Trylove

“If it was necessary to climb down into hell and wrestle a film out of the claws of the devil,” Werner Herzog once said, “I would do so.” If it was necessary. In FITZCARRALDO, a man whose dream to host opera in the jungle leads him to risk and lose indigenous lives on a harebrained scheme to drag a boat over a mountain – all so he can steal natural resources to fund his manic vision. Its productio...

Klaus Kinski again appears as That Freaky Guy Who Insists On Going To The Jungle, this time portraying Francisco Manoel da Silva (better known by his outlaw codename, “Cobra Verde”), who’s chased there by his plantation owner boss who has no interest in being his father-in-law after Francisco impregnates the baron’s three teenage daughters. Oops! Cobra Verde’s attempts to kickstart the cold engine...

You don’t have to squint to see what AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD is saying about European imperialists hunting for an imaginary city of riches in South America in 1560. It’s saying they’re evil! And stupid! And in that disarming straightforwardness, it’s making an interesting point about what people expect of fiction – of what they expect from movies – and how sometimes, there’s only one right way t...

A strikingly stylized reimagining of the classic creature figure, NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE indicts the driven for the death of passion. Following the broad strokes of F.W. Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror film, Werner Herzog’s late-70s take on the myth paints the titular non-human as a pathetic figure marked more by his maudlin, passionless philosophies than his bloodlust. “Give me some of your lov...

Featuring returning guest Seth Zarate (https://twitter.com/snzarate)! It’s that time of year again: Four of us hit up the fifth annual all-night Horrorthon at the Trylon! Featuring only horror movie sequels, Horrorthon V: Son of Horrorthon was a surprise collection of some real wild choices: PSYCHO II (1983), PHANTASM II (1988), HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982), DAY OF THE DEAD (1985), CR...

When was the last time a movie made you consider who you were before, during, and after watching it? Or where those people came from? Or what you do with those thoughts? The final installment in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Primitive" project, UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES is an oft-cited example of slow cinema and the movie that made Weerasethakul a darling on the international stag...

It’s impossible to deny the charm of HARVEY, because if you do, you’re choosing ‘smart’ over ‘pleasant.’ Of those two, you know which we’d recommend. The titular non-character might be described as an invisible, six-foot-three-and-a-half-inch, anthropomorphic rabbit, but Harvey is so much more than a “benign but mischievous creature”: it’s a highlight of the inherent value of personhood, an appeal...

Featuring special guest Seth Zarate (https://twitter.com/snzarate)! With one eye on Chinese martial arts and one eye on American ‘tude, RUMBLE IN THE BRONX was Jackie Chan’s breakout Western hit. There’s dirtbike gangs in the streets, diamond-peddling crime syndicates, a hoverboat – everything you’d expect from an American action comedy, just with 100% more Jackie Chan. More violent, more outspoke...

Featuring special guest Chris Polley (https://twitter.com/qhrizpolley) of Film Trace (https://linktr.ee/filmtrace)! Sure, SHERLOCK, JR. is a century-old masterwork of performance, direction, and editing that still rouses today – but it also demonstrates an awareness of its audience that’s been rarely seen since. In many ways, it democratized physical comedy and stunt craft in general, which is par...

Featuring special guests Emily Csuy (of Stoop Kidz!: A Hey Arnold! Podcast) and Charlie Mackin ( https://twitter.com/charliemander13)! BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER is Jamie Babbit’s tacky, iconic entry in the history of sardonic queer cinema, panned at release but brought back as a cult classic by the queer communities it was made for. Its dire subject matter (an all-American cheerleader discovers her ho...

DRUNKEN MASTER II, known as THE LEGEND OF DRUNKEN MASTER on its belated stateside release, is an absolute high watermark of the kung fu genre. Its classically dazzling choreography would be enough to earn it a place among the all-time best, but its anti-Western/pro-worker plot and artful filming really put it in another tier. At the same time, it works at a very basic level: watching people move l...

Content warnings: Suicide. This week, we’re joined by Trylonteer and movie lover Kelly Krantz ( https://twitter.com/kransekage_ ) to discuss one of Wim Wenders’ classic films: WINGS OF DESIRE! WINGS OF DESIRE tells the story of Damiel and Cassiel, angels floating above Cold War-era Berlin, studying, analyzing, and listening to our inner thoughts – but never revealing their presence. Damiel eventua...

