One of the greatest, most thought-provoking yet totally accessible films is this masterpiece of cinema from Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami.

It's the true story of a Tehran man who impersonates a famous filmmaker and convinces a family that he's going to cast them in a movie. Kiarostami then reconstructs the events that occurred using the real people involved, including the imposter.

Part documentary, part fiction, and entirely about what we think about what we see on-screen, truth, lies, and cinema.

I recommend the Criterion Channel's streaming page about this film as it contains several important subsequent films that will greatly enhance your experience of a film that Martin Scorcese called "life-changing".

Watch the film here.

Watch the documentary follow-up "'Close-up' Long Shot" here.

Watch the 2009 video interview with 'Close-up' director Abbas Kiarostami here.

Read this excellent Godfrey Cheshire essay about the film.

From Senator Geary to Frankie Five Angels, Duvall's Tom Hagen navigated a twisty and often dirty road in the second Godfather film.

Watching the movie through the lens of Tom Hagen, it's clear tha the film in its own way really focusses on Tom and Michael and how the changing times and Michael's increasing paranoia have removed the family so far from "The Good Old Days".

The last two brothers left standing at the end of II are Tom and Michael. One of the great mysteries of Godfather III is if the presence of Tom Hagen would have salvaged that film from being the blight upon the memory of the first two that it unfortunately remains.

But let's celebrate Tom Hagen, one of the most enduring characters in Duvall's long life as an actor, and a character present at and maybe the catalyst behind so many iconic scenes in these great films.

'Night of the Juggler' is either one of the best 70's film titles or one of the worst. Honestly I enjoy it, for it's uniqueness and complete (well...near complete) relevence to the film's plot. It's certainly memorable, if not directly speaking to the film's setting...which is mostly in the daytime of a VERY 1978 NYC.

'Night of the Juggler' had long been sort of like that Jerry Lewis Holocaust film; never-seen, long-rumored to be secretly great...elusive.

But KinoLorber has finally rescued the film from obscurity with a new 4K transfer, available now on YouTube and other streaming platforms for purchase. It's well worth the trip. And it IS a trip, of the best, cinematic kind.

NY Times Article on the Film's Re-Release & Backstory

Link to buy the new DVD release with special bonus features.

Robert Duvall passed away at the age of 95 after more than 60 years as a working actor at the highest levels.

One quick way to pay tribute to him is to revisit perhaps his most iconic and substantive role, that of Tom Hagen in The Godfather.

Quietly the most important character linking the people and events in the film, Duvall's portrayal navigated complex internal issues like: when is a son not a son, and what is the reward for completing a lifetime of thankless tasks. All of these complicated things rest on Duvall's ability to read to us onscreen a whole host of emotions and thoughts.

So in this episode, we'll take a look back at all of Duvall's scenes in 'The Godfather'.

Choosing 'Hooper' out of a combination of desperation and momentary podcast apathy, and seeking a distraction and light entertainment, I discover instead a beautifully realized love letter to Hollywood stunt performers inside an impressive movie-about-making-movies.

Chris Smith and Sarah Price's Sundance-winning first documentary feature, 'American Movie,' remains an iconic and thoroughly modern film to revisit or to experience for the first time.

Like all truly great documentaries, it's ostensibly about a finite thing: hardscrabble, complicated Midwestern working-class 30-year-old lives at home, delivers newspapers, works at a local cemetery, and has big dreams of writing, producing, directing, and acting in films... but it's also about so much more: friendship, alcoholism, Midwestern blue-collar life, filmmaking, and nothing less than the pursuit of the American Dream.

Watch Mark Borchardt's film Coven here.

Read about the origins of the film.

Where Are They Now (from a while ago).

Mike Schank's Obit & Celebrity Remembrances

The sequel to Denis Villeneuve's 'Sicaro' is an impressive off-ramp from the first film's focus on drug cartels trafficking narcotics and stacking bodies.

Italian director Stefano Sollima (Gomorra, ZeroZeroZero) focuses more intently on Josh Brolin's Matt Graver and Benicio Del Toro's Alejandro Gillick characters, as they face a (final?) confrontation with the outer limit of their own moral codes.

For me, Day of the Soldado is the rare sequel that gets better the more I watch it, and that doean't merely rehash the best-known sequences from the original (although it does that, too) but instead deepens our understanding of two key characters and tantalizingly points in the direction of a much-discussed but yet-to-be-confirmed third film in the series.

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Denis Villeneuve's film 'Sicario' remains a vital and prescient glimpse into extra-judicial Governmental activities and the blurring of lines on both sides of the drug war, all brilliantly rendered by top-notch cinematography from Roger Deakins and a host of career-best performances from actors like Emily Blunt, James Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, and, especially, Benicio Del Toro.

Harrowing, procedural, understated, and complicated, the film unfolds with confidence in the journey it takes viewers on, with a refreshing lack of hand-holding and over-explanation.

An appreciation of the life and musical legacy of the peerless and uniquely self-deprecating Grateful Dead co-founder and éminence grise.

For my final episode of 2025, it's 'Nobody's Fool' one of my favorite films, and a true comfort watch in keeping with the theme of last week's episode. Sweet, subtle, well-cast and directed, and slyly much more than it seems, it's both a paen to small-town life and a surprisingly unblinking look at the cost children pay for their parent's mistakes...and for the ones they make all on their own.