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Nick descends upon Mike's hometown to celebrate his favourite time of year: Bleak Week! A festival started in Los Angeles, now expanded to other states, brought Nick across state lines to attend the festival in Portland Oregon at the Hollywood Theatre. Along with colleague of the show, Jackie, the group discusses their different bleak week exposures with heavy emphasis on the shared experience of Pier Paolo Pasolini's infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. The questions extend broader asking what the definition of bleakness is and what that means to you. To no one's surprise, Nick triumphs bleakness as a step closer to realism and truth. Mike tells him he should hold his horses.

Enjoy (or disenjoy) this dose of woe and drearidom as Filmversation gets bleak!

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Kinuyo Tanaka is likely best know for her tremendous acting career performing in great works of directors like Kenji Mizoguchi. But she also had a shorter directing career. Filmversation hopes to shine a light on this lesser known director, as the second Japanese female director in history and the first Japanese female to helm director of a movie solo. The Moon Rises reminds both, but Mike especially, of co-writer and show-favourite, Yasujiro Ozu. Forever a Woman stands out as the more personal of the two with a strong female protagonist dealing with progressive issues. Join the pair as they discover Tanaka.

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The Bergman retrospective continues with one of the director's first widely-recognized works. What is it about the circus setting that is so unsettling? Nick argues this is Bergman's first masterclass example of the close-up.

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Go back in time with Filmversation. A time of innocence and beginnings. A time of earnestness and naivete. Go back to your youth.

Mike discusses his early memories of saving the rainforest and Nick is flabbergasted by Tim Curry's unhinged performance. Nick waxes poetic about The Land Before Time and Mike tells Nick about the savage butchery the film suffered behind the scenes.

In a time of increasing turmoil, it's nice to go back to the films of our youth.

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2024 was quite the year. Some people, like Nick, think this was the best year in film in almost a decade. Mike snubs and surprises Nick with some of his picks while Nick continues to make Mike watch movies no one has heard of. The pair detail their top five of the year with the some added honourable mentions. The moment you've been waiting for, the presiding experts in film finally tell you which movies were actually the best of 2024.

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Mike and Nick are joined by good friend, Jackie. The three dive into Robert Eggers' newest iteration of Nosferatu. They examine one of its predecessors and direct influences, Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers. With Jackie's help, the gang dives into the nuance and experience of the films' colours, shadows, and psychosexuality. Find out why Mike thinks these are the same movie and which Ozu movie Cries and Whispers reminds Nick of.

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Happy Halloween!

The Filmversation crew decided to make a pact with the devil this Halloween. We're hoping to sell our souls to get access to the Criterion Closet. In return, we watch two movies about devil intervention and power acquisition.
William Dieterle brings the old folk tale to life when a poor farmer makes a deal with devil to secure gold and good luck. 1941's The Devil & Daniel Webster, also known as All That Money Can Buy, puts a folky twist on the pursuit of greed and the follies that come with wealth.
Marcel Carné brings The Devil's Envoys to the big screen. A pair of the dark lord's henchmen descend on a castle and create rifts in the romance as the power of love is put to the test.
Both films feature memorable performances by actors playing the devil. The pair examine how different geographies elicit different attributes in the mythological dark lord.

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Mike and Nick celebrate spooky season with two classics of silent horror cinema. What better way to kick off the festivities other than travelling back in time? 1926's Faust sees FW Murnau retell the classic tale of making a deal with the devil. 1928's The Man Who Laughs sees Paul Leni channel Conrad Veidt (of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari fame) to tell the tragic love story of a man disfigured during youth. Both films capitalize on the early stages of the medium. Where sound is absent, the two films more than make up for with their stars' expressive power.

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Nick leads Mike to the monumental film that is Andrei Rublev. Tarkovsky uses the 15th-century Russian icon painter to explore theology amidst a world of medieval hardship. Nick dives into the religiosity of the film and the challenges the movie presents for atheists. The pair discuss how some of Tarkovsky's most famous motifs make their first fully realized appearance in this, his second film.

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Mike and Nick revisit Bergman's Summer lens through one of the director's first big "hits" : Summer with Monika. The pair explore themes of isolation, youth, and escaping society. Nick comments how he thinks this is the cinematic answer to all romantically ambiguous endings in film. The pair contrast American attitudes at the time toward sex with Sweden's. And finally, Nick is aghast with Mike's defense of Monika.