Trylove

Featuring returning guest Nick Ransbottom (https://twitter.com/theeziokenway)! The inherent conservatism of the horror genre isn’t spared in FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980), the seminal slasher film that, at least in retrospect, earns its keep as a bit of a commercial riff on the genre. It might not be the most high-concept use of horror’s toolkit (i.e., external violence addressing intergenerational anxie...

Featuring special guest Taylor Zastrow (@teeemotional)! In Gil Junger’s directorial debut 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, there’s a little bit more than a ‘90s teen adaptation of Shakespeare. “Don't let anyone, ever, make you feel like you don't deserve what you want,” says Heath Ledger’s Patrick Verona, acknowledging the contractual nature of self-fulfillment: one’s pursuit of happiness, the world’s...

For better and worse, Ingmar Bergman's 1957 historical fantasy epic THE SEVENTH SEAL has quite a reputation. Since establishing his career as one of the preeminent auteurs of his time, Bergman's spiritually-charged tale of a crusader confronting his mortality as he journeys home across plague-stricken Europe has been both celebrated and dismissed as intellectual, philosophical, austere, and unappr...

Through the not-so-straight-laced English mouthpieces of A FISH CALLED WANDA, you’re meant to feel the profound repression of being British – akin to being dead, as John Cleese's Archie Leach says – and then laugh at the morbidity of it all with the help of often morally objectionable humor. A jewel heist gone wrong at the last minute leaves American and British double-crossers spiraling, connecti...

Featuring special guest and heist film aficionado Matt Clark (@TheMplsMatt)! This Ealing train keeps a-rolling with another comedy of errors! Alec Guinness (again?) is Dutch, a bean-counter who’s protected government gold for 20 years, quietly plotting ways to rip them off in a big way. His plan accelerates beyond sustainability when he meets Al, an artist-turned-tchotchke maker with dreams of pur...

A comedy classic or a flat farce? THE LADYKILLERS is pretty Ealing through and through, and it opts for a directness and simplicity that can come off as uninspired instead of prototypical – Alec Guinness aside. It’s probably the most approachable of the Ealing films we’ve covered so far, but is it one of the better? The boys are split as a Classic Grossman Ranking Mandate rears its ugly head! Stic...

Featuring special guest and Hollywood film star Jason Statham! Jason Statham (UK actor, former model, husband of Rosie Huntington-Whitely, and star of the later films in CRANK (2006), SNATCH (2000), THE TRANSPORTER (2002), the blockbuster Fast & Furious franchise), and more joins us to talk, appropriately, about a deeply British film! Without a stronger commitment to its premise (a Central Lon...

CW: A racial slur appears several times toward the end of this film. We talk about that. Over the course of a darkly comic scenario that veers between dry and madcap, KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS takes jabs at the aristocracy through the eyes of one who would be them, resulting in some fun dissonance between medium and message. In it, Alec Guinness is poisoned, Alec Guinness is incinerated, Alec Guinn...

CW: Discussions of suicide and sexual assault as plot elements. A wacky entry in the "just tryin' to get home" genre, Martin Scorsese's post-THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST kickstarter couldn't be more indispensable. Both pointed critique of Reagan-era exceptionalism and pastiche of 20 years of Hollywood preceding its release, AFTER HOURS pits Griffin Dunne's entitled yuppie against a single night w...

A not-so-traditional tale of witchcraft, the search for belonging, and how goddamn hard it can be to find. Buy tickets for Trylon Cinema showings at www.trylon.org/. Follow us at @trylovepodcast on Twitter and email us at trylovepodcast@gmail.com to get in touch! Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Outro music from "THE JUNIPER TREE".

Content warning: Discussions of onscreen depictions of animal abuse. THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN scraps a lot of classic tension-building elements in favor of a painstakingly detailed, process-focused look at how scientists, citizens, and the American government would respond to a viral outbreak with global lethal potential. It ends up feeling a bit clinical, sure, but there's a charming dedication to it...

Featuring special guest and Trylon film programmer John Moret! Film discussion begins at 13:26. The Trylon's first in-theater showing since March, Joe Cornish's sci-fi/horror/comedy/commentary mashup directorial debut ATTACK THE BLOCK touches on just enough 2020-adjacent themes (Black oppression, social confinement, the dangers of the outside world, the villainous police state) to make it a super-...

