The Latecomers

Show Notes It’s our 300th episode and we’re talk babies – how they’re made, how they’re gestated, and how they’re raised – especially when dad’s the devil with Rosemary’s Baby from 1968. The casual spousal rape, the not so casual demonic rape, Mia Farrow is asked to go through so much in this film and may not get enough credit for any of it. Also, is John Cassavetes a monster? Is Ruth Gordon? And...

Show Notes Free Palestine   We watched the last adventure movie of the thrills list and the first of an enduring franchise – Raiders of the Lost Ark starring Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, and directed by Stephen Spielberg. A desert shoot in 130 degree temperatures and an epidemic of amoebic dysentery along with just the barest bones of a script still couldn’t stop this movie being made. Camp at...

Show Notes Free Palestine We stand with SAG-AFTRA   It’s our last revisit of the series – we talk about the inclusion of and placement in the AFI thrills list of The Godfather. Is it thrilling? Listen to see what we think and then listen to one of our very early episodes – can you believe we’ve been doing this for 5 years? Us either. Take a listen as Amity talks about a movie she didn’t see until...

Show Notes Free Palestine We stand with SAG-AFTRA   Once upon a time there was a big ape who just wanted to be alone on his island to fight with dinosaurs. But people came and built a big wall. It was okay because they gave him delicious women. But one day a new type of people came and their woman was a curious new kind. As he is trying to understand his new friend, the ape is attacked and capture...

Show Notes Free Palestine We stand with SAG-AFTRA   Modern gangsters Bonnie and Clyde are brought to life (and death) by Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway this week in the eponymous Bonnie and Clyde from 1967. Not Amity’s favorite – thanks to the French New Wave influence and a dislike for Faye Dunaway generally – we dig into the hows and whys of the making of this film and all of the concessions mad...

Show Notes We stand with SAG-AFTRA   Let’s go a peeping – we watched 1954’s Rear Window directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Jimmy Stewart is redeemed – moving from deeply creepy to mildly and situationally creepy, but also clearly a good man as Grace Kelly loves him. We meet the cast of characters – even more than our protagonists ever do, discuss Edith Head’s genius costuming, Raymond Burr’s canned hai...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with SAG-AFTRA Content warning: Sexual Assault We revisit our episode on Deliverance from 1972 – a prime example of 70’s grit, when the men were tough but the movies were tougher. Buckle into your canoes because we’re going where no one wants us – right into a men’s getaway from hell. But we’ll make it fun, we swear. Next up: Rear Window (1958) Email us...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with SAG-AFTRA Content warning: We do speak about the Polanski of it all. We have indicated with time stamps when that occurs. There is also incestual sexual assault referred to in this film so if you want to skip this one, we get it and we’ll see you next week. This week we’re discussing a masterpiece of neo noir, 1974’s Chinatown. The lighting, the pac...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   This week, we get to Lemuel’s favorite (if we go by number of times he has mentioned it this series), 1962 John Frankenheimer mind-freak The Manchurian Candidate. We try to make it make sense without getting too lost in the twists and turns. We talk about the surprising performances, the fascinating directorial choices and th...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   Hold on to something because we’ve got Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1958 thriller. We have seen a number of Hitchcock films up to this point and have quite a few left, but this feels like a pivot point. Amity comes to this fresh with a sixty year head start and really has some hang ups – largely around a tarnished lov...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   It’s a war movie AND a prison break movie – what’s not to love – we watched The Great Escape from 1963. We get our third and final Steve McQueen film and he doesn’t disappoint from his baseball to his motorcycle riding. We also have one of the largest and most talented casts we are going to see in this list. Do they get out?...

Show Notes Sadly still applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   It’s a whole different vibe this week as we move from a film with no heroes to a film with one of the prototypical heroes of Hollywood with Gary Cooper starring in 1952’s High Noon. Unable to walk away for multiple reasons and surrounded by surprising and remarkably well-drawn women, Cooper’s Marshal Will Kane is faced with t...

Show Notes Still Applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   We watched the movie that traumatized Amity when she was absolutely too young to have anything to do with it, A Clockwork Orange directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. We discuss the role of women, the torture that Kubrick puts his actors under, use of language, and how something can be beautiful and horrifying all at once.   Recomme...

