The Love of Cinema

This week, the boys head to 1949 to check out a classic American adventure heist movie, Raoul Walsh’s “White Heat”! This movie has everything: Train robberies, men hiding in oil trucks, prison breaks, a kingpin who’s a mother, James Cagney as a psychopath. John gets us started with mini-reviews of Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman” and the new hit “Bugonia” by Yorgos Lanthimos. Should Jesse Plemons win...

This week, the boys head back to Roman Polanski-ville for the third time to discuss the pivotal 1965 film “Repulsion”. This “dangerous” film is Polanski’s first English-language movie, shot in London during the peak of the French New Wave (Polanski is a Polish-French filmmaker). “Repulsion” offers indie-film groundedness, a gritty reality, noir-inspired neorealism, and an upheaval of social values...

This week, the boys head to the jungle for one of Amazon Studios’ first films, James Gray’s “The Lost City of Z”. That’s pronounced “Zed” for you British purists. The film stars Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson with a beard and glasses, and Sienna Miller. It was produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B and was SOMEHOW filmed on a $30 million budget, half of which was spent flying the dailies out of the actu...

This week, the boys cover “Fight Club”, the 1999 movie that is both an of-its-time dark satire and a should-have-been-released-in-2025 heat check. Before we dive into it, we need to get drinking! So we discuss the new Paul Thomas Anderson “Dr. Strangelove”-esque gripping satire (maybe?), “One Battle After Another”, the new Daniel Day-Lewis film “Anemone”, directed by his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, and...

This week, the boys talk a lot about the day's events, including the $55B sale of EA, AI “actress” Tilly Norwood, and the incredible year 2002, before getting into our featured conversation about Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Punch Drunk Love”. Check the show notes if you want to scoot ahead to any particular segment of the show!  linktr.ee/theloveofcinema - Check out our YouTube page!  Our phone number...

This week, John and Jeff keep it positive as they cover for Dave while he goes and finds himself to discuss “Leon: The Professional”. The random year generator spun 1994, so we gave a year in review of this crazy film year! First, to get us drinking, we discussed “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and Christopher Nolan taking the helm of the DGA! Grab a beer and join us for this wild ride.  linktr....

This week, the boys head back to 1997 to figure out what the hell is going through David Fincher's head while torturing Michael Douglas in “The Game”. His follow-up to “Alien3” and “Se7en”, as well as lots of peak-MTV music videos, Nolan kept his mystery streak going, and we’re still wondering, what did he want from us? First, after John tells everyone to go see “TWINLESS”, we had some beef to set...

This week, the boys head back to the end to discuss Christopher Nolan’s mind-and-time-melding noir, “Memento”. The random year generator spun 2000, previously visited by us to discuss “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Chopper”, so we recap the film events and world news of the year before getting into our featured conversation. Be sure to listen to John’s mini-review of the fourth “The Conjuri...

This week, we head back to a time of monochrome and unreliable box office receipts to discuss 1935’s “The 39 Steps”. Alfred Hitchcock was 10 years and 22 films deep by this point in his directing career, and really caught his groove, to the point where this film is ranked the #4 British film by the BFI. We’ve talked about the top 3 on the show (1 & 2 in detail), and about 8 Hitchcocks, but gra...

This week, the boys grab some whiskey and beers and head back to 1984 to discuss The Coen Brothers’ first feature film, “Blood Simple”. Previously visited during our trip to “Paris, Texas”, 1984 is an incredible year! We set the scene, talk about the PG-13 rating, which started this year, other favorite movies, and fun facts, and dive into this incredible film! Jeff and John also give brief review...

This week, the boys grab a few beers and head back to 2018 to catch up on what was happening the year “Annihilation” came out, before diving into a discussion about re-watching Alex Garland’s follow-up to his 2015 hit “Ex Machina”. Dave owns the film, John has seen it 3 or 4 times but the time lines get blurred (movie reference), and Jeff hasn’t gone back since his shimmery experience in the cinem...

This week our Queensland-native co-host Dave took us to Victoria with Peter Weir’s “Picnic and Hanging Rock”, the 1975 film that helped launch & internationalize the Australian New Wave of cinema. After John fires off some mini-reviews, we dive into the year’s events of 1975 to help set up this historic film, before diving into a deeper conversation of the film! linktr.ee/theloveofcinema - Che...

