Albatross Applesauce: A Film Blog and Podcast

Grrrr!  This episode is about man becoming a savage beast...although in slightly different circumstances. You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: The first film in this mini-episode is a ground-breaking comedic horror film from John Landis (a departure from him, having just directed Animal House and The Blues Brothers) which features still-stunning make-up effects by Rick Baker.  Lucky for Rick, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences just created a Best Make-Up award after the upheaval surrounding the collective diss directed at The Elephant Man a year earlier.  The werewolf transformation scene is still the highlight of this film from 1981 and it is part of our new series where we select an Oscar winning film to discuss. That's some Oscar-winning makeup work there, y'all.Murderball is a documentary about quadraplegic rugby.  But really it's about the courage and tenacity of disabled men and how they really are just living their lives like everyone else.  This multi-award winning film is part of our other new category where we review a documentary of our choosing.  Murderball won the Audience Award at Sundance and we think it needs a wider audience.  Cheers! This sport is not for the namby-pamby milquetoast types, no sir!

Welcome back, Albatross Applesauce listeners!  Phil here, new graduate of the Experimental and Documentary Filmmaking grad program at Duke University, along with my co-host Andrew, graduate of the School of Hard Knocks. We are ready to get back to the nitty gritty: film reviewing via podcast. You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: This episode is about the new film from rising star Jeff Nichols, "Mud", starring Matthew McConaughey.  Nichols was one of our classmates in college and listen as we reel in our bitterness to give an unbiased review of this promising film! What would a Matthew McConaughey movie be without a shirtless Matthew McConaughey? Second, Andrew and I review "Ratcatcher" the feature debut of Scottish director Lynne Ramsay. Interestingly, both films feature an unvarnished portrayal of young teenage boys living in near poverty and by a body of water crucial to the story.  It will prove interesting...Give us a listen! Coming of age...

And here it is, ladies and gentlemen!  Andrew and Phil have some pretty interesting things to say about all of the Best Picture nominees at this year's Academy Awards, and we're bringing those opinions to you without a moment to spare.  The Oscars are airing tonight at 8pm, so you have just enough time to settle in and listen to our take on the nine Best Picture nominees before watching the awards. Listen as we praise and, in some cases *coughLesMiscough* condemn the films, and share your opinions with us. Give us a listen, folks! You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below:

Well, kadies and gentlemen, we've recorded a couple of these Oscar podcasts now (the Best Picture podcast will be posting later tonight), and in each of them we tried to fit in our brief discussion about the "miscellaneous" awards at the Oscars.  Typically, these are the awards that have been seen by fewer people (including us), and typically are less talked about.  Well, we're here to discuss them, dagnabit!  Give us a listen below, and keep an ear out for our Best Picture podcast this evening, in order to help you prime for the awards tomorrow night.  Cheers! You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: The Simpsons short "The Longest Daycare" is nominated for Best Animated Short

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!  This most recent podcast has been a little while coming, but we're going to get it out to you, along with two other podcasts, before the weekend and just in time for the Oscars!  Consider this your humbly authoritative guide to the awards...we have seen all the nominated films, after all. You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: Take a listen this week as we break down all the major acting awards as well as Director and Screenplay.  We're saving the discussion of Picture for the last of these podcasts, so make sure to check in tomorrow and listen before the awards come up.  A little later in the day today, we'll be releasing a short podcast that covers all the rest of the awards, including Animated Feature, Documentary, and all those technical awards that nobody ever knows anything about.  We...do our best with it, and I think you'll enjoy.  Keep an eye out for that later in the day, but for the time being, enjoy this offering.  As always, leave feedback in the comments or on our Facebook page.  We'd love to hear from you!

Albatross Applesauce.  Oscartross Applesauce?  Albatross Oscarsauce?  Some kind of portmanteau must be appropriate here... You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: It's that time of year again, and Phil and I have been exceptionally busy preparing for the 2013 Academy Awards.  We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to see as much as we can, as the end result of all of that is a solid month of Oscar podcasts!  This week, we bring you the first of said podcasts, and in it we get into a thorough discussion of a number of the significant snubs of this Oscar season.  We touch upon some of this year's nominees, but for the most part we spend the episode trying to bring attention to those films and filmmakers and performances that may have deserved a little something but were cruelly and sadistically shut out of the awards.  Give us a listen, and let us know what you think about this year's snubs in the comments, or head over to our Facebook page and let us know there.  As always, you can find us and subscribe to us on iTunes, so do it already! No picture or directing nod for Mr. Anderson... ...or Mr. Anderson.

