Filmspotting

Padraic McKinley’s The Weight isn’t a remake ofThe Wages of Fear, though it feels deeply indebted to the H.G. Clouzot classic in its thrilling depiction of a group of outlaws on a near-impossible mission across deadly terrain. William Friedkin’s 1977 cult favorite Sorcerer technically isn’t a Wages remake, either — Friedkin insisted it was his own adaptation of the original Georges Arnaud novel — though it’s similarly difficult to watch without thinking about its predecessor. So you’ll forgive us if this week’s revisitation of Sorcerer takes a few detours into Wages as we consider how Friedkin put his own distinctive stamp on this juicy premise, whether the film’s extended prologue works toward or against its narrative momentum, and how much of Sorcerer’s notoriously arduous production comes across on screen. Then in Feedback, a listener provides a recommendation for a recent under-the-radar road movie that follows in the tire tracks of Paris, Texas and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Please share your thoughts about Sorcerer, The Weight, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730.

This episode is presented by⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Regal Unlimited⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code NEXTPIC26 for 15% off.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Film critic and author Alonso Duralde joins Michael Phillips to explore a piece of filmmaking wisdom from Vincente Minnelli: that a picture which stays with an audience is built from “a hundred or more hidden things.”

Drawing on films ranging from Meet Me in St. Louis, Some Came Running, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, they consider how production design, performance, music, camera movement, and seemingly minor visual choices accumulate into something lasting.

Notes:

"I Wake Up Screening: What To Do Once You've Made That Movie" by John Anderson and Laura Kim

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0823088987?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

Books by Alonso Duralde
Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/alonso-duralde/hollywood-pride/9780762485895/?lens=running-press

I'll Be Home For Christmas

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brandon-gray/ill-be-home-for-christmas-movies/9780762499335/?lens=running-press

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PV & FRANNY

A girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.

A dead-serious love story… that refuses to behave like one.

One flier turns into a band. One band turns into obsession. And before they ever play a real set, everything is already ridiculous.

ACT TWO

If Act One is about starting a band, Act Two is about what happens when everything immediately gets in the way.

Franny does what any rational person would do.

He writes a love song.

Which would be fine… except for the rule.

No romance. Ever.

And PV means it.

What follows is a series of perfectly logical decisions that somehow make everything worse.

A love song that says too much.

A date that shouldn’t exist.

A plan to fix things that only complicates them further.

Because if PV won’t date a bandmate, there’s only one solution:

Make the competition part of the band.

Which works.

Until it doesn’t.

As alliances shift, rules get enforced, and Franny finds himself deeper in a situation he cannot control, the band becomes something else entirely.

Not just music.

Not just friendship.

Something closer to a test.

Of loyalty. Of identity. Of whether you can separate what you create from how you feel.

And in the middle of it all, the stakes quietly expand.

A school competition that suddenly matters.

A partnership that feels more intense than anything either of them expected.

And a realization that success might not look the way they imagined it.

Act Two is where the band takes shape, the lines get blurred, and the consequences of those rules start to land.

Because sometimes the only thing more complicated than love…

…is trying to avoid it.

🎭 CAST

NARRATOR – Ty Burrell

AJAY – Rahm Braslaw

JUDY – Samantha Morelos

MARIAN – Eileen Fogarty

PV – Kensington Tallman

RYUZO – O’Neill Monahan

FRANNY – Liam Richardson

GROUNDSKEEPER – Fred Armisen

DALE – Ruben Ray

TAP WATER BOTTLED WATER JINGLE – Chris Mann

🎬 PRODUCTION

Written by Tommy Wallach

Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy

Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell

Table Read is a Manifest Media production.

Find The Show: Table Read Podcast

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As David Lynch's Blue Velvet turns 40, Adam and Josh revisit the film that shocked audiences and helped define modern American cinema. Is it Lynch's masterpiece? Plus: Massacre Theatre and Josh’s thoughts on Practical Magic 2 and Paul Greengrass's The Uprising. 

This episode is presented by⁠ Regal Unlimited⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code FILMSPOT26 to take 15% off.

(Timecodes will not be precise with ads.)

Intro (00:00:00-00:03:09)

Pantheon Project: Blue Velvet (00:03:10-01:16:00)

Filmspotting Family (01:16:01-01:19:03)

Practical Magic 2, The Uprising (01:19:04-01:27:11)

Massacre Theatre (01:27:12-1:33:05)

Credits / New Releases (1:33:06-1:37:01)

Notes: 

-

Feedback:

-Email us at [email protected]⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠-⁠Ask Us Anything⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and we might answer your question in bonus content.

Support:

-Join the Filmspotting Family for bonus shows, archive access, and more.

http://filmspottingfamily.com

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Blue Velvet turns 40 this month—Adam and Josh have a Sacred Cow review coming later this week—so we're going back to 2014 for our Top 5 David Lynch Scenes.

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Alexander Ullom's It Ends is a daring little piece of microbudget drama about four friends at transition points in their lives, who find themselves in a place where life and death no longer hold any meaning. Whether it’s a film about despair, about the afterlife, about the human condition, or all of the above, is up for discussion this week, as well as how It Ends fits into this current moment in independent horror cinema. After that, we bring Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris back in for Connections to discuss these two films’ respective existential journeys, the baggage their characters are bringing with them, and how each movie uses its genre premise to explore a big central metaphor. Then for Your Next Picture Show, we take a quick look at how Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 version of Solaris compares to Tarkovsky’s.

Please share your thoughts about Solaris, It Ends, or anything else in the world of film, by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730.

