The Gauntlet

No Greater Glory (1934) / My Little Loves (1974) This week we’re storming the trenches of childhood as we discuss Jean Eustache’s little loves and the little rascals of Frank Borzage’s turf war

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) / Halloween Resurrection (2002) This week we take the stand to defend a pair of maligned sequels as we discuss the heresies of John Boorman’s arthouse exorcism & Rick Rosenthal’s dangertainment for a new millennium

La Fin Du Monde (1931) / Yakuza Apocalypse (2015) This week it’s the end of the world as we discuss the excessive and apocalyptic visions of Abel Gance and Takashi Miike

Stalin (1992) / Stemple Pass (2012) This week we’re looking for love in all the wrong places as we confront two notorious bad boys in Ivan Passer’s sweeping HBO biopic of Stalin and James Benning’s durational landscape portrait of the Unabomber

Salto (1965) / Clearcut (1991) This week we got kidnapped by Graham Greene and led astray by Zbigniew Cybulski as we discuss two confrontational films by Polish directors in which there is no escaping the past

10 - Eight Men Out (1988) / Finding Buck McHenry (2000) This week we’re talkin’ baseball as we discuss John Sayles’ historical investigation of the 1919 Black Sox scandal and Charles Burnett’s children’s book adaptation about a Negro Leagues legend hiding in plain sight

9 - Haunted Honeymoon (1986) / Honeymoon (1998) This week wedding bells are in the air as we send Ryan off on his honeymoon by discussing a comedy chiller by Gene Wilder and a chaste marriage cringefest by Dan Sallitt

8 - Stormy Weather (1943) / Calamity Jane (1953) This week’s episode is 100% all talking! all singing! all dancing! as we tap our way through two golden age musicals: an all-black wartime musical revue and biopic from 20th Century Fox and a postwar western musical with a woman’s touch from Warner Bros.

7 - A Question of Silence (1982) / The Slumberparty Massacre (1982) It’s murder she wrote this week with a dastardly pairing not even Jessica Fletcher could have dreamt up as we discuss Marleen Gorris’ riveting crime deconstruction and Amy Jones’ slasher classic

6 - The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961) / Land of the Dead (2005) This week we go beyond the trilogy to find out what happens when a series reaches its 4th installment as we discuss George Romero’s 21st century return to the Dead series and how producer Artur Brauner jazzed up Dr. Mabuse after Fritz Lang left the arena

5 - Caught (1949) / Martha (1974) This week we got caught up in a couple of bad romances as we discuss two melodramas with sadistic marriages from our German friends that love tracking shots, Max Ophüls and Rainer Werner Fassbinder

4 - Independence Day (1996) / Rhapsody in August (1991) Summertime is here and we’re going nuclear as we discuss Roland Emmerich’s blustering end of history sci-fi blockbuster and Akira Kurosawa’s multigenerational family drama and elegy to the bomb

92 in the Shade (1975) / Orca (1977) This week we packed up our rods and harpoons and cast off for Key West and Newfoundland to discuss man’s favorite sport in Thomas McGuane’s sun-baked bummer and Dino De Laurentiis’ whale revenge epic

Reign of Terror aka The Black Book (1949) / Maa Bhoomi (1979) The forces of revolution are unleashed as we discuss Anthony Mann’s (counter) revolutionary film noir and Ghotam Ghose’s rousing tale of the Telangana peasant rebellion

The Hunter (1980) / Above the Law (1988) It’s Steve vs. Steve on the very first episode of The Gauntlet as we discuss Chicago movies and the birth and death of two action stars