Words and Movies

In this mini-episode recorded on June 27, Sean and Claude talk about the recent staffing changes over at Turner Classic Movies and the impact it's having on people, not only the viewers but the people who are so intimately involved with the medium, such as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Listen in, and worry along with us.

In the second half of today's episode, we'll be reviewing The Edge of Heaven from 2007, directed by Fatih Akim. It's a film entirely about missed connections that will frustrate you, but eventually you manage to settle in and accept what happens (or doesn't). COMING ATTRACTIONS: Put on your rented tuxedo, because we're going to a couple of weddings. First, from 2001, it's M...

This week we're focusing on a pair of films that feature many missed connections, giving our title a touch of irony. In this first half we're featuring Exotica , from 1994, directed by Atom Egoyan. It's a film where two parallel storylines are tied together by a third one which, oddly enough, isn't concurrent with the other two. Egoyan plays fair, though: he leaves the clues there...

As noted previously, this half of the episode focuses on 2008's The Baader-Meinhof Complex , directed by Uli Edel. It's a true-story thriller that depicts the activities of a terrorist group in West Germany over a ten-year period beginning in the late 1960s. There are times when you're drawn into the story enough that you find yourself leaning toward rooting for the bad guys, but ultim...

Or, Claude Writes Another Too-Clever Title Prompting Sean to Send Perplexed DMs. In this episode of our Around the World in Twenty Films series, we look at a pair of films in which German citizens are forced to confront their own past. This isn't in a whole "The Nazis were us the entire time!" kind of attitude but rather in the way that some of the tactics that were employed in the p...

In the second half of our show, we look at Le Cercle Rouge, from 1970 and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. It's an epic-length film about a jewelry heist that will keep you guessing up until the very end. COMING ATTRACTIONS:  We reach the halfway mark with our world tour as we go to Germany. The films we're screening show different ways that the Germans confront their past. First up is Th...

We continue our trip Around the World in Twenty Films with a stop in France, where we look at a couple of films largely from the criminals' point of view. We start with 1960's Breathless , Jean-Luc Godard's innovative film starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Sebring. Belmondo plays a criminal on the run who spends some time hiding out with an old girlfriend. Some of the foreign poster...

In this half of the episode, we take a hard look at Performance, the 1970 film starring James Fox and Mick Jagger. They, along with Michele Breton and Anita Pallenberg, create a quartet that gets mixed up in drugs and sex to the point where minds are shattered. Most of the last 15 minutes of the film, we guarantee you will not see coming. COMING ATTRACTIONS:  In Episode 54 we go to France and revi...

In this episode Sean and Claude look at a pair of films involving people and their personalities, and how they can disassociate from themselves and each other, and manage to come back together in unusual ways. First on the slate is Ingmar Bergman's Persona , from 1966. It stars Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman as a nurse and her patient who have been isolated in a beach house for several weeks. B...

In the second half of our episode, we look at The Secret in Their Eyes , a 2009 crime-drama that comes from director Juan José Campanella, which is far superior to the 2015 American remake. It's about a mystery that takes many years to solve, and features an ending that will literally have you gasping out loud, maybe all the way through the credits. COMING ATTRACTIONS: From South America we go...

Continuing our trip Around the World in Twenty Films, in this episode we're stopping off in South America. We begin in an unnamed country that's almost certainly Uruguay, with the based-on-a-true-story State of Siege , directed by Juan José Campanella. It's a film whose ending you already know, but you quickly forget about as you get pulled into the storyline. In Part 2, we'll be j...

In this second half of our episode, we take a look at 2018's Roma , a film set largely in Mexico City, despite the title. Roma has the distinction among Cuarón's films to be released on a very limited basis in theaters, and since then exclusively on Netflix. They've done this a couple of times (see also: The Irishman ), but whether this turns into a larger model remains to be seen. COM...