Next Pairing: Padraic McKinley’s The Weight and William Friedkin’s Sorcerer

This episode is presented by⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Regal Unlimited⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code NEXTPIC26 for 15% off.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For a few days in the summer of 2024, the world’s attention was focused on Dr. Rachel Gunn — and not for anything good. Gunn, aka “Raygun”, was representing Australia at the Paris Olympics in the inaugural breakdancing competition, when her infamous performance became the subject of mockery, outrage, and even conspiracy theories. That’s the subject of the new Netflix documentary Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly. Matt and Jordan have a review, and use the film as an opportunity to recommend a film from the dawn of on-screen breakdancing and a sports doc about a ‘90s-era rivalry. Plus, streaming recommendations for a listener looking for movies with adrenaline-rush-inducing twists.  

Intro (00:00:00–00:07:20)

Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly (00:07:21–00:23:38)

Rec Seg! (00:23:39–00:40:27)

Listener Req Seg: Movies With Twists (00:40:28–00:52:47)

New to Streaming / Credits (00:52:48–01:00:16)

Show Notes

For what film should Alison Willmore make her triumphant return to SVU?

https://poll.fm/17448084

Now Streaming on Bazooga - A Filmspotting: SVU Archive⁠ https://letterboxd.com/samvanhallgren/list/now-streaming-on-bazooga-a-filmspotting-svu/⁠

Pre-Order Matt's book "Funny Business: The Old-School Wedding Crashers and Knocked-Up Virgins Who Changed Comedy Forever" (Coming October 6th):⁠ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/790241/funny-business-by-matt-singer/⁠

Feedback: Email us at [email protected]

Follow Matt on Blue Sky: @mattsinger.bsky.social

Follow Jordan on Blue Sky: @jhoffman.bsky.social

Follow the Show:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/superpulse/⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/FilmspottingSvu⁠

Follow the Show:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/superpulse/⁠⁠ https://www.facebook.com/FilmspottingSvu⁠

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Film noir expert Rachel Walther joins Michael Phillips to test a quote commonly attributed to Jean-Luc Godard. But whether it belongs to Godard, Howard Hawks, or someone else entirely, it points to a persistent question about what audiences really want from movies.

From Gun Crazy and Double Indemnity to Jackie Brown, No Country for Old Men, and the James Bond franchise, they consider the enduring appeal of sex and danger and whether the famous formula still holds up more than a century after it was first proposed.

Join the conversation by emailing [email protected].

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

PV & FRANNY

A girl with a glockenspiel. A boy with a guitar. A high school full of weirdos, mascots who may or may not be unhinged, and a mystery that isn’t what anyone thinks it is.

A dead-serious love story… that refuses to behave like one.

One flier turns into a band. One band turns into obsession. And before they ever play a real set, everything is already ridiculous.

ACT ONE

Overton High is chaos in a controlled environment.

The mascot smokes. The journalist thinks she’s breaking Watergate. The nicest bully in school politely refuses lunch money.

And then there’s PV.

Brilliant. Intense. Completely uncompromising.

She doesn’t want to start a band. She wants to build something real.

Franny Blevins just wants to be part of it.

What begins as an awkward coffee shop encounter quickly turns into a partnership built on music, rules, and one very firm boundary:

No romance. Ever.

Which becomes a problem almost immediately.

As Franny gets pulled deeper into PV’s world, her music, her logic, her investigations, and her completely upside-down way of seeing everything, the stakes escalate in the most unexpected ways.

A hate note that isn’t hate.

An audition that turns into an interrogation.

A band that starts to feel like something much bigger… and much messier.

Act One is the beginning of the band, the beginning of the obsession, and the moment everything starts to spiral just slightly out of control.

🎭 CAST

NARRATOR – Ty Burrell

AJAY – Rahm Braslaw

JUDY – Samantha Morelos

MARIAN – Eileen Fogarty

PV – Kensington Tallman

RYUZO – O’Neill Monahan

FRANNY – Liam Richardson

GROUNDSKEEPER – Fred Armisen

DALE – Ruben Ray

TAP WATER BOTTLED WATER JINGLE – Chris Mann

🎬 PRODUCTION

Written by Tommy Wallach

Directed by Mark Knell & Jack Levy

Executive Produced by Shaan Sharma, Jack Levy, and Mark Knell

Table Read is a Manifest Media production.

Find The Show: Table Read Podcast

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Coyote vs. Acme was shelved in 2023 for a corporate tax write-off, the response from film fans was as swift as a roadrunner and as explosive as a pile of TNT. When it was picked up by another distributor (Ketchup Entertainment), the outrage turned to anticipation – justifiably so, say Adam and Josh. Plus, they honor the late Tim Curry with a review of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and listeners weigh in with their favorite ‘90s movie villains, and more.

This episode is presented by⁠ Regal Unlimited⁠⁠, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits. Use code FILMSPOT26 to take 15% off.

(Timecodes will not be precise with ads.)

Intro (00:00:00-00:02:36)

Coyote vs. Acme (00:02:37-00:33:49)

Filmspotting Family (00:33:50-00:39:12)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (00:39:13-01:11:45)

Notes / Polls (01:11:46-01:30:30)

Credits / New Releases (01:30:31-1:34:25)

Notes: 

Filmspotting’s Top 5 Needle Drops

-Spotify

-Spotify (52 Track Version)

-Apple Music

Feedback:

-Email us at [email protected]⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠-⁠Ask Us Anything⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and we might answer your question in bonus content.

Support:

-Join the Filmspotting Family for bonus shows, archive access, and more.

http://filmspottingfamily.com

-Filmspotting Shop for T-shirts and more.⁠

⁠https://www.filmspotting.net/shop⁠⁠⁠⁠

Follow:

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-Adam/Filmspotting

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-Josh/LarsenOnFilm

⁠Letterboxd⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠ |⁠ Facebook⁠ | ⁠Bluesky

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.