Content warning: Explicit discussions of sexual content, drug use, and some crude but good-natured goofing. Fuck James Franco. The opening scenes of SPRING BREAKERS showcase two intentional worlds: One is a sardonic sensory overload, full of “bikinis and big booties”’ the other is a wry examination of cultural assumption through racial aesthetics, fraught with the implications of finding your own...

Featuring returning guest Charlie Mackin ( https://twitter.com/charliemander13)! KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE is about how the journey to self-actualization, despite being an internal one, is never taken alone. Thirteen-year-old Kiki ventures off to find her own identity as a witch – whatever that may be – and learns more about herself, her talents, and how others appreciate them (or don’t) when she tr...

Featuring returning guest Matt Clark (https://twitter.com/themplsmatt)! If NIGHT MOVES isn’t quite like other neonoirs of the 1970s, it’s because of Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman), a tragic antihero whose fatal flaw can’t really be called “hubris” because he actively seeks out his own problems and never accepts their resolution. When the “perfect” case lands in his lap (the 13-year-old daughter (Mela...

KEY LARGO is a story about leaving to change things, only to come back and get caught up in them all over again. It’s a tightly wound noir stuck in a flimsy boarding house off the coast of Florida where an ex-GI, a war widow, a hounded mobster, a group of Seminole Indians, and many more seek freedom – and find instead signposts that the world they hoped to build never came to be after World War II...

First she mates… then she terminates. Then we talk about it! Maybe you can’t say LADY TERMINATOR is more than the sum of its parts (problematic depictions of women, poor editing, and a sometimes shot-for-shot ripoff of THE TERMINATOR (1984)), but it absolutely doesn’t need to be. Blending Indonesian folklore with ‘80s action tropes and a healthy dose of exploitation, it’s roughly about the curse o...

Warning: This podcast was recorded at 7 a.m. Central on a Sunday morning. Minor bullshit, “on one”-ness, and legitimately enlightening discussion ensue. It was stupid of me to write that THE SACRIFICE (1986) is Tarkovsky’s most personal film. That’s definitely MIRROR. Depicting stories from Tarkovsky’s own life and cognition with a dreamlike throughline, it’s a movie that seeks to explore the rela...

Featuring special guest Seth Zarate ( https://twitter.com/snzarate)! Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film might also be his most personal. Through the tale of a family rendered catatonic by impending nuclear obliteration and one man’s fateful gambit to avoid disaster, he wrestles with the morality of human existence, the sin of the unnecessary, and the role of faith in determining the self. It was a firs...

(Listening note: Harry was late, so we start the episode by talking bullshit about Star Wars and some other stuff. Use the timestamps to skip to the good stuff.) CLAUDINE isn’t a textbook blaxploitation film, but it leans on those tropes and expectations to subvert them in a really radical way, especially in the context of its 1974 release. The story of a struggling mother on welfare finding love...

Featuring special guests Eric Leith ( https://twitter.com/unintellivision ) and Seth Zarate ( https://twitter.com/snzarate)! THE FACULTY lifts from sci-fi and horror touchstones like ALIEN (1979), THE TERMINATOR (1984), and THE THING (1982), deconstructing classic tropes and even whole scenes in a high school context. It’s not as heady as that makes it sound, but it’s still fun and subversive in a...

Our Polly Platt series comes to an end with one of the producer, production designer, and hitmaker’s best-known works: the ur-teen romcom SAY ANYTHING… We discuss the movie’s status as romcom classic, the questionable influence of the American dream over the lives of vulnerable youth, whether or not Lloyd Dobler is a simp, and whether or not they should’ve cut the “ding” from the final shot of the...

In BOTTLE ROCKET, Wes Anderson focuses on the moments before you realize it’s time to say goodbye – to your friends, your family, the person you thought you were, and the person you thought you’d become. Without his toyetic visual indulgences, Anderson’s style reveals a somewhat more heartfelt version of the real relationships between goofy characters that populate his later movies. Resources: - B...

In this episode, the first non-Boggie in our Polly Platt series, we discuss TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, Albert Brooks’s ‘real’ character drama. We discuss how its core conflicts do (and don’t) round out its characters, how nice it is to see the uncomfortable parts of family relationships portrayed unwincingly (if unconvincingly), and Jack Nicholson’s undeniable, scene-chewing sluttiness. Follow us on Twi...

In Peter Bogdanovich’s THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, two generations in a 1950s Texas town come to grips with the promise of postwar American glory when it turns out to be a myth. In this episode, we discuss how the movie finds its moral center amid a pedestrian malaise, the clear contributions of Polly Platt, and present-day parallels to the real-life cinema facing closure in Uptown Minneapolis. Resourc...