Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. But sometimes we talk to filmmakers! About filmmakers!

Today we talk to up-and-coming writer/director Andrew Adams whose debut feature American Meltdown is making a robust festival run as we speak!

He joins us to spearhead our first incarnation of “The First Frame:” a B-Side segment in which we examine the first films of legendary filmmakers. The three pictures we focus on today are My Best Friend’s Birthday by Quentin Tarantino, Sour Grapes by Larry David, and Barking Dogs Never Bite by Bong Joon-ho.

We discuss our love for these three masters, the seeds of their genius in each of their debuts (as well as each piece’s shortcomings), and the strange connection between all three of them. We also dive into the burgeoning “No-Budget Era” of indie filmmaking and what it means for the future.

There’s talk of Jerry Seinfeld’s upcoming Pop-Tarts movie Unfrosted, the making of Tarantino’s seminal Reservoir Dogs, and the immediate impressiveness of Bong Joon-ho’s films.

Additional things that come up include the underrated indie noir Cold Weather by Aaron Katz, the great debut book from George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, and how Craig Bierko turned down the role of Chandler on Friends.

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