Random Acts of Cinema

Who would have thought that 23 years later we'd be having a conversation about how a Jim Jarmusch film starring Forest Whitaker as a samurai hitman for the mafia actually… holds up?  Luckily we are joined by artist Alexandra Mavrikis to help us make sense of this puzzling realization. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Richard Linklater's  Boyhoo...

Director Mira Nair plots a winding trajectory from Idi Amin's forced removal of Asians from Uganda in 1973 to the struggles of a small-time owner-operator carpet cleaner in 90s Mississippi. All this serves as a foundation for a culture clash romance struggling to blossom amidst the demands and expectations of southern African-American identity and a very specific form of an Indian immigrant experi...

Max Ophüls' La Ronde presents a world governed by the routines, negotiations, and hypocrisies of desire. Behaviors argued as so central to human experience, that this ensemble film, set in turn-of-the-century Vienna, exposes how the hidden mechanisms of storytelling reenforce and perpetuate the forever-repeating patterns of conquest and betrayal. The narratives are found in poetry, plays, and even...

Thank God that Peaches Christ and Michael Varrati of the  Midnight Mass podcast joined us for our third jump into the works of John Waters.  Otherwise our conversation would lack a noticeable measure of knowledge, context, insight, wit, and depth.  Which is what this film deserves. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Max Ophüls'  La Ronde  (1950).

This week's guest Robert Saucedo, film-buyer of The Alamo Drafthouse, welcomes us to mid-80s, small-town Texas as commented upon by Talking Heads lyrics and the deadpan, obliquely humorous observations of David Byrne.  John Goodman heads a cast of highly idiosyncratic, so-weird-they're-normal/so-normal-they're-weird characters honoring the state's sesquicentennial by putting on their own "Celebrat...

Oops! We uploaded the wrong audio file this morning! To those of you who thought we recorded "an avant-garde art piece": we apologize. We've since fixed it and this new version should make a little more sense. Anyway… Guillermo del Toro's devastating mash-up of children caught in the brutality of a Spanish Civil War-period thriller with the high-concept visuals of a supernatural presence has all o...

The devil walks among us!  And his name is… Chris Cooper?  That can't be right.  Find out the real name of Satan by listening to our thoughts on John Sayles' period drama about the fight for labor rights between 1920s West Virginian coal miners and the company men sent to put sow discord and drive out union members by any means necessary. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will...

Beatlemania is both plot device and backdrop in first-time director Robert Zemeckis' period comedy about a cluster of Jersey teens screaming and shenanigan-ing around New York City in pursuit of the Fab Four on the day of their generation-defining appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.   If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Guillermo del Toro's The De...

This week we are joined by Cameron Kunzelman of  Just King Things ,  Game Studies Study Buddies , and a host of other podcast projects as part of  Ranged Touch  in order to break down the layers of perceived reality in David Fincher's mind-bending Michael Douglas-led thriller.  Or does Cameron only think he's participating in a harmless movie podcast?  Wait a minute… is  The Game  even in the Crit...

With his ensemble album smash hit Buena Vista Social Club musician Ry Cooder introduced the world to a generation of twentieth-century Cuban musicians made obscure by time, trends, and world politics. Then he worked with past collaborator director Wim Wenders, returning to Havana, to put these talented performers on the big screen. An array of talented characters tell their own stories and showcas...

It's time for our annual review of the highs and lows of a bunch of movies picked by a random number generator.  And it turns out that this system really paid off this year, bringing us a truly eclectic list of memorable, challenging, and occasionally delightful Criterion films.  But which of these select few will go home with a coveted Randy award? If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's fil...

Briana and Maddy of the Chapter One: Take Two podcast join us this week to discuss director René Clair's screwball jaunt through the centuries as a mischievous and thoroughly evil witch (Veronica Lake) and her father (Cecil Kellaway) plot to torment the modern-day descendent (Frederick March) of the pilgrim who burned them at the stake.  With his political future, public reputation, impending marr...

This week we are joined by Michael Patrick Jann, director of the upcoming film Organ Trail and member of The State, to watch John Hughes' all-time classic teen drama  The Breakfast Club .  We talk a little about fashion, a little about lunch, and a lot about the ego, Jungian self, and gestalt therapy.  And, it should be said, crass sex jokes. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we w...