We're back again to talk about a couple of movies from a particular director's body of work, and for this episode we've picked Jonathan Demme.  Beloved most notably for the 90s mega-thriller The Silence of the Lambs, Demme has had a remarkably long and stylistically varied career.  Join us as we discuss films from two different decades of his work, Philadelphia (1993) and Rachel Getting Married (2008). You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: Two acting powerhouses at the top of their respective games in Philadelphia. Feel the love in Rachel Getting Married.Join us next week when we start in on a month full of Oscar-themed shows.  In the first episode, we'll be discussing this year's awards and the most prominent snubs, so tune in to hear our opinions and maybe share one of your own.  As always, leave your feedback and opinions in the comments section below or mosey on over to our Facebook page where you can do the same.  Also, find us on iTunes and subscribe, why don't ya?

Here at Albatross Applesauce, it seems that we have gotten Oscar fever. This is the third podcast in a row in which we are discussing, as our new release, one of the films nominated for Best Picture at the 2013 Academy Awards! This week, it's Kathryn Bigelow's tense true-life thriller Zero Dark Thirty, which details the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.  The film has stirred up a lot of praise and a lot of controversy, and Phil and I dive in head-first and discuss it with relish. You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: The raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Our Criterion Corner selection this week is a lesser-known film by the great Ingmar Bergman entitled The Magician.  It follows the story of a youthful, charismatic, and mute magician and his band of performers as they are questioned and tested by the skeptics of a small town before being allowed to perform for the people of the town.  As both an allegory of the filmmaking (and really, any artistic) process and as something of an autobiographical statement to his critics and detractors, Bergmans film never ceases to fascinate.  We talk all about the director and where this film may fit into his filmography. Max von Sydow as the titular magician, Vogler. Join us next week for the second half of this podcast, where we will be discussing two compelling character studies by the great Jonathan Demme, 2008's Rachel Getting Married and 1993's Philadelphia.  Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments for us here in the comments section or over on our Facebook page.  See you next time!

Boy, oh boy!  In this episode of the podcast, Phil and I take a little trip down memory lane and discuss two prominent films from our youth directed by Wolfgang Peterson - The Neverending Story and In the Line of Fire.  The former, of course, is a classic children's film that will be familiar to nearly everyone who grew up in the 80s.  Join us as we discuss how much we both love this film, lament the overuse of CGI in modern cinema, and listen as I butcher the hell out of the theme song. You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: Oh, childhood.Gesundheit! In our discussion of In the Line of Fire, the classic 90s thriller starring Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich, our discussion ranges from lingering crushes on Rene Russo to the joy of seeing this film (and others) in 70mm to the seeming dearth of quality thrillers being made these days.  It'll be a fun discussion, and we invite you to take part by commenting in the comments section below or hopping on over to our Facebook page to start the discussion there. We'll see you next time around, when we'll be discussing the controversial film presently garnering a great deal of praise and a great deal of cash, Zero Dark Thirty.  We'll also be having a look-see at Ingmar Bergman's The Magician over in The Criterion Corner.  The film is new to both of us, and as great fans of Bergman's work, we think it will likely be a pretty interesting discussion.  See you then!

Django Unchained! Tarantino's newest film is, as you might expect, hotly debated, drawing both lavish praise and withering criticism alike. People seem to either love it or hate it, and we here at Albatross Applesauce are keen to put in our two cents as well.  We'll talk about Tarantino the auteur, we'll talk about the extreme violence, and we'll talk about the difference between what it is to be a "performer" and what it is to be an "actor".  Tune in and give us a listen! You can download the podcast here by right-clicking on that link and choosing "save as", or you can use the convenient player located below: In our Criterion Corner, we are looking at the compelling 1969 masterpiece Army of Shadows, directed by the great Jean-Pierre Melville.  This film, seemingly lost until its restoration and re-release in 2006, deals rather fatalistically with the French resistance to the German occupation during World War II.  One of my very favorite films, Phil and I have a lively discussion about the overarching existentialism, the consummate filmmaking on display, and the infrmative, though sometimes frustrating, extras on this disc. As always, give us a listen, converse with us on our Facebook page or the comments section on this blog, and let us know what you think.  In the next episode, we'll be discussing the films of Wolfgang Petersen, more specifically The Neverending Story and In the Line of Fire.  See you then!