Film School

I'm funny? FUNNY HOW?! Martin Scorsese is in the house, dropping what could arguably be considered the greatest mob/gangster movie ever made. Joe Pesci took home an Oscar for his role as Tommy, while Robert DeNiro, Lorraine Bracco and Ray Liotta round out an astonishingly good cast. Watch out for helicopters, and mind your step going into the Copacabana. It's time to watch Goodfellas!

The Story Grid 6 Core Questions

The Story Content Genres

We kick off the starter pack with a Hitchcock classic:

Old pal Jimmy Stewart is front and center to a possible MURDER. He's laid up with a broken leg with nothing to do, and there's a neighbor acting shady as sh*t whose wife is suddenly nowhere to be seen...so does Jimmy just have too much time on his hands? Or is there foul play? It's an absolute classic of a film, and truly Hitchcock at his finest. This week on film school!

The Story Grid 6 Core Questions

The Story Content Genres

You are invited to watch along with us over the next ten episodes! 100 Films is quite the mountain to climb. We understand exactly how overwhelming watching that many movies can feel. So . . . we made a list of just 10 films as a much smaller, much easier, much more digestible way to dip your toes into the AFI Top 100. We'll watch, discuss and break down this ever-so-manageable sampling of the full list, and hopefully--like us--you'll emerge with a better understanding of film and storytelling, and a desire to go and watch the rest. Here's the list:

1. Rear Window (1954)

2. Goodfellas (1990)

3. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

4. The Gold Rush (1925)

5. Citizen Kane (1941)

6. Apocalypse Now (1979)

7. Jaws (1975)

8. The Wild Bunch (1969)

9. The Graduate (1967)

10. Swing Time (1936)

The Story Grid 6 Core Questions

The Story Content Genres

Happy New Year! 2022 is upon us. What do you want to accomplish? What did you do poorly last year and want to do better in the new year? And what did you do well that you want to continue? We're looking ahead, this week on the Cutting Room Floor!

The sh*tter was full!

Chevy Chase takes a turn as every-dad Clark Griswold in a John Hughes CLASSIC holiday film. One of several, actually, if you throw in Home Alone; Hughes, apparently, does the holidays like no other. Chase is the over-acheiver, the wound-too-tight but pretending-to-be-fine Dad that just wants everything to be perfect. Everything is not perfect . . . which might be exactly why it is perfect. It's a very silly, very zany, very sweet movie that deserves annual viewings.

How was this past year? Josh and Ira take a look back over the past calendar year. While 2020 was full of external changes, challenges, and shake-ups for both podcast hosts, 2021 was an intense year personally. Both had some breakthroughs. Big ones. And so much finishing. We dive in and talk about it all.

Love, actually, is all around.

Ten separate stories of love, all told over the run-up to the holidays. It seems like such sprawling ensemble pieces rarely work, and yet this one does. Perhaps not as well as it used to, for various reasons the we attempt to discuss, but it is rather remarkable what director Richard Curtis was able to assemble and execute. It's a Christmas "classic," this week on Film School! Happy Holidays everyone :)

We did it!

We have watched every one of the AFI's Top 100 (U.S.) Films. It took us three years, two moves, a new job and a global pandemic to do it, but it's done. We've watched and broke down all of them. Today on the Cutting Room Floor, we take a nice, long look back. What movies stood out? What have we learned, both about storytelling and also about ourselves? And now that the list is done, how do we feel about it? Would we recommend that you follow in our footsteps and do the same--watch them all? Spoiler: yes.

Rosebud . . .

Orson Welles, by all accounts, was a Hollywood outsider. He knew nothing about filmmaking coming in to make Citizen Kane, and yet here it is on the tippy top of the AFI's "best" list. So, how exactly did he do that? And why is this film so beloved, so venerated? Is it a fitting pick as the #1 film in American history? We break it down for the last time on the AFI's Top 100! We did it!

As we approach the very end of our journey across the AFI's Top 100 Films, Josh and Ira look back over the past three years of recording this podcast, and reflect on what they've learned along the way. It turns out: A LOT. So much more than we could have even imagined. We share a few of those things that come to mind this week on the Cutting Room Floor.

We also recommend the Great British Baking Show and Midnight Mass, both of which are available on Netflix.