By Gartbage Film
Join hosts Nick & Erin as they discuss a movie-of-the-week and then each pick a 2nd film to create a thematically spicy double bill. Their goal: to pair art with trash and vice versa. Because a
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The podcast currently has 118 episodes available.
No audio engineering is required for this episode; you are hearing the raw unmanipulated audio of our mega-episode on Francis Ford Coppola's 1974 neo-noir masterpiece THE CONVERSATION.
We're here to celebrate its 50th anniversary by recounting our experience seeing this in theatres as a first viewing experience. We're having a serious The Conversation about Gene Hackman's spite, John Cazale's killer filmography, Harrison Ford's babyface, the recently passed Teri Garr's ability to elevate everything she's in, and David Shire's amazing minimalist score, before running through the plot of this top-tier character study masquerading as a mystery. Spoilers within!
This movie's prescience really cannot really be overstated. We're here to discuss how it locked into the zeitgeist of the 70's and predicted our current way of life, and how it not only predicted Watergate, but technical advisor Martin Kaiser's life. Plus, is The Conversation part of a franchise??? Find out here!
Next time: the holiday season's already here!? We're upset about it. But we're easing the pain by watching Renny Harlin & Shane Black's THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT!
We've come down with a case of Limania for this episode -- that's right, we're talking about Doug Liman's 2014 sci-fi time guy, EDGE OF TOMORROW!
This is another big one for the household. We're obsessed with the intersection of Tom Cruise's personal vs screen personas, Bill Paxton's intersection with JFK's assassination, and Emily Blunt's intersection of aliens and her Big Sword.
We're getting into the title controversy and how this is film is so much greater than the sum of its parts. And we're becoming Tom Cruise scream truthers: buckle up for a cavalcade of death yelps! Come Live, Die, Repeat with us!
Next time on the pod we're visiting a stone-cold classic for its 50th anniversary: Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION!
It's our second spooky episode of spooky season and we've decided its finally time to cover a Gartbage touchstone, a part of our specific heritage: it's SHAUN OF THE DEAD from 2004.
We're talking about the inspirations for the film, zombies in general, synthesizing genre convention vs parodying genre tropes, and the lost art of back-of-DVD writing. This movie hit at a very formative time for us, so we're talking teen years, the doors to film that this movie opened to us, and how it expanded our vocabulary. And yes, we talk about Queen.
Next time we're covering a movie we've longed to discuss: the Tom Cruise death vehicle EDGE OF TOMORROW, aka LIVE DIE REPEAT!
We're back in our regular format just in time for spooky season and for one of Nick's favourite horror films. A tale of ambiguity, repression, and corruption: it's Jack Clayton's THE INNOCENTS from 1961!
CW: due to the nature of this movie's story, child sexual abuse is discussed in general terms.
It's a real Freudian time on the podcast this week as we discuss Truman Capote's "skull beneath the skin" gothic concepts, Deborah Kerr's masterful portrayal of psychosexual ambiguity, why you shouldn't use flashbacks, creepy kids, and candelabras (candelabrae?). We're asking the question, how do you adapt a purposefully ambiguous tale? Fittingly, there's no exact answer!
Plus, we're talking about how this was a huge leap forward for the horror genre in its cinematography and sound design, and it's a perfect opportunity to discuss electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram.
Next time on the pod we visit a core text of the Gartbage crew: SHAUN OF THE DEAD!
THEY (WE) LIVE! We've returned from our summer break with a big discussion on the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Get ready to add items to your watchlists because we've got recommendations for your 4th quarter film-viewing pleasure!
We're talking robots, detectives, directorial debuts, cannibals, ghosts, nightbitches, Ralph Fiennes' dong, anti-colonial action, peacocks, ice cream truck drivers, game shows, organic buildings, Kafka-esque nightmares, punks, street fighter, time travel, and funky fresh soundtracks.
We try our best to stay out of spoiler territory, but for full disclosure, here are the movies discussed on this episode:
The final episode of our Hong Kong mini-series takes us into the 21st century! It's the cop drama-thriller box office dynamo, INFERNAL AFFAIRS!
