A Reel Education

Jena wasn’t able to make it to the recording of this episode but that’s OK, we bought in a stunt Jena!  This week’s stunt Jena was…Melissa!  Turns out Cabaret was one of the few films that she had never seen.  With Melissa our acting Jena, we were down one expert.  Enter our friend Windy Bowlsby!  Windy is a huge fan of the film and of Bob Fosse so she provided a great expert perspective.  Enjoy our conversation about the only Oscar winning musical set in pre-Nazi Germany that we know about!

Our next episode is going to be recorded live at the Trylon Theatre on June 29th.  We’ll be watching The Conversation!

And don’t forget to check out Windy and Melissa’s podcast – Xanadu Cinema Pleasure Dome!

The post Episode 25 – Cabaret appeared first on A Reel Education.

For our newest episode, we subjected Jena to the 1984 train wreck that is David Lynch’s Dune!  We are joined by two special guests.  First is Kelvin Hatle, who has an unholy love for bad movies great and small.  Second is Jerry Belich who, along with Melissa, produced a Swede version of the film that you can (and should) watch on Youtube!  We try to make sense of a film that almost works on many levels and yet completely fails on all of them.  Who knows if we succeeded?

We added the horrible song that Tim wrote for the credit sequence of the Dune Swede.  It is after the closing music to the podcast.  If you’d like to download your own version of the song (though we don’t know why you would), you can do that here.

Our June 15th episode will be about Cabaret and features special guest Windy Bowlsby!

The post Episode 24 – Dune appeared first on A Reel Education.

This month, we began our new relationship with the Trylon microcinema in Minneapolis!  They have great popcorn!  For our first film, we watched David Lean’s epic masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai featuring Sir Alec Guiness and William Holden.  There was much whistling and a bridge was destroyed!  Nary a lightsaber was to be seen! We had great fun talking about this movie with the attendees of the film and you can hear how much fun if you only listen to the episode!

Our June 1st episode will feature guests Kelvin Hatle and Jerry Belich as we talk about the David Lynch’s failed epic, Dune!

The post Episode 23 – The Bridge on the River Kwai appeared first on A Reel Education.

Hard to believe we’ve made it this far in the life of our little podcast without getting down with some Martin Scorsese!  Have no fear, this episode we take a look at one of his masterworks, Goodfellas! DeNiro, Pesci and Liotta take us through the world of the gangster in a way that is very nearly Shakespearean.  Larger than life characters play across the screen until we start to understand that they are are all seduced by their own ideas of their lives.  Enjoy our trip through the lives of gangsters, Scorsese style!

Our next episode will be recorded live at the Trylon theater on Sunday the 4th of May!  We’ll be watching “Bridge on the River Kwai!”  Join us!

The post Episode 22 – Goodfellas appeared first on A Reel Education.

In what is becoming a tradition, we watched this year’s Academy Award winner for Best Picture, 12 Years a Slave!  In an unusual twist, Tim was the only host who had actually seen the film already.  The movie inspired a lot of discussion about slavery, the Oscars and, oddly, Gravity.  We hope you enjoy our annual trip to the Academy Awards!

Next time, we’ll be discussing one of Martin Scorsese’s greatest works: Goodfellas!

The post Episode 21 – 12 Years a Slave appeared first on A Reel Education.

This week, we dive into Billy Wilder for a walk along Sunset Boulevard!  William Holden and Gloria Swanson guide us through a wonderfully cynical look at Hollywood.  We go down the meta rabbit hole as we discuss the casting on this film.  We also spend far too much time talking about the horrible musical that was inspired by the film.  Accept no substitutes!

Our next episode, on April 15th, will be about the 2014 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave!

The post Episode 20 – Sunset Boulevard appeared first on A Reel Education.

One of the challenges we’ve faced is finding an animated film that Jena hasn’t seen.  While we can toss just about anything else in front of her, she’s watched almost everything by Disney.  What a delight it was, then when we discovered that she had never seen one of the most underrated Disney films of all time, The Emperor’s New Groove!  She had seen the straight to video sequel but not the hilarious original.  We have managed to rectify that situation so sit back and enjoy our conversation about a movie that is not nearly as Disney as you might expect.

Our next podcast will be on April 1st and we’ll be discussing Sunset Boulevard!

The post Episode 19 – The Emperor’s New Groove appeared first on A Reel Education.

Following up on our last episode about Seven Samurai, this episode looks at the American remake.  Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and more up the manly quotient to unbearable levels in The Magnificent Seven!  The movie is a remarkably close adaptation of Kurosawa’s classic.  We talk about the similarities as well as some of the very important differences.  Tim even comes up with a convoluted and frighteningly logical explanation of how this movie is actually remake of The Wizard of Oz. We also sing.  That’s a warning.

Stick around after the closing theme to hear the brilliant Magnificent Seven song from Trailer B!

Our next episode will be about The Emperor’s New Groove!

The post Episode 18 – The Magnificent Seven appeared first on A Reel Education.

It is time for some Reel Education subtitled action courtesy of the great Akira Kurosawa’ s masterpiece, Seven Samurai! While Jena speculates there will be flips in this film, she finds nary a one.  Instead, she finds one of the greatest films ever along with some truly racist Japanese accents courtesy of Melissa and Tim!  Seven Samurai enter!  How many leave?  That would be a spoiler!

Our next episode will be all about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

The post Episode 17 – Seven Samurai appeared first on A Reel Education.

Jena was unable to make our recording at Pepito’s this episode so we pulled in a Stunt Jena.  Joining us at the Parkway was Tim’s son Alex, who got to watch his first Noir on the big screen.  Our movie was the Noir classic Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder.  People betrayed each other.  People died.  Insurance was sold.  Yep.  Insurance.  Enjoy our conversation about a great film!

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