Dan Connell from the Cinderella Storiez podcast brings us a moving documentary that is - at first glance - about skateboarding in Rockford Illinois. But being made from footage gathered for years by seldom-on-screen director Bing Liu, Minding the Gap turns into a surprisingly gentle exploration of young men finding their path's forward as they confront their experiences with domestic abuse.   If y...

Things get decidedly erotically unrestrained in Nagisa Oshimi's tale of a maid and her employer's headlong dive into sex and obsession in 1930s Tokyo.  And who better to have an open and mindful discussion about kinks and boundaries that with Kevin Allison of Risk! the podcast and comedy group The State. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Bing Li...

We're joined this week by Richard and AJ of the  Cult Popture podcast to try to wrap our heads around all things Wes Anderson: symmetrical framing, meticulous production design, quirky soundtracks, the inevitable backlash, and the even more inevitable enduring love (some of us have) of his films.  And what better way to start this with the Gene Hackman-led ensemble that is  The Royal Tenenbaums ....

Things aren't quite what they seem in the old childhood home of recently married ace reporter Mortimer Brewster's (Cary Grant) old house over in Brooklyn.  It turns out that his sweet spinster aunts have been poisoning lonely old men and burying them in the basement.  Frank Capra's cherished adaptation of the hit stage comedy set the tenor for the ghoulish/cute aesthetic that rings so true with se...

A Marlon Brando western?  Directed by… [checks notes]… Marlon Brando?!!  Get ready for a wild ride of betrayal, passion, quick-draw dive-jumps, a fair amount of mumbling dialogue, and a whole lot of handsome.  But enough about us, let's talk about the movie… If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing Frank Capra's  Arsenic and Old Lace  (1944).

How many times do you think that Mike will bring up Serge Gainsbourg in an episode about a movie that has nothing to do with him?  The answer is one more than the amount of times that Charlie all-too-casually mentions second-wave feminism.  This must mean that we are watching Brigitte Bardot's breakthrough starring vehicle about love, lust, freedom, and the sandy beaches of St. Tropez. If you'd li...

Dudley Murphy's adaptation of this Eugene O'Neill picaresque play follows the tumultuous rise of Pullman porter Brutus Jones, played by the peerless Paul Robeson. We are taken through musically-punctuated examples of the early twentieth-century African American experience until Jones' ambition and hubris drive him to become the despot of a Caribbean island.   If you'd like to watch ahead for next...

On this week's episode, [needle drop: classic Motown song about hanging out with friends] your hosts settle in with couple of old college friends (Shelley and Max of The Spirit Guides Podcast ) in a big house for a couple of days to [needle drop: classic light acid rock song about recording a podcast] watch Lawrence Kasdan's star-studded film and  [needle drop: classic pop song about times going b...

Imagine a time in history where a film about a man losing his job - a job that defines him, giving him pride and respect in his community - explores the desperation and humiliation of demotion but it doesn't end in a bloodbath. Different times. Not that F.W. Murnau's proto-Brazil silent film pulls any punches. If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's film, we will be discussing and reviewing L...

The Hawk is on the loose!  Michael Lehmann's heist-oriented comic action movie is a widely panned example of true 1990s Hollywood excess.  But, what if the hosts of a podcast based on the sophisticated films of the Criterion Collection actually…love the movie?  Look, while this episode begins on the premise of an Aprils Fool's joke, the tone immediately settles on genuine admiration. Also, we reco...

We hope that you're hungry for this week's episode because we're watching Juzo Itami's great cinematic love letter to ramen.  Even more than that, this fantastical narrative jumps between a dizzying array of comic vignettes exploring all things food.  It's a feast of good food, bad food, good manners, bad manners, high cuisine, and road side grub.   If you'd like to watch ahead for next week's fil...

It goes without saying that this is a big one for us.  Akira Kurosawa's classic tale of peasants-seek-samurai/samurai-get-crew-together/samurai-kill-bandits is both a highly influential titan in 20th-century cinema and perhaps one of the most defining films of the Criterion Collection.  But will our episode attain similar lofty heights among movie podcasts?  Well, Takashi Shimura is standing over...