Cinphomaniac

This week Cinphomaniac visits the 1963 under-appreciated masterpiece, The Servant - written by Harold Pinter, directed by Joseph Losey, and starring Dirk Bogarde in an absolutely iconic tour de force performance. Marcus and Dana breakdown the film's highly transgressive, for the time, explorations of class, sex, drugs, power, and Jungian Psychology. Being one of Marcus's Top Five Films Of All-Time, he probes the deepest levels of its endless re-watchability, while Dana lends the perspective of a first time viewer to the film's many shocking twists and unconventional structure. They also discuss Dirk Bogarde's incredible body of work, including a brief breakdown of two of his other, far ahead of their time, classics, Accident (1967) and Cast A Dark Shadow (1955), as well as The Servant's other brilliant lead and supporting performances from James Fox, Sarah Miles, and Wendy Craig.

From the archive: April 7th, 2021

It's Mid-Summer time and Cinphomaniac is celebrating with an official 10 movie countdown. Marcus and Dana have each chosen five films that represent their summer vibe, plus two dozen other honorable mentions between them!!! Blue skies, blue waters, green grass, sunlight, and a whole lot of sweat await you!!

"Policy is to suppress" may be a tenet of Tenet, but it's anything but for Cinphomaniac. This week, Marcus and Dana invert their intuitions in order to demystify and illuminate Christopher Nolan's 2020 cipher of a movie, TENET, starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. We breakdown time inversion, the most confusing set-pieces, what's a Temporal Pincer, the roles of causality, determinism, free will, compatibilism, anti-compatibilism, solipsism, objectivity, plus the ramifications of class, capitalism, global politics, climate disaster, Cold War history, and Imperial Superpowers on the themes of the film, as well as the 2020 pandemic release controversy, what's a Christopher Nolan-ism, the score & soundtrack, the IMAX presentation, and just why the hell the protagonist is known only as, literally, "The Protagonist." All that and even more. When in doubt - "don't try to understand it, feel it."

Marcus and Dana venture into the world of Academy Award Winning, Animation Legend,  Hayao Miyazaki, with his 1984 classic Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind - the film that birthed Studio Ghibli and countless imitators across the world and multiple mediums. We unpack all of that and talk about the cost of environmental devastation and warfare - as it "hurts me soul." Along the way - in another supersize episode - we forecast whats to come with the podcast, as well as touch on Japanese culture, the Anime Industry, what makes a good English Dub, Miyazaki's other works, like Princess Mononoke, Isao Takahata and Grave Of the Fireflies, Hideaki Anno and Evangelion, and what blockbuster video games like Horizon Zero Dawn and The Last Of Us Part II may owe to Nausicaa.

Do pixie girls dream of manic cinema? Just what is the deal with Chungking Express, the beautiful and mysterious 1994  masterpiece from celebrated Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai starring Faye Wong, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Brigitte Lin, and Valerie Chow. Marcus and Dana unpack and decipher a film that bathes in its own contradictions like murky tub water - or is it an uncleaned aquarium? Apartments and Men cry. Mules run off with butt drugs. And, sometimes you just want someone to like the same 60's pop song as you.

From the archive - June 23rd, 2021

Stick around through the end of the recording to hear Marcus pay his tribute to a dearly departed personal hero of his, Michael Brooks, on the anniversary of his passing.

NOTE: Tremendous apologies for technical issues with the sound in some areas - which unfortunately effects the tribute at the end.

Marvel Studios is having quite the week with both Black Window hitting theaters at long last, and the Loki Season 1 Finale dropping on Disney+ and Marcus and Dana are all about it! But, how did we get here? And, moreover, where is this all going? We break down the corporate studio politics and long term storytelling ambitions to get to the bottom of the who's and why's of these events. Is Black Widow any good? Did Loki deliver on its hype? What's coming in the rest of 2021, 22, 23, and beyond? The takes are in.

From the archive - July 14th, 2021

For the hungry boy. Marcus and Dana got all dressed up for this one (though you wont be seeing it! - for now)! In this episode, the duo cover the 8th Feature Film from Writer & Director Paul Thomas Anderson - 2017's Phantom Thread. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock (possibly the greatest name in fiction), Vicky Krieps as Alma, and Lesley Manville as Cyril, in a film set predominantly in 1950's London, where the House of Woodcock is the most lauded dressmaker in the world. This film has everything: a double hairbrush system, spreading on toast, drunk bimbos, crinkled and erect collars, capes, perfume sniffing, chunks of butter, living dead mothers, and purple pajama vomit parties.

From the archive - May 19th, 2021

While this may be the first episode on the feed, this isn't the first time Co-Hosts Marcus Hart and Dana De La Garza have convened for a recorded chat for your enjoyment. They've been at it for months. Months! As they explain, please stay tuned for a steady stream of episode drops from the archive, with films ranging from Chungking Express to Office Space to The Servant to The Snyder Cut.  And, expect new and current episodes, fresh off the hot mic, each and every week, every Friday, til the end of time.

What's a Cinphomaniac?  - First there was Cinema. Then there were Cinephiles. Now Cinphomaniac. For the hottest takes, the deepest dives, and the most maniacal laughs, concerning all things cinema - past, present, future - domestic and international - send no substitutes. This is cinema talk for perverts and fanatics. Marcus and Dana  - a.k.a. the over-caffeinated one and the breaks out into song one - invite you to take the journey. We go wide as well as deep. We contextualize and historicize - who, where, what, why - all the pieces matter. Personal, revealing, hot take heavy, and generally quite rowdy.