We're going full spoilers on the movie discussion this week. Consider yourself warned!
Nick's theory that all Hong Kong movies from the time were Handover Movies continues to be true as we discuss Buddhist hell, avoiding undercover cop clichés, Andy Lau's unfathomable superstardom, and Tony Leung's cute nicknames.
To wrap up the Hong Kong series, we're going over the "twilight of Hong Kong's film industry", how Infernal Affairs avoided the pitfalls of the industry, how it completes the journey that started with our 36TH CHAMBER episode, and our general thoughts and feelings on this unique place and time in film.
Summer of Hong Kong continues, and today we're pivoting from the 80's and martial arts into the 90's and emotions! And who else could we be talking about but Wong Kar-wai and his 1994 breakthrough, CHUNGKING EXPRESS!
While a touchstone for HK cinema today, Wong Kar-wai's big splash into the arthouse scene was anything but at the time. We're discussing how Wong found his way to his style leading up to CHUNGKING, how it captured the Hong Kong attitudes at such a precise moment, and the different relationship phases we recognized in these characters, in addition to highliighting Tony Leung's sad eyes.
We're also connecting CHUNGKING EXPRESS to our previous HK movie, YES MADAM and 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN to chart just how we've arrived here. Plus, we get some some surprise foreshadowing for our next episode and the finale of our Hong Kong series: 2002's INFERNAL AFFAIRS!
Welcome to the 80's! We all remember the time: lime green overalls, bolo ties, and dynamite doppelgängers. That's right, Kung Fjune continues with the Hong Kong movie that kicked off the Girls with Guns genre: Corey Yuen's YES, MADAM! from 1985!
It was the high-five heard around the world: Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock's first starring roles. We're running down just how much these two women could kick one's ass, especially Rothrock's Grand Master status and how she was cooking fools even as a teenager, and take some time to shout out our numerous cameo-filled trios of doofuses.
Plus, Nick connects the threads from last episode's Shaw talk on our 36th Chamber episode to YES, MADAM!'s contemporary setting. This movie kicked off a lot of careers, many of which guided the action genre through the next few decades and we're here to celebrate that.
Next time we're heading to the 90's for a different side of Hong Kong film: Wong Kar-wei's CHUNGKING EXPRESS!
We're back after a brief hiatus with another geographically centered mini-series, this time focused on the movies of Hong Kong! And to kick it off, Nick is finally making good on his longstanding threat to talk Shaw Bros: it's Lau Kar-Leung's THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN (1978)!
36th Chamber is an enormous tentpole in kung fu film, and one of the first post-Bruce Lee HK movies to break through to international audiences. We're probing into what made it so influential, how it established training tropes, and we opine on why it's a perfect introduction to the genre.
We're also talking about Lau Kar-Leung's approach to martial arts as a self-improvement tool, Gordon Liu and Shaw Bros' outsized impact outside of the kung fu world, and the Kill Bill siren. And yes, we mention Bruce Lee.
But who are the Shaw Bros exactly? Nick's here with a quick rundown of their history and how there's literally a place called Movietown. We also determine what chambers would absolutely wreck us personally.
Next time: we're agreeing with Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock in Corey Yuen's YES MADAM (1985)!
Welcome to the finale of our petit français mini-series, and we're going out with a bang! It's one of the biggest blueprint movies out there that firmly established the idea of the "cool" assassin, it's Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 crime masterpiece: LE SAMOURAI
We've seen it all before: the taciturn, lone wolf assassin who is a perfect precision instrument has a hit go bad, his employer betrays him, and the police are on his tail. But this is the one that set the template! We're talking all parts of Melville's style, from the trenchcoat uniform and the quiet protagonist, to the otherworldly qualities that push it into the the sligthly surreal.
Plus, it's a grand opportunity to finally delve into one of Nick's favourite topics: Jean-Pierre Melville's insane personal history.
The podcast currently has 118 episodes available.