The Twin Geeks

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A rare convergence of the Samurai and Western genre, embodied by the iconic figures of Toshirô Mifune and Charles Bronson, Red Sun is a fun and adventurous gem set in the style of Spaghetti Westerns which emphasizes the clash of cultures central to the film's main dynamic. Further solidifying this universal sentiment is the credibility of British director Terence Young, famous for spearheading...

The family friendly and homogenous branding of the Disney corporation wouldn't seem to be the best fit for a visionary and singular surrealist filmmaker like David Lynch, but at the end of the previous millennium, he did in fact partner up with the now domineering conglomerate to make an understated yet classically Lynchian film about a man traversing the American Midwest to make amends with h...

With the downbeat, somber setting of mid-Depression Era America juxtaposed with the contagiously humorous nature of the relationship between a dopey con man and a firecracker young girl who may be his daughter, director Peter Bogdanovich mines a heart-warming and hilarious adventure through the past, utilizing all his signature talents at the height of his powers during the peak of his New Hollywo...

Orson Welles' messy, bungled, chopped-up masterpiece of Film Noir is rife with provocative imagery and surreal storytelling techniques that stand out as some of the best exhibited in the genre, despite all efforts at the hands of studio meddling (the eternal Wellsian curse) to strip away the genius that defined his films. The story behind the making of The Lady from Shanghai is equally as fasc...

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With a recent uptick in period dramas taking hold of public interest recently, with the likes of Little Women (2019) and the newly released Emma being of particular note, we are fondly reminded of one of our favorite films from 2018: Yorgos Lanthimos' star-studded crass beauty, The Favourite. The hilarious battle between Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz for the heart of Olivia Coleman's Queen A...

The third collaboration between real life Hollywood couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and the first of Bogie's films covered here on our podcast, is the little known but marvelously entertaining Dark Passage. What starts out as a singular gimmick thriller, where Bogart's escaped criminal is disguised in shadows and a unique first-person perspective approach to the cinematography, e...

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Last week, the last of Classic Hollywood's great leading men passed away. At 103, Kirk Douglas had a hell of a life, and one of the most impressive resumes of the era. We honor his memory this week by looking back to one of the defining performances of his career, and one of the finest War Films ever made. Roger Ebert once proclaimed that there has never been a War Film that didn't glorify...

With the Oscars approaching this coming Sunday, and a slew of deserving films up for the big award, we found it only fitting to highlight not only one of the best of the bunch this week, but also the greatest stand-out from the pack in the form of the biggest non-English language film that has a real chance at taking the top prize. South Korean auteur Bong Joon-Ho gave what many consider his spraw...

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Last week, the great American screenwriter Buck Henry sadly passes away. He gave us many classics over the years, but none as iconic and game-changing as Mike Nichols' seminal coming of age film, The Graduate. The film that launched Dustin Hoffman's career and a renewed sexual interest in middle-aged women everywhere, The Graduate is unquestionably a leading film in defining the 1960s at l...

Timestamps: 0:00 New Years movie resolutions, rental shops, list intro 9:34: 10. Deadwood: The Movie 13:23: 9. Rocketman 19:25: 8. Ad Astra 25:23: 7. Little Women 29:26: 6. Uncut Gems 34:43: 5. Knives Out 39:29: 4. Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood 46:04: 3. Parasite 56:19: 2. The Irishman 1:00:50: 1. The Lighthouse A production of The Twin Geeks | Join our Discord

Who doesn't fondly remember Christmases of yore where the entire family would huddle around the television for an annual viewing of the Michael Keaton snowman movie... Nobody? Just me? Whether it's for the irony of it all or our [Editor's note: David's] genuine nostalgic fondness, we're revisiting this childhood favorite that most have probably chosen to forget. We've duste...

Timestamps: 0:00: SFCS 2019 Awards 9:55: The media takedown of Richard Jewell 16:49: The media takedown of Bombshell 20:30: The way Uncut Gems is a dope, great movie, and our top and bottom Sandlers 27:15: The spectacular cinematography of 1917 32:46: The Searchers A production of The Twin Geeks | Join our Discord

From the evolved college film that started it all to his most recent gangster opus, Martin Scorsese has proven himself to be one of the most important and influential directors of our times. A leading member of the 70s New Hollywood movement, Scorsese’s films have paved the way and stood the test of time. Even now, some 50 years after making his first film, he’s still churning out grand works that...

Still not satiated after the Thanksgiving holiday, we return with our eyes still fixated on food, movie food specifically. Actor/director Jon Favreau gave us one of the most heart-warming and plate-warming food movies in recent memory this decade. The story of a renowned chef leaving his stuffy restaurant job to find satisfaction in the independent circuit of the food truck market mirrored his own...

There is perhaps no more an iconic film than that of Stanley Kubrick's zeitgeist-capturing adaptation of Stephen King's classic novel. King famously hates the liberties Kubrick took with his material, but no one has been able to deny the technical genius that motivates the film, or its legacy for that matter. The Shining is one of the most enduring films of all popular culture, both for it...

Expedient repartee is one of the major hallmarks of any screwball comedy classic, and director Howard Hawks was the undisputed king of prose. His work in the 1930s already consisted of major screwball classics  Twentieth Century (1934), with John Barrymore and Carole Lombard, and  Bringing Up Baby  (1938), another collaboration with the ineffable Cary Grant. But  His Girl Friday takes the cake not...

We return again to the Western genre, this time turning away from the more traditional and classic choices to the wildly revisionist world of Robert Altman. After the smash success of his 1970 anti-war film MASH, Altman sought to bring his unique perspective to many different genres, beginning with what he would dub his "anti-Western". McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a poetic but unflinching l...

Last year, we kicked off  The Twin Geeks   with a review of last year's reboot of the  Halloween franchise from David Gordon Green, also titled  Halloween (2018). To celebrate our 50th installment, as well as giving the Halloween season a proper send-off, we're dedicating this last October podcast to the original slasher classic that has come to define the spooky season best, as well as th...

Universal Studios was saved from almost complete failure when, in 1931, an A-Picture adaptation of a horror play made Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi an instant icon, followed immediately by the star-making role of a re-animated Goliath of a corpse played by Boris Karloff decimated the box office that same year. Dracula and Frankenstein remain two of the most iconic monsters ever created for the silve...

Francis Ford Coppola's gothic masterwork saw a return to form for the director after the downfall of the studio system renaissance of the 1970s. This return to grand-scale, operatic filmmaking remains a seminal adaptation of Bram Stoker's famous novel, and perhaps the best yet realized. It's certainly the most faithful, opting to include as much detail of the various encounters with th...

It's the spookiest time of the year, and to kick it off we're starting with a lighthearted classic. The endless debate of The Nightmare Before Christmas is whether it's more of a Christmas movie or one for Halloween. We're here to say, why can't it be both? Tim Burton's definitive work (despite not directing it himself) remains a mainstay of our cultural zeitgeist. It's...