation about tw...

Paul and Shawn are back again, ready to conclude our look at Twin Peaks: the Return . If you've been following our discussions, you know these pods have been in-depth, thoughful and long. This episode might set our record in all three categories: the guys go deep into the conclusion, tie many pieces together and spend lots of time considering the details and implications of what we watched. We...

Shawn and Paul are back to talk to Jason about their mutual love for David Lynch and his vastly wonderful body of work. Then the guys sit down for a nearly two-hour discussion of Twin Peaks the Return episodes 13, 14 and 15. They chat aboiut the films with their usual mix of awe and irreverence, mixed with a bunch of insights and even more laughs.

Blaize is back to get close to the end of our conversations aout the films directed by Paul Schrader. This time we're looking at two of his most recent films, Master Gardener and The Card Counter . These are part of his "lonely man in a room" trilogy with First Reformed , but are they are fulfilling and poweful as that previous film? The guys debate the films' complexity and powe...

Eric is back for a continuation of the exhaustive look at the films of Masahiro Shinoda. We've gone some 20-plus films deep on Shinoda's filmography, and are still finding hidden gems in his catalog. This time, Shinoda's "island" films, with <i>Island of the Evil Spirits</i> and <i>Captive's Island</i>, two films with excellent cinematography and a...

Carlos is back after a long break. This time rather than talk about the latest MCU movie which makes him sad, Carlos and Jason talk about the Brad Pitt/George Clooney movie Wolfs . Jason is initially skeptical of the film, but Carlos fell hard for the fun ideas behind this film and the clockwork way the plot starts to fall into place. In fact, this is a movie which might persuade Carlos to watch m...

Michelle is back to continue her exploration with Jason of the films of Michael Powell - this time without his longtime partner Emeric Pressburger. What sorts of things does Powell create without his longtime partner? One of the things he delivers is the deeply upsetting and strange Peeping Tom , a movie much scathed when it was first released but which has re-emerged into public esteem. Jason erc...

Michelle is back again to continue our discussion of the beautiful films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This time we look at perhaps P&P at their most exquisite, as we discuss how The Red Shoes , The Tales of Hoffmann and Bluebeard's Ghos t all appeal to us, who aren't opera or ballet fans but who love a beautiful film. The big surprise for us was Bluebeard's Ghost , a s...

Shawn, Paul and Jason got together before the untimely passing of David Lynch for their latest discussion of his final major project: Twin Peaks the Return. This time the guys talk episodes 10, 11 and 12. I think you can hear our love for the film master in every word we say on the pod, as we celebrate Lynch's unique genius for sound, script, video and collaboration. We will sorely miss him and ho...

Jason is a huge Bob Dylan fan and is wrestling with his complicated feelings after watching A Complete Unknown . Keith heard Jason's hand-wringing about the film and suggested that he and Jason discuss this film in conjunction with another Mangold biopic, Walk the Line , and try to find some kind of truth in the way untruths are shown on the screen. This ended up being a fascinating discussion, de...

Eric is back this week and the guys are delving deep again into some wildly existentia list Japanese police films. This week: A Man Vanishes and The Man without a Map , two films which as fascinating and complex questions about the nature of reality and fiction, about truth and artifice, and about Japanese society in the 60s. As always when Jason and Eric talk for Movienauts , the conversation get...

Michelle is back to hang out again with Jason and discuss the amazing films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This time they look at a great combination of classic and obscure P&P films, all of which have to do in some way with war and its impact on people: 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and The Small Back Room . The pair get into a discussion of the complex ways P&...

Paul, Shawn and Jason have masde it to perhaps the greatest episode of TV ever created, specifically Twin Peaks the Return episode 8. The guys go deep into the analysis of this episode, and Jason, at least, had his mind blown by a few of the ideas and insights Shawn shared. As if that's not enough, the guys go deep into all these episodes, with some really intriguing textual and metatextual analys...

The Schradercast has walked some interesting ground in its previous 9 episodes, but this time Blaize and Jason have hit the most interesting ground so far, with two diametrically opposite films which provide a fascinating contrast for each other. First, Dog Eat Dog a hyperkinetic nihilistic Nic Cage/Willem Dafoe crime thriller. Next, First Reformed , a highly considered and deeply fascinating Etha...

Eric is back as he and Jason continue their look at the films of the Japanese master Teshigahara. This time, the lovely and lyrical Ako and the deeply complex The Face of Another . The guys really wrestle with Face and come out of the film with more questions than they went in with, but that kind of suits the film!