Establishing Shot

Establishing Shot hosts Ted and Ricky are joined by Department of Film, Television, and Theatre professor and super-guest Chris Becker. Together, they discuss how the pandemic made for a very odd year in film exhibition and subsequent feting of Oscar nominees, offering their opinions on the films nominated. The trio ends with their recommendations of non-nominated shows that are worthy of watching.

Establishing Shot Podcast

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Ted and Ricky are back for a pared-down Establishing Shot. While no guests are joining the hosts and there are no films playing in the Browning Cinema to discuss, the episode is still filled with a whole bunch of Top 3 love. In reflection of the past months, Ted and Ricky discuss the Top 3 shows they enjoyed from the literally hundreds they’ve watched during isolation.

Ricky runs through the video he watched most (Pure Difference), his favorite from the bushels of French-language noir films he’s watched (Nightcap), and his favorite text-with-friends-while-watching screening (Ma). Ted chats about the outcomes of Canadian controversial therapy techniques (The Brood), the middle child in Wilt Stillman’s acidic trilogy (Barcelona), and an overlooked film with the Barron 1-2 of Neil Simon and Charles Grodin (The Lonely Guy).

As always, stay safe out there, and we look forward to continuing our film discussions on Establishing Shot and restarting them, hopefully soon, in person.

Top 3 Films in Isolation

Establishing Shot Podcast

Ted and Ricky begin this Establishing Shot episode talking about recent goings-on at the Browning Cinema. Highlights include a screening of Matthew Barney’s latest picture and a Learning Beyond the Classics course on capital punishment depicted in film through a partnership with the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights. With a historic Oscars in their wake, they also chat about the Browning’s sold-out screenings of Best Picture winner Parasite, a film many were pleasantly surprised to see received the Oscar’s top honor.

That inspires the latest Top 3 segment of unpleasant surprises at the Oscars. Ted and Ricky are joined by Mark Torma, Executive Director of the Volunteer Lawyer Network and Oscar trivia buff, to run through their Top 3 films that were nominated for Best Picture but lost to an inferior film, including The Right Stuff in 1983 (Ted), Auntie Mame in 1958 (Ricky), and The Insider in 1999 (Mark).

Top 3 Oscar Upsets with Guest Mark Torma

Establishing Shot Podcast

Ted and Ricky run through the Browning Cinema’s compact December schedule, which includes Robert Zemickis’s take on The Christmas Carol, a stunning new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Martin Scorsese’s newest film The Irishman. They don’t go it alone, though, as Professor Don Crafton joins them to lead them through the wild for a theriomorphic Top 3.

In honor of an upcoming production of Crafton’s Winsor and Gertie, the trio runs down their three favorite animated animals, taking them onboard The Yellow Submarine, hanging laundry inside a whale, and clippety cloppety-ing with technicolor pachyderms.

THE DECEMBER RUNDOWN

Establishing Shot Podcast

Despite the Thanksgiving intermission, November is stuffed full of events in the Browning Cinema. From the 2019 GlobaLGBTQ+ Film Festival to two new Learning Beyond the Classics courses on the films of 1999 and the work of Abbas Kiarostami (plus all the regular goings-on), it’s one busy spread.

Joining Ted and Ricky to chat about the upcoming month is DPAC House Manager Dan Burgun, who also is sticking around for a Top 3 sesh. Dan’s love for Nick Coppola Cage has various forms: an encyclopedic knowledge of Cage’s work, a shrine to Cage in his office, et al. That love built the foundation for this month’s Top 3 topic: What are your Top 3 favorite films by your favorite actor? Ted runs through the canon of Charles Grodin, Ricky takes a look at John Goodman’s movies, and Dan discusses films starring John Forsythe. (Not true: he’s talking about Nicolas Cage.)

THE NOVEMBER RUNDOWN

Establishing Shot Podcast

Ted and Ricky rundown a sööper spööky October film lineup with plenty of family-friendly and more mature frights, alongside the launch of two new Learning Beyond the Classics series featuring (1) the films of 1999 and (2) Abbas Kiarostami.

