Vintage Sand

Third time's the charm, as we turn once again to Danny Peary's peerless 1993 book, "Alternate Oscars". This go-round, Team Vintage Sand focuses on the 1950's, a decade with some questionable Best Picture choices (to put it politely). Still can't believe that "The Greatest Show on Earth" beat the unnominated "Singin' in the Rain"? Stunned that "Around the World in 80 Days" topped "The Searchers", w...

In the midst of the pandemic, many have turned to the art of the past, finding understandable comfort in nostalgia. Team Vintage Sand, in its usual charming and curmudgeonly way, has decided instead to look to the decade to come. In this episode, we discuss the directors that we think will become the next great voices in Film. Some obvious candidates are here, including Ryan Coogler, Damien Chazel...

Well, Vintage Sand listeners, we've reached the summit. Join us at the summit, where the air is thin and the trees are stubby, as John, Michael and Josh take you through their five favorite films of the decade recently ended. Some real surprises, some total non-surprises, and an overall sense that the early reports of the death of Film-with-a-capital-"F" were a bit premature. Seize the moments, or...

Yes, fans, it's the episode ten years in the making as Michael, John and Josh present the first half of their countdown of their ten favorite films of the newly-ended decade. For a period in film history that has already been mercilessly dismissed as a greed-driven, witless descent into endless sequels, remakes, CGI and superheroes, the 2010's gave us some of the greatest films in our history, one...

When our Greatest Living Director puts out a new film that feels like a capstone to the major themes of his incomparable career, you know that Team Vintage Sand is on the case. Thus, Episode 17--The Irishman: It's What It Is. Martin Scorsese's 3 1/2 hour epic The Irishman reunites all of the director's major players (and adds in Al Pacino for good measure) to tell a sprawling organized crime story...

Join Team Vintage Sand as we commemorate the 20th anniversary of one of the most polarizing films ever created by a major filmmaker: Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, his final work. Released to mixed reviews in 1999, the film has been undergoing a critical reappraisal in recent years. Hear the sparks fly as Michael (generally) likes the film, John's willing to consider both sides and I hate it ev...

In a perfectly symmetrical bookend to Episode 6, this episode finds our intrepid heroes of Team Vintage Sand exploring our favorite movie endings of all time. Creating a perfect conclusion to a movie is an extremely challenging task; even our greatest filmmakers have occasionally found it to be problematic (rat crossing a balcony railing, anyone?). We go around the world, and all the way back to s...

Love him, hate him or both, the arrival of a new film by Quentin Tarantino is an important event for anyone even remotely interested in film. In this episode, Team Vintage Sand takes a deep dive into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, QT's love letter to the LA of his childhood. Can the brilliant performances by Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio overcome a meandering script and yet another controversia...

Turning once again to Danny Peary's amazing book "Alternate Oscars", Team Vintage Sand focuses on the 00's, a decade with some questionable Best Picture choices (to put it politely). Still can't believe that Crash and A Beautiful Mind won? Join us on our alternate history as we set things right and mete out justice in our usual cruel-but-fair Vintage Sand style. And while you may not be able to fi...

Whatever happened to Hollywood film comedies? Setting aside action comedies like the Deadpool films and Thor: Ragnarok, as well as animated comedy, why have there been so few great film comedies in the 2010's? We're talking films where the humor arises organically from dialogue, setups and punchlines, and situational as well as physical humor; you know, like all those good ones from Duck Soup thro...

What makes a film a classic? As with any art, the best answer is simply time. So many of the films we revere today were both critical and popular failures when they were released, and many successful films have likewise faded into obscurity. In this episode, each member of Team Vintage Sand champions a lost film that they feel merits a reappraisal. And where else would you get Bertrand Tavernier,...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of some of the greatest albums of the rock era: Abbey Road, Let It Bleed and Tommy are but a very small sample. Yet in that year of Woodstock, what was the most popular song of the year? That’s right, trivia fans: “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies. That got us to thinking about one-hit wonders, who have a place of pride in the history of film as well as music. Some...

For a while there, it looked as though 2018 might go down in history as one of the great years in film in recent memory. In the end, it was something of a split decision. The big, highly anticipated studio entries were mostly enjoyable but forgettable (think Ocean’s 8 or A Star Is Born). But it was a truly outstanding year for the small film, for the movies that told intimate stories in fine detai...

In 1993, the great film writer Danny Peary published a book called Alternate Oscars. In it, Peary realized the silent (or quite vocal) wish of every film fan by going through the Oscars year by year, listing who won and then arguing who should have won and why. To celebrate the silver anniversary of Peary’s book, the Vintage Sand team takes Peary’s approach and applies it to that most underrated o...

After four decades of anticipation, Orson Welles' final film, "The Other Side of the Wind", was finally released in a handful of theaters and for streaming on Netflix earlier this month. Was it worth such an epic wait? Team Vintage Sand discusses the film both as a work in and of itself and in the context of the rest of Welles' unique, brilliant and ultimately heartbreaking career. Was Welles a vi...

In making movies, perhaps the only thing as difficult to create as the ending of a film is an unforgettable opening. A great opening is not just a hook; a truly amazing one (think underwater camera and two notes on a double bass in Jaws) can set the tone for an entire picture. Here, our nerdy-yet-lovable trio of film geeks looks at some of their favorite movie openings of all time, ranging in time...

Conventional wisdom tells us that the greatest year in the history of film was 1939. And if you add Renoir’s The Rules of the Game on to the long list of Hollywood classics that year (Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Only Angels Have Wings, Young Abe Lincoln, Wuthering Heights, etc.) one could certainly make the case for that year. The Vintage Sand te...

It's August, when a middle aged-film lovers dreams turn to Hitchcock. For Episode 4 of Vintage Sand, Josh, John and Michael discuss their favorite moments in all of Hitchcock's work. Some will be exactly what our listeners might expect, but we promise a few surprises in there as well.

Around the turn of the 21st Century, a group of directors emerged who seemed destined to take the place of the American New Wave directors of the 1970's. This new group, led by such filmmakers as P.T. Anderson, Wes Anderson, David Fincher, Chris Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, the Wachowskis, David O. Russell, Todd Haynes, the Jonze/Gondry/Kaufman nexus, Kim Pierce, Alexander Payne and Sofia Coppola, to...

When you think of film of the early 1960's, the first things that come into your mind are European and Asian films. In Episode 2 of Vintage Sand, our intrepid trio make the case for the beauty and importance of black and white American films of the period by focusing on the work of three very different directors: Billy Wilder, John Frankenheimer and Stanley Kubrick.

While “obscure Hitchcock” may be a contradiction in terms, there are some films by the master that the Vintage Sand crew feel do not get their just desserts from critics and fans. In our inaugural episode, we make the case for three of Hitchcock’s lesser-known works of the 1950’s.