Alfonso Cuarón does know his Mexico, and it shows in these two films as we begin our trip around the world. We start with Y Tu Mama Tambien , certainly one of the horniest movies we've ever reviewed. This 2001 effort involves a pair of teenagers taking a road trip with a much older, quite attractive, married woman. There are sexy moments and there are sad moments, and there are other moments w...

Hey, folks: The next ten episodes are going to cover a variety of foreign films from all over the world. Sean went through a very meticulous process to curate this particular list, and in this mini-episode, we're going to chat a little bit about what first got us interested in foreign films, and the criteria that he used to select these titles. 

In the second half of our episode, we spend some time with Singles , from 1992 and directed by Cameron Crowe. This film is about the lives and loves of a half-dozen young adults, most of whom live in the same apartment complex. But, of course, this has nothing to do with the NBC hit comedy Friends , which ran from 1994 to 2004. Cameron Crowe himself has said that he was approached about adapting S...

Holy moley, we've made it to 50 episodes!  This time around we're checking out a pair of films that were likely the basis of television shows, even though the official story is that there's no connection.  We start off with Stalag 17 , directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. This 1953 film stars William Holden in an Oscar-winning performance, along with Don Taylor, Robert Strauss, Harve...

In Part 2 of our episode, we jump to 2018 and the film Widows, directed by Steve McQueen and adapted from a British TV series. 

Claude really wanted to call this episode "Girls Kicking Ass," but he chickened out and didn't try to talk Sean into changing it, so "Female Thieves" it was and "Female Thieves" it remained. (Yes, we've used a few of Claude's titles, and Sean is kind enough not to roll his eyes too hard as he acquiesces.)  But the fact is, the girls do kick ass in these two films, and they don't even bother t...

In this (more reasonable-length) half of our episode, we take a look at Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People , a story about the rise of a specific slice of the New Wave era of music in the early 1980s. It's a mostly-true story (we talk about that a little bit) told from the point of view of someone who was in the middle of it all. And again, we're getting it from a fan who's managed to inj...

This may be the longest segment of an episode we've ever done, because Almost Famous is probably one of our favorite films ever, and it's kind of amazing that it took us this long to get to it. As a result we spend just a little bit over an hour talking about it.  In this episode we look at a pair of films in which the main character is a fan of the music being discussed throughout the film,...

In this half of the show, we spend nearly an hour talking about Pink Floyd—The Wall, based on the 1979 album The Wall, by Pink Floyd. It was directed by Alan Parker, with animated segments produced by Gerald Scarfe, based on his artwork for the original album.  COMING ATTRACTIONS: Next time, we wrap up the musical films with a view from the fan's perspective. First we start with Almost Famous...

It's the last of the "lost" episodes and the second-to-last of the series of musical episodes. In this half we look at 1979's Quadrophenia , based on the 1973 album of the same name by The Who. It's a period piece set in 1964 and it outlines the days leading up to a wild weekend for both the Mods and the Rockers as they descend upon Brighton Beach.  This part of the episode also features my 1...

Hey, gang:  What we've got here is a brief piece on the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest Films Ever (2022 edition). The BFI has compiled this list every ten years since 1942, drawing on the opinions of film critics worldwide, and the list gets published in their magazine Sight and Sound .  Given that the film chosen for the top of the list was rather an unusual one, Sean wanted to t...

In this second half of the show, we take a look at Labyrinth , starring Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie. It's directed by Jim Henson, so you know the bulk of the remaining cast is wearing a lot of felt.  COMING ATTRACTIONS:  It's the last of the Lost Episodes as we present films that are based on concept albums. First, from 1979 it's Quadrophenia , and then we look at Pink Floyd: The W...

It's the second of our three "Lost Episodes," and again I think we've covered all of the topics that we did the first time. The downside is that Sean wasn't feeling well when we did this re-record, and you can hear he's missing a little of his usual zip.  But don't let that stop you from enjoying our peek at a pair of musicals that have David Bowie in them, and in a singing part, besides. Bot...