The Rolling Tape

Horror films have historically acted as artistic expressions and reflections of internal fears within the society of the time it was made. In essence, they show us what we fear the most as a product of the society and culture we live in, and act as the medium for illuminating these fears. In this History of Horror double feature discussion, we will analyze two films, The Thing (1982) and Train to...

Park Chan-wook is one of South Korea’s most prolific filmmaking auteurs, and he is back with his first film in six years with Decision to Leave starring Park Hae-il and Tang Wei at the center of a romantic crime thriller. The director is best known for his use of graphic violence depicted primarily within the thriller genre, but we examine how this film stands out from his previous work and builds...

The “Obsessed Artist” is a character we have seen portrayed throughout the history of cinema. The character strives to perfect their craft by any means necessary, often leading to their own mental, psychological, and physical self-destruction. The story can be both aspirational and dangerous, as the obsession for perfection comes with consequences. Black Swan and Whiplash embody the “Obsessed Arti...

With the wrap of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, the People’s Choice award results are one of the first key festival precursors that launch us into awards season. We discuss the impact of this announcement along with other Oscar updates including Universal’s decision to campaign Michelle Williams for Best Lead Actress along with announcements for international feature submissions. We...

Animation is a medium that can sometimes be overlooked for its cinematic value in comparison to live-action films, but it is actually an art form that presents creative opportunities for unique stories to be told. In this episode, we discuss two films that utilize animation in unique ways to enhance the filmmaker’s vision. The first is Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and the second is Marc...

As the fall festival season hits full gear, we revisit Venice to break down their award winners while also looking at first reactions from the films that premiered at TIFF and Telluride before looking ahead at NYFF to close out the major festival season. With eyes now on many major contenders, we lay out some of our first major Oscar predictions and how festival news has shifted the awards season...

For our first double feature review, we are looking at low-budget filmmaking through the lens of two films, the first chosen by The Rolling Tape team, Barry Jenkins’ 2016 Best Picture-winning film, Moonlight , and the second selected by our listeners, The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Both films are early directorial entries that tell intimate, personal stories under a $2 million budget. We dis...

From the “Mad Genius of George Miller,” this week we take a look at the recent release, Three Thousand Years of Longing starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Along with covering this new release, we discuss industry news from the past couple of weeks including the opening of the Venice International Film Festival, the headlines surrounding Don’t Worry Darling and the controversy with Shia Lebeouf...

On the first episode of The Rolling Tape podcast, we introduce the team and review the 2022 film from the Daniels and distributed by A24, Everything Everywhere All At Once. The visionary film took the theater landscape by storm earlier this year, surprising everyone with its box office success that led to becoming A24’s highest-grossing film to date. In this episode, we discuss everything from the...