When hitmen Kamimura and Shun are made pawns in yakuza territorial pissings, they've got to rely on each other and a band of bargefolk to make it out alive. Part spaghetti western, part yakuza film, part spy fiction, and part drama, A COLT IS MY PASSPORT forces its audience to see much of its worthwhile cast through its protagonist's eyes (for better or worse). Follow us at @trylovepodcast on Twit...

Featuring special guest Matt Clark (@themplsmatt)! Though it might not reach the dramatic highs of the movies it's comprised of, SHOGUN ASSASSIN is an interesting artifact of film localization that manages to be super fun (not to mention influential). We finally enlisted Matt Clark to help us unpack the special 36 Chambers screening we caught in quarantine, which featured live commentary from RZA...

Featuring special guest Jenny Ackerson (@AckersonJenny)! Tsai Ming-liang's debut is much more than most summaries can tell you. Less a coming-of-age morality play amid 1990s Taipei than a tale about the downward emotional spiral of youth, REBELS OF THE NEON GOD is a work fueled by empathy and the struggle to find oneself amid urban decay, social prescriptivism, and expectations of mythological pro...

Featuring special guest Matt Yost (@mattyost_)! It could be said that as an adaptation of an adaptation, Bob Fosse's CABARET has an audience of an audience, too: working as critique by paralleling the rise of Naziism with bourgeois escapism in Weimer-era Berlin, it implicates both its characters and world. To what end, though? Is it didactic or just descriptive? Follow Matt Yost on Twitter and Let...

Featuring special guest Charlie Mackin (@charliemander13)! After winning four Oscars for PARASITE (2019), South Korean director Bong Joon-ho finished a short press run, boarded a plane, landed in Minneapolis, and headed to the Walker Art Center for a talk with film critic Scott Foundas. To hear Bong speak so candidly about his films, philosophy, and collaborators in Minneapolis was a completely su...

Featuring special guest Seth Zarate (@snzarate)! Forget Bruno – it's the return of the man we're calling our Bruce Willis expert, Seth Zarate, for a peek at Terry Gilliam's slightly madcap time-traveling paranoia piece 12 MONKEYS (1995). Inspired directly by the 1962 experimental short film LA JETÉE, Gilliam's vision of the future is one marred by human failure – both to protect the world from a d...

Featuring special guest Logan Lafferty (@mrleviathan)! In a clever marriage of narrative and form, the pieces of TOTAL RECALL (1990) don't all add up at first. Each question about its world, plot, and sweeping class themes seems to beg a little more explanation – just enough to maintain intrigue without leaving the audience behind. It's classic Verhoeven, classic Arnie, classic Ironside, classic S...

On Saturday, February 29, 2020, John Waters performed his sold-out one-man show, "This Filthy World," at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. He left us with some cogent, concise words of wisdom, and we're humbled to share them with you on his 74th birthday.

Though not immediately recognizable as a Spike Lee film, INSIDE MAN (2006) still engages with some of the issues the director is known for tackling, including systemic racism, racial interiority, and the faith placed in American law enforcement. A bank robbery ostensibly gone wrong reveals a dark truth at the heart of the heist that leads the audience, if not the characters, to question the legacy...

Featuring special guest Kyle Olson! To take your mind off of all the depressing news, we bring you the kind of uplifting content that only we can: an in-depth look at Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 film CONTAGION. Back when it was first released, the film was known for its uncompromising, cold realism. How does the film hold up in 2020? Does the ensemble cast help take away from that feeling? Is watchin...

Featuring special guest John Moret! Things are tough for everyone during the COVID-19 crisis, so it can sometimes feel a little indulgent to even worry about things like repertory cinema. But as we talked with Trylon Film Programmer John Moret about how the Trylon and the people behind it are dealing with the pressure, it became clear that keeping in touch – even if it’s kind of all bad news – isn...

Emerging from the "Poverty Row" studios of 20th Century Hollywood comes Edgar G. Ulmer's 1945 classic DETOUR, a work of film noir that stands out due to its unconventional structure and the wonderful performances of its two main stars, Ann Savage and Tom Neal. Although at first the film might seem to solely represent the usual trappings of American noir, once you get beneath the cool exterior of D...

Listening note: The Gray Duck Theater shuttered in 2023 after four years in business. The space reopened in April 2023 under new ownership as a combination microcinema and community event space called PopsArt Theater. Spoiler alert for PARASITE (2019). In this very special episode, we were thrilled to talk to Andy Smith, founder and owner of the Gray Duck Theater & Coffeehouse in Rochester, MN...