Show Notes Still Applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   We go back in time to revisit Taxi Driver – definitely a more thrilling Scorsese film than Raging Bull. We chatted about this film five years ago, so here it is again, with an addendum re: how thrilling it is (spoiler: pretty damn thrilling).   “Amity and Lemuel find out the difference between porn films and date movies. We also sw...

Show Notes Still Applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   Buckle in, it’s an epic that lives up to its name: the 210 minute Lawrence of Arabia directed by David Lean. We discuss how a man can be an enigma even when his story is based on his own autobiography and how four hours can leave us with no real idea of the protagonist’s motivation. We also talk about the awards it won and the awar...

Show Notes Still Applicable: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA   Up this week is an insurance fraud movie hidden within a murder story – Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder early in his career. We’ve got it all – comedian in a dramatic role, half nude femme fatale, a concerned daughter who never comes on to the main character, an insurance fraud plot and a man with a small man in his stoma...

Show Notes First and foremost: We stand with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA This week we watched modern classic, James Cameron’s first most expensive film ever made: 1997’s Titanic. We talk who’s real and who isn’t, chemistry, the vileness of Billy Zane, a lack of humility and humanity among explorers generally, both in fiction and outside of it, and whether or not there was room on that door. Recommendati...

Show Notes It’s time for another noir with a prototypical McGuffin – 1941’s Maltese Falcon featuring the crackling dialog of Dashiell Hammett. Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre make their first film all together, pitted against each other in the search for the titular bejeweled bird. Complete with a disarming dame, easily disarmed villains and so many twists you might forget a whole boat burns up.   R...

Show Notes We tackle a film that has been discussed by every other person on the planet it seems – Star Wars from 1977 (via 1997). We don’t go through the plot – because you’ve seen it. Instead, we have a discussion about how it fits into cinema in general, auteur directors, producers and their roles, the disappointing men of the series, method acting, and all manner of other threads it inspires....

Show Notes This week, Lemuel leads our discussion of Fatal Attraction because Amity just can’t. We discuss how at 37 Alex can get so bent out of shape over a man, the original ending, and why they leave so many things unanswered – what ever happened to Madame Butterfly, for instance.   Next up: Star Wars (1977)   Email us at latecomers@gmail.com Twitter: @latecomerspod Find Amity @ www.amityarmstr...

Show Notes We revisit our episode from early last season to discuss Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic, 1980’s The Shining. We discuss how well it fits into the AFI thrills list, how it fits into the horror genre overall and then we replay our episode from early in last season – our retrospective of all of the Stephen King adaptations.   Next up: Fatal Attraction (1987)   Email us at latecomers@gmai...

Show Notes It’s time for us to revisit a dark war film from the 70s – 1978’s The Deer Hunter. How does it fit into the thrills list and does the idea of thrills from trauma make sense. Then listen to our episode from a few years ago from our decades series (and if you haven’t heard those, you should definitely go back to check them out).   Next up: The Shining (1980)   Email us at latecomers@gmail...

Show Notes We watch the other 1977 sci-fi classic, Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. How does Roy’s fanaticism work against him and how do Dreyfuss’s current views taint his performances? How do they think five notes is all we need to know? Did humans agree to the prior abductions? Why are Roy and his wife together? Should they make a sequel? There are a lot of questions – se...

Show Notes This week we have another Hitchcock classic – 1951’s Strangers on a Train. Amity struggled to find a character to connect to and Lemuel understood innately the idea of being “someone who does things.” Does Guy kinda get what he deserves since he lays so much emotional labor at the feet of his girlfriend? Maybe? Is that carosel scene an absolute banger? Definitely.   Recommendations: The...

Show Notes It’s a race to the truth with 1993’s third highest grossing film, The Fugitive. Harrison Ford is innocent and Tommy Lee Jones doesn’t care. A wrongful conviction, a train crash, a swan dive, big pharma doing shady business, and of course, a one-armed man make this a non-stop thrill ride.   Recommendations: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Disney +); The Card Counter (Max)   Next up: S...