This week, the boys fire off about “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and “Happy Gilmore 2” before heading to 1941! The random year generator spoke, and we chose “The Maltese Falcon” for our featured conversation. This is our second John Huston/Humphrey Bogart collaboration after we discussed “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” a few weeks ago!  linktr.ee/theloveofcinema - Check out our YouTube page...

This week, Dave is drinking again! United Airlines will do that to you, even after a 6-month hiatus. After a pair of un-stuffy mini-reviews of “Superman” (2025) and “Eddington”, the boys head back to 2003 to discuss the legendary film year. Our featured conversation is a first-time visit to “House of Sand and Fog”, the Sir Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly, and Shohreh Aghdashloo film, directed by V...

This week, the boys get trippy with the 1980 psychedelic sci-fi transformation drama “Altered States”, a film so divisive that writer Paddy Chayefsky put his three Oscars in a closet and penned his adaptation of his own novel under a pseudonym. The Ken Russell-directed film introduced the film world to William Hurt and let Bob Balaban keep his beard, and it also unleashed Bigfoot on major metropol...

This week, the boys go treasure hunting with John Huston’s 1948 masterpiece “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”. Dave and Jeff hadn’t seen it before, John has seen it several times because he’s a fancy film school nerd bro, so we grab a few whiskeys and beers and talk about it! We also catch up on the California tax credit news for film and entertainment, John gives some spoiler-free mini-reviews o...

This week, the boys discuss the remarkable film year of 1953, the events that transpired around the world in that year, and Fritz Lang’s “The Big Heat”. Perhaps an early trailblazer of the detective-with-a-personal-vendetta genre (is it a film noir???), this fascinating film led to a productive conversation! We drank a bit this week, too. Grab a cold one and listen or watch on YouTube! Our phone n...

This week, the boys head back to 2007 to spin another Roger Deakins film, “No Country For Old Men”, currently streaming on Paramount+. While other shows have covered the film, we shoot from the hip and discuss how it felt to re-watch it and what it means to us. F those other stuffy critic narcs. The cinematographer from Dave’s homeland had a helluva a year with three award-winning films, this one...

This week, the boys pull up their dacks, lace up their blunnies, pull over their cardies, eat a bikkie, grab a tinny, and lob in for the Ridgy Didge himself, Baz Luhrmann’s first feature film, “Strictly Ballroom”. This isn’t any ear bashing- we loved it! It made us three happy little Vegemites. After Jeff gives a quick mini-review of “Mission: Impossible— The Final Reckoning”, our native Aussie an...

The boys head to Japan this week to discuss Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo”. Starring Toshiro Mifune, the film is considered one of the most influential movies of all time. It’s so influential that an entire series of westerns ripped it off so good they couldn’t be released in the US for years due to threats of lawsuits. Anyway, this film is awesome, but did the boys think it stands up to the other Kur...

After Dave treats us to a “Thunderbolts*” mini-review and John discusses “The Accountant 2”, the boys dive into the year 1934 to discuss “The Thin Man”, a film so successful and unique it spawned FIVE sequels and made a dog one of the most famous dogs in cinema history. Written by a husband-and-wife team, “The Thin Man” is a detective “pseudo-comedy” whodunit with tension, laughs, fun, mystery, an...

This week, John was the only one of us who saw “Sinners” on Easter, so he offers a spoiler-free mini-review before the boys get to their featured conversation, “Black Swan”: Films of 2010. The random year generator spun 2010, a repeat for us (The Social Network, Incendies), so we break down the film year, the news year, and dive into a conversation about this psychological thriller that hit three...

This week, the boys stay positive as they take a look at Ridley Scott’s first proper film, “The Duelists,” from 1977! Starring Keith Carradine, Harvey Keitel, and Albert Finney, this self-funded film is stunning to watch, but is it interesting to endure? We drink and discuss! John and Dave also caught “The Amateur” (2025) in the cinema and offer a mini-review before John discusses some upsetting W...

This week, we head to 1964 to discuss John Frankenheimer’s “The Train,” a film that begs the question: How much do train mechanics know about art? Just kidding, it’s an awesome film with Burt Lancaster in the lead performance butting heads with legendary antagonist Paul Scofield as an SS Captain hoping to smuggle French art from Paris to Germany before the Allies liberate France’s capital city. Fo...

This week on the show, Jeff’s audio is crap, but the conversation is great! John kicks us off with a mini-review of Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag”, starring Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender. Once he gives his thoughts, we gripe about filming expenses in LA and the US as a whole and compostables before getting to our featured conversation, “Dial ‘M’ For Murder”, the Alfred Hitchcock classic....