Moving to the Top 3 portion of the show, in honor of Halloween, our Establishing Shot hosts discuss their favorite costumes in film history. Joining them to do so is Lynn Holbrook, goddess of the ND costume world and builder of jaw-dropping stage costumes. Together the three chat about a gamut of films ranging from Restoration to The Stepford Wives (and everything in between, including some apocalypses and velvety goldmines).

Frightfully Fun Films and Costumes in Film History

Establishing Shot Podcast

Ted and Ricky are back for another episode of the not-trademarked-in-Canada Top 3, which could we be a problem as this week they are exporting their favorite films from the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. After a brief chat about what makes TIFF such an enjoyable festival, Ted and Ricky run through their favorites (specifically three each), including the latest from Ken Loach, Agnès Varda’s autobiodoc, a film being touted as Bangladesh’s Norma Rae, a remake of an Italian melodrama on class struggles, a minute-by-minute Lebanese film starring the director of Capernaum, and post-Veep Armando Iannucci’s adaptation of David Copperfield.

THE TOP THREE: FESTIVAL FAVORITES FROM TIFF

Establishing Shot Podcast

As the station wagons arrive and form that long shining line connecting last year to the inevitable next on campus, so does Establishing Shot return, equally filled to the brim with toiletries destined to give way to generic brands and socks never to be paired properly again. Ted and Ricky are back to discuss an incredibly busy September (with a slice of August).

Outside of some great new fare (including Jafar Panahi’s 3 Faces, Peter Jackson’s old/new They Shall Not Grow Old, and a live broadcast of National Theatre Live’s Fleabag), the Browning Cinema has plenty of classics throughout the month including through two standing series. Professor Pfinklepfunder is back with his $1 Sunday Family Films. This semester, he’s pulling exclusively from Disney’s vault, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella, and Pinocchio this month.

Also, Learning Beyond the Classics returns with two new six-week courses on New Jack Cinema (Do the Right Thing, Boyz N the Hood, New Jack City, Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., Poetic Justice, and Set It Off) and Screening the Irish Troubles (Michael Collins, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Bloody Sunday, Hunger, Some Mother’s Son, and H3).

THE SEPTEMBER RUNDOWN

Establishing Shot Podcast

Ted and Ricky are joined by Professor Dan Graff of the Higgins Labor Program to run through the May schedule. Even with the truncated month, it’s a hopping month with multiple screenings of the new bio-doc Hesburgh, the final performance of the Met Live season, Professor Pfinklepfunder’s last appearance of the semester, and the 9th Annual Michiana Jewish Film Festival.

This episode is a twofer as the three then discuss their Top 3. Given the screenings of Hesburgh and Ed Wood recently in the Browning, Ted, Ricky, and Dan run down their Top 3 biopics, with subjects ranging from Franz Liszt to Karen Carpenter.

THE MAY RUNDOWN + TOP 3 BIOPICS

Establishing Shot Podcast

In April’s installment of the triple-trademarked Top 3(TMTMTM(NT)), Kevin Krizmanich joins Ted and Ricky to run through their Top 3 movies shown in the Browning Cinema over the course of the last academic year. Kevin throws his support behind Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope as well as two university-set films: the documentary-genre-bending American Animals, and Professor Pfinklepfunder’s debut film Monsters University.

Ricky’s three films include Paul Shrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (with music by recent Browning Cinema guest Philip Glass), two of the three films on alcohol recovery at Alkali Lake entitled The Honour of All Parts 1 and 2, and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You.

Ted’s picks trace back to last summer with the musical Hair, Armando Iannucci’s latest film The Death of Stalin, and Capernaum, a recent nominee for the Best Foreign Language Academy Award.

THE TOP THREE: FILMS AT THE BROWNING CINEMA THIS YEAR

Establishing Shot Podcast