Words and Movies

In this half of the episode we take a look at Inside Llewyn Davis, written and directed by the Coen Brothers. In this case we have a (probably circular) story that takes place shortly before Bob Dylan first gained notoriety in the Greenwich Village area. Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) was once half of a folk duo, but now he's striking out on his own, for reasons which become clear as the film progresses. It...

From a musical standpoint, there's always a time you can point to and see--in retrospect--that things were about to change in a big way. In this episode we look at a pair of films that take place right before a couple of upheavals in the music industry. And interestingly enough, they take place only a couple of years apart.  In this part of the episode, we're looking at Honeydripper , the 200...

In Part II of our Lost Episode, we look at another musical set in Dublin. It's 2007's Once , written and directed by John Carney, and starring Glen Hansard (see?) and Markéta Irglová, a couple you'll root for throughout the film and never mind that she's got a husband.  COMING ATTRACTIONS:  In our next episode, we look at two musical films that are period pieces. Specifically, they take...

The Lost Episode has returned! OK, we'll level with you. We had to re-record it. At any rate, this time around we're looking at two musical films that are both set in Dublin, Ireland, and coincidentally (or maybe not--you decide when the dust settles) they share a specific actor.  We start with The Commitments in Part 1, the 1991 film directed by Alan Parker. In this film we see a scruffy gro...

Part Two of our episode takes us to Scotland in 2014 and Stuart Murdoch's film God Help The Girl .  "Who is Stuart Murdoch?" you ask. It's a fair question. Murdoch is the leader of the band Belle and Sebastian. And it's worth noting that in 2009 he released an album of a music project he worked on which was also titled God Help The Girl, a collection of songs about girls and young women, sung...

No, you're not missing an episode. We are.  We still have no idea how it happened, but our recording of Reel 43 is completely and irrevocably lost. It's disappeared altogether.  But take heart: Sean and I are going to re-record the episode and expedite post-production and uploading so nobody loses count (and when Sean says later on "It's Episode 50!" he won't sound weird for saying so).&...

In this second half of the episode, we look at two major phases of the life of Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson in Love and Mercy , a film from 2014 directed by Bill Pohlad.  COMING ATTRACTIONS:  In our next episode we spend some time in Dublin, with a pair of films that have many points in common, including one that's led to an interesting theory tying them together. First up is The Comm...

In this half of our episode, we spend the better part of an hour talking about 2007's  I'm Not There , Todd Haynes' story about the life of Bob Dylan told through the viewpoints of several fictional characters, all of whom represent Dylan during different phases of his life. 

With today's episode drop, we're moving into a new mini-block of themed episodes, all of which involve music in one way or another. And in this episode we start where most people did when it came to music back in the day: in the record shop. This despite the fact that by the time either of these films came out, vinyl was considered a more or less quaint format for music. Part 1 featured Empire Rec...

With today's episode drop, we're moving into a new mini-block of themed episodes, all of which involve music in one way or another. And in this episode we start where most people did when it came to music back in the day: in the record shop. This despite the fact that by the time either of these films came out, vinyl was considered a more or less quaint format for music. We begin with 1995's Empir...

In this second half of Episode 40, we look at Terence Malick's The Thin Red Line, which spends its time at Guadalcanal, the first major offensive in the Pacific Theater during World War Two.  COMING ATTRACTIONS:  We're finally breaking away from this series (though we hope you had fun with it) and moving into a bunch of films that have lots of music in them. First, we're taking a trip to...

World War Two may still be the one with the most films made about it. In the final part of our YCLB series, we take a look at two relatively recent films that each concentrate on the time around a specific offensive, though in different theaters.  In this first half, we're taking a long look at Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998), which begins with the Normandy Invasion and ends onl...

As promised, here's the second half of the episode, where we take a deep look at 1983's The Big Chill, co-written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. 

Our recent decision to release an episode in two parts proved to be rather popular, since we've been getting into Epic Length shows lately. So what you'll see in the future is more of the same: both halves will be released back-to-back, so that you can listen to each segment at your leisure. Plus it should make the downloading go a little bit more quickly.  Now, over the next couple of episod...

We continue our series of films where people are often asked to choose between one and the other, and this time around it's a little clearer WHY there's a choice to be made, but we also argue that You Can Like Both.  Really, you can.  We don't judge.  Usually. Both of these films were released in 1964, so we open up with Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love th...

In which we address the Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life, and how Mary's wish when she breaks the glass kills George's father, causes the Great Depression, sends an angel to prevent George from killing himself and helps raise the money that keeps him out of jail. In short, Mary is the twisted monster responsible for George never leaving Bedford Falls, even if it's "only" to go to prison.&nbs...

When Sean first proposed this series of episodes, and the film pairs that would be involved, Claude was kind of baffled with this particular one. Both of these films are amazing, and why would anyone be forced to choose between them? They have different subject matter, different directors, different storylines...about the only thing they have in common is that they were both released in 1946.&nbsp...

This one isn't an outtake so much as it is a little bit of extra stuff we did after recording Episode 36. But we made the template and we're gonna keep using it.  In this clip, Sean had some comments about Auteur Theory when it comes to film, and Claude mostly let him do his thing, though there's a small portion in there where he gets to say his piece as well. Enjoy! Episode 37 will be out in...

Once in awhile, people get weirdly divided in their loyalties to things: Coke vs. Pepsi, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Ford vs. Chevy, Harleys vs. Hondas, and so on.  What we don't really get is how comparisons like this apply to movies. You can like this film or that film, but there's something inherently wrong with you if you like both of them. Well, we're here to explain to you exactly the oppo...

This was a chunk of Episode 35 that went off-topic and we decided to cut it for time, but also thought most of what was said was actually kind of important. So we present you with this Bonus audio, to keep your appetite whetted. Enjoy! 

Martin Scorsese has never shied away from the fact that he is a Catholic, and that his religion oftentimes informs his work. There are few places where it's more overt than in the two films we cover this week.  First we have 1988's The Last Temptation of Christ , which portrays a side of Jesus (Willem Dafoe) that many of us suspected he had, but most of which is never portrayed in the Bible....

In which we take nearly six hours of film and reduce it to about eleven minutes of synopses and and hour or so of scintillating discussion.  Robert Altman's work had a lot of "trademarks" that delineated his films: overlapping dialogue, huge casts, multiple storylines and a way to subvert whatever genre he was working in. And in this episode we look at a pair of epic-length films which do nea...

By "Modern-Day" we meant that we're looking at a pair of films that aren't the period pieces for which Akira Kurosawa is so well-known, but rather films that are set in the present day. First on your screen is 1949's Stray Dog, a police drama that follows a young detective trying hard to undo a mistake he'd made.  Then we jump to 1963's High and Low, which starts out as corporate intrigue but...

In this episode we first take a look at The Killer , a film from 1989 directed by John Woo. It stars Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee and Sally Yeh, and nobody's motivation is what you think it is. Are people acting out of malice, avarice, guilt or something else? From there we move to 2002 and So Close, directed by Corey Yuen and starring Shu Qi, Zhao Wei and Karen Mok. Once again, everyone has some deepl...

It's not our worst title, but it does get to the point.  Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro appeared in four films together. And that's if you count The Godfather Part II, in which they shared zero screen time because they appeared in separate timelines. So that really makes three, including a 2008 movie called Righteous Kill, which was bad enough that even Robert DeNiro regretted making it. And he...